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So, the 90% is just your good guess, or a proven fact?
Are you having trouble reading my post? My Internist says 90% of human health is the consequence of genetics. Please read it again and you will see that. I don't really care if you agree with him or not.
American are almost addicted to "health foods" and supplements. What's going wrong?
Something you have to keep in mind is that infant and child mortality affect life expectancy statistics. While the average life expectancy has increased considerably since around 1900, the life expectancy of people who made it to, I forget the exact age, 6, 12, something like that has not changed as much. IIRC from a presentation by a cardiologist who was advancing the idea that it's largely diet that is killing Americans in their 50's to 70's, too much of the wrong foods driving high blood pressure, insulin resistance, diabetes, which he considerd to be essentially one disease or syndrome.
And so on, and so forth. I realize that it's really annoying to acknowledge that maybe it's not entirely under your control if you just "do everything right" (as if that were the same for everybody anyway, which is a whole 'nother discussion), but there it is. Some things you just can't control.
You have to start with apples to apples. First, add infant mortality and abortion of birth defective fetuses into the other countries' stats. We accomplish live births for defective and multiple fetuses that really are not self sustaining without substantial medical effort. NO one else does this. Then take out the subcultures in this country that die from murder which does not occur in the other countries ahead of the US. The 6th leading cause of death for AA males is murder. Then, adjust for the fact that we have a Native American subculture which is about 100% alcoholic. Since we start out within a year or two of every other developed country without the birth defect deliveries and the subculture problems, its not really such a big deal.
A number of the factors you listed were addressed in a previous hyperlink.
One study compared 15 year survival rates for different diseases in the US vs. other countries for people from age 45. It turns out other countries improved on these faster than we did in the US. This was true even when they factored out the minority groups in the US. Non hispanic white life expectancy still did not improve at as fast a rate as it has in other countries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilson1010
90% of human health is attributable to genetics.
This is bullsh*t. It's more like 1/3. The other 2/3 is lifestyle related.
Don't believe me? Perhaps you'll believe a review of the scientific literature mentioned in this article. It turns out that:
--36% of cancer is completely preventable
--93% of diabetes is completely preventable
--81% of heart disease is completely preventable
There's no doubt that there are genes linked to longevity. It's more of a question of, when you study a large population, how much of longevity is attributable to genetics, and how much is attributable to other fators.
Scientists are saying genetics explains about 1/3 of the difference. Lifestyle/social factors explain the other 2/3.
But humans always want to put the blame/responsibility on factors outside their control so they don't have to change their behavior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilson1010
Are you having trouble reading my post? My Internist says 90% of human health is the consequence of genetics. Please read it again and you will see that. I don't really care if you agree with him or not.
Your internist is an idiot. I'd go see someone else. Our whole health care system is run by very intelligent people, who are nonetheless, idiots with no common sense. Why do you think our health care costs 2x as much as anywhere else, yet at ,the same time people don't live as long as in other countries where they spend a lot less??? Because the idiots running the sytem think they can fix everything with more pills and treatments. Of course, it's to their advantage to think that way. It's good for them...not so good for the rest of us, though. It's one reason why so many of us are going broke, personally and as a nation.
Next time you go to see your internist, ask him/her how many courses in med. school he/she took on nutrition, oki? My guess is probably not too many vs all the courses on pills and surgeries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch
IIRC from a presentation by a cardiologist who was advancing the idea that it's largely diet that is killing Americans in their 50's to 70's, too much of the wrong foods driving high blood pressure, insulin resistance, diabetes, which he considerd to be essentially one disease or syndrome.
^^^^This^^^^
Finally, some people are finally figuring this out!
There's no doubt that there are genes linked to longevity. It's more of a question of, when you study a large population, how much of longevity is attributable to genetics, and how much is attributable to other fators.
Scientists are saying genetics explains about 1/3 of the difference. Lifestyle/social factors explain the other 2/3.
But humans always want to put the blame/responsibility on factors outside their control so they don't have to change their behavior.
Not really. It's just that there's a certain subset of people who insist that what works for them MUST work for everyone else, never mind that it doesn't (ever timey I start eating "healthy" based on the "healthy diet du jour" - and when you've lived as long as I have, what that is has changed and flip-flopped enough times to make you dizzy, if not give you a certain jaundiced viewpoint on healthy diets that change whenever someone needs to publish a book - I get sick as a dog; whenever I listen to my body and eat what it tells me, my health blossoms, and that particular diet would make some of you on here curl up in horror).
