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Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

bmj.com

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Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#41

Post by leovailati »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #35
WhompingWindows wrote: post #3

"Drug overdoses were the leading cause of increased mortality in midlife in each population, but mortality also increased for alcohol related conditions, suicides, and organ diseases involving multiple body systems." Perhaps we can start treating addiction like a disease and not a moral failing?

This is the kind of snide remark that drives me crazy. Treating addiction as a disease will not fix anything except put more money in the drug companies pockets (which is why they push this narrative). Treating diseases is amazingly more ineffective than preventing the disease. Preventing addiction is not something we like to talk about. Our drug companies and government have been amazingly complicity in pushing pain…

That is a very good point. When you talk about preventing addiction, are you referring to the war on drugs or providing quality of life improvements that might steer people away from drugs in the first place?

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#42

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38
bilbo0s wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it specifically said that the overdose trend is more pronounced in females . But what's not said seems to also be relevant to the issue you raise. For instance, for suicides, I'd wager the trend is more pronounced for males. (Though they didn't call that out. So that may or may not be the case). But whether those in poor mental health are committing suicide, or seeking escape in opioids and other drugs, the…

Women are more likely to attempt suicides, men are more successful in their attempts. https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

If we adjusted for the period in which they were suicidal, and calculated how many days per suicide attempt existed, would women still have a higher number? That would seem a better measure given that the simple stats of total attempts in general means that a man who commits suicide counts for less than a woman who attempts many times but never commits.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#43

Post by skh »

mikert5671 wrote: post #32
skh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly feels to each person that they are in control of their decisions. However, there is strong, convincing evidence that people are easily influenced and often times can be led to make bad decisions. This is true for all of us. I’ve never had an inclination towards drugs but I know this has much less to do with my morality or lack of personal failings and much more to do with luck. It’s ok to view addicts wi…

Were all in control of our own lives, we live according to ourselves. The buck stops with me on how I live my life

You seem very sure of yourself in this. Perhaps read up on the topic more than you already have. Read Nudge and other such books by behavioral economists. There are experts in neuroscience who disagree with your view. It’s worth considering how this is possible.

https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-choice-psychology-...

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=are%20we%20in%20contro...

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#44

Post by cryoshon »

dominotw wrote: post #16
nautilus12 wrote: post #14

We are too stressed in the US. Our companies don't treat employees like people, treat them like automotas. No paternity leave, very very little maternity leave. 2 weeks vacation. We are working too hard and burning our selves out.

> we are working too hard and burning our selves out. Are we? Every single medium-big sized company I've worked was overstaffed to the gills, you could fire about 40-60% of ppl and no one would notice. If you work for any online ecommerce company you would notice that their main shopping time is during work hours.

i agree regarding the widespread overstaffing and the ubiquitous e-loafing, but the issue is more complicated than that.

it's possible to not do very much work at work but still suffer from the bad lifestyle factors:

sitting all day, being constantly stressed regarding stability, being constantly reminded of your social status (or lack thereof), not having enough time after work to do errands or take care of children, not having enough unbroken chunks of vacation time without having to answer an email or do any work, not getting paid enough to comfortably cover all the bills, being reminded of how hard it will be to make ends meet if you get seriously ill, etc.

even if these excess employees were actually doing necessary work all of the time, these problems wouldn't go away. they might even get worse.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#45

Post by Alex3917 »

st26 wrote: post #24
Alex3917 wrote: post #15

It’s gotten to the point where doctors are no longer strongly pushing meeting all the RDIs for eating healthy and exercising if you’d otherwise be working, since (absent other risk factors) how much earning power you have at 35 is a better predictor of your total life expectancy than whatever amount of permanent damage you’d do to your body before then.

That sounds very anecdotal.

