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| Macrobiotics and the Great Smoking Myth by Roy Collins |
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| Written by Administrator | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saturday, 14 August 2004 08:33 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Macrobiotics & the Great Smoking Myth Originally published Oct. 2001 by Roy Collins This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies no normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean. Its the worst darn stuff Ive ever seen. I like it.
-- G.L. Hemminger Penn State Froth (1915) I wonder if modern macrobiotic sage George Ohsawa was fully aware of the health and environmental dangers caused by tobacco each time he lit up a Kool cigarette to contemplate the order of the universe. It also concerns me when I see other macrobiotic practitioners smoking cigarettes while they are lecturing to various groups and promoting the yin/yang approach to achieve balance of body/mind/spirit in the natural world. I wonder, and worry, about the children, who enter their lives under the guidance and care of macrobiotic parents who smoke cigarettes and exhale second-hand smoke in the same environment that they are being reared in. Maybe I have become a skeptic after 35 years of macrobiotic practice, and maybe by the power of suggestion I will come to believe that my bladder cancer, which has been linked to long term cigarette smoking, is just an illusion. Unfortunately I was born a realist. Hopefully my personal story and research on the dangers of tobacco smoke will help encourage some macrobiotic readers to take a slightly broader view on the detrimental effects of tobacco smoking. Maybe this will help to discourage the smoking habit, or at least raise ones awareness of how it affects and impacts other lives and the environment itself. The Sacred (& Deadly) Nightshade Nicotiana tabacum, better known to the layperson as tobacco, is a plant indigenous to the Americas. It is a member of the deadly nightshade family of plants (Solanaceae) that produce the common potato, eggplant, potato, and such poisonous drugs as belladonna, datura, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine. In simple macrobiotic terms, tobacco is an extremely yin botanical. In macrobiotic literature we are told to avoid using nightshade plants because of this extreme of yin dominance. It is believed that tobacco growing in the Americas began about 6,000 B.C. and by 1 B.C., American Indians began using tobacco in religious and medicinal practices. For Native Americans tobacco use was not a personal habit or form of recreation but a ceremony reserved for special occasions. Indigenous tribes have various stories about the origin of tobacco and how it was given to the people as a gift from the spirit world and encouraged using the plant in moderation to prevent its abuse and misuse. Today, commercial development and misuse of the sacred tobacco plant has made it the leading preventable cause of death among Native peoples in the United States. According to the American Lung Association Fact Sheet on American Indians and Alaskan Natives and Tobacco (Sept, 2000), among racial and ethnic groups, the prevalence of current smoking is highest among American Indians/Alaskan Natives (34.1 percent), followed by African Americans (26.7 percent), whites (25.3 percent), Hispanics (20.4 percent) and Asians/Pacific Islanders (16.9 percent). In 1826, the pure form of nicotine was first discovered and soon thereafter, scientists concluded that nicotine was a dangerous poison that could kill a man -- a fact that already been established in the late 1500s, after tobacco promoter Thomas Harriet died of nose cancer in Virginia. Less than 100 years after Harriets death, Italian biologist, Francesco Redi published a scientific study on oil of tobacco that detailed the lethal effects it had on the body. Redis research was corroborated nearly 300 years later, when Dr. Ernst L. Wynders found that putting cigarette tar on the backs of mice caused tumors. In 1849, Dr. Joel Shaw published Tobacco: Its History, Nature, and Effects on the Body and Mind, and identified eighty-seven conditions as being tobacco-linked. Ten years later, cancer of the lip was found to be 100% tobacco-correlated in a study by French Dr. Bouisson. From the years 1879 through 1889 three cases were tried in two American states that argued the position that tobacco delivered a dangerous, addictive drug, nicotine (Carver v State, 69 Ind 61; 35 Am Rep 205, Nov 1879, Mueller v State, 76 Ind 310; 40 Am Rep 245, May 1881, and State v Ohmer, 34 Mo App 115, 5 Feb 1889). In 1928, Drs. Herbert L. Lombard and Carl B. Doering published "Cancer Studies . . . Habits, Characteristics and Environment of Individuals With and Without Cancer," in the New England Journal of Medicine (April 26, 1928 pps. 481-487). In this report, data was presented showing that among smokers of tobacco the percentage rates of premature death was higher than among nonsmokers:
