The benefits of smoking, if any, may be due to lowering endotoxin and estrogen
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I know the topic of smoking and drinking is controversial, and I hope that this post is not taken as an invitation to start puffing packs a day and downing pints of beer like water. Yet, there is something in the habits of extremely long-lived and healthy people that flies in the face of mainstream medicine and piques my curiosity. On one hand, there is strong evidence that chronic exposure to the aromatic hydrocarbons present in any smoke is carcinogenic, confirmed in many thousands of people who have worked in forest management (controlled fires), furnace/metallurgy workers, chimney sweepers, etc. On the other hand, the evidence for natural tobacco (no additives) smoking is a lot less convincing, even if we factor in the obvious ghostwriting and sponsored studies by the Big Tobacco companies questioning the dangers of smoking. There is also the curious fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) deliberately excludes countries with high tobacco consumption from its reports on cancers and longevity. For instance, not many people know that Caribbean countries, on average, have some of the highest tobacco (and alcohol) consumption per-capita in the world, yet have much lower rates of lung and other cancers, and also have some of the highest numbers of centenarians per-capita in the world. Other countries with a high number of centenarians also seem to have higher rates of smoking (and drinking). In addition, many of the world’s so-called super-centenarians were heavy smokers (and drinkers) throughout their lifetimes. Perhaps the most famous example is former UK Primer Minister Winston Churchill who was a heavy cigar smoker all his life, detested exercise, and was a heavy drinker as well, yet lived well into his nineties despite many of his relatives dying much younger (so genes were probably not a factor).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44224484
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3.full.pdf
“…The supposed enrichment for extreme-age survival in BZs is then subject to a host of secondary claims, each aimed at explaining the primary pattern of extraordinary longevity. Old-age survival in the BZs is supposed to result from diverse causes such as ‘moderate’ drinking at twice the NHS heavy-drinking guidelines[28], plant-based diets[25–27] and inbreeding[12,13].”
“…However, according to the national statistics bureau of Japan, only 3.9% of Japanese women and 19.3% of men over the age of 80 are smokers[56]. Tokyo centenarians therefore smoke at around twice the rate that could be expected in a younger, 80+year old cohort with an identical sex ratio. Likewise, 80% of the ‘exceptional’ health-status centenarian population were daily drinkers, followed by 49% of the ‘normal’ and less than 40% of the ‘frail or fragile’ centenarians, resulting in “a [significant] positive relationship between drinking habits and functional status”[55]. In contrast with these figures, Japanese government surveys estimate only 2.8% of women and 23% of men aged 80+ drink every day[56]. Daily drinking peaks at 36.7% in men aged 60-69, the heaviest-drinking cohort in Japan[56]. As such, Tokyo centenarians drink at higher rates than any other age group, and smoke at rates equal to a 45-year younger population[56].”
I think there is a play by Woody Allen about a man who falls in coma for decades only to wake up in a hospital at some point in the future and be presented with lit cigar/cigarette by a nurse and upon seeing his shocked face, the nurse exclaims something along the lines of “Please go ahead, it just tobacco. The healthiest remedy known to man.” On a more recent, and grim, note – we do have the extensive data from the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating convincingly that smokers has a much lower chance of both falling ill with COVID-19, as well as deteriorating and dying from it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10306417/
“…A case-control study from Mexico included 32,583 patients (12,304 COVID-19 positive cases and 20,279 COVID-19 negative controls) of which 2.3% of cases were smokers and 4.3% of controls had a history of smoking [65]. This study not only concluded that active smokers had a decreased likelihood of developing COVID-19 (females, adjusted OR = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.31–0.78; males, adjusted OR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.51–0.81) but also suggested that nicotine in tobacco might have a therapeutic effect.”
And finally, there is the curious example of a medical student from the UK, who had debilitating ulcerative colitis (UC) – a disease considered “incurable” by medicine – that went away for good when he started smoking a few cigarettes a day.
“…Stephen Pendry, 23, struggled with crippling pain, tiredness, shortness of breath and dehydration since he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis four years ago. But he is now completely symptom-free, thanks to a new four-a-day cigarette habit. Doctors are divided over benefits of patients smoking to combat symptoms – some believe nicotine is the healer so patches, and not cigarettes, are way forward”.
