Thread: 1st time over a decade I have gone 24 hours without a cigarette

Originally Posted by Latindancer

My car has electric windows and at the first sign of a truck ahead I valve them up and down according to whichever side it's on.

First car I've heard of that has valves on it's electric windows. Made in Taiwan?

Driving around or living besides a busy arterial road or in a polluted city results in inhaling as much carcinogenic matter as smoking between 0.1 < 1 cigarette per hour, the same rate as in passive smoking.

The PM10 levels in some cities are way up at around the hundreds, where a "healthy" level is around 25.
Chiangmai today has PM10 levels at 79 which is normal for this time of year, smoke pollution from rice straw burning. Coupled with moderate to high No2 and O3 levels, and high UV levels, a pretty nasty air mix there.

I wouldn't be cycling around in that brew!

Originally Posted by ENT

I wouldn't be cycling around in that brew!

I suppose it must be hilly where you are and your legs can't take it, never mind your diseased lungs, damaged beyond repair from 50 years of smoking

but I agree that air pollution is a bad thing, but why not start a thread about it instead of trying to hijack this "give up smoking" thread where people are meant to be helped, not discouraged

A genetic propensity for a strong immune reaction shows up in family clusters.

Cancer is less of a problem for those with such a reaction, as the immune system defends against it. People born that way rarely get sick, and if they do suffer some trauma like a virus attack or injury, they will recover rapidly. They're remarkably robust, well into old age and tend to live longer and in good health until death.

It's not a matter of diet etc, as many of them smoke or drink alcohol to some degree, but they show a remarkable resilience to adversity.

Small cell cancer, probably the most common form of lung cancer, doesn't show readily in these people.

So a tendency for an inherited predisposition to cancer occurs, and those who show that family trait may be more susceptible to cancer, so must take greater precautions not to compromise theur immune reaction through intake of various "trigger" such as drugs and poisons.

Those folk need to boost their immune systems by making sure that they have an adequately balanced vitamin and mineral intake as well as monitoring their pH levels, so that they show a saliva or urine pH of 6 -7, which will most likely be a serum pH of 7, balanced and healthy.

Eating lots of dark green leafy vegetables and orange fruits or vegetables and tomatoes helps.
Tobacco smokers use up far more Vits B and C than non-smokers, so on quitting smoking, without altering the diet substantially, more energy and an increase in the ability to recover and heal occurs.

Plenty of Vit C is essential, as is a balance of Vits A and D along with a balance of Vit B and iron. These vitamins have been trialed and used to treat cancer patients, with Vit C being key.

A balanced pH is essential for all the vitamins, minerals, foods etc to work properly.

After quitting smoking. the blood will carry more oxygen than before, and it's necessary to make sure that blood iron levels are high enough for the haemoglobin to form.

Pernicious anaemia as a result of alcohol consumption can be a problem for some smokers, so enough iron in the diet, aliong with magnesium and zinc, found in dark green leafy veges especially brocolli and any sprouting tips of plants, been sprouts, asparagus, brussels sprouts etc are great.

Avocadoes provide a lot of RNA amino acid proteins and oils as do any sprouting tips of plants, also nuts, essential for re-building damaged tissues, and a few almonds will also help in healing and removing old internal scar tissue.

I can't emphasize enough the use of herbs like lobelia, mullein, marshmallow and sage for easing lung congestion and causing a decent cough to expectorate that build up of pollutants in the lungs. It doesn't matter where it may have come from; tobacco smoking, tars and carbon particles, as well as wood smoke, coal smoke, dust, fungal spores, dust mites that cause asthma and any other form of air pollution including exhaust residues that's affected the lungs.

You don't have to go to the chemist and load up with chemical compounds to clear your lungs.

Drinking up to 2 litres of water a day will also help with mucus production and help clear the lungs.

You're behind the times there.

Regrowing body parts is already being done, as well as tissue repair. Stem cell culture is the method used.

Your liver will regenerate even if you remove < 80% of it, and heart and lungs are already being regrown. Once it was believed that brain cells could never regenerate, but they do.

There are several factors involved in regeneration, one of them is the right protein and the other is enzymes. Stem cells act as a DNA template(simply speaking) for cells to grow by, fed by proteins and enzymes.