Nicotine is a colorless, oily, liquid alkaloid, C10,H14,N2, that constitutes the principal active constituent of tobacco. On exposure to air nicotine turns brown and it boils at 477 degrees F (247 C) under a pressure of 745 mm. Partial decomposition occurs at this temperature. It is soluble in water and completely miscible is alcohol, chloroform, ether, and petroleum ether. Nicotine affects the level of dopamine present in the brain at any moment. Dopamine is the hormone that controls pleasure levels. Dopamine levels increase when nicotine is present. Addiction occurs when the craving for pleasure levels rise. Dependency on nicotine is both from a physical as well as psychological level. In its dried form tobacco contains 1 percent to 3 percent of the drug nicotine. In small doses it is a nerve stimulant, especially upon the autonomic nervous system, and thus promotes the flow of adrenaline and other internal secretions. In larger doses, nicotine paralyzes the autonomic nervous system by blocking the transmission of nerve impulses across the spaces between adjoining nerve cells. Larger doses can cause convulsions and death. The fresh leaves of the tobacco plant are known to cause poisoning when consumed and blood sucking leeches that attach to the skin of smokers have been known to drop dead from nicotine poisoning within a span of five minutes. A single drop of pure nicotine is enough to kill you if it is on your skin. The health hazards of nicotine were further compounded in 1910, when lead arsenate, a by-product of arsenic, was introduced as a broad spectrum pesticide for agricultural use. Mixed together with together with oil, lead arsenate gave good suppression of most pests, including the dozen or so insects that thrived on large-sale tobacco farms. However, insects soon developed resistance to the pesticide, and by the 1930s and 1940s, growers were spraying frequently and still losing crops to insects. Arsenic is an insoluble poison that permanently poisons the soil. In doses significantly larger than 1 grain (70 mg) arsenic causes poisoning in humans. In her book, Silent Spring, author/scientist Rachel Carson reported that cigarettes made from tobacco grown on farms that have long discontinued spraying with lead arsenate continue to show an increase of arsenic content as much as 600 per cent more, as time passes. This reason is due to the tobacco plants ability to pick up arsenate of lead from the soil and convert it into a soluble form. During the 1940s to the 1950s, more modern organic-based broad spectrum pesticides and herbicides were introduced to replace lead arsenate in the United States. By the early 1960s, however, it was found that this class of chemicals were not only ineffective in controlling insects and weeds, but their residues began to kill off large numbers of plant and animal species and poisoned wells and waterways. One of the most deadly of these pesticides was DDT (short for dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane), a chlorinated hydrocarbon. At first the pesticide was considered to be safer than lead arsenate and it proved successful in control of crops at lower costs. But then resistance and resurgence of pests soon became a problem. As resistance to DDT grew, new types of pesticides were developed, including organophosphates and carbamates. Pests eventually developed resistance to those as well but the largest drawback of those classes of chemicals was that they were found to be more toxic to humans than the pesticides and herbicides used in the past. Despite its ban in the US in 1972, the effects of DDT continue to be evident in wildlife populations according to biologists. Rachel Carson called these farm pesticides elixirs of death which come into contact with every human being in the world: They have been recovered from most of the major systems and even from the streams of groundwater flowing unseen through the earth. Residues of these chemicals linger in soil to which they may have been applied a dozen years before. They have entered and lodged in the bodies of fish, birds, reptiles, and domestic and wild animals so universally that scientists carrying on animal experiments find it almost impossible to locate subjects free from such contaminations. (Silent Spring, p. 16). John Elliot, a bird researcher with the Canadian Wildlife Service in British Columbia has found DDT in birds eggs with levels that are higher than first reported 20-25 years ago. Tobacco and cotton farming used more DDT than any other crop from the time of its introduction until its ban. In 1988 the EPA reported that the ground water in 32 states had been contaminated with seventy-four different agricultural chemicals. Since 1962 farm use of pesticides has doubled to 1.1 billon tons a year an estimated increase of 400 percent. Most of these are narrow-spectrum pesticides with even higher toxicity than those which preceded them and have not been adequately tested. According to Gary Ostrander, Hopkins professor of biology and comparative medicine, and John Harshberger, a professor at George Washington University who directs the Registry of Tumors in Lower Animals, there is conclusive evidence that cancer exists throughout the phylogenetic tree. Once the food chain becomes poisoned the domino effect begins and within a short time the food chain becomes poisoned everywhere. How did Ohsawa justify the use of tobacco in light of the mass destruction of life forms resulting from the spraying of lethal chemicals on tobacco crops? In the Book of Judgment under the chapter titled Supreme Judging Ability, Ohsawa wrote that we should have respect for all life, not just human life: To understand respect for life, one must first know lifes order and then be able to practice it in order to realize longevity and rejuvenescence, universal love and infinite indulgence, without violence or cruelty. ( Book of Judgment, p. 108 )
