Yup. I used to smoke 1-2 packs per week for many years (mostly in social settings), then went up to 1 pack per day due to general life stress pre-COVID19. When shelter in place began I freaked out, quit cold turkey, and immediately started running and lifting. The first few weeks were rough but I've been totally smoke free for about 4 months now and am in the best shape of my life!
Me, I ditched junk food (used to do taco bell drive-thru pretty regularly when coming home from work, stopped cold turkey too!). Doing a lot more salads now, I'm so happy that I'm developing a taste for healthy foods!
For years I had on/off tummy trouble and yesterday I had the realization that I couldn’t remember the last time I was seriously hurting in the gut. I haven’t done carryout since February. I never believed that modest dietary changes really could have that big of an effect but kinda a believer now.
Having been deeply skeptical of “gluten intolerance” (as contrasted with coeliac) for many years, I eventually realised wheat was causing me chronic heartburn after I cut it out as part of a low-carb diet undertaken for other reasons. Having had much the same thing happen with eggs and eczema, and not having made the link before that, I guess I’m now an advocate of people trying exclusion diets
Two things I can say as someone who went this route:
* Try a gluten test if you have had exposure recently enough to do it. It’s good to know.
* A sizeable chunk of people who have trouble with gluten may actually have trouble with fodmaps. They’re in everything wheat except sourdough bread.
Why does this matter? In the case of celiac you can’t have a crumb. In the case of fodmap trouble you can’t have a bunch of wheat, but a trace amount won’t hurt you.
I now have found gluten not to be an issue, and was able to identify a bunch of food triggers due to them being in the fodmap family. It’s made life simpler in that I know for sure I don’t have to worry about exposure, and can have moderate fodmaps as well.
Fodmaps are hard to get a handle on. There are good apps where you can quickly look up things you eat. Before that I never managed to try fodmap elimination because it was too complicated.
Note that I am not saying you, OP, don’t have a gluten problem. But there will be many people reading your post, who have digestive discomfort and other issues but nothing life threatening. To those people I would strongly recommend a gluten test before you quit, and check fodmaps if you test negative.
I had a wide variety of digestive symptoms that are similar to some celiac symptoms, but that was not the cause. And gluten being nearly all high fodmap makes for possible confounding.
(Fodmaps are mostly in carbs, so a low carb diet can also be a fodmap reduction diet)
> They’re in everything wheat except sourdough bread.
Why is that? The only difference between sourdough bread and non-sourdough bread is yeast vs starter (and some people still use yeast in addition to their starter).
That's related to what FODMAP are: fermentable carbohydrates. They'll be decomposed in the fermentation process for sourdough bread.
It has been noticed by many people who think they're gluten intolerant that they digest sourdough bread much better. The likelyhood that this is linked to the changes incurred by the fermentation process is high, since, as you said, that's the only difference.
It's more the opposite: FODMAPs are non-fermentable carbohydrates. If they were fermentable by yeast, they would be fermented and you wouldn't be eating them. The whole point is that yeast doesn't metabolize them but your natural intestinal flora does.
Sourdough is a mixture of yeasts, lactobacter, and acidophilus in various proportions. The latter two will metabolize the FODMAPS, either while proving the bread or in your gut. One of those choices can cause discomfort and the other a delicious food product.
Sure, and dust, and any other spores or pollutants in the air, I didn't mean to provide a pure and complete list, I just meant that it's not some magic yeastless concoction that also happens to make bread rise. It's still yeast doing the work, it's just naturally occurring, rather than added from a packet of commercially grown and sold yeast.
Right, but that article claims that lactobacilli are critical to make the bread actually taste like sourdough at the end, whereas presumably dust isn't.
I did realise your main point is that it does include yeast, and I agree with that.
Oh yeah, absolutely, I just meant that all (leavened) breads contain yeast, I suppose it's a defining feature; so it's not 'yeast vs. starter', it's 'yeast from a packet vs. yeast from the air'.
Did the Whole30 diet. No gluten, no dairy for 30 days. Life of allergy pills and skin cream (6 shots a week as a kid in the 80s) Got worse as I got older (40s now). 20 days in no ezcema no pills. Day 31 you add something back. Had some udon and a beer. 5 minutes later turned red, had issues breathing and itchy all over. Hum. It’s gluten. Test (blood) from doc no celiacs. WTF? Do some research, get butt scope to look at my intestines. Hum, looks like you should not eats stuff with gluten. I miss beer and the perfect cheese steak (the roll is a major factor in the yum level). Feel so much better. It’s a pain to eat out. Cross contamination is a bitch.
Still drink wine every dinner and smoke a cigar everyday :)
After 40-odd years of suffering, you must be elated!
I've not much to add other than to say I'm very happy for you - it's hard to comprehend what a torment it is to have deal with conditions like that on a daily basis.
So at the dark end you can find good gluten free beers. The heavy beers help hide the taste of things like sorghum, however there is nothing similar to a Modelo or Pacifico that gluten free that taste decent, which is want I want on a hot summer day. Oh well.
I have started to really enjoy cider. There are some good ones from small makers. Golden State Cider makes some nice ones. All the big company ones (American) are crap full of sugar.
Someone close to me was having issues with Gluten for years. Went gluten-free for most of the last decade to stave them off. Had chronic heartburn and difficulty swallowing in some situations (throat felt “too small”).
Turns out it was some sort of allergy resulting in Eosinophilic esophagitis. Now that they are medication, most all of the symptoms have dissipated.
If you are experiencing throat issues related to gluten (or other things in the exclusion diet) it may be worth getting checked out.
Here the same, deeply sceptical of the gluten intolerance stuff, also looking at the research. Jumping on and off of Keto I am now very sure that either carbs in general were the source of my stained underwear problem. Haven't' made the differential test yet whether its gluten or carbs in general but currently don't really feel a need for it because I continue to lose weight on keto + fasting
That applies to food. It applies to reading, watching, and listening. It applies to your environment (e.g., friends).
The pandemic is a wakeup call. Let's hope - in some regards - we never go back to normal. The data is clear, that old normal (i.e., preventable preexisting conditions) played a key role in getting us here.
That would help. But even more so US citizens need be mindful of the importance of diet and how it relates to health.
It doesn't help that the narrative continues to focus on the healthcare system. Yes, it can be improved. But supply is limited. We keep increasing demand. And expect prices to fall? That's not the way it works.
The fact that doctors generally don't ask about a patients diet says more about doctors than it does about the importance of what you eat. Diet has a huge influence on so many aspects of health and well being.
