In some studies, at the end of them, I see:

“quitting smoking reduces your chance of dying from all causes.”

So if I quit smoking I’m less likely to get hit by a bus?

  • norimee@lemmy.world
    2351·
    2 months ago

    As a former ICU nurse I can tell you that someone who has been taking good care of their body, is fit and healthy, has a better chance of survival and less complications while recovering as someone who didn’t. No matter the injury.

    If you get hit by a bus and your lung is compromised it has a harder time compensating for the injury if it was already damaged.

    So yes. You might have a better chance to survive a car crash if you haven’t been smoking.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
      28·
      2 months ago

      You might have a better chance to survive a car crash if you haven’t been smoking.

      That’s probably why I’ve survived so many car crashes.

    • philpo@feddit.orgDeutsch
      16·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. Came here to write exactly this.

      What OP misunderstood is the old tale of mortality vs. lethality.

      In a simplified explanation: Mortality defines the percentage of deaths in a population by a cause.

      Lethality is the percentage of deaths of people suffering from a cause.

      In our case:

      • Smokers might only get hit by a bus slightly less often or slightly more often(1) (Mortality)

      • But they have a far greater chance of dying from it when they get hit. The same can be said for being shot,etc. Being a smoker always reduces your statistical chances.

      (1:Actually quite fascinating - there is conflicting evidence on that one, as smoking is often statistically associated with substance abuse and bad health - which increases the likelihood of major trauma events, but on the other hand smokers die earlier,leaving more old people to walk in front of vehicles due to reduced cognitive abilities)

      • Jojo, Lady of the West@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        2 months ago

        smoking is often statistically associated with substance abuse and bad health - which increases the likelihood of major trauma events, but on the other hand smokers die earlier,leaving more old people to walk in front of vehicles due to reduced cognitive abilities)

        So what about if we control for age? Are old smokers more or less likely to get hit by a bus than old non-smokers?

        Quick, someone do an RCT.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
    45·
    2 months ago

    You should ABSOLUTELY quit smoking. Also, you should stop getting hit by buses. Neither one are good for you.

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
      9·
      2 months ago

      Totally agree, buses suck! More to the other one, I haven’t had a real cigarette since 31 July; it had been 28 years of smoking with a few short breaks scattered in.

      It is insane the tastes I’ve tasted recently, as a die hard Dr Pepper fan I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep drinking it, it’s just too sweet now. Quitting smoking might lead to a healthier lifestyle all around.

      • Kintarian@lemmy.worldOP
        6·
        2 months ago

        Congratulations on quitting smoking. I quit about 20 years ago. I tried a cigarette after being off of them for awhile. It tasted so nasty I don’t know why I ever started.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
        9·
        2 months ago

        Gotta start small. Get hit by e-scooters and mopeds, then move up to sedans and eventually SUVs. Starting with a bus won’t be good for you at all.

        • lugal@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 months ago

          Just make sure you don’t develop an allergic reaction. Could happen with too much exposure

    • kuneho@lemmy.world
      42·
      2 months ago

      One of my “modern” folk song is about exactly this phenomenon.

      Edit: here it is, if someone is interested, it’s an old-styled, descending, parlando rubato hungarian folk song. I noted it down using solmization.

               A
  2/4||: la,/8 mi/8 mi/8 re/8 | mi/4+ mi/8 | ti,/8 do/8 re/8 mi/8 | ti,/4 la,/4 | ti,/2* :|
         B
     ||: do/8 do/8 ti,/8 la,/8 | mi/8 re/8 do/4 | ti,/2* | do/8 do/8 do/8 re/8 | mi/8 re/8 do/8 | ti,/2* |
         C
     || so,/8 so,/8 so,/8 so,/8 | so,/4* do/8 ta,/8* | la,/2** ||

      (the comma after the solmization indicates the note being in a lower octave. Plus sign after a not length value means it’s dotted. Asteriks means fermata. Also, there is one strange solmization note (used in relative solmization) which I marked as “ta”, it’s a flat ti.)

