[HN Gopher] Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: t...
___________________________________________________________________
Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 30 years to
prove
Author : andsoitis
Score : 77 points
Date : 2024-10-15 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I wonder how Ozempic will change this? I really do expect we will
| all be on this soon and maybe we can resume the increase in
| lifespan that has been stalled by obesity, lack of exercise, and
| processed food.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I'm not fat or diabetic. Why would I take ozempic?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm still kind of confused by this sentiment. There's a
| cohort that claims metformin somehow extends life as well.
| I'm pretty sure if a doctor prescribed me Ozempic that'd be
| grounds for malpractice.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| It does. But not exactly in healthy humans by any sizable
| amount. Works pretty well for diabetics and prediabetics,
| and in cases of PCOS. Otherwise the effect is rather small
| and depends on prevention of diabetes and a few kinds of
| cancer.
|
| It has a side effect of reducing muscle gains from
| exercise.
|
| As for life extension by GLP-1 active drugs, it's much more
| of a guess. Mechanism is relatively similar. Side effects
| might not be...
| jprete wrote:
| Ozempic seems to have a large number of positive effects for
| virtually everyone. It's a little premature to think everyone
| will be on it "soon" and there are plenty of people who won't
| take something even if it's universally beneficial.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Not that many. Probably less than or similar to metformin.
| For the silly cost, it's not very effective at extending
| life.
|
| And there are potential bad side effects too.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Yeah why would I take a pill if I can get the same effect
| through discipline and hard work? I understand not everyone
| can do that but if I can it would be absurd for me to take
| a drug for the rest of my life. Especially when I enjoy the
| work involved in changing my weight and body composition.
|
| If a doctor tried to push that on me I would fire that
| doctor.
| rajamaka wrote:
| Because you already take many modern shortcuts and
| conveniences to avoid hard work, why not take this one?
| nradov wrote:
| Taking a medication with potentially severe side effects
| (including perhaps some that we haven't found yet) is
| hardly equivalent to using a machine to wash my clothes.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Iunno, I don't think the side effects of a washing
| machine have been studied at all.
|
| We're really flying in the dark there.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Assuming you're not on drugs or thinking of killing yourself,
| you're probably not in the cohort that's dragging the life
| expectancy stats down.
|
| Life expectancy is a _weighted average_ (no pun intended),
| and so it 's unusually sensitive to outliers. People who die
| early drag the average down much more than people who live
| close to the mean life expectancy. The biggest premature
| killers of Americans are obesity, drugs, car accidents, and
| suicide. Anything that addresses one of those causes of death
| has an outsize effect on life expectancy. There are 100M+
| obese Americans. There are about 100,000 overdose deaths per
| year. Obesity, while not as lethal as drugs or suicide,
| afflicts 1000x as many patients, and so a treatment for it
| can have a large effect on the numbers.
| drawkward wrote:
| >Life expectancy is a weighted average
|
| Sure, if all the weights are 1. Where i come from, we just
| call that an average.
|
| >People who die early drag the average down much more than
| people who live close to the mean life expectancy.
|
| This is true of all averages where all weights are the
| same.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I should probably have said the _change_ in life
| expectancy is a weighted average, weighted by how far you
| are from the average. If average life expectancy is 80,
| removing a data point where somebody died at 40 has 8x
| the effect of removing a data point where somebody died
| at 75.
| drawkward wrote:
| Ok, that makes a lot more sense in light of your
| argument!
| cscheid wrote:
| In case anyone else is curious about the specific term
| for the concept you are describing, it's
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(statistics)
|
| (To reproduce exactly the scenario being discussed, you
| fit a constant-only model to the data using least
| squares: that gives the average as the best fit. Then,
| you measure the leverage of each point of interest.)
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > The Oxford University research found that moderate
| obesity, which is now common, reduces life expectancy by
| about 3 years, and that severe obesity, which is still
| uncommon, can shorten a person's life by 10 years. This 10
| year loss is equal to the effects of lifelong smoking.
|
| https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-
| takes-...
|
| > According to the CDC, 9.4% of adults in the United States
| were severely obese between August 2021 and August 2023.
| This is higher for women (12.1%) than men (6.7%). The
| prevalence of severe obesity varies by age group, with the
| highest rates in adults aged 40-59 (12.0%)
|
| Only 9.4% of people are severely obese. Moderately obese
| people have only a ~4% shorter life-span than healthy
| weight individuals - much of which can probably be
| attributed to other lifestyle issues besides simply being
| overweight.
|
| This will move the needle, but I doubt as much as you
| think.
|
| There's a lot more smokers than there are severely obese
| people.
| kbelder wrote:
| >There's a lot more smokers than there are severely obese
| people.
|
| Huh, I was going to argue this, but you're right (in the
| US). 19.5% of the population smokes, so there's about
| twice as many smokers as severely obese people.
|
| I was sure it had dropped to 5-10%. I guess I'm in a
| bubble (of fresh air).
| photonthug wrote:
| Kind of a tangent but I think a big part of the
| explanation for declining life expectancy is hiding here
| in plain sight.