(Photo courtesy of University of Michigan and NOAA/ Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory) Photos depicting large tumors on tiny animals (zooplankton) at the base of the food chain, found in one of the Great Lakes. In 1964, two years before Ohsawas death approximately 7000 articles relating to smoking and disease prompted the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Surgeon General to conclude that cigarette smoking was the cause of lung and laryngeal cancer in men and a probable cause of lung cancer in women, and the most probable cause of bronchitis in both sexes. Ohsawa apparently didnt do his homework. After these risks were published, a subsequent decline in smoking, along with the incidence of smoking-related cancers also declined. In addition, age-adjusted death rates per 100,000 persons for heart disease decreased from 307.4 in 1950 to 134.6 in 1996. It was the period between 1964-1992 when it was found that nearly 1.6 million deaths caused by smoking were prevented (Wingo PA, Ries LA, Giovino GA, et al. Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 1973-1996, and J Natl Cancer Inst 1999;91:675-90.) According to the Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, lung cancer was rare during the first decades of the 20th century, but as cigarette smoking became increasingly popular, the incidence of lung cancer became epidemic. In 1930, the lung cancer death rate for men was 4.9 per 100,000; in 1990, the rate had increased to 75.6 per 100,000. A Little More than Yellow & Gray George Ohsawa did not give lengthy discourses on the pros and cons of tobacco smoking but what he did do, by way of demonstration, was to show that the gray smoke emitted from the front end of the cigarette was yin, and the yellow smoke from the rear was yang. He probably wasnt aware that more than 3,000 chemicals are present in tobacco smoke, including at least 60 known carcinogens such as nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. That information was not well publicized during Ohsawas life. If so, I wonder if he would have endorsed smoking as does his disciple, Michio Kushi, who smokes the Marlboro brand and is aware of tobacco ingredients. Do any macrobiotics today really think we are going to believe that the yang fire from a match will fully neutralize these powerful poisons as yellow smoke is inhaled and the gray smoke is left to linger in the environment? It is the burning tobacco coal that just so happens to make the nicotine delivery system (and other toxins) transferable. Ohsawa was a smart guy, no doubt, and his lifetime experiences are legendary. But it takes a lot more than smarts and experience to know that some of the invisible compounds in cigarette smoke become carcinogenic only after they are activated by specific enzymes found in many tissues in the body. It takes dedicated research and a precise means for measuring and analyzing how these activated compounds can become part of DNA molecules which interfere with the normal growth of cells. Other scientific findings indicate that when a cigarette is smoked, about half of the smoke generated is sidestream smoke. This gray colored smoke contains essentially the same compounds as those identified in the mainstream yellow smoke inhaled by the smoker. Combined together these two types of smoke produce ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) whose chemicals include substances that irritate the lining of the lung and other tissues, carcinogens, mutagens, and developmental toxicants. Tobacco smoke is known to contain at least 60 carcinogens, including formaldehyde and benzo[a]pyrene, and six developmental toxicants, including nicotine and carbon monoxide. Perhaps most damaging of them all is carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide (CO) attaches to the red blood cells that transport oxygen to each living cell throughout the body. As levels of CO rise in the lungs from smoke inhalation, chemical strangulation occurs and metabolism begins to shut down. The benzene group of compounds is known to cause cancer. Benzene poisoning can also produce Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and when it gets into bone marrow it can cause leukemia.benzene. The aldehyde compounds are also unstable solvents in tobacco smoke that combine quickly with other chemicals. When formic acid and aldehyde combine they become lethal free radicals and damage DNA wherever it comes into contact. Studies dating from the 1970s have consistently shown that children and infants exposed to ETS in the home have significantly elevated rates of respiratory symptoms and respiratory tract infections. These findings prompted recommendations that ETS be eliminated from the environment of small children. In adults, ETS can worsen existing pulmonary symptoms for people with asthma and chronic bronchitis, as well as for people with allergic conditions. Eye irritation, sore throat, nausea, and hoarseness are also common complaints. What we now know about ETS is that nonsmokers who are exposed to it absorb nicotine and other compounds just as smokers do. As the exposure to ETS increases, the levels of these harmful substances in the body increase as well. In 1986, two reports were published that correlated ETS exposure and the adverse health effects in nonsmokers: one was by the U.S. Surgeon General and the other by the Expert Committee on Passive Smoking, National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council (NAS/NRC). The findings in these reports concluded that: 1) ETS can cause lung cancer in healthy adult nonsmokers 2) Children of parents who smoke have more respiratory symptoms and acute lower respiratory tract infections, as well as evidence of reduced lung function, than do children of nonsmoking parents; and 3) That separating smokers and nonsmokers within the same air space may reduce but does not eliminate a nonsmoker's exposure to ETS.
