How is the obesity epidemic not affecting deaths?
I remember clearly nurses saying hospitals are full of elderly and obese people.
U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
221–230 of 278 posts
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#222I can think of a few other causes like sickness being a potentially bankrupting event so people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late. This apparently is a risk, even if you have insurance because you are at the mercy of insurers not tossing you out over such whimsical reasons as pre-existing conditions or other bureaucratic tricks they use to kill their customers rather than getting them cured. There are…
> people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late.
Absolutely, I saw this when working in the US at age 23 (I'm Australian)
A good friend separated his shoulder while snowboarding and couldn't afford the surgery, so did nothing. To me this was staggering, and I had no idea people in "good" countries lived like that. Growing up in Australia this is unheard of.
His shoulder is still screwed, 15 years later.
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And many people go, knowing they can’t pay, because they’ll just never pay the bill and will dodge the bill collectors. Most providers (outside of ERs and the mandate for emergency stabilization therein, and some free clinics operated as charities) won't provide treatment without proof of insurance and any required co-payment upfront, or, for private pay clients upfront payment or fairly strong proof that payment w…
I think that's what he's saying - they go to the ER.
Yesh, but ERs are limited in services provided. The mandate they face with regard to service independent of payment is stabilization, not full-scope general medical service.
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems their comment is gone too. I’d love to have been given the chance to downvote them. To me this all boils down to what you’re saying, but I’d like to just add mention that i think the bigger disease in the US that enables situations like this is the acceptance of misinformation. As you pointed out, many many many of these cases are started by a medically issued prescription, and it kills multiple times more peop…
>"In the very near future when climate change has destroyed out planet" Maybe people are killing themselves because they are addicted to the fear porn spread by mainstream/social media regarding "climate change". I don't mean this as a joke, I was addicted to financial/economic fear porn for a bit and it did have a negative effect on my outlook.
Economic collapse and climate change are very different. Climate change news does not evoke the emotion of fear, but rather emotions of disappointment, lament, and anger.
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems their comment is gone too. I’d love to have been given the chance to downvote them. To me this all boils down to what you’re saying, but I’d like to just add mention that i think the bigger disease in the US that enables situations like this is the acceptance of misinformation. As you pointed out, many many many of these cases are started by a medically issued prescription, and it kills multiple times more peop…
>"In the very near future when climate change has destroyed out planet" Maybe people are killing themselves because they are addicted to the fear porn spread by mainstream/social media regarding "climate change". I don't mean this as a joke, I was addicted to financial/economic fear porn for a bit and it did have a negative effect on my outlook.
The main "fear porn" here that I think relates, and it's more of a tangent than any direct connection, is the propaganda associated with the War On Drugs, just as a comparison to the realities of the opioid epidemic. Some of the issues that were associated with various illegal drug epidemics were legitimate (particularly addictive substances that had the potential to destroy your health like heroin and cocaine), but the propaganda ended up being a moral panic implemented for sometimes questionable (possibly tribalism oriented) reasons, where a few substances (some of them, like cannabis, being relatively harmless) ended up getting demonized, a way-too-high amount of Americans got arrested for trifles as a result, and so forth. Ironically a large portion of the drugs in this epidemic were not in this much demonized category.
Back on topic, the "messaging" here that directly relates, as far as the opioid epidemic goes, is the opposite: the lax regulation of the marketing for prescription drugs. Purdue Pharmaceutical was allowed to engage in a lot of aggressive marketing courting physicians with plenty of symposiums and swag. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/) The marketing hugely downplayed the addiction potential of Oxycontin, over-promoting the use cases and underplaying risk. (Along the way you get some IMHO absurd swag like an Oxycontin-sponsored 50s swing music compilation -- https://www.reddit.com/r/SwingDancing/comments/593xof/til_th... -- I mean, what?) This helped contribute to the opioid over-prescription problem.
Sober, fact based analysis -- present in neither of the above scenarios -- unfortunately is in short supply these days.
Personally, I haven't seen the sort of aggressive marketing you see in America for prescription drugs in any other country -- at least, I don't recall seeing the sort of direct-to-consumer prescription ads anywhere else, (I was able to find articles that said DTCA is quite restricted in Europe --https://www.pharmafield.co.uk/in_depth/pharmaceutical-direct...). I think pharmacy-to-physician marketing is still allowed in most places, but the above shows that work needs to be done to ensure that this marketing also is sober and fact based. Even physicians can be persuaded by "marketing swag". (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5623540/)
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#226Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late I saw this when travelling in the US for work. (I am Canadian). Striking up conversations in restaurants I met staff that worked while sick because they couldn't afford to take sick days, or worked with chronic conditions because they couldn't afford a visit to a doctor. Even worse are the major chronic diseases from our lifestyle (hypertension, diabetes, etc…
> the US healthcare system is broken. s/healthcare//
Yeah it's not just the healthcare system as that example shows. Imagine GP visits were free for that service worker. They still wouldn't go, because paid sick leave isn't mandated by law, so going still costs them money. And even if they do go, unpaid, they have no security in their employment as they can be terminated for any reason at all with no notice.
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just don't like doctors. Why? They're there to keep you healthy. Yeah, sure it can be uncomfortable talking to a doctor about personal health issues, but it's better than waiting until it's too late and finding out that "if only you'd come sooner, we could have helped".
Our understanding of the human body is very rudimentary. Basically doctors are people who memorized a bunch of questionable info and try to guess what to do. Give people in that situation access to highly concentrated chemicals and extremely sharp objects (eg scalpels and syringes) and you really shouldn't expect much. Like Feynman said though, if you are deathly ill in the jungle you would rather go see a witchdocto…
So do you stand by your words? Do you have a a Do Not Resuscitate order? Would you reject emergency surgery after being shot?
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our understanding of the human body is very rudimentary. Basically doctors are people who memorized a bunch of questionable info and try to guess what to do. Give people in that situation access to highly concentrated chemicals and extremely sharp objects (eg scalpels and syringes) and you really shouldn't expect much. Like Feynman said though, if you are deathly ill in the jungle you would rather go see a witchdocto…
So do you stand by your words? Do you have a a Do Not Resuscitate order? Would you reject emergency surgery after being shot?
>"So do you stand by your words?"
- Yes
>"Do you have a a Do Not Resuscitate order?" - No
>"Would you reject emergency surgery after being shot?" - No
I suspect the real problem here is with your reading comprehension though.
Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"In the very near future when climate change has destroyed out planet" Maybe people are killing themselves because they are addicted to the fear porn spread by mainstream/social media regarding "climate change". I don't mean this as a joke, I was addicted to financial/economic fear porn for a bit and it did have a negative effect on my outlook.
Economic collapse and climate change are very different. Climate change news does not evoke the emotion of fear, but rather emotions of disappointment, lament, and anger.
If you think the economic system is scammy, but most people just won't listen, you will experience the exact same emotions you list. So I have to disagree.