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A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are In Decline (nytimes.com) 321

Posted by EditorDavid from the what's-up,-doc? dept.
Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an article from the New York Times: Something strange is going on in medicine. Major diseases, like colon cancer, dementia and heart disease, are waning in wealthy countries, and improved diagnosis and treatment cannot fully explain it...it looks as if people in the United States and some other wealthy countries are, unexpectedly, starting to beat back the diseases of aging. The leading killers are still the leading killers -- cancer, heart disease, stroke -- but they are occurring later in life, and people in general are living longer in good health.
The Times cites one researcher's pet theory that the cellular process of aging itself may be gradually changing in humans' favor.
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A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are In Decline More

A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are In Decline

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  • See? Aging reversal (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    is the future. Not space, not 3D printed houses. Biotechnology, whether the sci-fi type or simply eating better, or just believing you won't age... Have you seen pictures of 20-somethings from 50 or more years ago? They all look 40. Not these days!

    • Yeah. Biotechnology is one of the areas I expect to vastly improve our lives in the next few decades. Its only a few years since we've found out how to "sed -i" the genome, and there are lots of things we'll discover.

      Dying from age won't be a problem for anyone in 2100 I guess, at least for some parts of the society. Maybe all parts, maybe not.

    • Otherwise, it must be all the antibiotics and steroids in our food chain....

      • Re:No smoking and clean water (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Beezlebub33 ( 1220368 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @10:25AM (#52489245)

        Or it could be lack of lead in our gasoline, or any of a number of other pollutants that have been removed. Or reduced sulfur rain. Or maybe it is the effect of Flintstone vitamins between the ages of 5-10 with long term effects. Every once in a while we see a new report that says 'Substance X causes 20% increase in Disease Y', which nobody had noticed before, or 'Eating more Z reduces chance of Disease D'. It would not be surprising if some substance (or potentially a mix of substances that interact in unknown ways) that were a contributing factor to many diseases. It will take many, many years of statistical studies to identify the relationships. Look how long it has taken for someone to figure out that BPA should not be used to make bottles you drink out of.

        In addition to the idea that maybe we need better statistical understanding of environment on the human body, we also should be very careful with what pollutants we are putting into the environment. To pick a hot topic, what is the long term effect of microbeads in health care products, or fracking chemicals? We really, really don't know. This sort of thing should lead to a surplus of caution.

      • Maybe it's due to global warming .... oh, wait.

    • Re:See? Aging reversal (Score:5, Funny)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @09:11AM (#52488671) Journal

      Have you seen pictures of 20-somethings from 50 or more years ago? They all look 40.

      I know, right? Back in my day, 3 year olds looked 18.

      When I was four, my dad used to send me to the store for a case of Schlitz and a carton of Chesterfields. And give me the keys to the car.

  • Environmental impacts? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @06:33AM (#52487811)
    Previous generations worked with asbestos without precautions they would have to have today, had lead in the petrol, and eat food with additives that are now banned. Not to mention rarely using sunscreen and smoking more. It's hardly a surprise that things are improving.

    • Re:Environmental impacts? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Isca ( 550291 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @06:50AM (#52487889)
      In addition, the largest drop has been people under 50. People under 50 have never been exposed to above ground nuclear tests. Those stopped in 1963. And for the last decade at least, most urban areas of the country have not even allowed smoking in bars and restaurants, and we've had very effective maintenance medicines for common high blood pressure issues, heart related conditions, type 2 diabetes and others. These conditions being controlled help keep our bodies healthier and most likely allow our own immune systems to fight off more serious conditions.

    • Re:Environmental impacts? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:02AM (#52487951)

      There's a theory that I first heard from Richard Dawkings about how to most reliably raise the average age of human population. In short, have children as late as possible (in the 30s and 40s to begin with, increasing with future generations). The thing is, in evolutionary terms the genes that kill you before procreation are actively selected against; yet those that kill you just as reliably later in life are passed on. So if you have children at 40 (disregarding the complications and risks) it's likely that they won't inherit genes that are likely to kill them in their 30s. Thus the population in western "1st world" countries is aging, having children later and this may also be a contributing factor to the phenomenon.