|
| Since everyone knows smoking is bad for a long time now,
| we're going to eventually need to categorize stuff like
| lung-cancer as a death of despair, similar to other
| deaths caused by alcoholism, opioids, or suicide.
|
| A lot of people who otherwise might quit smoking are
| probably looking at impossible dreams of home ownership
| or retirement, and thinking consciously or unconsciously
| that there is more dignity in a death at 50-60ish than
| one at 80ish when you're unemployable and the thin
| promises of social safety nets have fallen through.
|
| Smoking (or other high risk activities) might be a dirty
| habit but it's still more socially acceptable than
| suicide.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| That's a bleak view. I doubt a substantial percentage of
| smokers are smoking specifically to die sooner.
|
| Most of them are smoking primarily because they're
| addicted.
|
| A few of them actually like smoking.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It would be really interesting to see a stat that is
| like... "life expectancy without morbidities that can be
| avoided with some effort."
|
| Which, I recognize is a pretty privileged way of putting it
| --people struggle with weight, mental health, and drugs,
| and those are real struggles that shouldn't be ignored. I
| just also want to see where things are developing on the
| upper-bound for reasonably plausible lifespans.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| https://asteriskmag.com/issues/07/how-long-til-were-all-
| on-o...
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/the-benefits-of-ozempic-are-
| mult...
|
| > Known as GLP-1 agonists, these drugs were originally
| developed to help control diabetes. But there's increasing
| evidence that they have other health benefits, beyond
| controlling weight. They seem to boost heart health, protect
| the kidneys, improve sleep apnea, and lower the risk of
| certain obesity-related cancers.
| jvans wrote:
| > I really do expect we will all be on this
|
| When antibiotics were first invented some people thought we'd
| be taking them daily as a vitamin. Turns out that's not such a
| good idea despite them being life saving in some scenarios
| Scoundreller wrote:
| My totally off-the-cuff theory is that we'll only need a
| lifetime of ozempic and its clones every 3-4 generations to
| reset the obesity cycle.
|
| I guess we'll soon be able to measure the impacts on what it
| does to the children of parents that take it.
|
| How have McDonalds Happy Meal sales been looking lately?
| taeric wrote:
| This is a thing that always blows my mind.
|
| The accepted view is a lot like the accepted views to mono-
| cultures for crops. In that they are bad. The practiced take,
| though, is quite the opposite? Crops are dominated by mono-
| cultured fields. And though antibiotics are known not to be
| used constantly, farms seem to use them at an amazing rate.
|
| I'd love to see a longer exploration of this. Why is it farms
| seem to be full of practices that we are taught are bad?
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Did we expect it to grow forever?
| latexr wrote:
| If someone said "my son has stopped wetting the bed", would you
| reply "did you expect them to wet the bed forever"? What if
| someone said "my leg no longer hurts", would you reply "did you
| expect it to hurt forever"? How about "my bag of candy is
| almost empty", would you reply "did you expect it to be full
| forever"?
|
| The information that something stopped or slowed down is still
| useful without having to think it was going to go on eternally.
| It allows you to adjust your plans for the future.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| > my mother died
|
| > did you expect her to live forever?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| If not forever, but if 200-ish becomes a norm, it would be
| super awesome. Now, it is like, "Awesome, I know this, I know
| that. I need to learn that." "Hold on, time to die."
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I assure you many aspects of a society where 200 years old
| becomes a normal life expectancy would be a hellscape and not
| "awesome." We already currently have a massive societal and
| economic problem with aging populations as things currently
| are.
| geodel wrote:
| Come on wouldn't it be great fun with a dozen diseases,
| broken hip bone, shitting in diapers (if one can afford)
| people celebrating their 177th birthday. Seems people would
| sacrifice their first born if such dream life is
| guaranteed.
| derektank wrote:
| Physical exercise is the most potent life extension
| intervention we have. So it's very unlikely we'll get
| anyone to 200 if they're stuck in bed with a broken hip.
| ben_w wrote:
| The problems are due to what aging involves and the lack of
| young people inverting the population pyramid; getting us
| to 200 at all means solving every age-related biological
| problem, while also meaning we have longer to start a
| family and have kids to stabilise that population pyramid.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Lol ok so imagine your dream scenario is everyone,
| magically and with equality, is able to live and
| reproduce to absurdly long time frames - that's also a
| hellscape in so many easily imaginable ways. you'll start
| to see jobs requiring 100+ years experience or with the
| right genetic modifications to make you insurable enough
| to invest a 60 year career into. Since this is all
| science fiction, we can imagine all sorts of things as we
| understand this is fiction. My only real point is this
| isn't a utopian future. we can't deal with the amount of
| humans we already have at the ages they live to. I don't
| see what solving aging does to solve any of these
| problems.
| JohnPrine wrote:
| you'd rather everyone die than to see experience
| requirements for certain jobs go up?
| hackable_sand wrote:
| What a rude comment.
|
| Everyone already dies.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 200 at what qualitative life point currently? 80? 90? 100?
|
| Spending an other 100 years like say from 80 to 100... Well
| you are alive, but still...
