Pause on the cigarette bashing
If you watch TV regularly you have probably seen a "TRUTH" ad displaying some dramaticized fact about cigarette smoking. I just want to say beforehand that I am not trying to disprove anything these say or encourage smoking. However, there has been a positive effect on one's health connected to nicotine, the addictive drug in cigarettes.
According to the BBC nicotine might be able to help reduce the effects of Alzheimer's disease. Don't be fooled though, one should not start smoking to prevent the disease. Dr. Levin at Duke University gave rats with brain lesions a compound similar to nicotine. Afterward, these rats could perform better in memory and learning tests. These compounds connect to and activate receptors for a chemical needed for learning and memory. Similar test are now in effect on humans using nicotine patches. Though preventing Alzheimer's disease is a great thing, it's not worth the risk of the negative health effects smoking can cause.
If proven this could boil down to a decision made based on risk. Someone who has no family history of Alzheimer's disease may not think nicotine patches are a good idea (unless they are risk takers.) However, someone more likely to develop the disease may think that this is a better idea.
posted by Jason R. at
9:07 PM
2 Comments:
A few years ago, there was a controversy surrounding a report done by Philip Morris which tried to calculate the benefits of smoking. Since smokers die early they collect less in social security than non-smokers. You can see how this might get anti-smoking advocates upset.
Note that this is *not* suggesting that the benefits are larger than the costs, only that there are indeed some (economic) benefits of smoking. These need to at least be considered when calculating the (societal) cost of smoking.
From the Economist Magazine
and from
the British Medical Journal
By
John Topoleski, at 7:06 AM
I can't believe that Phillip Morris actually released that report. That is almost as sick the "Save Toby" campaign that was mentioned in a blog on 5-4-05. Both are things that are so horrible that people don't actually consider them under normal circumstances.
By
Jason R., at 10:25 PM
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