      • I don't think that will work, since there are very few genetic diseases that kill you between 20 and 40 and that effect would be probably overwhelmed by the fact that the rate a genetic disease increases the later you have children.

      • There's a theory that I first heard from Richard Dawkings about how to most reliably raise the average age of human population. In short, have children as late as possible

        The problem with that idea is that your DNA is most valuable when you are young. As you age its quality decreases, especially in men. Having an older father is closely linked to respiratory problems, for example, and several other defects as well.

        So if you have children at 40 (disregarding the complications and risks)

        Yeah, you just can't disregard things and then claim there's a valid argument. You have to take things into account, and that argument doesn't.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )

          The problem with that idea is that your DNA is most valuable when you are young. As you age its quality decreases, especially in men.

          Which is EXACTLY why this method works at increasing lifespan. Those who CAN have healthy kids after 40 are healthier than average, thus selecting for positive traits.

      • I'm not sure that outweighs the documented higher rates of autism, Down's Syndrome, and other developmental defects directly attributable to aging of both mother, and (recently recognized) father?

      • Senility in apes (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:51AM (#52488553) Homepage

        The thing is, in evolutionary terms the genes that kill you before procreation are actively selected against; yet those that kill you just as reliably later in life are passed on.

        Well not exactly.
        The prevalence of senility in all the other apes (except humans) begs to differ.

        I'm not saying that Richard Dawkins is wrong, I'm just saying that he's simplifying a little bit for the purpose of an explanation, but reality always more complex in the tiny details.

        The thing is, we human have invented one peculiar concept: the grandmother.

        In most other species of apes, individuals don't serve a purpose once they're past their reproductive age. On the countrary, they are using up valuable resources that might be put to better use by the young and the individual that still reproduce (in the same pack/tribe/etc.)
        Thus in most other species of apes, senile degenerescence seems to be actually the norm.
        Past a certain age (not far from the end of reproductive life) most apes turn senile rather quickly.

        There's a small advantage if individuals don't live too long after they stop reproducing, because it leaves more food for the younger individuals of the pack/tribe (individuals who share the same genetic mix - being the same extended family - and thus this is the special form of 'sacrifice' which might actually get selected for. Unlike 'lemmings suicide' urban legend). A gene leading to such situation will be selected for, because it leads to an increased number of individual carrying a copy of the gene, by optimising which individual keep reproducing.

        Compare the situation with humans:
        disease like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, vascular dementia, Huntington's and other neurodegenerative and senile diseases are *diseases*. I.e.: special conditions that only affect a small proportion of the population.
        Most individual go through their later years *without suffering* from any of the above (in stark contrast of the remaining apes).
        Why so? Grand mothers (and grand parents in general).
        In human specie individual who are past their reproductive age will help raising the youngest generation (their grand children and grand nephews).
        They take care of the youngs and, once language has been developped, they can also pass their knowledge by telling stories giving explanations...
        Even if an individual isn't reproducing anymore, and even if an individual isn't in their prime anymore, these individuals are *still* very valuable for the pack/tribe.
        Thus there's a very light incentive to select for individual who can stay functionnal in their late years. Even if they don't directly pass copies of their own genes anymore, they do help indirectly the survival of the rest of the pack/tribe and thus helps indirectly that the extended family grows (which shares genes with them).
        (it's similar to the type of indirect help that you see in a beehive/anthill. Most individual are infertile worker. But because they are all very closely related, by helping they increase the survival chance of other individuals carrying the same genes even without reproducing.)

        So if you have children at 40 (disregarding the complications and risks) it's likely that they won't inherit genes that are likely to kill them in their 30s. Thus the population in western "1st world" countries is aging, having children later and this may also be a contributing factor to the phenomenon.

        Also the *reason* while parents decide to have children later in life also plays a role.
        Most of such parent usually decide to reproduce later in life because of *career* reasons: They want to be in a better paying position to be better able to afford the children.
        This has the direct effect on the availability of healthcare and eraly diagnostics.

        But has again a very slight effect on the family structure.
        Chance are high that both parent will try to get back to their highly paid position after the birth, and thus grand parents might also again play a very

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @09:30AM (#52488787)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • So if you have children at 40 (disregarding the complications and risks) it's likely that they won't inherit genes that are likely to kill them in their 30s. Thus the population in western "1st world" countries is aging, having children later and this may also be a contributing factor to the phenomenon.

