Is this really that surprising, considering that only 2.6%[1] of Asian American women smoke? If 0% of Asian American women smoked, then 100% of the lung cancer cases would come from non-smokers. As it is, the group with the lowest percentage of smokers should have the highest percentage of lung cancer cases in non-smokers.
The article gives no absolute rates to compare, and I can't easily find the article they quote for the rising rates of lung cancer in Asian American women. Given the poor interpretation of the subheading, I wouldn't be surprised if it was entirely explained by aging, or was a reversion to the mean from a very low baseline.
[1] From another comment on this article: https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/smoking-facts/impact-of-to...
It’s sad to see this kind of stuff published.
https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/smoking-facts/impact-of-to...
(This source doesn't quantify "use," so there are confounding factors: prevalence of smoking at home, chain smoking vs. social smoking, etc.)
[1]: https://smokingcessationleadership.ucsf.edu/racialethnic-min...
"What’s behind this rise in lung cancer in women who have never smoked compared with men, and particularly in Asian American women? One possibility: While Chinese American women may never smoke themselves, they frequently live with partners or family members who do. (About 28% of Chinese American men smoke heavily, Dr. Li said.) “We think secondhand smoke might be one of the key risk factors, because they’re living with people who smoke,” Dr. Li said." [1]
[1] https://www.chestnet.org/newsroom/blog/2024/03/secondhand-sm...
I could see a possible scenario where a first generation (i.e. immigrant, English as a second language) Asian father/husband smoking at home in the 1990-2010 timeframe and not getting the second hand smoking messages/ads (that were primarily in English as quickly) as the rest of Americans and it's is just now that the statistics are showing up.
Infact majority of people that smoke don't get Cancer (only about 30% in a group of smokers get lung cancer)
Edit: I don't mean it's comforting I prefer to have it at 0/10
I am just trying to say that things that cause cancer are not as deterministic as we think.
Around 80% of lung cancers are found in smokers and another 10% with heavy exposure to second-hand smoke. Smoking is the single largest risk factor for lung cancer.
[0] All numbers are based on general population of US, so heavily white-skewed, I dunno about asian americans specifically.
However, COPD, once established, is irreversible.
My dad was a long time smoker and it was COPD that eventually got him. He battled it for years after he quit.
I am just trying to say that things that cause cancer are not as deterministic as we think.
to develop a cure, we must better understand the causal mechanisms.
this starts with acknowledging what we know and don't know about a devilishly complex disease that is arguably better conceptualized as a broad category rather than one monolith -- similar to how the flu, cold, and covid could be grouped under one mega classification, but are better identified as distinct conditions.
The reason why only 20% of smokers get cancer is similar to why a person doesn't get cancer after 1 cigarette.
This is only counterintuitive if your default thinking is that smoking=cancer. In reality, there are a lot of variable chemical and biological processes involved, but ultimately it ultimately boils down to a cumulative risk, not guarantee.
Longer answer: Logically, the answer should be zero, but it's actually not that simple to categorise either 'non-smokers' or 'a smoking-related illness'.
Taking lung cancer as an example, approximately 10-20% of lung cancers occur in folks who are non-smokers (defined as 'never' or 'fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime'). Researchers estimate that of these, around 20% are caused by second hand smoking, meaning that around 8-16% of lung cancers are non 'smoking related' in non-smokers. Not all lung cancers result in death.
So if we take the same approach, and consider the 80% of lung cancers which occur in smokers, presumably similarly 10-20% of those would have developed lung cancer regardless of whether they smoked or not, so potentially we would need to say that less than 65% of lung cancers are caused by smoking.
Is it then fair to call lung cancer a 'smoking-related illness', if more than a third of people who develop lung cancer did not do so because they themselves smoked[0] (the number changes to 70% if we consder the folks who hypothetically develop lung cancer due to second-hand smoking as 'smoking-related').
There are also a lot a problems with the methodology here. How do we know whether someone really smoked 100 cigarettes or fewer? Is there any statistically significant difference between people who smoked 100 and 1 000? 100 000? Does it matter if someone smoked all of those 10 000 in the last year (almost 30 a day) or whether they smoked those 10 000 over the past 50 years (less than a pack a month)? All of these things seem to my mind to be problematic and make it impossible to answer your question.
