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If you smoke until you're 30 and then quit; you'll live as long as never-smokers

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Reply 60
Original post by doggyfizzel
I posted it further up. I'm not debating its not criticisable, but you haven't criticised it, you have discounted it out of hand. When you are have looked and come back with a legitimate criticism of the methodology then fine, but the assumption a large long term study published in one of world most respected medial journals is probably wrong, becuase, is just silly.

If being in the 3% is a significant concern to you there are whole host of things which are going to be off limits in your life, such as living it cities, being slightly overweight, not having a perfectly balanced diet. Based on the 6% of deaths from heart disease at 20 you'd be better off taking up cycling than quitting smoking if avoiding death was your issue. You, I and most people do something that is going to increase our risk of death by 3% multiple times on a daily basis.


Ok, I had a brief look, and the first thing I personally can see is that the study is based on women.

1) On a minor note, women have a longer life expectancy & have lower incidence of Lung Cancer than men, which is a major factor/pathology when it comes to illness & smoking
2) Leading on to second criticism, as it was a women only study... it does not "Truly" represent the whole UK population, as point one clearly proves, men and women are different and I would bet my life that if a study was done on men; the results would be `significantly` higher (≥ 0.05 `p-value`or `5%` & over)

Just based on the 2 factors above, I can statistically the title stated is already incorrect - "If you smoke until you're 30 and then quit; you'll live as long as never-smokers" ... should be "If women smoke until they're 30 and then quit; there'll live as long as never-smoking women" as men where NOT factored into the study.

Another thing that was duly noted in the study, was that the study itself was limited to the UK only and thus:

Although the relative risks for the effects of prolonged smoking on particular diseases cannot be generalised exactly to populations with very different background rates of those diseases, they should be approximately generalisable to many (though not all) countries where women smoke.


Which is another possible limitation and again it could be questioned that it does not represent whole population worldwide...

Now, I have studied basic statistical analysis (to A level standard), and I have already found one or maybe two major bias in the study that is rather important when looking at the world population as a whole and apparently overlooked by 99% of people here.

Now, that took 10 minutes of skim reading... My point being one study no matter how big it is will always have major limitations and thus should not be perceived as conclusive or absolute just because one study says it is true, you do not know if any bias were added or deducted during statistical analysis or if their methodology was incorrect or again bias until more studies are conducted and the limitations & imperfections of the study are slowly weeded out over a period of time. If you look at the studies with smoking causing Cancer, Bronchitis, Asthma, Emphysema, Stroke, Fertility Issues, Coronary Heart Disease & Peripheral Arterial Disease, you would see LOTS AND LOTS of articles, not just one.

I'm going to stop posting now, simply because my point is made, and I do not wish for this topic to become heated or personal in anyway.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by $hadow
Ok, I had a brief look, and the first thing I personally can see is that the study is based on women.

1) On a minor note, women have a longer life expectancy & have lower incidence of Lung Cancer than men, which is a major factor/pathology when it comes to illness & smoking
2) Leading on to second criticism, as it was a women only study... it does not "Truly" represent the whole UK population, as point one clearly proves, men and women are different and I would bet my life that if a study was done on men; the results would be `significantly` higher (≥ 0.05 `p-value`or `5%` & over)

Just based on the 2 factors above, I can statistically the title stated is already incorrect - "If you smoke until you're 30 and then quit; you'll live as long as never-smokers" ... should be "If women smoke until you're 30 and then quit; there'll live as long as never-smoking women" as men where NOT factored into the study.

Another thing that was duly noted in the study, was that the study itself was limited to the UK only and thus:



Which is another possible limitation and again it could be questioned that it does not represent whole population worldwide...

Now, I have studied basic statistical analysis (to A level standard), and I have already found one or maybe two major bias in the study that is rather important when looking at the world population as a whole and apparently overlooked by 99% of people here.

Now, that took 10 minutes of skim reading... My point being one study no matter how big it is will always have major limitations and thus should not be perceived as conclusive or absolute just because one study says it is true, you do not know if any bias were added or deducted during statistical analysis or if their methodology was incorrect or again bias until more studies are conducted and the limitations & imperfections of the study are slowly weeded out over a period of time.
maskofsanity had already addressed this a few posts above yours and it was quoted in the article by the lead author. The results mirror those found for men, its a follow up study. Should have skim read a bit better. That is your first two points gone.

Why would we be concerned with result from outside the UK, we don't live there or are from there. This is a UK forum, its relevant to the UK. You are the only person to have mentioned worldwide. Finally the point you have quoted doesn't invalidate the study wrt to smoking, only wrt to the the diseases as the potential to develop them is not standard around the world without the smoking, so its not saying you seem to be thinking it says. The title of the thread has already been discussed as incorrect, its broadly correct but not quite what the study says btw.
Reply 62
Original post by doggyfizzel
maskofsanity had already addressed this a few posts above yours and it was quoted in the article by the lead author. The results mirror those found for men, its a follow up study. Should have skim read a bit better. That is your first two points gone.

Why would we be concerned with result from outside the UK, we don't live there or are from there. This is a UK forum, its relevant to the UK. You are the only person to have mentioned worldwide. Finally the point you have quoted doesn't invalidate the study wrt to smoking, only wrt to the the diseases as the potential to develop them is not standard around the world without the smoking, so its not saying you seem to be thinking it says. The title of the thread has already been discussed as incorrect, its broadly correct but not quite what the study says btw.


As I said, I'm not posting informational responses here anymore. I have PM'ed you with my response.
Original post by $hadow
As I said, I'm not posting informational responses here anymore. I have PM'ed you with my response.

$hadow


I won't post in the forum, as its clogging up the post.

These probabilities of female death before age 80 years in smokers and non-smokers are similar to the corresponding probabilities of male death before age 70 years for British doctors born in 1900—30.


Although the relative risks seem to be more extreme for women than for men, the eventual absolute excess risks seem similar for male and female smokers.


Statistically incorrect, as they do not correlate in the same time era (1900—30.) and there is no data presented on males anyway in the study that is up to date; these two quotes are 19 years old, from 1994... its what they an `outdated source`.

Additionally, there is no reference that I can see that this study is a follow-up from a male study, if there was, once again it was one study, not multiple... in other words... statistically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Well, thats your point of view... I personally care how relevent something is to the greater population as a whole; not just a minority; either way as a standalone study, international researchers would not accept it fully without testing it in their country of origin; as variables change from place to place, people to people and country to country.

You aren't clogging up the thread, that is point of the thread to discuss the study.

Its not statistically irrelevant. They needed to wait for death to occur you can't make an assumption on when someone will die while they are still alive. The result for women have only just come through due to the time at which women took up smoking on a scale large enough to study.

The study followed the first generation of women to start smoking during the 1950s and 60s. As women started smoking on a large scale much later than men, the impact of a lifetime of cigarettes has only just been analysed for women.


You are clutching at straws, there either isn't or has only been one major study into the effect of short term smoking in men? What do you think the lead researcher has been doing for the rest of his career, studying smoking in cats?
Sir Richard said that it was exactly the same picture as for men.
BBC article.

As for the final point, I addressed it and you seem to have ignored that. You cannot compare likelihood of death from lung cancer if the incident rate of lung cancer in the non smoker if different. However unless the country in question had a lower incident rate of lung cancer in the normal population than the UK the result would still hold or even be improved. Its doesn't change the validity of the study.

I might also add, you've deviated significantly from your original position. Arguing that the study isn't 100% without any statistical variation doesn't make your original point correct.

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