Passive smoking kills my will to live

[Christina96]

Heya, my name is Kristina, 17 years old and from Sweden. For as long as I can remember I've been extremely afraid of getting diseases like cancer or HIV. I have never got diagnosed with anything but here's some examples, I never touch door handles on toilets because I'm afraid of STDs, I know it's not even logical but I seriously can't help it.

Another example, I don't eat anything produced outside the north, (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) because I'm afraid of eating some weird chemicals that are allowed in other countries and then get cancer from it, I know it's really dumb but I can once again not help it, and I hate it.

Know you know a bit who I am, I'll tell you about my latest problem now. Here in Sweden we have a lot of parties when you get out of school at the summer and there's a lot of parties outdoors in gardens and forests. So last week I was on a party located in my friends garden, the place was crowded and it's really popular (for some reason) to smoke cigars. Almost everyone except me and my closest friends smoked and you could really smell the smoke in the air.

This had happened once before but that was in my friends car, I was in the car with all open windows for like 40 minutes.

I was really drunk by that time and didn't think about the smoke, I stayed for like one hour and a half then left. The following days I didn't think of it so much but it always keep me awake at the nights, the though that I will get lung cancer.

But yes I know this is dumb to think like this, people smoke multiple packages of cigarettes a day, this passive smoking I did is nothing compared to that. But for me it isn't so easy to think like that. All the anti-smoke propaganda here in Sweden telling smoking kills both the smoker and the people around him makes me get panic, and everyone in my family that always telling me smoking kills just makes me get even more panic.

I always thinking about living a long and healthy life, I train a lot (like running and gym) and eat healthy but these things about the passive smoking I've done makes me feel dirty and not able to live a long life, it feels like that I've ruined my future and there is no idea to aim for a long life because I'm already infected by the smoke. You might maybe think this sounds really stupid but I don't have any will to live if I'm going to die early in cancer, this makes me so sad and all I want to do is just lay down and be sad.

[Stormsky]

We don't know if we going to get cancer or any other disease ... We can only live the healthiest we can.. No point in worrying ' what if' all the time...there's no test you can take to say if you'll get cancer later down the line in life, so don't spend time worrying... Stress isn't good for the body either !

[Pseudonym]

Hi Kristina, sounds like you're having a hard time of it. I don't have the answers, but I do understand. And I do not think you are stupid or dumb to feel a certain way. Feelings are not the kinds of things that can be stupid or clever or right or wrong.

[Christina96]

Didn't sleep for the whole night because of this last night. My dad caught me watching TV around 4 o'clock this morning and asked me what I was doing and then I couldn't help it and started to cry and told him about the situation. I guess he calmed me a bit when he told me that lung cancer takes years of smoking multiple cigarettes a day to develop. But he's not a doctor just a construction site worker so I don't know if I can trust him. I hope this night won't be as bad as the last one...

[bibliophilic]

Secondhand smoke is scary. Public knowledge of it here in the US is pretty nil but new campaigns are starting. It's rough because not only does smoke give me headaches and mess with my bronchitis, but it is dangerous. I've read so many studies saying that it's worse than firsthand smoking. But if it's any consolation, you'd have to breathe in a lot of it, like live with a smoker for years, I'm pretty sure, for it to cause any major damage. Otherwise it's "just" bronchitis and such.
But the world is a scary place--I'm sure that the pollution from cars and factories isn't good for us, either. Best to not focus on it and try to move past. Or find a deserted island and just deal with wild animals. Which sounds scarier now?

[unsure_about_this]

Hi

For my age of 29 I have worried so much about the big c word and a lot of other disease.

I also been like this for the last year, with another worry (bowel cancer etc) thankfully everything is okay

I also worry about passive smoking a lot, my Dad smokes. we don't see his side of the family often but all smoke apart from some of my cousins (not older enough). Its worst when I am out I see a lot of people smoking these days, I dare not say anything about breathing in smoke.

I am trying to stay more calm now, otherwise I will worry about lung cancer, which I have done.

Not Google since Monday and not been on any cancer sites.

[MichaelJMcFadden]

Christina, to echo several other folks, I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV! However, I have written two very serious books with over a thousand citations about antismoking campaigns, the science behind them, and their exaggerations and their harms.

You are an example of one of their harms, and I've seen many, MANY others.

