Dr. G?

[Flyman35]

Has anybody ever watched Dr. G Medical Examiner on the Discovery Health Channel?

I just watch an episode call "How Not to Die". It profile what she says are the top 5 killers in relation to what she has seen come through her morgue.

The last one was a man who ultimately died from lung cancer. He was found lying naked in the street in a pool of blood and they thought he had been shot. When they did his autopsy they found out it was lung cancer. So she goes on to says that this man died from the number one killer in america. Do you think she said Lung Cancer. NO!! She said smoking!!! That smoking was the number one killer. Now had he not had signs that he was a smoker and still had advanced lung cancer what would she have said then?

I am so bummed after seeing that.

It's going to repeat again tonight at 10 p.m. chicago time.

Denise

[Muriel]

I'm afraid that I agree with Dr. G. By the way, Dr. G. is our "local" medical examiner, with an office quite close to MDAnderson on the campus of Orlando Regional Hospital.

Not all cancer is "caused" by smoking. I think we'd all agree to that. Some cancer is related to a long history of smoking. But, smoking is also related to a lot of other bad health problems - emphysema (which people can die from), a variety of heart problems, stroke. So, all in all, if you add those other diseases to the lung cancer deaths related to smoking, it's probaby the number one cause of death.

It's still important to make the point that not all lung cancer is smoking related, tho. I'm guessing that doctors who treat forever or long-term non-smokers don't think first of lung cancer when respiratory problems are present. If they did, they'd catch more cancers in earlier stages.

It will be interesting to see how many people I've offended. Hope not too many, as that wasn't the intent of this post.

Muriel