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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.
The Times cites one researcher's pet theory that the cellular process of aging itself may be gradually changing in humans' favor.
There's a theory that I first heard from Richard Dawkings about how to most reliably raise the average age of human population. In short, have children as late as possible (in the 30s and 40s to begin with, increasing with future generations). The thing is, in evolutionary terms the genes that kill you before procreation are actively selected against; yet those that kill you just as reliably later in life are passed on. So if you have children at 40 (disregarding the complications and risks) it's likely that they won't inherit genes that are likely to kill them in their 30s. Thus the population in western "1st world" countries is aging, having children later and this may also be a contributing factor to the phenomenon.
. . . the fact that above-ground testing ceased, does not mean that remnants of the radiation are still not out there. The overall radiation background is still higher, that's why Low-background Steelis valuable for certain types of test instruments.
Which, in turn, brings up a possible explanation: Could this be the result of radiation hormesis?
Or it could be lack of lead in our gasoline, or any of a number of other pollutants that have been removed. Or reduced sulfur rain. Or maybe it is the effect of Flintstone vitamins between the ages of 5-10 with long term effects. Every once in a while we see a new report that says 'Substance X causes 20% increase in Disease Y', which nobody had noticed before, or 'Eating more Z reduces chance of Disease D'. It would not be surprising if some substance (or potentially a mix of substances that interact in unknown ways) that were a contributing factor to many diseases. It will take many, many years of statistical studies to identify the relationships. Look how long it has taken for someone to figure out that BPA should not be used to make bottles you drink out of.
In addition to the idea that maybe we need better statistical understanding of environment on the human body, we also should be very careful with what pollutants we are putting into the environment. To pick a hot topic, what is the long term effect of microbeads in health care products, or fracking chemicals? We really, really don't know. This sort of thing should lead to a surplus of caution.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.