[HN Gopher] Lifestyle and environmental factors affect health an...
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Lifestyle and environmental factors affect health and ageing more
than our genes
Author : gnabgib
Score : 40 points
Date : 2025-02-20 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ox.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ox.ac.uk)
| reliablereason wrote:
| How come almost all humans live longer than dogs then. Dogs don't
| smoke and they are very physically active, yet they generally die
| before the age of 20*.
|
| The article is a based on a over generalisation from study
| results that are not applicable in the way that the article
| claims.
|
| *The dog metaphor is sort of a joke, but it is true for the human
| case to, due to the fact that you cant factor out the genetic
| "effect" on behaviour.... ie. behaviour and genes are too
| intertwined to separate from each other. Smokers smoke in part
| cause they have the genes that make them more likely to smoke (or
| exercise, or overeat, or do whatever; just pick any example that
| is unhealthy).
| rco8786 wrote:
| I think it's fair to assume that we're not talking about the
| genetics of other species here.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Genetics does not draw neat lines.
| alaithea wrote:
| Dog aging is irrelevant. It's well-documented that dogs have a
| faster biological aging process due at least in part to the
| telomere caps on chromosomes which protect the DNA. Dogs lose
| these caps at a rate around ten times the human rate.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221112471...
| qvrjuec wrote:
| I remember seeing discourse recently saying telomere
| shortening is a side effect more than a cause of aging as a
| function and happens as a function of DNA damage. Important
| to consider
| alaithea wrote:
| Sure, but it also has some correlation to body size. Larger
| animals generally live longer.
| bitwize wrote:
| Then why do large-breed dogs die around 8 years of age
| when small-breed dogs can live to twice that easy?
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's pretty obvious that it only applies to the same specie. If
| you live 100m from a highway, breath brake pad and tire
| particules all day, smoke 2 packs of cigs a day and drink 1L of
| vodka every morning you will statistically live a shorter life
| than your genetic twin who lives in an unpolluted rural area
| who eat pesticide free food and don't smoke/drink
|
| That's all there is to it, some people smoke and live long,
| some people don't smoke and die young, but statistically no one
| smokes a lot and live longer as a result.
|
| Just look at the leading causes of mortality, they're mostly
| behavior or environment related
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| The article is talking about genetic variation within humans.
| The title omits this, making it an incorrect summary of the
| article (and it's unclear what it even means)
| swatcoder wrote:
| The suggestion is that phenomenological data about behavior and
| environment provide better _insight_ into health and aging
| outcomes than genetic data where we might choose one or the
| other.
|
| So while you're almost certainly right that various genes put a
| thumb on the scale of behavior sets or environmental
| experiences, this analysis suggests that it's to some degre
| more productive to consider those behavioral and environmental
| details in themselves than to look at the genetic factors in
| themselves. Whatever bias genes apply seems so far from
| determinative that better predictions and better judgments can
| be made by just looking at or these other factors instead for
| the purposes of these outcomes.
|
| And of course this study is looking at the range of genetic
| diversity among a random sample of human individuals, rather
| than the obviously more impactful range of diversity among a
| random sample of individuals across different species.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I'd think of it in terms of a sort of species normative
| lifespan and indicators of aging. Let's say it's 80 effective
| years. What this study is saying that factors other than genes
| have much more more influence on whether you make it to (or
| even past) the normative lifespan/age. Not that the length of
| the generalized normative lifespan isn't a product of genes, or
| that individuals who appear as severe outliers aren't doing so
| because of genetic factors. But that the largest factor
| impacting premature expression of normative age or pre-normal-
| age death aren't genetically driven at the population level.
|
| I would note, however, that this result is going to be
| extremely influenced by the society being studied. If famine is
| widespread, then many genetic factors won't matter. Similar for
| war, etc. (And this is probably partially why socioeconomic
| factors have a big influence.)
| maltyr wrote:
| I'm pretty surprised they found *correlations between mortality
| and supplementation. I wonder how they can separate that from
| socioeconomic status.
|
| Also, I understand why they tested multi-vitamins and fish oil,
| but I wonder why they asked about glucosamine?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Also, I understand why they tested multi-vitamins and fish
| oil,
|
| I don't see that in the linked article or in the paper. The
| words vitamin and fish don't appear anywhere in the paper
| either. I didn't see supplement use in the tables.
|
| Where are you seeing this?
| maltyr wrote:
| In the last 3 lines on the right-side of the graphic.
|
| Fig. 2: Environmental architecture of mortality in the UKB.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03483-9/figures/2
| pedalpete wrote:
| I believe/understand it is mostly tied to reproduction and
| protection and development of offspring.
|
| Dogs (and many other animals) begin reproducing at a much younger
| age. Their genetics and genetic development evolved to support
| releasing a number of offspring to continue the species, but
| beyond that, the biological system had no longer value for the
| animal, and therefore genetics which enhanced longevity did not
| promote into the next generation.
