> “ Smokers don't magically undo the damage they did to their lungs after they stop smoking”
replyExcept that they do undo the damage.
“ After 15 years, your chances of getting lung cancer are almost the same as someone who has never smoked.”
4x the rate is "almost the same"???
replyhttps://www.verywellhealth.com/risk-of-lung-cancer-in-former...
The lifetime risk is approximately 1.3% for women and 1.8% for men. For regular smokers: 11.2% for women and 14.8% for men. So about 15 to 30 more likely to get lung cancer. Bringing that down to 4x is close to "almost the same".
replyMight be that I am not reading probabilities correctly, but how do 1.3% -> 11.2% and 1.8% -> 15% become "15 to 30 times more likely"? Sounds like less then ten times?
replyThey absolutely do! Not all the way, but if you'd have smoked a pack a day for 15 years and then have given up for the last 15, there's absolutely no way you'd be saying this!
replyHey here is something for you to stun on:
replyhttps://old.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/1v73w9s/hydr...
"Stunned" isn't really a scientific term. It's the sort of editorializing you should expect to come from people who aren't the scientists themselves. More than hyperbole, it is classic click bait.
replyAlso, quitting smoking definitely eases a number of symptoms, especially if you're not at the point of chronic emphysema. The reduction of inflammation triggers alone after a bit of time is fairly significant. Less coughing, less mucus buildup, etc.
But this isn't that at all. "Stunned" is used here because it's the word one of the study's authors actually used.
reply'"I was absolutely stunned when I first saw the results," Prof Chris Griffiths, a senior author on the study, at Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC.'