
Why Hispanic-Americans live longer: A mystery that has puzzled researchers - nether
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/02/hispanics-in-the-u-s-live-longer-than-white-people-why/
======
AndrewOMartin
It's a bit concerning that it's labeled a paradox, as you only use that word
if it's strongly counter intuitive. That implies everyone who uses that term
expected Hispanics to not live longer.

When you see that trend in the data surely you should say "that's interesting,
I wonder if it's accurate and hence something to do with being Hispanic"
rather than "By what devilry does my data suggest that Hispanics live
longer?".

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Not really concerning to me.

For example, what if my data showed that less affluent people do better in
school, or have better health, than more affluent people.

Would that surprise you, and would a healthy response be to check your data
again before chasing after this conclusion?

I think generally, yes, because it conflicts with our notions (from earlier
studies) about how socioeconomic status affects success in schools and in
health.

And that's likely at the core of the 'paradox', that hispanic communities are
relatively less affluent than a median citizen, and that lower socioeconomic
status is normally linked to negative, rather than positive, affects on
health. The surprise isn't really concerning.

I mean I get your point, it's important to remain open-minded and ask open-
minded questions, as opposed to questions which carry lots of preconceived
ideas about the world. But in this case it doesn't seem all that concerning to
me.

~~~
Tsggdjbs
The study controls for income, so in theory the effect of lower socioeconomic
status is removed. It is effectively saying fewer Hispanic people at a certain
income level will die relative to people of other races at the same income
level.

This is a paradox especially if your prior is that longevity and race should
be unrelated.

~~~
colomon
"In the United States, Hispanics die at slower rates than non-Hispanic whites.
This is true even before accounting for differences in incomes and health-care
access, which put Hispanics at a disadvantage."

------
golemotron
Why doesn't the article mention genetics as a possible factor?

~~~
mhuffman
This is the obvious answer. Another, I believe, is a sense of community (lower
societal stress).

------
unwind
... and probably keeps doing so, as there was no actual explanation given.

Is this click-bait? Very annoying, at least.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Thought it was an interesting question to be honest... I'm fine with the
occasional article asking a question without immediately providing answers.

It makes a strong case for the gap to actually exist (which has been contested
in the past), by showing studies unaffected by immigration which still
indicate a gap.

And it also offers some answers. The most compelling one is that it's
cultural, behavioural, relating to diets, smoking, drinking etc. The argument
for this is that the gap is smaller for immigrants who are 2nd, 3rd
generation, and who have assimilated more of the typical US culture.

------
dataker
One of the overlooked factors is religion.

South Americans are predominantly Catholic and less prone to drinking/smoking
and end up fostering a community

~~~
nathancahill
Growing up in a latin american, predominantly Catholic country, I can assure
you that they are not less prone to drinking. Smoking was less common, but
because of the culture, not religion.

~~~
coldtea
Drinking can different between different cultures. There are cultures that
drink the same amounts (per capita) but have fewer alcoholics, because they
see drinking as something social, e.g. related to eating with friends and
family etc, not as something you do even alone or to cure your blues.

------
pessimizer
Hispanic is a pretty stupid category, but people described as Hispanic-
Americans are usually to some degree South/Central American indigenous by
descent - making them on average 3 or 4 inches shorter than black or white
Americans.

Shorter people live longer. It's been speculated that women's longevity
advantage over men is determined entirely by height.

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094385)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/height_and_longevity_the_research_is_clear_being_tall_is_hazardous_to_your.html)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002432050...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024320502025031)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1600586](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1600586)

Black, white and Mexican-American mean heights:

[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf)

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joeyspn
It's probably cultural... latin-americans, and Europeans with latin culture
(France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc) usually tend to take life "less
seriously" (we all know the awful toll stress takes in our bodies/minds), and
also eat healthier introducing other paradoxes like the "French Paradox"[0]

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_paradox)

~~~
saiya-jin
france a country with latin culture? not really..

~~~
iamcurious
The term was made up to remark that Latin America is closer to France than to
other countries like England and USA.

From Wikipedia (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America#Etymology_and_def...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America#Etymology_and_definitions)
):

 _The idea that a part of the Americas has a linguistic affinity with the
Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of
the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of
the Americas was inhabited by people of a "Latin race", and that it could,
therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe" in a struggle with "Teutonic
Europe", "Anglo-Saxon America" and "Slavic Europe".[8] The idea was later
taken up by Latin American intellectuals and political leaders of the mid- and
late-nineteenth century, who no longer looked to Spain or Portugal as cultural
models, but rather to France.[9] The term was first used in Paris in an 1856
conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao[10] and the same year by
the Colombian writer José María Torres Caicedo in his poem "Two Americas".[11]
The term Latin America was supported by the French Empire of Napoleon III
during the French invasion of Mexico as a way to include France among
countries with influence in the Americas and to exclude Anglophone countries
and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship of the region with
France, transform France into a cultural and political leader of the area, and
install Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of the Second Mexican Empire.[12]
This term was also used in 1861 by French scholars in La revue des races
Latines, a magazine dedicated to the Pan-Latinism movement.[13]_

------
venomsnake
Is Mexican cuisine diet the new Mediterranean one?

Some fraudulent quack will surely misinterpret it on tv ...

------
amelius
Could it be that these are not "true" Hispanics, but they have mixed genes?
Mixing in the gene pool usually has positive effects.