Photo on left shows lung with Emphysema. The one on the right has cancer. Both are directly tied to cigarette smoke. The EPA later confirmed the above findings in its own study on the respiratory health effects of ETS and decided to classify ETS as a Group A carcinogena category reserved only for the most dangerous cancer-causing agents in humans. More recent studies and the EPA's report point to a 20 percent increased risk of lung cancer in nonsmokers due to ETS. In response to evidence that ETS causes diseases beyond lung cancer and respiratory problems in children, the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) conducted a comprehensive assessment of the range of health effects connected with ETS exposure. The results of this project were published in 1999 by the National Cancer Institute as part of its Smoking and Tobacco Control monograph series. These are the results:
ETS has also been linked with other cancers, including those in the nasal sinus cavity, cervix, breast, and bladder. Other health effects that were found to be possibly associated with ETS included: spontaneous abortion; adverse impact on cognition and behavior during child development; exacerbation of cystic fibrosis, and decreased lung function. Natural Tobacco Close but no Cigar! Recently I talked to two long-time macrobiotic adherents who just so happened to also be long-time cigarette smokers. Both of these middle-aged men smoked what they called natural tobacco, a product that is supposedly free from chemical pesticides and which contain no additives. Not to my surprise, each man defended the use of cigarettes believing that it was not the tobacco that was harmful but rather the chemicals. This is an interesting viewpoint, but nicotine alone had been established an addictive chemical poison and carcinogen prior to the use of chemical pesticides. There is no argument about commercial cigarettes containing numerous additives -- around 600 in fact, with over 100 derived from nutritious fruits, herbs, and amino acids. Since natural tobacco does not contain these ingredients, which tends to lower the accumulation of poisonous toxins, then higher concentrations of tar and nicotine are found in these cigarettes, as well as greater levels of toxic agents such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and carcinogenic hydrocarbons that occurs in ETS. Cigars, likewise, contain fewer additives than cigarettes, and because of this they contain higher amounts of nicotine and carcinogens. Cigarette smoke contains approximately 11 milligrams of nicotine while a cigar may contain as much as 444 milligrams. Cigars give off five times as much tar and 25 times more carbon monoxide than a cigarette. One does not need to be rocket scientist to see why cigar smokers have higher rates of cancer than other smokers. Last year, when I was first diagnosed with bladder cancer, I met a retired war veteran who was afflicted with the exact same form of cancer as mine. He is 90 years old, blind, suffers from diabetes and eats the standard American diet (SAD). He was also a heavy cigar smoker. In the early 1960s he was diagnosed with bladder cancer by a Navy doctor in Bethesda, who advised him to quit smoking. After a few treatments and annual check ups this old fellow has remained cancer free for nearly 40 years. My doctor asked me if I had been a smoker, and told me that nearly all bladder cancer in men is caused by cigarette smoking, usually in combination with other environmental toxins. Its effects are cumulative and once we begin to age our immune systems naturally weaken and white blood cells cannot fully recognize and fight abnormal cells in bladder tissue. It would thus appear, in theory anyway, that a strong immune system plays a key role in cancer prevention, treatment, and recovery. Of course avoiding the primary toxins that cause abnormal cell growth would also play a major role in prevention. Some of the macrobiotic literature recommends the daily use of strong miso soup with seaweed to help clean out accumulated nicotine residuals in the bodies of individuals that smoke. There is probably a kernel of truth in this observation in that miso is made from cultured soybeans which are high in phytochemicals that contain powerful antioxidants. In my particular case, however, miso proved ineffective due largely to the reason that miso is heavily salted, and aged. Because bladder cancer is usually formed by a combination of both strong yin and strong yang this would indicate a need to restrict excessive salt use. A cup of fresh, cultured soymilk (unsalted) however, would offer the greatest amount of bioavailability for the antioxidants that fight against tumor formation. A tumor can usually grow only to about 2 centimeters in the bladder and then begins to grow vessels into the bladder wall where it can anchor, feed and continue to grow. This process is called angiogenesis. The soybean is one of the only botanical forms known to have anti-angiogenetic properties. Over the past few months I have experimented with culturing home made soymilk combined with amesake and small amounts of fresh fruit, local herbs and rice syrup. Since using this product I have been able to regain most of the 30 lbs I lost after two hospitalizations. Tofu, on the other hand, is not cultured and is over refined and should not be used in excess by macrobiotics anywhere. Marijuana also contains many of the same cancer-causing compounds as tobacco, sometimes in higher concentrations. