Amish Men Live Longer

I realized that I ate way more chocolate than average Swiss people (Googled and it says around 24 grams per day for average people in Switzerland). I usually eat about 50 grams daily...and 72% dark

The difference doesn’t come down to one single factor.

Comments that try to reduce population-scale differences to a single factor, like access to healthcare, are overly reductive. When it comes to obesity (not using being overweight, but truly past the obese threshold) you don’t need a doctor to inform you that it’s unhealthy.

The reductive claims about access to healthcare are also ignoring the fact that people in the US do actually use a lot of healthcare. The rate of GLP-1 use in America for weight loss is around 1 in 8 people, which is significantly higher than anywhere in Europe last time I checked. Obviously the higher obesity rate contributes to higher usage, but it demonstrates that many obese people in the United States are not lacking access to health care.

> Do ppl think having access to a doctor is going prevent one from being obese ? whats the logic.

Doctors can vary in whether or not (and for how long) they advocate trying a healthy diet and exercise before prescribing drugs. In the UK the system is incentivised to avoid drug prescriptions unless necessary, as it reduces the financial burden on the NHS - both for buying the drugs and for managing complications linked to obesity. In the US, pharma companies can offer money and perks to doctors who promote their products.

I suppose if you extend the definition of "medical system" to include education and intervention, it makes sense.

There's also medications in there - hypertension can be controlled with drugs, no?

But, yes, I agree with your main point - obesity in the US is widespread and a massive influence on both longevity and health care costs.

Nowadays maybe they could get Ozempic?

Having a socialized healthcare system incentivizes the government to ban the worst public heath offenders. High fructose corn syrup would have been long gone from most foods in a sane society, for example. Generally, making the government have a vested interest in its citizenry's good health is a good thing.

No screens is a good assumption for everyone at the time the study covered - TVs were just coming out towards the end, and were expensive enough that not everyone owned one yet.

They also have a cohesive family and social circles. Probably can't hurt?

It varies from community to community. There are some communities that don't care, and others that do definitely prohibit it.

I had the opposite impression. Lots of orders will ban tobacco outright. Those that don’t, it’s usually kept only in social settings or breaks and it’s never commercial cigarettes. Usually pipes but I guess they could roll their own cigarettes.

The issue with raw milk is that over time it’s much more likely to grow bacteria if there is any interruption in the cold chain.

Drinking it on the farm or close to when it’s very fresh isn’t super high risk. My family was in dairy and did it all of the time. Once it’s off the farm, all bets are off.

It’s the way humans consumed milk forever, though? Every infant consumes raw milk. Every milk-consuming culture on the planet did it until Pasteur. So… I’m not advocating raw milk consumption, but to call it poison is pure ignorance.

Definitely not poison. Risk of bacterial infection? Yes. I don’t know the stats on what that risk is though and for all I know perhaps it starts getting closer to zero when it’s your own farm and you are the one handling the whole process.

Please note I am not advocating for raw milk, I think it is not a wise decision but I also don’t believe it to be poison.

Citation very much needed

One of the few times I have used the downvote button in Hn for a comment.

Its not a huge effort to at least try to add some source with such a claim, besides the comment does not even bring anything of value to the discussion.

A and B are the first two letters of the Latin alphabet, though I don't see the relevance.

I wonder if the opposite is a factor: like most traditional clothing, Amish clothing blocks most sunlight.

Are we talking about the same monks? Christian monks? The people developed champagne, chartreuse and many other alcoholic drinks?

Some also work outdoors.

Also disciplined breathing techniques, Om chanting strengthens the lungs and regulates O2 flows. FWIW they do get sunlight. People need some sunlight. More specifically Mitochondria need sunlight or artificial sunlight from 600nm -> 1200nm.

Same family is likely not a useful comparison because lifestyle would be different. Eunuchs would be expected to serve the royal family, which implies plenty of food - not as good as the royals, but still plenty of it unlike their families back on the farm who lived closer to starvation at best and a bad year would cause a lot of deaths.

At least that is what I'd expect, but I'm trying to extrapolate what I know of European history (acoup) to Korea. Anyone have better expertise able to talk about the experience of the different groups?