|
| People rear children later, and when those children are growing,
| the human still plays a very active role in the development and
| maturity of those children. The genes which promoted longer life
| where therefore selected out as the children who were not reared
| with parents in reaching late 30s had a lower chance of survival.
|
| In addition, humans have a strong drive to live. Dogs, as they
| reach the end of their life, seem to be quite happy to find a
| nice place to lie down and die. They have no concept of "not
| dying". Not that they won't protect themselves, but they have no
| idea of medicine, of health, these are not concepts many other
| species can understand, and even if they could, there is not much
| they could do for them.
|
| With royalty and family, younger generations cared for the older,
| which increased lifespan beyond the generally accepted declining
| years.
|
| For example (I work in sleep), sleep begins degrading in our 30s,
| and this degradation is linked to all markers of aging and
| health. Our immune system weakens, our metabolic and
| cardiovascular systems decline, etc etc. Potentially there was/is
| some evolutionary selection here as well where the children who
| cared for their elderly were also more likely to survive longer,
| but I think that is a weak link.
|
| I'm not refuting the OP, but at one point genetics got us so far,
| and then lifestyle and environmental factors are now taking over.
|
| (edit) I originally posted this as a response the question about
| dog lifespan, but then realized it probably stands on it's own as
| a comment.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Castaneda's Don Juan says that life is more about what we avoid
| doing than what we do.
|
| Like, we should not repeatedly go to the shoe store to play with
| their new x-ray foot measuring device, or use those new glow-in-
| the-dark radium cosmetics.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| You mean clean living pays off?
|
| Say it isn't so . . .
| ge96 wrote:
| I just need a son who's blood I can siphon
| robwwilliams wrote:
| The Oxford study is big and I am sure well done, but it boils
| down to what I hope we all knew--human health and healthspan are
| both mainly about non-genetic factors. Avoid pestilence, famines,
| wars, and crazy leaders; eat right, exercise, do not smoke. Have
| a good social network at all ages. Stay active.
|
| The estimate of the magnitude of genetics effects in this study
| is "silly low", roughly by an order of magnitude. (Notice the
| hedging in the PR piece.)
|
| The heritability of a trait is a function of environmental
| stability and quality. In a stable environment--Sweden or Iceland
| from 1900 to 2000---heritability of lifespan is still low; about
| 15 to 25%. But that is way different than 2%. Claiming 2% is more
| of a socio-political statement: to focus on what we can influence
| ourselves.
|
| Re telomere length. I wish it were that simple. Telomere length
| is not the main cause of aging in mammals. Read the title if the
| paper that you cite: "correlates with"! My presbyopia correlates
| beautifully with my age but did not cause me to age.
|
| I would not even rank telomere length among the top ten (the
| putative "Hallmarks of Aging"). But it is a great story which
| makes good headline fodder.
|
| I think the comment about dogs is really just highlighting the
| wide range of differences in maximum lifespan among species.
|
| This indicates that DNA variants indirectly or directly modulate
| the baseline tempo of aging between a short lived mammal (less
| than a year) to species like us that live 100 years. There is
| really no doubt about this.
|
| And of course DNA variants do the same thing but over a much more
| modest range within a sexually reproducing species. Some mice
| make it to 500 days, some make it to 1000 days in exactly the
| same environment. Reduce environmental variance sufficiently and
| heritability begins to get up to 40%. Out in the wild here almost
| no mouse dies of natural cause heritability should approach zero.
|
| Aging is highly polygenic. There will be 100s of DNA variants and
| de novo mutations contributing to aging per se and to disease
| risks. And many processes.
| rwmj wrote:
| Don't genetics make it more or less likely that you'll live a
| healthy lifestyle? Say for example if you have depression.
| userbinator wrote:
| Incidentally I was just doing some digging through
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_pe...
| recently, and it seems most if not all of them didn't have any
| particularly healthy lifestyles, so I suspect it is largely
| genetic.
|
| There are some surprising notes in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment#Health_and_life...
| such as:
|
| _Calment continued smoking in her elderly years until she was
| 117_
|
| And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Mortensen :
|
| _Mortensen enjoyed cigars in moderation and drank lots of water_
|
| Also some stats on the countries represented in the above list:
| US 38F 27M 65T Japan 23F 19M 42T France 7F 4M 11T
| UK 5F 5M 10T Canada 3F 2M 5T
| woleium wrote:
| I am not claiming to be an expert, but as i understand it,
| there have been instances where someone looses all their
| paperwork and is reissued after being asked how old they are. A
| shrewd individual may say an age that is greater than their
| actual age, in order to claim a state pension earlier than they
| would otherwise be entitled to. It has been said that this is
| the cause of the famous "blue zones" in Japan and Spain.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| In the case of Jeanne Calment, there is suspicion that her
| daughter took her place in order to claim her pension.
|
| It is completely unproven despite a thorough investigation,
| but reaching the age of 122 is so unlikely that some people
| think that fraud is still the most likely explanation.
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