Almost definitely. I'm seeing this move toward pragmatism across medicine though. E.g. even my infant daughter is getting recommendations from her pediatrician that don't adhere strictly to the AAP or WHO guidelines.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#46

Post by cryoshon »

nautilus12 wrote: post #14

We are too stressed in the US. Our companies don't treat employees like people, treat them like automotas. No paternity leave, very very little maternity leave. 2 weeks vacation. We are working too hard and burning our selves out.

agreed.

it turns out that when people are treated like capital, they depreciate, much like other forms of capital.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#47

Post by watwut »

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #42
toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are more likely to attempt suicides, men are more successful in their attempts. https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

If we adjusted for the period in which they were suicidal, and calculated how many days per suicide attempt existed, would women still have a higher number? That would seem a better measure given that the simple stats of total attempts in general means that a man who commits suicide counts for less than a woman who attempts many times but never commits.

People dont try suicide for days. They try once and are either rescued or not. Next suicide attempt does not happen next day, it happens months/years later. It also have less to do with commitment and more to do with choosen method. Men tend to use guns or something of the sort while women are more likely to attempt to overdose - so there is enough time to find you.

I remember reading that most people in usa try suicide once and rarely second time.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#48

Post by OliverJones »

dominotw wrote: post #18
WhompingWindows wrote: post #3

"Drug overdoses were the leading cause of increased mortality in midlife in each population, but mortality also increased for alcohol related conditions, suicides, and organ diseases involving multiple body systems." Perhaps we can start treating addiction like a disease and not a moral failing?

> Perhaps we can start treating addiction like a disease and not a moral failing? Curious. What advantages would that change of mindset bring?

Handling opiod addiction as a disease starts with decriminalizing the drug. (It should remain a controlled substance, of course).

The next step is to make appropriate doses available to addicts at a cost that eradicates the illegal trade. These doses are administered in clinics, under the supervision of pharmacists and other professionals. This enables addicts to live their lives. The doses are offered in liquid form, not tablets. When mild and pure doses are readily available, the incentive to steal fentanyl and cut it with baby formula goes away.

The next step is to encourage addicts to reduce their dosages and do other things to get their addictions under control.

Along with all this, provide strong continuing education to working medical professionals about pain medication and addiction. Make it a point of pride among them to avoid getting their patients addicted.

The present system in the US is dominated by 12-step thinking. https://www.projectknow.com/research/alcoholics-anonymous-12... While 12-step programs help a great many people, they have two problems.

1. The whole "nature of our wrongs" approach (moral failing).

2. The cold-turkey approach, which ignores the possibility of physiological help to get through physiological withdrawal, and makes relapses more likely.

Other paths to treating addiction besides 12-step-centric ones are worth trying.

Portugal is following this path with reasonable success.

In the US it's hard to make this change. More than a century of systematic demonization of addicts has made the "moral failing" approach the norm. And, successful decriminalization of opiods will throw a lot of law enforcement people out of work.

But it's still worth trying, especially considering how many other things aren't working.

It would be good to compel Purdue Labs and other opiod-peddling drug marketers to disgorge some profits to help finance experiments in this kind of thing.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#49

Post by vanderZwan »

sturgill wrote: post #28
vanderZwan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description is very different from treating it as something to punish people for, which is what usually is meant with "moral failing" in this context.

Even that I'm on the fence about. It can be perfectly appropriate to punish people for making poor choices while at the same time helping them overcome some of the natural consequences of those choices. I don't know where I stand on the issue of incarcerating people for drug use. But on its face I am not opposed to putting people in jail for selling highly addictive substances to young kids. This is one issue I have…

> It can be perfectly appropriate to punish people for making poor choices while at the same time helping them overcome some of the natural consequences of those choices.

Then we are still not talking about the same kind of punishment. I refer more to "they did this to themselves and have it coming" types of attitudes, of the self-serving moral outrage kind[0]. Which is not the kind of "tough love" you are talking about.

[0] http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/01/moral-outrage-is-self-serv...

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#50

Post by [deleted] »

bilbo0s wrote: post #23

Sounds like Americans have had a marked decrease in mental and physical health over the time period analyzed. (1999-2016). I think maybe easier access to healthcare, mental and physical, could help? Also a lot of this might be signs of an overworked populace? (How many jobs are people working to make ends meet? Do the ends meet after all the jobs are worked? etc). So we should probably look at that as well. But I thi…

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