Smoking, Orphans, and the French

“Yes.  Give him his cigarettes.  It won’t be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.” – You Only Live Twice

orphanadopted

An early but failed attempt at a cigarette advertisement as they ran out of orphans too quickly.

(This is a retread, I have the sniffles tonight (and got started late).  It’s from November of 2018, so, I wonder where the heart disease is going now that 12-year-old kids are having heart attacks?)

Heart attacks were unknown before 1900 – probably because 97% of people before 1900 died in surprise buffalo stampedes and dysentery on the Oregon Trail®.

the-oregon-trail

But I recently learned something that fascinated me.  Heart disease has plummeted during the last fifty years.  Here’s the graph.  I found it here (LINK), with a h/t to Mangun (LINK):

heart

So, heart disease is plummeting.  But I thought we were getting fatter?

nchoverweight

Not good.  There’s a lot of Oreos® and regret in that graph . . . .

According to the NIH, we are getting fatter.  But we’ve (more or less) eliminated heart disease as a cause of death.  Huh?  I would have thought that heart disease would have increased during that time period abetted by a high-fructose corn syrup diet, increasingly sedentary lifestyle, Netflix®, the Internet, and reliance on every modern convenience.  Oh, wait, that’s just me.

Not saying being fat is healthy – it’s linked to a large number of issues including very large pants.  But not so much heart disease.  So what changed between 1900 (effectively zero heart disease) and 1965 (when heart disease peaked) and today?

Cigarettes (graph is from the CDC).

cdcsmoking

Sure people smoked before 1900.  Mark Twain smoked the equivalent of the population of Honduras in cigars every day.  And people smoked pipes, often while cultivating manly mustaches that looked like creatures from an H.G. Wells novel.  But cigarettes?  Not so much, as cigarettes were French, and even back in 1900 no one liked the French.  54 cigarettes per year per person were smoked in the United States in 1900.  In 1965, the peak year for heart attacks was also the peak year for cigarette smoking, when Americans smoked 4,259 cigarettes per person, per year.  And they looked so very cool, except for the heart attacks.  And the berets.

ripper

Also, Watson, an amazing fact:  Kermit The Frog has the same middle name as Jack The Ripper.  Not a coincidence I think . . . the game is afoot!  Let’s catch a Muppet® murderer!

The difference between cigars (or pipes) and cigarettes is that no sane person inhales pipe or cigar smoke.  Again, not saying that either of those things are particularly healthy, but it appears that pulling the chemicals from combusting tobacco into your lungs is a bad thing.  I mean, not as bad as being an orphan, but bad.

orphans

Also, can an orphan eat legally in a family-style restaurant?

Could it be other things, like statins?  Nope – they were late to the party, and there are significant debates about if they’re good for you at all.  Aspirin may be a factor in the lowered death rates, but it really seems like smoking cigarettes . . . might be bad for you.

As usual, I am compelled by my lawyer to tell you I’m not a doctor, and that pesky court order requires me to tell you that I’m not allowed around pumpkin pie when there’s lighter fluid nearby, but my conclusion is probably pretty innocuous:  don’t smoke cigarettes, unless you want to die early of a sudden heart attack and save more Social Security money for me.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

25 thoughts on “Smoking, Orphans, and the French”

  1. High times are here. Marijuana, er, cannibis has overtaken tobacco as the weed to consume.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1120024399/marijuana-cigarette-use-gallup-poll

    And it’s causing scromiting. ‘It means screaming and violent vomiting,’ says Dr Lev. ‘I call it the audible cannabis condition, because I hear the violent screams down the hall before I see the patient.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10976437/How-Californias-legal-cannabis-dream-public-health-nightmare.html

    To change the subject from sky-high times sucking to being blown up sky high, do not fail to watch this 2 minute clip of AOC getting lit up.

    https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1580399538979753989

    You heard it here first: DeSantis / Gabbard 2024.

    2. “You heard it here first: DeSantis / Gabbard 2024.”

      If i were so inclined to EVER vote again? Would guess that the ‘ticket’ WILL be don/ron for the ‘R’s’. They Accomplish(ed), repeatedly, over time, SO MUCH when in The drivers seat.

      Basically NO difference between the 2 ‘parties’. Other than the 12 letters of the Alphabet NOT in either party name. ALL NOT REQUIRED to take the Kill/Sterility shots. ‘Insider Trading’, Etc.

      No More Angst. At All. NOT gonna change the trajectory one iota.

      gabbard? Next, she will ‘come out’ as a ‘Tree Hugger’.