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day. Of course this drug, unlike nicotine, is illegal and therefore taboo in macrobiotic circles, right? I wonder what a macrobiotic would eat if he/she were stricken with an attack of the munchies after smoking a couple of joints A brief review of the history of medicine shows us that medicine is constantly changing to fit the needs of people as societies change. In remote regions and more ancient times when life and technology were more simplified, medicines were also simple and naturally derived. Though time, as societies become more complex and technical, medicine also needs to be adjusted. Sometimes the human body is so divorced from the natural world around it that powerful drugs and surgeries are required to bring under control specific diseases caused by improper diet and harsh environmental conditions. As macrobiotics living in a hostile and highly mechanized world, filled with carcinogens and industrial waste, we witness mass suicide taking place in a subliminal manner especially through the commercial food and water supply, the lifeline creating/maintaining the human body. Even the most health-conscious in our small group of macrobiotic practitioners is not immune to the discharge of invisible toxins carried in the air from factories, airplanes, aerosol sprays, auto emissions, and other invisible environmental pollutants. If we happen to smoke a joint at a party or drink a few beers, or get stuck by a hypodermic filled with heroin, our bodies naturally feel their results. Macrobiotics has certain limitations than cannot be overlooked. Allopathic medicine has its place as well and I am grateful for it. I remain alive today because of it. Until we are able to STOP pollution of our bodies and planet at the source then we are quite likely to see the need for drastic methods of treatment continue. We are flesh and blood people -- not superhuman, and our body tissues, organs, body functions and systems are real and alive. If no one has yet figured it out, let me be the first to spill the beans macrobiotics do get sick, get into accidents, get divorced, get cancer, get Anthrax, slain by terrorists, go bald and die in wars and earthquakes. DNA and inherited predisposition to specific diseases also plays a huge role in our destiny on earth. In my case the Number 7 (brown rice diet) did not work, neither did the highly restrictive diet generously provided by the Kushi group. In fact, after 3 months of a specific, focused and restrictive macrobiotic regime my urologist discovered that my tumors had grown at a faster rate than previously, with the flexible macrobiotic diet I had been living with! Traditional Chinese Medicine was virtually useless, but I have felt results from the single herb called Astragulus. I boil 4 or 5 slices in with Kukicha tea and drink this 5 times daily. It is said to be a powerful immune system enhancer. We can protect ourselves only to a certain degree from what transpires on our planet. We are all walking around with various levels of lead, mercury, radioactive strontium-90 fallout and DDT from a past age. What we find offensives about our world we try to right by standing together and speaking out against the threats. Hence, I do so against tobacco, chemical pesticides, GMO foods, pollution and waste, and against discrimination in all forms. Smoking cigarettes is an endorsement of disrespect for life! Most macrobiotic smokers are deeply entrenched in the belief that tobacco smoking is a harmless yang form of pleasure, but the facts I have presented state otherwise. I am fully convinced that the statistics offered are also reliable and not part of a propaganda campaign as one of my colleagues has suggested. It may be true that there is a very strong yang component in cigarettes but there is 500 times more extreme yin to offset the yang! After two or three cigarettes the tar and residuals from tobacco smoke begin to make the blood acidic. This acid requires yang minerals to buffer its effects. These minerals are supplied primarily by the calcium in bones. The correlation between osteoporosis and tobacco, as well as depletion of other vitamins (especially C) is also well documented. Smoking is no-win situation a dead end street. Hopefully this information will serve to broaden the views some macrobiotics have on smoking and it will encourage them to discourage tobacco use. Maybe I will reach just one, and he/she, in turn, will pass the word and this word I pray will help to save another from needless suffering and premature death. This article is dedicated to the memory of George Harrison, former Beatle, vegetarian, and long-time smoker who died this week from cancer of the lung, throat, and brain. He was 58.
