Here's what it would take to really prove the causative effects claimed in the article: pick a bunch of random people and then force them to either drink or not, exercise or not, smoke or not.. etc. There's no way anyone is ever going to do this experiment, and I just find the claims made in the article somewhat dubious as a result. On the other hand, they are likely to be right (yes?) and probably it's better to make such claims than not to. But hey, if you are a sedentary type, if you smoke, if you drink, what is causing those behaviours? Just forcing some exercise doesn't change those deeper causes (what ever bio/emoto/chemico causes), and may very well make the person absolutely miserable or worse.
Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
51–60 of 171 posts
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#52To the 66% of you who are obese or overweight: put down the fork. It can be done.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#53Interesting article. I don't know that I'd take too much to heart given some of the obvious caveats the author has been nice enough to make explicit, but it sounds like I'd be hard pressed to argue the suggestions contained within. For the tl;dr crowd: - written by a physician - people often think that heart disease is controllable by our actions whereas they feel that cancer is not - > people can’t change many risk…
What's wrong with BMI for something like this? It's such a simple measure and it seems to be useful for predicting health issues. From what I've read body fat percentage is what really matters, but accurately calculating that takes expensive equipment. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-sci... seems to indicate that BMI does a pretty good job, although it may be too generous on the high end.
Because obese people say it's 'unfair'. Well, boo hoo for them.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#54I wonder what the psychology behind believing heart disease is preventable vs cancer being unpreventable.
No deep psychology needed. With hearts, you open up and you see clogged arteries, for example. It doesn't get much simpler than "too much fat is bad for your heart". With cancer? It could be anything. And there are tons of different types, seemingly hitting all kinds of people, fat smokers and lean non-smoking vegans alike.
I've heard recently that the causality for heart disease actually goes the opposite way than everyone assumed. The body's response to inflamed arteries is to lay down a layer of fatty plaques to protect the arteries from further damage. The fat deposition is the effect of the inflammation, not the cause, and now researchers are trying to understand just what the real cause is.
...which just goes to show how complicated causation vs. correlation is in real science. It was a pretty obvious conclusion that clogged arteries would cause heart disease...except that it's both obvious and wrong.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#55To guys out there who still smoke. Please quit. It can be done.
Yesterday I promised myself to not buy cigarettes anymore nor ask anyone to do it on my behalf. This first step only requires tremendous willpower when visiting a store, as the dispensers are placed at checkouts so I must stand right next to them when I'm in the queue.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#56> Over all, though, about 25 percent of cancer in women and 33 percent in men was potentially preventable. This article is a rather optimistic spin on these numbers. I'd have said "a large majority of cancer cases--75% in women and 67% in men--were not preventable"
Oh, I don't know. On the one hand, part of me agrees with you.
On the other hand, when someone tells me that they've optimized a compiler and it can now compile 3% faster I get really excited and pull their repo, I don't turn around and say "you mean 97% as slow" and keep complaining about how long compilation takes and how nothing can be done about it. Show that there are steps you can take to cut it by 33% more than we currently know how and you'll be a god among programmers.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#57> Over all, though, about 25 percent of cancer in women and 33 percent in men was potentially preventable. This article is a rather optimistic spin on these numbers. I'd have said "a large majority of cancer cases--75% in women and 67% in men--were not preventable"
Oh, I don't know. On the one hand, part of me agrees with you. On the other hand, when someone tells me that they've optimized a compiler and it can now compile 3% faster I get really excited and pull their repo, I don't turn around and say "you mean 97% as slow" and keep complaining about how long compilation takes and how nothing can be done about it. Show that there are steps you can take to cut it by 33% more tha…
I agree with your basic point - but doesn't "3% faster" usually mean that it runs faster in all cases? So the "97% as slow" does not seem to be clear. Maybe it should be said as the improvement is not significant enough according to some numerical threshold?
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
No deep psychology needed. With hearts, you open up and you see clogged arteries, for example. It doesn't get much simpler than "too much fat is bad for your heart". With cancer? It could be anything. And there are tons of different types, seemingly hitting all kinds of people, fat smokers and lean non-smoking vegans alike.
I've heard recently that the causality for heart disease actually goes the opposite way than everyone assumed. The body's response to inflamed arteries is to lay down a layer of fatty plaques to protect the arteries from further damage. The fat deposition is the effect of the inflammation, not the cause, and now researchers are trying to understand just what the real cause is. ...which just goes to show how complicat…
I think often the line between correlation and causation is not very clear except in textbook examples. Does poverty cause corruption, or corruption cause poverty? Maybe most of the actual phenomena could be feedback loops, vicious cycles etc.
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#59I wonder what the psychology behind believing heart disease is preventable vs cancer being unpreventable.
No deep psychology needed. With hearts, you open up and you see clogged arteries, for example. It doesn't get much simpler than "too much fat is bad for your heart". With cancer? It could be anything. And there are tons of different types, seemingly hitting all kinds of people, fat smokers and lean non-smoking vegans alike.
> With hearts, you open up and you see clogged arteries, for example. It doesn't get much simpler than "too much fat is bad for your heart".
The fat clogging our arteries doesn't necessarily come from dietary fat.
A lot has changed when it comes to heart disease. For example, not even the USDA supports the claim that excessive dietary cholesterol is linked to heart disease anymore. Their new official stance is that you shouldn't worry about it at all, no upper limit, eat as much as you want.[1]
Contrast that with the last 50 years we've all spent having conversations and making comments about how dangerous egg yolks and meat are because of the cholesterol, and all the foods promoted for being cholesterol-free or low-cholesterol. Cocoa Puffs getting the American Heart Association checkmark on the box because they're low-cholesterol.[2]
It's very difficult to get good information on this because the food industry spends billions selectively funding research to muddy the waters and spread misinformation the same way tobacco companies did in the '50s and '60s. Their 2 biggest goals on this front are:
1. Defend refined sugar and carbohydrates against claims that they're unhealthy/toxic. These are the most profitable commodities because they're the most shelf-stable, they're easy to shape dye and flavor into just about anything, and they're extremely cheap because of food subsidies.
2. Promote the idea that our health and well-being as it relates to nutrition, is entirely determined by one's ability to balance calories in vs calories out. If that's all it is, then all of their products are exonerated from all negative health effects, and they can shift the burden of blame onto their own customers.
I'm all for personal responsibility and companies having the right to produce delicious junk food and consumers having the right to purchase and consume as much of it as they want, but I think we'd all be better off if the food industry stopped funding nutritional research.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/07/gover...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/health/nutrition/beware-fo...
Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control
#60To the 66% of you who are obese or overweight: put down the fork. It can be done.
We banned your many accounts from HN because of what I can only call obsessive obesity trolling. That's an abuse of this site, so please stop.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12041178 and marked it off-topic.