On a less dramatic level, small scale repair of damaged tissue can occur. The main damage done to lungs is to the epithelial layer, cells and cillia get burnt and torn, forming thickened callous scar tissue. Some compounds in nuts especially (almonds) can help dissolve away scar tissue, replacing it with healthy new cells.

When quitting smoking, the first step in regenerating the lungs has been taken, and it's only a matter of time and proper treatment before new tissue starts to replace old worn out cells.

This is a natural and ongoing biological process, so that after aprox. seven years your body is a totally different one from before as all the old cells have died and been either recycled or excreted and new cells have formed in their place.

Removing the pollutants, heavy metals, fluorides etc is another ongoing process provided that appropriate steps are followed, ie. eating the right food and living a more appropriately healthy life style.

Humans along with science are approaching a dynamic new level of understanding of the life force, life itself and how the body really functions for well being, as a norm. We're not designed to only live and then die after a short time. We're potentially capable of living healthily for far longer than we usually do, likely hundreds of years longer.

There's another key ingredient to healing and regeneration of the body, will.

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by ENT

You insist on cycling around polluted Chiangmai claiming that it's not doing you any harm.

I recognise that traffic pollution can cause damage, only a fool would deny that

but as I haven't smoked for many years, and have excellent respiration etc, I can cope with it

unlike yourself, with lungs that have been damaged by years of smoking, any extra stress can be dangerous

That's where you're wrong, again.

As with all forms of lung damage from inhaling micro-particles, there are differing forms.

Various pollutants in varying combinations are inhaled and city dwellers and those working in several types of industries suffer lung damage from particles as diverse as asbestos fibres, to sawdust, cloth fibres, (cotton especially), silica dust (as in silicosis), iron and manganese particles, coal dust and so on from mining along with volatiles such as various solvents ranging from petroleum to acetone as well as wood smoke, coal smoke, exhaust emissions, pollens, microbes and fungal spores, pollen, bird feathers and human skin.

All the above impact upon the epithelial layer in the lungs once past the mucus layer covering it.
Which is why it's a good idea to have a nice healthy layer of mucus covering the inside of the lungs, it acts as a lubricant and filter, trapping tars, and other volatiles, diluting them and allowing them to be expelled more easily by the cilia growing on the surfaces of the bronchioli and microtubules.

All the foreign particles that enter the lung are of differing shape, structure and density, and are more or less soluble in the mucus. Some of these particles penetrate the lung easily, passing into the blood sream and on to react further with other body parts such as the gall bladder, liver, kidneys and so on, even the heart and brain, as does oxygen or some more volatile compounds.

So we can see that different degrees and types of damage arew effected by different particles, some more damaging than others, and of course, the volume of particular matter entering the lungs has its own consequence.

Some of that damage is more permanent than other forms, and some is indeed rapidly repairable, while other types of damage take longer to heal.

Smoking cigarettes is regarded as more harmfull than smoking cigars or a pipe, principally because cigarettes contain far more cellulose and raw mineral such as saltpetre and other chemicals that keep the cigarette burning and flavour the tobacco.

Most of my smoking life I smoked a pipe, where, as any pipe smoker will tell you, very little tobacco is inhaled deeply into the lungs, and a lot of the tars are in fact deposited in the pipe stem, condensed there. In fact, in pipe smoking, the smoke is cooled by exhaling it from the mouth to be redrawn via the nostrils, where hair lining the nose acts as a filter, before the smoke is drawn slightly into the lungs, then exhaled. The nicotine "hit" being effected in the nostrils, not the lungs. That's one reason that pipe smoking is "better for your health" than cigs.

The same applies to smoking a hooka, or sheesha or hubble bubble pipe, the water traps a lot of the volatiles and of course carbon. Both pipes and water-pipes are cleaner smokes than cigars or cigarettes, but cigars are also cleaner smokes than cigarettes, less added chemicals.

Those who've smoked unfiltered cigarettes will have inhaled far more tars, volatiles chemicals etc than other smokers and need to pay particular attention to their health and recovery, more so than one who's smoked a pipe, for instance.

So Andy, your lack of knowledge and repeated attempts at belittling me over my tobacco use or abuse is born of pure ignorance, which to you, as a fool, is bliss.

I'd bet a pound to a penny that my lungs are in better condition than yours, given that you've been a city dweller most of your life and of hearing of your unsavoury life style.

And yes, as you asked earlier, I do live in the mountains and I don't ride a bike there often, as I prefer walking. The air is wonderful. straight from Antarctica.