[FRIAM] Friday AM

[Steve Smith]

I recently watched a documentary on the animals living in Chernobyl, 
environs and nearby evacuated villages.   The overall theme was that 
while there was lots of evidence of genetic damage and mutation in 
individuals, they were still "healthy populations" of many (all?) 
species finding new balances among themselves... the domesticated dogs 
living near-feral (most apparently can still be seduced into human 
contact with food) for example had normalized to a new "mongrel-breed"  
and to your point, their average lifespan is 2-3 years, which is 
apparently not a long enough lifespan for any of the cellular-cancer 
level mutations to yield death-by-cancer-tumor.

(Some of) the dogs do develop cancer and tumors but die of "natural 
causes" like predation and starvation and exposure due to the harsh/wild 
conditions.   Other more-obvious subjects of predation apparently simply 
become easier prey when they are suffering cancer/tumors.  Radiation 
damage/mutation/cancer just becomes a bias toward earlier death by 
predation.  The bottom line in this case seems to be that "premature 
mortality", etc. is a relative concept and entirely dependent on context 
and that in fact, in some sense, a (still) elevated radionuclide 
concentration does not mean "nuclear wasteland"... individual organisms 
suffer (relative to a much lower concentration) but populations will 
survive and in some odd sense thrive, and new ecological balances be found.

Apparently the largest deviation of individual species is a "river worm" 
which apparently shifted from asexual to sexual reproduction... 
presumably for the increased attendant (healthy?) mutation rates to 
balance the radiation-induced mutation (whatever that means, I can only 
guess as a total layman).  I'm assuming the sexual reproductive mode was 
already entirely present, just not dominant?

I deleted the whole backstory on my own entry into the western medical 
system (no drama, just giving over to getting old and wanting to keep 
doing it a while longer) but my doc (40-something woman born/raised in 
the Pojo valley who hung our her shingle as a "subscription" doc, no 
insurance billed/accepted, etc) looks at her computer everytime we meet 
(when she gets back the last round of labs and takes my word for my BP, 
etc)  and tells me the % likelihood of my having a stroke or heart 
attack in the next 10 (and 15 and 20) years, based on those numbers.    
My grandmothers both died well before I was born of cancers that were 
not really/barely treatable in those days (~1950) in their 50s.  My 
grandfathers made it into their late 70s, when the US life expectancy 
was something like 72/70 for women/men.   My parents made it into their 
late 80s, early 90s when the expectancy (I think) had jumped up into the 
80s.   What does this really mean to anyone *not* an actuary or a 
nursing home administrator or a home-health aide company?   My parents 
did not outlive their (modest but well-planned) savings, but came 
close...   it worried my mom some when she could least afford that kind 
of worry, my sister and I did our best to mitigate those worries.  In 
another era she would have been living in one of our homes and died in 
her own bed there...  instead, assisted-living unto hospice care... bleh!

This also begs the questions raised during Vietnam (and since) of 
"excess deaths".... the Hawks insisted that, for example, out of the 
~55,000 young US soldiers who died by war-violence in Vietnam, some 
number (I'll make up 10% or 5500) would have died in car-accidents, 
street-brawls, hunting-accidents, domestic-violence, appendecitis, or a 
runaway acne infection would have died anyway, so they only had to be 
responsible for the 50,000 that they threw in front of (shot out of?) 
cannons... and of course, the Defoliant and PTSD deaths that came after 
the conflict was over (or possibly happened during the conflict, but 
back home rather than on the battlefield) are definitely not to be 
counted on their tally sheet.  Of course, the Doves wanted to count all 
of those multiple times... (every cancer or neurological disorder blamed 
on Agent Orange and every suicide or violent death blamed on Wartime PTSD).

I think I heard the same arguments arise around COVID (excess) 
mortality.   Based on my above diatribe, I'm pretty much ambivalent... I 
can't say I admire either form of agenda-driven interpretation... maybe 
all interpretation is intrinsically agenda-driven (model fitting)?

