Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy countries...

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2023 09:35:23 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/2023 07:53, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:16:16 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <khr252F3kvvU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 7/18/23 9:43 PM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.


Much of the reasons can be summed up in very few words: Fast food, not
much sports, plenty of audio-visual entertainment, too much drug use. A
sedentary lifestyle.

There is almost a two-tier society here when it comes to health.

On one side those that are more of less couch potatoes, generally rather
overweight. These folks develop ailments such as high cholesterol
levels, diabetes, almost mortal obesity, cardiac events and such quite
early in life. Usually before retirement.

Could be genetics, inherited from parents etc...

Nah. It is difficult in the US to buy a meal the right size for an
ordinary fit adult human to eat entirely. Typical US meals start at
about twice your average European meal in weight and go upwards.

We take our leftover restaurant food to-go. That gets us two or
sometimes three meals for the price of one.

I read somewhere that europeans think it\'s bad form to take leftover
food to go. Is that true?

Sushi is one food that you buy in small increments. We also have tapas
type restaurants where one orders several small portions. Dim sum is
like that, too. Or one can just order appetizers, which make a nice
light meal.

We usually share entrees too. We recently had three people at a
fabulous Portugese restaurant and we shared four appetizers and three
entrees and took some home.

Restaurants have to factor in sharing: If an entree is enoumous, it
will feed two or three people.

Some people thing sharing is bad manners too. We have shared food with
strangers at another table.

Nobody forces anyone to order a giant amount of food, or to eat it all
themselves.

And nobody forces you to repeat mindless America-bashing.

I undestand why nobody wants to eat a lot of British food.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 11:54:39 PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jul 2023 09:35:23 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/2023 07:53, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:16:16 -0700) it happened Joerg
ne...@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <khr252...@mid.individual.net>:

On 7/18/23 9:43 PM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.


Much of the reasons can be summed up in very few words: Fast food, not
much sports, plenty of audio-visual entertainment, too much drug use. A
sedentary lifestyle.

There is almost a two-tier society here when it comes to health.

On one side those that are more of less couch potatoes, generally rather
overweight. These folks develop ailments such as high cholesterol
levels, diabetes, almost mortal obesity, cardiac events and such quite
early in life. Usually before retirement.

Could be genetics, inherited from parents etc...

Nah. It is difficult in the US to buy a meal the right size for an
ordinary fit adult human to eat entirely. Typical US meals start at
about twice your average European meal in weight and go upwards.

We take our leftover restaurant food to-go. That gets us two or sometimes three meals for the price of one.

But - in a restaurant - the food should be delivered to your table at it\'s peak. Taking some of it home and reheating it means that it isn\'t as good as it was when it wasfirst served.

I read somewhere that europeans think it\'s bad form to take leftover food to go. Is that true?

It can be a pest getting it home.

Sushi is one food that you buy in small increments. We also have tapas
type restaurants where one orders several small portions. Dim sum is
like that, too. Or one can just order appetizers, which make a nice
light meal.

None of them part of the American national cuisine. Sushi is Japanese, tapa is Spanish, dim sum is Chinese.

What you are saying is that the American national cuisine lacks a virtue that other nations have cultivated.

> We usually share entrees too. We recently had three people at a fabulous Portugese restaurant and we shared four appetizers and three entrees and took some home.

Again, Portugese cooking rather than any American national tradition.

> Restaurants have to factor in sharing: If an entree is enormous, it will feed two or three people.

So why would they serve it up to one person?

Some people think sharing is bad manners too. We have shared food with strangers at another table.

Nobody forces anyone to order a giant amount of food, or to eat it all themselves.

But offering it up in huge portions is pretty strange.

> And nobody forces you to repeat mindless America-bashing.

There nothing mindless in observing that the US has a obesity problem, or in speculating what might have caused it.

If we nail it down and tell you how you might get less fat, Americans would live longer - not exactly America bashing.

Jim Thompson seemed to have the idea that America was perfect just the way it was, and drawign attention to it\'s imperfections constituted America-bashing.

It\'s a strange attitude.

> I understand why nobody wants to eat a lot of British food.