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  written by Guest, August 18, 2004
After 40 years, I can't believe that smoking is still catagorised as yangizing!!!!! How sad. Where is the philosophy and understanding of change. When we get all the information in, it is suppose to help our understanding so that we can do something about it, not just follow blindly.
written by Guest, September 23, 2004
rather than accumulate observations that highlight the dangers..two basic Oshawa insights remain unanswered
(i) since when did the planting of nicotine produce a tobacco plant...ie a qualitative difference exists (ii) Oshawa made his comment on the Supreme level...therefore his comment that yang inhalation is not the only process that cures cancer is STILL correct...
written by Guest, November 22, 2004
:grin yeah, like what they said. But you know the hardest thing for me is to follow through with a plan, to stay motivated, to live as I want to live. It's the evil little man that sits on my left shoulder or maybe my right that tell me to do the wrong thing
written by Guest, March 04, 2005
I am grateful for all viewpoints and insights, thank you.
written by Guest, March 09, 2005
I discovered macrobiotics at the age of 20. I'm now 47 and have the occasional cigarette.
I would first distinguish between the usual commercial cigarettes that are full of chemicals and taste awful, and the organic cigarettes that are essentially pure tobacco. Most cancer statistics are based on people who smoke the heavily chemicallized products. Then there is the factor of quantity. No matter how pure, excessive quantity can change anything. I believe Georges Ohsawa observed that there is no poisonous substance, only excess. That would suggest that if one were to smoke even the most chemically laden cigarettes, if they smoked only one a year and further took measures to balance it by plenty of good air, water, food and thought, that cigarette could actually help, or at least not harm. Where the healthful balance rests has to be determined on an individual basis. Certainly a pack or two of chemical cigarettes a day is asking for trouble. Quantity changes quality. -Jack
written by Guest, April 08, 2005
I've been reasurching on smoking and the persons habbits for about 3 days now. My dad smokes and it bothers me. So i'm making this book for him filled with information and pictures of what happens when you smoke too much. So far i've been getting alot of info. But quarter of the time i'm getting the same thing. Although i just started, i'm suprised by the way theres not that much information on smoking and its causes, ect... Although i am only 16 i'm inerested in this kind of stuff. Reasurching and solving. To me, Smoking is just a waste of money. Some time i hope my dad notices that.
Kailamarie Mack :x
written by Guest, June 15, 2005
Good article. But why did George Harrison, a longtime smoker, get cancer, yet other people who also smoked daily, live to a ripe old age without cancer or emphysema? Got to look at the whole picture. As to a macrobiotic regimen causing the author's cancer (apparently) to develop faster than ever - maybe it is because the macrobiotic way of eating is too acid-forming from all that grain and thoroughly-cooked vegetables. Maybe some raw food and other health-foody type things would be helpful.
written by Guest, June 15, 2005
Good article. But why did George Harrison, a longtime smoker, get cancer, yet other people who also smoked daily, live to a ripe old age without cancer or emphysema? Got to look at the whole picture. As to a macrobiotic regimen causing the author's cancer (apparently) to develop faster than ever - maybe it is because the macrobiotic way of eating is too acid-forming from all that grain and thoroughly-cooked vegetables. Maybe some raw food and other health-foody type things would be helpful.
written by burma87, August 17, 2005
After smoking for 25 years off and on, it took my sister's breast cancer, and my father's lung cancer to get me to admit the impact smoking has on us individually, and on the oneness of us all. Thank you for this article. Maybe it will help others get it! :eek
written by Guest, September 18, 2005
It is a privilege to at least have access to diverse opinions, our innate birth right. Perhaps for consideration could be a question of the core issue ... why each of us chooses to continue to live, what we do with our individuality, freedom and power to think and to act. .. What is/are our highest goal(s), dream(s) while alive? Then, if comitted to these aspirations/hopes what specific actions contribute to or deprive us of the freedom to reach those goals? If tobacco (& other modalities for example) can be said to be necessary and beneficial for our highest and best in life, well, then .... but if not... again, perhaps, why do we choose life? How is life defined? What is its value inherently and ultimately?
