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Articles like this one imply that lifespan is increasing because of improved medical interventions. The message is repeated everywhere these days -- the alarming increase in chronic degenerative diseases is the result of our longer and healthier lives, thanks to the medical industry.
It is almost total BS, too bad so many people are falling for it. Try to find any evidence that the increase in lifespan has resulted from medical interventions. You won't.
It has mostly resulted from decreased infant mortality, possibly because of antibiotics and vaccines. Also decreased poverty in industrial nations, and improved nutrition and sanitation.
When infant mortality was high, there were still lots of old people, but they didn't have dementia, arthritis, etc., at the rates seen today.
Traditional rural societies have been studied where many people live to old age and stay in good health.
Recent increases in average lifespan could be attributed at least partly to dramatically decreasing cigarette smoking. You can't just look at averages and assume the causes.
Saying we are sicker because we are healthier is just crazy medical industry BS.
They would laugh in the face of someone proposing mattresses as the cause of arthritis because someone thinks they have "proven a link by not having a mattress and not having arthritis therefore mattresses cause arthritis" THAT is the crux of your argument and it is laughable...
I never said it proved anything. Go back and read what I said.
Okay, I can give you a personal example of increased life and quality of life due to medical interventions.
Me.
I would be dead already (around age 30) due to mega gallstones, and later a bile duct blockage that was giving me pancreantitis.
Quality of life? Degenerative psoriatic RA. I would be crippled by now and going downhill fast if not for biologics.
If those didn't get me the chronic HBP would have probably stroked me out by now.
BUT, I am very physically active and have a great quality of life.
Yeah, that's one person, but do you have any idea the millions of similar stories?
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Articles like this one imply that lifespan is increasing because of improved medical interventions. The message is repeated everywhere these days -- the alarming increase in chronic degenerative diseases is the result of our longer and healthier lives, thanks to the medical industry.
It is almost total BS, too bad so many people are falling for it. Try to find any evidence that the increase in lifespan has resulted from medical interventions. You won't.
It has mostly resulted from decreased infant mortality, possibly because of antibiotics and vaccines. Also decreased poverty in industrial nations, and improved nutrition and sanitation.
When infant mortality was high, there were still lots of old people, but they didn't have dementia, arthritis, etc., at the rates seen today.
Traditional rural societies have been studied where many people live to old age and stay in good health.
Recent increases in average lifespan could be attributed at least partly to dramatically decreasing cigarette smoking. You can't just look at averages and assume the causes.
Saying we are sicker because we are healthier is just crazy medical industry BS.
First you say longer life spans are not due to better medical interventions, then you state 3 reasons, decreased infant mortality, antibiotics and vaccines, all of which ARE medical interventions.
Infant mortality rates have no bearing on the average age people live to rising. People used to live to 50's now 70's on average. People who would have died from heart disease have cholesterol reducers, bypass surgery, pacemakers. Babies born weeks premature might have died in 1920, now medical advances can save even those babies born months premature, and often with no lasting effects. Medical advances have been a miracle in the last century. I don't see any rational argument that they have little to do with longer lifespans.
Back in 1840, when the average life expectancy was only about 45, people did not have to worry about arthritis: How has life expectancy changed throughout history? - Business Insider. They also did not have to worry about all of the unhealthy comfort running their lives! Of course many of us can say that the comfort lengthened our lives!
Lie expectancy at birth is not the same as life expectancy for adults.
Many people in 1840 lived long lives- they did not drop like flies at 45! Even the bible says people will live to 3 score and ten- that's 70 in biblical times.
If you don't think they had to worry about arthritis read some eighteenth and nineteenth century newspapers. They had plenty of elixers for arthritis- most involving alcohol. They also had plenty of cancer and heart disease. Food probably didn't have a lot to do with better health in 1840 since our daily diets are probably much better than theirs since we have access year round to fresh fruits and vegetables. Past diets included lots of salted and dried products. We don't get rickets and goiters and scurvy due to lack of certain vitamins or minerals- at least not in the US.
Last edited by Hollytree; 11-05-2017 at 02:19 PM..
Steven Novella also writes the Neurologica blog, which I have read for many years. I know that he is an advocate for atheism and materialism, and against religion and spirituality of any kind.
And how EXACTLY does his belief system discredit the actual FACTS he presents when he and his co contributors debunk nonsensical alternative hocus pocus???
