Smoking is supposed to kill people. What I find is rather odd is the number of smokers who outlive non-smokers. The average life expectancy for most first world countries is around 75-80 years. Yet smokers live longer than this happy-puff.
Robert Charlton was 92 in November of 2006 and had been smoking since the age of 10. He outlived Levi Celeio from the Philippines who died at 91, having smoked all his life. Cigarettes also got the better of the Queen Mother of Elizabeth II when she died at 101 after being a smoker most of her life. George Burns is renowned for having smoked cigars until he was 100 years old, and because of this Milton Berle refused to give up smoking; unfortunately he died of cancer of the colon at 93 yrs. Hollywood director Billy Wilder died at 95 yrs, having been a smoker all his life.
Jeanne Calment lived to be 122 yrs and 164 days and smoked most of her life, I suppose smoking killed her, but the question becomes what killed all the non-smokers who didn’t live as long as her. Anyhow, good meaning people used to tell Jeanne to stop smoking because it would kill her in the end. I suppose it did in the end, because she gave it up when she was 117 yrs old, only to take it back up when she turned 118 yrs old, because it made her feel miserable not to smoke.
There are many more people I can cite as having lived over 100 yrs and still smoked. I, myself, don’t smoke, although I did once. The reason I gave up smoking is I hated being enslaved to the habit. If I am going to live to 122 yrs or more, I would rather not be smoking. But then I do not feel miserable.
It is claimed that there is a direct correlation between lung cancer and smoking. I suppose we could argue that there is direct correlation between longevity and smoking. However, I would suggest that dying has to do more with other factors than smoking.
Poor nutrition and inner anxiety probably contribute more to death than anything else. It is no coincidence that heart disease is the leasing cause of death. Anxiety has been demonstrated to increase cancer and increase blood pressure, which overworks the heart. Combine this with insufficient nutrients getting to the heart through inadequate nutritional intake for the individual and heart disease becomes the leading killer, followed by cancer and both are related to anxiety.