I suppose that means that I was overconfident in my assertion in the parent comment that '7/10 smokers die of smoking-related illnesses'. It was not unresearched (although uncited) and I got this number from this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/26/the-t..., which in turn reported on this study: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291....
However, perhaps I wasn't critical enough in my reading, and instead simply parroted the stat.
[0]: big caveat here is that my ramblings don't consider the possibility that a 50 year-old who would otherwise have developed lung cancer at 80 develops lung cancer as a result of smoking, and lung cancers caused by smoking stop lung cancers developing from other causes.
Radon is the #2 cause of lung cancer in the US. There are high levels of radon in about 1/15 US homes.
I don't immediately see Asian American women being exposed to additional regional air pollution, asbestos, coal soot, or radon more than others.
There could be a race-linked genetic factor, but I'm not aware of Asian women that are non-American having a higher rate. So I don't see why it would be something like... aspirated cooking oils fumes or natural gas fumes while cooking. Do Asian American households have a significantly higher likelihood of natural gas stoves? Do they have cultural histories of certain kinds of make-up or body treatments like talc?
The risk is real and measurable, but to put that in perspective: the CDC summary says it increases risk by 20-30%, so 130% over baseline to take the higher number https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand-smoke/health.html
For smokers, the risk is 15-30 times baseline, so 3000% over baseline for the high end https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
The article indicates a 260% increased all-factor risk for never-smoking Asian women, compared to White women. There has to be more going on than just second-hand smoke exposure.
Cancer itself isn’t deterministic. This isn’t news. There is virtually nothing that is 100% guaranteed to produce cancer, but there are things that massively increase risk. Tobacco is one of them.
An estimated 72% of lung cancers in Canada are caused by tobacco (https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-conce...) Smokers are 25x more likely to die of lung cancer as nonsmokers. The US CDC estimates that smoking is linked to 80-90% of lung cancer deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm).
Saying “tobacco causes lung cancer” isn’t guaranteeing that smoking leads to lung cancer, but it sure as hell is the leading cause.
But what about stuff like the use of Teflon and other "forever" chemicals? These things may also be making a contribution.
It could also be a genetic defect. A liver cell growing in the lung.
Or maybe a staple food familiar to Asian women that is being contaminated with carcinogens.
Sidenote but I haven't missed my father since I left home. Traditional old Asian men are possibly the worst humans ever.
That's, uh, quite a strong statement. What makes them worse than all the other humans?
I mean, some of this is rich to talk about given I'm European and most Western countries share a lot of these traits, but from what I hear(d) from friends from Asia, it's the "the needs of the society/family are more important than those of the individual" that they find the worst compared to the very individualist attitudes of Western countries.
[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Youth-suicide...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...
Your examples were not well chosen anyway, as their relation to collectivism seems dubious, and US prosecutors also have high conviction rates without trial through threat of big punishment.
Any justice system with a very high conviction rate is either unjust or extremely selective. The American federal government is also extremely selective in prosecution, and for the same reason. Losing makes the prosecutor look bad.
I think this item stands out in the enumeration and I honestly question if social behaviour over individualism is a bad thing.
So your invdidualism argument is only strong if by western, you mean the anglosphere, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Japan and Korea, despite being in North-East Asia, are rice-growing, due to their oceanic climate. Culturally they are also closer to Southern China.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w
One interesting result of the study is the culture change within one generation.
That's Spock from The Wrath of Khan, right?
Actually take your criteria and apply them fairly to some of the other cultures around the world. And let the old guy smoke (outside). He is not the worst human ever, that's for sure.
My parents aren't saints. They're no less human then I am. Like my wife and my kid they're people that are so easy to forgive. It's so easy to rationalize away anything they do. It's just tiny bit easier to forgive myself then them and I don't see how it could be otherwise.
My hypothesis would be environmental plus genetic, given that our east Asian phenotype population is small and consolidated to small areas of the country. NYC, Socal
Maybe we should look at increase in lung cancers in those areas specifically
The whole "they're coming to steal your stoves" thing started for a reason, without proper ventilation to the outside (which just isn't that common in the US), cooking can destroy your lungs, even today.
