Comment by aucisson_masque
12 hours ago
> Can we overcome ageing?
75% American are overweight..
Just let it sink a second, they speak about how many baby born after 2000 will reach 100 years old, how we are reaching the absolute limit of human survival.
75% overweight... Everyone know fat people don't live long. I bet all the studies done in the 90's that predicted we would easily be able to reach 100 years old didn't take that into account.
To be clear, it looks like the health stat term "overweight" means anything greater than "normal", which includes obese.
Quick Google search:
First hit:
Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-a....
US NIH says: 73.1% are overweight (includes obese). Ref: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
Sure, 73.1% > 65.8%, but Australia is still plenty overweight. Both are appalling.
To be fair BMI is based on Belgians from the 1850s with all the implications it has. Modern people are much taller (+15 cm for males) and eat a lot more protein.
So the line between normal and overweight is somewhat blurry. e.g. someone who is 6'3" and weighs 200 pounds is overweight. Which might or might not be the case (but you certainly don’t need to a body builder or invest a lot of time to maintain at least reasonably healthy 18-20% body fat ratio).
I'm thinking that ozempic and zepbound will have something to say about this. When ozempic becomes available as a generic (2032) it's going to be available for $10 a dose and a huge amount of people will be taking it.
How do you know they don’t have side effects that would reduce max life expectancy?
Entirely possible they do - but those effects would probably manifest in some fashion earlier than actual death. We'll have at least 7 years to see if we can spot them. But, even if they do exist, they will probably be small (given we haven't found them so far), and the positive effect on life expectancy via weight loss is huge.
i.e. the benefits of the weight loss almost certainly outweigh any side effects that are likely to manifest.
We don't, but there's also no particular reason to believe it will unless some evidence for it appears.
Similar to zero-calorie sugar substitutes, "too good to be true" isn't always the case. Sometimes new inventions really are just better.
People have been taking them for decades for other reasons, so if they had side effects reducing max life expectancy worse than being overweight surely we'd know by now.
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We don’t know if MMR doesn’t but we still give kids[0] the vaccine in infancy. The vaccine is too young (<60 y old). So I suppose ask yourself what proof you need and why.
0: most kids, I just got the disease instead and the vax later
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A study by researchers from the University of British Columbia (Canada) shows a link between drugs intended for diabetics and severe gastrointestinal diseases: pancreatitis, intestinal obstruction, biliary pathologies and gastroparesis.
Only fools would convince themselves a drug has no sideeffect.
The worst is that these drugs were created for legitimate use but are now being abused by what I would call lazy fat who can't get their finger out of their arse and start eating healthy.
When there is a natural, effective and no side effects alternative, why go the medication way.
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Wait, doing amphetamines for weight loss is cool again and has no drawbacks of it's own?
I don't think ozempic is amphetamines.
Honest puzzlement: how is it possible to be so underinformed when google, duckduckgo and wikipedia are right there? Are they blocked some places where hacker news isn't?
Ozempic isn’t anywhere near the amphetamine class of weight control prescriptions, where are you getting your misinformation from?
Welcome to the 80s part 2. Hope you enjoy the ride.
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> Everyone know fat people don't live long.
studies estimate that moderate obesity takes about 2-3 years of life expectancy (defined as having a BMI of 30-35), only people with severe obesity (BMI of 40-45+) lose on average 6-13 years, comparable to smoking.
Given that severe obesity is still uncommon even in the rich world it only has a small impact on life expectancy overall.
Combined with getting in your car and driving absolutely everywhere (most Americans)?
This is what people also don't realize. When these sorts of people get old they become immobile as they lose what precious little of actual muscle mass they had and unsupported joints start failing left and right. Sure your life expectancy might only be 2-3 years shy. What about your health span? That's what most people are actually interested in extending when they talk about living longer.
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Why do people on HN think the US is special about (quantity of) driving? All wealthy non-microstate nations are driving nations. And, they drive a lot. That includes Australia.
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That’s a bizarre hill to die on, I see all kinds of larger people survive into their 90s when I was living near and volunteering at a nursing home as a teenager
I see all kinds of larger people survive into their 90s
So dangerous to extrapolate from anecdotal observation like this. If I see old people smoking, doesn't mean smoking is safe. It just means it doesn't kill at 100% effectiveness.
> It just means it doesn't kill at 100% effectiveness.
If you wait long enough, everything has a 100% effectiveness.
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I see “plenty” of life long smokers making it to their 80s and 90s too, that doesn’t mean it didn’t take out 90% of them along the way.
That’s the funny thing: at homes and nursing homes all around America you will find WW2 veterans. One could conclude that WW2 wasn’t dangerous from that, I suppose.
There is probably a distinction to be made between
"here is the theoretical limit given adherence to modern recommendations on cardiovascular health, exercise, etc."
and
"you all didn't listen and got fat instead"
Being slightly overweight is associated with longer lifespan. Really look it up, the longest lifespan is slightly overweight and top of normal bmi. Lifespan gets down when you move toward obese, somewhere in the middle of overweight segment.
The worst life expectations are in underweight category.