My mother's cholesterol was brought down to 300 with diet and medication - they couldn't get it any lower. She died, at 80, of complications of a broken hip that she got running for the phone from the shower because she thought, correctly, that it was her boyfriend calling. If she hadn't been bedridden due to that broken hip, she'd no doubt still be with us today - she was the youngest of nine, and died at the youngest age except for her eldest sister who died at 26 from a combination of being pregnant and a young adult during the 1918 flu epidemic (none of the rest of the family succumbed, though some, including her mother, got it). My mother ate the typical East Texas diet - roast beef, chicken and dumpling, fried chicken, etc., etc., etc. for most of her life.
My husband's mother died at about the same relatively advanced age. She chain-smoked for at least 50 years that we know of and drank nothing but black coffee, cup after cup, chain-drinking that for as long as I knew her (which was several decades).
I have had two friends who died of cancer in their fifties, both women. Both vegetarian, both exercised regularly, both did everything "right" according to today's thinking. One of them died of ovarian cancer, and every single member of her family, including a two-year-old niece, died of a different kind of cancer. Every one. She was actually a participant in a study because of that when she died. The other's mother had melanoma at one point, but survived it; her daughter died of breast cancer.
My sister, who is currently 73, had breast cancer some years back in her late 60's. She weighs the same as she did in high school, has eaten a 10% or less fat diet for a couple of decades now, has been and still is a competitive square dancer.
It's just a lot more complicated than we would like for it to be. And the bottom line is, we really don't know what the heck we're talking about when it comes to these things. We just like to think that we do because it's comforting and because we are, after all, the species that likes to tell ourselves that God made us in his own image.
Many people who suffer from a disease or mental disorder surrender to the belief that their problem is hereditary, and as a result, they abandon any hope for improvement. Fortunately, genetics are only part of the equation and most people who consider themselves to be victims of heredity have the potential to live a much better life.
While there are true genetic disorders that are caused by a single mutated gene, they affect less than 2% of the population. In fact, cancer and heart disease, the two leading causes of death in the United States, are commonly blamed on genetics, but only 5% of the cases can truly be attributed to heredity.
Heredity can predispose many people to certain conditions, including cancer and heart disease, but unlike a true genetic disorder, it is environmental factors such as lifestyle that dictate the outcome of such a predisposition.
Consider type 2 diabetes as an example. If there’s a history of it in your family, chances are that a high carbohydrate diet will cause you to develop it. If you do, you can choose to accept diabetes as your genetic fate, rely on insulin injections for the rest of your life, and continue to worsen your health by eating too much carbohydrate. Alternatively, you can realize that you have less tolerance for carbohydrates than most people, adjust your diet accordingly, and regain vibrant health.
For so many years medical professionals focus too much on emphasizing to patients that their genetics are the reason why they get sick, and don’t focus enough time and education on prevention and real lifestyle changes that work.
It’s important to realize that there is a choice!
Based on "The Biology of Belief" by Bruce Lipton PhD
Is this true? I am not American and I live in the UK although am relocating with my job to Texas in the new year. I am a very keen cook and am a member of several foodie/recipe websites. One in particular is very large and well known and is American in origin I believe. I have been very surprised to see that a lot of the recipes posted by US resident members contain lots of ready prepared/processed ingredients e.g. bought ready made sauces / soups to act as a base ingredient for the recipe. Whilst I am sure we all do this from time to time, particularly when time is tight, working lives etc - I don't find the same issue to that extent with recipe websites based in other countries.
Would you members of this food and drink forum agree that this is representative of the way many Americans cook or is this just an anomalie I've come across when browsing websites? To me cooking is not just about opening a few packets and cans of prepared foods containing whatever additives/flavourings/enhancers etc and pouring this over a piece of meat and slamming it in the microwave or over for the requisite time.
Before you all climb down my throat with spiked boots on, I am not being disrespectful - just commenting that cooking from scratch whenever you can, using the best quality ingredients you can afford and cooking things you can do in the time you have set aside for preparing meals, would mean that you know what has gone into your food and perhaps would be healthier for it?
