The site Our World in Data likes to plot various statistics against GDP per capita. The U.S. is almost always below the middle, and sometimes towards the bottom, of the industrialized countries. On maternal mortality, the U.S. is orders of magnitude safer than many poor countries, but like other stats there is a noticeable gap with the leaders in our peer group (Finland, Iceland, France, Japan, Switzerland to name a few). Greece and Poland stand out as middle income countries that do much better than us. Interestingly, Belarus also stands out as a high-performance, lower-income country on this metric. The plot is animated, so you can see the U.S. drifting slightly worse over time even as our wealth grows, and even as other countries tend to make progress over time. I think I’ve said it before – we’re coasting on fumes, drifting behind the middle of the pack, and continuing to lose momentum.
Tag Archives: health
humidity helps reduce coronavirus transmission
Humidify those schools!
The relationship between climatic factors and COVID‐19 cases in New South Wales, Australia was investigated during both the exponential and declining phases of the epidemic in 2020, and in different regions. Increased relative humidity was associated with decreased cases in both epidemic phases, and a consistent negative relationship was found between relative humidity and cases. Overall, a decrease in relative humidity of 1% was associated with an increase in cases of 7–8%. Overall, we found no relationship with between [sic] cases and temperature, rainfall or wind speed.
Transboundary and Emerging Diseases
Not being a scientist or doctor, I have always assumed that mucous membranes inside your nose help block germs, and that a dried out nose in the winter time is one reasons colds, coughs, and flu spread through schools and offices every winter. It seems like a relatively simple measure to take that would have a clear positive effect. Now, to sit back and wait for my children’s schools and my office building manager to explain why it can’t be done.
teeth: miracle or weakness of evolution?
I’ve always thought that teeth might be the weakest point of the human body. Why did our teeth evolve to be made of calcium, which dissolves in acid, when pretty much all our food is acidic? Why do we have to strap metal torture devices to children’s teeth for years just for them to be reasonably straight? Why don’t animals seem to have these problems?
This article in Scientific American sings the praises of teeth. It argues that, like many of our other organs and systems, our modern lives just aren’t what they evolved to deal with. It basically comes down to the idea that our food is too sweet and too soft.
The evolutionary history of our teeth explains not only why they are so strong but also why they fall short today. The basic idea is that structures evolve to operate within a specific range of environmental conditions, which in the case of our teeth include the chemicals and bacteria in the mouth, as well as strain and abrasion. It follows that changes to the oral environment can catch our teeth off guard. Such is the case with our modern diets, which are unlike any in the history of life on our planet. The resulting mismatch between our biology and our behavior explains the dental caries (cavities), impacted wisdom teeth and other orthodontic problems that afflict us.
Scientific American
I admit, I don’t like working for my food – I like boneless, seedless, shell-less everything. My teeth may have paid the price.
the goal of social distancing
Vox has an informative article with some visuals on the goal of social distancing in an epidemic. If you can reduce the total number of infections that is a bonus, but the primary goal is to reduce the peak number of infections happening at any one time. You can do this by delaying cases and spreading them out of time, so that the capacity of the health care system is better able to deal with them. This looks very similar to a stormwater or flood control engineer – often, our goal is also to reduce and delay the peak. Reducing the volume is a bonus if you can manage it. The lesson is not that epidemics are like hydrology, it’s that there are certain fundamental system structures that lead to fundamental behaviors, and they are shared between systems. A couple more that come to mind along the lines of this basic model are congestion pricing to spread traffic out over time, and batteries to store solar and wind energy and trickle them back over time.
the Flynn effect and the reverse Flynn effect
When IQ tests are taken by each generation, they are always normalized so that the average is a score of 100. However, when people are asked to take tests from older generations, they tend to do better than the older generations did. This is the Flynn effect. It was very consistent throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st, but a number of studies in Scandinavia indicate that it may have reversed more recently. Immigration is one controversial explanation that has been suggested, whether due to genetic or cultural reasons. But the study I link to here tested the effect within families against the effect across unrelated people, and found that it is just as strong within families. This suggests environmental factors such as education and nutrition as the culprits, although the article does still put “migration” in this category. I suppose if you had a society with a high quality of nutrition and education, and you then have an influx of new people with more bad habits (let’s say, a high rate of smoking), that could have an effect.
DIY diabetes pump
“Amateur coders” with diabetes have hacked glucose pumps and written their own software to link blood glucose monitoring data to the amount of insulin delivered.
chemotherapy and antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance will make some current cancer treatments “obsolete” or “unviable”, according to this article.
the stats on Bernie Sanders’s health risks
Slate has an interesting article on health risks for someone Bernie Sanders’s age with Bernie Sanders’s known health condition. The author points out that these estimates can be done for Bernie because he has released a fair amount of health information (although still not everything the author would like), while the other older candidates have not.
- His 12-month risk of a heart attack, stroke, or death is about 6%.
- His risk of being hospitalized for any reason between now and November is about 30-35%.
- His odds of surviving a first presidential term are about 65%, and his odds of surviving a second about 40%.
Ask Professor Obvious
Today on Ask Professor Obvious, it turns out that when you toss a heavy object into the air, it falls toward the Earth not away from it. And while that may not be completely obvious to everyone, most people may already be aware that Owning a car is linked to less physical activity and weight gain.
the “best” health advice from 2019
The Week has cherry picked a few studies from 2019 as best. Although they did pick ones with large sample sizes, what would be “best” to me would be some kind of meta-analysis of all studies published and what they said on balance, with some kind of grading for quality and communication of the uncertainty involved. That would be awesome journalism, but I imagine it would be expensive. The great news is that if you add up all the percentages that doing this and that can reduce your chances of death, you can live forever! Anyway, here is my quick summary:
- Exercise, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains just never go out of style. More whole foods (the thing, not the chain) and less processed foods in general seem to be a very good idea. Seriously, just orient your life style around these things and it is very unlikely the scientific consensus will change some day and tell you it was a bad idea.
- Napping is good for you – this particular study says “five minutes to an hour once or twice a week”. I’m not surprised that rest is good for the heart, but I thought there was an emerging consensus that maintaining a consistent schedule on all days was good, and this seems to contradict that a bit.
- Parents are stressed out while kids are young, then ultimately glad they had the kids later in life. This doesn’t surprise me since I am living through the stressed out part, but I do find it helpful to put myself in my future self’s shoes and ask if I would regret having children. In fact, my wife and I did that when we made the decision to have children, and the answer was and is no, we have no regrets. The distinction between happiness in the moment and overall life satisfaction also comes to mind.
- Aspirin and ibuprofen seem to help your heart, but also raise your risk of internal bleeding. It’s probably best not to self-medicate.
- Smoking and getting hit on the head, even gently, are not good for you.