Doctors (the allopathic ones) spend hardly any time studying nutrition. So it’s more the system that doesn’t expose them to much. They also tend to believe the marketing they see on TV, magazines, etc.
Used to eat out for lunch most days (felt like middle-of-the-road options, maybe rarely fast food) and now mostly eat sandwiches with lean meat (and homemade levain bread, the parallel comment on fodmaps intrigued me around this line).
We used to cook I would say 5/6 dinner meals a week but it’s strictly 7 now. Not too much change there, not intentional anyways. Maybe less snacking too but the only big intentional change has been the eating out.
not the guy you are replying to but a bit of a similar experience so I can answer from my perspective. I went sort-of keto + fasting (inspired by Dr. Jason Fung, primarily for weightloss but with the side effect of having better bowels after 2-3 months of adjustment to the high-fat moderate-protein low-carb diet.
Thanks! Congrats on eating healthier as well! There are so many upsides to preparing your own meals, and you'll find that it can actually be a very therapeutic activity.
Congrats!
I quit smoking 11 years ago now, i was smoking a bit more than half a pack a day. I went cold turkey too, originally more as an experiment.
(I wanted to feel how some of everyday actions were not driven by my decision and choices but by habits or physical need).
In the end it was so benificial in just 2 weeks that i never smoked again.
Now i can't stand smoke at all. It takes a while for some of the associative habits to go away though (like while drinking in a party, this kind of thing). I would advise to never tell yourself that you can smoke a cigarette once in a while. I don't know anybody who stopped and didn't go back to full time smoking after smoking a cigarette once in a while for a few months.
I also noticed that it's important to involve smokers around you so that they don't offer you cigarettes. I also noticed a type of smokers who try to get me back to smoking. I found that doing stuff like destroying their cigarette pack when they try to have you get one with insistance was the best way to stop that.
Among my work colleagues, friends, and family, it seems alcohol consumption has either slightly increased or significantly decreased.
I made a conscious choice as Coronavirus was just getting its shoes on to completely stop drinking alcohol. I haven't felt this great in ages and intend to teetotal beyond the crisis.
The occasional dinner out with drinkers since some of the restrictions were eased has not been a problem and - company depending - as enjoyable as usual. I'll probably skip the pub socials when they reopen but dinners, lunches, and sports seem fine. Next stop: more exercise!
Being the one to say 'I don't drink' is generally awkward, as few people expect that response. What I've found is usually at least one other person per ~10 people will follow up and say they don't either.
From there it can be contagious, with others questioning themselves drinking, or at least drinking less.
It's pretty common amongst my geeky social circles in Paris, much less (for obvious reasons) amongst the musicians/partyers social circles, unfortunately.
What's very annoying is the social pressure: feeling compelled to say something, anything, when somebody say they won't have that drink in a social gathering. Just shut the hell up! (Saying that to myself too!)
One thing I've found fascinating since moving to Germany is that you'll be judged here if you say "I don't drink beer", but drinking non-alcoholic beer is perfectly acceptable. It's not the alcohol that people care about.
Depending on the region, "I don't drink beer" can sound a bit snobbish (as in "I only drink wine and champaign"). Other than that I've never heard anything bad when I ordered Apfelschorle (apple juice + carbonated water mix). And I think "Alkoholfreies Weizen" would even be accepted among very beer-centred groups.
One cultural difference between Germany and the states is, that drunk-driving is much more actively shunned so its more acceptable to not drink.
Somebody must be drinking a lot more. Sales at my brewery have approximately tripled over last year. It has become a business challenge in not having the capacity to keep up with demand.
as someone who stopped consuming most alcohol a couple years back: pubs are tough, but depending on the one you choose you may get some non-alcoholic drinks which are ok :)
In France they give nicotine patch to nurses because they discovered, to their horror, that smokers are heavily under represented in critical cases. Something to do with nicotine.
They're annoyed because that would be like asking people to eat raw sugar to stop drinking Coca Cola, but I'm not yet stopping my cigarets :D
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. This is corrected. It is theorized that nicotine represses ACE2 receptor numbers which the virus uses to enter the cells.
Here's a nice big collection of programs that either don't require equipment or use minimal equipment you could improvise - https://darebee.com/programs.html
No account or login, no ads or affiliate sales, and all programs are PDFs you can download.
You can do most workouts with those reusable tote bags at home! You can also do push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups with no weights. Planks. You can get pretty ripped without workout equipment.
Why do you need to lift weights, exactly? You can get extremely fit with a small set of basic bodyweight exercises and some creativity. All you need is a mat, or even a soft carpet.
I just bought a kettlebell last week on Amazon and it came today. It was the last one of its model, but I'm sure you can find some others.
I've never lifted weights before but the kettlebell sounds appealing because it's supposed to be "functional strength", not overworking a single muscle like big gym machines can.
Yes, it is pretty much impossible. Buying weights off craigslist or Facebook has always been the better bet anyway, because it's not as if a chunk of iron can get worn out and they are much cheaper. Listings are probably harder to find and more expensive, though.
You can also make plates out of concrete, although that also requires more room than dumbbells and for you to already have a barbell.
Rogue can notify you when their kettlebells come in stock. I managed to nab one the other week. You have to act fast though, because they sell out pretty quick.
I know this sounds like a joke but it's not. Didn't a study say that smokers where less likely to catch COVID or get affected by it for whatever reason. I swear I read that here in HN. Too lazy to Google it.
Edit: I googled it, because someone downvoted it me so I guess they didn't appreciate me being lazy.
> "One hypothesis is that nicotine, which has anti-inflammatory properties, may interfere with the way that COVID-19 causes an overreaction of the immune system."
"Once someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the immune system is mobilized. As the virus replicates, cell and viral debris or virions may interact with the nAChRs blocking the action of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. If the initial immune response is not enough to combat the viral invasion at an early stage, the extensive and prolonged replication of the virus will eventually disrupt the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway seriously compromising its ability to control and regulate the immune response. The uncontrolled action of pro-inflammatory cytokines will result in the development of cytokine storm, with acute lung injury leading to ARDS, coagulation disturbances and multiorgan failure. Based on this hypothesis, COVID-19 appears to eventually become a disease of the nicotinic cholinergic system."
"Nicotine could maintain or restore the function of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory system and thus control the release and activity of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This could prevent or suppress the cytokine storm. This hypothesis needs to be examined in the laboratory and the clinical setting."
This article is actually spot on, and is a pretty good cheat sheet.
I have a very rare immune mediated neurological disease affecting nicotinic receptors in my peripheral nervous system called autoimmune autonomic gangliopathy.