Even the UK has good restaurants that serve appetising food. After I got there I started buying the UK Good Food Guide every year, and did well out of it (better when my income went up).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 1:16:20?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 2:45:21?PM UTC+10, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.

Don\'t wanna be in America?
It shows up in the life expectancy tables,

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

The US is 47th on the list at 79.74 years. The Netherlands is 24th at 82.58 years. Universal health care - which the US hasn\'t got - may have a lot to do with this.


If anything, judging by the performance of NHS in other \'advanced\' countries, the absence of an NHS results in people living longer.

Canada and UK NHS are a complete joke! Americans won\'t put up with that kind of fiasco for five minutes.

The UK government over the past 10 years at least has been a shower of
monumental incompetence in every area, so it\'s hardly surprising their
health service has deteriorated so badly, along with everything else
in their public sector.
Introducing a National Health Service in America would be *vastly* and
crushingly expensive. It couldn\'t be funded out of further borrowing
so something like defense would have to take a major, major hit. I
don\'t see them going down that road unless they deliberately decide
they want to bankrupt the nation (which they may well do at some point
it is rumoured - but that\'s another story).

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 4:49:23 AM UTC+10, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 1:16:20?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 2:45:21?PM UTC+10, Jan Panteltje wrote:

<snip>

The US is 47th on the list at 79.74 years. The Netherlands is 24th at 82.58 years. Universal health care - which the US hasn\'t got - may have a lot to do with this.

If anything, judging by the performance of NHS in other \'advanced\' countries, the absence of an NHS results in people living longer.

Canada and UK NHS are a complete joke! Americans won\'t put up with that kind of fiasco for five minutes.

But they put up with paying half as much again per head to a medical care system that delivers appreciably worse life expectancies.

The UK government over the past 10 years at least has been a shower of monumental incompetence in every area, so it\'s hardly surprising their
health service has deteriorated so badly, along with everything else in their public sector.

It\'s always been cheaper per head than the Dutch, French and German systems and about half the price per head of the US system.

The UK sits a 30th on the internalional life expectancy league table wit 82..31 years, just ahead of Germany at 82.18 years.

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy

It may be Spartan, but it is cost effective.

> Introducing a National Health Service in America would be *vastly* and crushingly expensive.

It would halve the US national expenditure on medical care. Buying out the leeches that currently infest the US system would be massively expensive if they chose to go that way - those leeches are remarkably greedy - but the long term savings would be substantial.

> It couldn\'t be funded out of further borrowing so something like defense would have to take a major, major hit.

No. The US private medical insurance business would collapse and their stock market valuation would vanish overnight

> I don\'t see them going down that road unless they deliberately decide they want to bankrupt the nation (which they may well do at some point it is rumoured - but that\'s another story).

Bankrupting the private medical insurance industry would destroy a lot of perceived value, but the people who shuffle a lot more paper than the need to - most of the excess cost in the US medical system cones from over-administration in the private medical insurance schemes - could be diverted to more productive activities.

Sending them to China and putting them to work in factories there might be an option.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2023 19:49:14 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 1:16:20?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 2:45:21?PM UTC+10, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.

Don\'t wanna be in America?
It shows up in the life expectancy tables,

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

The US is 47th on the list at 79.74 years. The Netherlands is 24th at 82.58 years. Universal health care - which the US hasn\'t got - may have a lot to do with this.


If anything, judging by the performance of NHS in other \'advanced\' countries, the absence of an NHS results in people living longer.

Canada and UK NHS are a complete joke! Americans won\'t put up with that kind of fiasco for five minutes.

The UK government over the past 10 years at least has been a shower of
monumental incompetence in every area, so it\'s hardly surprising their
health service has deteriorated so badly, along with everything else
in their public sector.
Introducing a National Health Service in America would be *vastly* and
crushingly expensive. It couldn\'t be funded out of further borrowing
so something like defense would have to take a major, major hit. I
don\'t see them going down that road unless they deliberately decide
they want to bankrupt the nation (which they may well do at some point
it is rumoured - but that\'s another story).

We need more Kaisers, true flat-fee HMOs whose incentives are to keep
their clients healthy and happy. Let them compete and give poor people
vouchers to let them shop around.

