A Vote for Wool

[tundramanq]

I worked with them for 24 years at a national lab.

[Ryan Ross]

I worked with them for 24 years at a national lab.

I'd say that lends a fair bit of credibility to your claim, personally.

[tundramanq]

Since the beginning we have been breathing in dust and smoke. Our lungs remove it using mucus to trap and the little hairs (name escapes me) in the bronchial passages to "pump" the solids and mucus out and down the gullet. As long a this system isn't disabled or overwealmed all is fine.
This is what causes chain smokers (I smoke ) problems as nicotine puts the hairs to sleep and it takes about ten minutes for them to start working again.

[ForresterModern]

Since the beginning we have been breathing in dust and smoke. Our lungs remove it using mucus to trap and the little hairs (name escapes me) in the bronchial passages to "pump" the solids and mucus out and down the gullet. As long a this system isn't disabled or overwealmed all is fine.
This is what causes chain smokers (I smoke ) problems as nicotine puts the hairs to sleep and it takes about ten minutes for them to start working again.

The hairs are called cilia, and the nicotine effects are not the only issues with inhaled cigarette smoke---tars and other pretty caustic chemicals, as well as the particulate ash of the smoke itself, pretty well poison a lot of the more delicate portions of the lung and airway lining causing it to turn from its normal mucus secreting protective type of cell to a non-mucous secreting non-ciliated variety (called metaplasia) that makes all the airways, small and large become slowly nonfunctional for clearing inhaled or native (mucous and inflammatory reactive cells) solids (something called chronic bronchitis). Never mind the destruction it acauses to the thin walls separating the actual air sacs/alveoli of the actual gas exchanging parts of the lungs, eventually causing emphysema. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema are at two ends of a spectrum of acquired lung disease better known as COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), the second worst non-cancerous ill effect of smoking after the advanced atherosclerosis it also causes. Cancer, well we won't go there.

j

[tundramanq]

Forrester - thanks for the rest of it - all I could really remember was the cilia thing.

I switched to Kirstan pipes about 15 years ago to reduce inhalation and limit how and when I smoke.

[ForresterModern]

Forrester - thanks for the rest of it - all I could really remember was the cilia thing.

I switched to Kirstan pipes about 15 years ago to reduce inhalation and limit how and when I smoke.

You are welcome. I lived and "breathed" this part of medicine for so many years during my training (I work exclusively with kids now so not as big an issue). Knowledge is a powerful thing, powerful enough that I have not smoked a cigarette since I was 19, or anything else legal or illegal since about 22. I could probably count the number of cigarettes I ever smoked on my fingers and the toes of one foot. Although I did endure second-hand smoke from my 2-3 pack-a-day smoking father until I left for college (late 70's), but he quit shortly thereafter. He is turning 82 next week and still going strong.

[Pleater]

the various supermarkets which have been making disintegrating carrier bags as part of their 'green' credentials have now decided to stop - which is great as I have had a real problem with carefully separating matching balls of yarn and then storing them together in large containers, only to discover that I have a container full of yarn and white flakes and a problem with identification.

The amount of small plastic debris of all sorts and sizes has been increasing for several decades - even though the manufacturers have been trying to deny the quantities collected on beaches around the UK. That is a separate issue from the plastic containers and items which do not fall apart with time.

That animals of all sizes are also ingesting the particles has also been known for some time, but no effort to minimise the quantity entering the environment seems to have been made, and very little investigation into the consequences seems to have been done.

Burning plastic is a recipe for disaster, and the only really effective system seems to be recycling - but so many things are not recyclable. It is a real dilemma.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[artificer]

the various supermarkets which have been making dissintegrating carrier bags as part of their 'green' credentials have now decided to stop - which is great as I have had a real problem with carefully separating matching balls of yarn and then storing them together in large containers, only to discover that I have a container full of yarn and white flakes and a problem with identification.

The amount of small plastic debris of all sorts and sizes has been increasing for several decades - even though the manufacturors have been trying to deny the quantities collected on beaches around the UK. That is a separate issue from the plastic containers and items which do not fall apart with time.

That animals of all sizes are also injesting the particles has also been known for some time, but no effort to minimise the quantity entering the environment seems to have been made, and very little investigation into the consequences seems to have been done.

Burning plastic is a recipe for disaster, and the only really effective system seems to be recycling - but so many things are not recyclable. It is a real dilemma.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

All true, and the less said about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch the better.



Man, C'thulhu is going to be pissed, it's almost right above his home. :cthulhusmiley:

[tyger]

.... emphysema.....chronic bronchitis......COPD..........atherosclerosis..... .cancer...........

j

All true.

After getting my DVM, and spending a few years in practice, I returned to school and earned a MS and a PhD. One of the very best courses that I took toward my PhD was physiological biochemistry.

Among many other things, I leared that a major destructive effect of smoking invovles direct inactivation of alpha 1-antitrypsin A1AT).

A1AT protects against neutorophil (a white blood cell) elastase. Essential methionine residues are oxidized to sulfoxide forms, decreasing the enzyme activity by a factor of 2000. This has major effects not only on the lung (COPD, emphysema) but on the liver (cirrhosis) in many patients .

If you smoke, your neutrophils are putting out elastase 24/7. It would be best to quit.

[piperdbh]

All you scientists are making me think about quitting my thrice-yearly pipe smoking addiction.