Asymmetrical Information

On the original "sick as a dog" question, I'd guess that it's because when you're sick you feel the way dogs look when they're lounging around flat on the floor.

On the smoking question, I have no information one way or the other, but it sounds plausible to me, with a couple caveats. First, colds and flus are viral. Second, the damage from smoking reduces your lung capacity, which I'd expect would make the same level of cold hit you harder. Conversely, for somebody who's just quit, the stress associated with quiting will probably weaken your immune system and make you more prone to colds.

Tangentially, I've heard tobacco smoke is a very effective insect repellant, so past a certain level of disease-carrying mosquitos, smoking really will make you healthier.

You aren't _eating_ the smokes, for one thing. The bugs aren't thriving in your lungs most of the time. Also for many of them the transition between just hangin' out and making you miserable can be triggered by your body mounting certain kinds of nasty responses that it might in the event of cell damage.

Smoking may be bad for bacteria, but they have a unique ability that we don't quite have in this situation. They reproduce rapidly enough to become resistant to environmental hazards. This works with antibiotics and I don't see why it wouldn't apply to chemicals associated with smoking. Sure, a two pack a day smoker may kill off some nasty microbes, but the ones that live will breed happily enough and soon those will be the only ones left.

Jane,

I can't refute your belief, but I doubt is it valid. The physical damage done to your lungs by smoking probably provides actual habitats to undesirable bacteria. Every hardcore smoker I have known cough up the most vile looking mucous one could imagine. I doubt this muck has no infectious agents within.

One of the effects of smoking is reduction of the ability of the cilia in your lungs to eject foreign matter. This increases the likelyhood of colds spreading to the lungs, bronchitis and pneumonia.

As I recall, there were specially marketed cigarettes sold expressly for fighting off colds "Q-Babb's" or something like that. Nothing but snake-oil really.

It is cubeb, not q-babb. Nice advertisement for one here.

http://tinyurl.com/2sxn9a

I just quit recently. I almost immediately got sick. I was sick for all of January.
Overall though, I think one doesn't have anything to do with the other.

Now, strong negative emotions? That may have an effect, and it would explain why dogs don't get as sick. Sure, the dog has emotion, but he won't spend two weeks agonizing about things.

Do you mean empirical, medical evidence, or a theoretical explanation? I'll chime in with the latter (which are a dime a dozen):

The dominant factor in resisting harmful bacteria is your immune system, not the quality of air you're sucking into your lungs. Smoking hurts your immune system, ergo, it's impact is mostly favorable for harmful bacteria.

"Sick as a dog" See: Garbage Gut.

Dogs who live outdoors, free to roam about the neighborhood, often get sick because, frankly, dogs are idiots when it comes to eating found food. Road kill, spoiled chicken, rotting fish--the worse it smells, the better it tastes, apparently.

I mean, come on, folks: We're talking about critters who think cat shit is a high delicacy.

Back when I was a drunk, I had the same theory about screwdrivers. What could possibly be better than vodka and orange juice? Vitamin C and something to kill germs. And if one was good, 12 was better!

Smoking is bad because it gives you cancer. Cancer isn't just "bad" for you, it's bad because it causes your cells to mutate and grow out of control, taking over your other normal cells. Ergo, smoking won't kill bacteria, it will make them into SUPERBACTERIA and make you sicker!

Are you buying that? Even a little?

Also, when I quit smoking years ago I was sick for months before I started feeling better, but then I started feeling MUCH better. Someone told me that it was because my lungs were no longer being paralyzed by the smoke and were healthy enough to cough up all the garbage-y smoke stuff for the first time in awhile. But that could be as invented as the above . . .

A simple answer is that the smoke is bad for you not just because of the chemicals in it but because it is smoke.

You are drawing small pieces of matter into your lungs and tearing holes in your lungs in the process. I am guessing that cleaning out a chimney is not good for your immune system either and for similiar reasons.

It could be that the coating of tar and soot residue presents a hostile habitat for bacterial infections. Of course, as noted it's also hostile to YOU, so...

Probably.

Quitting also seems to make people sick. When I quit (now I generally don't smoke and I quit and start without any trouble) when I was smoking pretty frequently, it was usually because I was sick (smoking irritated my cold), but when not, I would seem to catch a bad cold shortly after quitting.

August, there you go again. You just don't understand me at all. I am so depressed.

Um, symbiosis. Damaging all the bacteria that normally help keep you healthy isn't going to do anything to prevent you from getting sick.

