A cohort study of 40,230 Swedish male construction workers with incident cancer.

[ENTP]

From the abstract:

" As regards deaths due to other causes, exclusive smokers had higher relative risks than exclusive snus users (p = 0.03)"

So, I think that's enough for me to continue snusing. Soon as I stop, I know I'll be back to smoking.

[Frosted]

It has been proven that nicotine is a cancer accelerator. Nicotine won't give you cancer, but if you're the 1 in 3 people that are going to get cancer, the nicotine will speed up the cancer growth.
So if you have cancer it's worth giving up the nicotine to give the chemo and radiotherapy a better chance of reducing a tumour.

[Snusdog]

Excerpt from a discussion on the study in question here

The details of how much snus is dangerous are not yet known, said Göran Pershagen, professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska.

"There's not enough evidence to say how much the risk increases. But it is clear that snus is not unhazardous - pancreatic cancer is a relatively common form of cancer with a very poor survival rate," he said.

"This is also about preventing cancer."

Despite the fact that the study did not show that using snus increases the risk of other forms of cancer, it is still too early to rule it out, reckons Pershagen.

Sweden's biggest producer of snus, Swedish Match, dismissed the report as irresponsible and self-serving.

"The institute has published a number of alarmist reports on snus over the years," said Ulf Svensson, the information director at the company.

"But we remember that they had to give up on the discussions around snus and health warning text. The EU investigated the research and concluded that there is no increased risk of cancer from snus," Svensson told TT.

He pointed to an international cancer study which, he said, contradicted the conclusion that using snus can lead to pancreatic cancer.

"Despite the fact that we have around a million 'snussers' in Sweden, we are almost at the bottom of the table in the western world when it comes to this form of cancer," he said.

Ulf Svensson said that far from being a thorough scientific analysis, the report was a political move against Swedish Match and was based on a very selective interpretation of research results.

you can find the whole article here
http://www.thelocal.se/2622/20051205/

[Snusdog]

Here is what I remembered reading. It is from the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks SCENIHR 2008

Luo et al. (2007) investigated the association between snus use and cancer in the
Swedish construction worker cohort. From 1969 through 1992, preventive health check36 ups were offered to all workers in the Swedish building industry. Because of ambiguities in the coding of smoking status for the period 1971–75, the analysis was restricted to workers with at least one visit in the 1978–92 period, when information on smoking and snus use was obtained through personal interviews by nurses. After further exclusion of women, and of men with emigration or cancer before entry, 279 897 men remained for final analysis. Population and health registers were used for follow-up for vital status and cancer incidence. Results were adjusted for smoking or restricted to never-smokers, and adjusted or not for Body Mass Index to account for a potential confounder or an intermediate. Compared to never users of any tobacco, relative risks for oral cancer in ever, current and former snus users, and by daily amount of snus consumed were below unity, e.g. ever use Relative Risk 0.8 (the rate ratio or norm being 1)
(95% CI: 0.4-1.7). Roosaar et al. (in press)

Note: even if this is not the same study as the one in the OP, it covers the same time and thus is subject to the same ambiguities (i.e. that the smoking status of workers was not recorded prior to 1975 and prior to 1992 it was only based on a nurse interview “do you smoke”)

You can find the whole report here (mind you though the report deals with each type of oral tobacco independently, it lumps all oral tobacco together in their conclusion/reccomendations. Thus with snus, the conclusion/reccomendations also include American dip, Indian and African oral tobacco, and etc….which is a bit disingenuous. Here is the Link


http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/c...nihr_o_013.pdf

[Snusdog]

Damn it..............why do my post always seem to put an end to a thread




SOMEBODY NEEDS TO DO SOME TYPING HERE!!!!!!




sheesh.........talk about getting a complex

[Ansel]

Thanks Dog :-)

[hokiehi82]

Damn it..............why do my post always seem to put an end to a thread




SOMEBODY NEEDS TO DO SOME TYPING HERE!!!!!!




sheesh.........talk about getting a complex

Take it as evidence that you are the final authority on here.

[Soapy]

Dear all
Be so kind go in to WHO official website and see which country in EU has Less Mothe Cancer cases in the EU and World ... You will be amassed I promise you that

"Sweden's cancer rates for men, including oral cancer, have declined and now are the lowest in Europe. In contrast, cancer rates for Swedish women — few of whom have made the switch from cigarettes to snus — remain as high as rates for most other European women."

