Things you didn’t know about smoking. Part 1

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study adds to the previously reported evidence that cigarette smoking protects against Parkinson's disease. Specifically, the new research shows a temporal relationship between smoking and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. That is, the protective effect wanes after smokers quit.

"It is not our intent to promote smoking as a protective measure against Parkinson's disease," Evan L. Thacker from Harvard School of Public Health emphasized in comments to Reuters Health. "Obviously smoking has a multitude of negative consequences. Rather, we did this study to try to encourage other scientists...to consider the possibility that neuroprotective chemicals may be present in tobacco leaves."

As reported in the March 6th issue of Neurology, Thacker and colleagues analyzed data, including detailed lifetime smoking histories, from 79,977 women and 63,348 men participating in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. During about 9 years of follow-up, 413 subjects developed definite or probable Parkinson's disease.

Compared to people who had never smoked and were considered to have "normal" Parkinson's disease risk, former smokers had a 22-percent lower risk of Parkinson's disease and current smokers had a 73-percent lower risk.

"The results were similar for men and women, and were also similar to the results of studies by many other researchers looking at the same topic," Thacker noted.

In former smokers, more years of smoking, fewer years since quitting, more cigarettes per day, and a higher total amount of lifetime smoking were all related to a lower Parkinson's disease risk. The researchers also found that the duration of smoking and the time since quitting influenced risk more than the average daily amount of smoking.

"A 30 percent to 60 percent decreased risk of Parkinson's disease was apparent for smoking as early as 15 to 24 years before symptom onset, but not for smoking 25 or more years before onset," the investigators report.

"The results of our study," Thacker said, "can probably be explained by something in cigarettes -- most likely in the tobacco itself -- actually protecting people against getting Parkinson's disease. That would be the simplest explanation that makes the most sense."

Studies to determine if, in fact, there are neuroprotective compounds in tobacco are warranted, the researchers say. "The observation that smokeless tobacco users also have a lower risk of Parkinson's disease suggests that the most likely candidates are not compounds generated by combustion, but rather constituents of the tobacco leaves."

Just a thought

I was just thinking about my time in a para military organisation. (I can’t tell you which, otherwise I’d have to shoot this blog).

It was a while ago and my ship was out in Angola as part of the peace keeping mission at the time.

We’d been sent down  to provide early support for a composite battalion of the British Army, to assist in a settlement of power in the country.

Well I usually keep my head down, and don’t volunteer for anything that might curtail my sojourn in the Officers bar and consequentially was distressed to be summoned to the Captains cabin at short notice, with no idea why.

Conversation goes like this.

Captain: FE. I want you to liaise with the Royal Engineers.

FE: Wouldn’t  another younger, keener, promotion seeking engineer, be a better choice. (FE remembers his time carrying out Hurricane relief. FE’s bar time was severely curtailed).

Captain:  No FE, you’re the man for the job (Add your own claptrap puff piece if you wish), so I’ve nominated you.

FE: Yes Sir. (Under breath remark. You Cunt)

Captain: You’ve full authority.

And here’s the rub. I actually fitted in well with the Royal Engineers that I was liaising with. Being a Marine engineer who has to adapt to any problem, I found kindred spirits in theatre. I was amongst people who used the information available to them and made things happen.

And they taught me all sorts of useful skills.

1. Very important. How to use and strip an SA80 assault rifle.

2. JCB operation.

3. How to use and strip an AK47 assault rifle. (In case I lost the SA80).

4. How to build a bar out of an old container in one day.

5. How to make safe an anti-personnel mine. (Done with some trepidation on my part).

6. How to defuse a BOMB.

7. Too old. Can’t remember 7. Oh yes, it’s coming back to me. The safe way of blowing a door off.

Of course the only really useful one in the UK is number 3. You never know when you might have to prize a cash machine out of a wall.*

*To the Plod. That was a joke.

Junk science and the BBC

There’s a good article over in the Telegraph written by James Delingpole on his blog. In it he commends a letter to the BBC from Andrew Montford of Bishop Hill blog, and Tony Newbery of the Harmless Sky blog. They have submitted a damning document questioning how the BBC’s position on climate change came about
Delingpoles blog in support of their letter is worth a read.

More anti-smoking Miscellany

I thought the last post of mine was daft, concerning that fact that pregnant mums who smoked were likely to give birth to criminals.

Now “experts” believe that second hand smoke makes you deaf. Well it didn’t affect my kids. They can hear my wallet open from 300 miles.

People who are exposed to the second-hand smoke from others' cigarettes are at increased risk of hearing loss, experts believe.

Doctors already know that people who smoke can damage their hearing.

