Cigarette Smoking Helps Protect Against Parkinson's disease
1. Smoking lowers risk of Parkinson's disease
Numerous studies have identified the mysterious inverse relationship
between smoking and Parkinson's disease. Long-term smokers are somehow
protected against Parkinson's, and it's not because smokers die of other things
earlier.
The most recent, well-conducted study was published in a March 2010
issue of the journal Neurology. Far from determining a cause for the protective
effect, these researchers found that the number of years spent smoking, more so
than the number of cigarettes smoked daily, mattered more for a stronger
protective effect.
Harvard researchers were among the first to provide convincing evidence
that smokers were less likely to develop Parkinson's. In a study published in
Neurology in March 2007, these researchers found the protective effect wanes
after smokers quit. And they concluded, in their special scientific way, that
they didn't have a clue as to why.
2. Smoking lowers risk of knee-replacement surgery
While smokers might go broke buying a pack of cigarettes, they can at
least save money by avoiding knee-replacement surgery. Surprising results from
a new study have revealed that men who smoke had less risk of undergoing total
joint replacement surgery than those who never smoked.
The study, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, appears in the
July issue of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism. What could be the
connection? Knee-replacement surgery was more common among joggers and the
obese; smokers rarely jog, and they are less likely to be morbidly obese.
After controlling for age, weight and exercise, the researchers were at
a loss to explain the apparent, albeit slight protective effects of smoking for
osteoporosis. It could be that the nicotine in tobacco helps prevent cartilage
and joint deterioration.
3. Smoking lowers risk of obesity
Smoking and, in particular, the nicotine in tobacco smoke is an appetite
suppressant. This has been known for centuries, dating back to indigenous
cultures in America in the pre Columbus era. Tobacco companies caught on by the
1920s and began targeting women with the lure that smoking would make them
thinner.
A study published in the July 2011 issue of the journal Physiology &
Behavior, in fact, is one of many stating that the inevitable weight gain upon
quitting smoking is a major barrier in getting people to stop, second only to
addiction.
The relationship between smoking and weight control is complex:
Nicotine itself acts as both a stimulant and appetite
suppressant; and the act of smoking triggers behavior modification that prompts
smokers to snack less. Smoking also might make food less tasty for some
smokers, further curbing appetite. As an appetite suppressant, nicotine appears
to act on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, at least in mice, as
revealed in a study by Yale researchers published in the June 10, 2011, issue
of the journal Science.
No respectable doctor would recommend smoking for weight control, given
the toxic baggage accompanying cigarettes. This recent Yale study, however,
does offer an inkling of hope for a safe diet drug to help obese people control
their appetites.
4. Smoking lowers risk of death after some heart
attacks
Compared with non-smokers, smokers who have had heart attacks seem to
have lower mortality rates and more favorable responses to two kinds of therapy
to remove plaque from their arteries: fibrinolytic therapy, which is basically
medication; and angioplasty, which removes the plaque by inserting balloons or
stents into the arteries.
There's a catch, though. The reason why smokers have heart attacks is that smoke scars the arteries, allowing fat and plaque to build up in
the first place. So, one theory as to why smokers do better than non-smokers
after such therapies is that they are younger, experiencing their first heart
attack approximately 10 years before the non-smoker.
A study published in an August 2005 issue of the American Heart Journal,
however, states that age alone is not enough to fully explain the survival
differences and that "the smoker's paradox is alive and well."
No alternative theories have been put forth since.
5. Smoking helps the heart drug clopidogrel work
better
Clopidogrel is a drug used to inhibit blood clots for those patients
suffering from coronary artery disease and other circulatory diseasesleading to strokes and heart attacks. Smoking seems to
help clopidogrel do its job better.
A study by Korean researchers in the October 2010 issue of the journal
Thrombosis Research builds upon work by Harvard researchers published in 2009
that demonstrates the benefit of smoking at least 10 cigarettes a day. It seems
that something in cigarette smoke activates certain proteins called
cytochromes, which convert clopidogrel into a more active state.
Again, no respectable doctor is encouraging patients to start smoking to
get the most out of clopidogrel. But this and the other four
"benefits" of smoking reveal how tobacco perhaps not unlike other
potentially toxic plants might contain
certain chemicals of real therapeutic value.
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