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.
Both are also largely meaningless because they're based on BMI, which is literally just mass/height^2. No measure of percent body fat, no measure of any other aspect of health, just mass by the square of height.
If you're comparing the BMI of two countries with very similar gene pools it's not a bad point of comparison (though the raw number still doesn't tell you much without more context about build types), but when you're comparing Australia to the US the gene pools of the non-European minority groups are sufficiently different to make BMI pretty worthless as a point of comparison for public health.
Yeah, it's not height itself that's the problem, it's body shape. As just one example: some people have long torsos and short legs, others long legs and short torsos. Those two groups will have wildly different BMI curves even at similar health levels.
BMI is a very crude measure. It is only useful in the extreme, and not particularly relevant for an individual. If you have a BMI of 40 you should think about losing weight, but exactly nobody need a composite number to know they are that fat. Similarly, you might have a normal BMI but an LDL of 300 or a strange lump on your thyroid. These things are vastly more important than your BMI
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).
>To be fair BMI is based on Belgians from the 1850s with all the implications it has.
It's a pretty straightforward formula, and even though the cutoffs might be arbitrary, there's undoubtedly a u shaped mortality curve centered somewhere around 20-25. At a population level I don't think any of that is a relevant factor. No one thinks that your risk of death hinges on crossing an arbitrary line, but being fatter definitely isn't good for your health.
But the question here is whether you can compare the BMI curves of two countries and come to any conclusions, and the answer is pretty solidly "no".
Bone density, muscle mass, torso height relative to leg height—none of these things are factored into BMI and all of these vary wildly depending on genes.
Being born with worse attributes doesn't mean those attributes are out of the equation. A lot of people die much younger than they should just by poor luck, with little or no control on their end.
If you happen to have higher bone density and higher muscle mass just because you have higher testosterone, you're still better off. Sometimes people just get the short end of the stick. That doesn't necessarily mean BMI doesn't work.
I've even met smokers, smokers! Who have better cardiovascular health than me and are skinnier. Which really fucking sucks for me.
Veins have a 2D cross section where body’s are 3D. That’s one reason why using height ^2 not height ^3 may better correlate with health.
Similarly, cancer risks may scale with the amount of tissue or the surface area for things like skin / colon cancer but it’s hard to see how being taller is beneficial.
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.
Ozempic's mechanism of action is not "ramp up your metabolism" or "make you absorb fewer calories from food." It's "make the desire to eat less intense, making it easier to remain on a diet plan." That diet plan could be, "eat exactly the same things but less of them," but it will often be, "cut out unhealthy snacks" or whatever.
>It's "make the desire to eat less intense, making it easier to remain on a diet plan." That diet plan could be, "eat exactly the same things but less of them," but it will often be, "cut out unhealthy snacks" or whatever.
If people can't be convinced to eat carrots over chips, what makes you think they're going to suddenly eat carrots over chips after eating medication that makes them want to eat less?
I'm not sure how making someone less hungry magically makes them want to eat carrots over chips. Is the reason why they're eating chips because they're so hungry and so pressed for time that they're reaching for the highest calorie food? Or do they eat whatever's the most delicious? If it's the latter, I doubt being less hungry is going to make them choose healthier options over more delicious ones.
People aren't idiots. They know what foods are healthy.
A lot of people struggle with intense cravings for foods that they know to be unhealthy. These cravings stack up against their willpower and sometimes overcome that willpower and they eat in ways that they know are unhealthy.
If the cravings are less intense, willpower wins more often, cravings win less often.
I think that you will indeed see that some people on ozempic eat much the same mix of foods as before, but less so. But others will in fact change their dietary mix. And I'm pretty sure that the empirical evidence supports me on this.
Oh I can answer this one. I've never liked chips but was still ~230lb before Ozempic. I tried various diets, but the willpower to maintain one was pretty overwhelming if anything else was going on in my life. I tried eating carrots to get full. And let me tell you, it feels very strange to eat half a pound of carrots, feel your stomach be full, almost painfully full, and still be just as hungry. Same with salads. I would still feel hungry, even though the stomach is full. Even though I liked the taste of the carrots or the salad. It felt like I hadn't actually eaten, and that I was still hungry for an actual meal. With Ozempic? I can just eat a salad, feel good about it, and feel satiated for hours. It just works?
From my friends who are on ozempic, yes it has literally done just that. Along with the fact because they are driven to eat less they, in general are less snacky (and thus eat less chips) and tend to avoid greasy/fried foods because combined with the medicine it leaves them feeling worse afterwards than eating a similar "healthier meal".
Yes N=2, small sample sizes, but I could also see how being less snacky makes one less likely to eat chips. (Why I almost pathologically don't keep easy to eat food in my pantry, granted this can also backfire too).
People prefer the chips because their brains are broken and they have a fixation on tasty foods. It clogs their thoughts processes - basically, they have an addiction.
If you don't care much for food then you don't mind eating the carrots and you don't mind losing the chips. If your entire life is food, then you do mind.
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.
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.
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.
When I was at university, I made a game of spending as little as possible on food. 50p/day. Didn't realise until someone here refused to believe me, that my diet then was about 1100 kcal/day during term time. Didn't feel bad at all.
A few years after graduation, for unrelated reasons, I was on antidepressants. I massively over-ate, became obese, gained stretch marks that will likely remain for life.
There was no voice in my head telling me I was even over-eating, there was no awareness of what I was doing to myself even when I felt the weird tingle in my belly that in retrospect was the tearing flesh that has the outward sign of a stretch mark — I ate without thought.
