
Environmental stress contributes to obesity and diabetes (2015) - mhalle
http://nautil.us//issue/61/coordinates/why-living-in-a-poor-neighborhood-can-change-your-biology-rp
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Nasrudith
I can't help but roll my eyes at "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" for two
reasons.

First prey species are actually pretty damn paranoid. Horses spook easily for
a reason. Even predators who are also preyed upon show pretty heavy signs of
anxiety and have been seen freaking out at nothing because it /might/ be a
threat. Tiger Oscar Cichlids are marked as an aggressive fish in aquariums and
yet will scare themselves into fleeing and hiding from the sounds of their
/own splashes/ when eating. They have been a staple for millennia so clearly
selective pressure of man and perhaps other fishers has driven them craven. It
takes say isolation and no threats like say island gigantism to have that sort
of "nothing preys on me" chill attitude. Step one of a creature becoming tame
is not fleeing from, hiding from, or threatening humans on detection.

Second ulcers are bacterial in cause (although stress certainly doesn't help)
and the selection bias involved. It is like saying the pioneer mothers and
children were all healthy - just ignore the dozens of dead wives and children.

I don't doubt that stress can create downward spirals but it would be
interesting to see how comparable other aspects were. If people in lower
stress environments stress eat less that could give better results even if
absorption doesn't play a significant role.

Or the reverse and you sifted through diet examples and found those who say
had a personal chef who would prepare healthier better tasting food on demand
had similiar or worse rates of diabetes and obesity compared to those those in
lower stress environments who ate the same way they did before.

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tcj_phx
You don't have to be kept in an actual cage to feel trapped. This is one of
the themes in Johann Hari's book about the drug war, _Chasing the Scream_. [0]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122637)

The economic predicaments of the underclass would be easy to fix, if the
politicians cared to do so. But the political debate is all about taxing and
not-taxing. The talking heads ignore other strategies to fix the underclass'
actual problems.

Ending the drug war is the most important thing we can do to foster more
equitable economic conditions for all.

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dang
From 2016:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11856476)

