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A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

nytimes.com

51–60 of 152 posts

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#51

Speculation: - People have become more aware of the risk factors, and behave accordingly. Awareness would be connected to prevalence but have a lagged effect. - Deadly diseases cause evolutionary responses. Perhaps a disproportionate number of people with predisposition to these illnesses passed away before having offspring. - Reporting bias? While an illness looms large in the minds of the medical community, doctors…

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Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer is caused by swelling?

Perhaps he means inflammation. Inflammation has been linked to certain types of cancers.

yes, I meant that, and no - nearly all cancers are linked to inflammation. the differences are in what causes the inflammation.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#53

This is weird: >Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was >the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the >United States.

In countries which still practice wide-scale pickling, curing and fermentation -- stomach cancer rates are still very high.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-salty-diet-idUSTRE62N4KX20...

While gastric cancer is declining, it is still the most common cancer in Korea. Past studies have yielded conflicting results as to whether a salty diet causes gastric cancer, though most found an association between salt use and gastric cancer.

Here's another piece of information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator

The introduction of Freon in the 1920s expanded the refrigerator market during the 1930s. Home freezers as separate compartments (larger than necessary just for ice cubes) were introduced in 1940.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#54
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps he means inflammation. Inflammation has been linked to certain types of cancers.

yes, I meant that, and no - nearly all cancers are linked to inflammation. the differences are in what causes the inflammation.

"linked to" does not mean "caused by".

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#55

Speculation: - People have become more aware of the risk factors, and behave accordingly. Awareness would be connected to prevalence but have a lagged effect. - Deadly diseases cause evolutionary responses. Perhaps a disproportionate number of people with predisposition to these illnesses passed away before having offspring. - Reporting bias? While an illness looms large in the minds of the medical community, doctors…

Yeah, I was curious about that as well. I wonder if the internet and the resulting increase in spread of knowledge about diseases, symptoms, etc. has played a statistically significant part? I'd wager that at the least, it has helped people to realise they need more of an experts opinion when certain symptoms arrive that are linked to more serious illnesses.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#56
post #39
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a chart showing the prevalence of multiple forms of cancer over time: http://i52.tinypic.com/r9euci.jpg .

Weird. Why would lung cancer go the opposite direction as smoking prevalence? I understand the dynamic of "cancer only kills people who outlive every other cause of death", but for the discorrelation to be that strong?

The correlation is one of the strongest there is, and indeed, causal -- there's a almost perfect lag time of ~20 years [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer#/media/File:Cancer...

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#57

This is weird: >Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was >the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the >United States.

Currently, South Korea and Japan have the highest incidences of stomach cancer. It's typically attributed to cured foods and processed meats. Prior to refrigeration, wide consumption of these foods were out of necessity.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#58
post #49
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type II. Type II is insulin resistance. Which is probably caused by our industrial diet and maybe other factors. The rate is increasing dramatically. Type I is an autoimmune disease. I think it's not increasing. (no idea)

its less caused by diet than lack of mobility. we spend most of our waking day sitting down now. active over weight people with 'bad diets' are healthier than skinny inactive people. but its hard to legislate that, and much easier to pound the shoe on the table about sodas than it is to tell people they need to get up and move

Hunger should be correlated with calories expended, our metabolic system is homeostatic. the unnatural consumption of refined carbohydrates, and in such large quantities, is what is causing the Diabetes II epidemic and widespread obesity, both likely symptoms of the same disorder.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#59

The question I guess is not what diseases are in decline, but which ones are going up

Apparently Parkinson's disease has been on the rise over the past several disease, some say due to the decrease in smoking. Which is fascinating, as smoking has been shown to be actually protective against Parkinson's.

Re: A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline

#60

I always wondered if the removal of lead in gasoline could account for a lot of this. Especially the dementia drop.

There have been a number of meta studies which have tried to link the removal of lead from gasoline and the drop in violent crime. The correlate well.
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