Life Expectancy in the U.S. Drops

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olivier
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Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:21 pm
Location: Cherbourg, France

Life Expectancy in the U.S. Drops

Post by olivier »

I missed this piece of news when it was released in December but I was quite surprised when I discovered it.
Environment, lifestyle, heathcare access?
The cause remains unclear. The fact is that the mortality of elderly people (over 85) has increased.
What is your opinion on that? A sign of the times?

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

In all fairness, the drop is not very big. It is only little more than a month. It may just a be a statistical abnormality, with things going back to normal again soon enough.

mdeminico
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Post by mdeminico »

We eat like crap, and sit on our butts. We don't move like our bodies are designed to move, we sit in chairs all day, etc...

We eat a highly grain-based, corn-based diet, we don't eat fat, and we're told red meat is the devil. There's a billion things I could point out here, but suffice it to say that when the USDA started offering dietary advice, life expectancy started slowing down its increase, to where we are today, people dying of things they should never even have in the first place.

happyjack27
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Post by happyjack27 »

mdeminico wrote:We eat like crap, and sit on our butts. We don't move like our bodies are designed to move, we sit in chairs all day, etc...

We eat a highly grain-based, corn-based diet, we don't eat fat, and we're told red meat is the devil. There's a billion things I could point out here, but suffice it to say that when the USDA started offering dietary advice, life expectancy started slowing down its increase, to where we are today, people dying of things they should never even have in the first place.
i think the the first part you wrote is pretty poignant. but when you started to get in to the USDA stuff i'm kinda like '''ehhhhh...". the USDA advice is pretty sound, and i'm sure most people don't really listen to it anyways.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

I was going to make a politically-critical comment here about how many of your finest have died in Iraq, &c.. Every 5000 premature deaths caused must, presumably, result in one day of life expectancy lost across the US (just the maths).

But I looked briefly and noted in the article that they are referring to variation between 2007 and 2008. For the measurement (a month) to be such a big fraction of the measurand (1 year interval of measurement), this would be put down to statistical noise, unless it persists for a few years. I don't think it is really news. It is like saying Thursday is the worst day for car accidents. Well, some day of the week has to be the worst, but it doesn't mean it is a useful piece of information, if it is driven by truly random mechanisms. In this case, the assumption that this is random is not disproved by the statistical insignificance.

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

Needed a place to post this, and this one looks as good as any.


For its worshippers, Big Government becomes a kind of religion: the state as church. After the London Tube bombings, Gordon Brown began mulling over the creation of what he called a “British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July,” a new national holiday to bolster British identity. The Labour Party think-tank, the Fabian Society, proposed that the new “British Day” should be July 5th, the day the National Health Service was created. Because the essence of contemporary British identity is waiting two years for a hip operation. A national holiday every July 5th: They can call it Dependence Day.

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cf ... e-Day-6753


:)
Last edited by Diogenes on Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mdeminico
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Post by mdeminico »

happyjack27 wrote:
mdeminico wrote:We eat like crap, and sit on our butts. We don't move like our bodies are designed to move, we sit in chairs all day, etc...

We eat a highly grain-based, corn-based diet, we don't eat fat, and we're told red meat is the devil. There's a billion things I could point out here, but suffice it to say that when the USDA started offering dietary advice, life expectancy started slowing down its increase, to where we are today, people dying of things they should never even have in the first place.
i think the the first part you wrote is pretty poignant. but when you started to get in to the USDA stuff i'm kinda like '''ehhhhh...". the USDA advice is pretty sound, and i'm sure most people don't really listen to it anyways.
I work daily with people on health and nutrition. Without clogging up this board, just take my word for it that the USDA guide for what we should eat is almost *exactly* opposite of what we should eat.

In summary, we *should* be eating the following: Meat and Vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.

Nowhere in there is grains. Breads are mentioned *zero* times. If every American cut out all grains and 90% of their current starch intake, and replaced it with vegetables, FAT, and meat, we'd see obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other problems nearly disappear in a few decades.