        The obvious problem in this is that this same trend is also causing the increase in autism in those same countries. Conditions in the autism spectrum won't negatively impact the life span of an individual, but most of those afflicted struggle to become contributing members of society. Now realistically speaking, the chances aren't exactly astronomical that if you are 35+ and you have a child that they will have this condition. But you are rolling the dice at that point and it would be disastrous for everyon

    • There may be some environmental factors as well but I'd suspect diet as the primary driver of this. We're well past the 80s and early 90s where everyone thought that fat was the devil and sugar and sugar replacements were a great alternative to flavoring your food and everyone drinks a liter of coke or pepsi a day. I'd expect this has to do with the swing back toward actual food.
    • Really 200 years ago they had lead in the petrol and ate food with additives? WTF

      Food additives and lead in petrol really only started after WW! (and for the most part after WWII). That's a very narrow window of exposure and is not the standard for examining human life.

    • Re:Environmental impacts? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @09:05AM (#52488645) Journal

      Smoking is probably the biggest factor, although drinking less helps a bit as well. It would be amusing to see if something reviled, like high fructose corn syrup, was partially responsible for decreasing colon cancer. Granted - the people dying now are around 80, and so their eating/living habits to produce their health will be interesting to compare to todays younger people.

    • Re:Environmental impacts? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by clovis ( 4684 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @10:09AM (#52489097)

      Maybe something like that.
      The paper says the falloff in these diseases began in the 1960's, so we're talking about people born late 1800's to early 1900's.
      It would not be due to asbestos use/disuse. Asbestos was a fairly new product - peak usage was around the 1960's and the symptoms take many years to decades to show, so if there were a relationship between the major diseases and asbestos, it would suggest that asbestos is good for you. (Note: I'm saying this means there is no relationship; I am not claiming that asbestos is good for you)

      Same for food additives - the first generation to experience the falloff in diseases weren't raised on the wide rage of additives we have today, but rather just salt and nitrites for preservation. The drop-off in use of nitrites may explain some of the dropoff in colon cancer rates, but that is controversial.

      The generation that would be dying in the 1960's and after would be the last generation that grew up dependent upon wood fires for heating and cooking .
      Burning wood produces a witch's brew of chemicals including aromatic hydrocarbons.
      And also there's the drop-off in cigarette smoking in recent generations.

      Another thing that's different is recent generations are the first in which most people did not have the panoply of childhood diseases that used to be so common.
      Measles, mumps, the chicken pox, etc have many serious side effects.

  • But not for me... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I've been diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome, so I'll be dying of heart failure eventually. Probably when my batteries are flat, or passing through a security scanner, which temporarily disables my defibrilator. Or when someone hacks my heart, given that my ICD is Wi-Fi enabled. Yes, I can be hacked. My cardiologist says not to worry about it, because there's not many people clever enough to hack me. I have my doubts, as the manufacturer won't tell me how my heart is secured "for obvious security reasons"

  • Shit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by zm ( 257549 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:04AM (#52487957) Homepage
    My pension plan is in even worse condition now...

  • Causes of death (Score:3)

    by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:05AM (#52487959) Journal

    The causes of death know only one thing, and it's that they will always add up to 100%.

  • It's those HFCS, pesticide-laden, high-calorie french fries made from artificial chemical GMO potatoes from China that's killing off all the cancer and other diseased cells.

    Next up: the healthy cells.

    OK, let's try to be serious again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

      Actually, the food in the Western nations is still more "chemicalled" that food elsewhere. . . so this could actually be, perversely, somewhat correct.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Most of the chemical hysteria in general is driven by folks completely ignorant of basic chemistry knowledge. Just recently I learned that the fad of apricot kernels is coming back to health food stores. Apricot kernels, for those who don't know, contain a 100% natural compound that readily breaks down into "no fucking kidding" cyanide in the gut. The bag even warns the consumer not to eat more than 20g per day. The marketing delineation of natural vs artificial does not follow the reality of chemistry or b

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

          Most of the hysteria of ALL types, is driven by people ignorant of pretty much all types of basic knowledge. . .

