In some studies, at the end of them, I see:
“quitting smoking reduces your chance of dying from all causes.”
So if I quit smoking I’m less likely to get hit by a bus?
As a former ICU nurse I can tell you that someone who has been taking good care of their body, is fit and healthy, has a better chance of survival and less complications while recovering as someone who didn’t. No matter the injury.
If you get hit by a bus and your lung is compromised it has a harder time compensating for the injury if it was already damaged.
So yes. You might have a better chance to survive a car crash if you haven’t been smoking.
You might have a better chance to survive a car crash if you haven’t been smoking.
That’s probably why I’ve survived so many car crashes.
It sounds a bit like your poor driving is the cause for you to survive so many car crashes.
But not poor enough to cause any fatal crashes. There’s a driving skill sweet spot where you have maximum crash survival.
There’s your problem. I haven’t survived a car crash since I started smoking!
Yeah. Came here to write exactly this.
What OP misunderstood is the old tale of mortality vs. lethality.
In a simplified explanation: Mortality defines the percentage of deaths in a population by a cause.
Lethality is the percentage of deaths of people suffering from a cause.
In our case:
-
Smokers might only get hit by a bus slightly less often or slightly more often(1) (Mortality)
-
But they have a far greater chance of dying from it when they get hit. The same can be said for being shot,etc. Being a smoker always reduces your statistical chances.
(1:Actually quite fascinating - there is conflicting evidence on that one, as smoking is often statistically associated with substance abuse and bad health - which increases the likelihood of major trauma events, but on the other hand smokers die earlier,leaving more old people to walk in front of vehicles due to reduced cognitive abilities)
We must do something about all these old people getting run over by buses.
smoking is often statistically associated with substance abuse and bad health - which increases the likelihood of major trauma events, but on the other hand smokers die earlier,leaving more old people to walk in front of vehicles due to reduced cognitive abilities)
So what about if we control for age? Are old smokers more or less likely to get hit by a bus than old non-smokers?
Quick, someone do an RCT.
You should ABSOLUTELY quit smoking. Also, you should stop getting hit by buses. Neither one are good for you.
Totally agree, buses suck! More to the other one, I haven’t had a real cigarette since 31 July; it had been 28 years of smoking with a few short breaks scattered in.
It is insane the tastes I’ve tasted recently, as a die hard Dr Pepper fan I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep drinking it, it’s just too sweet now. Quitting smoking might lead to a healthier lifestyle all around.
Congratulations on quitting smoking. I quit about 20 years ago. I tried a cigarette after being off of them for awhile. It tasted so nasty I don’t know why I ever started.
Gotta start small. Get hit by e-scooters and mopeds, then move up to sedans and eventually SUVs. Starting with a bus won’t be good for you at all.
Yes. Everyone knows the bus comes when you light a cigarette.
One of my “modern” folk song is about exactly this phenomenon.
Edit: here it is, if someone is interested, it’s an old-styled, descending, parlando rubato hungarian folk song. I noted it down using solmization.
A
2/4||: la,/8 mi/8 mi/8 re/8 | mi/4+ mi/8 | ti,/8 do/8 re/8 mi/8 | ti,/4 la,/4 | ti,/2* :|
B
||: do/8 do/8 ti,/8 la,/8 | mi/8 re/8 do/4 | ti,/2* | do/8 do/8 do/8 re/8 | mi/8 re/8 do/8 | ti,/2* |
C
|| so,/8 so,/8 so,/8 so,/8 | so,/4* do/8 ta,/8* | la,/2** ||
(the comma after the solmization indicates the note being in a lower octave. Plus sign after a not length value means it’s dotted. Asteriks means fermata. Also, there is one strange solmization note (used in relative solmization) which I marked as “ta”, it’s a flat ti.)
And the lyrics (in hungarian)
“Várakozom én a százötvenegyes buszra, ( A )
Kezemben készen a sodort cigaretta, ( A )
Meg is gyújtom azon nyomban, ( B )
Szippantok belőle hosszan, ( B )
Ah, de megjött már az a busz.” ( C )
Which translates to this (I used ChatGPT for the translating, told it to be a bit more… free or poetic or idk):
“Standing at the stop, the one-fifty-one in sight,
In my hand, a cigarette rolled tight.
I light it up, breathe in the smoke,
A long, deep breath, with every toke,
Ah, but now the bus is here, just right.”
Lights Cigarette
Immediately assassinated by Truck-Kun
Gets Isekai Anime with Absurdly Specific Title
Profit?
“All-cause mortality” simply means death from all (or any) causes.
So for smokers, you got a buttload of people with this thing in common, and rather than look specifically at something like deaths from lung cancer, you take a step back and look at deaths from anything. And then go in and try to find correlations and help to understand those correlations.
It’s kind of a chicken and egg scenario, because some of those causes might not be from smoking, but from a person’s proclivity to smoke.
For example, smokers might possibly be more impulsive than non-smokers (generally speaking) and there might be a higher risk of motor vehicle fatalities in the smoker group, but the cause wouldn’t be smoking, it’d be underlying behavioral differences that would make someone more likely to smoke.
It’s basically looking at mortality from a distance as opposed to looking at very specific things up close (but with the data it lets people zoom in on everything)