Given that we have ~2 generations of medical care that isn't 'hilarious', I would think that the biggest reason dogs don't get sick as often is mostly related to the comparatively small number of dogs that the average dog sees in a day rather than some sort of miracle of evolution.

I agree with your smoking theory. But only because it lends credence to my theory that Kitfo at my local Etheopean restaurant is okay to eat because all of the spices kill off the bacteria that is in the raw beef.

If you support my theory I'll support yours!

I smoked from 1966 until 1994. After I quit was when I coughed up the mucus. I also had constant heartburn after eating almost anything. Things are better now with the heartburn, but the mucus happens after I eat. I should have never started smoking.

For want of a dentist

WASHINGTON - Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

Good thing we don't have universal health coverage. People might abuse it by getting unnecessary procedures for fun or something.

On eating the smokes.

If you inhale enough smoke that smoke is going to absorb onto your throat. That will eventually be swallowed down into your stomach. From the stomach to the small intestine the chemicals absorb into your bloodstream where they are taken all over your body. While one may not intend to "eat the smokes", by smoking one definitely is introducing these chemicals systemically.

For example there is a link to incidence of bladder cancer and smoking. I may be incorrect that those people with bladder cancer who smoke are using their mouths to smoke.

Also, it wouldn't be surprising to find out many of the chemicals take the same route as nicotine into the blood stream. Though the tars probably aren't as water soluble as nicotine.

This might be an example of the same thing causing harm and providing a benefit.

Although I'm in my 30s, I occasionally take Celebrex for joint pain (caused by several old injuries). Some studies suggest that Celebrex and Vioxx (the other COX-2 inhibitor) increase the risk of a heart attack. I am worried about this because I am overweight (damn you Nabisco!) and have high blood pressure.

Celebrex works very well for me. It substantially reduced--and even eliminated--the pain in my ankles and knees, which inhibited my ability to walk (which I should add is my only exercise).

I remember a letter in the Wall Street Journal by a woman who was upset that Vioxx was taken off the market. She argued that the drug worked for her and allowed her to be more physically active, which enabled her to lose weight, circulate the blood, etc. She believed that taking Vioxx was worth the risk.

I could also take Motrin, which has worked to a degree, but that increases risk of stomach bleeding.

ADD drugs and anti-depressants no doubt work, but they have significant side effects.

Recently, in the drug store, I perused those fat burners such as Stacker 2, Trimpsa, etc. which seem to work with many people. I read on the labels that they all increase blood pressure. I decided not to experiment with them because I don't need something else to make my blood pressure go even higher.

Recently, my dentist warned me against drinking a lot of orange juice. It certainly has health benefits, but it can also damage teeth because it's sugary and acidic.

I guess if we know all the facts about X, then we can all weigh the pros and cons and make an informed choice of whether to take or do X.

Bacteria and viruses don't inhale.

Purple,

A sad story, but you chose not to mention something that was in the article you linked to- that it is very difficult to find a dentist who takes Medicaid patients. Why is that?

Also, $80 dollars for a tooth extraction isn't much. If the family did not qualify for Medicaid, I find it difficult to believe that the mother couldn't come up with that amount, expecially since the same story said she was trying to find a dentist to care for the brother's six rotted teeth.

In summary, this story is extremely poorly written and/or is not telling the entire story.

Yancey & Purple:

The child never complained about a toothache, only headaches, so the $80 cost of a tooth extraction is beside the point.

What is interesting is the fact that his teeth were so rotten _and_ also his siblings have rotten teeth (one needs 6 extractions). I know that baby teeth are more prone to cavaties than adult teeth, but come on! Did the mom just completely cave on that age-old battle to get her kids to brush their teeth twice-a-day?

It's not the smoke, it's the chlamyida.

Smoking makes your lungs more hospitable to chlamydia pnumonae (not sure of the spelling). This is the bacteria that is implicated in coronary artery disease and is correlated with lung cancer.

google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chlamydia+smoking
or read the book Plague Time.

It should be completely obvious that smoking produces bacteria that broker back-room deals at political conventions. (We can carry the lungs this years if...)

You live 80 years, a bacterium tends to live closer to 80 hours. Long term health effects tend to matter just a bit less to those who are a thousand generations removed from said "long term".

Smoked meat doesn't rot as quickly - bacterial growth is inhibited. But, of course, smoked meat is dead.

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