          Don't get me started on things that our new hires claim that "Everybody knows. . . "

          The schools these days, to quote Sister Mary Elizabeth (my elementary/parochial school principal. . .) make Baby Jesus cry. . . (grin)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Megol ( 3135005 )

          But cyanide is natural so it must be healthy!

    • It may not even have anything to do with food. Since lead was shown to be extremely toxic and therefore banned from gasoline, health should go up. It may be the air that we breathe that causes it.

  • Pretty sure I know why these are on the decline (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vermonter ( 2683811 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:24AM (#52488039)
    I'm willing to bet it is because sometime around 1990 or so we took something out of our diets... some synthetic additive or something, that was a big player in many cancers, but was never linked.

  • The article reminded me of "The House on the Hill" in which statistical outliers (ie immortals) are organized and living parallel to mainstream society over the ages.

    Maybe we're starting to see an increase in the number of outliers?

  • It is cell phone towers and remote control (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:35AM (#52488087) Journal
    The reduction in diseases coincides with the rise of cordless phones and cell phones. The 900 MHz baby monitors and cordless phones first and then the 5.8 GHz cordless phone spectrum were phased in. Then came the cell phones and the IR remote control became ubiquitous and some remotes started using the 900 MHz and 5.8 GHz band (through the wall remotes for TiVo in another room).

    During the cell division process radiation in these bands help tighten up the telemerese at the end of DNA. Every time the cell replicates the first few hundred basepairs come untangled, frayed and do not replicate well. But our DNA has very long sections on either end to cushion for the loss. Eventually the cushion is lost and actual genes start getting messed up and lost. That is how ageing happens. The radiation in these bands have positive effect in reducing the amount of fraying during cell replication.

    Watch out pseudo scientists. Like real science, pseudo science is also cuts both ways. One can use it to spread fear and paranoia about any new technology or it can be used to ascribe totally unwarranted benefits to new things too.

  • Not on my channel they aren't (Score:3)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @07:49AM (#52488149)
    Major diseases are down? Violent crimes are down? You'd never know this from the media I watch.

    • Re:Not on my channel they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jeffasselin ( 566598 ) <cormacolinde@gmail. c o m> on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:26AM (#52488385) Journal

      Police violence, rape and autism only appear to have increased recently. The evidence shows they haven't.

      What seems to be happening is that they are reported/accounted/diagnosed better. You hear more about them thanks to new channels. Violence against blacks in many areas of the US (as well as violence against minorities in general worldwide) has been common and stable over the recent past (correcting for the general drop in violence in industrialized countries since the late 70s that many attribute to removal of lead in gasoline). The general media had mostly ignored some of those issues. But they can't do so anymore now because of the prevalence of cell phones (video evidence), citizen reporting (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc) and new ways of organizing movements online.

      Note that I chose those three exemples because of their clear recent increase in reporting and news coverage. For what it's worth (and will do to my karma) I support #BLM, social justice movements and I am convinced vaccines have nothing to do with autism.

  • Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tsa ( 15680 )

    It's Darwin at work. People get children much later in life than they used to. This means the chance that they get a healthy child is lower than it was before. The children who are born healthy have a greater chance of reproducing and living long and healthy lives, so they also get their old age deseases at a higher age. Their children get this ability too so humanity as a whole gets to live longer and healthier (provided nutrition isn't a problem).

  • If you look at the plot in the article, you can see that the gray line starts decreasing around '94.

    This is clearly when Malda started thinking about creating Slashdot.

  • How, with such crappy diet and pollution? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Theovon ( 109752 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:06AM (#52488247)

    At the same time, we’re eating a really horrible nutrient-poor diet made up of industrial foods designed to make us want to eat more industrial foods. Plus we’ve got massive amounts of pollution from burning petrolium, hormones in the ground water, antibiotics in our foods, PBA from our food containers, and all manner of other junk ruining our health. Some people are still stuck on this bogus idea that autism is caused by vaccines, while they continue to eat a horrible diet and pollute their bodies in other ways that are much more likely to account for this measurable increase in the rate of autism (not quite explained by just an increased rate of diagnosis).

