Is the point of life just to avoid getting cancer?

[7Wannabe5]

BRUTE said: is 7wannabe5 arguing that Wheaton looks healthy to her?

Yes and no. I would have to examine his skin tone and other factors not immediately apparent in person before offering final judgment. I should note for the record that it is likely that my personal judgment is very biased in the direction of signs of high serum testosterone levels during puberty and continuing intake of adequate levels of high nitrogen foodstuffs and high level of strength maintaining manual labor, so a survey over a larger population of human females would yield more accurate verdict. However, it has also been my personal, albeit limited, experience that shoulder to waist ratio is better correlated with some signs of continuing circulatory health in men at mid-life than BMI or waist-measure alone. It also correlates much, much stronger with the consistency of the paunch. Fat that is stored in a manner that makes the belly look and feel more like a bear's belly is less likely to be correlated with circulatory issues than fat that is stored so that it looks and feels more like a man swallowed a hard rubber playground ball. I mean, picture a guy around 55, and he is standing in front of a pawn shop, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, and he is skinny all over except for his very round gut. It doesn't matter whether an old guy is skinny or fat, if he has a gut like that, he is going to die sooner rather than later, and his penis probably doesn't work very well anymore. Some guys who are big, but have more like the bear's gut, are less likely to die or pop the purple.

[theanimal]

BRUTE said: is 7wannabe5 arguing that Wheaton looks healthy to her?

Yes and no. I would have to examine his skin tone and other factors not immediately apparent in person before offering final judgment. I should note for the record that it is likely that my personal judgment is very biased in the direction of signs of high serum testosterone levels during puberty and continuing intake of adequate levels of high nitrogen foodstuffs and high level of strength maintaining manual labor, so a survey over a larger population of human females would yield more accurate verdict. However, it has also been my personal, albeit limited, experience that shoulder to waist ratio is better correlated with some signs of continuing circulatory health in men at mid-life than BMI or waist-measure alone. It also correlates much, much stronger with the consistency of the paunch. Fat that is stored in a manner that makes the belly look and feel more like a bear's belly is less likely to be correlated with circulatory issues than fat that is stored so that it looks and feels more like a man swallowed a hard rubber playground ball. I mean, picture a guy around 55, and he is standing in front of a pawn shop, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, and he is skinny all over except for his very round gut. It doesn't matter whether an old guy is skinny or fat, if he has a gut like that, he is going to die sooner rather than later, and his penis probably doesn't work very well anymore. Some guys who are big, but have more like the bear's gut, are less likely to die or pop the purple.

Did you read this somewhere or is this just personal opinion? It is my understanding that there is no such thing as being in a good state of obesity. Wheaton seems/looks obese.

[BRUTE]

nothing against Paul Wheaton, but his shoulder-to-belly ratio seems unhealthy to brute. there's probably little harm in having a little "bear fat", as 7wannabe5 calls it, but brute would argue that this human male is suffering from extreme insulin resistance, probably has terrible blood sugar and triglycerides, and is not very healthy in this regard.

[jennypenny]

Hm, it feels a little hinky to be discussing someone's weight and speculating on their health, especially someone in the extended ERE family.

[7Wannabe5]

Well, it's not a good example, because I know that he is extremely intelligent, has a dominant manner, and is doing very valuable work towards improving the health of the ecosystem that supports all human health, so I would be inclined to allow him to throw me on top of a hugel-bed, if I were to make his acquaintance and he was not in strict monogamous contract with other, and he was inclined towards such behavior himself. Also, it is not nice to talk about people who are not here to offer information or defend themselves. I am sorry if I am the one who got this dialogue started.

[enigmaT120]

You sure get a lot out of a random internet picture of strangers!

[Dragline]

If you are interested in exploring aggregate probabilities of death in the US for a variety of diseases, ages, genders and locations, the CDC has what they call a "Wonder" Calculator:

http://wonder.cdc.gov/cmf-icd10.html

I wonder why they call it that, though.

[7Wannabe5]

Wide-ranging OnLine Data for Epidemiologic Research

Very cool!!!

