Category Archives: Longevity

From NPR:

The average life expectancy for Americans shortened by over seven months [in 2021], according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That decrease follows an already big decline of 1.8 years in 2020. As a result, the expected life span of someone born in the U.S. is now 76.4 years — the shortest it has been in nearly two decades.

But we still have the best healthcare system in the world, right? Not if you judge it by life expectancy. From Health System Tracker:

Life expectancy in the U.S. and peer countries generally increased from 1980-2019, but decreased in most countries in 2020 due to COVID-19. From 2020 to 2021, life expectancy at birth began to rebound in most comparable countries while it continued to decline in the U.S. The CDC estimates life expectancy at birth in the U.S. decreased to 76.1 years in 2021, down 2.7 years from 78.8 years in 2019 and down 0.9 years from 2020. The average life expectancy at birth among comparable countries was 82.4 years in 2021, down 0.2 years from 2019 and up 0.4 years from 2020. 

Click the article links for potential explanations.

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: Healthy diet, exercise, and weight management improve longevity. Let me help you.

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From DailyMail:

Last year, more than 10,000 people in Canada – astonishingly that’s over three percent of all deaths there – ended their lives via euthanasia, an increase of a third on the previous year. And it’s likely to keep rising: next year, Canada is set to allow people to die exclusively for mental health reasons.

Only last week, a jaw-dropping story emerged of how, five years into an infuriating battle to obtain a stairlift for her home, Canadian army veteran and Paralympian Christine Gauthier was offered an extraordinary alternative.

A Canadian official told her in 2019 that if her life was so difficult and she so ‘desperate’, the government would help her to kill herself. ‘I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAiD, medical assistance in dying,’ the paraplegic ex-army corporal testified to Canadian MP

God gave me life. It’s up to God, not me, when it’s over. Over 40 years of practicing medicine, I’ve never had an patient ask me to “put them down,” like we would a cherished pet that was suffering during impending death.

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: On a lighter note…

A couple of dietitians did an massive literature review looking for evidence that diet has an effect on major health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Sounds interesting, and similar to my own obsessive review done between 1995 and 2005. It bothers me that “hypertension” is misspelled in the abstract. What other mistakes were made?

For the researchers’ conclusions, you have to pay $27.95 USD.

Abstract from the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:

Appropriate diet can prevent, manage, or reverse noncommunicable health conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Consequently, the public’s interest in diet and nutrition has fueled the multi-billion-dollar weight loss industry and elevated its standing on social media and the internet. Although many dietary approaches are popular, their universal effectiveness and risks across overall populations are not clear. The objective of this scoping review was to identify and characterize systematic reviews (SRs) examining diet or fasting (intermittent energy restriction [IER]) interventions among adults who are healthy or may have chronic disease. An in-depth literature search of six databases was conducted for SRs published between January 2010 and February 2020. A total of 22,385 SRs were retrieved, and 1,017 full-text articles were screened for eligibility. Of these, 92 SRs met inclusion criteria. Covered diets were organized into 12 categories: high/restricted carbohydrate (n = 30), Mediterranean, Nordic, and Tibetan (n = 19), restricted or modified fat (n = 17), various vegetarian diets (n = 16), glycemic index (n = 13), high protein (n = 12), IER (n = 11), meal replacements (n = 11), paleolithic (n = 8), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypretension (DASH; n = 6), Atkins, South Beach, and Zone (n = 5), and eight other brand diets (n = 4). Intermediate outcomes, such as body weight or composition and cardiometabolic, were commonly reported. Abundant evidence was found exploring dietary approaches in the general population. However, heterogeneity of diet definitions, focus on single macronutrients, and infrequent macronutrient subanalyses were observed. Based on this scoping review, the Evidence Analysis Center prioritized the need to collate evidence related to macronutrient modification, specifically restricted carbohydrate diets.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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You’re not familiar with John Wilder but you should be. Take the following with a grain of salt; Wilder is a jokester:

Medical care.  In general, the very best medical advice I’ve seen says to stay away from doctors as much as you can.  Eat healthy food.  Get exercise.  Stay hydrated.  Wash your hands.  Try not to get crushed under heavy things.  Avoid Chicago.

The problem is that none of this is very profitable for the medical industry.  Healthy people are lousy customers.  Goldman Sachs® asked it themselves, “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”  Yes, this is a real quote.

Well, no, curing patients doesn’t work for big financial companies – they hate that idea.  No one makes money off of diet foods if you maintain a healthy weight.  No one makes money off of insulin if you can avoid diabetes.  And they actually want you to get cancer.  This is again a comment from the same Goldman Sachs® report:  “Where an incident pool remains stable (e.g., in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise.”

Hmmm.  Does the Pfizer™ vaccine make more sense now?  If they have their way, boosting will be an annual event.  Does that sound sustainable?  I’m sure Goldman Sachs© is thrilled.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/the-modern-world-part-iii-you-exist-to-be-farmed/

Let me help you stay away from doctors.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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