ask: Is it true that smoking less than 6 cigarettes a day is reasonably safe?

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/5/315.full
Here is an article about smoking 4 or less cigarettes a day. There are significant harms to your health, for men and women.

I've given up smoking many times and find it not too hard, however the thing that makes me start again is constipation, I just can't go if I don't have half a cig in the morning. I gave up for 6 months before and only had a bm using medication every day, my whole family haveproblems with this. I eat healthy am slim, do lots of running and boxing but that half a cig in the morning is the only thing that makes me go. Half a cig v laxatives and supsitorys which can cause colon cancer,piles etc ? I'm sticking with the cig.

Anything under 10 cigarettes a day is generally considered not harmful to your health.

can someone actually answer the question, not bang on about quitting?

Lung cancer is a product-caused cancer. While you can get Lung Cancer even if you do not smoke, smoking any cigarettes increases your risk for Cancer of all types. Don't smoke.

elyn jacobs

From what Ive read, it could be suprisingly safe to only smoke 6-10 cigarettes a day, depending on how deeply you inhale, and a multitude of other health and environmental factors. Im in outstanding health overall, and Im a 31 year old woman who started smoking about half a pack a day or so since I was around 14 or so, and although I got up to smoking about a pack to a pack and a half a day between age 18 to 27, I started reading more about it and worked hard to cut back to about half a pack a day, which Ive stayed at for the past 4 years.

Although there are some people in my family who've had lung cancer, almost all of them smoked much more than I do, and were surrounded by smoke filled environments, homes, cars, restaruants, bars, cars, etc in a way that just hasnt been allowed in much of the US for the past 10 to 15 years depending on where you live. Also, very few of them were as conscious about keeping their weight down as I am, or most people these days, and cigarettes are a great way to help keep weight off. Im not saying that you should start smoking if you dont already - but its a credible claim to say that routine consumption of fast food burgers, fries and sodas may be responsible for as many illnesses and deaths as smoking. While even NYC has caught on to this fact -what is often overlooked is that smoking can be a fairly effective method of helping people avoid compulsive snacking or overeating; although there are many more effective things out there for sure. And while I will admit that I can often times get winded easily in an areobics class, I do try to go to the gym about two times a week or go for a half-hour brisk walk three or four times a week - and although I may be a bit wheezy when I light up a cigarette afterwards - I promise you Im not the only psuedo-health conscious person who is also a light smoker of only 6-10 cigarettes a day.

Im no phd scientist or anything, but if you really spend some time reading deeply into the methods of many of the cigarette studies, especially the second hand smoke studies and the light smoking studies - and pay particular attention to the criticism of those various studies - you'll be astonished to find that often times certian figures or estimates for the effects of smoking various peroids of time, or various levels of cigarettes - are not at all controled for other health and environmental factors such as relative weight, exercise, other health conditions, and concentration of poor indoor air quality, etc. Moreover, often times when they use a geographically restricted sample size of perhaps only a few thousand people - they tend to have extremely poor filtering for underreporting, which should come as no suprise: most people often exagerate how little they smoke - ESPECIALLY with all of the modern anti-smoking stigma - it isnt cool or acceptable to admit that you smoke two packs a day or even a pack a day anymore, so people chronically underreport their rate of smoking. Most people really smoke one and a half or almost two packs a day will virtually never claim to smoke "2 packs a day" - they will just say they smoke "about a pack a day", take it from me, when I was a heavyish smoker for several years, and hung out around many fellow chain smokers, whenever the topic came up of how much someone smoked - the answer would always be "oh maybe a pack a day". That was even more true with people who sometimes only thought of themselves as "social smokers" yet really were smoking almost a whole pack a day, yet would always claim to be smoking "maybe half a pack a day or less", as if to make themselves feel better about enjoying their smoking, often then adding..."but Im going to quit soon!"

My point in all of that amature psychology is this: certian statistical subjects are often prone to chronic under-reporting, and cigarette smoking is definitely one of them. When 2 pack a day smokers claim to be 1 pack a day smokers when answering medical questions - then studies are based either directly or indirectly off those responses - then you get a skewed set of statistics that make you think that 1 pack a day smoking is really twice as bad as it is - and its already pretty bad in reality. The same becomes even more true with most of the "less than half a pack a day" responders, many of whom are truly 1 pack a day smokers - they give the statistical result of making it seem like smoking 8-10 cigarettes a day will mean that you have a nearly 100% chance of getting lung cancer in your 50s or 60s, which could indeed happen even with less smoking, but still results in dramatically over inflated figures.

So be very wary of the methodology and verification used by studies claiming to focus on light smokers or people only smoking 5-6 cigarettes a day. Im not quite so bold as to say that means its a-ok to light up so smoke if you got em, because while I may very well ascribe to that philosophy myself, I wouldnt advocate it as general policy - I still think that its helpful to point out the short commings in various studies. Even someone who disagrees with 99% of what I might say and things Im a terrible person because I dont equate smoking with mass murder, should at least agree that its a good idea to carefully scrutinize health studies of ANY kind, whether on smoking or any other health concern

There's this small (??) downside for some people when they quit smoking. M.D.s don't want to address it, in fact they and many ex-smokers deny the connection exists, but it does.

According to many ex-smokers, smoking is the only thing that prevents their acquiring horrendous mouth ulcers. When they stop smoking, they continuously have at least one, sometimes many, ulcers and these are often half inch in diameter or better. Those of us who have this particular problem have proven that the connection is there. We take up smoking again and the ulcers stop. We stop smoking again and the ulcers start.

"What's a few mouth ulcers compared to lung cancer", you ask? Well, 6 months of constant pain, ulcers that lasted a month or more, never ever being without at least two of these horrid things, often being unable to speak or eat or sleep through the night ... brought me to the point of considering suicide. I was no longer able to function at my job or enjoy living at all. Amazing thing to me is that with multiple smokers experience this, nobody in the medical community is willing to face it and actually get reliable help for us! None of the medications work for me. Believe me, I've tried them all. The closest to helpful I've found is Debacterol. It's expensive and hard to get, but it sometimes (!!) clears up an ulcer in 3-4 days, rather than 2 weeks - month.

I'd love to quit and stay quit. I try to only smoke half a cigarette 5-6 times a day. It is not easy, you're right about that. But the craving is easier to deal with than the ulcers. Am I frightened that I am commiting slow suicide or playing russian roulette with my health? Yeah. But, given that there is just no help at all out there for this problem.... well.

Any helpful suggestions you may have would be appreciated. And thanks in advance for not being judgemental.