Thank you for listening; peace and life to you
written by Guest, September 22, 2005
Was George Harrison a vegan? If he still used animal milk in his diet, along with the very yin Indian spices, being vegetarian wouldn't have helped much. He also seemed to smoke commercial cigarettes and was known as a chain smoker, and not an outdoor-only imbiber. American Spirit will send you the two-page sheet -- packed to the margins of all the chemicals and additives added to commericial cigarettes--with the bleached papers and materials in filters being even more damaging. I believe those who smoke under three cigarettes of organic tobacco a day, perhaps after meals (not breakfast!), and only take two or three inhales at a time before stubbing it out, would probably would have a difficult time contracting cancer from such moderate use. As American Spirit states in its informative packet--most people smoking the organic tobacco, find they use less and less. Since it is a habit, the whole rolling process also slows one down a bit. Anyway, I believe extremely moderate use of tobacco, outdoors, with cleansing breaths afterwards and a strict vegan macrobiotic diet, would leave one healthier than a mediocre diet with lots of yin bingeing--which a couple of puffs might have prevented. Just an opinion.
written by Guest, December 11, 2005
Keep in mind psychology follows physiology - a stinking body permeated with tobacco smoke will produce thoughts of equal vibration. Ohsawa said the larger the front, the larger the back. Can an ingested carcinogenic substance like tobacco produce pure thoughts? Moreover why would anyone want to smoke as the substances in tobacco produce foul breath, damage the nervous system and contribute zero to constitutional wellbeing. Further more the cost this substance brings to the Health Care industry world-wide is staggering.
It almost seems as though a malevolent alien has, with great success, put the deadly nightshade family of plants (Solanaceae) on our planet to create maximum havoc. Tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and tobacco are the most commonly consumed products and as we know from Ohsawa all extremes create reciprocal extremes. How much longer can the planet's chi be sustained by the extremes of environmental pollution rooted in individual and corporate extremes?
written by Guest, January 06, 2006
Dad smoked. He died of liver cancer at 69. Mom inhaled 2nd hand smoke, died of melanoma at 74.
Aveline died of cancer. Michio had cancer surgery. Who's kidding whom? Great article. Thanks for the insight. You folks still expressing your 'freedom' by lighting up? Good grief!
written by Guest, February 16, 2006
One of the guests above made a couple of good points, namely, that some people smoke all their lives and get no serious illness. And, further, that Collins ate a "pure", but highly acid-producing diet. This person is correct when he/she says we have to look at the entire picture.
Collins unfortunately sees only two methods of curing disease: the traditional, simple cures of yore, OR the violent, damaging slash-burn-poison routine that he went through on the grounds that modern society is so "technical" & un-natural that our medical treatments have to be un-natural, also! Talk about yin & yang! It is a fact that there ARE folks with cancer who have cured themselves with gentle methods even in this day and age. The big hurdle was getting over the fear that comes with the diagnosis. I am sorry to hear that Collins could come up with nothing better than astragalus, presumably because it is an Oriental herb, whilst ignoring various natural approaches that western society has to offer. What is the point of macrobiotic dietary ideology, anyway, if so many who have followed it for decades are falling over dead of horrid diseases? How long will it take macrobiotic devotees to "get it" - that their approach is not beneficial?
written by Guest, February 16, 2006
I find the constant references to food as either yin or yang unsuitable; as someone once put it, that is like constantly going to the Supreme Court for minor decisions. Food and its effects are far more complicated than just "yin" or "yang".
written by Guest, February 20, 2006
It is correct, to me, anyway, that smoking in the context of the standard macrobiotic way of eating would not be healthful. But it might be beneficial to smoke small qty. of natural cigs if one desires in the context of a mainly raw-food, vegan-ish or veg. diet.
 written by gina sharpston, September 26, 2006
How could I be so ignorant in this issue. It has been more than 35 years that I want to do research of this. I did not have time for anything. Thank God for this info. I knew it that It was dangerous but I did not know why especificaly. I donne this reading because I heard a comment by the doctor who refused to do surgery a
heavy smoker patient when I was lissening in the other doctor office's room. I am not a smoker. But I witnessed the death of my ex-boyfriend with lung cancer 
 written by andy clifford, January 14, 2007
Of course cigs will kill you. If you doubt that you're a fool. You're dishonest. Probably dishonest about a whole lot of things in your life.