There is no "natural, effective" solution, because our natural instincts are at odds with our unnatural world.
So the solution is to take a hormone so we can still eat all the junk food we massively produce?
Ozempic is exactly the type of drug Unilevel/Nestlé would create if they were tasked with reducing obesity. I wonder if they'll include a free 7 day dose of it with Mars bars.
That's pretty much the exact opposite of what you seem to think it does, and is exactly the kind of thing that will hurt Nestlé's junk food line. (Though probably not their bottled tap water line).
Seriously — the US and Europe have not been in a remotely "natural" condition since over a century before I was born. Even the air we breathe is significantly different from its natural condition.
I wish people with your worldview could try some drug enhancing appetite for like a month. See how easy it is to get their fingers out of their arse and keep eating healthy when their body is craving food all day long.
Would you also tell people suffering from depression to just cheer the fuck up instead of going the medication way?
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
We do know MMRV causes more seizures in kids than MMR and countries (like Canada) still choose to administer the vaccine with riskier outcomes due to costs and the fact parents don’t like to come back for more shots.
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?
You live in a world where willful stupidity is far from rare. Yes, I know that we should assume incompetence before malevolence, but that was an earlier era. A mixture of the two is the new norm.
Ozempic et al are nothing like amphetamines. They definitely have side-effects but we have far, far more evidence that the benefits are outweighed than we did for stimulants in the 80s.
Every decade or two I hear this about some wonder drug only for them to turn out just as bad as what they were replacing. The opioid epidemic being the latest one.
Do you pay more attention to those and ignore the actual success stories?
The opioids thing is hardly comparable. Everybody clearly knew the risks (for the past 100+ years) and chose to ignore them. This is an almost entirely new type of drugs.
Do you pay attention to the people who win at Russian roulette more than those who lose?
OxyContin was marketed to be the safe alternative to all opioids that came before it, impossible to become addicted to and extremely difficult to overdose from. This was a lie.
> Do you pay attention to the people who win at Russian roulette more than those who lose?
Well.. no since you cant really win anything. With pharmaceuticals on the other I hand I think 1 Oxycontin/etc. like “situation” would be a reasonable price to pay for let’s say 4 major successes.
You were talking about decades. Surely you noticed the advancements in treating cancer, HIV and a multitude of other conditions since the 90s?
> This was a lie.
Sure. But it’s on the same level as saying that filtered cigarettes don’t cause cancer. If a doctor actually believes that he’s just too dumb to be a doctor… (although I assume most safety claims were relative to other opioids and not in absolute terms?)
Are there any signs that the situation with Semaglutides is that similar? Yes they are new and not well understood drugs (well not really but sort of..) and it’s not inconceivable that their longterm cost might end up outweighing the benefits but I don’t really see any signs of an actual conspiracy yet.
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.
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.
Yeah, this is why I lift everyday and I plan too until I can no longer do it. Lifting is also good for mobility if done correctly. Especially deep squats.
Hunched over old people do not have the muscle mass to help keep them upright, I guess amongst other things.
- strengthening muscles around joints allowing for more controlled movement.
- increasing flexibility: Dynamic movements in weightlifting, like squats, lunges, and overhead presses, can stretch and strengthen muscles simultaneously, improving flexibility over time.
- improving joint health because loading the joints with resistance can increase the production of synovial fluid, which helps lubricate joints and promote better movement.
- promoting balance and coordination because exercises often challenge stability and coordination, which can help improve motor control and range of motion in everyday movements.
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.
Having lived in Europe, Australia, worked in US and Japan, I guess I have pretty unique experience with this.
Americans walk the least out of all, followed by Australians. When I visit the the US for work. People sometimes stop and asked me if I'm ok because I'm carrying my groceries home from the store. People would say: "What are you doing? do you need help?" lol
Virtually nowhere is designed for walking outside of say New York, parts of San Fran etc.
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.
You should be suspicious of definitions where the average is abnormal. If 75% of people are over weight, maybe the definition of overweight is wrong.
These definitions are arbitrary anyway. In india they define a bmi of 25 as obese. The same indian after moving to America is not obese until a bmi of 30.
Meanwhile, the average height is also going up, which also correlates with lower life expectancy.
Cardiologists already had to back off their blood pressure guidelines when they defined the average middle aged man as hypertensive in the past.
Well, the average wasn't abnormal, and now it is, without the definition changing. That's telling us something. We're becoming fatter. That doesn't make being fatter "normal". It makes it average, but that's not the same thing. Historically, we know this is abnormal.
By the way, study after study has shown a u shaped life expectancy vs bmi, with peak life expectancy at bmi around 28. Higher BMI around 30 is even better if you have a chronic illness like heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, cancer etc.
this is true even for Asian populations where average bmi is 22. “Normal” is actually worse for life expectancy, “overweight” is ideal, and obese and underweight are both bad.
Maybe the past was underweight. Life expectancy is up compared to the past along with bmi.
Also in Asia, average bmi is 23, and average bra size is B. In the usa, average bmi is 29, average bra size is DD. Probably same thing applies for men in relation to bench press and deadlift numbers.
I remember a paper that said optimal weight to reduce mortality is just below overweight. slightly overweight people were living as long as "normal" weight people and being very low "healthy" weight really wasn't that great.
I don't know what they based "normal" bmi weight on, but it's not by setting the middle of the range to max longevity.
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's actually a 100% death rate as all smokers sure. Jokes aside, your statement doesn't have meaning. Many deaths are not attributable to a single cause. However, it's been studies endlessly and is well accepted that smoking increases all-cause mortality.
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.
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.