7 ms·

I recall seeing this article from 2014 referring to suicides in Utah ('utah paradox') and how neuroscientist Perry Renshaw was trying to link it to altitude: ht

I recall seeing this article from 2014 referring to suicides in Utah ('utah paradox') and how neuroscientist Perry Renshaw was trying to link it to altitude: http://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in-utah-and-one-neuroscientist-thinks-he-knows-why http://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in... which links to another study from 2011: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10020289 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201... "Together, the stray statistics and stories about life out west tipped off Renshaw to a common culprit: altitude-induced oxygen depletion. [...] Renshaw believes that oxygen-poor air tampers with brain chemistry, leading to a drop in serotonin and an uptick in dopamine."

newsclues 3y ago
This aligns with my similar theory (lack of O2 leads to depression) that was born from observations of yoga, meditation and walking all forced people to breath more air through breath work, exercises or going outside, lead to better mental health outcomes. I am going to assume that in urban vs rural areas that is a similar effect from air pollution. But all my doctors have been inclined to give me pills for depression, and aren't interesting in exploring the relationship with O2.
- jraby3 3y ago
  I understood that rural air is significantly worse than urban due to all the pesticides.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    Worse than urban air with auto pollution? I'd want to see a source for that...
    - boesboes 3y ago
      Yeah, ppl on the ring road of Amsterdam live 10 years shorter afaik, for instance
      - dgut 3y ago
        Source? As a counter anecdote: Madrid, where most people live near traffic, has the highest life expectancy in the EU at 85.4 years.
        boesboes 3y ago
        I had to look it up, i was indeed mistaken. It's 79 days on average. The road is called the A10, so I guess I mixed that up :) Source, in dutch: https://www.hln.be/milieu/omwonenden-a10-snelweg-leven-79-dagen-korter-door-snelheidsverhoging~ab076ce0/ https://www.hln.be/milieu/omwonenden-a10-snelweg-leven-79-da...
        egman_ekki 3y ago
        maybe there are other factors at play here; who knows how long would they live if they didn't live near traffic.
        mapmap 3y ago
        What are they doing differently to get this average?
      - Scoundreller 3y ago
        Poor people live next to highways? Or when we build the highway, we don’t raze the homes of the elite/wealthy/well-connected to do it, we do it in “bad neighbourhoods” Or indirect effects: factories move/build next to the new highway (ease of moving materials+density of employees+ease of commuting because of the highway), contaminating the neighbourhood.
  - qwerasdf5 3y ago
    Many rural areas do not have farming.
  - jskrablin 3y ago
    I live in a rural area and air here is significantly better than smog filled and ozone enriched air in the city I used to live in. Not to mention the lack of winter fog that can linger around for weeks at times. And that's excluding the light and noise pollution that are inevitable in urban areas. Yeah, living in a rural area is pure hell.
    - thephyber 3y ago
      What do you believe Ozone is?!?
      - callalex 3y ago
        Deeply toxic to human lungs.
        thephyber 3y ago
        Today I learned that ozone is typically found in the stratosphere (which I knew) but also at ground level due to chemical reactions.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        And if you own an air purifier, likely in your room!
      - jandrewrogers 3y ago
        A fairly toxic allotrope of oxygen?
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Your link from "yoga, meditation and walking" to oxygen availability is... to put it mildly, in need of extra support.
  - snakeyjake 3y ago
    Yoga and walking are both exercise. Any form of aerobic exercise will increase oxygen availability. Elite, and dedicated amateur, athletes will develop specific breathing routines to increase O2 availability in support of increasing their VO2 Max but even for sedentary (so, typical) adults practically any form of mindful breathing coupled with higher-than-typical physical exertion will increase oxygen availability. Their breathing routines not coincidentally almost always mirror some kind of yogic breathing technique. Yogic breathing in hypobaric environment: breathing exercising and its effect on hypobaric hypoxemia and heart rate at 3,650-m elevation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413908/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413908/ Effects of Slow Deep Breathing at High Altitude on Oxygen Saturation, Pulmonary and Systemic Hemodynamics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495772/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495772/ When you meditate or do yoga asanas (poses) with a focus on your pranayama (breathing) as a matter of routine for long enough you subconsciously start performing yogic breathing all of the time. Walking is just irrefutably, no-citation-needed, good for you.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Urban/rural v suicide relationships are all over the place: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032799000580 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650... sees opposite relationship in China and Australia, e.g.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- thephyber 3y ago
