Which of these kills the most people in the US every year: Guns, Sugar, Marijuana, Cigarettes, or Salt

Guns and cigarettes. It is interesting to note that, percentage wise, more people who own guns smoke as opposed to non-gun owners. Perhaps someone here can tell us what the correlation is.

I presume the common feature between gun seekers and nicotine seekers, neurologically speaking, is the same dopamine receptor issue that ADHD sufferers deal with.

They're looking to fill a void.

marijuana has never killed anyone ever.

Not Sure wrote:

What? Guns don't kill people, people kill people? But cigarettes, sugar and salt, without the aid of people, do kill? And you see no inconsistency in this view?

"But Marge, a gun is a tool. Like a butcher knife or a harpoon, or uhh...an alligator."

jacabo wrote:

And to the poster who commented on Dr. Atkins: He helped thousands of people. His system was not perfect and you have people who abuse the guidelines (endless bacon and no veggies)

Well, the guy who are you responding to who said Atkins "killed" people was of course playing for effect.

jacabo wrote:but his line of thinking was many times more correct than 90% of doctors and nutritionists out there today.

Not true. Where did you come up with your "90%" number?? Let me guess, out of thin air ? (I could have said "your ass", but I decided to be polite for a change).

Let me guess:

a) you think that "90% of doctors and nutritionists" tell people if they eat as much carbs (even refined ones) as they want, and avoid fat, and they will okay, right? Well they don't people to do that, that's a myth.

b) you think that Atkins has been proven correct in that low carb diets are superior to low fat?? If so , you are incorrect. Yes, in SOME cases that has been true, but in MOST long term studies, or meta-analyses of good longer term studies, the macronutrient distribution of the diet made extremely little to no difference on weight loss. If you cut calories (no matter which macronutrient you chose to cut), you lost weight. And other measurements of health have shown some good points towards Atkins, and some good effects to low fat (though many recent studies are showing potential negative effects of high protein/high fat diets that don't always show up with your typical blood pressure and cholesterol measurements. ).

So what did Atkins REALLY prove?? I'll tell you: that if you cut down on one of the major macronutrients (protein, fat OR carbs), and thus lower overall caloric intake, that one will lose weight. We already knew that. But I will give him this: Short term low carb diets DO work, and don't appear to have any immediate negative impacts on one's health that some people thought would happen with such high fat intake. Long term?? We really don't know the effects.

Most "carbs are evil" people are just ignorant. I am glad you are not one of them.

really good question but almost impossible to be sure about. Many people die every year due to high BP and salt is a contributing factor to it. But does that mean that salt killed them possibly but you also have to blame other factors i.e. stress, obesity, lack of exercise. I would also add HFC (high fructose corn syrup) to your list. Sugar is far less common in American products than HFC which is in practically everything we buy and a major contributor to obesity which in turn causes heart disease the leading killer in America.

when i first thought of this question i was thinking about HFC but decided to broaden it to sugar in general. i also wanted it to be tobacco instead of cigarettes, but i forgot.

also, what i was thinking with the original order of the list was that it was the reverse order of least to most controlled. so salt is the least regulated by the government, then sugar, then cigarettes. guns require waiting periods and background checks. marijuana is outright banned. if we want the government to protect public health, perhaps we should control the bigger killers. i was hoping someone would pick up on this. i was also hoping people would add to this list with absurd things that kill more people than marijuana, like speed bumps (they kill more people than they save).

[quote]Ethan wrote:

"If cigarettes are reported to result in premature death, then marijuana will do the same."

Any proof of this? Any studies that support this? Is it not possible that nicotine and the dozens (hundreds) of other poisons the tobacco industry puts into cigs may cause cancer while the marijuana plant does not?

"Bob Marley died of lung cancer and he was a frequent marijuana user. But I'm sure this last fact is not new to anyone."

It is new to us all. Marley in fact was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma. The spread of melanoma to his brain caused his death.

[quote]eat me wrote:

"Everybody dies. Who cares how when and how it happens? "

I surely care about when it happens, greatly preferring to die in my 80s as opposed to my 20s, 30s, 40s. You don't?

Haha - thanks for being polite. Yes, I did pull that number out of my ass. I come across quite a few doctors, dieticians, etc. in my line of work so I was just guestimating. Instead of saying "90% are wrong" I should have said that the vast majority buy into the incorrect lipid hypothesis that eating fat makes you fat, clogs arteries, etc.