Thing is...to me..its the quality of your life not necessarily the quantity of years you live. I believe thats where the misconception lies. Its not so much as to how long you live life but how happy you live it. If smoking is something you truly enjoy than so be it. Once again...honesty comes first..as it does with everything. Honesty...to me..is a perfect balance! If you're honest about "why" you smoke..or whatever it is you do than you understand the yin and the yang of the consequences. The balance that lies as the foundation of your discissions. Can I smoke joint of some remarkable organic ganja and sit at the edge of the cliffs enjoying where it all is within me as I inhale and then exhale? Of course I can. Its a "conscious" choice I make that makes me who I am. Can I abuse the smoke? If I choose to, yes, but if I'm honest can I also say to myself this WILL kill me and thats OK? Course I can...would I ,,no, I personally wouldn't ...but thats just me. I do have the understanding within my own being to allow others to make those choices for themselves and not pass judgement because passing judgement...to me has its effects on life as well. So lets be real here. In the words of George Harrison...its "within you , without you". Its your world to live the way you feel right in it. I respect that. Namaste' andy aka avi yama dass
 written by Jeremy, June 13, 2007
The thing that has always appealed to me about Macrobiotics is that it offers an applied understanding of how to create balance in the body. When I healed myself of a life-threatening disease 12 years ago through Macrobiotics, I did so by learning how to observe what was going on in my body, and how to use that understanding to harmonize my body with a natural state of balance. That state, on top of healing a disease that I was told by Western medicine could not be cured, brought with it a profound sense of peace, clarity, and well-being. What I discovered was that living in that state brought me so much joy and contentment, that the fleeting enjoyment I might get from something like a slice of sugary vanilla cake or a cigarette could not come close to the enjoyment I received from being balanced and healthy.
Yes, we are all free to choose what we put into our bodies. But the freedom of well-being of mind, body, and spirit far exceeds the fix of the passing sensual pleasures. It is unfortunate to me that anyone would argue that cigarettes aren't cancer-causing agents. Even organic cigarettes contain tar and nicotene. Is the pleasure of "a few" cigarettes a day greater than taking the chance of getting cancer? Yes, some people smoke their whole lives and don't get cancer. We all have different innate constitutions. But is that a risk worth taking? I am all for people being free to make choices, but there is enough that can ruin our health in this world - it would be nice if more people started making the choices that didn't sacrifice their well-being.
 written by Tra, September 18, 2007
This was truely amazing and insightful information that until this very moment I tried to stay oblivious too. I was trying to fiure out if I should try to stop smoking agin, and this information was my validation as why I will try agin. I forwarded this sight on to many friends that I know who smoke and hopefully this informaion will capture them like it did for me.........
 written by robert asquith, September 07, 2009
I,m so sorry for you I notice the 2001 date and i,m not sure if thats right, however my sympathies for you . It,s such a lovely simple thing
to eat better heal thy food and its sad to hear such stories, george only lived to be 70 but happiness was his gift,if your still alive i wish you well and if not enjoy the next faze of your life equally.
 written by Ted, November 01, 2009
The belief in and fear of this idea that burning tobacco plant leaves cause cancer is actually counter to macrobiotic understanding. Cancer is a bodily function that is related to accumulation and discharge. The studies that appear to show that smoking is the cause of cancer are largely constructed using people who are far from macrobiotic, and who have active accumulation of excess, active inflammation, and very poor circulation, etc. Any number of environmental irritants would cause reactions, including cellular reversions and 'mutations' in such people. In fact, many many people are also experiencing allergies and 'toxic' reactions to household cleaning products, furniture, new carpets, animals, dust, and so forth. Reactions including cancer.
Which is more closely associated with cancer - burning leaves, or atomic radiation? The modern "cancer scare" is very closely related to the timeline of the introduction of radioactive materials and processes, and especially so following the proliferation of nuclear arms testing. Tobacco seems to make a great scapegoat for governments wishing to avoid possible litigation regarding their irresponsible use of nuclear materials, reactions, and energy. As well as one of several great means of boosting the medical industry when sold to people already made weak, sick, and otherwise predisposed to cancer by the energy, commercialized food, and pharmaceutical drug industries. And, neither Michio Kushi's, Aveline's, Lily's, Anthony Satillaro's, nor Cecile Levin's cancer was caused by smoking cigarettes. Georges Ohsawa didn't have cancer. The fact that you developed bladder cancer while "being macrobiotic" shows not that cigarettes themselves are dangerous, but merely that they may have been dangerous for you due to the conditions you created in yourself in the 35 years of your "macrobiotics". Whatever sort of "macrobiotics" that was, it created such weakness and imbalance such that you believe now that the smoke from burning plant leaves has somehow attacked your bladder. Rather, if you really believe in your being attacked by carcinogens - examine the past schedules and locations of nuclear arms testing for the real deal. Try some well-soaked kombu after you change your location, too.
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