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What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

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Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#11

Post by michaelochurch »

geoka9 wrote: post #8
Tossrock wrote: post #3

There are some questionable assertions in this article. eg, "Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings had lower cancer rates later in life than people of similar age who had not been exposed to radiation " has the ref http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/095530006010859... which a) has nothing to do with Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and b) found that low dose radiation in fact increased cancer risk (shock!)…

Also: "Walking around with a 40-pound backpack has the opposite effect of carrying an extra 40 pounds of belly fat." Actually walking around with a 40-pound backpack is a bad idea, as compared to carrying the weight at the level of your belly (all other things being equal) because the risk of back damage is much higher.

Right. Belly fat is stored there because a central location is best for the body (although it was sufficiently rare in our evolutionary ascent to afford 40 pounds of belly fat that our bodies didn't adapt well to it, which is why it's so bad for us). In terms of structural imposition on the body, the backpack is worse.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#13

Post by hollerith »

Tossrock wrote: post #3

There are some questionable assertions in this article. eg, "Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings had lower cancer rates later in life than people of similar age who had not been exposed to radiation " has the ref http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/095530006010859... which a) has nothing to do with Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and b) found that low dose radiation in fact increased cancer risk (shock!)…

Also:

"Paraquat is the chemical name for the active ingredient in Agent Orange."

In reality, paraquat is very different from the active ingredients in Agent Orange (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T).

For instance, a molecule of paraquat contains 2 nitrogen atoms and no oxygen atoms whereas a molecule of 2,4-D or 2,4,5-T contains no nitrogen and 3 oxygen atoms.

The only similarity between them that I know of is that they are both used as herbicides.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#14

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #10

I'm very skeptical. Aging isn't there because our genes "need" it. It's there because our genes don't need long lifespans. The gain in reproductive viability that we'd get with a >60 year natural lifespan just isn't enough to justify the constraint that a much longer (or indefinite) lifespan would impose on our genetic "search space". We can live forever and be simple, or we can be complex and get a job done and die.…

[deleted]

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#15

Post by cnlwsu »

Hormesis as a general concept reeks of me of the "like cures like" of Homeopathy. This is mentioned in the article even. "A little snake venom is a cure to snake venom" is commonly used when explaining homeopathy. There may be some scenarios that exhibit this behavior but it still means your relaying on a fallacy of composition to turn it into something that can be sold as a life style.

Why do we have to simplify things and try to apply sweeping generalizations? The universe is complex. Things that apply one way to somethings do not apply that way to others.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#16

Post by Udo »

scriptman wrote: post #9

This sounds a lot like Taleb's Antifragile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile

In reality it's the other way around: Antifragile sounds like a lot of principles in nature, or rather: observations about nature that have been made a long time ago. However, this article sounds scientific but really isn't, as others in this thread have already pointed out.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#17

Post by rdlecler1 »

To quote Dobzhansky, this is all becomes obvious in the light of evolution. A challenging environment removes those cells that accumulate mutations. (i) In challenging or resource constrained environments mutated cells tend to behave more aberrantly and our immune system responds by attacking them (this is why radiation therapy works). (ii) Mutated cells will be more prone to pathogenic infection. In either case, we use the external world as a kind of extended immune system or to police our bodies against cellular mutiny.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#18

Post by omegaham »

michaelochurch wrote: post #11
geoka9 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: "Walking around with a 40-pound backpack has the opposite effect of carrying an extra 40 pounds of belly fat." Actually walking around with a 40-pound backpack is a bad idea, as compared to carrying the weight at the level of your belly (all other things being equal) because the risk of back damage is much higher.

Right. Belly fat is stored there because a central location is best for the body (although it was sufficiently rare in our evolutionary ascent to afford 40 pounds of belly fat that our bodies didn't adapt well to it, which is why it's so bad for us). In terms of structural imposition on the body, the backpack is worse.

Incidentally, anyone who's hiked will tell you that the best position for heavy weight is at the very top of the pack. The reason is that this puts most of the weight on your hips rather than your back.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#19

Post by abandonliberty »

A lot of this makes sense in the new deterministic model of aging.

It argues that aging is not a collection of mutations, the old/popular model, but instead a programmed outcome of our genes that never experienced selective pressure.

We are like a building, but the builders never know when they are done and eventually start doing counterproductive work that destroys us.

Kicking in a response to injury or pathogen may cause cells to run programs that are less detrimental to our continued survival.

Edit: Let me clarify that this in no way should be taken as an endorsement of the author's claims. I have proposed a possible model that would make the claims reasonable, but haven't examined them closely. There is a lot of quackery out there.

Re: What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

#20

Post by heleph »

Tossrock wrote: post #3

There are some questionable assertions in this article. eg, "Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings had lower cancer rates later in life than people of similar age who had not been exposed to radiation " has the ref http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/095530006010859... which a) has nothing to do with Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and b) found that low dose radiation in fact increased cancer risk (shock!)…

Also if you look at the skin of older people from a sunny place compared to the skin of people from an overcast place, it's noticeably tougher and more wrinkled.

I'm an Australian who has lived the last ten years in the UK and my older Australian relatives definitely have older looking skin than my husband's UK-based family.

Plus the rate of skin cancer is definitely higher in Australia. It is a real public health issue there.

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