| asoneth wrote:
| My grandfather lived to 104. More impressive was that he
| still played tennis regularly in his 90s.
|
| It's not his lifespan I aspire to, but his healthspan.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The macroeconomic implications of that large a fraction of
| the population being above working age or such a large
| fraction of one's life not being working years are not
| exactly great.
| ben_w wrote:
| Apart from the fact that "working age" doesn't mean the
| same thing in a world that has anti-aging interventions?
|
| Our economic system is incompatible with the next 200 years
| irregardless of what specifically gets invented.
|
| At 5%/year, that's a factor (not percentage) of 17292
| growth; in energy terms that's not quite boiling the
| oceans, but it is making the poles the only barely livable
| zone.
|
| In any sense besides energy, this kind of growth implies
| automation that makes the meaning of work radically
| different than today. Human or superhuman AI would be an
| example of that, but the successful creation of that has
| other complications that we can currently only guess at
| with less awareness than the Victorians had of climate
| change or biodiversity loss.
| geodel wrote:
| And then some.
|
| I understand some tech billionaire want to live forever by
| eating hundreds of pills a day for nutrition, anti-aging,
| disease control etc. Their life may be "great" for some
| definition of great.
|
| But do billions of people on earth think that their life will
| become great in another 50 years even if it is rather miserable
| right now? I just live under rock to not know the desires of
| modern human.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The actual story here is that it's slowing down because the
| _lower tail is growing_ , not because the upper tail is
| compressing as we hit some kind of upper limit of human
| longevity. That is: more people are actually dying _younger_ ,
| which has been gradually offsetting other people living longer.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| I wonder if "life expectancy" is really such a useful metric,
| since it aggregates so many different things together. It's
| kind of like measuring "aggregate years of human life lived".
| shirro wrote:
| It seems reasonable to expect it to grow even at a diminished
| rate until everyone enjoys equivalent access to health care,
| nutrition, occupational safety etc but that is subject to the
| political environment, priorities of the electorate and the
| capacity of the economy. Without pandemic, famine, war or
| natural disaster a decline in life expectancy is generally the
| result of public policy for a rich democracy and not an
| inevitability.
|
| I think we need to distinguish between longevity and health
| though. Lots of people live with chronic disease and giving
| them more quality of life counts for more than longer life IMO.
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| In our relentless quest for longevity and a richer life
| experience, one profound consideration emerges: the role of sleep
| in our daily lives. Sleep, which consumes approximately one-third
| of our existence, represents a significant barrier to maximizing
| our time and productivity. If we could find a safe way to
| eliminate the need for sleep, we would theoretically unlock vast
| reservoirs of hours previously devoted to rest, transforming them
| into opportunities for personal and societal advancement.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Enter cocaine
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Micro dosing cocaine _might_ have positive impacts over long
| time periods.
|
| We really don't know and have made it nigh impossible to
| study. Obviously governments are trying to hide something.
| rajamaka wrote:
| For some reason I would feel disappointed if sleep was a solved
| issue. I feel as though perhaps I need that daily break from
| being conscious for my own mental health.
| presidentender wrote:
| One of my favorite science fiction novels deals with this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain
| Loughla wrote:
| What a fascinating book series that I've never heard of. It
| looks like it sort of takes a middle ground between Le Guin
| and Rand?
| presidentender wrote:
| It doesn't preach so much as it explores. The author
| strikes me as being more economically literate than Rand or
| LeGuin, but not as good a writer as the latter.
|
| The real and staggering excellence of the series is the
| speculation - it's not such hard SF that it explains the
| mechanisms by which everything happens, and there are real
| characters who do more than stand as cardboard observers to
| technology, but it's crunchier than most.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Read the novella and skip the novel.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Hopefully it doesn't go like the X files episode:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepless_(The_X-Files)
|
| I'm all for getting rid of sleep, but given how society is
| structured I worry that the extra time will just end up being
| used for longer commutes and more zoom calls. Hardly
| advancement.
| arp242 wrote:
| I have a hard time imagining this will ever become a reality;
| the need for sleep is fairly deeply hard-coded in how our
| brains operate, and I believe it's also needed for some more
| basic cellular functions.
|
| It's not binary I guess (sleep "once a week" is less than
| "sleep once a day"), but even some incremental improvements
| seem very far off.
|
| One also has to wonder if it's actually desirable to have less
| sleep and be "on" with fewer or no breaks.
| latexr wrote:
| > If we could find a safe way to eliminate the need for sleep,
| we would theoretically unlock vast reservoirs of hours
| previously devoted to rest, transforming them into
| opportunities for personal and societal advancement.
|
| While in practice, what would happen is that we'd be doing more
| of the same. Bosses would be demanding more time in the office,
| people would be spending more time doomscrolling, nothing would
| change. It's a pipe dream to think that if we had more time in
| the day we'd suddenly start using it more respectfully and
| responsibly.
| jowdones wrote:
| On the plus side, this would solve the housing problem too.
| Without the nuisance of sleep requirements we would move to
| the offices and live, ahem, produce there 24/7. Much like
| cattle.
