Surprisingly, even though Hong Kong has a long life expectancy, it’s population is quite depressed and getting worse… I wonder if the life expectancy will get worse from here on out?
He also highlighted the significance of sleep quality, as the survey shows that over 25 percent of respondents experienced severe insomnia, which is closely associated with depression and anxiety.
Maybe they should be adding Glycine to the water supply. 
Life expectancy of Americans back up to 77.5. Much better than the recent low of 73, but still not at the pre-COVID high of 79.
Of note, death rates of children from infant to 14 yo increased unexpectedly. This is not a good sign.
http://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/21/cdc-us-life-expectancy-rises-after-two-year-dip-00148193
I guess we should just be thankful if we don’t live in Chad, or Nigeria…
| COUNTRY | AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY |
|---|---|
| Chad | 53 years |
| Nigeria | 53 years |
| Lesotho | 53 years |
| Central African Republic | 54 years |
| South Sudan | 55 years |
| Somalia | 55 years |
| Eswatini | 57 years |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 59 years |
| Guinea | 59 years |
| Mali | 59 years |
right. That exactly what my null hypothesis was. It is stress due to lack of hope for a change for better. My another null hypothesis is that the lack of hope and purpose may lead to self-destructive behavior like drug abuse, gun violence, excessive weight gain, poor sleep, etc.
Famine, war and abject poverty will do that.
I guess it also proves too much caloric restriction is a bad thing (malnourishment).
Since I just discovered this thread, I wanted to post a short article that says a lot. Appears to be about climate change but is much deeper.
“We need to become mindful of the way we’re being manipulated,” says Merz, who is co-founder of the Merz Institute, an organisation that researches the systemic causes of the climate crisis and how to tackle them.The paper explores how neuropsychology, social signalling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviours which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. The authors suggest that ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one’s status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategiesto create behaviours incompatible with a sustainable world.“People are the victims – we have been exploited to the point we are in crisis. These tools are being used to drive us to extinction,” says the evolutionary behavioural ecologist and study co-author Phoebe Barnard. “Why not use them to build a genuinely sustainable world?”
The team calls for more interdisciplinary research into what they have dubbed the “human behavioural crisis” and concerted efforts to redefine our social norms and desires that are driving overconsumption. When asked about the ethics of such a campaign, Merz and Barnard point out that corporations fight for consumers’ attention every second of every day.
“Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”
It is probably HIV and violence that drives age expectancy down.
My mother had a heart attack last week. She had to have 2 stents put in. She has an HBA1C of 8.0 and very high triglycerides and BP (140-160 SBP). Her LDL was only 110. She is 75 yo.
I had been trying to get her to take an SGLT2i and Bempedoic Acid for months. She said she could lower her HBA1C through exercise and diet (although she didn’t change her diet). After the heart attack, her doctor prescribed Forxiga (dapagliflozin SGLT2I) and Atorvastatin. She will now take those religiously, or so she says. I do think the severe diabetes and therefore triglycerides had more of an impact on her cardiovascular health than her LDL. However it goes to show you that a “safe” LDL of 110 is not so safe.
This just highlights how the American medical system is reactive instead of proactive. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to avoid the heart attack in the first place??? The doctor had recommended a statin and SGLT2I 3 weeks before, but really used a soft touch. He sent a letter recommendation. My mother didn’t take it seriously, so my mother is to blame as well.
Fortunately my father is being proactive and taking Bempedoic Acid and Ezetemibe. I just wish my mother had listened to either me, my father or her doctor earlier as we all recommended the same course of action.
I post this as a warning to all those who may read this. I wish we could all be proactive in being healthy instead of dancing with death and acting on things reactively. I’m just glad my mother didn’t die, which is how many find out they have a problem.
My mother should be fine, but I hope she will take her health more seriously in the future and I hope it serves as a wake up call to the rest of my family.
I am sorry to hear about your mother. Wishing her a speedy recovery.
Perhaps this also indicates that LDL-C isn’t the primary factor driving ASCVD. Other factors such as diabetes and a sedentary lifestyle may contribute significantly more.
As @AnUser has pointed out like a thousend times already, it’s nearly impossible to develop ASCVD with sufficiently low enough LDL-C. 110mg/dL is way too high and will cause you to develop heart disease even in the absence of other risk factors. If you have other risk factors, you should be closer to 50mg/dL than 100mg/dL while also addressing those risk factors.
I have reiterated numerous times that this statement is entirely speculative. All we can ascertain is that LDL-C is not a reliable predictor of developing ASCVD.
apoB > non-HDL-C > LDL-C as even with low LDL-C, you can often times have a high apoB particle count. Still, the same stuff which drives down LDL-C will drive down apoB. Addressing all the other risk factors via SGLT2i (that drive down acm even in non-diabetic people), blood pressure medication (such as telmisartan) along with losing body fat mass should be done aswell but in the end there is no example of someone who has maintained (very low LDL-C) for decades succumbing to cardiovascular disease.
My point was that a ‘near optimal’ value for LDL can still end in a heart attack, cardiovascular disease, or death. I’m especially surprised that my mother had a heart attack because she had had ‘life line screening’ for cardiovascular disease that turned up negative.
How can we trust these scans that tell my mother she is fine regarding cardiovascular issues and then she goes on to have a heart attack???
She is now suffering from Atrial Fibrillation while recovering.
As I have said previously I think part of ASCVD is the failure of epithelial cells to differentiate properly. This is exacerbated by bad lipids, but can happen anyway.
It is probably worth checking your mother’s CRP as that is a guide to the burden of senescent cells which in part causes the differentiation problems. (IMO)
Her CRP was 1.0 from her last blood test. That doesn’t seem too bad.
Was that per l or dl
My cholesterol numbers were golden for many years before I had a heart attack. Cholesterol numbers don’t mean sh*t as far as I’m concerned.
What do you mean by “golden”? 99mg/dL?
Medicine doesn’t make decisions based on N=1. Just because in your case LDL didn’t track apoB doesn’t mean that it doesn’t for most people. I don’t think you knew your Lp(a), either. ApoB is superior to LDL and it should be used of course, as well as Lp(a) is important, that is a failure of the medical system. But LDL is pretty darn good, still. Much better than ignoring LDL altogether which would lead to an extreme increase in death rate and heart attacks.
It is also a failure of the medical system to not update that lower is better (and sooner).
I would ask them what the stroke risk is with Afib and what they are doing for that and thinking long term.
Very sorry to hear about the situation. It’s so unfortunate that the medical system is so bad (except in treating acute situations, mostly).