Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control • Hacker News Board

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#111

Post by Retric » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #32

Retric wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your heart does not care if it's supporting fat or muscle it must pump blood for both. Further skin and colorectal cancer are both surface area and don't care about fat vs. mussel. Metabolically muscle is worse as it needs more oxygen and fuel. Which is one of the reasons body builders can often die young from a heart attack.

Your heart is going to care about how much you weigh but not how tall you are. Those cancers are going to be mostly a function of height, not caring about weight for most people. Neither of those is a reason to care about the ratio that BMI represents.

Taller people tend to have larger hearts and wider artery's which makes a difference. It's pressure = flow rate / diameter of pipe ^ 2. So, as you gain weight your arteries can get wider or the pressure can increase.

Gaining weight increases skin, which is why skin reduction surgery happens for people that lose lot's of weight. GIS for skin folds.

Weight / height ^2 is a proxy for both it's far from perfect, but it's also really easy to collect.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#112

Post by kefka » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

bbarn wrote: post #90

csn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Focus on the smell. Make it long enough (about 24 hours) to notice other smokers smell. That is the smell of other people being repulsed by you. You smell like that in every elevator, every time you introduce yourself to someone, and no amount of gum or tooth brushing covers it up. You can't smell it while you smoke, but the rest of the world can. It was enough to keep me dedicated knowing I could confidently talk to…

To go along with that, I would never, ever date a smoker. Its like kissing an ash tray. That's something I can easily go without.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#113

Post by collyw » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 1:25 PM UTC

l1feh4ck wrote: post #44

To guys out there who still smoke. Please quit. It can be done.

Does it matter if you live in a city where the air pollution is equivalent to smoking 20 a day?

Get bikes please people.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#114

Post by 15charlimit » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 1:52 PM UTC

Pica_soO wrote: post #70

nitrogen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best of luck! It's disappointing how much of our world is designed to trick us into regressing into bad habits.

I would think it only fair to put the burden of the health damage on the company who sells addictive products. If you sell cigarettes and a customer looses part of the lung, you pay or behave to prevent. If you sell alcohol and a customer drives a car in a crowd, you pay or behave to prevent. If you are a narco and sell crack, you pay for the results. The problem is not the unknown problems with those substances, its…

By that logic, no individual is responsible for anything they ever do because just about everything is "addictive" or "habit forming" in some way. Your suggestion is terrible for a number of reasons, but primarily due to the shirking of personal responsibility that it promotes.

Should Hershey be required to pay medical costs for morbidly obese individuals because they eat a dozen chocolate bars a day? Sugar is a highly addictive substance, after all.

Should automobile manufacturers be required to pay the medical bills of every individual injured in a high-speed accident because driving very fast generally causes an adrenaline rush, which is addictive?

Stop making it someone else's problem. Start casting blame where it needs to be - on the individual(s).

Nobody is forced to start smoking, or start drinking, or start eating sweets, or drive recklessly, or to do this or that. I'm tired of the popular trend of infantilization that offloads the burden of one's own actions onto society/industry/government.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#115

Post by parfe » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #102

coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is good for predicting in general populations, but can easily fall apart with individuals. While it can "easily fall apart with individuals", the difficulty lies in finding an individual to measure that will make BMI fall apart. And that's because the huge majority of us is of the kind of complexion and body type where BMI works well. So, sure it can give false positives, but for a quite small fraction -- beside…

> the difficulty lies in finding an individual to > measure that will make BMI fall apart I'm 5'11 with a 36 inch waist. This gives me a waist-to-height ratio of 0.507, which has me just under or over the healthy cut-off, depending on who you ask[0]. I was 212lbs this morning, giving me a BMI of 29.6, which has me at the border of "Overweight" and "Obese Class I (Moderately obese)", and is high risk. I don't think yo…

>A WHtR of over 0.5 is critical and signifies an increased risk

Both measures put you in an at risk categories. Why doesn't that concern you?

