A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are In Decline (nytimes.com)

Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an article from the New York Times: Something strange is going on in medicine. Major diseases, like colon cancer, dementia and heart disease, are waning in wealthy countries, and improved diagnosis and treatment cannot fully explain it...it looks as if people in the United States and some other wealthy countries are, unexpectedly, starting to beat back the diseases of aging. The leading killers are still the leading killers -- cancer, heart disease, stroke -- but they are occurring later in life, and people in general are living longer in good health.
The Times cites one researcher's pet theory that the cellular process of aging itself may be gradually changing in humans' favor.

Comments

Environmental impacts?

[Chrisq]

Previous generations worked with asbestos without precautions they would have to have today, had lead in the petrol, and eat food with additives that are now banned. Not to mention rarely using sunscreen and smoking more. It's hardly a surprise that things are improving.

Re:Environmental impacts?

[Mr0bvious]

will contribute positively in ALL, 100%, of aspects of life.

Citation required.

It is cell phone towers and remote control

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The reduction in diseases coincides with the rise of cordless phones and cell phones. The 900 MHz baby monitors and cordless phones first and then the 5.8 GHz cordless phone spectrum were phased in. Then came the cell phones and the IR remote control became ubiquitous and some remotes started using the 900 MHz and 5.8 GHz band (through the wall remotes for TiVo in another room).

During the cell division process radiation in these bands help tighten up the telemerese at the end of DNA. Every time the cell replicates the first few hundred basepairs come untangled, frayed and do not replicate well. But our DNA has very long sections on either end to cushion for the loss. Eventually the cushion is lost and actual genes start getting messed up and lost. That is how ageing happens. The radiation in these bands have positive effect in reducing the amount of fraying during cell replication.

Watch out pseudo scientists. Like real science, pseudo science is also cuts both ways. One can use it to spread fear and paranoia about any new technology or it can be used to ascribe totally unwarranted benefits to new things too.

Re:Not on my channel they aren't

[jeffasselin]

Police violence, rape and autism only appear to have increased recently. The evidence shows they haven't.

What seems to be happening is that they are reported/accounted/diagnosed better. You hear more about them thanks to new channels. Violence against blacks in many areas of the US (as well as violence against minorities in general worldwide) has been common and stable over the recent past (correcting for the general drop in violence in industrialized countries since the late 70s that many attribute to removal of lead in gasoline). The general media had mostly ignored some of those issues. But they can't do so anymore now because of the prevalence of cell phones (video evidence), citizen reporting (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc) and new ways of organizing movements online.

Note that I chose those three exemples because of their clear recent increase in reporting and news coverage. For what it's worth (and will do to my karma) I support #BLM, social justice movements and I am convinced vaccines have nothing to do with autism.

Re:How, with such crappy diet and pollution?

[Opportunist]

You're eating far healthier than your "all natural" ancestors did 150 years ago. Look up ergotism, something we don't even know anymore used to be a real problem less than a hundred years ago. Refrigeration was unknown a century ago and only half a century ago it became widespread. "Best before" used to be "oh it doesn't smell TOO bad, if we cook it it just might be ok". Drinking water is ... hell, even the crap that comes out of the taps in the south east of the US is better and less contaminated than most of the stuff our ancestors pumped out of wells they dug themselves.

And we actually have LESS pollution today than we had 100-150 years ago, when nobody gave a shit that untreated sewage was dumped into the rivers and seas where we get our fishes from. What we see in China today was very real over here with us not that long ago. Smog you can cut with a knife, kids that have lungs like someone dying from lung cancer after a life of heavy smoking, rivers you can't put your booted foot into fearing that not only the boot would be gone if you leave it in too long. That was the reality in our industrial centers in the 1800s.

The "good old times" were much, but certainly not healthy!

Re:How, with such crappy diet and pollution?

[Opportunist]

Another reason for having "more" transgendered people is simply that they now dare to actually come out instead of just living a lie and maybe, MAYBE, having a little private secret where they can at least for themselves, when nobody is looking, be themselves.

I don't think that it's really more people being that way. It's just more people daring to not pretend they aren't.