Although it is not recommended under any circumstances, cigarette addicts also have some health benefits.
Who says smoking cigarettes is so bad? Apart from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and every medical association on the face of the Earth …
But smokers, if they are lucky enough, avoid all the health risks of smoking, like cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. They will be uniquely protected against a handful of diseases and afflictions for reasons still inexplicable to science.
Although long-term smoking is essentially a ticket to early death, here are five possible benefits of smoking.
1. Lower risk of knee replacement surgery
While smokers could go out of business buying packs of cigarettes, they can at least save money by avoiding knee replacement surgery. Surprising results from a new study have revealed that men who smoke have a lower risk of undergoing total joint replacement surgery than those who have never smoked.
What could the connection be? Knee replacement surgery is more common among runners and the obese; Smokers rarely jog and are less likely to be overweight. It could be that the nicotine in tobacco helps prevent joint and cartilage deterioration.
2. Reduces the risk of Parkinson’s
Numerous studies have identified the inverse relationship between smoking and Parkinson’s disease.
The most recent study says that far from determining the cause of the protective effect, researchers found that years of smoking cause more excellent protection than the number of cigarettes smoked daily.
Researchers at Harvard University were among the first to offer compelling evidence that smokers were less likely to develop Parkinson’s. In a study published in the journal Neurology, they found that the protective effect fades after smoking cessation. They also concluded that they had no idea why.
3. Decreases the risk of obesity
The nicotine in tobacco smoke is an appetite suppressant. It dates back to the indigenous cultures of America in the pre-Columbian era. Tobacco companies in the 1920s began telling women that smoking would make them slimmer.
The relationship between smoking and weight control is complex: yes, nicotine acts as a stimulant and appetite suppressant, and the act of smoking causes behavior modification that induces smokers to eat less. Smoking can also make food less palatable for some, further curbing appetite. As an appetite suppressant, nicotine works in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, as revealed in a study conducted by researchers at Yale University.
No reputable doctor would recommend smoking for weight control, given the toxic baggage that accompanies cigarettes.
4. Lowers the risk of death after having heart attacks
Compared to nonsmokers, smokers who have had heart attacks seem to have more responses to the two types of therapy to remove plaque from the arteries: fibrinolytic, which is medication, and angioplasty, which removes plaque by inserting balloons into the arteries.
However, there is a big problem: the reason why smokers have heart attacks is that the smoke heals the arteries, allowing the accumulation of fat and plaque in the first place. Thus, smokers are younger when they experience this problem, and their first heart attack was probably about ten years before the non-smoker.
5. Help the heart to function better.
Clopidogrel is a drug used to inhibit blood clot formation in patients suffering from blockages in coronary arteries and other cardiovascular diseases that lead to strokes and heart attacks. Smoking seems to help clopidogrel do its job better.
A study shows the benefit of smoking at least ten cigarettes a day. Something in cigarette smoke activates specific proteins called cytochromes, which turn clopidogrel into a more active state.
Again, no reputable doctor is encouraging patients to start smoking to get the most out of clopidogrel. But this and the other four “benefits” of smoking reveal how tobacco might contain certain chemicals of real therapeutic value.
