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Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

bbc.com

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Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#91

Post by 11235813213455 »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #78
gumby wrote: post #28

The photo at the top is most likely a smoker. Increased CO in your bloodstream, and the effect of nicotine, seems to kill capillary circulation in the skin (and likely elsewhere, including the brain, kidneys). One reason folks in their 40s-60s today look so much younger than people the same age from the 80s and before is likely from the reduced prevalence of smoking. And the article mentions diabetes...which also dam…

> and the effect of nicotine I would be surprised if nicotine alone had such deleterious effects. After all, nicotine has been used in energy drinks in Japan for years and viewed as innocuous as caffeine.

exact, the issue with smoking are all the smoke compounds, all more or less harmful for everyone not just the smoker, and the heat/friction/dryness in the throat of the smoker

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#92

Post by giardini »

gumby wrote: post #79
giardini wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gumby says >"I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs." No shit, Sherlock!8-)) But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded. Of course people don't want STDs! STDs for the most part killed people (syphilis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, et al). Only in the last century have we had antibiotics and only in the last 50 years antivirals. Wer…

> But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded...[STDs bad] Of course they are but it’s archaic and thus absurd today when they can be avoided (ubiquitous condoms) and in most cases treated. Not to mention I like to engage in activities with others with a modicum of skill…not like I seek out novice chess or tennis players. Without the STD risk the characteristic has no benefit.

There is always an STD risk, IIRC ~3% per year for condoms, which accumulates each year, always increasing, never decreasing.

So the probability that your condom does not fail in any year is 97%. The likelihood that your condoms don't fail for N years is (0.97)*N. Odds of "no failure" for 10 years is ~74% and for 20 years ~54%. Not so great. You're looking like a fuzzy STD taco -a high risk matchup with no gain. Your gambling friends seek out younger, safer partners. [And that's part of what they're doing, isn't it? After all, studs can calculate probabilities too.]

And that's just for condoms.

What you're describing is not "skill" but a peculiar form of addictive gambling.

And to top it off, there's always the "Lorena Bobbit" factor: a mate slices and dices b/c you gave him/her an STD.

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#93

Post by dredmorbius »

persimmiu wrote: post #75
dredmorbius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically the notions of cleanliness and health are excpetionally strongly aligned with virtue, and filth, disease, ugliness, and disability with sin or evil. This appears across a large range of Eurasian cultures that I'm aware of, and quite probably even more widely elsewhere (though I'm less aware of those). Even such attributes as handedness can be ascribed to virtue or sin, as with, well, sinister , literally…

It may be a primal aversion to illness and its manifestations because of a natural selection favoring the best and the fittest, as anything skewing from that could pose a danger to survival. Let me be clear that I do not justify any discrimination or prejudice but I also acknowledge that there are primal urges at play and it's from this point of view that I speak, not my human own.

I would agree with most of that.

There still comes a point at which the notion that there are physical (as in real-world, manifested, measurable and discoverable) causes to dysfunctions rather than metaphysical or spiritual ones (and I'm including such phenomena as behaviours, social dynamics, and psychology as "physical", inasmuch as they exist within and not beyond the physical world). At which time the concept of moralising pathologies itself seems to become a pathology, hindering rather than assisting in resolving those issues.

The primal aversion model works where such knowledge isn't present, and as that aversion is itself likely wired deeply within our genetics and psyche, it's not something easily banished. But it is advantageous in general to override that tendency, most especially if one's goal is to actually solve the underlying problem, as physical causes imply chains of causality and opportunities to influence outcomes.

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#94

Post by trallnag »

11235813213455 wrote: post #90
graeme wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not at all my experience. You can't just remain at age 22 your whole life, but I've found people of the same age can look radically different. The famous image of the trucker who had the sun on the left but not right side of his face shows the cumulative effect of sun damage: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-accumulates-skin-damage... Normal cases are less extreme but this shows what happens if you do/don…

sun effect is strong without a proper diet and outdoor activity. For example tomatoes are natural sun protection from the inside, much more efficient than creams & cosmetics. So it depends on the person lifestyle, you can't draw general conclusion from that trucker

Are you claiming that tomatoes are better at UV light protection that creams dedicated to UV light protection?

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#95

Post by 11235813213455 »

trallnag wrote: post #94
11235813213455 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sun effect is strong without a proper diet and outdoor activity. For example tomatoes are natural sun protection from the inside, much more efficient than creams & cosmetics. So it depends on the person lifestyle, you can't draw general conclusion from that trucker

Are you claiming that tomatoes are better at UV light protection that creams dedicated to UV light protection?

yes in the long run, claiming that reinforcing skin through diet and overall lifestyle is better than creams

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#96

Post by dredmorbius »

mistrial9 wrote: post #80
gumby wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded...[STDs bad] Of course they are but it’s archaic and thus absurd today when they can be avoided (ubiquitous condoms) and in most cases treated. Not to mention I like to engage in activities with others with a modicum of skill…not like I seek out novice chess or tennis players. Without the STD risk the characteristic has no benefit.

no - because sex has a biological cost. Many mammals have a "heat" cycle where adults become sexually active, then it goes away. Then everyone can return to survival. It is arguable that only certain niche creatures with relatively easy lives, can afford to be sexual more than that.

So long as we're discussing nonhuman animal behaviour, polyamory seems far more the norm than monogomy, so far as I'm aware.

(Definitely outside my wheelhouse.)

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#97

Post by butlike »

dredmorbius wrote: post #73
giardini wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gumby says >"I believe that the absurd “virgin” obsession in some cultures is an archaic holdover to try to avoid STDs." No shit, Sherlock!8-)) But to characterise this as an "absurd ...obsession" is wrongheaded. Of course people don't want STDs! STDs for the most part killed people (syphilis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, et al). Only in the last century have we had antibiotics and only in the last 50 years antivirals. Wer…

There's that nagging little issue that female virginity is far easier to reasonably validate than male virginity. Whilst the disease transmission risks are not similarly asymmetric.

Explain how? Cause as far as I know, the hymen is not a reliable indicator of virginity.

Re: Skin health can be used to predict a number of seemingly unconnected factors

#100

Post by dredmorbius »

butlike wrote: post #97
dredmorbius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's that nagging little issue that female virginity is far easier to reasonably validate than male virginity. Whilst the disease transmission risks are not similarly asymmetric.

Explain how? Cause as far as I know, the hymen is not a reliable indicator of virginity.

"Reasonably" is doing heavy lifting in my earlier comment.

False negatives are possible, but not false positives, of PiV activity.

(Other activities of course leave no such evidence.)

And there's no equivalent physical indicia for males.

Also, as noted, if the concern is disease, then the fact of a test (however fallible) creates a highly asymmetric burden.

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