So, how can the bioenergetic theory attempt to explain any potential benefits of smoking? Well, for a start, many of the main psychoactive tobacco ingredients (e.g. nicotine, cotinine, anabasine) are aromatase inhibitors.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3711333/
In addition, it seems that most of the studies that demonstrated detrimental effects from tobacco or nicotine were in-vitro, yet the effects of nicotine/tobacco seem to be the opposite in-vivo, at least in amounts that would constitute smoking a few cigarettes a day. Perhaps most importantly, nicotine seems to be able to strongly blunt the systemic inflammatory effects of endotoxin/LPS, including in humans. Assuming endotoxin/LPS is the main driver of many/most chronic diseases, the anti-estrogenic and anti-endotoxin effects of nicotine (and some other tobacco ingredients) may explain its cumulative effects on promoting longevity, despite the known and undisputed carcinogenic effects of the actual smoke from the burning tobacco.
https://channel.ersnet.org/media-52743-converse-airway-effects-of-nicotine-iin-vitroi-and-iin-vivoi
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.826889/full
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17177960/
“…Because a prototypical ligand for this receptor is nicotine, we studied the in vivo human response to bacterial endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the context of nicotine or placebo pretreatment. Twelve adult male normal subjects were studied prospectively. Six received overnight transcutaneous nicotine administration by application of a standard patch (7 mg). Six hours later, all subjects were given an intravenous dose of endotoxin (2 ng/kg) and were evaluated for an additional 24 h for circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers, vital signs and symptoms. The nicotine subjects had elevated blood levels of the nicotine metabolite, continine, prior to and throughout the 24-h post-endotoxin exposure phase. Subjects receiving nicotine exhibited a significantly lower temperature response as well as attenuated cardiovascular responses for 2.5-6 h after LPS exposure. In addition, increased circulating interkeukin (IL)-10 and cortisol levels were also noted in nicotine subjects. These data indicate an alteration in LPS-induced systemic inflammatory responses in normal subjects exposed to transcutaneous nicotine. In this model of abbreviated inflammation, nicotine exposure attenuates the febrile response to LPS and promotes a more prominent anti-inflammatory phenotype.”
Interestingly enough, one of most renowned healers in the Amazonian region – the birthplace of tobacco – used tobacco almost exclusively to heal almost any disease known to man. A key fact to note in his work was that all the tobacco-based remedies he used were used orally and/or topically, but never through smoking.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2020.594591/full
“…Harmful usage of tobacco is a public health problem of global concern and, in many countries, the main risk factor for non-communicable diseases. Yet, in the Peruvian Amazon, the geographical region believed to be tobacco’s historical birthplace, this plant is associated with a strikingly different usage and repute: Tobacco (especially Nicotiana rustica L.) in this area is described as a potent medicinal plant, used topically or via ingestion to treat a variety of health conditions. The goal of this transdisciplinary field study was to investigate clinical applications of the tobacco plant as per Amazonian medicine exemplified in the practice of a reputed Maestro Tabaquero, an Amazonian traditional healer whose medical specialization focuses on tobacco-based treatments…The current study described Amazonian therapeutic uses of tobacco (N. rustica L.) in the practice of a Maestro Tabaquero, an accomplished Amazonian healer specializing in tobacco-based treatments. The informant’s descriptions revealed refined knowledge on the plant’s therapeutic scope and properties, safety profile, and application techniques. A liquid remedy taken orally was his most commonly used preparation, with reported acute/sub-acute effects involving a pronounced psychoactive component (altered state of consciousness) and physiological response (emesis, intoxication, Spanish: “mareación”). A skilled tabaquero that knows how to diagnose, dose, administer, and intervene in case of adverse effects was described as imperative for safe treatment delivery; tobacco ingestion otherwise may be dangerous. The main indications mentioned by the informant included problems of the mind, of the respiratory system, parasitic illnesses (intestinal/skin), gout, and Amazonian epistemic conditions described as spiritual-energetic in nature.”
