3 ms·

Its interesting that dietary and pharmaceutical changes aren't considered at all. At least in the US, a majority of adults are on at least one prescription dru

Its interesting that dietary and pharmaceutical changes aren't considered at all. At least in the US, a majority of adults are on at least one prescription drug and a large number have two or more. Our diets have also changed to include a much larger proportion of vegetable oils, processed foods, and soy to name a few.

Hugsun 3y ago
> At least in the US, a majority of adults are on at least one prescription drug and a large number have two or more. This is wild to me. I find it hard to believe that this is not a bad thing.
- iteria 3y ago
  It's good in that people have better quality of life. Almost every adult over 50 I know is on a medication and all of it is to reducing suffering. Blood pressure control, pain management, treatment of chronic diseases that used to be crippling I just started a medication for a disease that was just an unlucky roll of the genetic die. Before, my options would have been to just slow decline until I died for a decade. Now. I'll take this for the next 40 or more years of my life. I imagine that was a lot of people before we started having a lot of medicines. Diabetes used to be a death sentence a century ago after all.
  - Hugsun 3y ago
    A better quality of life is certainly what we want. I'm glad you found a good solution to your condition. What is still wild to me is that so many people in that age range would suffer without drugs. I would expect more conditions to crop up as people mature but not this soon at this rate.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    There is a real risk in assuming that prescriptions, rather than access to medications, means a person has a higher quality of life. That is absolutely true for some, but for some of the most common medications the underlying conditions themselves may be avoidable. Being able to get prescription drugs for short term ailments is extremely beneficial, but short of a truly permanent condition I have to assume quality of life would be better if the drug wasn't deemed medically necessary (meaning it actually wasn't needed, not trying to parse medical diagnoses).
    - maxerickson 3y ago
      You are doing the weird thing where you think you are parsing reality differently and better than other people. No one is arguing that all prescriptions are the best solution to all problems.
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        > No one is arguing that all prescriptions are the best solution to all problems. You may have misread my comment, I wasn't arguing against this at all. I was raising that assuming a majority of Americans being prescribed to at least one pharmaceutical isn't really a sign of a higher quality of life.
        maxerickson 3y ago
        It's good in that people have better quality of life. isn't saying that it's good people are on prescriptions, it's getting at the fact that most people taking a prescriptions are doing so because it improves their life. Your comment sort of needs the assumption that the other poster thinks they are the best solution to all problems and directly indicate quality of life (rather than representing an improvement to quality of life for people on them).
- _heimdall 3y ago
  It absolutely is a bad thing. We only have educated guesses on long term side effect of prescription drugs, especially when we combine multiple drugs. It also means our average adult is unwell enough for prescriptions drugs to be deemed medically necessary. Some of the most common prescriptions will actually get you deemed unfit for military service. That's not great if the worst happens and we have to stand up a large army.
sneak 3y ago
The timeline for these trends does not line up with the timeline for the reduction in sexual activity. These are not plausible explanation as to the cause.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  That entirely depends on how dietary and prescription trends impact sexual activity. Both trends have been growing over the last 50 or so years. If the change in diet or medication would directly impact an individual on a short term that wouldn't line up with the data in this article. If the trends accumulate slowly in a person, or if they impact an individual's children, the trends could line up. Sex drive is an extremely complex topic. By no means am I claiming that these are definitely factors, but the article is pretty light on links for the potential factors it proposes. The idea that, for example, an increase in vegetable oil consumption or even specifically soy could accumulate over time and impact hormonal balances in children isn't out of the question. More importantly, given how hand-wavy the article is with regards to the factors it raises, ignoring diet, prescription drugs, and overall health seems like a huge miss.
  - novok 3y ago
    If you dig into the numbers, it correlates pretty strongly with the rise of the smartphone and dating app adoption
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      That's an interesting angle as well. The original article definitely seems like a cherry picked list of factors for decreased sex drive and/or fertility, though I'm not sure what the motivation behind the article would be.

Hugsun 3y ago

> At least in the US, a majority of adults are on at least one prescription drug and a large number have two or more. This is wild to me. I find it hard to believe that this is not a bad thing.

iteria 3y ago
It's good in that people have better quality of life. Almost every adult over 50 I know is on a medication and all of it is to reducing suffering. Blood pressure control, pain management, treatment of chronic diseases that used to be crippling I just started a medication for a disease that was just an unlucky roll of the genetic die. Before, my options would have been to just slow decline until I died for a decade. Now. I'll take this for the next 40 or more years of my life. I imagine that was a lot of people before we started having a lot of medicines. Diabetes used to be a death sentence a century ago after all.
- Hugsun 3y ago
  A better quality of life is certainly what we want. I'm glad you found a good solution to your condition. What is still wild to me is that so many people in that age range would suffer without drugs. I would expect more conditions to crop up as people mature but not this soon at this rate.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  There is a real risk in assuming that prescriptions, rather than access to medications, means a person has a higher quality of life. That is absolutely true for some, but for some of the most common medications the underlying conditions themselves may be avoidable. Being able to get prescription drugs for short term ailments is extremely beneficial, but short of a truly permanent condition I have to assume quality of life would be better if the drug wasn't deemed medically necessary (meaning it actually wasn't needed, not trying to parse medical diagnoses).
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    You are doing the weird thing where you think you are parsing reality differently and better than other people. No one is arguing that all prescriptions are the best solution to all problems.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      > No one is arguing that all prescriptions are the best solution to all problems. You may have misread my comment, I wasn't arguing against this at all. I was raising that assuming a majority of Americans being prescribed to at least one pharmaceutical isn't really a sign of a higher quality of life.
      - maxerickson 3y ago
        It's good in that people have better quality of life. isn't saying that it's good people are on prescriptions, it's getting at the fact that most people taking a prescriptions are doing so because it improves their life. Your comment sort of needs the assumption that the other poster thinks they are the best solution to all problems and directly indicate quality of life (rather than representing an improvement to quality of life for people on them).
_heimdall 3y ago
It absolutely is a bad thing. We only have educated guesses on long term side effect of prescription drugs, especially when we combine multiple drugs. It also means our average adult is unwell enough for prescriptions drugs to be deemed medically necessary. Some of the most common prescriptions will actually get you deemed unfit for military service. That's not great if the worst happens and we have to stand up a large army.

sneak 3y ago

The timeline for these trends does not line up with the timeline for the reduction in sexual activity. These are not plausible explanation as to the cause.

_heimdall 3y ago
That entirely depends on how dietary and prescription trends impact sexual activity. Both trends have been growing over the last 50 or so years. If the change in diet or medication would directly impact an individual on a short term that wouldn't line up with the data in this article. If the trends accumulate slowly in a person, or if they impact an individual's children, the trends could line up. Sex drive is an extremely complex topic. By no means am I claiming that these are definitely factors, but the article is pretty light on links for the potential factors it proposes. The idea that, for example, an increase in vegetable oil consumption or even specifically soy could accumulate over time and impact hormonal balances in children isn't out of the question. More importantly, given how hand-wavy the article is with regards to the factors it raises, ignoring diet, prescription drugs, and overall health seems like a huge miss.
- novok 3y ago
  If you dig into the numbers, it correlates pretty strongly with the rise of the smartphone and dating app adoption
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    That's an interesting angle as well. The original article definitely seems like a cherry picked list of factors for decreased sex drive and/or fertility, though I'm not sure what the motivation behind the article would be.