Anybody else hear this?

[kylisa]

I got an email from the ALS Association today that said the AMA now says that smoking is a very real possible cause of ALS. How many of you smoke or have smoked? My mother was a smoker but we were told when she was diagnosed that smoking did not cause ALS.

 

[joelc]

It did not cause it for me.

 

[brooksea]

AMA grasping at straws? My husband had a brief stint with smoking and found it disgusting. I would think that out of all the heavy smokers out there (past and present) - ALS would be like the plague!

Maybe combine smoking with the potpourri of everything else that could be a possible cause and there you have it! (or not)

 

[Zaphoon]

I only smoked for about 3 years (74-77).

I

 

[Cherry]

Other people's second hand smoke is bad for you as everybody knows. My better half was told that the Cancer, (Larynx) he had could have been caused by second hand smoke as he is a non smoker. Now he has P.B.P. /A.L.S.

Have a good day.
Cherry.

 

[indigosd]

Kylisa, could you please copy and paste the email into the forum? I didn't get the email and I am astounded that they would send out an email like that! Have they joined forces with the AMA that has done so little to help our PALS! :shock: I think someone is just blowing SMOKE up our -----! :evil: If that were indeed the case there would be hundreds of thousands of PALS and there would have been a cure decades ago. Web has never smoked and he has ALS. My Mom smoked 2 pks/day for 65 years and died of old age at 80 and no ALS. Honestly, we need some REAL research and assistance- not scare tactics or finger pointing.

 

[Katie C]

Glen was never a smoker.

 

[cukita99]

i was never a smoker.

 

[BethU]

I smoked and quit 28 years ago. Had all my amalgam fillings removed for porcelain crowns 25 years ago, and got ALS anyway. Also have B blood type (supposed to be a cause, but it's not). Never eaten fruit bats on Guam (proven to be a cause).

My brother smoked, died of lung cancer. Father smoked ... and was a dentist, exposed to mercury daily for 50 years ... and died of a heart attack. Mother exposed to second-hand smoke for 40 years, died of colon cancer.

Something like 50% of the adult population of the US used to smoke, and the smoking rate is much higher in other countries. How come the incidence of ALS is supposedly constant? And only 30,000 Americans (out of 300 million) have ALS?

I would love to see the study that produced that "very real possible cause." They've been spending research money on this? No wonder there's no cure.

 

[kelly]

My hubby never smoked!

 

[halfin]

The fruit bats! Dang, I knew my love of Guamese fruit bats would get me in trouble someday.

 

[Brodie0907]

My mother in law never smoked and was not really around many smokers.

 

[t34gib]

I questioned my neuro because I had taken Chantix to quit smoking. Turned into a raging ball of anger and frustration. Quit the Chantix and within 2 months was having symptoms. When i asked him about this, because I had heard of others having this happen, he told me that it was believed that smoking may be give a person a pre-disposition to getting ALS. So, of course, more people in our group would have taken Chantix and that it is probably coincidence. I don't know that any one thing will ever be found to be the cause. Some genetic twist of fate. Something, and this can be different in everyone, can be a catalyst that sets it off. Something that would not normally cause harm in 99% of the population. Who knows. I just wish they would find a way to stop the destruction!
So here we have people who smoked, people who quit, and people who never smoked, so it proves nothing. Why does it affect every single one of us differently? Why some neurons and not others. Why am i sitting here today, able to play better golf than I have ever played, and yet cannot speak an intelligent sounding word, and cannot chew a steak and cannot swallow water. Why? There is no answer for it right now. Why do treatments work in mice and not in people. Maybe they should concentrate on people and not mice! lol, Maybe that is why no cure or treatments are being found. But at least we are giving these poor mice a few more weeks to live.
This disease is so frustrating. No answers for anything.

 

[Zaphoon]

Maybe I should have smoked a while longer.

I woke up this morning and a new kind of twitch started. It was in my hand and made my thumb do an Irish jig all by itself. I had no control so I laid back and watched for my amusement. After 10 minutes, it stopped.

 

[kylisa]

This is the article the email referred to on the ALS Association's Website:

November, 2009

Smoking May Now be Considered an
Established Risk Factor for ALS
While previous studies have indicated a “probable” connection between smoking and ALS, a new study published in the Nov. 17, 2009 issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, states that smoking may now be considered an “established” risk factor for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The findings come from Baystate Medical Center neurologist Dr. Carmel Armon, an ALS researcher and neuroepidemiologist, who came to this conclusion using evidence-based methods to perform a rigorous analysis of studies examining the link between smoking and developing ALS -- a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting the motor nerves and the voluntary muscles.

Prior to this report, no external factors have been implicated with this level of confidence as contributing to the occurrence of sporadic ALS.

“Application of evidence-based methods separates better-designed studies from studies with limitations that may not be relied on. The better-designed studies show consistently that smoking increases the risk of developing ALS, with some findings suggesting that smoking may be implicated directly in causing the disease,” said Dr. Armon, a professor of neurology at Tufts University School of Medicine and chief of neurology at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

According to Dr. Armon, identifying smoking as an established risk factor for ALS has three implications.

“First and foremost the findings provide a link between the environment and the occurrence of ALS, where none had been previously identified with this level of certainty,” said Dr. Armon.

“Additional implications are that since smoking has no redeeming features, avoidance of smoking may reduce the occurrence of ALS in the future, and since some of the mechanisms by which smoking causes other diseases in humans are understood fairly well, recognizing its role in the occurrence of ALS may help pinpoint the biological processes that initiate the disease,” added the researcher.

The Baystate Medical Center neurologist noted that focusing on processes at initiation of sporadic ALS, and close to it, may provide new avenues to treatment to stop its progression.

“This has been realized in some animal models of familial ALS, but not in humans. The hope that these concepts may apply to sporadic disease and change its outlook in the future is supported by establishing the association of smoking with ALS occurrence,” concluded Dr. Armon.

ALS takes the lives of half of those affected within three years of onset of weakness, with less than five percent surviving more than 10 years. Some 90-95 percent of cases appear to occur at random (“sporadic cases’), with 5-10 percent of cases having an affected blood relative (“familial cases”). An altered gene, several of which have been identified, is implicated in causing familial ALS.