[edit] found this with a quick search, seems relevant: Exposure to Cooking Oil Fumes and Oxidative Damages: A Longitudinal Study in Chinese Military Cooks https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4029104/
[edit 2] and indeed the article mentions it, although just in passing, still my hunch would go towards this as it seems a more specific factor than the others that are mentioned
>For example, a 2019 study found that Asian Americans breathe in 73% more tiny pollution particles than white Americans, most likely because of greater exposure to construction, industry and vehicle emissions where they live.
As you mention, there is some preliminary research which suggests cooking oil smoke could be related, but this is far from enough to definitively point towards it as the root cause, or even enough to justify your hunch I would argue. Also keep in mind there could be multiple causes of which cooking oil is just one part.
Mustard Oil is critical for South Asian cooking and is labeled as "not for consumption" in the US.
I also wonder how much is because of immigration and the pollution in the old country (even countries like South Korea and SG have horrid AQIs)
From: https://www.seriouseats.com/mustard-oil-guide (there's a lot more and it's worth a read)
Edit - however sibling comment seems to indicate that East Asians use Rapeseed Oil which presents similar issues, so you might be onto something
In the 1940s, sulfur mustard, commonly called mustard gas, and nitrogen mustard, a derivative of mustard gas, became a new form of cancer treatment.
Then you come here and you start to look at apartments and there is no hood at all. Weird.
Or you see a microwave with a vent that vents inside.
Makes you wonder whether a mandatory range hood that vents outside is better than a gas range ban...
Now... there is also the eye opener that is cleaning the range hood for the first time. Holy crap.
[edit] seed oils r bad skeptics can just double check - the top 3 highest smoke point oils are all fruit oils, with seed oils at a distance - with the exception of peanut oil, which is closer.
The smoke point is also not the only relevant factor, the fatty acid makeup is also important, high omega-6 oils are more likely to oxidize, coconut oil for instance is high in saturated fat, olive oil is mainly monounsaturated.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20678538/
However, you're correct that seed oils are generally less stable under frying conditions than other oils.
???
Where are you seeing this? It's definitely controversial, but calling it "politicized" seems like a stretch.
To be clear, a segment of the online right-wing, I'm not saying literally half the population.
Even taking that claim at face value, "right-wing coded" is hardly the same as "hilariously politicized". Living in rural areas is right-wing coded as well[1], but nobody would seriously call it "hilariously politicized", especially when you consider the broader context of the phrase:
>A lot of people get very angry when seed oil dangers are mentioned, it's hilariously politicized
[1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-result...
EDIT: should've searched first. Sigh.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/is-see...
Back in Thailand she and her mother often used coal for cooking (which is listed in the article as a possible cause) but after moving to Australia, she no longer used it because it is impractical (the coal is hard to find, the type of stove used for cooking with coal is not readily available, neighbours would complain about the smoke, etc etc).
I imagine that most other Asian women who migrated to Western countries face a similar situation and no longer use coal on a daily basis.
Also, I am sceptical that cooking oils could be a factor, it seems to me that, at least in the parts of Asia where I have lived, the types of cooking oils used are similar to the ones used in the West. I have seen the comments about mustard oil but its usage seems to be limited to certain countries or regions and not widespread everywhere in Asia, whereas according to the article, the issue affects women from various countries from India to China.
EDIT - however some of the comments indicate that other oils, not just mustard oil, also present similar health challenges and they are widely used in several Asian cooking traditions.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_health_in_the_United_...
> A study of nearly 4,000 non-smoking women found that the share of Asian American women who developed lung cancer was more than twice that of white women.
And then proceeds to list "53.4%" for Asian.
Are we to believe that in a sample of "nearly 4,000 non-smoking women", over half of the Asian American women developed lung cancer?
Elsewhere in the article it is said that
> Among Asian American women who have lung cancer, more than 50% have never smoked"
Those seem like completely different things to me...
It is a dumb stat to chart without contextualizing that Asians were 15.92% of the entire study population.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8530225/table/T...
But I think what NBC wrote on the graph is pretty unambiguous, that 53.4% of nonsmoking asian women in the study developed cancer. They titled the graph "Lung cancer among nonsmokers, by race" when it should really be "Nonsmoking among Lung Cancers, by race".
Or do you think between the title, caption, and data, their chart is presented in a way that can be argued is correct? It doesn't seem like it to me.
