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Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

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Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#41

Post by dejv »

austincheney wrote: post #37

The most observed behavior among the longest lived is radical independence. It isn't wild to suggest surviving a holocaust death camp would make a person more independently minded. Conversely, most people take this for granted while craving conveniences at every turn. I learned to program JavaScript more confidently on my first Afghanistan deployment. Being able to work offline without references or tools was importa…

My grandmother was survivor and died few months ago as 95 years old. To be honest I havent seen any radical independence traits or much impact caused by that period, she was around 20 when in camp which might help as body and mind might heal better while young. She had nice and quiet life as farmer, retired as 75 years old doing hard work in freezing cold or under hot sun every single day. She used bicycle each day till 88 or something.

Somebody mentioned gulag, my grandfather was send there as political prisoner, working in uran mines. His health was impacted and he died relatively early.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#42

Post by [deleted] »

DanBC wrote: post #35
onetimemanytime wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Would a too extreme diet do permanent harm Yes, which is why anorexia is so harmful, and why early intervention for anorexia is so important.

[deleted]

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#43

Post by oli2 »

austincheney wrote: post #37

The most observed behavior among the longest lived is radical independence. It isn't wild to suggest surviving a holocaust death camp would make a person more independently minded. Conversely, most people take this for granted while craving conveniences at every turn. I learned to program JavaScript more confidently on my first Afghanistan deployment. Being able to work offline without references or tools was importa…

How you live is more interesting than how long you live imho.

The former is harder to measure and we live in an age were people over-weigh easy to measure things which makes for all kinds of misguided conclusions.

Don't dismiss Convenience. There will always be more people who need it than don't. Focus instead on what kind of convenience you can provide that crowd and your impact is guaranteed.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#45

Post by Reedx »

dogma1138 wrote: post #8
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.

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…

In a word: antifragile.

Though could be both antifragility and selection bias at play.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#46

Post by myth_drannon »

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.

Then all the residents of Leningrad would be noticeably longer living than the population of USSR. That didn't happen to my knowledge.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#47

Post by rv-de »

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.

> the survivors would be the healthier, stronger, and therefore have a longer life

you didn't read the article. the paradoxical observation is that they live longer despite being particularly not healthy.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#48

Post by Pharmakon »

dogma1138 wrote: post #34
tzs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s possible that a long starvation period has induced lower life time caloric intake just not on the same levels, it could be that the period alone was enough to induce some epigenetic changes I don’t know why it’s being downvoted it could potentially be a cause behind this discrepancy.

Because other historical famines and atrocities don’t seem to yield the same outcome, and because it’s really just tacking a current fad onto the story without anything like evidence. After all, “it’s possible” covers such a huge variety of possibilities that it’s meaningless without statements of likelihood. It is after all possible that I’m an advanced AI, or that your mouse will tunnel a meter to the left. It’s more likely though that I’m just some guy, and your mouse fell off the table.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#49

Post by rv-de »

fsloth wrote: post #29

Anyone interested in the psychology of survivors will likely find "Man's search for meaning" by Viktor Frankl - a psychiatrist and survivor himself an enlihgtening read. What makes man go on, and when will he/she just give up?

the book is particularly interesting for the descriptions of the cruel social dynamics among the camp prisoners. that is an aspect a not Jewish German could never write about without facing serious allegations.

Re: Holocaust Paradox: Long Lives for Those Who Survived

#50

Post by rv-de »

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…

cm's observation is not correct within the context of the article as cm's observation is based on superior health which is refuted by the text.
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