I am ganglionic nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antibody (nAChR, α3 subunit) positive, at high and abnormal levels, which means this antibody blocks signals at the ion channel level, in my neurons of my autonomic ganglia, which is supposed to control bodily functions—but it malfunctions in my body. Some people with the disease I have, (supposedly ~22% according to this PMC article on PUBMED: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2536520/) have alpha7 subunit nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antibodies (α7 nAChR antibodies), which effectively block signals in general, affecting transmission of signals via the ion channels of neurons in the central nervous system. This type of central nervous system blockade of the autonomic nervous system causes inflammation.
The article that the above poster linked is an ominous warning for people like me, who have the same very rare disease I have, even if one is just alpha3 nAChR antibody positive only—and is not also alpha7 nAChR antibody positive. I am glad I have been taking extreme steps to protect myself.
Also, some people that never recovered from COVID-19 have sympathetic nervous activity have similarities to the condition I have.
As for the people who have a post COVID-19 inflammatory syndrome affecting their sympathetic (as in autonomic nervous system) nervous system, as in sympathetic over activity, they very likely have a form of dysautonomia:
Researchers may want to look into these antibodies/tests, in which there are several peer reviewed articles available to read. However, several of these tests are not commercially available in the US, but can be mailed/performed in Germany. See: https://www.celltrend.de/en/pots-cfs-me-crps.html
There is an immune mediated dysautonomia panel available at the Mayo Clinic (which I was found to have one of the antibodies), but one is far less likely to test positive for something in these screens. See this panel: https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Overview/92121
A lot of this immune mediated autonomic nervous system stuff is just starting to emerge and come to fruition.
I remember seeing similar articles. While I don't understand the science behind these findings, my understanding is that smokers are less likely to catch COVID, but if they do, then their symptoms are significantly more severe than those of nonsmokers.
incorrect; smokers are shown to be substantially less susceptible to both catching covid and developing severe symptoms, a finding that has been demonstrated independently in (at least) france, china, and the USA:
> Conclusions and relevance: Our cross sectional study in both COVID-19 out- and inpatients strongly suggests that daily smokers have a very much lower probability of developing symptomatic or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as compared to the general population.
> Very recently, the US Center of Disease Control reported an analysis of current smoker rate among US COVID-19 patients which was found to be 1.3% for the whole population of COVID-19 patients, 1% for outpatients, 2% for patients, not hospitalized in an ICU, and 1% in intensive care unit (ICU)-admitted patients
Both SARS-Cov-2 and nicotine bind to the ACE2 receptor. One hypothesis is that because SARS-Cov-2 has to compete with nicotine for the receptor it ends up being less effective. Another hypothesis is that smokers tend to do better because of nicotine's effect of reducing inflammation.
Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers- 60% admit to being former smokers. Inpatient hospitalizations also almost all suffer from serious comorbid conditions like hypertension or diabetes, which probably causes many to smoke less. Less so with the outpatients (<20%) but I would not be surprised if it was because unhealthy people getting sick, and those unhealthy people don't smoke because it would be bad for them.
> Seems more likely to me they're just lying about being smokers
Being a smoker has been a standard part of your medical history for a long time now for obvious reasons. There's no reason to think there is a coordinated strategy for lying about smoking in the context of a pandemic (much less revising patient medical histories, which would be the medical service industry lying).
50%+ lying about smoking in the face of potential (or actual) respiratory failure is laughable.
The study isn't talking about history, it's talking about current smokers and many of the comments on the paper bring up concerns with how specific that is, and how many could have quit days before going to the hospital.
I don't know where you got 50%+. The outpatient group was 5.3% current smokers vs expected (adjusted for age and sex) 26.9%. For inpatient it was 4.4% vs expected 17.9%. The fact that both groups had the same reported rate of current smokers (within experimental error) but very different expected rates says to me that you're only getting the people who are honest or simply incapable of quitting even while sick.
Also, see this concern brought up:
> Finally, and I believe this to be the most significant piece of data supporting the null hypothesis, the prevalence of never-smokers in the general population is approximately 0.75, if one subtracts the smoking incidence rate from 100. In your patient groups, non-smokers are strongly under-represented by about a factor of 2 relative to the general population, with 31% of outpatient and 32% of inpatient being labeled as never-smokers. This suggests to me that any amount of smoking actually puts one at risk for contracting COVID-19 as defined by this paper.
I'm not sure I understand the quoted concern? The study they referenced[1] showed that France was ~37% never smokers average over all ages (nowhere near 75%), and their in- and out-patients were about the same fraction (Table 2) for male, a little lower for female. The big discrepancy is under-representation of current smokers, and over-representation of former smokers. But their patients are old, and I'd expect older people to have more former smokers, since they've had more time to start and stop and since the general trend in smoking is down. I don't see that broken down by age in the paper they linked though. Maybe we'd have to dig in to the raw data, or maybe it's just not available?
In any case, many other studies of COVID-19 have found similar results, and studies of different respiratory diseases have not. I'd initially just thought people were lying too, but at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming--if the protective behavior were anything but smoking, then people would have accepted it long ago.
Of course smoking is far deadlier on average than the coronavirus, per my calculation elsewhere in this thread. No one should start smoking because of this, but I do see enough evidence e.g. that a nursing home patient (who's at very high risk of death from coronavirus, and likely to die of something else before smoking-related diseases could develop) shouldn't quit. Vaping probably gets any benefit with almost none of the health risk, though that's speculative.
Maybe they just drop dead immediately in their homes? /s
Seriously though, it's baffling because smoking causes so many underlying health problems that don't go well with COVID. Also, smokers have a depressed immune system compared to nonsmokers, so it would seem to suggest they'd be less likely to fight off an infection like this.
In a lot of cases, COVID-19 symptoms involve an immunesystem overreaction, which causes massive inflammation and organ damage all over, so having a depressed immunesystem might help there.
i don't think it is a contradiction; "a very small fraction of smokers contract covid or end up in the hospital due to it; those that do are more likely to die"
Also in countries like India and Pakistan with very high percentage of smokers, we are seeing very low COVID19 cases.
While a lot of people are skeptical of the official numbers from these countries, I think they have free media and if cases were high, we would have known.
I haven't read this article in-depth, but at a glance I did not see this discussed there: can't this simply be explained by smokers generally having a lower life expectancy than non-smokers?
If most people that have severe COVID complications and end up on the ICU are aged 80+, and generally smokers die before that age from smoking-related complications, doesn't it naturally follow that most people on the ICU will be non-smokers? Smoking will have killed the smokers before they become part of the high-risk group, after all.
