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.
> 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.
> 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.
>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).
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
>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).
3 replies →
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.
>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.
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.
2 replies →
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Because you already take many modern shortcuts and conveniences to avoid hard work, why not take this one?
2 replies →
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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.