Smokers At Risk!

Why someone thought to study this, I'll never know, but researchers have tied smoking to increased risk of frostbite.

Smokers, who already risk cancer and heart disease, are more susceptible than others to frostbite because their blood vessels do not expand fast enough to warm chilled fingers and toes, researchers said on Sunday.

The nicotine in cigarettes seems to be to blame, slowing the body's normal responses to cold, the team at Yale University in Connecticut found. Dr. Kichang Lee and colleagues immersed the hands of smokers and nonsmokers in water at 41 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.

I mention this because of Owen's post noting that a county in Norway declared smoking to be a "right" last week.

If that lung cancer doesn't getcha, well, there's always the pulmonary disease, the cardiovascular disease, the breast cancer...so many ways to die. And now, a cheery chilly way to lose phalanges.

Everybody buy a carton today! And move to Norway.

hln

Posted by hln at April 20, 2004 09:26 PM | Health | TrackBack