Do Smokers Have Higher Lifetime Medical Costs

The title of this article really caught my eye: "Lifetime medical expenditures of smokers and nonsmokers". So the question is this, do smokers spend more money on medical costs in their lifetime than non-smokers? I think that's a great question. But it's also one of those leading questions where we all think we know the answer.

So lets think about this for a second. Smokers do have a higher prevalence for disease. And not just any disease, but the big, devastating, heavy-hitters like stroke, cancer, COPD, etc. Those are fairly expensive to treat without a doubt. Plus, they have multiple admissions to hospitals and treatment centers.

But I know nonsmokers who also have strokes, cancer and heart disease. They spend a lot of money for treating those disease as well.

Hum...this is a tougher question that I previously thought. Well the researchers in Japan just happen to have a ton of data to evaluate this question objectively. Here is what they found. Their results showed that it is true, smokers did have overall higher annual medical expenditures than nonsmokers - but the smokers lifetime costs were actually slightly lower than nonsmokers. Well, how can this be?

When you look at the results a little more, you see the catch. The reason why smokers had lower cumulative lifetime medical costs is because they didn't live as long as nonsmokers. So yes, they are being devastated by diseases. They are spending tons of money in healthcare costs. They're just doing it with a smaller lifespan. This shorter life expectancy, due to the high mortality rate associated with smoking, gave them the lower medical expenditures.

So the moral of the story...a) "smoke and spend less money at the hospital" or b) "stop smoking and take better care of yourself so you will enjoy a longer more fruitful life". I don't know about you, but I'll take (b) as the right answer.

If we could just get people to stop asking the silly question, " is nicotine bad for you". It's obvious that nicotine by itself is not directly bad for you, but the result of a lifetime addicted to nicotine does have disasterous physiological and financial effects.

Home Smoking Bans

I never really thought about this subject until a recent journal article prompted me toward evaluation. The question is, "Do you have a smoking ban at home?" Well, if both parents are nonsmokers, the answer seems pretty obvious, yes. But what about children who smoke in a household where the parents don't? Do the parents maintain the ban or give into the whim of the child. Perhaps they place rules on smoking like 'only do it outside'.

I think nonsmoking parents are in a great position to legislate the household toward a smoking ban. Not because you want to keep your kid from getting nicotine poisoning or anything. But after all, it is the parent's house. They make the payments and the kid just kind of lives there rent free. It seems like the parents could really make a stand on this issue. In the long run, they'd be improving the health of their kids and themselves by limiting the amount of direct and indirect smoke inhaled by the family. A win-win for everyone, whether they realize it at the time or not.

Who knows, perhaps the kid will quit as the cycle of addiction gets interrupted in the house. Then they can see what happens when you quit smoking.

Smoking, Brain Injury and Varenicline Side Effects

We like to evaluate the science behind tobacco control, smoking cessation and smoking related diseases here at Unbiased. Every once in a while we come across an article that just makes us say, "Really?"

This was our response to the recent article found in Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology. It sounds like a great scientific journal doesn't it? But then you read something like this article and it makes you scratch your head.

So the title is "Smoking Cessation After Brain Damage Does Not Lead to Increased Depression: Implications for Understanding the Psychiatric Complications of Varenicline". Very long and full of promise that some wonderful revelation is forthcoming.

Here's what they said. The process of quitting smoking in patients with brain lesions, didn't lead to higher levels of depression. Okay, that's not so bad. I suppose that is good information to have. Somebody bumps their head and decides to quit smoking; depression isn't that big of a player. But then they continue with a tremendous leap of faith. They go on to "suggest" that because of this lack of increased depression, that psychiatric complications linked with the use of varenicline (Chantix) are not related to the process of smoking cessation, but are solely brought on by the drug iteself.

Wow, what a conclusion; especially given the fact that 1) varenicline was not a component of the study and 2) only 70 patients were studied, all with brain lesions.

So even though they did not study the use of varenicline in the study, they were able to conclude that all the psychiatric side effects (primarily depression) reported with a drug are related to the drug. They conclude this because the 32 quitters in the study group, had the same same depressive profile as those who did not quit. If you ask me, it sounds like brain lesions may keep depression at bay when trying to quit smoking.

I know, that is just as ridiculous of a conclusion as they came to. But it just goes to show, that not all science is good science. Not all conclusions are fair and just conclusions. The study group is too small and the variables are not set in a way to make any conclusive or suggestive statements about varenicline.

Until next time, remember to read these articles with a critical eye.