Correcting for something is much easier said than done, and it is very often done incorrectly. Blindly trusting researchers to do so is a mistake.
Here is a quote from the abstract of the paper linked above:
> Results: The inpatient group was composed of 343 patients, median age 65 yr: 206 men (601%, median age 66 years) and 137 women (39.9%, median age 65 years) with a rate of daily smokers of 4.4% (5.4% of men and 2.9% of women).The outpatient group was composed of 139 patients, median age 44 years: 62 men (44.6 %, median age 43 years, and 77 women (55.4 %, median age 44 years). The daily smokers rate was 5.3% (5.1% of men and 5.5 % of women). In the French population, the daily smokers rate was 25.4% (28.2% of men and 22.9% of women).
The average daily smoker rate is taken as-is over the whole population, and compared to the smoking rate of people of age around ~66 years, despite the article itself stating that the percentage of daily smokers is lower for old people and higher for young people.
So already in the abstract they have made a mistake and forgot to correct for age. I have not read the rest of the article in enough depth to judge fully, but I would absolutely not blindly trust researchers to always do this correction in an appropriate way.
I saw an analysis from a epidemiologist who said the result is due to naive over adjustment for confounding variables. Specifically if you treat related confounding variables as if they are independent you end up with garbage.
They also said elsewhere that a lot of researchers from outside epidemiology are running really bad studies and publishing papers.
Even with conservative assumptions, smokers in this French study were 4 to 5 times less likely to be infected.
Keep in mind that drugs being tested are considered good when they reduce mortality by 10%. We're talking 75% reduction in infection rate here, and no increased mortality in those who are infected. It's really really hard to imagine what sort of confounding factor that could be at play here that would make the effect insignificant.
Smoking decreases the amount of certain enzymes that COVID binds to in order to infect the lungs. Less enzymes means a lesser chance of catching the virus, but if caught, the person will likely have a more severe case due to the decreased lung capability.[0][1]
The figures that I have seen previously did show a very significantly decreased risk of catching COVID, and I'm surprised it hasn't been investigated far more.
Edit: I had that wrong, it seems nicotine increases ACE2, but also binds with ACE2 decreasing the amount of available enzymes overall that COVID could bind to.[2]
I quit vaping back in mid-Feb when it was obvious things were going down. But then I took it back up in May because the studies with very large N (ie, millions) had started coming out of the UK showing even literal smoking did not increase your covid-19 risk after infection. And you can bet if it did, at all, there'd be big news about it. But instead study after study shows nothing of significance either way.
Not to imply you suggested otherwise, but smoking costs far more life years than the coronavirus. Anyone quitting is doing a good thing for the wrong reason.
Vaping is less clear--I do think there's some non-negligible chance that for the next couple years, it will be a net benefit to public health. That would be funny, considering how hard the public health authorities worked to smear nicotine vaping with the deaths from adulterated (vitamin E acetate) marijuana cartridges last summer.
I think it's too early to absolutely determine the life expectancy cost of a covid infection. The pathology is so diverse with this virus it would take a very complex calculation and obviously years of observation to make your claim.
To quote this paper's author: "This virus is unusual and it's hard not to take a step back and not be impressed by how many manifestations it has on the human body"
and to quote the paper itself: "In a study of nearly 5,500 patients admitted with COVID-19 in a New York City hospital system, (acute kidney injury) occurred in 37%, with 14% of the patients requiring dialysis. "
and that is only one of dozens of conditions in their findings.
Patients who die of coronavirus have median age of 78[1], and thus life expectancy around ten years. Younger decedents will have a disproportionate effect on average life years lost, so using the median life expectancy does tend to underestimate that. On the other hand, the patients who die were probably less healthy than the average for their age before they got infected (e.g., the huge mortality in nursing homes; nursing home patients already had an average life expectancy around a year[3]), which would make us overestimate. Somewhat arbitrarily, let's say those cancel, so a coronavirus death costs ten years of life.
The average IFR over all ages is 0.7%[4] from a recent meta-analysis. If we're considering prospective smokers, then I guess we should exclude young children, so let's (again, somewhat arbitrarily) bump that up to 1%. That would mean a coronavirus infection in a random individual (age weighted according to population of prospective smokers) costs 0.1 years of life expectancy.
But smokers have life expectancy about ten years[5] shorter than non-smokers! So there's lots you could find to argue about in my rough calculation above, and I agree that patients who don't die immediately still lose some yet-unknown number of quality-adjusted years of life; but unless you think you can find two orders of magnitude, smoking is unquestionably more dangerous. That doesn't mean the coronavirus is harmless, just that smoking is really bad.
You may not know and it may be very hard to determine the ultimate loss of life expectancy in younger people. I read somewhere that people that survived a bad bout of polio often suffered poor health later in life. Long term kidney damage could easily be something a person could live with for decades before it came back to bite them.
Using the adulterated marijuana cartridges as a way to push anti-vaping campaigns was the same sort of disingenuous technique use to get people to not wear masks to save them for health care professionals at the beginning of the COVID epidemic. The authorities think the public are too stupid to understand or react to facts, so they lie to them and it ends up backfiring.
Uhm. It ended up backfiring in the US. Here in the Netherlands they said the same thing about masks (and made it pretty clear why this was said) and it ended up being just fine. It seems abundantly clear that your authorities simply had no such plan in mind.
I mean because nicotine might be protective against the coronavirus, and that protective effect might outweigh the harm of vaping. Certainly not proven (and please nobody start vaping because of that), but there's some weak evidence and it's funny.
Of course vaping's real benefit to public health comes from smoking cessation as you say, since smoking is (per my comment above) really deadly. I was disturbed to see the public health authorities blaming nicotine vaping for the lung injuries last summer, given (a) the ample evidence for vitamin E acetate as the cause; and (b) the cost in mortality from smokers who got scared by their misleading warnings and either didn't switch to vaping or switched back to cigarettes.
I started out this discussion by talking about the primary scientific journal sources I'd read, and in particular the one from the UK national health system. Unless I start doing the research myself it's hard to depend less on popular news. But that doesn't mean it isn't a useful indicator.
> “At the time of this review, the available evidence suggests that smoking is associated with increased severity of disease and death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Although likely related to severity, there is no evidence to quantify the risk to smokers of hospitalization with COVID-19 or of infection by SARS-CoV-2 was found in the peer-reviewed literature. Population-based studies are needed to address these questions.“
One of the causes of the second wave in Victoria was apparently staff at a quarantine facility sharing a lighter, alongside a security guard having sex with quarantined arrivals.