KitemanSA
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Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

mdeminico wrote:We eat like crap,
The wife of a friend of mine is a nurse practitioner and once ran a medical center for the poor. She wanted to find a graphic of the "food pyramid" that the USDA is so insistant on to include in a presentation for $. She found a graphic and included it. It was the food pyramid everyone knows except for one thing. It was labeled something like "Feed Lot Requirements for Fattening Cattle for Slaughter"; or something substantially similar.

Hmm. Makes you wonder...
Last edited by KitemanSA on Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

mdeminico wrote:
happyjack27 wrote:
mdeminico wrote:We eat like crap, and sit on our butts. We don't move like our bodies are designed to move, we sit in chairs all day, etc...

We eat a highly grain-based, corn-based diet, we don't eat fat, and we're told red meat is the devil. There's a billion things I could point out here, but suffice it to say that when the USDA started offering dietary advice, life expectancy started slowing down its increase, to where we are today, people dying of things they should never even have in the first place.
i think the the first part you wrote is pretty poignant. but when you started to get in to the USDA stuff i'm kinda like '''ehhhhh...". the USDA advice is pretty sound, and i'm sure most people don't really listen to it anyways.
I work daily with people on health and nutrition. Without clogging up this board, just take my word for it that the USDA guide for what we should eat is almost *exactly* opposite of what we should eat.

In summary, we *should* be eating the following: Meat and Vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.

Nowhere in there is grains. Breads are mentioned *zero* times. If every American cut out all grains and 90% of their current starch intake, and replaced it with vegetables, FAT, and meat, we'd see obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other problems nearly disappear in a few decades.
How much do you know about the subject? i'm not sure about FDA conventions, but I've made my diet according to these guidelines: http://www.exrx.net/Nutrition/DietaryGuidelines.html
You can click a few times deeper from there, for more details. Would you say this diet plan's no good either?

jgarry
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Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:02 pm

Post by jgarry »

Life expectancy never really changed. Infant mortality declined.

Diogenes
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Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

Again, I needed a place to post this, and while it's not exactly on topic, I regard it as related. I really didn't feel like starting a new thread to bring this article to people's attention.


41% of NYC pregnancies end in abortion

The rate for minorities is even higher.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?secti ... id=7883827

mdeminico
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 2:26 pm

Post by mdeminico »

Betruger wrote:How much do you know about the subject? i'm not sure about FDA conventions, but I've made my diet according to these guidelines: http://www.exrx.net/Nutrition/DietaryGuidelines.html
You can click a few times deeper from there, for more details. Would you say this diet plan's no good either?
I'll be up front, I still eat grains at home, and occasionally breads on the rare occasion we go out to eat. So it's not like I'm a nazi on the subject. BUT, I know and can observe the effect on my mental state, well being, body composition, etc.

As far as what I know, my entire business depends on me being knowledgeable about how the human body responds to various inputs, from exercise (which is our business), to the foods you put into your body, any supplements (which are unnecessary if you can eat what you're supposed to, but that's pretty rare in our society, just due to availability and schedules). Also how it responds to rest (or lack thereof), sleep, and recovery techniques. We train folks from incredibly fit military members, all the way to folks like Great Grandma Mildred.

On the link:
Small meals, not a bad idea. Obviously it's all dependent on body size, but let's just take me for example, 5' 9", when I eat like I'm supposed to (which has been *not* the last 4 months, long story there, not going to confuse the subject with it)... when I'm eating like I'm supposed to, I weigh around 165# and about 9-10% body fat. So, using that as a base:

As far as small meals, I'd eat a small piece of meat, preferably wild game or wild caught fish, some vegetables, probably throw on some butter for taste, and/or have some nuts on the side if the veggies I picked didn't need butter. I'd eat something along these lines 3 times a day, with one or two snacks throughout the day that are just smaller versions of those meals.

