ZeroGravitas24 days ago
This does the same thing the wave of EV sales stories last year did and seems to intentionally muddy a slowdown in growth vs an absolute reduction for more clickbait factor.
In both cases you'd logically and mathmatically expect a slowdown unless you expect 900 year old people driving 6 cars at once.
edit: also worth noting that the decade with the slower growth included a couple of years with absolute life expectancy drops due to COVID, though one of the points the original paper tries to make is that a) there was a slowdown before that happened so it's not just a COVID effect, and they point to lifestyle factors contributing to heart disease and cancer b) the countries with greater slowdown pre-COVID were also harder hit by COVID, presumably because the population was sicker and or the health system worse.
tayo4224 days ago
That's kind of interesting. We always hear how much healthier Europe is then the US and there's always though things like American food is so fake it can't be sold in Europe. Seems the same problems are spreading or were always kind of there?
Been to Europe a couple times and I didn't think it seemed that much healthier. Italy especially, I put a ton of weight durring a vacation there.
manuelmoreale24 days ago
> Italy especially, I put a ton of weight durring a vacation there.
What a bizarre datapoint this is. What should the fact you put on weight during a vacation prove? I can go anywhere in the world, eat like shit and just do nothing but sitting by the pool for the entire time I’m there and I’d probably come back home with added weight.
The fact that the United States rank 19th in the obesity ranking for example when Italy is 132nd is a better datapoint if you ask me.
Doesn’t tell the full picture of course, there are a million factors that contribute.
tayo4224 days ago
There doesn't seem to be anything inherently healthy or special about European food.
But this is a thing people say quite often and I think people believe if only we had more laws or w/e like Europe has the people of the US would suddenly be fitter.
benterix24 days ago
> There doesn't seem to be anything inherently healthy or special about European food.
It depends how you look at it.[0]
> In the US, the FDA takes a notably more hands-off approach to testing and inspections, often allowing new food ingredients unless proven harmful. This includes ingredients, for example, GMOs, growth hormones and chemical preservatives. In Europe, the EFSA requires additives to be proven safe before approval and has banned the use of growth hormones and several chemical additives.
> These differing philosophies lead to certain additives being allowed in the US and banned in Europe. For instance, these eight ingredients are commonly used in the US but not in Europe: rBGH (rBST) – Growth hormone, Ractopamine – Increases lean muscle in animal stock, Potassium bromate – Makes baked goods whiter and increases volume, Brominate vegetable oil – Used to keep flavors from separating in beverages, Olestra – Fat substitute, Azodicarbonamide – Used to bleach flour Coloring agents – Red #40, yellow #6, yellow #5, blue #1, BHA and BHT – Preservatives
[0] https://www.tilleydistribution.com/insights/food-regulations...
wqaatwt24 days ago
> healthy or special about European food
Well no… but stuff like various leafy greens amongst other things seem be relatively extremely cheap in Italy compared to some other European countries to the North. This applies to some other products too.
The outcome is that it’s relatively cheaper to have a healthier diet and therefore more expensive to eat ultra-processed crap.
Of course at the end of the day individuals have to make that choice.
manuelmoreale24 days ago
When people say food they’re usually not referring to the raw materials. They're talking about the food they eat when they’re abroad and is a reflection of the cuisine and the culture.
Also, talking about European food is a massive generalization considering how diverse the place is.
danielscrubs24 days ago
The average healthspan is approximately 70.7 years in the EU, compared to 63.9 years in the US, meaning Europeans tend to live longer in good health than Americans.
But averages kind of sucks for comparison. Id be interested to see the median of each country.
wqaatwt24 days ago
Adjusting by location, race and other factors makes a significant difference as well.
e.g. Hispanics generally have comparable life expectancy to top 10 European countries in most states. If you exclude the Black and non-Hispanic White population California is on par or above Spain and Italy (interestingly enough obesity is much more prevalent amongst the Latino than white population there).
(Asians are of course even higher but you have to take wealth/education into account)
danielscrubs23 days ago
You are aware that europeans too very, very large minority populations? I mean Sweden alone have over 15% of its population speaking arabic.
Taking a group from one area and comparing to a subgroup from another area doesn’t seem fair.
wqaatwt22 days ago
I assume statistics could be found for that subpopulation.
And well.. I only mentioned Spain and Italy, not Sweden.
Regardless this seems besides the point? I just found it interesting that Hispanic Americans live longer than non-Hispanic whites despite being poorer and more overweight. They must be doing something right.
iamthemonster24 days ago
The article is saying that life expectancy is still improving in Europe, but it's improving at a slower pace than it used to improve in the past. In the United States, life expectancy started diverging from Western Europe in the early 90s and has had zero improvement in the last 15 years while Western Europe has continued to slowly improve.
The pandemic hit US life expectancy figures incredibly hard due to the very high levels of excess death compared to Western Europe, but presumably there might be a 'bounceback' due to natural selection of the aged population with the strongest immune systems and fewest comorbidities.