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#116

Post by Retric » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 2:00 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #18

Retric wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMI is a surprisingly relevant metric for many things as it's a comparison between volume (weight) and surface area (height ^2). And yes, short people do have an inherent advantage there which for example possibly relates to how small dogs tend to live longer.

Because muscle and bone are denser than fat, and exist in higher proportion in fitter people, two people could easily have identical BMIs even though one is a powerlifter with 5% body fat and the other is mostly made of Cheetos.

The body builder would need more blood flow to support his muscle's metabolic needs. That's a major demand on his cardiovascular system.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#117

Post by piva00 » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

bbarn wrote: post #88

l1feh4ck wrote: post #44

To guys out there who still smoke. Please quit. It can be done.

I think as a culture (speaking here in the US) we've made quitting smoking out to be much harder than it actually is. One of the problems with this massive marketing campaign saying things like "You can quit with help!", etc.. is it's focusing on how difficult it's supposed to be. After 20 years or so of being a smoker, I just decided I didn't want to be embarrassed about the way I smelled in elevators anymore, and q…

I quit cold turkey after 7 years of smoking and I'm really glad that I did.

So with that I can say: the pain of quitting doesn't last only a day, it's good you didn't experience depression, I never had depression before or after that but I was clinically depressed for 3 weeks, I was apathetic about life in general, would wake up and not feel motivation to do anything, I'd do them anyway because it was a routine (eat, shower, work) but I really felt I'd never be happy as I was before.

It began to fade after the first week, during the second week I'd still feel urges to have a cigarette after a coffee or lunch, or just when I was bored. Third week was easier and by the end of the first month I was over the initial withdrawal symptoms.

But again: it's not "just a day", it's not really "omg, this is so easy, I'm over it". I had to constantly remind myself to NEVER had a drag, I got drunk during the third week and it was a pretty good feeling to deny a cigarette a friend wanted to share.

I was a 2 pack a day smoker during the last year of smoking, that might have impacted how much the withdrawal symptoms lasted or how strong they were.

It's on of the best things I've done in life, it also gave me a huge boost of confidence to do other stuff, my mindset nowadays is "I quit smoking cold turkey, I can do almost anything when I commit to".

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#118

Post by collyw » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 2:12 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #22

pmiller2 wrote: post #7

I 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.

Stress is often a factor in health related issues. I imagine that believing it is preventable will lead to less stress.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#119

Post by collyw » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #47

coldtea wrote: post #22

Earlier 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.

...except fat isn't necessarily responsible for heart disease. High blood glucose and inflammation are much more likely to be responsible.

Have you any (peer reviewed) evidence of this? There is a lot of Internet hype about "carbs are bad, fat is fine" these days and other conflicting health guidelines. I am not saying its wrong, but I would like to see some proper evidence of it.

Re: Helpless to Prevent Cancer? Actually, Quite a Bit Is in Your Control

#120

Post by wocg » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #64

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 y…

I've been reading a few recent papers about cardiology, but I didn't find a lot, could you list some references ? ps: I tried to get off processed food for raw veggies and fruit, but most cities are flooded with utterly shitty ones. It's still a huge increase in terms of health (sugar really is like a drug), but way suboptimal.

It's not my experience that cities have bad raw veggies and fruit (I've lived near Boston and in NYC). Be that as it may, if you cannot find raw produce, you may want to look for the frozen stuff. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/frozen-vegetables-are-hot

"Nutritionally speaking, frozen veggies are similar to -- and sometimes better than -- fresh ones. This makes sense, considering that these veggies are usually flash-frozen (which suspends their 'aging' and nutrient losses) immediately after being harvested. Frozen veggies were often picked in the peak of their season, too."

I have a fruit (blueberries, cherries, mango, banana) and greens smoothie almost every morning. The banana is the only thing that's not frozen. It seems healthy, although I admit, it's not low-carb.