You are right about macronutrient ratios, and I see now that what I wrote could be misleading. In good, long-term studies, macronutrient ratios don't matter. Low-carb does show some great short-term results as far as weight loss is concerned, but in most studies that go longer than 6 months, the weight loss balances out and tends to be the same as low-fat.

(Not a long-term Atkins study) but the Framingham Heart Study has found over several decades with a few thousand participants that the people who ate the most fat, cholesterol, total calories, AND led active lifestyles had the lowest incidence of chronic diseases. Interesting.

jacabo wrote:

You can most definitely live without sugar.

You do realize that there are sugars in fruits, and most yeast breads? Yes, even whole grain. There are carbohydrates in all vegetables. And that carbohydrates are essential to jump-starting your metabolism and providing you will accessible energy. Where do you think you get most of your essential vitamins (Vit A, Vit C, Vit D, etc.) From foods that are mostly carb based.

Have fun with that diet plan.

1. carbohydrates does not equal sugar. We cannot live without glucose. We can live very easily without ever ingesting glucose or sucrose or fructose or HFCS. We cannot live without carbohydrates but we can certainly live with an extremely low carb intake. See the inuit response above and google interconversion and gluconeogenesis (also google de novo lipogenesis for it's complement).

2. Making the claim that the bullet fired by this gun "caused" a certain death and the excess sugar (or salt) someone ate during a long life "caused" a certain death are two very different definitions of cause. Smoking is somewhere in between but much closer to a bullet than to salt or sugar. Salt and sugar contribute to increased risk of death *statistically*. Arguing that any single death was the result of high salt/sugar intake would be a fruitless pursuit. That argument can and has been made with cigarettes successfully. It's obvious with a gun.

Answer: None of these kill anyone. It's the people that use them improperly that result in death.

some crazy runner guy wrote:

I would also add HFC (high fructose corn syrup) to your list. Sugar is far less common in American products than HFC which is in practically everything we buy and a major contributor to obesity which in turn causes heart disease the leading killer in America.

Most of the evidence at this point shows that HFCS and sucrose are metabolized by humans in essentially the same way, and both are approximately 1/2 fructose and 1/2 glucose. One issue is that HFCS is dirt cheap due to corn subsidies, so this probably made more people consume more of it. However, if we replaced every gram of HFCS consumed over the last 25 years and instead sucrose had been consumed in its place, people would be just as fat as they are now. Now I would still prefer to consume table sugar over HFCS, but as far as obesity goes, I wouldn't make HFCS out to the bogeyman that many do. Sugar would have done the same thing. Furthermore, people have increased their consumption of added fats (think cookies, cakes, snacks etc), as a % of total calories more than they have increased their consumption of sugars (HFCS, sucrose, etc). We eat more of EVERYthing now (except probably green vegetables or other healthy choices). I really don't believe that HFCS is uniquely to blame for obesity. Again, the cheapness of it is an issue, but people would have still been sucking down cokes if they had been made from sucrose rather slightly cheaper HFCS.

Yep~ wrote:

Answer: None of these kill anyone. It's the people that use them improperly that result in death.

.

Except for guns. Guns are oft times used to kill people and when they are used properly, they do kill people

Obviously this is just trolling and baiting for pot advocates.1) Let's keep some things in mind, a lower % use pot then these other items, a lot lower.2) MJ has killed people because of those driving under the influence. This is a huge concern as states like CA make it avail through sham medical MJ cards and future ballot intitiatives. Keep in mind pot is being cultivated to make the highs stronger and longer. If you trust stoners not to get behind the wheel and be a threat to innocent people you love in a drugged fantasy world. More access to pot means more DUIs.

im not even gonna use caps wrote:

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say, but any thought of MJ being a killer is completely false. Marijuana has never caused any kind of lethal overdose.

drug dealers and mexican drug cartels kill people over weed all the time.

And legalizing it (with the huge tax on it, which is the only reason why states are even looking at it - for revenue generation) won't stop that because there will always be a big black market for it.

And I doubt cig smoking has killed anyone either. Yeah Nicotine is toxic but nobody ods on it by smoking. Now like MJ they do get a bunch of other disorders like cancer and emphysema which lead to death. Mj has a surprisingly low cancer rate but the emphysema rate and other lung disorders is a problem in habitual smokers.And hell since we want to blame sugar and salt, have we figured how how much the munchies contribute to obesity which leads to diabetes and other issues?:)

pro thc wrote:

marijuana has never killed anyone ever.