    This brings up an idea that my wife pointed out. In recent history, there has been an increase in the rate of transgendered individuals. This has resulted in political polarization, where some people are demonizing them and others are saying that body dismorphic disorder is somehow a good thing. Both are wrong. People with body dismorphic disorder have every right to their dignity and to manage and adjust their bodies as they see fit. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an external cause, and we think a major factor is all of these hormines being pumped into the water supply. Lots of women take birth control pills, which is putting estrogen and progesterone into the water, and hormones are given to food animals. These are having an impact on development in fetuses and young children. So the next time some fundamnetalist asshole tries to tell you that there’s something BAD about people who have gender identiy issues, you can point out to them that we, as a society, did this to them. It’s our fault for poisoning the water and food. And the consequences are that more people with gender identity issues, and this is something we have to accept, and we have to treat these people like human beings and stop trying to put forth the idea that these people are crazy or making immoral choices.

    • This brings up an idea that my wife pointed out. In recent history, there has been an increase in the rate of transgendered individuals. This has resulted in political polarization, where some people are demonizing them and others are saying that body dismorphic disorder is somehow a good thing. Both are wrong. People with body dismorphic disorder have every right to their dignity and to manage and adjust their bodies as they see fit. However, that doesnâ(TM)t mean there isnâ(TM)t an external cause, and we think a major factor is all of these hormines being pumped into the water supply.

      It's a better theory than most people think. Physicists and biologists have been pointing out how similar plastics are to hormones [breastcancer.org] since forever. There has been a rise in gynecomastia [wikipedia.org] which cannot be explained solely by obesity, strongly supporting this theory.

      • Re:How, with such crappy diet and pollution? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:47AM (#52488525)

        Another reason for having "more" transgendered people is simply that they now dare to actually come out instead of just living a lie and maybe, MAYBE, having a little private secret where they can at least for themselves, when nobody is looking, be themselves.

        I don't think that it's really more people being that way. It's just more people daring to not pretend they aren't.

        • I don't think that it's really more people being that way. It's just more people daring to not pretend they aren't.

          To be honest, I think it's more that, but I think there's room for it to be both things.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EzInKy ( 115248 )

      Perhaps those industrialized foods just aren't as bad for us as some people would like them to be? I don't know for sure but it could be we just need more data before we jump to conclusions? Who could ever forget the fiasco that followed the directives that cholesterol was bad for you? Talk about your increases in diabetes and dementia that came about because of that! It helps no one to jump on a train heading down the wrong track.

    • Re:How, with such crappy diet and pollution? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:44AM (#52488507)

      You're eating far healthier than your "all natural" ancestors did 150 years ago. Look up ergotism, something we don't even know anymore used to be a real problem less than a hundred years ago. Refrigeration was unknown a century ago and only half a century ago it became widespread. "Best before" used to be "oh it doesn't smell TOO bad, if we cook it it just might be ok". Drinking water is ... hell, even the crap that comes out of the taps in the south east of the US is better and less contaminated than most of the stuff our ancestors pumped out of wells they dug themselves.

      And we actually have LESS pollution today than we had 100-150 years ago, when nobody gave a shit that untreated sewage was dumped into the rivers and seas where we get our fishes from. What we see in China today was very real over here with us not that long ago. Smog you can cut with a knife, kids that have lungs like someone dying from lung cancer after a life of heavy smoking, rivers you can't put your booted foot into fearing that not only the boot would be gone if you leave it in too long. That was the reality in our industrial centers in the 1800s.

      The "good old times" were much, but certainly not healthy!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        I think with the rise of industrialization and the bulking up of cities, food quality got worse for for urban residents as they became more dependent on the primitive factory foods they used to eat and polluted water supplies.

        Prior to that, though, weren't there a lot of adaptations to many of the quality problems that were inherent to the food supply?

        People living in urban areas often substituted beer for water, blended wine with water or drank tea instead of water (I've read that Chinese laborers on the r

        • People living in urban areas often substituted beer for water, blended wine with water or drank tea instead of water (I've read that Chinese laborers on the railroads avoided a lot of sickness because their affection for tea meant they drank boiled water)

          Beer, wine and tea were all created as solutions to the problem of unsanitary water which was actively dangerous to drink. Up until the wide availability of relatively modern sanitation systems, most Europeans walked around constantly mildly drunk, because they didn't drink anything but alcoholic beverages -- the alcohol needed to kill off waterborne infectious diseases.