~~~
galactus
what is a "true hispanic"?

~~~
mhuffman
Peoples mixed with Spaniards. The "span" part of Hispanic.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Hispanic means a lot of different things in a lot of different places. The
root word comes from Hispania, which was the Roman name for the Iberian
peninsula. That includes Portugal, so some people consider Portuguese
descendants to be Hispanics, although most don't.

However, (AFAICT) nobody considers Hispanic to be "mixed" peoples; most
include mixed peoples in the category but there are some who only use the term
to refer to white peoples in Spanish Central & South America.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic)

~~~
mhuffman
from your link:

> The term "Hispanic" broadly refers to the culture, peoples, or nations with
> a historical link to Spain.

I guess that was what I was getting at, but I do take your point that it is
not as cut-and-dry as my short remark made it seem. So today I have learned
something new to me.

------
tom_b
Infant mortality rates are lower for Hispanic babies born in the US to non-US
born parents. This is a pretty well known fact in the public health research.

See
[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6026a6.htm?s_cid=...](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6026a6.htm?s_cid=mm6026a6_e&source=govdelivery)

I vaguely remember that the effect disappears for second generation births.
Don't have a citation handy for that though.

(Edit: pdf link since the above link seemed truncated -
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_06.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_06.pdf)
)

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natroniks
I'm probably being naive here, but aren't Asian countries' low mortality
levels recognized as a result of their diets? If there is one staple one could
point to as being shared between Hispanics and Asians, must that staple be
rice? I just wonder if the choice of main starch - which is consumed so
commonly across cultures - distinguished Hispanic Americans from other
Americans, who are more likely to rely on corn or wheat as their staple
starch.

~~~
jmulho
Don't forget beans. A 20 point drop in cholesterol might explain the
difference [1].

Perhaps the lack of access to healthcare explains the difference. Healthcare
is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. [2].

Why does the effect dissipate for the second and third generation? My theory:
Mexican restaurants in the U.S. supply a free bottomless basket of fried corn
chips with every meal.

[1]
[http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/beans/](http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/beans/)
[2] [http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/07/16/dr-gregers-new-
annual-y...](http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/07/16/dr-gregers-new-annual-year-
in-review-presentation/)

------
tokenadult
Yep, I read some of the comments here, then I read the article kindly
submitted to open the thread from top to bottom, and then I read all the rest
of the previous comments here. The article is more interesting than I expected
from the first comments I read. Particularly interesting is the issue of
whether or not earlier epidemiological studies were counting the same people
over the course of their lifespan, or whether some "Hispanic" people in the
United States were moving back and forth internationally, or not being counted
at all in epidemiological surveillance, either of which might badly skew the
figures.

One question that came up in several comments is what is meant by the
"ethnicity" designation term "Hispanic," which is used only in the United
States for epidemiological studies like this. The Census Bureau says

"The U.S. Census Bureau collects race data in accordance with guidelines
provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and these data are
based on self-identification. The racial categories included in the census
questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this
country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or
genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race
item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may
choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as
'American Indian' and 'White.' People who identify their origin as Hispanic,
Latino, or Spanish may be of any race."

[http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_RHI525211.htm](http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_RHI525211.htm)

In other words, we can't count on "Hispanic" people having any particular gene
assemblage at the individual level and it's difficult even to assume that
Hispanic people really, truly share a common culture that differs from non-
Hispanic culture. There is a LOT of noise to go with whatever signal is
carried by the designation "Hispanic," and people's self-designation by that
term or not has changed a lot in my lifetime.

But, as the article points out, there may be some good news here for people in
the United States in general. "Understanding the origins of the Hispanic
paradox will tell us a lot about the future of health care in the United
States. And if the Hispanic advantage does have something to do with culture —
with strong, supportive communities and healthy behaviors — then that is
something that the rest of the country can emulate." Better understanding the
long-term, steady drop in all-cause mortality in the United States at all
ages[1] may help us find ways to keep that trend[2] going, further lengthening
lifespans for all Americans.

[1] "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years.
Here’s why"
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html)

[2]
[http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Diet?

~~~
tremols
Less pancakes, bacon, fries, pizza, hamburguers (and more vegetables and
grains). Such greasy food might have sense on a hostile cold weather but that
doesn't mean its good on the long term.