First, it might help you to have your "risk" put into some perspective. You were being exposed to smoke outside, and even though it may have seemed like a crowded party with "everyone" smoking cigars, the concentration of smoke in the air was probably far, far less than inside an office/workplace/bar/restaurant with primitive ventilation systems and full of smokers back in the 1940s through 1970s. Your exposure was likely at a level of about one tenth of that, and if you were there for an hour and a half, that would be about 1/5th of a standard workday.

So your exposure amounted to about 1/50th of what a worker would have received in a standard day at work back in those years. Now, you may wonder why I'm focused on that time period. It's because I'm going to use the figures from one of the most widely accepted antismoking reports, the 1992 EPA Report that examined lung cancer in nonsmokers and, taking cancer's time lag into account, basically looked at lifetime workplace exposures in that time frame.

The EPA found that nonsmokers exposed to a lifetime of workplace smoke had a 19% increase in lifetime lung cancer. That's probably the sort of figure you've heard repeatedly throughout your teen years. It's only half true though: it leaves out the very important question of "A 19% increase over WHAT?" The "What" is about 00.4% (four tenths of one percent) lifetime occurrence of lung cancer in nonsmokers. That's four cancers out of 1,000 nonsmoking workers in nonsmoking workplaces. Nonsmokers working for forty years for forty hours a week in the the smoking workplaces experienced 1 extra lung cancer per thousand (a 19% increase over 4).

That's one extra lung cancer for every 40,000 worker-years of exposure.

You didn't have a worker-year (roughly 300 days) of exposure though. You had 1/50th of a worker-day's worth, or about 1/15,000th of a worker year. Comparing that to 40 worker years, you had about 1/600,000th of the exposure that would give you 1 chance in a thousand of getting smoke-caused lung cancer. I.E. If you believe the antismoking EPA Report, you have about one chance in 600,000,000 of someday getting lung cancer from that exposure.

If that's not enough to reassure you, let me add one more note: the EPA Report was NOT able to get that figure (the 19% of 00.4%) using normal scientific standards. They had to perform two very nonscientific tricks even to be able to make that very weak claim. (1) They excluded a some important research that would have totally invalidated their findings; and (2) even with that exclusion, the only way they got their conclusion was by ignoring the normal 95% standard for epidemiological findings and using the much weaker 90% standard.

So instead of slightly less than one chance in 600 million of someday getting lung cancer from that party, your real chances are a LOT less... about as close to zero as it's possible to get.

Sooo... hopefully that will help reassure you and anyone else with similar worries over small smoke exposures reading this. From what I've seen on the Internet over the years there are a LOT of people suffering very badly from emotional, social, and familial distress over these sorts of drummed up fears in the "War On Smoking."

- MJM, not a doctor, and with a definite strong opinion (as you can clearly see) in this area; but my facts are accurate, their presentation is honest, I'm a real person and I've never gotten a cent from Big Tobacco or Big Pharma or Big Vaping etc.


---------- Post added at 05:58 ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 ----------

Secondhand smoke is scary... I've read so many studies saying that it's worse than firsthand smoking.

Biblio, as was the case with the 19% figure I explained to Christina, you've been lied to by being given only a partial piece of information. Secondhand smoke IS "worse than firsthand smoking" ... but ONLY if you hold the burning end of a cigarette about an inch under your nose and then breathe in deeply.

Even most die-hard smokers try to avoid doing that -- even the ones you see holding the cigarette in their mouths.

The true part of the statement is that the chemical make up and concentration of the smoke coming off that lit end is going to be "worse" than the smoke that is "filtered" through the length of a cigarette being smoked, and MUCH worse than the smoke that a smoker exhales.

But in an average decently ventilated indoor environment equivalent to a restaurant or an average bar, you're likely breathing smoke at somewhere around 1/1,000th to 1/100,000th that concentration.

So no, despite the propaganda sound bites based on partial reporting of the above, "Secondhand smoking" is *NOT* "worse than firsthand smoking."

- MJM, who likes his smoke firsthand anyway...

[DrG00GLE]

Secondhand smoking is literally nothing. Everyone is exposed to harmful chemicals even though they don't know it. Cancer from smoking is caused by way more than just one or two times. More like 300-400. No need to worry. However, cancer is nothing to throw off. If you want you can get tested for lung cancer or whatever for a few years and you should be fine. Also, living a healthy life is MOST IMPORTANT. Eat healthy and exercise and your body with stay in homeostasis.