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Musings Report 2021-10 3-6-21 Risk and Wealth--and Our Health
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they're a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Thank You, Patrons and Contributors!
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Risk and Wealth--and Our Health
Longtime correspondent J.F. (MD) recently shared a fascinating graphic ranking the actual causes of death in the U.S. compared to searches on Google and what the media reports on.
We should start by noting that this data isn't a survey asking people to rank the leading causes of death, but it does reflect what they were interested in finding more about via web searches.
The media coverage of each cause of death is also not a representation of what the media presents as the leading causes of death; it's a reflection of the quantity of media coverage of each cause of death.
I'm making these stipulations because this reminded me of a similar chart which depicts three different views of wealth inequality in the U.S.:
1. The actual distribution of wealth
2. What survey respondents thought was the actual distribution of wealth
3. What survey respondents thought was the ideal distribution of wealth
This survey made quite a media splash when it was published a few years ago because wealth inequality was so much more extreme than what people thought and what they reckoned as ideal.
Economic Inequality: It's Far Worse Than You Think: The great divide between our beliefs, our ideals, and reality.
Here's the source research:
(Mis)perceptions of inequality
And here is a typical research presentation of just how extreme wealth inequality has become in the U.S.:
Middle Class Now Holds Less Wealth than Top 1 Percent
Returning to the causes of death chart, I marked the remarkable disparity between the leading cause of death, heart disease, and the search and media coverage of heart disease.
While heart disease causes almost a third of all deaths, the search results and media coverages were tiny fractions of the total searches/coverage.
Cancer has a higher profile, appearing in searches somewhat in proportion to its ranking as the #2 cause of death, also about a third. Media coverage of cancer was modest but far more significant than the coverage of heart disease.
Not surprisingly, the most dramatic and tragic causes of death--suicide, homicide and terrorism--attracted the most media coverage, and a larger percentage of searches than the actual percentages of causes of death.
This may reflect the higher media coverage, the human interest in life-and-death situations and perhaps the often-noted skewing of our perceptions of risk to the dramatic (terrorism, aircraft crashes, shark attacks, etc.) rather than the mundane (heart disease).
I noticed an interesting "missing link" in the causes of death data: no mention was made of alcohol impairment as a cause of death, even though alcohol is clearly a factor in deaths from disease, homicide and motor-vehicle accidents.
J.F. noted that half of all homicides involve alcohol impairment: Strong alcohol policies help reduce alcohol-involved homicides (sciencedaily.com)
"In the U.S., between 40 and 50 percent of homicides involve the use of alcohol by either the victim or perpetrator, and more than half involve people who are significantly impaired by alcohol, which means that their blood alcohol levels are at or above 0.08 percent, the legal limit for driving."
About 30% of all vehicle fatalities involve alcohol impairment as well.
This means alcohol impairment is a direct causal influence in 8,000 murders and between 10,000 and 12,000 traffic deaths each year, plus the 95,000 people who die every year of alcohol-related diseases--a total of around 115,000 people annually.
That puts alcohol as the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S. If we include smoking as a key cause of respiratory diseases (160,000 deaths annually, the 4th leading cause) and lung cancer (142,000 deaths annually), tobacco and alcohol are key factors in 300,000+ deaths annually, right behind heart disease and all cancers.
Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use in the U.S.(CDC)
What are the leading causes of death in the US?
This raises the question: how large a role does behavior play in the causes of death?
Although it's an inexact calculation for obvious reasons, it's been estimated that roughly 2/3 of our health and longevity results from our behaviors and environment and only a third is the result of genetics.
The low search/media profile of heart disease suggests it's accepted almost as background noise rather than the #1 cause of death that is largely preventable by behavioral means: diet and fitness.
Many cancers also have behavioral factors. It's been well established that deficiencies in diet and fitness dramatically increase the risks of many cancers.
J.F. is a physician, and he reminds me from time to time that high blood pressure is a key indicator of cardio-vascular risk. You've probably heard this from your doctor and from health-related literature / research.
"We only manage what we measure" is a truism, but the danger is in focusing exclusively on a few metrics when health is clearly systemic / holistic.
In past Musings, I've covered the remarkable discoveries being made about the profound impacts of the microbiome on our health.
Mental Health May Depend on Creatures in the Gut (Scientific American)
The microbiome thrives on a diverse diet of real (non-processed) foods rich in fiber.
Dietary effects on human gut microbiome diversity.
How the Western Diet Has Derailed Our Evolution: Burgers and fries have nearly killed our ancestral microbiome.
I've also covered the dramatic positive effects of regular modest exercise. As a generality, the 80/20 Rule (the Pareto Distribution) applies to exercise: the first 20% of regular exercise generates 80% of the positive results.
As we all know, the trick is to form habits of fitness that are akin to brushing our teeth--or even better, of course, find types of fitness that we enjoy.
At 67, I notice that those who attempt to maintain extremely rigorous fitness over the age of 65 tend to injure themselves or suffer adverse consequences from lifting heavy weights, running great distances, etc.
This is where America's obsession with "extreme sports" play a very negative role in public health: just because a handful of individuals can still perform astounding athletic feats in their 70s does not mean the requisite training is risk-free.
