Quote Originally Posted by jackson.alan46 View Post
Arthur, you ARE lucky ! What I have said about smoking (and diabetes) is "evidence based" and not just my opinion. I'm only qualified to talk about health, not politics. But you're right, we do seem to have a problem with alcohol which seems unique to the UK. Britons are now drinking three times as much as fifty years ago, and booze causes many thousands of deaths with rates of alcoholic liver disease soaring. It's easier for me as a (retired) health professional to give the facts, far more difficult to suggest a solution when our Commons Health Committee admits the drinks industry and supermarkets hold more power over government alcohol policies than expert health professionals !
The Philippines does not have such a problem with alcohol, to my knowledge. At New Year my filipina girlfriend had one glass of wine with relatives in Manila.
Alan, I concede that my "luck" is probably due to the fact that I seem to have inherited the genes of my maternal grandfather, who ... in spite of having contracted pneumonia twice during his lifetime ... smoked a pipe all his days and lived to be 97 - ultimately dying of apparently natural causes in 1979. Unlike many of my father's family [including my dad himself] who suffered bronchitic ailments for much of THEIR lives - rarely surviving beyond their mid-70s! So, perhaps at MY stage in life - being an "infant" pensioner - I really OUGHT to heed *your wise counsel as a *health professional! Thank you, my friend ... I honestly appreciate your concern for the wellbeing of others.

Conversely, my first wife ... who NEVER smoked ... died at the age of 52 from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - having been on steroid treatment for many years to treat severe Rheumatoid Arthritis [not Arth(u)ritis I hasten to add!]

Actually, I fairly recently discovered that I'm a "borderline" diabetic ... and have been advised to curtail my intake of fizzy - even diet - soft drinks. Also, I've to take Simvistatin every night now, following surgery two years ago to remove a build up of plaque from my left carotid artery. As a result I have since been forced to cut back drastically on fatty foods ... in order to stabilise my cholesterol levels. So, I really SHOULD quit smoking altogether.

I reckon my earlier "tirade" stemmed from suppressed about the behaviour of these yobos on the bus. And that something (God knows what!) needs to be done to curb binge drinking - particularly among the young.