|
| This is the great future the visionary OP envisions for us.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| we currently spend about half our waking hours during the day
| at work during the week. if we got those 8 hours of sleep
| back then presumably we would get 4 more hours of non-working
| awake time.
|
| seems decent to me. I hate sleeping, the problem is i get
| tired and cant avoid it.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Sleep, which consumes approximately one-third of our
| existence, represents a significant barrier to maximizing our
| time and productivity._
|
| "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with
| themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." -- Susan Ertz, _Anger
| in the Sky_ (1943)
| tuukkah wrote:
| That question was solved by social media.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Have you ever considered that sleep can actually make your life
| richer in interesting experiences?
| typeofhuman wrote:
| We're not living longer. We're dying more slowly.
| lovethevoid wrote:
| > The decline in the United States is driven by increasing
| numbers of deaths because of conditions such as diabetes and
| heart disease in people aged roughly 40 to 60.
|
| People are asking if we should be surprised by the headline but
| are missing this. As suggested in the article by the researchers,
| there is something dragging down the average since the 2010s. Not
| even hitting the general expectation of ~75 years. We don't have
| solid answers yet, only theories.
|
| So yes, generally while going up against the process of aging is
| going to create barriers (eg can we get to 130 years old), we are
| also failing to raise the baseline which is the bigger issue that
| people might not grasp when it comes to "life expectancy rates".
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > We don't have solid answers yet, only theories.
|
| The exact quote you gave had a pretty solid answer, certainly
| not just "theories".
| daveguy wrote:
| I think the distinction there is between immediate cause and
| root cause. Heart disease and diabetes (or complications
| thereof) is the immediate cause of death, but what is causing
| an increase in those diseases is theory at this point.
| orionsbelt wrote:
| Is it not clearly obesity? Why everyone is obese is perhaps
| unclear (although portion sizes, ultra processed foods,
| screen time and sedentary lives, etc, all seem to likely
| play a clear role), but I'd be surprised if the level of
| obesity that exists didn't cause more heart disease and
| diabetes.
| safety1st wrote:
| Yes. Why is everyone tiptoeing around this? The obesity
| rate has increased by something like 50% since the turn
| of the century. It is a major risk factor for all the
| causes of death being discussed here. Sure there are
| probably many factors but this is clearly a big one.
| hu3 wrote:
| Yeah if I try to handwave obesity impact on diabetes and
| cardiovascular diseases to the average cardiologist, they
| are going to tear me a new one within minutes.
|
| I don't know why is this even a question. Do people
| really think being overweight is a net positive?
| pessimizer wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/
|
| _Association of all-cause mortality with overweight and
| obesity using standard body mass index categories: a
| systematic review and meta-analysis_
|
| > Conclusions and Relevance: [...]overweight was
| associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality.
| lovethevoid wrote:
| Go here https://www.cdc.gov/bmi/adult-
| calculator/index.html and enter your height and weight.
| If you fall above the healthy category, you are part of
| the obesity rate and are what most research points to
| when it comes to increased cardiovascular risk. Also for
| asians the numbers are slightly lower.
|
| I find that when I point this out, people often get mad.
| They feel they aren't obese. But the research doesn't
| support them, if you are anywhere outside of the
| "healthy" categorization you are at the same risk (that
| we know of so far) as "clinically obese" people.
| hu3 wrote:
| My result: 18.5 to 24.9. "Healthy Weight".
|
| I tried adding 10kgs and it said "Overweight".
|
| Seems ok to me.
|
| They even warn that BMI should be used along with other
| indicators.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Mechanick, J. (2013). "What If" Being Overweight was Good
| For You? Endocrine Practice, 19(1), 166-168.
|
| https://doi.org/10.4158/endp.19.1.50042678317gx698
|
| The evidence that being overweight is _healthier_ is a
| bit dubious, but the evidence that having a "normal" BMI
| is healthier than "overweight" is nonexistent.
| orionsbelt wrote:
| Is it not the case that as BMI increases the risk
| increases? My BMI is not healthy - and I don't deny that
| makes me subject to increased risk - but I would still
| think morbidly obese is far worse than obese which is
| worse than overweight, in terms of risk of diabetes,
| cardiovascular disease, etc.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| That's essentially what "morbidly" means.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when I point this out, people often get mad. They feel
| they aren 't obese_
|
| We've normalised being fat.
| sundvor wrote:
| Still remember my first time ever setting afoot in USA,
| Newark airport coming from Norway, in 1999, going to a
| tech conference.
|
| I saw more grossly obese people at that airport in the
| first ten minutes than I had back home in probably the
| previous year. It really stood out to me.
|
| It must be your general dietary makeup and lifestyle. All
| that corn syrup. Also, I don't see any reason why it
| would have gotten better since then.
|
| Just calling a spade a spade from an outsider's
| perspective..
