> > But a marginal glutathione rise is insufficient to stop the damage;

It is not marginal at all -- in long term smokers it is near double the levels of nonsmokers and it has higher proportion of reduced (active) glutathione. The reason is, indeed, the periodic, mild oxidative stress in combination with possibly some other ingredients in tobacco smoke, which act as exercise and tonic for the immune system (most other antioxidants and detox enzymes are upregulated as well), no different than exerting periodically your heart and muscles in aerobic exercises helps their capacity and health.

> > refer again to the visible wrinkling of the smoker's face[/i]

I am not sure which smokers he head in mind, but here are few to balance his mental imagery:

<img src="http://www.resourcesforlife.com/library/otherwritings/barack-obama.jpg"> <img src="http://www.stiffs.com/image/calment.jpg"> <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/DengXiaoping.jpg">
46 year old chain smoker, 122 year old Jeanne Louise Calment
and 90 year old chain smoker Deng Xiaoping

In Japan and Korea, 60-70 percent of men smoke, yet they tend to look more youthful than Europeans or Americans with less than half of those smoking rates (Japanese men also have three times lower lung cancer rates and live longer than American men). Back in 1940s and 1950s, actors and other celebrities were largely smokers, they didn't have botox or face lifts, yet they din't look particularly wrinkled, certainly not more than nonsmokers of that era. Many models smoke today, to control weight and their skin looks fine, too.

These days it is very easy to produce "studies" about alleged premature aging of smokers skin:

[color:"blue"]"A new study from the University of Michigan Health System adds another dimension to the link between cigarette smoking and skin damage. The study suggests that smoking may be associated with a higher degree of aging on areas of skin, such as that of the inside of the upper arm, that are not normally exposed to sunlight."[/color]

Were the subjects they compared matched by socioeconomic status, profession, exposure to various chemicals at work and home, stress, diet, use of supplements (especially C, E, selenium which smoker's metabolism needs in higher doses than nonsmoker's),... ? Of course not.

These kinds of junk studies are dime a dozen, since there is plenty of "research" money (the few crumbs of the billions looted from smokers every year and "invested" back by the thieves into the psudo-scientific smokescreen for their scam) for academic whores willing to please any comer for a buck.

Namely, the underlying biochemistry and physiology of the symbiotic intertwining between the human biochemical networks with those of tobacco smoke is highly rejuvenating for the human side and smokers would come out looking sharper, younger and healthier provided everything else except for smoking is kept the same between the subjects being compared. The latter requirement is always violated in the "studies" paid for by the antismoking interests (Big Pharma).

Some of the underlyng biochemical reasons why smoker's skin (and every other marker of aging) would come out younger in any apples to apples comparisons:

a) Nicotine stimulates growth and branching of blood vessels (via upregulation of vascular growth factor), especially of capillaries, which improves the nutrient delivery and cleanup (antioxidant & detox enzyme supplies) to all tissues, including brain and skin (provided person's intake of nutrients and supplements is adequate).

b) Tobacco smoke (not nicotine) upregulates production of glutathione (our body's master antioxidant and detox enzyme), to nearly double the levels of nonsmokers.

c) Carbon monoxide in low concentration (as delivered in tobacco smoke) acts as a signaling mechanism in human biochemical networks to increase tissue oxygenation, reduce inflammation and inflammatory damage.

d) Nitric oxide in low concentrations (as provided by tobacco smoke) acts as neurotransmitter, signaling to cardiovascular system to increase blood supplies to peripheral tissues (this is the biochemical mechanism behind the Viagra effect).

e) Tobacco smoke raises the levels of "youth hormones" DHEA and testosterone and reduces their decline with age. It also lowers "insuline growth factor" IGF1, the change which in animal experiments results in leaner and more youthful, longer living animals.

f) The highest quality brands (Japanese) of the miracle skin rejuvenator, Conezyme Q10 are produced from tobacco leaf, which is still the best source of natural Co-Q10 (since it includes the full synergistic complex which the cheaper synthetic production methods cannot replicate).

g) Deprenyl (selegiline), which mimics the selective MAO B inhibitory properties of tobacco smoke (this is not due to nicotine) and is used in smoking cessation "therapies" for that reason, has become all the rage in the life-extension circles, due to its almost magical rejuvenating powers (more discussion here).

h) Nicotinic acid, along with its salts and various organic compounds, are skin-protective agents, used by cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry.