"numerous epidemiological studies have shown that smokeless tobacco is far less likely to cause any type of cancer, including oral cancer"

[reeviint]

As it stands, the abstract seems to say that using tobacco increases mortality due to cancer. In other words, given equal numbers of tobacco users, and non tobacco users that have cancer, tobacco users are ~15% more likely to die.

[Snusdog]

As it stands, the abstract seems to say that using tobacco increases mortality due to cancer. In other words, given equal numbers of tobacco users, and non tobacco users that have cancer, tobacco users are ~15% more likely to die.

All kinds of Tobacco?...........what happens if you subdivide the groups.....

smokers......dippers.......chewers......snus users.............do the numbers change? ...... are there different percentages for different types of tobacco?

It is an old trick to lump all tobacco together and report the conclusions as if uniform. Thus whenever you see a generic % claim at the end of a study be aware that in all likelihood you are watching a classic bait and switch …..concealed behind jargon and stats

[awesomeo]

It's a well put together study, and scientifically fairly solid. They seem to have done the best you could expect given the type of study and data available, and they come from a neutral department and if anything, a governmentally pro-snus funding. That being said it's not a great representation as to the effects of snus in terms of cancer and associated comorbidity. The full article, available free via Wiley Online reveals far more pertinent information regarding the validity - or rather lack thereof - of data surrounding pure snus users.

It's a fairly interesting read, for non-scientific types I'd recommend checking out the tables and figures, and having a brief read of the discussion section. To summarise, although a statistical significance was shown towards the development of cancer with pure snus users, a self-noted lack of sample size all but ruins the medical validity of the results. All that the paper shows is that there is a statistically significant increase in (specifically) prostate cancer incidence amongst snuff users. Smokers showed a trend of advanced staged cancers, where snus users did not.

For me, the largest flaw is noting that these cohort samples were undertaken a long time ago - 70's to 90's and focus on construction workers specifically. Post industrialised construction workers and cancer go hand in hand, smoking or not. I think it's largely unfair for your doctor to be basing his medical recommendation after clearly only reading the abstract - that being said, they are a doctor and are inherently required to disuade you from any and all tobacco, alcoholic or illicit substances.

I'd like to think that we're all aware that we're putting ourselves at a disadvantage health wise by consuming tobacco. Even pharmaceutical grade nicotine has it's associated cardiovascular and neurological risks. But then again, we are also at a higher risk of cancer from eating bananas thanks to their radiation Am I going to stop eating bananas? No, I ****ing love bananas.

Do what makes you happy.

[Frosted]

From what I know of construction workers in the UK, they have a bad diet and they drink copious amounts of alcohol.....its got to contribute to copd......and I can guarantee they smoked a bit too.

welcome awesomeo.

[WickedKitchen]

I still want to know, and the late Snusgetter does too:

How many "old" snusers are there? Let's say pensioners at least, and I'd even go so far as not saying "old" 'till 70. To me, 70 is the first goal.

Perhaps it's my naivete, but I'd have to imagine a sort of bell curve when you distribute snus usage across age groups. Since snus has been around for perhaps centuries there should be more data but I don't imagine there is really. I'm curious to know when the usage drops off based on current data, and more importantly why? Is it a medical reason, a perceived medical reason, money, life's outlook, what? I'm not really interested in how or why people start really. People are going to do it anyhow...I did...for no good reason at all. I'm interested in why they stop.

[lxskllr]

I still want to know, and the late Snusgetter does too:

How many "old" snusers are there? Let's say pensioners at least, and I'd even go so far as not saying "old" 'till 70. To me, 70 is the first goal.

Perhaps it's my naivete, but I'd have to imagine a sort of bell curve when you distribute snus usage across age groups. Since snus has been around for perhaps centuries there should be more data but I don't imagine there is really. I'm curious to know when the usage drops off based on current data, and more importantly why? Is it a medical reason, a perceived medical reason, money, life's outlook, what? I'm not really interested in how or why people start really. People are going to do it anyhow...I did...for no good reason at all. I'm interested in why they stop.

That's a good question. Some of our resident Swedes might have some anecdotal accounts. Not as good as a large population study, but it beats a blank.

[Frosted]

Shame theres not much study on the copd issue. All I can say from experience is that yes nicotine interacts directly with the cardiovascular system entirely and immediately......so with all these ups and downs with nicotine Id guess it wouldnt be healthy......but what definately isnt healthy is carbon monoxide and emphysema. Snus had me off that shit for 5 years now.