Wonder if they've looked at Vitamin D considering there's an association with living at high-altitude and Vitamin D deficiency.
Latitude or altitude?
Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
111–120 of 211 posts
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#112I haven't dug into their controls, but it seems to me that higher altitude may be associated with remoteness.
Terrain also means more jumping opportunities, so you’d need to break down by cause.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#113I recall seeing this article from 2014 referring to suicides in Utah ('utah paradox') and how neuroscientist Perry Renshaw was trying to link it to altitude: http://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in... which links to another study from 2011: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201... "Together, the stray statistics and stories about life out west tipped off Renshaw to a common…
Except that whole chemical imbalance theory was thoroughly debunked earlier this year as not being the cause of depression, just a marketing gimmick used to sell more anti depressants by pharma companies... "The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression. Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific e…
1. A countervailing meta-analysis does not mean it's "debunked"
2. A theory being debunked does not mean it's "just a marketing gimmick"
3. The serotonin theory being debunked does not mean "chemical imbalance" is totally exonerated
Great article though, thank you for sharing. Here's the paper itself for anyone interested (AFAICT it is oddly not linked in the UCL article?): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35854107/
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#114Oh boy, this is a favorite topic of mine because I get psychosis over 7000 feet. And it is all about my genetics. I am a lowlander by heritage, a Sami from Finland, and I carry genetic changes in NOS1AP that lower my ability to make nitric oxide at altitude. But the other factor is polymorphisms in GCH1, a gene linked to altitude adaptation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5460084/ See GCH1 is the enzyme…
On a related note, how do you feel about the WaPo headliner today about misappropriation of Sami remains for (anthropological, not even medical) "research" https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2023/smit...
Thanks for that. Makes me hate the how much humanity moved away from nature even more than I already did. They took our language and our spirituality so why not take our brains as well.
Sometimes I wonder if my mental illness, and my utter disgust of capitalism, is from the legacy of trauma in my lineage.
What is even more interesting is that my senior thesis paper was on a man named John Collier who was the head of the Indian Affairs Bureau in the early 1900's and really into eugenics. He wanted to ship Indigenous Americans all over the country so we could all get their genes and be more like them. Funny that wikipedia called him an "advocate"!
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lower BMI as well. https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/05/thin-air/
I'd wager a hidden factor is that slopes are more common in higher altitudes i.e. there are simply more hills and stairs one needs to navigate leading to incidental exercise.
Most population centers in the US west are built on flat land. Think Salt Lake City, Denver, Albuquerque. Even relatively small (80k) Santa Fe, despite having a 5000' elevation gain on its northern edge, is itself almost entirely flat.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
This aligns with my similar theory (lack of O2 leads to depression) that was born from observations of yoga, meditation and walking all forced people to breath more air through breath work, exercises or going outside, lead to better mental health outcomes. I am going to assume that in urban vs rural areas that is a similar effect from air pollution. But all my doctors have been inclined to give me pills for depressio…
I understood that rural air is significantly worse than urban due to all the pesticides.
I live in a rural area and air here is significantly better than smog filled and ozone enriched air in the city I used to live in. Not to mention the lack of winter fog that can linger around for weeks at times.
And that's excluding the light and noise pollution that are inevitable in urban areas. Yeah, living in a rural area is pure hell.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd expect that difference to be driven by sunlight amount rather than by temperature. Cold is easier to deal with than dark and gloomy when I go to work and dark and gloomy when I come home.
I'm curious if they controlled for sunlight then. I'm in a mountainous area and many areas (like where my house is) have mountains blocking sunlight for multiple hours in a day. Couple that with being in a wooded area and even some summer days can feel dark and gloomy. But in my case, being surrounded by nature far outweighs the lack of light in terms of depression.
People who live at altitude in the US western states, particularly in cities, generally have high levels of insolation.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#118I haven't dug into their controls, but it seems to me that higher altitude may be associated with remoteness.
Terrain also means more jumping opportunities, so you’d need to break down by cause.
They said there's a clear pattern both for suicides in general and suicides by firearm.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worse than urban air with auto pollution? I'd want to see a source for that...
Yeah, ppl on the ring road of Amsterdam live 10 years shorter afaik, for instance
Source? As a counter anecdote: Madrid, where most people live near traffic, has the highest life expectancy in the EU at 85.4 years.
Re: Positive association between altitude and suicide in U.S. counties
#120Oh boy, this is a favorite topic of mine because I get psychosis over 7000 feet. And it is all about my genetics. I am a lowlander by heritage, a Sami from Finland, and I carry genetic changes in NOS1AP that lower my ability to make nitric oxide at altitude. But the other factor is polymorphisms in GCH1, a gene linked to altitude adaptation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5460084/ See GCH1 is the enzyme…
Wow!
Any correlation with blood pressure regulation?