  I have lived in multiple cities and multiple exurbs, at sea level and at a ski resort town (7000+ ft above sea level). I would make these claims instead: - people at altitude spend more time indoors avoiding extreme weather caused by the altitude - o2 levels to the brain are not significantly different for people whose bodies have adjusted to the altitude already - people who live at altitude are more likely to be more active - cities in modern western countries are largely clean of major sources of air pollution (one of the few things NIMBYs are good at) - cities in developing countries (eg. Pakistan, India, China) are incredibly different - rural areas are largely clean of air pollution except in hotspots (eg. factories and mines) - your doctor likely doesn’t do actual science (“explore relationships”), but rather just disseminates the evidence that others have already recorded - your doctor likely works in the USA where we pay fee for service. Maybe you should look at how single payer systems align healthy patient long term outcomes align with the single payer total costs.
bannedbybros 3y ago
Too bad that the chemical theory of depression is pseudo-science.
imperio59 3y ago
Except that whole chemical imbalance theory was thoroughly debunked earlier this year as not being the cause of depression, just a marketing gimmick used to sell more anti depressants by pharma companies... "The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression. Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants." https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/analysis-depression-probably-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-brain-new-study https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/analysis-depression-prob...
- what-no-tests 3y ago
  THIS needs to be spread around much more broadly. [UPDATE]: Looks like I'm getting downvoted by people who cling to their meds. Try physical activity and adjusting your self-talk. Try having goals and making steady progress toward them. What you need doesn't come from a pill, it comes from living life.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >What you need doesn't come from a pill, it comes from living life. Fuck off. Imagine telling someone with astigmatism that they don't need a physical modification and augmentation to their bodies, but rather "to live life", whatever that means. Meanwhile, after decades of swearing I didn't need a pill, I didn't want a pill to "change" me, etc, I got on pills, and my life actually works. I rode a rollercoaster for the first time in decades the other day, zero butterflies in my stomach, zero panic or anxiety, zero inappropriate fear. I'm likely only alive today BECAUSE of medication. The whole point behind how new medications are tested are that we often don't have a great understanding of HOW a medication works, but that doesn't matter, because it demonstrably works in some percentage of people, and for those that it doesn't work for, often another medication might. So, with zero respect because you are actively harming people, Fuck right off.
    - copperx 3y ago
      Thanks for saying that. Although I've resigned myself because I know that people will often not acknowledge and have empathy and understanding towards a condition if they haven't experienced it in their own skin. It's depressing, but it seems to be part of the human condition.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
For that to be true, you'd need to establish that blood oxygen levels differ significantly across altitude adapted individuals, and I don't believe that this is the case. Also, when I first moved from Philadelphia to a village in New Mexico at 6000', I remember reading that I should plan on a 3 phase adapative process that would take as much as 9 months to complete. This makes me give less weight to things like the 2005 Marines study that Renshaw cites, which only continued for 90 days. I should stress that I'm not doubting the statistics, just the proposed mechanism ("low oxygen air"). On the other hand, "varying ability to fully adapt to lower oxygen levels" seems more plausible.
- webdoodle 3y ago
  I agree. Low oxygen just doesn't make sense. It's more likely the higher cosmic rays and other space weather, which are already known to cause suicidal thoughts, as well as other mental health problems.
  - jddj 3y ago
    I think that warrants a citation
    - webdoodle 3y ago
      https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.003709.pdf https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.003709.pdf
    - JohnDeHope 3y ago
      This makes me think. What if there was a database of conjectures. Each has an id number. The database could link to all sorts of media, scientific studies, etc. supporting or disputing each conjecture. Then you could just give the id number and folks would also get all the pro and con material they might like. Even things like "the earth is a sphere" could link to educational videos and whatnot. And even things like "political leaders who I disapprove of are in fact lizard aliens" could link to whatever material supports or disproves it. It'd be nice too if we could categorize these things: disputed, hypothetical, scientifically studied but not independently verified, multiple independent validations, technologies rely on the fact that this works, etc. I dunno why your point made me think of that.
boringuser2 3y ago
Is depression and suicide significantly positively correlated to asthma or other breathing disorders? Preferably low-grade to rule out gross pathology.