Have you actually read the article? The study's methodology is super confusing and just plain doesn't make sense. From what I can decipher, they conflated obesity, diabetes, smoking, immune disorders, and several other factors all together into a single variable ("vulnerability") and made no attempt to look at the contribution of smoking alone. They also lumped e-cigarettes together with tobacco and cigar smoking.
Well I do remember seeing that in the news cycle earlier in the year and I think it was a loose correlation of interest during the early days of the spread - that smokers seemed to either be catching it in lower numbers or that smokers were seeing fewer symptoms. Of course correlation != causation, and many odd rumors from March have since been debunked.
I was perplexed by this study as well and in a dilemma. I had to choose between a couple of new studies showing smoking might reduce my risk of Covid vs decades of studies showing smoking causes cancer. So I aimed to quit smoking and get healthy to reduce my risk of cancer and Covid.
I've had comments voted lower than -3 (you start at 1) plenty of times. My favorite one is one comment criticizing Microsoft that oscillated from 25 to -10 a few years back (yeah, I refreshed this one quite a lot to see how it changed, that was fun).
But I don't remember anything lower than that recently, so it can be a new change.
The people dropping dead in the streets, like we saw so much of in Wuhan (smoking population ~50%)-- those are the smokers. Smoking opens up more ACE2 receptors which is like opening more lanes for COVID traffic.
To the virus, the ACE2 sites are just a recognizable external feature to latch onto. The clogged sites might be less of a liability than the unclogged sites, but having more overall makes your cells way more virus-friendly.
If you want to give up, tried and failed, keep trying. Every time you make a serious attempt you are more likely to make it stick than the last time you tried. Pick a day a week out, prepare for it do it. Doesn't stick. Repeat.
It's one of the great myths that you can't because you didn't. You can and you're better placed to succeed at it. Do it for some people who love you. Good luck!
I must have tried ~15 or 20 times to quit. I mean really, going at least a week without smoking. I was ~1 pack a day. It stuck the last time, and it's been 5 years I think? People said you'd never stop craving it, which was true for a while. Today, I really don't think about it at all.
I quit after 8 years, one pack a day, 2 mg / cigarette (reduced from 10 mg / cigarette beforehand). Thought it impossible, looks quite easy afterwards.
I had to switch attention - each time I had a desire to smoke I run until there was no more. And it showed me immediate changes in the body, there was white sludge getting out of my lungs. First week was the hardest, second much easier, at its end I was so sure in success I've shared with friend. I said no one before to reduce pressure of failing.
After three weeks there was no craving, just easy fighting of occasional customs - like getting out of home, before bad, etc.
Several weeks later and food was never as delicious before. It was all cardboard by comparison. I still do not understand smoking in restaurant - just get any junk food, it is same.
Three month later was spring. Smells all around, it was another world, so beautiful.
---
Conventional wisdom is a lie, echo chamber. You will not hear my story in smoking crowds - I'm not there. Two of my friends quit smoking the day I've shared my success at the end of the second week. One started again after several years - depression and working conditions - it does not help, just a feeling "no there to fall deeper". There is.
I have anecdotal evidence against the craving hypothesis. My mom quit after she broke her leg. When she got back from the hospital, she didn't throw out the last pack of cigarettes. It was sitting on a shelf in plain sight for like several months. She didn't go back to smoking.
I did this too. Not break my leg, but decided to stop, when I made the decision, it was internal, I didn't tell anyone, and I didn't clean up anything, it was a few days before I emptied my ash-tray, and for many weeks the pack and ashtray was right there right of my mouse-pad as is tradition.
Every time I had the impulse, I could reach down and chose not to smoke.
I was actually afraid of relapse when I finally threw the pack out, because I felt it was a security net.
My interpretation of why this worked is, that from previously failed attempts (2 or 3 maybe), I had changed too much, and thrown away the packs and lighters.. I'd suddenly sit and think "that car.. it really needs refueling RIGHT. NOW. don't it?" and I'd drive to the gas station and when paying for gas, I'd say, as is tradition "and a pack of north state and a ligther please".. Brain finding a million excuses to go out and having to resist at those weak moments, was hard..
But having the pack always there made it a constant active choice of lower intensity rather than a more intense recurrent impulse.
I kept a pack of cigarettes around when I quit, too. It kept me from ideating about leaving the house and going to the store to buy cigarettes (which for me, had previously, had functioned like loading up a spring.)
Good for her. I'd compare quiting cigarettes to losing weight, since I have some experience in both.
Quitting is not a result, it is an effort you make through your life. It can be pretty easy for some, others need to focus a bit more. Build a strong determination to quit and have a positive outlook on life and your decision. The latter drastically affects how you experience cravings.
It becomes natural after a while, but if one can start smoking out of nowhere, starting this habit again is not less probable. Quitting is a continuous effort, but it is worth it.
The perceived "hard" first two weeks abstinence struggle immensely benefits from foregone tries. It's a bit like fasting: first time is the hardest and after that there might even be some self-challenging pleasure fighting the urge to give up.
The real hard part, in terms of actually prolonged success, is that party six month later, one year later, two years later, ...
You will never stay a casual, 2-3 cigarettes a week smoker. You permanently fucked this up for yourself. YOU ARE AN ADDICT FOR LIFE!
This is good advice - as a non-smoker it is hard to relate to the subject, but i find that having kids helps nevertheless.
Apart from trying to be a good parent, i find that improving the chances of being alive as long as possible to maximize the time with the kid is important.
So any one of the things that can prevent this from happening, i try to keep under control, e.g. Smoking, Being overweight, not exercising, Drinking to name just a few.
I keep saying this: the tertiary effects of this pandemic are going to be weird. I’ve predicted that this is America’s bidet moment, but I didn’t have people not smoking on my bingo card!
The limiting factors for bidets were work toilets and the weirdness factor. We’re still working from home (for those who can), and the makers of washlets sold out. They’re going to stop being a weird niche thing, and now it’s going to be a question of what people prefer.
The most important piece of the puzzle already happened: people know bidets are now.
If you ever did a bathroom renovation and went to a decently large plumbing supply store, they had a full bidet section for a while now. This time, more people are actually going to look at it.
A large chunk of my peer group got cheap bidets at the beginning of the pandemic when toilet paper ran out, so it's at least semi normalized even though its not pervasive. I no longer have to explain what it is or why it's great. That's a massive step forward.
If you look at extreme Japanese toilets, truth is stranger than fiction. There is a lot of space between TP and a full robo-toilet. All I know is that I don't have space for a bidet and a toilet in my house.