While it's widely viewed as somehow heroic to ignore the aging process, the more realistic key to fitness as we age is to retrain ourselves for the body we now have. I consider this a profoundly practical insight into maintaining fitness as we age.
Per the standard advice of the medical community, I monitor my blood pressure regularly. I have found over the years that in my case, putting on even a few pounds of extra weight has an immediate negative effect on blood pressure (higher). As a result, I am semi-fanatic about keeping my weight at a set-point around a Body-Mass Index (BMI) of 21.5. (A set-point is a level that the body can maintain as "normal".)
I try to walk 2-3 miles a day, every day. This is necessary to maintain my set-point weight and it's also essential for my mental health. (Staring at a screen for more than a few hours is deranging for me.) The result of these basic behaviors is the desired blood pressure (less than 120/80) without any medications, and a resting pulse around 49-56.
I also wear a cheap pedometer. It does only one function, count steps. You can use your smart phone if you carry it all the time, I don't. The pedometer serves as an indicator of activity, and it helps motivate me to add a couple thousand steps a day.
What works for me is a mix of activities: stretching for agility and balance, a few core exercises for muscle maintenance, walking for endurance and to get the heartrate up and for bone density, and occasional basketball workouts for mobility, agility and "speed in movement rather than strength in movement."
It's been established that you don't need an hour-long strenuous workout to maintain muscle mass and strength; short intense effort (after warming up properly, of course) is enough
One size doesn't fit all, I'm simply sharing the program I've crafted for myself. It's changed as I age. Once I discovered I have mild osteoporosis, I let go of bicycling and swimming in favor of walking and basketball to get the impact needed to maintain bone mass.
So far, I don't need any meds to maintain my health. All too often, it seems meds are prescribed based on a narrow metric which is not an ideal measure of overall health. (Based on my own research, I consider resting pulse a metric that usefully reflects overall cardiovascular health.)
You've probably noticed we grow a lot of our own food on our small residential homestead. The nutritional value of our food depends on the health of the soil the food was grown in, so I confess to being semi-fanatic about soil quality. (Organic is a good idea, but that label doesn't guarantee the soil is healthy and not depleted. Like everything else, the only real guarantees you have come from doing it yourself.)
Not everyone can grow their own food, of course, but the closer we can get to the actual source, the more information we can glean about the food we’re consuming (and hopefully enjoying).
All the research on the importance of the microbiome reaches the same conclusion: the more diverse real food rich in fiber, the better.
If health is wealth, and it most certainly is the highest form of wealth, then we would be well-served to take charge of our health-wealth in terms of what behaviors we can modify or add that increase our health-wealth. (Or put another way, what can we do to lower the risk factors that are within our control?)
The idea in my view isn’t to reach for perfection, but to ask a basic question: what behaviors can I modify or add that will improve my health that won't require unsustainable effort? Even modest changes can have enormously positive results over time once they become our new set-point.
Highlights of the Blog
Podcasts:
AxisOfEasy Salon #39: Capital vs Currency vs Cash vs Crypto (1:06 hrs) -- a deep dive into money--cryptos, capital, wealth....
Posts:
The Global Financial End-Game 3/5/21
When Does This Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham Finally Implode? 3/3/21
About That +6.8% GDP Forecast: Remember That GDP = Waste 3/2/21
What "Normal" Are We Returning To? The Depression Nobody Dares Acknowledge 3/1/21
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
A tie between harvesting a stalk of bananas from a patch that was so sickly and stunted 4 years ago I considered ripping it out (3 years of compost and fertilizer finally bore fruit, literally) and our first harvest of dry-land taro: note the pre-peeled taro in the pressure cooker and the peeled ones ready to eat. The different colors reflect the two varieties harvested.
From Left Field
'A reckoning is near': America has a vast overseas military empire. Does it still need it?
Op-ed: What the Farmers’ Revolution in India Says About Big Ag in the US and Worldwide
Electricity needed to mine bitcoin is more than used by 'entire countries'
Jevons in the fall -- informative explanation of Jevons Paradox in energy consumption...
Owning a Decrepit Shack in The Middle of Nowhere Is The New American Millennial Dream--rental horror stories incentivize tiny homes?
Mars Is a Hellhole: Colonizing the red planet is a ridiculous way to help humanity.
Israel Fears South African COVID Strain Spreading Beyond Control: Closing Israel's borders did not stop this coronavirus strain from entering: Dozens are being infected each day. Israel vaccine data shows it's the only variant with less inoculation effectiveness. -- little coverage of this in the U,.S. , I guess it doesn't fit the approved narrative...
Circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants escape neutralization by vaccine-induced humoral immunity
Studies Examine Variant Surging in California, and the News Isn’t Good
California’s coronavirus strain looks increasingly dangerous: ‘The devil is already here’ -- dismissed as fear-mongering...
What Americans Don't Know About Their Medications-- a lot...
Life in a Day 2020 | Official Documentary (1:25 hr) (via Laserlefty)
"Meaningful reforms cannot be put over by an advisory and administrative elite that is itself the architect of the existing situation." Hyman Minsky
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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