newsclues 3y ago

This aligns with my similar theory (lack of O2 leads to depression) that was born from observations of yoga, meditation and walking all forced people to breath more air through breath work, exercises or going outside, lead to better mental health outcomes. I am going to assume that in urban vs rural areas that is a similar effect from air pollution. But all my doctors have been inclined to give me pills for depression, and aren't interesting in exploring the relationship with O2.

jraby3 3y ago
I understood that rural air is significantly worse than urban due to all the pesticides.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Worse than urban air with auto pollution? I'd want to see a source for that...
  - boesboes 3y ago
    Yeah, ppl on the ring road of Amsterdam live 10 years shorter afaik, for instance
    - dgut 3y ago
      Source? As a counter anecdote: Madrid, where most people live near traffic, has the highest life expectancy in the EU at 85.4 years.
      - boesboes 3y ago
        I had to look it up, i was indeed mistaken. It's 79 days on average. The road is called the A10, so I guess I mixed that up :) Source, in dutch: https://www.hln.be/milieu/omwonenden-a10-snelweg-leven-79-dagen-korter-door-snelheidsverhoging~ab076ce0/ https://www.hln.be/milieu/omwonenden-a10-snelweg-leven-79-da...
      - egman_ekki 3y ago
        maybe there are other factors at play here; who knows how long would they live if they didn't live near traffic.
      - mapmap 3y ago
        What are they doing differently to get this average?
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      Poor people live next to highways? Or when we build the highway, we don’t raze the homes of the elite/wealthy/well-connected to do it, we do it in “bad neighbourhoods” Or indirect effects: factories move/build next to the new highway (ease of moving materials+density of employees+ease of commuting because of the highway), contaminating the neighbourhood.
- qwerasdf5 3y ago
  Many rural areas do not have farming.
- jskrablin 3y ago
  I live in a rural area and air here is significantly better than smog filled and ozone enriched air in the city I used to live in. Not to mention the lack of winter fog that can linger around for weeks at times. And that's excluding the light and noise pollution that are inevitable in urban areas. Yeah, living in a rural area is pure hell.
  - thephyber 3y ago
    What do you believe Ozone is?!?
    - callalex 3y ago
      Deeply toxic to human lungs.
      - thephyber 3y ago
        Today I learned that ozone is typically found in the stratosphere (which I knew) but also at ground level due to chemical reactions.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        And if you own an air purifier, likely in your room!
    - jandrewrogers 3y ago
      A fairly toxic allotrope of oxygen?
marcosdumay 3y ago
Your link from "yoga, meditation and walking" to oxygen availability is... to put it mildly, in need of extra support.
- snakeyjake 3y ago
  Yoga and walking are both exercise. Any form of aerobic exercise will increase oxygen availability. Elite, and dedicated amateur, athletes will develop specific breathing routines to increase O2 availability in support of increasing their VO2 Max but even for sedentary (so, typical) adults practically any form of mindful breathing coupled with higher-than-typical physical exertion will increase oxygen availability. Their breathing routines not coincidentally almost always mirror some kind of yogic breathing technique. Yogic breathing in hypobaric environment: breathing exercising and its effect on hypobaric hypoxemia and heart rate at 3,650-m elevation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413908/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413908/ Effects of Slow Deep Breathing at High Altitude on Oxygen Saturation, Pulmonary and Systemic Hemodynamics https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495772/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495772/ When you meditate or do yoga asanas (poses) with a focus on your pranayama (breathing) as a matter of routine for long enough you subconsciously start performing yogic breathing all of the time. Walking is just irrefutably, no-citation-needed, good for you.
renewiltord 3y ago
Urban/rural v suicide relationships are all over the place: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032799000580 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650... sees opposite relationship in China and Australia, e.g.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thephyber 3y ago
I have lived in multiple cities and multiple exurbs, at sea level and at a ski resort town (7000+ ft above sea level). I would make these claims instead: - people at altitude spend more time indoors avoiding extreme weather caused by the altitude - o2 levels to the brain are not significantly different for people whose bodies have adjusted to the altitude already - people who live at altitude are more likely to be more active - cities in modern western countries are largely clean of major sources of air pollution (one of the few things NIMBYs are good at) - cities in developing countries (eg. Pakistan, India, China) are incredibly different - rural areas are largely clean of air pollution except in hotspots (eg. factories and mines) - your doctor likely doesn’t do actual science (“explore relationships”), but rather just disseminates the evidence that others have already recorded - your doctor likely works in the USA where we pay fee for service. Maybe you should look at how single payer systems align healthy patient long term outcomes align with the single payer total costs.

