36 replies to this topic

[CML2012]

http://m.cancer.org/...ce/formaldehyde

After reading this article I feel like second hand smoke could play a big part in CML?

Your thoughts?

[Marnie]

Not me . . .smoke-free houses my entire life.

[kat73]

The only chemical I've ever seen referenced for causing CML is benzene.  Here's what the American Cancer Association  (Society?  forget where I wrote this down from) says:

 

"Cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke are important sources of exposure to benzene.  Cigarette smoke accounts for about half of the US national exposure to benzene.  Benzene levels in rooms containing tobacco smoke can be many times higher than normal."

 

Also:  "Benzene is known to cause cancer, based on evidence from studies in both people and lab animals.  The link between benzene and cancer has largely focused on leukemia and cancers of other blood cells."

 

Both my parents smoked unfiltered cigarettes, a couple packs a day, the entire time I was growing up, from a baby, on through college, home visits, holidays, vacations, around my children, etc. until they died.  Both died of cancer - prostate and esogphagus, one in his sixties, the other in her eighties.

[rcase13]

My dad smoked a pipe constantly through out my entire life. He wouldn't even open a window in the car.

But I thought Trey said awhile back that there was no link to CML. Who knows.

Crazy that none of us have anything in common except bad luck. I've have a life time of bad luck. Maybe bad luck causes cancel.

[gerry]

I would think there would be more cases of CML if it was related. http://www.wpro.who....ts/tobacco/en/ 

[Trey]

Actually there is no clear link between CML and benzene, even though there is a clear link to AML, ALL, and CLL leukemias.

 

Many studies have tried to show a link but failed.  Recent studies have again shown an insignificant correlation between CML and benzene (1% increased risk -- practically zero). 

 

And people who smoke do not seem to get CML at increased levels, so second-hand even less so.  I detest smoking, but there simply is no link. 

[Buzzm1]

It's good that there isn't a relationship between second, or first-hand, tobacco smoke, let alone a benzene connection; I grew up in household of smokers, was a smoker myself, and my father spent 36 years employed at the largest coke mill in the U.S., at the Clairton, Pa. U.S. Steel Benzoyl Plant, part of the U.S Steel Mill.  Cracking bituminous coal, in the production of coke, used to generate the high heat in the blast furnaces in the steel making process, produced a whole host of by-products, all carcinogens, toluene, benzene, naphthalene, to name a few. Of course, at the time, little, if anything, was known about carcinogens .. but we all knew enough not to eat the snow which usually developed a black coating on top, after a day, or two. The huge smoke stacks of the mill belched 24/7 and the quencher, used to cool the rolled steel, was acid rain if you drove by the mill.  

[CML2012]

What caught my attention was the formaldehyde in tobacco and the connection the article was making to formaldehyde and leukemia. It even stated that they felt there was a particular connection to those with myeloid leukemia.

[chriskuo]

As far as I know, the only proven causal link to CML is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The incidence of CML is so low that if there are "causes" they are likely only causes to a very small % of people exposed to the "cause".

 

Cars and guns kill a lot more people than CML (in total and % wise) in the US but most people don't treat cars and guns as a "cause" of serious injury or death.

[hannibellemo]

My mom, who died of lung cancer at 68, smoked 2-3 packs a day my entire life. My dad smoked much less. I may be wrong but I thought that smoking numbers were on the decrease, but last I read, CML numbers were holding steady.

[pammartin]

I grew up in a household full of smokers.  I can remember as a younger child going to school with nice clothes but my classmates would often comment or be cruel because my clothes smelled of smoke.  That is probably the reason I am an avid non-smoker to this day.

 

I also tried to link the smoke to the CML, only I think I was doing it because I still had residual childhood anger over the teasing of my classmates.  I could never find anything linking it to CML.

[kat73]

Trey - I'm relieved to be corrected! 

 

Buzz - HOLY COW!!!  How did anyone make it out of your town in one piece? (Don't take this the wrong way, please.  I love PA.)

[pammartin]

Buzz, I knew those stacks well.  From PA also. 

[CallMeLucky]

My parents as well as my aunts and uncles were all big smokers, but of my siblings and cousins I'm the only one who got CML, so in my small study I would say if smoking was related there must be more to it.

[Buzzm1]

 

Buzz - HOLY COW!!!  How did anyone make it out of your town in one piece? (Don't take this the wrong way, please.  I love PA.)

kat - I relocated to what became the Silicon Vally when I was 18; took me decades to get rid of the residual sinus problems. PA has some beautiful country.

 

Buzz, I knew those stacks well.  From PA also. 

 

Pam - that area of PA was a great place to grow up despite the pollution at the time, and it still has a lot of great qualities that aren't found here

[Antilogical]

Buzzm - Some of my favorite workdays were spent at the Clairton and ET plants.  Now I'm mostly working downtown - er - DAHNTAHN.  I miss the free parking....

 

BTW - I'm skeptical about any link between CML and smoking....

[Trey]

Went dahntahn to see the Stillers play Worshington and wound up meetin' yunze gize who hadn't et yet so we had sammiches and Iren City near the pahrk.

[Antilogical]

Rilly? Get aht!  Were they Primanni sammiches with fries n coleslaw n 'at?

[pammartin]

Hey!  I was dahntahn today. I stopped at Primanni's for a sammich with slaw

[Marnie]

Interesting accent from a dude who lives in Texas. . .