In article ,
martin wrote:
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:42:56 GMT, Janet Baraclough
wrote:
The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

While I agree that the information provided is so one-sided as to be
close to propaganda, there has been little doubt for at least three
decades that giving up cigarettes is almost always a good bet on the
health front. I believe that this is also true for cigars, but have
no idea whether it is so for pipes.

It is. Pipe smokers are at higher risk of mouth cancers.

and clay pipe smokers even more so.

Yes, that is so, and the latter has been known for a VERY long time.
But it wasn't my point.

The normal consequence of giving up cigarette smoking is a significant
improvement in health, even in the short term, and very much more so
in the long term. The same applies to life expectancy. It is a rare
person who suffers overall worse health from giving up and a VERY rare
person who will have a consequential reduced life expectancy. Even
colitis (non-ulcerative) is arguably better than the high chance of
developing emphysema or worse.

The question is whether the same is true for pipe smoking, and the
data were certainly pretty unclear when I last enquired (which was a
fair time back). It was clear that doing so had significant benefits,
but it wasn't possible to tell if (on average) whether there were
comparable disadvantages. The main reason being that there was not
enough data to tell, and the secondary one being that pipe smokers
tend to smoke less than cigarette smokers and so have less severe or
fewer problems.

The point here, of course, is that smoking is commonly used as a way
of reducing (psychological) stress, though it increases some other
forms of stress (e.g. on the cardiovascular system).

Given the very much reduced number of pipe smokers, we shall probably
never know the answer for certain. It doesn't unduly matter, as the
issue has been very minor compared with cigarette smoking for half a
century or more and pipe smoking is disappearing for social reasons
in most parts of the world.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.