How dangerous is smoking a little bit?

I meant to post this a few months ago. One of the definitive studies on cigarette-smoking related mortality is the British Doctors Study i.e. <a href="http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15213107">Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on male British doctors</a> (referred above) In that study, mortality impact is assessed for those who are non-smokers, continuing smokers and those who stopped smoking. Consumption patterns and duration were noted. <a href="http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=437139&rendertype=figure&id=fig4">Figure 4</a> below is the money shot, so to speak. Those who stopped between the ages of 25-34 has consumed an average of 65,000 cigarettes (mean starting age=18, mean daily consumption=15*) and had no excess mortality. Those who stopped between the ages of 35-44 has consumed an average of 120,000 cigarettes (same mean starting age & daily consumption) and "avoided most of the excess ...  more

I just quit smoking - never had more than 2 a day and frequently went several days in between smokes - due to high blood pressure. I kid you not, it went down SIGNIFICANTLY within a month of quitting, no other changes in my behavior at all. So yeah, smoking just a little really can mess you up.  more

I was blown away when a friend of mine recounted a story to me once. My friend, while riding the bus one day, noticed one of those ads that UPenn puts up to advertise medical studies. This particular one wanted light to moderate smokers to participate in a medium-term study (three years or something) to gauge the effects of said amounts of smoke intake on people's health. They offered to pay some honorarium while they did the battery of initial tests. So, he calls up the folks at UPenn and says he's interested. They take down some demographic stuff, and then ask him how much he smokes. He tells them, "Around a pack a day, give or take one or two." The nice young lady on the other end of the line replies, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sir. The study is only for light to moderate smokers. Thank you for your interest, but we can't fit you into our study. Have a good day." "Wait a moment," my friend says, "What is the cutoff for number of cigarettes?" "Well, we consider 1-2 cigarettes a day a ...  more

tcskpetic: Yeah, you're right: I was being a bit judgmental. I apologize. I guess what struck me was that you seemed interested in the health risks of smoking, but not that interested, which is an odd sort of stance to take. Many of my friends are or have been smokers, and the lengths they've gone to in order to rationalize their smoking (I only smoke on weekends; I never buy my own cigs; I only smoke when I drink) never fail(s/ed) to impress/baffle me. To me, five cigarettes a day is not "a little." Obviously, you know smoking is bad for you - otherwise you wouldn't've asked this question. You also already more or less knew the answer: smoking less is not as bad for you as smoking more, but it's still fairly bad for you. I guess it just sounded to me like what you were really asking was, "How can I quit?" I may be - and probably am - totally off base here, and I admit it may be partly selfish: I find cigarettes repulsive. One less smoker in the world means that the chance of my ...  more

Most things in life and on this Earth are good in moderation. Smoking is not one of them. You do not have the slightest clue how your body will react to the amount of smoke you take in.  more

Risk comparisons are notoriously difficult to make, especially for risks that are fairly low. I was once giving a lecture on the risk of contracting AIDS from visiting an HIV-infected dentist, and looking for comparable risks (in terms of epidemiology) were eating a peanut butter sandwich every day (aflotoxin), living in NYC for a year (pollution), and living near a nuclear power plant. Our psychology interprets risk in a very multi-dimensional way, including all kinds of factors that don't relate to the actual risks. For example, you probably underestimate the risks of cigarette smoking, because you believe you can stop when you want, and you believe that the bad outcome is far enough off that it's hard to believe it will really occur (compared to the reward which occurs immediately). <a href="http://www.decisionresearch.org/">Paul Slovic</a> is a very readable and excellent author about these issues. There is no question that smoking is related to all kinds of bad health outcomes. ...  more

Medel (and OP) — I've had a lot of doctor's visits lately because I'm getting middle-aged and my health isn't what I'd like. One of the possible contributing factors is my two-three pipes per month habit. I voiced this concern to my doctor. For what it's worth, he actually laughed and then told me that a pipe a week was nothing to worry about. Five cigarettes a day, on the other hand, is not light smoking. It's 35x the amount I smoke, and my doctor may have cautioned me if my habit were at that level.  more

Also, remember, it's not like Smoking takes a specific amount of time off your life. You're simply increasing the probability of a horrendous, painful, early demise. That when averaged out over several thousand people will result in one year less of life. Some will live to ripe old age, and some will die of Lung cancer. You can also get a raft of nasty diseases, although you will lower your risk for alzheimer's, but you can do that with Caffeine.  more

I'm willing to bet with that "few" you'll die only 1 year early. Also consider that lung cancer - though you're in no way guaranteed to get it, you're at a much higher risk even just smoking a pack a week - is not a pleasant way to die. You may quantitatively only lose a year off your life, but if you wind up spending your last 5 years in and out of chemo, your life will also have been much worse qualitatively.  more

Well smoking less is less risky than smoking more. And someone will probably find a study with a nice regression formula you can use to calculate the risk based no how much you smoke. I would say that you smoke more than "a little bit" if you smoke daily. When you get that regression formula, calculate your risk, and then don't forget to add all the associated risks, not just the risk directly caused by inhaling toxic chemicals at the rates you do. For example smoking 5 cigarettes a day increases the probability that you'll at some point be smoking more. So figure if smoking a pack a day reduces your average life span by 5 years. Then figure that smoking 5 cigs a day increases your risk of eventually smoking a pack a day by 3 percent (i assume the increased risk isn't high since it sounds like you've been at that level for some time). Then in addition to the effects of the smoking you actually do, there's a 3 percent chance you'll decrease your lifespan by 5 years (so expected value ...  more