So, maybe that’s the main message here – unmodified tobacco may be indeed a highly beneficial natural remedy, with the benefits present mostly in using the plant through means that do not produce carcinogenic byproducts (e.g. smoking). However, even when smoked it seems that tobacco may still be a good “doctor” (see medical student with UC story above), despite doctors uniformly condemning tobacco/smoking as one of the biggest evils of the modern lifestyle. I wonder how many of the harms of even smoking are due not so much to the undeniably carcinogenic smoke, but to the toxic additives present in the vast majority of commercially sold cigarettes/cigars. The toxic ammonia and the carcinogenic flame retardants that are now mandated in commercial tobacco products by law may very well turn out to be a much bigger villain than the humble leaf from Amazonia.
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The Woody Allen clip about tobacco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ewp4f2pNw -
Abstract
Following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, many individuals suffer from post-COVID-19 syndrome. It makes them unable to proceed with common everyday activities due to weakness, memory lapses, pain, dyspnea and other unspecific physical complaints. Several investigators could demonstrate that the SARS-CoV-2 related spike glycoprotein (SGP) attaches not only to ACE-2 receptors but also shows DNA sections highly affine to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). The nAChR is the principal structure of cholinergic neuromodulation and is responsible for coordinated neuronal network interaction. Non-intrinsic viral nAChR attachment compromises integrative interneuronal communication substantially. This explains the cognitive, neuromuscular and mood impairment, as well as the vegetative symptoms, characterizing post-COVID-19 syndrome. The agonist ligand nicotine shows an up to 30-fold higher affinity to nACHRs than acetylcholine (ACh). We therefore hypothesize that this molecule could displace the virus from nAChR attachment and pave the way for unimpaired cholinergic signal transmission. Treating several individuals suffering from post-COVID-19 syndrome with a nicotine patch application, we witnessed improvements ranging from immediate and substantial to complete remission in a matter of days.
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@DavidPS
So, is this study related to the Haidut comment on the Peat site that nicotine is cholinergic?I would consider using microdose nicotine as a patch, for endotoxin issues, except for Haidut's comment that nicotine is cholinergic...
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@AinmBeo - A nicotine patch for long-covid (aka post-COVID-19 syndrome) may be worth a try. I never had long-covid and I am only a bystander (with no medical background) trying to keep an open mind for the future.
Nicotine and the nicotinic cholinergic system in COVID-19 (2020)
Abstract
There is an urgent need to address the devastating pandemic, COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2. The efforts to understand the details of this disease in hope of providing effective treatments are commendable. It is clear now that the virus can cause far more damage in patients with comorbid conditions—particularly in those with respiratory, cardiovascular, or immune-compromised system—than in patients without such comorbidities. Drug use can further exacerbate the condition. In this regard, the ill effects of smoking are amply documented, and no doubt can be a confounding factor in COVID-19 progression. Although conflicting hypotheses on the potential role of nicotine in COVID-19 pathology have recently been offered, we believe that nicotine itself, through its interaction with the nicotinic cholinergic system, as well as ACE2, may not only be of use in a variety of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases, but may also be of potential use in COVID-19. Thus, on one hand, while we strongly support smoking cessation as a means of harm reduction associated with COVID-19, on the other hand, we support a potential therapeutic role for nicotine, nicotinic agonists, or positive allosteric modulators of nicotinic cholinergic receptors in COVID-19, owing to their varied effects including mood regulation, anti-inflammatory, and purported interference with SARS-CoV-2 entry and/or replication.
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Would intravenous or an edema be a viable way of consuming alcohol without the negative gut/endotoxin effects? I'm aware that it's an extremely dangerous way to consume alcohol, but if you were diligent about dosing, it seems you'd avoid that major drawback.
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smoking tobacco is way more therapeutic on gut issues than chewing the nicotine gum
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@RandomUser this type of neuroticism brian johnson approach misses the point . drinking is supposed to be fun
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@sneedful
It's about experimenting. I drink for fun and don't plan on stopping drinking. Taking alcohol via enema gets you drunk way quicker by the way. So it's a win-win-win. You get drunk quicker, more drunk overall, and you're potentially sidestepping ones of the biggest drawbacks. Trying new ways of doing things IS fun Doing the same activity the same way a million times over without branching out is boring.