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I find obesity a weird problem societally because
| literature to get people to stop being obese on a
| _population_ level just kind of sucks. All we know is
| stuff that doesn 't really work. Shaming fat people,
| pointing out their fatness, or other public pressure
| doesn't do anything. Strict diets like keto or OMAD don't
| work on a population level (individuals can get great
| results but I'm talking enough to statistically move the
| needle as a population). Ozempic and other injectables
| seem like the best widespread treatment, but that doesn't
| tell us any causes.
| fwip wrote:
| To the best of my knowledge, there's actually no diet
| that has been proven to yield long-term weight loss.
| (There are of course individual success cases.)
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| There are tons of diets that have been proven to work.
| Getting people to adhere to them long-term is the
| problem.
| the_gorilla wrote:
| > Shaming fat people, pointing out their fatness, or
| other public pressure doesn't do anything.
|
| Has it? We've tried a few decades of fat positively and
| just pretending that being fat isn't a personal failure,
| and just a symptom of society. People have only gotten
| more fat in that time. Let's try some serious shaming. If
| you're fat, you should have to pay more for healthcare,
| food, flights basically everything related to your burden
| on society.
| vkou wrote:
| We tried a few decades of letting vendors feed us crap
| food, and it's led to an obesity explosion, maybe that's
| the problem.
|
| Let's give a few decades of strict control over food
| suppliers a try, and if that doesn't work, maybe we could
| look into alternatives.
| the_gorilla wrote:
| Why not both? Nobody wanted seatbelts until they were
| forced to use them, maybe we could try forcing people to
| eat safer food.
| kiba wrote:
| _We 've tried a few decades of fat positively and just
| pretending that being fat isn't a personal failure, and
| just a symptom of society._
|
| Fat positivity? It's not really a popular position, and
| is in fact regarded as a loathesome movement.
|
| You think every fat kid, especially those bullied, don't
| want to be thin?
|
| You think shaming is going to work? That's an uphill
| battle, especially against the human body and the urges
| it generate, the causes we do not fully understand.
|
| Normal healthy humans are supposed to be able to self
| regulate their weight at a healthy level. I have seen at
| least one friend who has an atrocious diet, poor eating
| habit, and yet remain rail thin.
|
| If shaming did work, then it would have been implemented
| widely and obesity is solved. But it's not. We don't have
| anything that works as well as ozempic.
|
| I am all for taking responsibility, but we ought to be
| cognizant about the current limitations of our tools and
| flexible at how we would solve problems, rather than
| sticking to dogma or trying the same thing over and over
| again and expecting different results.
|
| For example, I found a psychological trick that enables
| me to work long hours. Tricks for eventually getting rid
| of bad food addiction(sadly, I am at it again).
| the_gorilla wrote:
| > If shaming did work, then it would have been
| implemented widely and obesity is solved. But it's not.
| We don't have anything that works as well as ozempic.
|
| What kind of reasoning is this? This is only true if you
| believe good policies always get implemented. You'll
| notice other countries like Japan don't require every man
| and child to be drugged to stop eating food, and they
| have a much stronger sense of shame for being an undue
| burden on society.
| Teever wrote:
| We're not making movement on this because we're not
| calling it what it is -- an addiction.
|
| We dance around it and call it 'obesity' but the real
| medical cause of obesity is an addiction to unhealthy
| food.
|
| This is compounded by the fact that it is completely
| legal for people to make their food more addictive and
| therefore unhealthy and advertise it to addicted people
| with underhanded marketing techniques that take advantage
| of their addiction.
|
| Until we recognize this as an addiction issue that is
| compounded by dealers being able to operate with impunity
| we won't make any headway -- short of technological
| advancements like Ozempic that allow people to side step
| their addiction.
| ckemere wrote:
| Please correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that for aged
| women, being slightly overweight predicts longevity?
| cogman10 wrote:
| I mostly get mad not because obesity isn't a problem, but
| because BMI is a bad way to measure it. It may work in
| the general, but it can give bad information in specific
| cases.
|
| I'm a good example of how it fails. I have long arms and
| legs which causes my BMI to be fairly low. However, my
| body fat is fairly high. I need to lose fat but were I to
| rely solely on BMI I'd think I'm fine.
|
| What I'd want instead of BMI is body fat percentage. I
| think that gives a much better measure of health
| problems.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I find that when I point this out, people often get
| mad. They feel they aren't obese. But the research
| doesn't support them, if you are anywhere outside of the
| "healthy" categorization you are at the same risk (that
| we know of so far) as "clinically obese" people.
|
| "Overweight" is longer-lived than "Normal," and "Grade I
| Obesity" isn't significantly less longer lived than
| "Normal." So what you're pointing out is misinformation,
| which is why people are annoyed by it. There is a case
| that "Normal" includes more sick and dying people because
| sick people often lose weight, but the difference still
| can't be as stark as _reddit knowledge_ makes it out to
| be.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23280227/
|
| _Conclusions and relevance: Relative to normal weight,
| both obesity (all grades) and grades 2 and 3 obesity were
| associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality.
| Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher
| mortality, and overweight was associated with
| significantly lower all-cause mortality. The use of
| predefined standard BMI groupings can facilitate between-
| study comparisons._
| BeetleB wrote:
| > If you fall above the healthy category, you are part of
| the obesity rate
|
| No. If you fall above healthy, you are "overweight". You
| need a higher BMI to be classified as obese.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I find that when I point this out, people often get
| mad. They feel they aren't obese. But the research
| doesn't support them, if you are anywhere outside of the
| "healthy" categorization you are at the same risk (that
| we know of so far) as "clinically obese" people.
