Cigars & Health - A Bad Rap?

[mglantz]

Before I get into this, let me emphasize that I'm not going to quit smoking cigars. I'm no aficionado, nor do I have many vices (the normal number, I guess), but cigars are one of my small pleasures and I plan to keep indulging.

Smoking in general has been under heavy attack for some time now. Cigarette smokers seem to have been battle scarred the most. The health police have been yelling at them for years. Cigar smokers have been spared some of the indignation but it's obvious that it's spilling over to us. One has to admire the beautiful ads appearing in the cigar magazines. The graphics, artwork and photography, all superb. That is, until your eye hits the bottom of the ad where it is jarred by a glaring white warning from the surgeon general informing us that our oral cavities will rot out of our heads from smoking cigars. When my doctor asked me if I smoked, I replied that I smoke a cigar each day but no cigarettes. "Well, I won't hold that too much against you." Gee thanks, Doc, I was worried there for a second.

Now, as I said, my cigars are here to stay. But, I'm concerned about health as much as anyone else. The problem is, as far as cigars go, I'm a little fuzzy on all this health risk. I recently read an article (I don't remember the publication) about the health concerns associated with cigars. Basically, it suggested that this forum won't be around very much longer because we're all going to die out like a herd of starving wilderbeast. It's odd, though. I do know quite a few ciggy smokers that suffered from smoke related cancers and other lung diseases. I also know and have known many cigar smokers and, for the life of me, can't recall one of them ever suffering from any smoke related ailments.

Well, inquiring minds want to know. Do cigar smokers face the odds as cigarette users or are we being just a little brainwashed because the anti-smoking groups need fresh fodder? If there is a physician out there that can shed a little more light on this, I'd love to hear it. Or, can it be that physicians follow their own advice? If they do, I feel kind of sorry for them. To miss smoking a flavorful cigar...what a pity.

Mike

[labmonkey]

this is an old thread but i just came across this article that i thought was pretty interesting on the subject.

http://www.cigargroup.com/faq/health/

Thanks to Roham for originally linking to cigargroup.com, i had never been there.

[cockyhoskins]

I saw a side-by-side comparison of the various smoking methods in the New England Journal of Medicine. Basically, the threat from cigar smoking is minimal at best. The most risk is with throat or mouth cancer, but again, it was characterized as minimal.

[mglantz]

Thanks for the link, Labmonkey. It was, indeed, an interesting article.

Mike