That seems plausible, but do you have any information showing that’s the case? I never thought I’d be so interested in either TP or consumer supply chains until this happened, lol.
I just threw up a little in my mouth. I've used many a bidet, and they never get anything completely clean like TP does. I can't imagine building up residue on a towel like that.
first encountered the butt gun when I was in Thailand. It was the first major upgrade I got for my home when I was back in the states. Using toilet paper feels so uncivilized by comparison.
I quit (10 year smoker) first week of March. Within a week several coworkers which I was in close proximity to got Covid (pcr confirmed). Dealing with allergies plus the stress of quitting and being paranoid about chest issues and other symptoms made it really rough. But nothing like the fear of dying to get you motivated and cold turkey.
On the other hand, I've increased the amount I smoke, from less than a pack a week to rolling over 50 grams (weighed the one I just rolled and there's 0.5 g of tobacco in it). I can smoke inside at home, which is one of the main drivers, I'm on smoko 8 hours a day now. I feel like Boris in GoldenEye bashing away at code while sucking down cancer sticks.
My doctor said that everybody has been one way or the other, either significantly decreasing or increasing the amount they smoke.
I find it more funny that many people quit smoking during the quarantine in my country, because they stayed in their comfy homes without stress. However, once everything got back to normal, their habits did too.
Of course, I am not laughing at their failure, but how these conclusions about smoking and quitting always seem very superficial. I don't doubt the same result globally after things change a bit. It always finds a way back for many, unfortunately.
This is my case, although with a little caveat. I used to smoke 1 pack (20 cigars) per day, but right at the same time that I read that COVID-19 was more dangerous for smokers, my preferred brand (Gold Leaf) got discontinued. Im not superstitious, but this was kind of "Yeah, this is the moment".
Was smoker for more than 15 years.
The article discusses the possibility that nicotine may block the coronavirus cell surface receptors but dismisses it. What I’ve read about this tho theorized that since the virus seems to preferentially infect endothelial tissue that longer term smokers with lung and esophageal endothelial dysplasia would be protected against infection because there was no mechanism for the virus to enter the lung tissues.
Not saying it’s true, but the mechanism they report and dismiss here is not what I’d seen as the primary hypothesis about the protectiveness that smokers were demonstrating in the referenced studies
For me it was for different reasons. Third day of cuarantine (Colombia, still ongoing 15 weeks in) I thought this might well be the easiest time to change habits – for the good or bad – for the rest of my life, so I made a couple of drastic changes. Extremly stressful work wise in the beginning in the midst of the lock down chaos, but worked out.
So I'm very curious what long term impact on society we are going to see with that many people having had that extreme and sudden of a change in their lifes. Whether the changes come from fear, protest, boredom, opportunism, etc.
I was heavy weed smoker for 4 years. After (supposedly) getting COVID-19 about 2 months ago, I stopped smoking, and 2 weeks after recovery started to smoke again.
However, something have changed and I feel like I'm going to die while I'm high, it's hard to breathe and feel my body isn't as healthy as it was before. I feel more or less ok while I'm sober, though.
Decided to quit yesterday and today I see this article. "Yeah, this is the moment".
So I think some people stopped smoking not because they're afraid of COVID, but because they feel worse now.
"Dr. Sarah Jackson, a senior research fellow at UCL’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, cautioned that the __findings relate only to quitting in the short term__.
“Given that __the rate of long-term success in quitting tends to be low, this is very unlikely to translate to a million fewer smokers in the UK__, which would be a large decline in prevalence,” she said.
"Other data sources are not yet showing evidence of a large drop in smoking prevalence," she said.
Pardon for assuming people actually read more about the study beyond a headline or two. It is based on self-reporting with a relatively small sample size. Literally the study is only indicating a record number of people _trying_ to quit.
Original Comment>
"Smokers try to quit..."
FTFY. I know two people that have quit heroin but still smoke despite many attempts to stop. I know people that couldn't quit cigs without antidepressants. All that to underscore that it's a seriously difficult addiction to overcome.
It mystifies me that people quite a bit younger than me smoke considering we've known for a long time that not only is it unhealthy, but it's a terribly money suck, very difficult to stop, cosmetically damaging and borderline antisocial at this point. Ironically most young people I've asked about this started smoking for social reasons in a given environment (school, job) and unfortunately will carry that baggage likely for decades.
FWIW I started smoking when I was young and felt invincible, and also really didn't care if I died young. I think a lot of teens are drawn to it because it's a bad idea. I was at least. But I also quit!
Yes, never said it can't be done. I'm saying that the success rate is ridiculously low, our anecdotes aside.
EDIT: BTW, congrats, I don't mean to take anything away from you, doubly so because you did it cold turkey indicates some serious emotional willpower. But I think you're the exception. Here's some CDC numbers for you, seems like a little north of a ten percent success rate:
In 2015, 68.0% of adult smokers (22.7 million) said that they wanted to quit smoking.
In 2018, 55.1% of adult smokers (21.5 million) said that they had made a quit attempt in the past year.
In 2018, 7.5% of adult smokers (2.9 million) successfully quit smoking in the past year
In 2017, 2300 people per day started smoking (839k annually)
If you have any doubt within your head when quitting, you will fail. When I chose to quit, I chose with my whole body and mind. That is, it wasn't about willpower against my own inclinations. If it was, I would have failed.
But I may also have been helped by a few additional factors: The day after I quit, I also got very very sick. That knocked me off my feet for a couple of days, and probably got me through the first few days of the worst cravings (which felt like worms in my brain). Another thing I did was intentionally hang out at a cafe where there were other smokers whom I didn't know. I wanted to make sure I could be around people who smoked without failing.
My dad had never been able to quit smoking. I know how lucky I was to manage it.
"7.5% of adult smokers" in a single year is not "ridiculously low".
Extended over the long term, it suggests over 50% of people quit within 10 years, and nearly 80% within 20 years.
This rings true for myself and most people I know who smoked in their 20s; almost all had quit by their early-mid 30s.
But a motivator also helps - i.e., a real health scare, like a a potentially-lethal virus that everyone is liable to catch and that disproportionately harms people with impaired respiratory health.
So we'd hope (indeed, expect) more people to succeed at quitting during this pandemic. And once they've quit and felt the benefits, many will stay quit for life.
Out of the people who try, about 13% succeed. “Ridiculously low” is a subjective characterization, sure, but that’s a very low rate of success for any endeavor. The fact remains, as echoed by the UCL study author, that long term success rates are very low, the study doesn’t indicate anything more than people self-reporting that they are trying to quit. Right now, it is purely wishful thinking to interpret this study as representing a record drop in the prevalence of smoking in the UK which the headline to this post did.