      And the lyrics (in hungarian)

      “Várakozom én a százötvenegyes buszra, ( A )
      Kezemben készen a sodort cigaretta, ( A )
      Meg is gyújtom azon nyomban, ( B )
      Szippantok belőle hosszan, ( B )
      Ah, de megjött már az a busz.” ( C )

      Which translates to this (I used ChatGPT for the translating, told it to be a bit more… free or poetic or idk):

      “Standing at the stop, the one-fifty-one in sight,
      In my hand, a cigarette rolled tight.
      I light it up, breathe in the smoke,
      A long, deep breath, with every toke,
      Ah, but now the bus is here, just right.”

  • _bcron@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    2 months ago

    “All-cause mortality” simply means death from all (or any) causes.

    So for smokers, you got a buttload of people with this thing in common, and rather than look specifically at something like deaths from lung cancer, you take a step back and look at deaths from anything. And then go in and try to find correlations and help to understand those correlations.

    It’s kind of a chicken and egg scenario, because some of those causes might not be from smoking, but from a person’s proclivity to smoke.

    For example, smokers might possibly be more impulsive than non-smokers (generally speaking) and there might be a higher risk of motor vehicle fatalities in the smoker group, but the cause wouldn’t be smoking, it’d be underlying behavioral differences that would make someone more likely to smoke.

    It’s basically looking at mortality from a distance as opposed to looking at very specific things up close (but with the data it lets people zoom in on everything)

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    14·
    2 months ago

    I’m going to echo korimee, and add that it’s statistics.

    When you’re tallying causes of death, like cancer, heart disease, stroke, organ failure, pathogens, whatever; if you factor in whether or not people smoke, smokers die younger from those things, and are a higher percentage of deaths like that as opposed to old age.

    Non smokers get those things later, statistically, and have better chances of not only surviving, but recovering. Take stroke as an example. On average, the chances of severe disability from a stroke goes up the more risk factors you have. Smokers are less likely to survive a stroke, and if they do, have worse outcomes when they’re stabilized. Then they have less resilience during the recovery process, leading to worse disability statistically.

    The final question you asked only applies obliquely, and others have covered that it would only apply in limited cases. Accidental death, the uptick for smokers is essentially meaningless. For the specific “hit by a bus” kind of accidental death, distraction is how it usually happens anyway, but smokers trying to light up might have a slight extra chance of distraction, but I couldn’t see any data on that with a quick DDG search

    • Floey@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 months ago

      Then shouldn’t it either be changed to “of any cause” or terminate after “dying”.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    111·
    2 months ago

    Let’s say you’re a smoker and your workplace says you have to go outside to smoke.

    It’s the middle of November, it’s cold, it’s rainy, you’re outside smoking and get pneumonia.

    Your lungs are already weak from smoking and the pneumonia kills you.

    If you quit smoking, you would have been inside, dry, safe, less likely to contract pneumonia and less likely to die from it if you get it.

  • Shanedino@lemmy.world
    10·
    2 months ago

    If you got hit by a bus your chance for recovery would be better as a non-smoker than a smoker.

  • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 months ago

    Buses drive outside.

    People tend to step outside for a smoke.

    So yeah, you actually might be more likely to get hit by a bus if you smoke, your smoking spot is anywhere near a bus route, and you are ducking out there 2-4 times a day to stand there smoking while you play with your phone.

  • ngwoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    It means your life expectancy immediately increases. There are some things that, depending on your age, improving won’t improve life expectancy. ie, a 99 year old doing something that reduces their risk of colon cancer but nothing else will not reduce their chances of dying because something else will kill them first with 100% certainty.

    Quitting smoking decreases risk of death for absolutely everyone in every circumstance

  • stoly@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 months ago

    It references general body health and the sorts of things that make you age and die. Heart health, lung condition, oral health, stroke risk, skin quality, etc. All of that stuff is affected negatively by smoking. Stopping nearly instantly makes these things better, and they improve over time. So basically if you stop smoking, any way you could die of natural causes drops.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    2 months ago

    Smoking makes you more visible because of the trail of smoke giving away your location - cessation makes it harder for cars to hunt you down and run you over.

    Less sarcastically it’s a way of saying that your overall life expectancy is increasing as it decreases the probability that you’d die from a pretty wide array of causes… that bus is going to hit you regardless of how much you smoke but it’s less likely something else kills you first.

    • Kintarian@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      2 months ago

      That explains why I keep getting shot while smoking in my fox hole. The enemy can see my smoke rings like a target.