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Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 30 years to prove

(www.nature.com)
146 points andsoitis | 1 comments | 15 Oct 24 13:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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lovethevoid ◴[15 Oct 24 14:36 UTC] No.41849070[source]▶
> 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”.

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hn_throwaway_99 ◴[15 Oct 24 14:40 UTC] No.41849103[source]▶
> We don’t have solid answers yet, only theories.

The exact quote you gave had a pretty solid answer, certainly not just "theories".

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daveguy ◴[15 Oct 24 15:10 UTC] No.41849449[source]▶
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.
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orionsbelt ◴[15 Oct 24 15:14 UTC] No.41849488[source]▶
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.
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safety1st ◴[15 Oct 24 15:28 UTC] No.41849599[source]▶
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.
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lovethevoid ◴[15 Oct 24 15:55 UTC] No.41849877[source]▶
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.

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KittenInABox ◴[15 Oct 24 20:12 UTC] No.41852624[source]▶
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.
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the_gorilla ◴[15 Oct 24 21:10 UTC] No.41853163[source]▶
> 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.

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kiba ◴[15 Oct 24 21:51 UTC] No.41853487[source]▶
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).

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1. safety1st ◴[16 Oct 24 02:14 UTC] No.41854979[source]▶
You may simply not be aware of the extent of the movement. The fat acceptance movement has attempted to recast the issue not as a health issue, but as a civil rights issue, where criticizing fatness is violating the civil rights of fat people. There is a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_acceptance_movement

Online there's tons of content encouraging fat gain - for example Tiktok women celebrating "BBW" as a sexy thing and the r/PlusSize subreddit, where members encourage each other to remain "big and beautiful" and post anti-science content claiming that being fat is healthy. I saw for example a post by a 20-something woman who was morbidly obese and had had a blood clot in her leg but everyone was still insisting she was a "healthy" type of fat person, herself included.

Of course you will find very few doctors who will endorse this movement or its ideas. And the vast majority of us understand that obesity is unhealthy. But the fat acceptance movement has almost certainly played some role in making people believe that obesity is less dangerous than the research shows.

I won't be shy about my view here, obesity is a terrible disease and if you have it you must take steps to cure it. If you don't your quality of life will be lower in dozens of ways and you will die younger, probably not in a comfortable way. (Not to mention that its economic cost is enormous... a principal way that you can reduce health care costs personally, is to not be fat.)

First and foremost we must renew society's understanding that this is a disease, acceptance is not an option, and it must be prevented, treated and cured.