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Has anyone here started smoking for the first time after becoming interested in bioenergetics? I'd love to hear someone's experience from this perspective.
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@Milk-Destroyer I smoked before and always quit and made a big deal about it . coupled with not great metabolism, smoking kind of sucks. I can see why people do it though.
after peating stopping and starting smoking is no big thing. I stop when I run out and haven't ordered more. I think im switching from hand rolled to pipe though because sometimes id just like to take one or two puffs and then go back to what I and doing rather than wait for an entire handroll to burn out, and putting them out halfway to save them for later usually just ends up wasting it as it crumbles up or whatever.
I mean it's still annoying to run out and not have more and a couple times I had to go to the corner store in a tiff to go buy more at high prices compared to ordering from other country but overall its nbd.
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@RandomUser oh ok. have fun with ur bumming alcohol journey
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@sneedful Thanks for the insight.
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I wonder if methylenewhite is a member here. He smokes tobacco by rolling the tobacco itself, and he lights up the tobacco not from a lighter, but from the dying embers of s burning stick. He says that is the right way to light a tobacco, as the smoke it creates is gentle on the lungs.
He didn't elaborate, and at that time I wasn't in a position to ask the right question. But now, I am dealing with a lung issue where my lungs get somehow logged with some water that can be described as edematous, or left unchecked, could develop into pleural effusion, which causes hardness of breathing and can be detected in my ECG graph as a low qrs wave that portends a developing situation that would lead to heart failure, as the heart is heavily dependent (like any other organ) on a stable and rich oxygen supply, and is very dependent on the lungs working very well. And I'm speaking from my experience with heart failure last year, and how it all came about starting from a case of self-induced bronchitis that just snowballed.
My lung issue now has a lot to do with having a lot of dead red blood cells not being cleared from my system, given that there must be an extraordinary amount of them accumulated from the length of time I allowed my body to operate in a hypoxemic (low oxygen state in the blood). I took for granted the severity of being sub 90 in my spO2, and thought the body would eventually right itself back to normal spO2 at the range of 94-99%. That mistake would cost me a heart failure incident which I luckily survived with s trip to the ER and a couple of days at the ICU, and some more days at a regular hospital room.
As I recovered, I find myself not able to regain a hundred percent of my old self. But I also realize that doctors can only save us from dying, but they are simply incapable of restoring us back to our former more healthy state. A major hospitalization is often subconsciously accepted as the start of a downward decline in health, though it is only upon death that more connected and observant people would acknowledge
So I had to dive back into Peat's writings, specifically on a subject that is often mentioned in the COVID saga. It is about the enzyme heme oxygenase. I tried to make sense of heme oxygenase back then, but I couldn't connect. I won't attempt to give you a summary of what it's about, as I find it to be something that can be better understood only when you are motivated well enough to make an effort to understand it. As I am when my health and possibly survival depended on fully understanding it.
You just have to do a keyword search on all of Ray's newsletters and books and pull up all the material you can read and make sense of it. I can do this search easily with a paid search app on my phone.
But anyway, back to the smoke used in your cigar and why I think it matters, as methylenewhite said without giving specifics. I think smoke that comes from the dying embers may burn more completely, and ends up with more carbon dioxide as a product of the slow burning of the tobacco. As opposed to the smoke that comes from the tobacco lit up by a lighter, in which a higher proportion of the product of the incomplete burning is in the form of carbon monoxide.
And this matters greatly. As my lungs right now don't breathe well, and my spO2 levels drop and can go all the way down to 88%. This is the result of the presence of carbon monoxide, which causes my lungs to be edematous, and this water gets in the way of complete air exchange in my alveoli/bronchi, which explains why I am getting less oxygen from my lungs. This is the result of heme oxygenase breaking down the heme from my dead red blood cells which produces free iron and carbon monoxide, both of which are harmful.
There are many ways to mitigate the effect of carbon monoxide, such as methylene blue, red light, etc. This is a long list actually ranging from steroids to simple substances such as CO2. But I am not one to throw the kitchen sink at a problem. It is too messy and when using too many substances at once, I really do get lost in the many trees and lose the forest.