The listed effects are just a tip of the iceberg of the biochemical magic bundled in the ancient "gift of gods", tobacco.

The pharmaceutical industry (along with its cosmetic offshoots), which nowdays funds (and then hypes through its mass media and bureaucratic shills) almost all of the antismoking "science", would rather you bought myriads of their own pharmaceuticals, each trying to substitute, often clumsily and with numerous undesirable side-effects, for just one little piece of tobacco magic.

Consequently, the junk "studies" funded by these competing interests, like the one above, will routinely compare smokers who may be working in a metals smeltering plant or miners, with poor nutrition and other genuinly unhealthy habits (excessive drinking), for whom tobacco smoking is a lifesaver, a form of self-medication due to metals detox and antioxidant properties of elevated glutathione, with a non-smoking suburban yuppie, taking tonnes of health supplements, eating healthy foods, getting regular skin massage,...

Due to the intense social pressures against smoking, aiming at the "average" person, those who still smoke are largely underclass, having more sun exposure, poorer nutrition, poorer genes, heavier pollution at work and home,... They smoke because smoking provides relief for their hardship (e.g. MAO inhibition, hence higher dopamine) and because it strengthens their immune and detox systems (doubles glutathione, 30% higher neutrophil,...), which helps them detox better in more polluted environments.

Despite protective effects of tobacco smoke, they will still have worse health (and more wrinkled skin) than those living in better conditions, who don't need to smoke as a form of self-medication and who, under the present antismoking pressures, mostly won't smoke. Hence, smoking is a marker or a proxy for the level of hardship and it is the hardship itself which damages their health and wrinkles their skin. This is no different than observing that people using breathing ventilators have shorter life expectancy than the age-matched controls not using ventilators. That doesn't mean ventilators shorten the life or harm those using them. It is exactly the opposite.

That is precisely what randomized[/b] intervention trials with smokers show -- [b]randomly selected "quit group" (in contrast to self-selected non-smokers or quitters observed in usual "studies") ends up with worse outcomes, including more lung cancers and heart attacks, than the "control group" (those left alone to smoke as they wish). After about half a dozen of such studies, which is how one can differentiate causal from protective/therapeutic role of smoking, the antismoking "science" has avoided them like a plague, sticking to what "works" (for getting the Big Pharma funding), the plain old heavily confounded, easily malleable statistical associations, the usual junk science.

With the large middle of the Bell Curve brainwashed and scared away from this ancient miracle plant, besides the left tail underclass using smoking as self-medication, there is also the right tail of the Bell Curve, people who are well off, who smoke because they know better and who can't be duped by the shallow propaganda optimized for the mediocre majorities. They smoke for the same reason they eat fruits, nuts, fish,... because they know that smoking is good.

They also know that, due to upregulation of immune, endocrine and neurotransmitter systems, smokers require higher doses of many supplements (especially C, E, selenium) and they take care of proper, good nutrition.

Since this right-tail group doesn't have as much need to smoke for self-medication (they live in healthier environments, have better nutrition and better genes), they will smoke at lower rates than the left tail underclass, but at the higher rates than the large mediocre middle. The net outcome of antismoking social engineering pressures is that smoking has become increasingly a marker of self-medication (it has always had that component, but in a much smaller proportion than today) and heavily shifted toward underclass.

In fact, many harsh antismoking ordinances have the unspoken motive[/b] of keeping the underclass or foreigners out of town or at least out of sight (just as in previous times, anti-opium laws were explicitly introduced to keep the Chinese away from 'white women', or anti-marijuana laws to keep Mexicans and Blacks, or anti-alcohol laws to keep Irish and Italians away). The drug prohibition laws today owe much of their support to similar, but now not spoken of openly, racist or class motives.