Mary has a good aphorism which I find to apply quite acutely and broadly 
in it's trite simplicity:  "Every life is complete"... It came from a 
friend whose grandchild died at-birth.  Talk about edge cases!  I 
reflected on this quite a bit when Thich Nhat Hahn died last year...   
and his aphorism "A Cloud Never Dies"...

What part of telomeric erosion/degradation/consumption and/or 
accumulated genetic damage via toxins and ionizing radiation (over a 
lifetime)seems like pseudoscience?  I'm probably missing your point.

On 1/3/23 11:01 AM, glen wrote:
> ">144 mmol/l with 21% elevated risk of premature mortality". My last 
> test a week ago showed 144! Whew! I guess I have a normal risk for 
> premature mortality. 8^D
>
> The concept of "premature death" is flat out ridiculous. But our 
> inability to well-define it raises some interesting questions.
>
> • deprivation (by the dead, by the rest of us) - is the death of 
> Ramanujan at 32 *more* premature than the death of some rando at 32?
> • life expectancy seems like yet another instance of people not 
> understanding statistics
> • quality of life - is the death of a 20 year old born into and likely 
> to live in poverty *as* premature as the death of a 20 year old born 
> with a silver spoon?
> • natural selection - is it premature for a 35 year old who's bred, 
> say, 10 children to die?
>   · or is it premature for them to die before their children have 
> children? I.e. is being a grandparent a necessary element of a 
> breeder's life?
> • consequentialism - had Hitler dyed at age 35, would that have been 
> premature?
>
> I know this seems like a tangent upon tangents. But it's not. It's 
> nonsense to relate serum Na to premature mortality because premature 
> mortality is nonsense. Prevalence of chronic disease seems, to me, a 
> little more well-formed ... but not by much. Biological age just seems 
> like pseudoscience to me, the flip side of Vampirism. I'd welcome an 
> education, though.
>
> On 1/2/23 13:34, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>> There was a hacker news item this morning about maintaining hydration 
>> and chronic illness:
>>
>> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(22)00586-2/fulltext 
>> <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(22)00586-2/fulltext> 
>>
>>
>> those who exceeded 142 mmol/l of serum sodium in middle age got 
>> sicker more often later in life.
>>
>> It's the first measurement on my comprehensive metabolic panels.
>>
>> It would be really funny if there actually was "One simple trick to 
>> staying healthy!", but it was only discovered after we had 
>> conditioned ourselves into never reading any article with such a title.
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 2:04 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     I think a mobility checkup would be more useful than blood tests. 
>> See if you can stand on one foot for 10 seconds. Spin you around and 
>> measure eye wobble. Measure joint angles in a sit-to-stand test. Etc. 
>> Strength and reflex tests would also be useful. I *suppose* cognitive 
>> testing trends would be useful. I'd love to see, eg how my 
>> performance varies on something like a memory test or some logic 
>> puzzles. With the covid loss of smell and taste thing, it would even 
>> be cool to have a battery of sensory stimuli of some kind. If the 
>> personality tests had any credibility, they'd be interesting to track 
>> over time as well. Would you learn anything? IDK. But it would be 
>> more interesting than the typical test results.
>>
>>     On 1/2/23 12:01, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>      > The last time I went in for a wellness check, the doctor 
>> seemed annoyed that I was there.   I left, humiliated.
>>      >
>>      > But it has been a while, and I am wondering what it would take 
>> to actually learn something from a checkup.  Is there some standard 
>> package of broad blood tests and/or MRIs that would be a clue I was 
>> becoming gravely ill?  I was just shopping for new insurance and was 
>> excited to learn all the things I can prepare for (Aflac's various 
>> products).   What would I even ask for?
>>      >
>>      > A few years ago, I had a car accident on the snow in Santa Fe 
>> and had to have quite a bit of work done on my car.   I have to say 
>> billing the insurance for that was very satisfying. I had been paying 
>> all these years and had nothing to show for it.   It is especially 
>> true for my medical coverage.
>>      >
>>      > To me going to the doctor is just an opportunity to get 
>> COVID-19 in the waiting room.  How can I get more from this experience?
>
>