bannedbybros 3y ago

Too bad that the chemical theory of depression is pseudo-science.

imperio59 3y ago

Except that whole chemical imbalance theory was thoroughly debunked earlier this year as not being the cause of depression, just a marketing gimmick used to sell more anti depressants by pharma companies... "The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression. Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants." https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/analysis-depression-probably-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-brain-new-study https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/analysis-depression-prob...

what-no-tests 3y ago
THIS needs to be spread around much more broadly. [UPDATE]: Looks like I'm getting downvoted by people who cling to their meds. Try physical activity and adjusting your self-talk. Try having goals and making steady progress toward them. What you need doesn't come from a pill, it comes from living life.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >What you need doesn't come from a pill, it comes from living life. Fuck off. Imagine telling someone with astigmatism that they don't need a physical modification and augmentation to their bodies, but rather "to live life", whatever that means. Meanwhile, after decades of swearing I didn't need a pill, I didn't want a pill to "change" me, etc, I got on pills, and my life actually works. I rode a rollercoaster for the first time in decades the other day, zero butterflies in my stomach, zero panic or anxiety, zero inappropriate fear. I'm likely only alive today BECAUSE of medication. The whole point behind how new medications are tested are that we often don't have a great understanding of HOW a medication works, but that doesn't matter, because it demonstrably works in some percentage of people, and for those that it doesn't work for, often another medication might. So, with zero respect because you are actively harming people, Fuck right off.
  - copperx 3y ago
    Thanks for saying that. Although I've resigned myself because I know that people will often not acknowledge and have empathy and understanding towards a condition if they haven't experienced it in their own skin. It's depressing, but it seems to be part of the human condition.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

For that to be true, you'd need to establish that blood oxygen levels differ significantly across altitude adapted individuals, and I don't believe that this is the case. Also, when I first moved from Philadelphia to a village in New Mexico at 6000', I remember reading that I should plan on a 3 phase adapative process that would take as much as 9 months to complete. This makes me give less weight to things like the 2005 Marines study that Renshaw cites, which only continued for 90 days. I should stress that I'm not doubting the statistics, just the proposed mechanism ("low oxygen air"). On the other hand, "varying ability to fully adapt to lower oxygen levels" seems more plausible.

webdoodle 3y ago
I agree. Low oxygen just doesn't make sense. It's more likely the higher cosmic rays and other space weather, which are already known to cause suicidal thoughts, as well as other mental health problems.
- jddj 3y ago
  I think that warrants a citation
  - webdoodle 3y ago
    https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.003709.pdf https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.003709.pdf
  - JohnDeHope 3y ago
    This makes me think. What if there was a database of conjectures. Each has an id number. The database could link to all sorts of media, scientific studies, etc. supporting or disputing each conjecture. Then you could just give the id number and folks would also get all the pro and con material they might like. Even things like "the earth is a sphere" could link to educational videos and whatnot. And even things like "political leaders who I disapprove of are in fact lizard aliens" could link to whatever material supports or disproves it. It'd be nice too if we could categorize these things: disputed, hypothetical, scientifically studied but not independently verified, multiple independent validations, technologies rely on the fact that this works, etc. I dunno why your point made me think of that.

boringuser2 3y ago

Is depression and suicide significantly positively correlated to asthma or other breathing disorders? Preferably low-grade to rule out gross pathology.