The rest of your comment sounds as if you’re trying to convince me that it’s virtuous to attempt cessation. I appreciate that viewpoint and nothing in my comments (I believe) have suggested otherwise. Indeed, in my personal worldview anything so difficult to shake loose is worth gaining mastery over as a matter of principle, negative health effects aside.
In February this year I had a flue with complications,which was followed by a bacterial infection. It was so bad that every time I was caughing, I thought my ribcage will explode and my head will pop. I was caughing so much that for a few days I was going through a box of tissues each night. It took 2 weeks to pull out of it. Then I thought for myself that next time I may not be that lucky with my lungs and stopped smoking immediately. I feel so much better now.
Considering UCL also released a study[0] saying eCigs helped smokers quit, I would assume transitioning off of traditional cigarettes to vaping counts as quitting for the purpose of this headline.
I actually switched fully to vaping when quarantine started because I figure time for a little bit of change and I can just order it online (I'm sure I can order cigarettes online but all the sites seemed kind of sketchy). I was going half and half before that.
Being stuck at home without access to peers might force a lot of teenagers to quit. When they closed the schools, I asked my spouse, now where are teenagers going to get their stuff?
High schools are a "super spreader event" for chemical addictions.
Harder to smoke at home when the parents are watching... and usually, kids aren't addicted yet. I know I wasn't when I started, I could quit any time, and I should have back then.
I didn't had daily exercise but I have it now only because I don't waste time commuting to work. Otherwise I'm concerned about my health as much as I was before 2020.
I don't smoke and I really don't know what drives smokers.
But it's hard to believe that they are only concerned about their health now because of COVID-19 after all these years of pushing awareness about how smoking can damage your health and increase risk of cancer!
I know a few colleagues who could easily quit smoking if there were not sitting close to a heavy smoker friend. They just couldn't say no every time someone asked them to go out for smoking. I think lack of smoking socially is a big driver here.
I stopped smoking real cigarettes 2 years ago when I started running but I continued to vape tobacco heating products (I don't think you even have them in USA, like IQOS).
They are much less toxic and if COVID didn't happen I could've easily continued smoking them for the rest of my life, since the negative effects are much much less then real cigarettes.
Only when I quit for COVID health reasons did I finally understand how addicted I was to nicotine for the last 13 years, since I was a teenager.
> know a few colleagues who could easily quit smoking if there were not sitting close to a heavy smoker friend. They just couldn't say no every time someone asked them to go out for smoking. I think lack of smoking socially is a big driver here.
Yeah, no, nope, no way. Nicotine addiction is the big driver, social smoking is just how you get hooked.
I used to smoke, about 4 years ago gave up almost completely. I never smoke (or drink) 99% of the time, but when I'm on holiday I always buy a pack of cigarettes and also I'll generally have a smoke and chat with my brother when he's over.
Of course it's better if I never smoke, but I don't personally have a problem with having cigarettes occasionally. I'm lucky in that I can smoke for a week and then get home from holiday and not be interested in smoking at all.
I was a very heavy smoker for 20 years. Having discussed the topic with many people, I firmly believe that nicotine addiction varies dramatically from person to person. Some people can smoke a few cigarettes a week for years on end without any major symptoms of addiction. Others, like me, can't even imagine going more than an hour without a cigarette. Sick? Who cares, I'll still smoke a pack and a half a day. So ill that every single drag of a cigarette burns my throat like fire? I'll take pain meds and use chloraseptic spray, but no way I'm going without my cigarettes. It's not even up for debate.
When I finally quit 3 years ago, cold turkey after some failed attempts years prior, it was a living hell. It wasn't until month six in that I finally felt the irritability and constant mental distractions finally fade. It was brutal. Longer and more depressing than even the worst case scenarios I had formulated in my head after heavy research.
These days, you'd have to beat me bloody before I'd concede to consume nicotine. Within inches of my life. I'd rather face a dozen novel hells before facing that well-trod hellscape another time.
Quitting smoking for heavy smokers is a big deal. Not a "14% more likely" to developed generic symptoms big deal, as the article suggest. In fact, I've read before that smokers are less likely to suffer severely from COVID-19, a fact that, true or not, is precisely the kind of fact an addict's brain is wired to cling on to. Even if smokers are "1.8 times more likely to die", do you have any idea how easy it is for an addict's mind to explain that away? Addicts do - it's insanely fucking easy!
Point being, I don't think the threat of COVID-19 can fully explain why so many people quit smoking in the UK. I'm sure it helped push a few people over the edge, and that's great. But my own intimate knowledge with addiction makes me wonder what else might be at play.
Perhaps the lockdowns elicited a powerful and much-needed jolt to the otherwise routine lives most of us live? Perhaps the time all alone, or in constant contact with loved ones, changed perspectives in a way that everyday life could not? Maybe some people who smoked only when away from the home, like many smokers I have known, were forced to more fully confront their addiction?
I can imagine a thousand reasons why our disrupted lives in 2020 might compel addicts to take on and succeed at the terrifying task of quitting. But the old excuse of "it is bad for your health" is very, very low on the list. That's the reason addicts are most skilled at ignoring! I find the other possibilities, specifically the wide-scale and unprecedented disruption of routine, much more plausible.
(NOTE: I wholeheartedly recommend he book 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking' by the late Allen Carr. It was a very helpful motivator when I quit smoking.)
I agree I don't think fear of COVID or anything else has dramatically changed the fear of health risks.
Much more beliavable explanation for me is massive change in daily habits. People being more forced being indoors, more limited access to stores, less social smoking like workplace and bars. And many more.
Pretty much this. I know plenty of people who successfully stopped during quarantine (including me), however started the first day everything came back to normal.
Without drastically changing yourself, most regular smokers will not quit it for good that easily.
Yes, addiction twists mind - smoking is not custom or habit, it is illness, addiction. Obvious only once quit. It is awful hard to look at the truth, the mind rationalizes action, constant stimuli reinforces it over years.
The they I've fought it - imagined addiction as white monkey sitting on the neck and driving with reins [1]. The question was "am I a slave? that's disgusting"
[1] description of heroin addict from The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
I smoked occassionally at parties in college. Then there was this week where I was at 4 parties or so and the following week I caught myself feeling that cigarette craving. That's when I stopped smoking at parties. I felt how soon that addictive habit can form.
Wilfully obtuse of the increasingly-shit BBC News to attribute this to CoViD and completely ignore the fact that a gigantic swathe of cigarette types were outright banned a month ago
Alas, the data pretty clearly shows that smoking has a surprisingly large protective effect against infection with Sars-CoV-2 - on the order of how well the flu vaccine protects against the flu!