The latest study in the journal Tobacco Control, involving more than 3,000 US adults, suggests the same is true of passive smoking. (Emphasis mine)

Of course it is the usual culprits who are spouting this drivel. Tobbacco Control. As is usual in the above quoted paragraph, they come out with the weasel words, believe and suggests. In other words hypothesis and not proof.

And they continue

This revealed that people exposed to second-hand smoke were far more likely to have poorer hearing than others, and to a degree where they might struggle to follow a conversation in the presence of background noise.

Now. I’ve been smoking for over forty years, and a fair bit of that time worked in Engine rooms where the levels of noise are extreme. How come my hearing is not reduced to nothing then?

And they finish with this.

"Before you next light up a cigarette, consider how it could impact not only on your own long-term hearing but your friends' and relatives' too."

And I’ll finish with this you miserable control freaks. Just Bugger off.

On a final note, the pic accompanying the article is this.

Please will someone help the poor little Cheeeeldren?

My wife has driven my kids to a life of crime.

If you can belief the latest nonsense from the Healthists.

Children  whose mothers smoked heavily during pregnancy are more likely to become career criminals, research suggests.

Well my wife smoked during two of her pregnancies, and neither offspring have a tendency to carry out a bank robbery or even indulge in the odd shoplift or two. (Then again, maybe they’re too clever to be caught).

Children whose mothers smoked heavily were 31 per cent more likely to have been arrested than those whose mothers never smoked.

They were also more likely to be repeat offenders. The increased crime risk is found among children whose mothers had 20 or more cigarettes a day when pregnant, according to the report by Harvard School of Public Health in the US.

I can’t even get angry at this piece of shite. In fact I even had a little giggle. Think of the Cheeeldren.

*Hey Kids. If you have a stash of gold bars anywhere. Could your destitute father have a bar or two?*

I’ve found OBO

So that’s where he went t0.

Everything you need to know about global warming in the UK but were afraid to ask

I was just reminded of this video by The Englishman. So I thought I’d repost it.

War & Remembrance

I hope you’ll forgive me for not having an outpouring of  sentimentality on the issue.

Because I’ve been there.

War is the most ugliest and horrifying thing you could experience in life. Nothing prepares you for the sheer horror and terror that happens around you. Forget the films you have seen, where the soldier lies dying in the arms of one of his mates and gently slips away. I can’t even dare picture the sights I have seen less narrate them here.

We all go cuddly at this time of year and buy a poppy and bend our heads in two minutes of silence.

What we all should be doing, is doing our best to support our veterans, and our currently serving serviceman, for the whole year. Not remember them for one day. Think about them every day.

Storage

It makes me wonder how duped our political class are when it comes to renewable energy. They keep banging on that it is needed to sustain our way of life,  rather than that nasty CO2 producing conventional power station.

Well, tonight my Bird Mincer Wind turbine (I haven’t really got one. I’m not a brainwashed, green, cretin), would be producing sweet fuck all, as there is not a breath of wind here in deepest darkest Kent.

However on Thursday and Friday there was oodles of wind. Enough to power The large Hadron collider barely my lighting if I had a commercially bought, private property device.

But to cut to the chase. Even supposing I had a turbine that could produce three times my consumption, how would I store the surplus? Well I could invest in a transformer and go and get dozens of batteries from Halfords, (Halfords, if you’re reading this, the free plug here, is worth a few quid for my help with your sales) or I could build a heat sink in the garden and recover the energy by a heat pump system.

The trouble with this strategy is, it is cost prohibitive to the lay person.

And of course, it will be to the national projects as well.

It’s different in places such as Norway, where they can use the energy produced to pump water up to high level reservoir to be used to generate hydro-electric power when the wind ceases to blow.

So if we go down the road of having 20% of our energy from renewables in the future. Where is 20% of the energy tonight going to come from?

Links to previous ramblings on this subject can be found here

Don’t mess with the military

 

The Woman Marine  Pilot

  The teacher gave  her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell  them a story with a moral at the end of it.  The next  day, the kids came back and, one by one, began to tell their  stories.

There were all  the regular types of stuff: spilled milk and pennies  saved.  But then the teacher realized, much to her  dismay, that only Janie was left.

  “Janie, do you  have a story to share?'

  ''Yes  ma'am.  My daddy told me a story about my Mom. She was  a Marine pilot in Desert Storm, and her plane got hit.   She had to bail out over enemy territory, and all she had was  a flask of whiskey, a pistol, and a survival knife.  
  She drank the  whiskey on the way down so the bottle wouldn't break, and then  her parachute landed her right in the middle of 20 Iraqi  troops. She shot 15 of them with the pistol, until she ran out  of bullets, killed four more with the knife, till the blade  broke, and then she killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands.  
  ''Good Heavens,'  said the horrified teacher.  'What did your Daddy tell  you was the moral to this horrible story?

 

"Don't mess  with Mommy when she's been  drinking."