Smoking is as harmless as these five things...

5 little-known things that are just deadly as smoking, according to science

If you've got things to be getting on with and don't really have the time to be reading another pile of anti smoking wibble, I'll give you the nutshell version: The five things are all relatively harmless (meaning smoking must also be relatively harmless, right?) and there is no science in this article what so ever

If you fancy a laugh though, read on

Cigarette smoking, one of the least healthy habits out there, is quickly disappearing in the United States. (BtM - Still applies to UK)
However, there are a number of risk factors taking its place, [...]
As smoking makes its exit in the US, here are the risk factors science says to keep an eye on.

If I was a cynical man (which I suppose I am), I would suggest that as smoking rates decline, hideous anti smoking campaigners and the like, need other excuses to bully people so they can keep stuffing their trousers with taxpayer cash. As a result, we all slowly become smokers

Loneliness

The growth of social media and waning in-person contact has led Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to label loneliness a worldwide epidemic. And it could be lethal.
Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, has found in her research that loneliness reduces people's life spans by the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Where to start? Smoking is supposed to cause every disease under the sun, including over a hundred thousand forms of cancer. Is only having friends on Facebook and not in real life, that dangerous?

Smoking just one cigarette is supposed to be dangerous according to the anti smoking whack-a-moles, so is smoking 15 cigarettes more dangerous than that? And is smoking 20 cigarettes more dangerous than 15?

And I love the way all these modern, non-communicable 'diseases', are now referred to as epidemics
Loneliness is not likely to have the same affects as we're told smoking does, but real loneliness can be quite nasty, particularly for the old. You know what causes that kind of loneliness? Throwing old folks out of the clubs and bingo halls and closing them down. Why? Because of the smoking ban

So it's probably fairer to say that loneliness is just as deadly as anti smoking

Sitting

Sitting all day increases risk for a raft of different cancers, a 2014 study found.
Researchers included in their meta-analyses -- the gold-standard for research -- data from four million people involving how often they sat to watch TV, do work, and commute.
Each two-hour increase in sitting time upped people's risks for colon, endometrial, and lung cancers, regardless of whether they still exercised during the day.

Ooh, cancers. If we keep crying wolf like this, people are no longer going to be scared of cancer. When we finally attribute absolutely everything to causing cancer, we may as well smoke and inject asbestos

Did anyone else laugh out load when they read, 'meta-analyses -- the gold-standard for research'? I laughed so hard, a little pee came out

So sitting causes cancer even if you exercise too? So what are we supposed to do? Spend all day exercising and standing? Does lying also cause cancer? If not, I may just stay in bed all day. Safer

A lot of smokers probably spend all their evenings and weekends sitting around at home. They won't be going out to pubs, cafes and restaurants any more, it's far better to stay home and drink beer or coffee or cook food. All the smokers that stopped socialising after the smoking ban (many of whom became lonely - see above), will now be spending a lot more time sitting around at home.

So I think it's safe to say, sitting is just as deadly as anti smoking

Sleep loss

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called sleep deprivation a public health problem, [...]
Professor Valery Gafarov, of the World Health Organization, noted in 2015 that insufficient sleep raises the risk of stroke and heart attack to similar degrees as regular cigarette use.

Anyone spotting a pattern here? We're told these five things are just as deadly as smoking. What they are actually saying, is that these things cause deaths at a similar rate to smoking. So why did they use smoking as a benchmark when car accidents or medical negligence would probably have done just as well? More scary? More people scared of a bit of burning leaf than getting MRSA in an NHS hospital? Probably

I find that I sleep much better when I'm relaxed and not stressed. I don't think anyone would correct me for saying it's probably the same for most people

Bullied, harassed and denormalised people, who have been thrown out of polite society and are now rather lonely and stuck on their own couch, are probably not all that relaxed. They're probably very stressed and probably losing a lot of sleep

So I think it's not beyond the realms of possibility that sleep loss is just as deadly as anti smoking

Tanning

Indoor tanning may seem like a more controlled version of regular sunbathing, but both are potentially more dangerous than smoking.
In 2014, researchers published a study in JAMA that found indoor tanning alone led to more cases of skin cancer than smoking did with lung cancer.

Hmm. Smoking is being banned on beaches all over the world. Maybe it's easier to spend six minutes on a sunbed and then have a fag, than it is to spend all day on a beach and not be allowed to smoke

So I think it's safe to say (yes I know, this one is a massive leap, but I'm going to do it anyway) that tanning is just as deadly as anti smoking

Poor diet

A wealth of evidence has found that sugary, processed foods high in saturated fats can expose people to potentially fatal diseases at similar, if not greater, rates than smoking..

Any smoker will tell you that tobacco is a great appetite suppressant. If you're feeling a little hungry but it's not time to eat yet, have a fag and you feel better

We all know that people have a habit of getting fat when they quit smoking because they often substitute fags for food when they get cravings

This article began by telling us that "The rate of American adults who smoke has declined from 42% in 1965 to 15% in 2015." and the figures will be similar for the UK. Tobacco control has been relentlessly attacking smokers for the past few decades, actively turning to bullying and discrimination in recent years, causing I'm sure, a lot of that decline in smokers

And when people give up smoking, they often eat more

So I think we're ok to say,

Say it with me,

Poor diet is just as deadly as anti smoking

In conclusion, smoking is harmless, anti smoking is deadly

And this blog post was a meta analysis, the gold standard of science, apparently, so it must be right