Public education should work the same way, vouchers and competition.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 11:38:32 PM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jul 2023 19:49:14 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs
bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 1:16:20?AM UTC-4, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 2:45:21?PM UTC+10, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.

Don\'t wanna be in America?

It shows up in the life expectancy tables,

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/

The US is 47th on the list at 79.74 years. The Netherlands is 24th at 82.58 years. Universal health care - which the US hasn\'t got - may have a lot to do with this.

If anything, judging by the performance of NHS in other \'advanced\' countries, the absence of an NHS results in people living longer.

Canada and UK NHS are a complete joke! Americans won\'t put up with that kind of fiasco for five minutes.

Cursitor Doom is an ignorant clown. The critical point about the US system is that is expensive - about half as much again more per head than the French, German and Dutch systems, and about twice the price per head of the NHS, which actually delivers slightly higher expectation of life in the UK (30th in the life rankings, with 82.31 years) than you see in Germany ( 31st with 82.18 years).

> We need more Kaisers, true flat-fee HMOs whose incentives are to keep their clients healthy and happy. Let them compete and give poor people vouchers to let them shop around.

Shopping around and competition doesn\'t work in medicine. People don\'t know enough to do informed shopping, and they want their medical service provider to be local and familiar.

Kaiser isn\'t going to compete with the UK NHS on a cost per head basis.

> Public education should work the same way, vouchers and competition.

As any right-wing doctrinaire lunatic. Parents aren\'t well-informed shoppers when it come to education, and they do want the service to be local.

Mostly what parents get when they buy education is a service that is skillfully promoted rather than one that delivers educational value for money.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2023 09:35:23 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/07/2023 07:53, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:16:16 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <khr252F3kvvU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 7/18/23 9:43 PM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
The missing Americans:
Unprecedented US mortality far exceeds other wealthy nations
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230717143216.htm

Summary:
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year -- including many young and working-age adults --
could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations.
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar
to other wealthy nations, according to a new study.


Much of the reasons can be summed up in very few words: Fast food, not
much sports, plenty of audio-visual entertainment, too much drug use. A
sedentary lifestyle.

There is almost a two-tier society here when it comes to health.

On one side those that are more of less couch potatoes, generally rather
overweight. These folks develop ailments such as high cholesterol
levels, diabetes, almost mortal obesity, cardiac events and such quite
early in life. Usually before retirement.

Could be genetics, inherited from parents etc...

Nah. It is difficult in the US to buy a meal the right size for an
ordinary fit adult human to eat entirely. Typical US meals start at
about twice your average European meal in weight and go upwards.

It\'s true that portions at US restaurants are often grotesque, so
taking at least half home is common.

But it\'s also true that genetics matter. If a Bulldog diets, the
result is not an Afghan Hound, it\'s an emaciated and hangry Bulldog.

Supersize me pretty much sums up the US attitude to consuming copious
amounts of junk food high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. It also
showed its effects in short order on the guy who made the film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me

The issue of manufactured food and its effect on the population is
rising to the top of the agenda, after many decades of assuming that
obesity was due only to lack of willpower.

The core issue was only recently discovered, that vertebrates
(including humans) have two \"taste\" sensor systems, one in the nose
and tongue (which is used to select foods, or more importantly to
reject some foods), and the other in the gut, to assess how much amino
acids, carbohydrates, et al the recently eaten food in fact yielded.
The general desire to eat is driven by the gut taste systems, not the
nose and tongue.

Diet foods may taste good, but yield too little of substance to
satisfy hunger. So people keep on eating until the gut stops
complaining.

And now Ozempic proves the point: despite its many serious side
effects, it directly abolishes the urge to eat, obviating the need for
willpower.

Joerg is right that the US population is bimodal with a minority who are
fitness buffs and look more or less European. Many are just a bit
overweight but recently something like 40% of Americans are obese by the
standard medical definition. That is storing up trouble for everyone.

High BMI and its associated comorbidities of hypertension, diabetes were
potent risk factors during Covid.

As was excessive alcohol consumption - there were many jokes about
\"COVID Liver\" in the early days of the lockdown.

Joe Gwinn