|
| Depends. All cause mortality is notoriously lower for
| "overweight" people than "normal weight" people.
| lovethevoid wrote:
| Kind of. The tricky thing here is that most people have a
| rigid view of "obesity" in their minds as it's easier to
| shift blame to, but the only thing research has shown is
| that abnormal BMI leads to increased cardiovascular
| issues. Which includes slightly overweight people.
| derektank wrote:
| Higher levels of body fat (which is almost always the
| cause of a high BMI unless you are an active athlete) is
| pretty directly tied to inflammation and pre-diabetic
| insulin resistance. This subsequently results in the
| liver producing more triglycerides and lipoproteins that
| clog the circulatory system and the inflammation itself
| promotes hypertension. All of this together results in
| more heart attacks and strokes. There's a pretty clear
| mechanistic link between obesity and cardiovascular
| disease.
|
| That doesn't mean obese people are "to blame" for any
| medical complications they might suffer from obesity. It
| also doesn't mean that obesity is a death sentence;
| people's bodies function differently and we've all heard
| stories of pack a day smokers that lived into their 90s.
| But there is absolutely a connection between the two.
| shadowmanifold wrote:
| I am on track to lose about 40lbs in 2024 and I suspect
| the main variable is really as simple as we have mastered
| the art of making really incredible tasting food.
|
| It is so pervasive though it is hard to tell until you go
| on a really boring and restrictive diet. It is just hard
| to not gain weight on average when the food tastes this
| good with such incredible variety.
|
| That is even if you buy something at the store. With our
| "foodie" culture, restaurants are an entire other level
| of choice and taste on top of that.
| lovethevoid wrote:
| That's not what I meant. A solid answer as to why those
| conditions are happening, not the fact that they are
| happening at all.
|
| We have research on what can affect heart health, like what
| things might be linked to it, such as smoking and alcohol. We
| also know genetics plays a huge role.
|
| So we don't actually have solid answers, actionable answers
| as to the rise of heart health issues. Look at this
| analysis[1] regarding how dietary guidelines specifically for
| fats (saturated, trans) have very little substantial evidence
| supporting it. Yet this gets repeated by the average person,
| that fats are the ultimate evil you must avoid. In another
| study[2] we find that reducing your fat intake still resulted
| in the same rates of mortality as those who ate more. This is
| also why more in the space are shifting away from these sort
| of claims ("only eat x amount of saturated fat per day") and
| more to general food composition (eg who cares if a fish has
| saturated fats, eat the fish with vegetables).
|
| It's quite challenging to figure out, everyone has their
| theories. All I'm saying is we don't actually have the
| answers yet.
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/
| [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8092457/
| hu3 wrote:
| I recommend studies about stain medication in increasing
| life expectancy.
|
| We're talking years of increased life expectancy.
|
| Sadly statin is not without its downsides.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _We 're talking years of increased life expectancy._
|
| Huh? Statins are a medication type in which increases in
| life expectancy are extremely hard to point to all. I
| think they're almost a "poster child" for medications
| that correct a problem to an extent but whose overall
| benefit is quite dubious.
|
| (and given that these medications were highly prescribed
| before any long term studies were finish - creating
| considerable incentive for people to find benefit - I'd
| personally wager they are overall harmful but that's me
| guessing - the main point is they definitely aren't
| boost-life-expectancy-by-years drugs but probably aren't
| reduce-life-expectancy-by-years drugs either, given the
| studies)
|
| Link from google:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3531501/
| pessimizer wrote:
| Every few years, the lobby inserts op-eds insisting that
| statins are of such indisputable benefit and zero side
| effects that they should go into the water supply. I
| understand this from the companies themselves, but I have
| no idea which studies are convincing normal people that
| this is sane.
|
| There is no lobbying like the lobbying for massively
| selling classes of drugs of dubious effect.
| hulitu wrote:
| > That's not what I meant. A solid answer as to why those
| conditions are happening, not the fact that they are
| happening at all.
|
| Nestle ? McDonalds ? Burger King ?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Insane prices for insulin?
|
| edit: you really think insulin prices don't have an
| effect on the lifespans of diabetics?
| doubled112 wrote:
| People putting off healthcare because it costs money?
| ponector wrote:
| Are they insane, though? How many hours average man
| should work to pay for average monthly dose of the
| average quality insulin? May be even more affordable than
| in other countries.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Portion sizes. The average plate is larger than it was,
| say, in the 60's.
| mjevans wrote:
| Portion Sizes and the No/Low Fat craze from the 90s
| mentioned in another post are related.
|
| This is all my THEORY, a speculation that I would like
| someone to study or to find a study about.
|
| Theory / speculation:
|
| Humans evolved with natural sugars, fats, proteins/meats;
| primitive cooking, probably some grains (more recently).
| That's what our bodies know how to process, to react to.
