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Is there a correlation vs causation error here? Diet and exercise were not controlled. Asian culture avoids sun exposure and sometimes exercise yet are healthi

by mgh2 2y ago

Is there a correlation vs causation error here? Diet and exercise were not controlled. Asian culture avoids sun exposure and sometimes exercise yet are healthier than their Western counterparts who have an unhealthy diet high in fats and sugar in addition to a sedentary lifestyle.

Aloisius 2y ago
Exercise is mentioned: > similar sHR values were obtained when including exercise for those women who answered the second questionnaire in 2000 A bigger caveat tough is this is for Southern Sweden which is rather further north than where the average person in Asian lives. Even if one tries to avoid the sun, the considerably higher UV level and brighter sunlight likely someone is getting more sun than someone who avoids it in Sweden. While the article seems focused on Vitamin D production, exposure to bright light has a wide range of positive effects on people from mood and sleep regulation to wound healing.
bpodgursky 2y ago
"Asian culture". Have you seen how the superelderly cohorts on Okinawa etc actually live? It's all outdoors. Yes pasty sedentary 40 year old office workers in Beijing avoid the sun. That's not a longitudinal analysis, lifestyles have changed rapidly in the past generation.
- mgh2 2y ago
  Okinawans are a specific subset of centenarians with distinct lifestyle and diet, not quite representative. What I mean is that Eastern Asian culture in general avoid the sun because pale skin is considered "more beautiful" vs. tanned for Western culture - ex: using umbrellas to cover sun. Also, myopia epidemic in Asian countries is due to upbringing with strong emphasis in studying indoors but lacking encouragement for sports or outdoors activities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38782482#38783161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38782482#38783161
  - bpodgursky 2y ago
    I hear that but what I am saying is that the cohorts whose longevity is being measured (ie, people dying now who were born in ~1950) grew up in an utterly different world and did not spend their adolescence indoors avoiding the sun, they were mostly rural, agricultural, poor, and outdoors. We have no idea what the longevity of the current ~30yo urban east asian will be, but the lifestyle is so radically different than their grandparents that I don't think there's any value in connecting the two.
jjtheblunt 2y ago
Are you saying that pretty much everyone trends healthier than anyone with a comparably more unhealthy diet, high in fats and sugar, with a more sedentary lifestyle? I ask because, looking around at Americans, so genetically from all over the planet, with a large fraction from Europe, there's a huge dynamic range in diet and exercise levels and it really seems to correlate with the huge dynamic range in external presentation of fitness.

by mgh2 2y ago

Aloisius 2y ago

Exercise is mentioned: > similar sHR values were obtained when including exercise for those women who answered the second questionnaire in 2000 A bigger caveat tough is this is for Southern Sweden which is rather further north than where the average person in Asian lives. Even if one tries to avoid the sun, the considerably higher UV level and brighter sunlight likely someone is getting more sun than someone who avoids it in Sweden. While the article seems focused on Vitamin D production, exposure to bright light has a wide range of positive effects on people from mood and sleep regulation to wound healing.

bpodgursky 2y ago

"Asian culture". Have you seen how the superelderly cohorts on Okinawa etc actually live? It's all outdoors. Yes pasty sedentary 40 year old office workers in Beijing avoid the sun. That's not a longitudinal analysis, lifestyles have changed rapidly in the past generation.

mgh2 2y ago
Okinawans are a specific subset of centenarians with distinct lifestyle and diet, not quite representative. What I mean is that Eastern Asian culture in general avoid the sun because pale skin is considered "more beautiful" vs. tanned for Western culture - ex: using umbrellas to cover sun. Also, myopia epidemic in Asian countries is due to upbringing with strong emphasis in studying indoors but lacking encouragement for sports or outdoors activities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38782482#38783161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38782482#38783161
- bpodgursky 2y ago
  I hear that but what I am saying is that the cohorts whose longevity is being measured (ie, people dying now who were born in ~1950) grew up in an utterly different world and did not spend their adolescence indoors avoiding the sun, they were mostly rural, agricultural, poor, and outdoors. We have no idea what the longevity of the current ~30yo urban east asian will be, but the lifestyle is so radically different than their grandparents that I don't think there's any value in connecting the two.

jjtheblunt 2y ago

Are you saying that pretty much everyone trends healthier than anyone with a comparably more unhealthy diet, high in fats and sugar, with a more sedentary lifestyle? I ask because, looking around at Americans, so genetically from all over the planet, with a large fraction from Europe, there's a huge dynamic range in diet and exercise levels and it really seems to correlate with the huge dynamic range in external presentation of fitness.