Smoking? It Didn’t Kill My Grandfather!

It’s a reason we still hear now and then (though the reverse is more common: “My grandfather is dying because of cigarettes.”).

The answer is pretty simple...

Our individual sensitivity to disease depends on many things:

• Our genetic baggage, which determines our individual strengths and weaknesses;
• The environment in which we live (clean or polluted by industry, cars, smoke from other smokers, etc);
• Our lifestyle (smoker or not, good or poor diet, physically active or sedentary, etc);
• Our social environment (good, poor, or non-existent relationships with family, friends, neighbours, coworkers, etc);
• Even the way we perceive and react to various events ("glass half full" or "glass half empty", our ability to learn from and overcome our failures, etc).

It’s the mixture of all of this, specific to your grandfather, which made him one of the lucky 50% of smokers who don’t die from a disease caused directly by smoking. In fact, he had one chance in two of getting away with it.

How about you, would you play a deadly game where you only had one chance in two of getting away with it?

A question: what was your grandfather’s quality of life during his last 10 years? Is that what you want for yourself?

You may be saying to yourself that you’ll quit smoking long before you get to that point. If so, take a look at the Smoking and Nicotine section. Same thing if you’re telling yourself that you don’t really smoke all that much...

You may be one of those people who say: "I may not live forever, but I’ll live life to the max". But how can you live life to the max when you’re always running out of energy and breath, and when you’re out of shape?