Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 58 posts

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#21

Post by XMPPwocky »

Pharmakon wrote: post #17
akatechis wrote: post #14

There was a recent story about how the inmates in the camps received the best healthcare available in German society at the time. That would certainly explain why so many years later we still hear about "new" survivors.

There was a recent story about how the inmates in the camps received the best healthcare available in German society at the time. That would certainly explain why so many years later we still hear about "new" survivors. I’d love a link to this “recent story” which sounds distressingly like a very old and discredited claim of Holocaust deniers.

Unfortunately, a quick peek through GP's post history does suggest that's quite possibly their source.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#22

Post by wslh »

akatechis wrote: post #14

There was a recent story about how the inmates in the camps received the best healthcare available in German society at the time. That would certainly explain why so many years later we still hear about "new" survivors.

Do you mean when they were annihilated in the gas chambers?

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#23

Post by pliny »

DevX101 wrote: post #12

In addition to the other cm2187's accurate observation that this may be literal survivor bias, the other potential explanation is whether the control group was well designed. Israel is currently ~50% Sephardic Jews, descendants from Middle Eastern/North African peoples. Holocaust survivors are almost all Ashkenazi Jews (European ancestors). If the study was comparing Ashkenazi Jews in the test group vs a control grou…

The control group is people born in Israel from 1911 to 1945, which would make them mostly Ashkenazi since most Sephardic immigration occured after this period.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#24

Post by tzs »

hopler wrote: post #10
dogma1138 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is if it’s just a simple selection bias or did the stress of living under those conditions have had biological effects that are advantageous to longer life span. We know that cellular stress response and stress proteins have a positive effect on some functions that could induce longer life span, these tend to be most often related to heat and cold shock which is likely one of the key reasons behind why m…

Caloric restriction (extreme dieting) is well known to increase lifespan. Intermittent fasting shows tentative promise.

This is just a guess, but I'd expect that most people who survived the camps did not decide to continue afterwards to eat like they were still there.

Wouldn't that limit the longevity benefits?

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#25

Post by curtis »

DevX101 wrote: post #12

In addition to the other cm2187's accurate observation that this may be literal survivor bias, the other potential explanation is whether the control group was well designed. Israel is currently ~50% Sephardic Jews, descendants from Middle Eastern/North African peoples. Holocaust survivors are almost all Ashkenazi Jews (European ancestors). If the study was comparing Ashkenazi Jews in the test group vs a control grou…

The control group was drawn from Jews who were born in Palestine between 1911 and 1945. I think it's likely that this group would likely have been almost entirely Ashkenazi Jews, because there was substantial emigration of European Jews into Palestine prior to World War II.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah.

(It's not relevant to your point, but although Sephardic Jews are not Ashkenazi Jews, not all non-Ashkenazi Jews are Sephardic. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews.)

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#26

Post by gumby »

cm2187 wrote: post #4

Kind of obvious but can it be simply a selection bias? The weakest died in the camps, the survivors would be the healthier, stronger, and therefore have a longer life expectancy than average.

And indeed the article ends with this topic (after also looking at POWs from the American civil war):

> What’s the conclusion, beyond answering a question that has stuck with me for four decades? First and most importantly, it’s not that a traumatic time is anything but hideous. It’s instead that those surviving such an event may be sturdier than others, and by so much that it more than offsets the additional ailments they wind up with. In other words, survivors can wind up living longer than average, but they would presumably have lived even longer in the absence of their gruesome experiences. ...

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#27

Post by EGreg »

curtis wrote: post #25
DevX101 wrote: post #12

In addition to the other cm2187's accurate observation that this may be literal survivor bias, the other potential explanation is whether the control group was well designed. Israel is currently ~50% Sephardic Jews, descendants from Middle Eastern/North African peoples. Holocaust survivors are almost all Ashkenazi Jews (European ancestors). If the study was comparing Ashkenazi Jews in the test group vs a control grou…

The control group was drawn from Jews who were born in Palestine between 1911 and 1945. I think it's likely that this group would likely have been almost entirely Ashkenazi Jews, because there was substantial emigration of European Jews into Palestine prior to World War II. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah . (It's not relevant to your point, but although Sephardic Jews are not Ashkenazi Jews, not all non-Ashk…

Actually many Sephardi Jews already lived in Israel at that time, having come during the Ottoman period.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#28

Post by [deleted] »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #15
hopler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caloric restriction (extreme dieting) is well known to increase lifespan. Intermittent fasting shows tentative promise.

Would a too extreme diet do permanent harm, or is our body used to bouts of near starvation? The survivor bias makes sense, those that would have died at 65-75 years maybe died then when tested by the hardships.

[deleted]

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#30

Post by pavelrub »

cm2187 wrote: post #4

Kind of obvious but can it be simply a selection bias? The weakest died in the camps, the survivors would be the healthier, stronger, and therefore have a longer life expectancy than average.

This is called survivorship bias, not selection bias.
Post reply on HN