Smoking improves restenosis rate after intervention...& other beneficial effects

This kind of a heading is sure to gather publicity and that is precisely what has happened. This article by Schillinger M et al has been published in the June issue of Radiology, and concludes that in those who smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day, the rate of intermediate-term restenosis in lower limb vessels after endovascular interventions, is less than in the other groups of patients.

Apparently, this is due to the increased levels of carbon monoxide, which is a natural vasodilator.

This has led to a flurry of articles in the lay press, e.g
Carbon Monoxide From Smoking Helps Keep Arteries Open Following Angioplasty
Smoking is Healthy for your Arteries, etc
Other similar articles can be found here.

To complete this post, I then ran a search of the "benefits of smoking" and was taken aback by the number of hits that I got. One site in particular is very vocal about the benefits of smoking and they list everything from reduced incidence of gum disease, Parkinsonism, Alzheimer's disease, ulcerative colitis and a few other diseases, as actual therapeutic effects of smoking. This site of course is very radical and rants about global conspiracies that prevent these truths from being known. As we all know these days, it is politically completely incorrect to say anything good about smoking.

In a similar vein, there was a Czech report sometime in 2001 that said that if the government encouraged smoking or at the least, did nothing to discourage it, early death in smokers would result in significant savings for public health expenditure, as compared to the amount that would needed to be spent on geriatric care, if all those who smoked were to stop smoking. Obviously, it was immediately panned and criticized, but think about it! If everyone stopped smoking or using tobacco, where would our oral surgeons go? And, most chest surgeons would go out of business as well, as would chest physicians dealing with COPDs, etc. Obviously, just kidding... (have to maintain the political correctness stuff...)