I am a very busy working woman working long hours and often away from home for days at a time but I choose to do batch cooking from time to time on a weekend when I have the time and the inclination. Then I freeze into meal sized portions ready for re-heating and maybe cooking a side vegetable / carbohydrate to accompany. This way we always have a supply of different dishes/meals that are home-made, from fresh quality ingredients but I have made them into single/family sized portions that are essentially a ready-meal but oh so much healthier.
Gosh reading this back this sounds a bit holier-than-thou but it really isn't meant to be! I resort to convenience food too occassionally but my overall focus was supposed to be that we often don't really know what we are eating.
Off to polish my halo now
I tend to agree with you about food , nutrition and cooking in regards to health. Americans tend to eat "brown" foods which means either fried or slathered in sauces filled with fat!
Want to be healthy? Make sure every meal has something red or green it!
It is the basic thesis of this thread is what is giving you all the rhetorical problem: that Americans don't live as long as the longest lifespan peoples on the planet and that it is attributable to poor eating and lifestyle patterns.
First, gross mortality rate tables do not address this question well at all. As I noted in my first post, these numbers take into account all manner of mortality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilson1010
You have to start with apples to apples. First, add infant mortality and abortion of birth defective fetuses into the other countries' stats. We accomplish live births for defective and multiple fetuses that really are not self sustaining without substantial medical effort. NO one else does this. Then take out the subcultures in this country that die from murder which does not occur in the other countries ahead of the US. The 6th leading cause of death for AA males is murder. Then, adjust for the fact that we have a Native American subculture which is about 100% alcoholic. Since we start out within a year or two of every other developed country without the birth defect deliveries and the subculture problems, its not really such a big deal.
These numbers are predictive, not historical, based only on current conditions.
How many people have died from military action in Singapore this year? From murder?
How many people die from murder in Iceland?
Did someone above post an improvement rate for post diagnosis survival rates? Improvement rate? Really.
We have 2+ million people in prison. What is the life expectancy of a prisoner? We have 10 times the prison population of almost every other country on that list.
What is the life expectancy of US residents of white European ancestry? Of Macau ancestry, Japanese?
Where are the Sub Saharan Africans on that list. We have 12%. How many does Norway have? Their life expectancy is about 50. What is it when they are transplanted here? Its about 70. Take that out and the US is close to the top.
Until this stuff is shed from the data the discussion centers around an utterly false premise. Someone, please post a statistic that says that persons surviving birth by 1 year are more likely to die from (you fill in the blank - cancer?) in the US than a country with a comparable population.
Last edited by Wilson513; 12-18-2010 at 01:46 AM..
We don't live longer because of unhealthy lifestyles (factors like stress and obesity), and a diverse population with large pockets of poverty. We also have a high infant mortality rate (partly because of many premature births) and maternal mortality. There are inequalities between the richest and the poorest Americans and between different ethnic groups. ( Asian males in the US live longest, then Caucasians, Hispanics and African-Americans live shortest. There is 14 years difference between an Asian and Black males who had the lowest human development index rating ).
Most Americans eat very unhealthy food and live a sedentary life style.
We have the greatest health care resources and services in the world but many people lack health insurance - people with health coverage are more likely to seek medical attention immediately when they need it, rather than wait until the problem gets worse and their health deteriorates.
And ... the remaining population with health insurance often encounter a health care system that seems more intent on denying us coverage than ensuring our access to health care.
In fact, many life-or-death health decisions are no longer made
solely by you and your doctor. Instead, these decisions are ultimately made by HMOs.
While it’s true that Americans have shorter waits to see medical specialists than in most countries, although waits in Germany are shorter than in the United States, but citizens of other countries get longer hospital stays and more medication than Americans do because our insurance companies evict people from hospitals as soon as they can stagger out of bed.
In 2008 the US ranked 42nd in the world for life expectancy.
Another factor to consider is crime. In the USA, African-Americans have the lowest life expectancy, especially men. Within the African-American male demographic, the age 15-34 demographic has the highest mortality rate in the USA. The number one cause isn't AIDS, heart disease or drug use. The number one cause is murder. African-American men are more likely to be murder victims than anyone else in the nation.
Whoops! This one slipped past me. Wrong forum for this discussion. Thread closed.
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