      Tree hugger

      “A woman from Los Angeles who was a tree hugging, liberal Democrat and
      an anti-hunter purchased a piece of timberland near Colville, WA .
      There was a large tree on one of the highest points in the tract. She
      wanted a good view of the natural splendor of her land so she started
      to climb the big tree.

      As she neared the top she encountered a spotted owl that attacked her.
      In her haste to escape, the woman slid down the tree to the ground and
      got many splinters in her crotch.

      In considerable pain, she hurried to a local ER to see a doctor. She
      told him she was an environmentalist, a Democrat, and an anti-hunter
      and how she came to get all the splinters. The doctor listened to her
      story with great patience and then told her to go wait in the
      examining room and he would see if he could help her.

      She sat and waited three hours before the doctor re-appeared.The angry
      woman demanded, “What took you so long?”

      He smiled and then told her, “Well, I had to get permits from the
      Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of
      Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a
      ‘recreational area’ so close to a Waste Treatment Facility.

      And I’m sorry, but due to Obama-Care they turned you down.”

  2. Two thoughts…Evidentally Commander Cody’s immortal words “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette”: have fallen on deaf ears, and, two, would love to see a diabetes rate per 1,000 chart superimposed on the obesity chart.

      1. Thx for the diabeeeteees/obeszity chart! But it only goes to 2000…would assume still correlates to the present. As for poker, Tunica or Biloxi?

        1. Philadelphia / Pearl River over the weekend. Maybe Biloxi next week if my wife lets me sneak away from my stepson’s condo on Dauphin Island. And with that, I’m turning off my computer and hitting the road!

      2. Ricky- You should coordinate a trip to Pearl River when the Neshoba Co. Fair is running, I believe it’s in July. Old fashioned, you “live” in your cabin all week. Next year will be intertesting as MS has their statewide elections the year before the prez election. Lots of politickin’ & speeches.

  3. Hope you feel better John!

    One note – and do not take this as any sort of endorsement or recommendation of smoking at all – is that tobacco has changed as well. The tobacco of 150 years ago – basically leaves on the plant – is not the same as the chemically modified and processed tobacco of today. Much like “potato chips” are like potatoes in that they have the same starting ingredient.

    I have about one cigar a year – always a small one, most always vanilla flavored – and that is enough. I enjoy the experience, but hate the way my mouth tastes the next day.

    I do think in 20-30 years we will be having some serious conversations about the long term impacts of cannabis smoking, if for no other reason than up to this point, we do not have a sufficient data pool. It will be interesting to see how pulling anything into your lungs shows as a side by side comparison.

    1. Oh, I smoke several cigars a week. I enjoy them. Oddly, my insurance doesn’t classify this as smoking.

  4. A brother has lung cancer after decades of smoking, a cousin had his detected too late and is not long for this world, an uncle passed away last fall after years of smoking.
    My brother was in stage III wen it was detected almost eight years ago and an aggressive regimen of Phoenix Tears or Rick Simpson oil made from cannabis keeps him going.
    I quit back in 1997 when it $1.25 a pack and the cost now of $6 a pack for namebrand should motivate people to quit with the cancer sticks.
    It’s ok to light one up when Russia uses the Dead Hand defense which is the real Mutually Assured Destruction.

  5. Many on both sides of the family smoked, some starting at 12. I guess there wasn’t much to do on the ranch. One of them had a Dutch Masters President cigar habit that was intense. He inhaled those things. They all made it into their mid seventies some to early eighties. I’m trying for better longevity without turning my lungs into leather.

    1. Cigars, in moderation, appear to be not so bad. Snus (as used by the Scandis) also appears to be not so bad.

  6. P.S. Wouldn’t Wish/Pray for Illness/Other to be visited upon my ‘Most Loathed’ List. These Days.

    Your Efforts/Wit? Priceless! Sounds campy/borderline insincere, but Best Wishes/Speedy Recovery/Etc.

    2 timeless restorative Cure-All’s? (1st/Quickest ‘hits’, in no particular order)

    1) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chicken-soup-the-story-of-jewish-penicillin/

    2) https://www.messynessychic.com/2022/06/29/the-golden-age-of-the-enema/

    Maybe combine the 2? Use a thermometer for safety…

    It’s not just “For The Children”, Anymore.

  7. I was smoking a New World Connecticut cigar when I read this post.

    Either the cigar complimented this post, or the post complimented the cigar. Either was, it was a complimentary experience that I hope to replicate in the near future.

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