|
| All the fake sugars, modified foods that lack the
| components our bodies use to regulate internal processes;
| highly processed foods which also lack those components
| we need to feel satiated and to produce the messengers to
| digest correctly: those are likely the causes of obesity
| (not feeling full, so more eating) and bodies behaving
| poorly.
|
| 'Food Deserts' and corporations that are geared around
| selling large portions of tasty but unsatisfying food, or
| only offering huge sizes rather than also offering adults
| a tasty portion that's not intended for take home
| leftovers also contribute.
|
| Also: my main vice for this topic. Can I _please_ have
| lightly caffeinated + carbonated water that isn't
| outrageously expensive?
| asdff wrote:
| Caffeine addiction gets cheap when you stop beating
| around the bush and start just buying the caffeine pills
| that are like a cent a pop.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Yet this gets repeated by the average person, that fats
| are the ultimate evil you must avoid.
|
| I've been hearing this complaint (that the guidelines claim
| fat are the worst) for way too long, when in (my) reality,
| all the guidelines I've seen in the last 25 years has put
| more emphasis on carbs than on fats (i.e. too many carbs is
| evil).
|
| I know "low fat" diets were the craze a long time ago. And
| sure, advertisers still like to slap "low/no fat" labels.
| But I believe the actual recommendation has been to lower
| carbs since around the 90's.
|
| This is ultimately a strawman.
| briandear wrote:
| What has been the role in demographic shifts?
| neffy wrote:
| Isn't this also an issue with World War's 1 and 2? They both
| dented life expectancy fairly significantly, and that cohort is
| now aging out of the figures. If the rate of increase is being
| measured, then that would presumably play a small part?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The way life expectancy is usually calculated, it shouldn't
| have an effect. It is calculated is by looking at the mortality
| rate for each age group, which gives a probability of death for
| each age, and by simulating people growing up in such
| conditions, and then taking the average age of death.
|
| By doing so, historical events outside of the study period
| don't have a major effect. In this study, they deliberately
| avoided the covid pandemic as it would have caused a
| significant drop in life expectancy that is not representative
| of a general trend. Of course, the future is not taken into
| account either. Despite what the name may suggest, life
| expectancy is like a snapshot of the studied period (1990-2019
| here), not a prediction.
| cdrini wrote:
| Frustrating that an article with a title like this doesn't
| include a single graph.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Actual study:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3#Sec2
| lynx23 wrote:
| I always wondered why I personally know almost nobody who has
| managed to exceed average age. With the only exception of my
| previous landlady, she became 95. In my family, the average age
| is roughly 60, with three siblings on my fathers side dying
| before 50. Both my grandpas died around 50. My best friend died
| with 18. Many of the fellow blind people I know died below 50.
| And I am from a relatively rich country, with classical western
| standards. It is almost as if I was thrown into a local minimum
| while the simulation was set up. I would understand if the
| phenomenon was largely limited to my family, call it genes then.
| But it doesn't end there. I guess the personal statistics becomes
| only meaningful after your own death and beyond. But really,
| looking at how many people had to pass away early, I am beginning
| to get spooked.
| asoneth wrote:
| > I would understand if the phenomenon was largely limited to
| my family, call it genes then
|
| Perhaps there are other shared variables besides genes? For one
| thing, blindness is associated with higher mortality [1]. And
| even within a country, life expectancy can vary dramatically by
| region, city, and even neighborhood. Or perhaps the people you
| know happen to be more likely to share certain occupations,
| mindsets, levels of physical activity, or diets?
|
| Or maybe it's just coincidence.
|
| [1]
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...
| foobiekr wrote:
| I wonder how much impact there will be on average life expectancy
| uncovering that a lot of the super-long-lived population examples
| have been pension fraud.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Those people are statistically irrelevant. Not enough of them
| to drag the average much one way or the other.
| dustyventure wrote:
| For every pension fraud that went on that long and took such
| an obvious risk with continuing to a notable age, I imagine
| there were hundreds or thousands of shorter frauds.
| tired-turtle wrote:
| In this case, the "shorter frauds" involve dying near the
| reported date of death? By your definition, the postulated
| (unreported) deviation is statistically insignificant.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Probably not much because you can find long-lived populations
| that don't follow the administrative boundaries of pensions.
|
| King County in Washington State, which contains the Seattle
| metro area, has a life expectancy of 86.3 years. This is higher
| than any country in the world. If you move one county south
| (Pierce), it is 75.7 years, slightly worse than the US average
| currently. Not surprisingly, there are many obvious factors
| that may contribute to this e.g. the obesity rate in Pierce
| County is 50% higher and the obesity rate in King County is
| roughly _half_ the US obesity rate. The Seattle metro is a
| relatively walkable city and people do, Pierce County is not.
| As a matter of demographics, King County is significantly more
| Asian than Pierce County. And so on.
|
| Both counties are geographically large and contain many
| municipalities. It is difficult to come up with a theory where
| pension fraud in King County is so high relative to Pierce
| County that it explains a >10 year difference in life
| expectancy.
