The "Smoking" Diver

[Jorbar1551]

you guys revived a dead and forgotten thread

A sphygmomanometer is a blood pressure gauge for those that dont know.

I've never really thought about about the reality of smokers air consumption vs non smokers. My friend rob is doing a study about this though. i will try to post the results whenver he finishes it. its for his masters degree so it might take awhile.

 

[WarrenZ]

.......... Did I hear that some of you actually, dip/chew WHILE diving? That's scary:whoa:

That’s why you shouldn’t buddy breathe with just anyone.

 

[Jorbar1551]

That’s why you shouldn’t buddy breath with just anyone.

if im out of air...i think ill buddy breath with just about anyone.

 

[WarrenZ]

if im out of air...i think ill buddy breath with just about anyone.

Maybe you should look at why you would be out of air in the first place.

 

[bluesbro1982]

Could be they are chronically vasoconstricted (smokers) That is why their skin is grey.

If you are physiologically "trained" to not need as much 02, then maybe you don't require as much. I am guessing...I love to guess.

lol. OK, bad choice of words. I should have probably said that my breathing style is well suited for diving. I probably require about the same O2 as everyone else my size.

 

[fabasard]

I am a reformed smoker and if I may interject an idea. The smoker is more use to dealing with LESS OXYGEN (as they smoke and their body is used to inhaling carbon dioxide, or is monoxide?) Anyway...There may be your reason for a smoker being lighter on air consumption. Your in shape and your body is efficient but a smokers body is able to do relatively the same work underwater and is used to having less oxygen. Once in the water, we're not really doing any heavy work usually.

 

[Diffrey]

I hate to sound too geeky but this is the answer. Air consumption can be understood by addressing three broad areas. First, lung capacity, second, lung use and third lung health/efficiency

Lung capacity. Capacity varies hugely between individuals and is purely genetic for example, my lung capacity is 7litres which is high and yet I, sadly am a lover of tobacco. I in fact had the largest capacity on my physiology course at uni.

Lung use: this term refers to the rate of breathing and can have a huge effect on volume of air used. As we all know, newbies tend to breathe quicker and therefore use more air than experienced divers who are generally more comfortable/relaxed and also try to conserve air as much as possible for increased bottom time.

Lung Health/efficiency is affected by smoking in that it reduces lung capacity, however this is only a very small amount. Exercise or no exercise also affects lung capacity but again only a small amount. The real benefits of not smoking and exercising are an increase in the efficiency of O2 transfer into the blood and CO2 transfer out which has a direct effect on how much you can exercise and at what level of intensity for the SAME volume of air inhaled.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[boulderjohn]

I feel funny responding to a thread that is nearly 5 years old, but....

I have just finished designing a curriculum that has a huge section on logic, and I am up to my ears in the subject. The number of logical fallacies swirling through this thread is staggering. The most important point is that people are spinning theories to account for something that has not been proven to be true.

How do we know that smokers have better air consumption rates than non-smokers? Because one divemaster is supposed to have said so? People are basing conclusions on unproven premises.

How do we know that most professional divers smoke? I am a professional who works in an LDS with more than a dozen other pros, and not a single one smokes. I have no idea what the statistics are for the entire profession. It would be no more logical for me to project my experience to the entire industry than it is for people who know smoking pros to project their experience to the entire industry. That is the fallacy of hasty generalization.

Why are we looking at smoking as a primary factor in air consumption? Air use is a combination of a large number of factors, including your weight, your physical condition, and--especially--your experience. Smoking is also a factor, but it is probably not as strong a factor as the others. To look at smoking as the determining factor in one's air consumption is to make one or both of the following fallacies: single cause or post hoc.

In short, we have no real basis to draw any conclusion of any kind from the information we have been given, unless someone knows about some scientific studies that have not been mentioned so far.

 

[drbill]

I would be shocked if a scientific study discovered that smoking divers actually have lower SAC rates than non-smokers. Your "data" is far too anecdotal and the sample size is far too small to make such a generalization.

I smoked for 7 of my first 11 years of diving. I have no dive log data to verify my dive times and air consumtion. However, I was in my teens and twenties back then and undoubtedly in better physical shape. While I may act like I'm still in that age group today, my physical condition is not the same (although still quite good).

I think the real interesting statistic would be to see how air consumption in long-time divers who smoke changes with age. I'm 99.99% certain that had I continued to smoke up to the present, my air consumption would be nowhere near as good as it is now (besides, I might have emphysema or be dead from lung cancer or heart disease which would definitely reduce my SAC rate to an undesired ZERO!).

 

[CBulla]

Could be they are chronically vasoconstricted (smokers) That is why their skin is grey.

If you are physiologically "trained" to not need as much 02, then maybe you don't require as much. I am guessing...I love to guess.

Funny you mention that.. COPD patients in the making