I've heard a lot of Americans comment on putting on a lot of weight while travelling in Europe. I can only imagine that Americans would be more accustomed to eating out for more of their meals. When cooking at home, I found the French to have a good sense of portion sizing and a cultural aversion to overeating; the sensation of being completely full was often described with a sense of discomfort and disgust. Whereas in Anglo cultures, being completely full is treated more positively.
tayo4224 days ago
Other countries I didn't feel like I had a weight issue. Specifically italy, it was lots of bread and pasta, slow cooked fatty meats, deep fried dishes, and sweet pastries.
toyg24 days ago
In restaurants, yes, we eat salty, fatty, overcaloric stuff - because that is celebration food, not everyday fare. At home, day in day out, we cook leaner, simpler stuff, and eat less. Also, Italians tend to live in urban centers, often walking or cycling rather than driving everywhere.
I've been living in the UK for 20+ years, and every time I land back in Italy I suddenly feel obese, because people are so much thinner. After a few weeks of normal life there, I know why: I'm eating less, eating leaner, and moving more.
ElFitz24 days ago
Yes. But it’s hard to beat processed food.
arez24 days ago
you were probably eating tons of pizza and noodles in restaurants while on vacation. But the people that life there, A: don't go to restaurants every day B: are they eating pizza everyday and C: have probably healthier behaviors than you, like using a bike tonget around etc.
wqaatwt24 days ago
Is cycling (as a method of transportation of course) really that popular in Italy? I’ve never noticed that.
lolc23 days ago
From my limited exposure: There are enthusiasts on racing bikes. But other than that, few people cycle in Italy.
conception24 days ago
The NHS getting cuts and other systems at risk is the probable answer, not the food.
If you take care of your people, they live better lives.
cbeach24 days ago
The NHS has had real-terms funding increases for many years
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-c...
If its cost continues to outpace inflation and GDP growth, it will consume an ever-larger share of the wealth generated by the private sector until it becomes unaffordable.
The current model is unsustainable. If you’ve had to visit an A&E recently or request an ambulance, you’ll know that the whole system is unfit for purpose and needs a rethink (not just another huge cash injection).
tayo4224 days ago
The article says its from heart disease and cancer and believe its tied to increasing BMI from diets and poor life style choices.
ZeroGravitas24 days ago
Those two also seem like diseases you get left with after you've been raising life expectancy for decades by avoiding death from other diseases, which is a more positive framing.
But people and societies can probably still make better choices in regard to the current priority diseases.
moi238824 days ago
Life expectancy in these countries is still 2-4 years higher than the US..
tayo4224 days ago
This article talks about food and BMI related problems though. The low US life expectancy is mostly from cultural problems IIRC? Drug over doses like from oxycodone and gun violence.
orwin24 days ago
HALE is a better indicator, as it include health:
https://data.who.int/indicators/i/48D9B0C/C64284D
On average, USians live 13 year after they are considered "non-healthy". French, Spaniards, Italians live only 10 years after being considered "non-healthy) *this include demention and/or autonomy loss obviously), but live 4 more years total.
JumpCrisscross24 days ago
> USians
Wat.
defrost24 days ago
Central North Americans.
As used by, say, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41344607 and other https://hn.algolia.com/?query=USians&sort=byDate&type=commen...
JumpCrisscross24 days ago
> Central North Americans
Got it, we're all playing Gulf of America now.
defrost24 days ago
Sure, if by 'now' you mean since the 1980s on Usenet at least . . .
(I've been a regular user for decades, it's common enough outside the English as a primary language North North American bubble .. it's interesting seeing it make inroads on HN in the past few years)
FWiW the @tptacek usage I linked was from five months ago, prior to that little USofA parochial renaming fit .. although it does highlight that everyone about the "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)" is, indeed, an American and it makes sense to differentiate them by country.
JumpCrisscross24 days ago
> the @tptacek usage I linked was from five months ago
That was clearly sarcastic use of the term.
> it makes sense to differentiate them by country
It strikes me as more a way to signal bias / a particular online group membership, sort of like that group that likes to capitalise random words, in a way that generally undermines credibility about anything geopolitical, but I suppose I appreciate that signal.
defrost23 days ago
> That was clearly sarcastic use of the term.
That predates the recent Yawning Gulf of America hoorah .. there are references going back to at least the 1980s online, and prominent USofA people of letters commenting on the laziness of using "Americans" back into the 1800s.
> It strikes me as more a way
Sure. A number of english speakers in the USofA do seem to feel that way. It's common practice for humans to make such things all about them.
> likes to capitalise random words,
The United States is a pairing of random words now? C'mon, you chaps haven't yet screwed the pooch that badly ... yet.
> but I suppose I appreciate that signal.
Back in the day, when I first encountered its regular usage, it was in international geodesy groups with a good number of people zeroing in the large numbers of traditional ellipsoid datum pairs to the new WGS84 reference standard.
It was less about signalling exclusion from the kids under the Canadian hat and more about precision of reference, particularly in a group that had many ESL members a good many of whom counted continents differently to the trad Western standard and had varying rules for indicating Asians, Europeans, Americans, etc. from citizens of specific countries.
You know, global geodesists with credible geopolitical backgrounds different to your own bubble. You can find much of their work in various GIS transform standards.