53.4% is the share of non smoking women who got lung cancer in the study that were Asian.
female incident lung cancer cases
smoking status
total never ever unknown
Asian | 296 (7.7) 158 (53.4) 103 (34.8) 35 (11.8)It's P(non-smoking | lung cancer, ethnicity)
If you look the table in the source paper, 53.4% of 296 Asian American Female (Single Group) lung-cancer patients are non-smokers.
Also, share of lung-cancer patients being non-smoker vs. smoker being higher in Asian american females, does not necessarily mean they're more likely to get lung-cancer. This assumes the non-smoking vs. smoking population is the same in teh general population, which it isn't.
- small amounts of nicotine occsaionnaly are excellent for the brain
- the innoculatory effects of small occasional acute exposure to toxins and carcinogens preemptively activates and trains your body and its immune system to respond to the types of things that cause damage. Basically by activating the damage repair systems occasionally under a mild stressor you keep yourself inoculated against seemingly damage-associated conditions.
I'll let y'all know how it's going in 200 years or so :)
Slightly more seriously, I hope your cigarette plan works out for you.
In reality of course, no amount of cleanliness could possibly be too clean.
Solid Food Introduction and the Development of Food Allergies https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30453619/ Early consumption of peanuts in infancy is associated with a low prevalence of peanut allergy https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19000582/ What if it is the other way around? Early introduction of peanut and fish seems to be better than avoidance https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19432829/
Though truth be told, I did read your comment as sarcasm, supportive of my position or humorously mocking the outrageous comparison example of car accidents ha ha
I mean, if you told me you were doing a defensive driving course i’d be like hell yeah!
You know that would keep your skills sharp, and the accidents would be a result of those stressors.
Haha. I suppose the obvious difference is a car “accident” depending on how controlled it is could kill you. Whereas a handful of cigarettes is not going to kill you.
The driver of the road train bringing groceries up the west coast highway flicked a cigarette out the window that blew straight back in and into his eye causing him to over steer a roll a prime mover and two trailers.
You're correct that it didn't kill him, but it was a close call that could've gone that way.
Ah the endless interactions between between vehicles and cigarettes. Don't know why this came to me but in Taiwan, a massive rail tragedy was caused when a utility truck for some kind of maintenance rolled backwards down an embankment and onto a rail line at the mouth of a tunnel. The train was either entering or exiting (I forget which) and dozens of people were killed. All because a much smaller vehicle parked unsafely or forgot the handbrake!!!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37923037
(Ignore the downvotes this will likely get. People seem to knee-jerk have an issue with me saying anything at all about health. It's meaningless noise.)
Does it make them less depressed?
As an aside on the downvotes: i mean, whatever works for you! People downvote but they're not you, and your body is gonna be unique. Everything can work differently for different people.
Probably depression is a complex thing with distinct pathologies covered by one word that can’t capture all the causes, even tho symptoms overlap across distinct types. Gut brain important too.
Everyone’s different. I didn’t get COVID but my spouse got it and we lived in a very dense part of the world during it. Before taking a crowded train my body would crave a cigarette, not for the anxiety, would be like the night before, but I figured out it was warming up my immune system. Maybe the oxidative chemicals in the smoke also kill virus and bacteria too. I very seldom get halitosis but I find a cigarette knocks it out and it doesn’t come back. Everyone’s different tho which is also science: epigenetics etc.
I think occasional tobacco aligns with its historical use as a shamanic or medicinal herb. I love the nicotine high but I’ve never been addicted compulsively so I never got into it, but occasional is good. Track my health across years where I have a couple cigarettes versus none at all and it’s better in those moderation years. Very occasional is good for my qi too.
It’s funny tho that CDC admits it improves depression in some. Haha
Among the most Covid-vaccinated demographic in the nation?
Wonder what it could be???
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/178355979028893705...
Start doing autopsies on them - oh wait that's forbidden in their culture.
It would help if we had a clearer idea of what cancer is. Some cancers are known to be caused by viruses. Maybe someday they will have clearer distinctions between viral cancers and other cancers and that will help solve mysteries like this one.
I'm frankly surprised by this. The only thing I had ever heard of was the Japanese smoking paradox where Japanese people smoke at higher rates and have lower rates of lung cancer. How or if that relates to this, I don't know.