So far, I'm using only methylene blue and red light and carbon dioxide, in the form of carbogen. I would sleep with the red light at a distance far enough so that the dosage would be low enough to allow me to be exposed to it the whole night as I sleep. I have a carbogen machine which I connect to a cannula so I can breathe carbogen the whole night. And I take methylene blue, although I may still be under dosing it as I'm afraid of overdosing.
My breathing is improving, but I feel the rate of my improvement is so glacial. I have to think about more ways to speed it up.
I think smoking tobacco may be something worth trying, as long as I light up my tobacco the right way. Tobacco also delivers nicotinamide or B3, which would also be helpful.
I will be this way until all the dead red blood cells in my system is cleared.
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@yerrag maybe you can sweat them out in a sauna?
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Ongoing trial:
Efficacy of Nicotine in Preventing COVID-19 Infection (NICOVID-PREV)
https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04583410 -
@sneedful said in The benefits of smoking, if any, may be due to lowering endotoxin and estrogen:
@yerrag maybe you can sweat them out in a sauna?
Thanks. It may help.
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@yerrag
I dont know your case at all but I do know that people with sleep apnea caused by small jaws and tongue ties due to improper development have low spo2 levels at night and often have lots of issues as there tongue falls back in thier thoat at night blocking air waking them up giving them a big shot of adrenaline so they cant fall back asleep. Also you cant breath as much air when your airway is obstructed by small jaws.
To fix this do palate expansion then tongue tie release then jaw surgery
Look up "jawhacks " on youtube to learn more its a silent epidemic
Not the ay peat perspective but just something I wanted to share that mainsteam health doesn't talk about -
@gg12 said in The benefits of smoking, if any, may be due to lowering endotoxin and estrogen:
@yerrag
I dont know your case at all but I do know that people with sleep apnea caused by small jaws and tongue ties due to improper development have low spo2 levels at night and often have lots of issues as there tongue falls back in thier thoat at night blocking air waking them up giving them a big shot of adrenaline so they cant fall back asleep. Also you cant breath as much air when your airway is obstructed by small jaws.
To fix this do palate expansion then tongue tie release then jaw surgery
Look up "jawhacks " on youtube to learn more its a silent epidemic
Not the ay peat perspective but just something I wanted to share that mainsteam health doesn't talk aboutI guess you merely scanned my post and missed the part about my lungs becoming edematous being one of two causes my spO2 levels are low. But sleep apnea from obstruction isn't my condition which actually mainstream medicine would point to as a kneejerk response to low spO2 levels during sleep.
I'm not sure what a Peaty explanation to low spO² levels while sleeping is, but I think it would go along the lines of low serum CO2 levels (from poor sugar metabolism) and accompanying high serum acidity from high lactic acid would lead to high breathing rates while asleep, as the respiratory center attempts to correct the high acidity by trying to breathe out CO2 when there really isn't enough serum CO², leading to further lower tissue oxygenation and hypoxia. This. causes the body to have to use the mouth to breathe in addition to the nose, and causes snoring to happen, in an attempt to get more oxygen even while the blood is already carrying enough oxygen already. Even when spO2 levels are high at 99%, people can still snore because the oxygen in blood isn't getting through to the tissues due to low serum CO2.
Temporal thinking is the faculty that’s
engaged by an enriched environment, but it’s
wrong to call it “thinking,” because it’s simply
the way organisms exist... - Ray Peat Nov 2017 Newsletter -
@yerrag Hi yerrag! Hey have you ever used the Peaty suggestion of a negative ion generator? Specifically one with very low O3 production. Danny and Ray talked about it years ago on podcasts and I think Ray was brining it up in the context of helping the lungs get rid of serotonin. I have a few units made by Wein products. No idea if this could help your lung issues but I guess it would help something! Also, this makes me think of @haidut post maybe a year or more ago about air filters being a big source for endotoxin! Because the filters (like a furnace air filter) can shred bacteria as it passes through the filter and some percentage of the bacteria parts end up getting breathed in by us and causing havoc. Not a medical term I don’t think but… I also remember reading an article that Saturated fat is specifically protective for the lungs.
Anyways… I’ll see if I can track this stuff down for you if you’re interested or maybe you’ve been there done that!
Peace
