Live data from Hacker News

Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

81–90 of 140 posts

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one clear market-based solution would be pricing transportation appropriately. If people were allowed to not pay for car infrastructure (via parking minimums, restrictive zoning, taxpayer-funded highways, etc. et.) and take their bike and train instead there would be a strong price signal to encourage the healthier activity. I moved to the Netherlands a year ago and have already lost 9kg (about 20 pounds) witho…

This policy would be too unrelated to health. You can have a sedentary person who works from home and orders takeaways. You can have a person who has a car who goes to gym 4 times per week, hikes during weekends and plays tennis 2 times per week and eats healthy food. There is no reason to tax the second person more than the first one.

Public policies are designed to work on populations, massive number of people - not anecdotal evidences like these.

And taxing private transportation / providing incentives for public transportation does not only benefit our health, it also bring other benefits; global warming issues, dependency on fossil fuels, etc

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one clear market-based solution would be pricing transportation appropriately. If people were allowed to not pay for car infrastructure (via parking minimums, restrictive zoning, taxpayer-funded highways, etc. et.) and take their bike and train instead there would be a strong price signal to encourage the healthier activity. I moved to the Netherlands a year ago and have already lost 9kg (about 20 pounds) witho…

This policy would be too unrelated to health. You can have a sedentary person who works from home and orders takeaways. You can have a person who has a car who goes to gym 4 times per week, hikes during weekends and plays tennis 2 times per week and eats healthy food. There is no reason to tax the second person more than the first one.

From the health perspective I agree, but there's a pretty clear reason to tax the second person more, since they have a car: more emissions, road use, infrastructure costs etc.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#83
post #62

Difference is just 5.8 per 1000 person-years. The effect size is very modest. You spend more time in exercising than increase your lifespan. The metaphor is literal, you are running from death and disease, and death is running faster. What we need is review studies ranking lifestyle and health regimes by their effect size and combined effect sizes. Almost certainly combining two effective regimes increases the life-…

Living longer but less fit is no prize. It's also misery to shuffle around and wheeze through every minute of your life.

Exercise improves sleep, improves cognitive function and make tasks easier and more enjoyable. Everything about your life improves.

I bicycle, and I enjoy it. It is one of the reasons I want to live longer.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#84
post #74
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France there seem to be a lot of subsidies for physical activity. For example, each town has a swimming pool, used by kids and adults alike, with very cheap membership. Then there are the associations, each focused on an activity -- tennis, badminton, pilates, etc. If you pay in September for the year, it's again quite cheap. There are of course typical gyms, but the associations are much more popular afaict.

It's cheap only for a few sports. The martial art I'd like to do is at least 200€/year in the few clubs of my town, plus additional fees for administrative stuff like license and "passport". And then membership is often based on somewhat calendar years starting in September, so if you don't register exactly at this moment the cost per month is even higher.

The September issue aside, 20€/mo seems pretty reasonable depending on how often you can go. Especially if there is a coach involved. Typical gyms in my area are about $20/mo just to access the machines and weights. Specialized gyms like Crossfit are all >$100/mo.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#85
post #56
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating long term is a lot more profitable than curing too. One of the worst things that ever happened to pharmaceutical industry profits was the the discovery that most ulcers can be cheaply cured with antibiotics (which won the discovers a well deserved Nobel prize). Even after this ulcer drugs were hugely profitable. I cannot remember the numbers from when I was an analyst covering them (more than 20 years ago!),…

The cost of diet point is absolutely true. I'm a writer and filmmaker living in Europe - i.e.: poor. I've also got a variety of food intolerances and health issues, which compound over time. To help with stomach and sleep issues I'm currently trying to eat only foods I cook from scratch: mostly fish, meat and veg and a little fruit. It's wildly more expensive (and time consuming) than cooking prepackaged food. Fortun…

> pasta, chips, processed meat and other cheap carbs.

Carbs are one aspect of diet. There's very little actual nutrition in any of those things.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#86

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

While it is true that pharma does not earn money if you do not need drugs, I would not blame them for not forcing people into gyms.

Unlike the food industry which directly causes the issue by pushing addictive and unhealthy food, I suspect the underlying problem with treatment vs. prevention is in culture and mentally.

You need to convince people to spend a significant portion of time exercising and eating healthy when they do not yet have issues in order to prevent future issues, taking time away from other, more entertaining things. Even with a goal, exercise is hard work. Treatment on the other hand rarely requires significant effort, and once it is needed it is no longer something you can ignore and postpone like you could with prevention.

At the same time, many conditions which pharma develops treatment for are not fixed with exercise.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#87

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

>>>>Is there a market-based solution to this? And if so, what would it look like? Tax breaks for gyms? More lobbying from Big gym?

Using your point, how would lobbying from big gym be able to compete with the dominate interests of pharm and medical.

The desire to work out comes down to the self determination of the person and I don’t think there is any product that is a substitute or replacement for that.

You don’t need a fancy gym to get rigorous exercise. You can do everything in your home. Walking, running, Push ups, sit ups, squats, dips, are free and easily accessible to do anywhere. biking, swimming, and pull-ups are less accesible but are also relatively easy and cheap, these also are the best exercises one can do to avoid injury.