I'd typically have trouble eating "enough" vegetables to not call it "low carb" because you have to eat a crapton to make up for all the absurd amount of carbs we eat in our culture. So in their place I'll typically eat fruits. I'd find the ones that don't leave me hungry in 1.5 hours (like honeycrisp/pink lady apples, I don't care what I eat them with, I'm freaking *hungry* 1.5 hours later, period). If you're hungry less than 3-4 hours after eating a meal, you probably ate too much carbs.

I don't care about fat, I eat fat. I lather my food in butter if it doesn't taste good. I eat bacon. I eat eggs (the whole FREAKING thing, not just the white). I use heavy cream to make sauces for my dinners... Some disagree and say to eat only specific types of fat, but me, I only avoid artificial trans fats. I NEVER cook with vegetable oil, canola oil, etc. I cook with/use olive oil, coconut oil (saturated fat like no other), butter, etc.

Some others say no dairy, it's probably a good recommendation, but honestly, until I have enough money to hire me a lebanese chef full time to cook my veggies and meats in their oh-so-delicious spices, I'm going to have to use dairy for flavoring, cheeses, etc.

And finally, I take a crapton of Fish Oil. The only reason I can afford it is, I go to Costco, and buy their Kirkland brand Fish Oil, 400 pills for $10. I aim to take just shy of 0.5 grams of EPA + DHA (total) per 10 lbs body weight. The pills have 1000 mg of Omega 3 per pill, and only 300 mg is EPA and DHA total, so for a long time, for me that was 27 fish oil pills per day (9 per major meal). Sounds like a lot, but trust me on this one. After a while of staying on that, I cut it back to where I take 20 per day. That's 20,000 mg of Fish Oil (most of it is ALA), 6,000 mg of which is EPA + DHA.

For folks who have medical problems, the recommendation isn't 0.5g per 10# body weight, it's 1.0g per 10# bodyweight. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, just about anything can be at least helped by fixing your body's Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio.

Now, as far as what I eat today, like I said, it's not spot-on to that, I'll snack on junk occasionally, eating a cookie or something. I'll have pasta from time to time, and my wife makes a mean lasagna. I do it in moderation, but even just that little bit I can feel the difference.

So, I suppose to answer the question, most of that link is pretty good advice.

mdeminico
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 2:26 pm

Post by mdeminico »

Diogenes wrote:Again, I needed a place to post this, and while it's not exactly on topic, I regard it as related. I really didn't feel like starting a new thread to bring this article to people's attention.


41% of NYC pregnancies end in abortion

The rate for minorities is even higher.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?secti ... id=7883827
THAT is disgusting.

People can say it's a "choice", but it boils down to two things:
1) If it's ONLY a part of the woman's body (like her kidney), she can do whatever she wants.
2) If it's another human being, she cannot kill that person, PERIOD.

Science in the 60's and 70's wasn't sure, they didn't have the research and technology. Today, science has conclusively proven that from the moment of fertilization, that fertilized egg is a complete and unique human being, wholly distinct from its mother and father.

Therefore... well, it's murder.

mdeminico
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 2:26 pm

Post by mdeminico »

KitemanSA wrote:
mdeminico wrote:We eat like crap,
The wife of a friend of mine is a nurse practitioner and once ran a medical center for the poor. She wanted to find a graphic of the "food pyramid" that the USDA is so insistant on to include in a presentation for $. She found a graphic and included it. It was the food pyramid everyone knows except for one thing. It was labeled something like "Feed Lot Requirements for Fattening Cattle for Slaughter"; or something substantially similar.

Hmm. Makes you wonder...
As far as the food pyramid... there are these people in Washington DC, they're called lobbyists. They pay big bucks to get people elected, then they go to DC and "lobby" them to get their positions heard on certain issues.

The US Dairy association and farmers across the nation wanted to make *sure* they had a place in our nation's food supply. So, what better way than to use your lobbyists to get good 'old Uncle Sam (everyone trusted him and what he said at the time) to recommend their products for consumption on a daily basis. And what better products to push than the easiest ones to produce? Grains, corn, and milk. Two out of the three of which are not the best choices for foods, and the third is borderline, though I like it.

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