This understandably has not been widely reported (it is a nightmare result for public health officials), but there are now dozens of studies showing the same effect and virtually every investigated country.
On the other hand, it appears that former smokers are at a slightly higher risk of developing severe symptoms (though that seems less clear than the protective effect of active daily smoking)
This means that if you are a somewhat older smoker (i. e. over 30 or so) you should probably hold off the quitting until a vaccine becomes available.
> The institute tested almost 700 teachers and pupils of a school in Crépy-en-Valois in one of the hardest-hit areas in France, as well as their families. The “highly accurate” tests found that only 7.2 per cent of smokers from among the adults tested were infected while four times as many non-smokers, some 28 per cent, were infected.
> “Thus, current smoking status appears to be a protective factor against the infection by SARS-CoV-2.”
i was a soft core smoker , smoked about 5-6 cigs a day.. But all changed 5 years back. All of a sudden i realized that smoking is not fun anymore, not sure what has gotten into me , but I luckily stopped smoking that day and my lungs (as per various researches) should be okish now..
Nicotine has also been said to help fight the disease. French doctors have been given patches. Some study apparently showing smokers are 80% less likely to develop severe symptoms.
I know how they feel. I have two cigars a year. Got stressed. Wanted a cigar. Half way through it I thought, “This diseases affects lungs.” Then I put out the cigar and continued my walk.
Cigar smoke isn't meant to be swallowed like in cigarettes. Most people inhale the cigar keep it in their mouth for a few seconds and then exhale. Either way good for you that you quit, even if it's just two cigars a year.
Some people inhale, most don't. People shouldn't, but you know an interesting factoid is that the average US woman will consume (eat) 4lbs of lipstick in her lifetime without intentionally doing so. So too, cigar smokers invariably will be inhaling more cigar smoke by virtue of being around it and having it in their mouth than someone not smoking a cigar. Is the amount material to your health? That's the gamble you get to decide on.
This article talks about how it's not 7lbs, it's only 3.7 pounds of exposure (risk of ingestion and absorption) based on estimates and shows their math.
I'm guilty of forwarding a tenuous idea by repeating the 4 pound statement and not explaining the assumptions, but hell, even if it's 1 pound it's still a hell of a lot more than I ever assumed, though keep in mind it's over a lifetime (seven-eight decades).
Point was simply that exposure == some fractional consumption. Smoking a cigar certainly is not healthier for your lungs than abstinence even if you don't deliberately inhale.
>>Cigar smoke isn't meant to be swallowed like in cigarettes. Most people inhale the cigar keep it in their mouth for a few seconds and then exhale.
So I'm not a smoker, but this is the second time I read/hear something like this. It almost sounds like you are saying that you can keep from inhaling the smoke into your lungs. I don't really buy that. If you inhale, my intuition tells me that it is going straight to your lungs no mater what.
It’s kind of difficult to explain without you doing it yourself. The closest I can think of, is the ability to suck liquid from a straw but hold the liquid in your mouth instead of inhaling and/or swallowing it, I guess.
I used to be a smoker and what I previously said holds true both for cigars and pipes. Off course no one's stopping you from swallowing the smoke if you so please, but the way of smoking cigars and pipes is to inhale without swallowing. The reason for doing that is because the amount of smoke produced from one cigar is at least ten times more than from one cigarette so if you swallow it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes. Plus the flavor is much much heavier.
As for the technique it's quite easy. Inhale, keep it in your mouth for as long as you please then exhale. Swallowing is a conscious effort so you can easily avoid it. Not that this won't cause you health issues though, from mouth cancers to poorly teeth health and what not.
You just kind of pull/draw on the cigar without inhaling to get the smoke in your mouth, then "exhale"/blow it out. You don't really inhale, if you're doing it "right"
As someone who doesn't smoke, how is it possible to get the smoke into your mouth but not your lungs? Doesn't inhaling the smoke into your mouth involve your lungs expanding to create the negative pressure difference? That seems like it would suck air into the entire respiratory system.
You draw it into your mouth similar to drawing liquid through a straw; once in your mouth you'd have to actively inhale through your mouth to draw it into your lungs
Velaric refers to another kind of airflow that is generated just within the oral cavity, and which doesn’t involve pulmonic airflow coming from the lungs. Instead it uses suction to create differentials in air pressure. Here’s how it works:
If you seal off air within some space, then increase the volume of that space – then the air pressure inside that space will decrease, and be less than the atmospheric pressure outside. If you then break the seal, air rushes in to equalise the pressure. The sudden equalisation of air pressure makes a short sharp noise.
The speech sounds made with this type of airstream are what we know as ‘clicks’.
There are two main ways that clicks can be formed: one seals the entire oral cavity, the other traps a small pocket of air against the roof of the mouth. We’ll call these ‘lip clicks’ and ‘tongue clicks’. Scroll down to explore each type separately.
There is also glottalic airflow:
Using the larynx to create an airstream. The larynx can bob up and down (you’ll have noticed this when you swallow). With a sealed oral cavity, bobbing the larynx down lowers air pressure and sucks air in. Sounds made this way are called ‘implosives’. Bobbing the larynx upwards increases air pressure and forces air out. Sounds made this way are called ‘ejectives’.
No myth buster needed, we can do that stuff with our mouth.
Learning Sanskrit is said to be structured in a way that we learn all the humanly possible pronounciations (i doubt that it really is fully complete).
A good introduction to phonetics is "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" by J.C. Catford. Totally recommended.
Getting an understanding of how we use voice was really enlightening.
I smoke cigars occasionally....I don't inhale any smoke. Before puffing I inhale a little air, close my throat, then pull the smoke into my mouth via suction on the cigar, then exhale to blow the smoke out of my mouth.
The previous straw analogy is accurate. It's the same effect with water via straw and smoke via cigar.
There's no proof of that. In fact there's still no proof to my knowledge that nicotine itself is harmful - to the contrary, it may have neuroprotective properties.
This comment is recklessly ignorant: within 24 hours after your last cigarette, there is already a significant difference in blood pressure, and within a month the lungs have already begun to heal. Within a year the lungs have healed substantially. After a year, a person's risk of having coronary artery disease is cut in half.
Smoking causes permanent damage, but spreading misinformation about "the damage already being done" is really unhelpful.
Not really. It's not like there's a certain amount of smoking you can do and then you max out on the damage you can do to yourself, and any smoking after that point is "free" in terms of health consequences. It's cumulative.