[Ego]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/311903.php

A team used data from the "Study of Men Born in 1913." In total, 792 men were followed for 45 years. The participants were all 50-year-old men when they were recruited in Gothenburg in 1963.

In 1967, the group's members all completed an exercise test; additionally, 656 of the cohort carried out a maximum exercise test where they were required to push themselves to the limit. Roughly once every 10 years, up until 2012, physical examinations were performed.

A clear pattern emerged: each tertile increase in VO2 max predicted a 21 percent lower risk of death over the 45-year course of the study.

"We found that low aerobic capacity was associated with increased rates of death. The association between exercise capacity and all-cause death was graded, with the strongest risk in the tertile with the lowest maximum aerobic capacity. The effect of aerobic capacity on risk of death was second only to smoking."

[BRUTE]

brute cannot find a link to the actual study in that article. it would be interesting to find out the modality with which VO2 max was measured, as it can be extremely dependent on modality. i.e. some humans are amazing runners, but it doesn't translate to bicycling or swimming.

[jennypenny]

Modern life is killing our children: Cancer rate in young people up 40 per cent in 16 years

I was surprised to see hair dryers listed. That was one I hadn't heard. I checked and it's the ionic ones that are suspected of causing cancer, which unfortunately mine is.

[Dragline]

That's a really good example of innumerate reporting -- a/k/a/ why a high percentage of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing. Let's take a look at what the numbers actually say apart from the hysterical headline. Let's first assume these figures are 100% true and verifiable.

"The rise is most apparent in teenagers and young adults aged between 15 and 24, where the incident rate has risen from around 10 cases in 100,000 to nearly 16.

Researchers say that although some of the rise can be explained by improvements in cancer diagnoses and more screening, the majority is probably caused by environmental factors.

Dr Denis Henshaw, Professor of Human Radiation Effects at Bristol University, the scientific adviser for Children with Cancer UK, said air pollution was by far the biggest culprit, accounting for around 40 per cent of the rise, but other elements of modern lifestyles are also to blame.

Among these are obesity, pesticides and solvents inhaled during pregnancy, circadian rhythm disruption through too much bright light at night, radiation from x-rays and CT scans, smoking during and after pregnancy, magnetic fields from power lines, gadgets in homes, and potentially, radiation from mobile phones."

Analyzing this data:

First, we can see that the baseline 10-year risk of cancer in this population is 10 in 100,000, or 0.01%. Ask yourself if that is really a risk -- these are roughly the same odds that you will be injured by a toilet in a given year.

Second, they report that these odds have increased to 0.016%. They call this a "40% increase", but its way worse than that -- ITS A 60% INCREASE -- NOW RUN FOR THE HILLS. It is an increase of 0.006%, dammit. Yes, I can see what might have happened -- they are only talking about the 10-year cohort with the largest rise -- meaning that for kids under 15 (the cohort not illustrated here), the increase is probably more like 20%, or 0.002%. For some ages, the risk might even have gone down.

Still, that toilet is going to be way more dangerous over a ten year period, even for those "high-risk" 15-24 year olds.

Ok, sticking with those high-riskers, some of the increase is due to better diagnoses, but the majority, say 0.004% is due to environmental factors. Forty percent of that is due to air pollution, so 60% -- or an increase of 0.0024% -- is attributable to EVERYTHING ELSE. If each of the 10 other factors is equally weighted just for ballpark purposes (I'd overweight obesity if anything), that means any given one of those factors could increase the possibility of a whopping 0.00024%.

I think we should worry more about dangerous toilets. Don't even get me started on bathtubs.

[George the original one]

Perception of risk may partly depend on genetic predisposition to cancer. Not an issue for my family line, but there are other family lines who can get cancers like some girls from the wrong side of the tracks get pregnant.

[BRUTE]

yea, brute just heard a talk that 75% of not getting cancer is being lucky. with some exceptions like working in a coal mine or being a heavy smoker, behavior is just the icing on the cake for most humans.