8 ms·

A lot of health-related things took a turn for the worse in the 70s Obesity was 13% in 1970. Now it’s 42%. Obesity can increase cancer risk by 50% https://www

by qgin 5y ago

A lot of health-related things took a turn for the worse in the 70s Obesity was 13% in 1970. Now it’s 42%. Obesity can increase cancer risk by 50% https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/how-does-obesity-cause-cancer.h27Z1591413.html https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/ho...

giantg2 5y ago
Yes, and what is contributing to obesity? Are there environmental factors affecting androgenic functions? Is it all just people being sedentary over eaters? Or something else?
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  This blog spent a bunch of time trying to answer that question, and specifically to figure out which environmental factors might be causing the effect. They looked at lithium, PFAS, antibiotic contamination and a few other candidates. This is definitely not peer-reviewed research so please don't take it too seriously, but I came away convinced that there is more going on here than "people suddenly started eating too much and being lazy in the 1970s": http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/
  - giantg2 5y ago
    My personal guess is that there are multiple causes. Different people are affected differently by the same thing. If we have pervasive exposure to numerous things that have (unproven) theories behind them, it would be hard to identify any given one due to the noise and long duration (epigenetic especially) that might be required to manifest rhetoric end result. There's so much we've learned over the past century, and yet it feels like know almost nothing when we try to dig into complicated life science topics.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    We already know the key contributor: we eat enormously more sugar now than our parents did, and enormously less saturated fat. Now that we know, with certainty, what a disastrous choice this was, it will take time to switch back. Most people are still convinced saturated fat is the bugaboo it has been painted as, and that sugar is A-OK, and government policy is still overwhelmingly directed that way. What can be done with half the US maize crop (of what is left over after 1/3 has been diverted to make into alcohol to add to gasoline, enriching Archer Daniels Midland at taxpayer expense) when it is no longer enzymatically converted to sugar is an open question. Does the world want that much maize?
    - matthewdgreen 5y ago
      The main point the blog makes is that there's a huge discontinuity in the 1970s that doesn't seem to be explained by diet. And it occurs in other countries as well, though often with a delay.
- qgin 5y ago
  Childhood sugar consumption increased quite a bit starting in the 1970s https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X19301364?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1...
- ddfx00 5y ago
  - micro plastic everywhere, water, food, ground. Majority of American women breastfeed their children with their own milk containing plastic - cancerous substances from cars exhaustion, cigarettes and such going inside people every day of their lives - toxic and cancerous chemicals used for processing foods and drinks we are breathing, drinking, eating and staying in contact with cancerous substances 24/h day. I'm surprised the human body is so resilient and we don't have 80% of under 40s with cancer tbh the fix is to: - stop burning fossil fuels - stop producing and releasing in the environment plastic and toxic waste - switch to a sustainable diet and ditch intensive farms using chemicals to boost production the technology is here but it would require the innovation of many industries, and without governments pushing for it a profit driven industry obviously wouldn't never change Then you have to add the mental and physical health that is going down the drain. Lonely and depressed people stuck in bad jobs that can't have a decent life. Suburban sprawl, car-centric urbanism, alienation and isolation of communities and such
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "switch to a sustainable diet and ditch intensive farms using chemicals to boost production" Do we know what the population limit would be for us to sustainably support people?
    - umeshunni 5y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/sri-lanka-organic-farming-fertilizer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/sri-lanka-orga...
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Yeah. I remember seeing WHO estimates that the world can support 8-12 billion with an expected peak around 11 billion. These figures use conventional agriculture and even assumes some advances. That's why I was wondering how many people we can sustainably support. I don't think I've ever heard of a report that looks at it that way.
  - 5y ago
bsder 5y ago
> A lot of health-related things took a turn for the worse in the 70s People became far more mobile. Lots of diseases now seem to have some relation to viral exposure.

by qgin 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

Yes, and what is contributing to obesity? Are there environmental factors affecting androgenic functions? Is it all just people being sedentary over eaters? Or something else?

matthewdgreen 5y ago
This blog spent a bunch of time trying to answer that question, and specifically to figure out which environmental factors might be causing the effect. They looked at lithium, PFAS, antibiotic contamination and a few other candidates. This is definitely not peer-reviewed research so please don't take it too seriously, but I came away convinced that there is more going on here than "people suddenly started eating too much and being lazy in the 1970s": http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/
- giantg2 5y ago
  My personal guess is that there are multiple causes. Different people are affected differently by the same thing. If we have pervasive exposure to numerous things that have (unproven) theories behind them, it would be hard to identify any given one due to the noise and long duration (epigenetic especially) that might be required to manifest rhetoric end result. There's so much we've learned over the past century, and yet it feels like know almost nothing when we try to dig into complicated life science topics.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  We already know the key contributor: we eat enormously more sugar now than our parents did, and enormously less saturated fat. Now that we know, with certainty, what a disastrous choice this was, it will take time to switch back. Most people are still convinced saturated fat is the bugaboo it has been painted as, and that sugar is A-OK, and government policy is still overwhelmingly directed that way. What can be done with half the US maize crop (of what is left over after 1/3 has been diverted to make into alcohol to add to gasoline, enriching Archer Daniels Midland at taxpayer expense) when it is no longer enzymatically converted to sugar is an open question. Does the world want that much maize?
  - matthewdgreen 5y ago
    The main point the blog makes is that there's a huge discontinuity in the 1970s that doesn't seem to be explained by diet. And it occurs in other countries as well, though often with a delay.
qgin 5y ago
Childhood sugar consumption increased quite a bit starting in the 1970s https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X19301364?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1...
ddfx00 5y ago
- micro plastic everywhere, water, food, ground. Majority of American women breastfeed their children with their own milk containing plastic - cancerous substances from cars exhaustion, cigarettes and such going inside people every day of their lives - toxic and cancerous chemicals used for processing foods and drinks we are breathing, drinking, eating and staying in contact with cancerous substances 24/h day. I'm surprised the human body is so resilient and we don't have 80% of under 40s with cancer tbh the fix is to: - stop burning fossil fuels - stop producing and releasing in the environment plastic and toxic waste - switch to a sustainable diet and ditch intensive farms using chemicals to boost production the technology is here but it would require the innovation of many industries, and without governments pushing for it a profit driven industry obviously wouldn't never change Then you have to add the mental and physical health that is going down the drain. Lonely and depressed people stuck in bad jobs that can't have a decent life. Suburban sprawl, car-centric urbanism, alienation and isolation of communities and such
- giantg2 5y ago
  "switch to a sustainable diet and ditch intensive farms using chemicals to boost production" Do we know what the population limit would be for us to sustainably support people?
  - umeshunni 5y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/sri-lanka-organic-farming-fertilizer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/sri-lanka-orga...
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Yeah. I remember seeing WHO estimates that the world can support 8-12 billion with an expected peak around 11 billion. These figures use conventional agriculture and even assumes some advances. That's why I was wondering how many people we can sustainably support. I don't think I've ever heard of a report that looks at it that way.
- 5y ago

bsder 5y ago

> A lot of health-related things took a turn for the worse in the 70s People became far more mobile. Lots of diseases now seem to have some relation to viral exposure.