| lazerpants wrote:
| Our organization (the American Federation for Aging Research) is
| hosting a webinar with Jay Olshansky (author of the paper) and
| Andrew Scott, a leading economist in longevity to discuss Jay's
| results on 10/22.
|
| The gist is that this isn't quite as cut and dry as it may seem.
|
| We also paid to make the Nature Aging paper open access.
|
| Event: https://www.afar.org/events/webinar-lifeexpectancy-1
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> We also paid to make the Nature Aging paper open access._
|
| That's awesome! Did you make a deal with the authors to pay for
| the fee during publication or is this something anyone can do
| by approaching the journal itself?
| lazerpants wrote:
| Thanks! I wasn't directly involved in that discussion, but I
| imagine anyone can do it. It is a requirement for some grants
| and for some research funders.
|
| Edit: if you need to know I would just ask the editor if it's
| an option
| llm_trw wrote:
| >We also paid to make the Nature Aging paper open access.
|
| What a world to live in.
| switch007 wrote:
| They're going to need new excuses for phasing out state pensions
| oops sorry I mean "raising the pension age".
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Talking about the number of people who live over 100 along with
| the average life expectancy seems to be mixing two unrelated
| things.
|
| To show that we are hitting a limit on our ability to extend
| lifetime, we really should look at having reached 95, how many
| people reach 105 or something like that.
|
| To say that the average life expectancy is dropping and therefore
| we have reached our limit on their ability to extend the
| lifetimes ignores the fact that much of the reason for a stage
| life expectancy drop in my country is lifelong maltreatment,
| often self-inflicted--death-oriented decisions on drugs,
| nutrition, and activity.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > Can we overcome ageing?
|
| 75% American are overweight..
|
| Just let it sink a second, they speak about how many baby born
| after 2000 will reach 100 years old, how we are reaching the
| absolute limit of human survival.
|
| 75% overweight... Everyone know fat people don't live long. I bet
| all the studies done in the 90's that predicted we would easily
| be able to reach 100 years old didn't take that into account.
| Zenzero wrote:
| There is probably a distinction to be made between
|
| "here is the theoretical limit given adherence to modern
| recommendations on cardiovascular health, exercise, etc."
|
| and
|
| "you all didn't listen and got fat instead"
| Barrin92 wrote:
| > Everyone know fat people don't live long.
|
| studies estimate that moderate obesity takes about 2-3 years of
| life expectancy (defined as having a BMI of 30-35), only people
| with severe obesity (BMI of 40-45+) lose on average 6-13 years,
| comparable to smoking.
|
| Given that severe obesity is still uncommon even in the rich
| world it only has a small impact on life expectancy overall.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Combined with getting in your car and driving absolutely
| everywhere (most Americans)?
| asdff wrote:
| This is what people also don't realize. When these sorts of
| people get old they become immobile as they lose what
| precious little of actual muscle mass they had and
| unsupported joints start failing left and right. Sure your
| life expectancy might only be 2-3 years shy. What about
| your health span? That's what most people are actually
| interested in extending when they talk about living longer.
| scarby2 wrote:
| I'm thinking that ozempic and zepbound will have something to
| say about this. When ozempic becomes available as a generic
| (2032) it's going to be available for $10 a dose and a huge
| amount of people will be taking it.
| Muromec wrote:
| Wait, doing amphetamines for weight loss is cool again and
| has no drawbacks of it's own?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How do you know they don't have side effects that would
| reduce max life expectancy?
| generalizations wrote:
| Entirely possible they do - but those effects would
| probably manifest in some fashion earlier than actual
| death. We'll have at least 7 years to see if we can spot
| them. But, even if they do exist, they will probably be
| small (given we haven't found them so far), and the
| positive effect on life expectancy via weight loss is huge.
|
| i.e. the benefits of the weight loss almost certainly
| outweigh any side effects that are likely to manifest.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm actually a little surprised at the framing here. I didn't
| realize anyone thought we could overcome aging. I thought the
| goal was to live longer, but not to completely overcome aging.
| That sounds somewhat foreign to me. Is that a commonly reasonable
| goal for folks?
|
| That is to say, I'm not clear that "beating aging" is what is
| required for "long life." Is that definitionally required and I'm
| just being dense?
|
| I'm assuming this is a tiered discussion? In that nobody thinks
| we should freeze aging at baby stages for someone. Such that we
| would still want some aging, but would then try and fix a point
| where all aging can be stopped?
| Loughla wrote:
| I honestly thought the whole point was beating aging. Whether
| that's longer life or cancer or whatever. The point is to stay
| 20-40 forever, from what I can tell.
| taeric wrote:
| But, by the time you hit 20-40, you have already done a ton
| of aging?
|
| Fair that I don't expect to be as strong in my 60s as I am
| now. Or when I hit 70+. If I get that far. Light weight
| training is plenty to get to be in good physical shape,
| though? Get to where you can do 10-30 pushups and run a
| continuous mile, and you are probably doing fine?
| science4sail wrote:
| > Is that a commonly reasonable goal for folks?
|
| Why not? Humans have been pursuing immortality for time
| immemorial. "The Epic of Gilgamesh", one of the first known
| stories, features such a pursuit.
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