Smoking is one of those harmful activities where state has some incentives to not be too proactive in preventing people from doing it. Eases a lot of social security costs down the line (vs cancer treatments, but many go out quickly via heart attack or stroke, just like my uncle did).
Quickest fix would be total ban (with addicts moving en masse to black market). Not practically possible in regular democracies.
Its up to people themselves for the most effective care. Easy talk about addiction which is ranked around cca heroin addiction in terms of how difficult it is to shed it. One always pays for one's mistakes, here its actually the offsprings...
I think this needs to factor in cultural attitudes toward smoking. It varies based on the location, but in my experience generally smoking is more widespread among lower income people, especially if their kids are smoking. And so I question whether the shorter lifespan is more reflective of less access to healthcare, good food, etc. more broadly.
Wow, that’s really eye-opening. It’s one thing to know smoking harms your own health, but realizing it could affect your future children at a biological level adds a whole new layer. The idea that habits formed as a teenager can leave such a lasting legacy is honestly a bit scary. Just more reason we need to keep pushing awareness and prevention, especially for young people.
I'm sure "smoking" here is a proxy for something else that provokes substance abuse. Cigarettes are surely easier to see than psychological conditions.
Or.... smoking may be indicative of people from poorer backgrounds, where health is generally lower. (cant say for sure, but thats the case where I am from)
I can confirm I was too smart for my age in my teens. And to make growing up even faster I smoked as well. Good times, kids these days have to vape as cigarettes are too expensive, not to mention cheap synth drugs.
The times were simpler, it’ll be much harder to do a similar study in the future due to the proliferation of new carcinogenic substances in food, drugs, drinks, etc. All in all we are healthier anyway.
Smoking in puberty is an obvious signal of many other malign traits: low socio- educational-economic level, violence, mental disease, besides of possible harm to their sperm.
Many confounders that are difficult to include.
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[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 22.6 ms ] threadQuickest fix would be total ban (with addicts moving en masse to black market). Not practically possible in regular democracies.
Its up to people themselves for the most effective care. Easy talk about addiction which is ranked around cca heroin addiction in terms of how difficult it is to shed it. One always pays for one's mistakes, here its actually the offsprings...
My hunch is many people smoke because of stress, same stress from socioeconomic situation may age someone outta stress?
Now if you adopt a kid from such family into low stress enviornment and they still age, now that's better link.
My dad however probably has been smoking since he was 18 so I don't know what good that does me besides the second hand smoke I had to endure.
Statistics 101: Correlation is not causation.
The times were simpler, it’ll be much harder to do a similar study in the future due to the proliferation of new carcinogenic substances in food, drugs, drinks, etc. All in all we are healthier anyway.