> in a way that generally undermines credibility
these things are both subjective and reflective. Some find the aggressive, passive or otherwise, projection of blinkered world views to undermine credibility.
tptacek23 days ago
I mean, I guess? I definitely think it's silly. But I didn't think of it as a loaded term when I used it, just a message-board-ism. It wasn't an ironic commentary. :)
(This is a very weird thread to have stumbled on by following your comments).
By the power vested in me by being mentioned in the third person on this thread I hereby decree that "US-ians" is a cromulent term. May God have mercy on your souls.
JumpCrisscross23 days ago
Damn USian English.
orwin23 days ago
I just wanted to differentiate people in the US from people in Canada, sorry :/
ElFitz24 days ago
And ultra-processed foods and associated dietary patterns. They may be spreading far and wide, but these have been popular in the US for longer.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/ultraprocessed-foods-bad-f...
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speak...
https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pb-0059/
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-eat-a-balanced-...
orwin24 days ago
HALE (Health Life expectancy) is 7 years higher than the US, across western Europe.
ElFitz24 days ago
And yet, the country with the sharpest decline is the one where the diet converged toward the US’s the earliest.
It’s also the first one to shatter their health system in an effort to emulate the US one.
sharpshadow24 days ago
Ridiculous still no mentioned of the mammoth in the room.
As some triple dose of modern vaccines in a short period of time must be ignored fanatically.
It’s the food as anything changed significantly recently.
d1sxeyes24 days ago
This whole thing is a completely farcical article because:
It’s nearly 5 years out of date.
Life expectancy is still growing, just no longer at the rate it was.
The rate of people stopping smoking has also reduced (as fewer and fewer people smoke).
This “vaccines” thing would not have been included in the data which covers up to 2021 (or at least, any effect of vaccines would be lost in the data due to the fact COVID was still itself having a big impact on life expectancy).
sharpshadow24 days ago
The data for excess deaths during covid and during covid with vaccination is slowly available and we will be able to distinguish between the two.
After all it’s clear to say that the covid pandemic with all its conditions and the covid vaccine in various ways both contributed towards a reduced life expectancy, denying that is just crazy in my eyes and leaving it out of the discussion is a crime against humanity.
d1sxeyes24 days ago
Do you have any evidence that vaccines contributed to reduced life expectancy?
sharpshadow24 days ago
Heuristically the appliance of the covid vaccine caused more damage than it prevented. That's already a net negative on health ergo life expectancy, since many of the side effects are not in the category of "what dosen't kill you makes you stronger".
happymellon24 days ago
> Heuristically the appliance of the covid vaccine caused more damage than it prevented.
Do you have any citation for that?
sharpshadow23 days ago
No it’s an observation about the benefits the covid vaccine delivers of which literally just one is left and the vast number of side effects and mishaps which occurred on appliance, storage and production.
Take into account that the left benefit protecting against a specific spike variation works only for this specific spike variation and when the virus mutates to another spike variation the necessity for the so called booster is given to gain the protection again. On every appliance increasing the risk of harm.
This type of virus mutates frequently and a booster can only be created after the mutation happened, always delayed and only useful if no natural infection occurred previously with this specific spike variation.
The appliance of a covid vaccine with a specific spike variation makes only sense if the natural infection could be so intense that one wants to avoid it and of course didn’t get it yet. Since this group of people was quite small there wasn’t the need to vaccine everybody in the first place and causing harm.
All the damage people received and are still suffering from what a tragedy and then some lousy newspaper doesn’t want to address it, trying to pull some conclusions out of thin air, mis- and disinforming the people makes me sick.
d1sxeyes23 days ago
> some lousy newspaper doesn’t want to address it, trying to pull some conclusions out of thin air, mis- and disinforming the people makes me sick.
Would you agree that from an outsider’s perspective, reading your thoughts here without citations and with a lot of wide-ranging assertions looks a lot like pulling conclusions out of thin air?
If data exists that vaccinating resulted in more harm than good on anything other than a very small scale (e.g. only looking at folks that experienced an adverse reaction), I would imagine it would be very interesting to a lot of people, including me.
Even if you are speaking purely anecdotally, myself, my immediate and extended family, all received at least three vaccinations, for a total of somewhere around 100 vaccinations, and none experienced side effects worse than a sore arm and a bit of a runny nose.
happymellon23 days ago
You keep using that word "harm". What harm are you referring to?
If you don't have any citations to harm from the vaccines, you'll need to help me understand your concerns. We vaccinate against a lot of things that I am unlikely to catch, but that's mostly due to the hurd immunity, but also by being part of that protective barrier I have not then passed it on to more vulnerable people.
sharpshadow23 days ago
Maybe if you haven’t been interested in this topic to research it for yourself I’m the wrong one to enumerate and cite various side effects.
Life’s nicer I guess without this rabbit hole. Quite sure.
happymellon23 days ago
There are a lot of "harms" that people seem to think there are.
From the harm of a loss of liberty, to the harm that a handful of people may have had a reaction to one of the vaccines, which was >0.1% at my last look and it was generally from people who already had auto-immune disorders.
The majority of the problems were misinformation based.