I would say building more bike roads, walkable spaces, outdoor exercise areas, and emphasize these things early in schooling are the best and most effective. I’m sure it is emphasized highly in Europe where people are generally more in shape.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#88
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating long term is a lot more profitable than curing too. One of the worst things that ever happened to pharmaceutical industry profits was the the discovery that most ulcers can be cheaply cured with antibiotics (which won the discovers a well deserved Nobel prize). Even after this ulcer drugs were hugely profitable. I cannot remember the numbers from when I was an analyst covering them (more than 20 years ago!),…

On the topic of time. I’m a fitness person, I love it and have made it large part of my none professional life. One of the most annoying things I hear fitness people say is: We all have the same 24 hours. Yeh no, people don’t and telling them that isn’t helping. What’s better is to accept people have different lived and see how exercise can be snuck in. Getting off the bus two stops early to get a 10 minute walk for…

I am also a fit person. When I hear someone tell me that they don't have time for doing exercise I do not respond, I just listen and watch. I almost always will see the same person in the next days watching TV, or social media or playing video games for hours.

I do minimal high intensity exercise every single day, it is just routine, because I am busy. Everyone can learn that. In fact I see the biggest number of betting shops in the poorest part of the cities as they are more vulnerable to learning bad habits, as companies are eager to teach those as it is great business.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#89
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating long term is a lot more profitable than curing too. One of the worst things that ever happened to pharmaceutical industry profits was the the discovery that most ulcers can be cheaply cured with antibiotics (which won the discovers a well deserved Nobel prize). Even after this ulcer drugs were hugely profitable. I cannot remember the numbers from when I was an analyst covering them (more than 20 years ago!),…

>the problems are lack of time for exercise and money for a healthy diet. pretty much. You go to some circles that will keep swearing by "Calories in, Calories out", and blaming any detteral of this as laziness. It's basically the equivalent of saying "stop smoking" to a smoker. Yes, they are objectiely right, but also miss all the subtlety of the steps needed to "stop smoking". Time is definitely the biggest factor,…

Where exactly is the nuance in this?

I pity the smoker more because they don’t have to smoke but feel compelled to smoke through addiction.

You have direct control over how many calories you consume and it’s a basic human instinct to eat.

Saying there’s nuanced steps inbetween is just a way to hand wave away someone’s laziness to not tackle the problem.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#90

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

It's unfortunate that the one answer to this from a person actually being prescribed "diet and exercise" is saying they don't want to and that comment is currently greyed out.

Because my less than expert observation is this comment is the kind that gets trotted out consistently by cynical systems thinkers who think they've uncovered sinister forces making the population sick on purpose. This seems to ignore that tremendous effort does go into trying to convince people to eat better and exercise more. Money put into youth sports, mandatory gym classes, amateur athletics as their own carveout for nonprofit activity. Lyndon Johnson launched the presidential fitness challenge in 1966. Michelle Obama tried to make this her entire pet project for 8 years while her husband was in office. Other parts of the Internet are full of people like the greyed out comment making the exact opposite observation to yours. They complain that doctors don't take them seriously or give them medicine, refuse surgeries if you're overweight, and are always prescribing diet and exercise.

For what it's worth, and I guess it doesn't have to be worth much, my personal hobbies outside of work have always consisted of sports and fitness. I was into these things well before I ever discovered my first computer. One consequence is most of the informational/entertainment content I consume is sports and fitness focused, including a few podcasts hosted by both coaches and medical doctors, who also make the same counterarguments to your own observation here. Every major medical association out there, national and international standards bodies, primary care physicians themselves, do in fact prescribe preventive measures like diet and exercise, but either the patients and general population ignore these and don't do it anyway, or they don't seek any sort of remedy until they're too far gone in the first place.

There are clearly plenty of environmental factors causing higher levels of diseases of civilization, ranging from the accessibility of sports and recreation facilities in particular places to a poor walking environment to food abundance, but it certainly isn't just this. Plenty of nobility of old got fat eating minimally processed, locally grown foods that their ancestors ate, before cars and concrete existed. We can see the same thing happening to our own pets. They're seeing elevated rates of obesity and hypertension and stuff you'd never see in the wild, and this happens even when they're fed great food and allowed every opportunity to exercise. The unfortunate reality is evolution equipped mammals with an incredible propensity to conserve energy and overeat when the opportunity to do so is available, presumably because such an environment would have largely been seasonal and not permanent in the distant past. We've made it permanent.

I'm not at all trying to say that we can't do anything society-wide. There are obvious differences between nations and regions. There have to be reasons some places do better than others, but I doubt that market forces are one of those things because those are largely the same everywhere, and the entire world has seen diseases of civilization pop up as soon as people have the chance to overeat and live sedentary lives. Hacker News really hates this for some reason, but things like GLP-1 agonists are going to be necessary if you really want to hit everyone that is affected by this. A whole lot of people simply are not going to eat less and move more no matter what incentives you give them.

Post reply on HN