Religion and spirituality have NO place in a discussion of "science based medicine"
Articles like this one imply that lifespan is increasing because of improved medical interventions. The message is repeated everywhere these days -- the alarming increase in chronic degenerative diseases is the result of our longer and healthier lives, thanks to the medical industry.
It is almost total BS, too bad so many people are falling for it. Try to find any evidence that the increase in lifespan has resulted from medical interventions. You won't.
It has mostly resulted from decreased infant mortality, possibly because of antibiotics and vaccines. Also decreased poverty in industrial nations, and improved nutrition and sanitation.
When infant mortality was high, there were still lots of old people, but they didn't have dementia, arthritis, etc., at the rates seen today.
Traditional rural societies have been studied where many people live to old age and stay in good health.
Recent increases in average lifespan could be attributed at least partly to dramatically decreasing cigarette smoking. You can't just look at averages and assume the causes.
Saying we are sicker because we are healthier is just crazy medical industry BS.
Did you even READ the article you posted??
From the article:
"In the 20th century, we finally began to see the trend that's continuing now: fewer deaths at older and older ages."
So...NO...increases in lifespan are NOT due to decreased infant mortality....you continually make the same claim in thread after thread despite being debunked EVERY time...
Doesn't it ever get through???
The data is readily available and not open to debate, actuarial tables back to early 19th century
So the average 20 year old female born in 1830 in the US could expect to live to 60 years of age...
The average 20 year old female born in 1991 in the US could expect to live to 81 years of age....
Thats a pretty significant difference and infant mortality is completely out of the equation....
When infant mortality was high there were "still lots of old people"...not as many as today that is a proven fact and nowhere near the numbers of the "very old" 80 and above...again verifiable fact based on actuarial tables
What you can't prove is your statement about rates of "arthritis, dementia, etc" being "lower than today"
Nonsense...ALL of the diseases we see in the elderly population were around in the 19th and early 20th centuries but not as well studied, diagnosed or reported as they are today.
As another poster has already pointed out you really need to make up your mind on your "theories" though...
To state in one sentence "try and find evidence that increase in lifespans has anything to do with the medical interventions, you won't"
And in the very next sentence to state the role of vaccines and antibiotics is just embarrassing
Oh, and about those "traditional rural societies"
Aboriginal life expectancy is more than 10 years below that of the average non-Aboriginal Australian.
"In 1991, life expectancy at birth in the Inuit-inhabited areas was about 68 years, which was 10 years lower than for Canada overall. From 1991 to 2001, life expectancy in the Inuit-inhabited areas did not increase, although it rose by about two years for Canada as a whole. As a result, the gap widened to more than 12 years" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18457208
Okay, I can give you a personal example of increased life and quality of life due to medical interventions.
Me.
I would be dead already (around age 30) due to mega gallstones, and later a bile duct blockage that was giving me pancreantitis.
Quality of life? Degenerative psoriatic RA. I would be crippled by now and going downhill fast if not for biologics.
If those didn't get me the chronic HBP would have probably stroked me out by now.
BUT, I am very physically active and have a great quality of life.
Yeah, that's one person, but do you have any idea the millions of similar stories?
Obviously lives can be saved by surgery. But that is a small minority of the population, and does not account for most of the increase in average lifespan.
And, in general, chronic diseases are not helped very much by modern medicine. You may be an exception.
First you say longer life spans are not due to better medical interventions, then you state 3 reasons, decreased infant mortality, antibiotics and vaccines, all of which ARE medical interventions.
Infant mortality rates have no bearing on the average age people live to rising. People used to live to 50's now 70's on average. People who would have died from heart disease have cholesterol reducers, bypass surgery, pacemakers. Babies born weeks premature might have died in 1920, now medical advances can save even those babies born months premature, and often with no lasting effects. Medical advances have been a miracle in the last century. I don't see any rational argument that they have little to do with longer lifespans.
People were not dying in their 50's, everywhere, in non-industrial societies. That is a myth.
High infant mortality is natural in most species, but has been reduce to almost zero, possibly because of antibiotics and vaccines.
Saying people used to live until 30, or 40, or 50, is just not true. Maybe in some poverty-stricken areas, but not in general.
Most older Americans are NOT being kept alive by medical interventions. That is a myth, mostly promoted by the drug industry.
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