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?

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    If it was R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Philip Morris they would prepend that statement with

    “A federal court has ordered Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reyolds Tobacco to state:”

    I laugh every time I see that weak ass statement displayed in convenience stores.

  • stoly@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 months ago

    It references general body health and the sorts of things that make you age and die. Heart health, lung condition, oral health, stroke risk, skin quality, etc. All of that stuff is affected negatively by smoking. Stopping nearly instantly makes these things better, and they improve over time. So basically if you stop smoking, any way you could die of natural causes drops.

  • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I guess we could compare it to ageing. People clearly get more fragile when they get older, and more likely to die from all causes. The common flu or falling in the stairs suddenly pose huge risks once you’re 90.

    Smoking has a similar effect on you as ageing, except that it’s reversible.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    61·
    2 months ago

    Basically yeah, obviously no. Cause of death isn’t broken down nearly as far as people think it is. You can check it out on the CDC’s Web portal. So while you can get the results for motor vehicle accidents, you may not get the results for motor vehicle versus pedestrian.

    So all they’re actually claiming is that in the statistics, people who quit smoking are less represented in every category.

  • randomsnark@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    It means the overall death rate in the sample group was decreased substantially. The number of people who survived because they didn’t get lung cancer or blood clots was so large that it had a noticeable impact on the number of total survivors, even when you include death by bus. This is a useful measure for a couple of reasons. One, it accounts for the prevalence of the disease being prevented - cutting all pork from your diet prevents 100% of deaths by trichinosis, which accounts for like 0.00001% of deaths from all causes (completely made up numbers and example, without consulting any sources). Two, it could account for net change in survival, for a treatment or behavior that has both positive and negative effects - giving radiation therapy indiscriminately to everyone with any kind of lump might decrease rate of dying from breast cancer, but increase death “from all causes” because it causes more problems than it solves.

    I guess an additional way it might be useful is if we don’t yet have data on the exact mechanisms by which the treatment helps or what exactly its preventing - all we know is that we gave group A the treatment and not group B, and after 20 years there were a lot more people alive in group A, but we haven’t yet found a pattern in which causes of death were most affected and how.

    • Kintarian@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      2 months ago

      Thanks. I kind of feel like they should say dying from all diseases. What do I know. I’m not a scientist.

      • WHYAREWEALLCAPS@fedia.io
        3·
        2 months ago

        My wife has stage 4 colon cancer. One thing people who don’t know some who has had cancer don’t understand is that you can have it for a long time before it becomes so obvious that you have it. So while she has been far more susceptible to diseases before we figured it out, she found out because she went into the first stage of sepsis due to a necrotic tumor in her uterus that got infected. Sepsis isn’t a disease, it’s condition. Any infection can cause sepsis so it isn’t a symptom but something caused by the symptoms, an add on effect, if you will. If not treated in time, you die of septic shock. Again, septic shock isn’t a disease but a condition brought on by a disease. So no, dying from all diseases does not cover everything that you can die from that cancer or emphysema or COPD can have an effect on. In my wife’s case, had we waited 24 hours more, she would have likely died because her organs would have started failing due to acidosis. Again, not a disease, a condition. Even if they had been able to treat her in time, her cancer would have likely made their treatments less effective than as they would have been for someone without cancer.

        Let me try to put it in better terms. A disease can create a condition which can have a negative effect on the body. This condition is not necessarily solely caused by that disease, so it isn’t a symptom. This condition, like acidosis of the blood, can then go on to create further problems, like organ failures, which you can die of. So in this example, the cause of death is organ failure, not acidosis, not the disease. and not the cancer. Without the cancer, the disease might not have spread as fast or happened at all. And thus, quitting smoking improves your chances of not dying from all causes, not just all diseases.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
        4·
        2 months ago

        If your body is dealing with the effects of decades of smoking, it will be less effective at healing you from all ailments (including being hit by a bus), not just diseases.

      • boogetyboo@aussie.zone
        21·
        2 months ago

        Wounds heal poorly for smokers. People who smoke after getting a tooth extraction can get dry socket.

        I know someone who ate some rancid food, and was subsequently very, very unwell because they literally couldn’t taste or smell that it was off.

        It affects your cardiovascular health so good luck outrunning danger.

        Everything is worse if you smoke, in real time and in terms of what it does to your body’s ability to heal or respond to trauma.

        Don’t smoke. And if you do, try and quit.

  • ngwoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    It means your life expectancy immediately increases. There are some things that, depending on your age, improving won’t improve life expectancy. ie, a 99 year old doing something that reduces their risk of colon cancer but nothing else will not reduce their chances of dying because something else will kill them first with 100% certainty.

    Quitting smoking decreases risk of death for absolutely everyone in every circumstance

  • norimee@lemmy.world
    2631·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
      29·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • philpo@feddit.orgDeutsch
      16·
      2 months ago

      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)

      • Jojo, Lady of the West@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        2 months ago

        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.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    122·
    2 months ago

    Let’s say you’re a smoker and your workplace says you have to go outside to smoke.

    It’s the middle of November, it’s cold, it’s rainy, you’re outside smoking and get pneumonia.

    Your lungs are already weak from smoking and the pneumonia kills you.

    If you quit smoking, you would have been inside, dry, safe, less likely to contract pneumonia and less likely to die from it if you get it.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    2 months ago

    Smoking makes you more visible because of the trail of smoke giving away your location - cessation makes it harder for cars to hunt you down and run you over.

    Less sarcastically it’s a way of saying that your overall life expectancy is increasing as it decreases the probability that you’d die from a pretty wide array of causes… that bus is going to hit you regardless of how much you smoke but it’s less likely something else kills you first.

    • Kintarian@lemmy.worldOP
      4·
      2 months ago

      That explains why I keep getting shot while smoking in my fox hole. The enemy can see my smoke rings like a target.