          Most modern city dwellers have easy access to sanitary water, whether from the tap or (if they don't like the taste of tap water) from a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      Well, I'll take industrial food and water with minute amount of hormones any day over drinking water from the river upstream from my home and shitting in it downstream. Like all my neighbors...

    • Re:How, with such crappy diet and pollution? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @09:43AM (#52488895)
      How can you claim there is an increase in the rate of transgendered individuals? Granted there is certainly an increase in people stating they have this condition. But there's no evidence for an increase in numbers, merely more open attitudes towards it.

  • Cannabis Connection? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spiritwave ( 4392317 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:14AM (#52488285) Homepage

    Cannabis (scientific term for marijuana, if unclear) is a symphonic drug that (at least scientifically suggestively and anecdotally) is recognized to press against many (if not most, or perhaps even all) major health problems – and its lawful medical (and sometimes recreational) use has been on the rise over the past couple of decades.

    Someone very close to me has a state license to use cannabis to oppose Alzheimer's disease, and the results have been thankfully impressive (symptom management has been literally brilliant, side effects virtually non-existent with no user complaints, financial cost friendly, and no sign of permanent mental decline with a reasonable sign of steady cognitive improvement).

    Cannabis use is a complex (oceanic) subject, so blindly using whatever strain (or strain combination) available (among the hundreds, if not thousands, of strains in existence possibly with dramatically different psychological effects between two strains) at any intake amount and method is reckless and logically discouraged (fittingly noting that I don't condone criminal activity here – albeit no logic justifies the war on some drugs as being constitutional via the Commerce Clause, and drug use without objectively conclusively proven harm is clearly upheld by the ninth amendment logically constitutionally upholding our fundamental and supposedly unalienable right to liberty).

    Strains that gently but firmly produce stable mind effects (e.g. Cheese) should be electronically vaporized (with precise temperature control for consistent intake), and at least in the case of mild dementia, a very small pinch of leafy material per dose (four doses daily – one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and two before bedtime) is all that's needed (i.e. the user gently feels the effects, so basically remains soberly competent for all intents and purposes).

    I cannot state with certainty that cannabis is the cause of disease reduction as reported in this article, but there's interestingly fitting evidence demonstrating a connection worthy of further scientific scrutiny of a highly evolved plant (with hundreds of compounds) upholding homeostasis (balance, so stability necessary for survival) via the endocannibinoid system throughout the body and hypothetically leveraging the same mental system responsible for the Placebo effect upon proper use.

  • If life expectancy isn't going up, that just means other things might be killing us before these diseases could, right ?

  • Living in captivity (Score:3)

    by holophrastic ( 221104 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:40AM (#52488475)

    Every animal lives longer in captivity than it does in the wild. From cheetahs to jellyfish. Your house cat live up to 20 years, maybe 5 in the wild. Your jellyfish 10 months in your aquarium, maybe 4 months in the wild.

    So, what does a human living in captivity look like? See the city. See the suburbs. See the grocery stores, the health care, the cars.

    I have no problem seeing that all-day climate control, motorized vehicles, and unlimited easy-access food means a healthier body that can fight off major diseases for longer.

    Ageing has always been biological wear-and-tear.

  • Everyone in the World is Living Longer / Better (Score:5, Informative)

    by retroworks ( 652802 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @08:53AM (#52488569) Homepage Journal
    Basically everyone in the world is living longer. World is better for humans. Has been for decades. Better, in war, in disease, in nutrition. The surprise is that the doom-and-gloom press is surprised. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • The Times cites one researcher's pet theory" that the cellular process of aging itself may be gradually changing in humans' favor.

    Start your day with a new punctuation mark: the scare possessive—twice as tight and idiosyncratic and unreasonable as the regular possessive.

  • New and even major diseases are to replace the previously major ones...

  • Older parents (Score:3)

    by taylorius ( 221419 ) on Monday July 11, 2016 @10:26AM (#52489261) Homepage

    People are waiting until they're older to have children, which could select for women (men too, to a lesser degree) who remain fertile for longer. If fertility is correlated with general health, that could cause something like this.

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