WHY SOME AND NOT OTHERS???

[MRBaylor]

I've had people ask me this question when I'm discussing plant-based diet, and overall health in general:

Why Some and Not Others? I've had people ask me why are there some individuals who can eat whatever they want from the Standard American Diet, and still live to be 80+, 90+ years with "no health issues"? What do I tell people when they ask me why are some suffering from the common health issues caused by the S.A.D, and others aren't?
I don't know how to answer that.

HELP!
AKA "PLANT-BASED 4-EVERRRRRR

[Idgie]

Because people are complicated biological organisms, and everyone's body is different. Still, I am all for playing the odds, and on average, people who eat this way live longer, healthier lives.

[MINNIE]

I accidentally erases Minnie’s Post, which I was trying to respond to by hitting edit instead of quote.

Here it is minus the fancy colors and accents.

Sorry
Jeff

I why are there some individuals who can eat whatever they want from the Standard American Diet, and still live to be 80+, 90+ years with "no health issues"?

Usually when I hear about these people, it's in a news item about the 107th birthday if some old person in Arkansas (or insert locale of your choice). Grandpa/ma/whatever says they eat bacon grease with marshmallows for breakfast and drink lots of whiskey every day...and it's only newsworthy because everyone with a brain knows that stuff would have killed the vast majority of people at an earlier age.

So, old people with "no health problems" ( and how do we know that's even true?) who survive are such extreme outliers that they merit a news report.

You only hear about them because of the rarity, not the frequency. .

On the other hand, you don't have to answer that question at all if you don't want to.

If I felt like wasting my time on this,I would say 'who knows"?

It's not relevant to my situation, so I don't care how they did it. It's a safe bet that I would be dead, or nearly so, if I still ate that crap. In my little solipsistic world, that is all that matters !

[Werner1950]

I will often raise the question, "Imagine how long they'd have lived had they NOT eaten all that junk."

Then they will say, "But who wants to live that long?" To which I would respond, "ask them."

[JeffN]

Here is my response...

You only hear about them because of the rarity, not the frequency.

From the WHO report, 'Preventing Chronic Diseases: A Vital Investment'

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7875

In their report the WHO identified 10 misunderstandings that were obstacles to changing these modifiable risk factors. A few were relevant

1) Chronic diseases are often viewed as primarily affecting old people.

One quarter of all chronic disease deaths occur in people under 60 years of age.

2) The solutions for chronic disease prevention and control are too expensive to be feasible for low and middle income countries (populations).

In reality, a full range of chronic disease interventions are very cost- effective for all regions of the world. Many of these solutions are also inexpensive to implement.

3) Half Truths and kernels of truth. In these cases, the kernels of truth are distorted to become sweeping statements that are not true. Because they are based on the truth, such half-truths are among the most ubiquitous and persistent misunderstandings. Two principal half-truths are refuted below.

“ My grandfather smoked and was overweight and he lived to 96”.

Answer: In any population, there will be a certain number of people who do not demonstrate the typical patterns seen in the vast majority. For chronic diseases, there are two major types: 1) people with many chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless live a healthy and long life; 2) people with no or few chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless develop chronic disease and/or die from complications at a young age.

These people undeniably exist, but they are rare. The vast majority of chronic disease can be traced back to the common risk factors, and can be prevented by eliminating these risks.

4) ”Everyone has to die of something"

Answer: Certainly everyone has to die of something, but death does not need to be slow, painful, or premature. Most chronic diseases do not result in sudden death. Rather, they are likely to cause people to become progressively ill and debilitated, especially if their illness is not managed correctly. Death is inevitable, but a life of protracted ill-health is not. Chronic disease prevention and control helps people to live longer and healthier lives.

In Health
Jeff

Sorry for the mix-up!!

[DebL]

I was raised in a family where many of the elderly lived into their 90's and they ate everything in moderation.

Moderation and times of scarcity and poverty and war years with rationing were in their years.

My great-grandmother's generation lived through the rationing of the depression, the rationing of the war times, eventually culture would expand and she would say, "Give me a slice of each" about the pies on the table, but if you look at the length of her life, she spent decades before the longevity rates changed and spent decades in poverty and rationing. I think it was Dr. Lisle who said that it often takes 50 years before the real health issues hit. (That is speeding up, but it is still true in my family. We ate the SAD diet all these years and nobody had disease until their mid-50's.) My great-grandmother and her sisters didn't start the bad eating until she was in her 50's.

Same thing for my grandmother. As a child, my grandmother would eat baked bean sandwiches for dinner and at Christmas, they would give gifts like oranges as a presents. Candy back then was hard to get. They didn't have refrigerators and stores didn't stock all these brand names and they didn't eat much meat during that time period. The families were large, so even if there was a milkman, the gallon of milk was divided by 8 people, plus guests.

Fast forward to the War years and there was rationing of things like sugar and flour and meat was hard to get.

She also started eating "everything" about her 50's and she died in her 90's with congestive heart failure and dementia, but it only showed up at the end.

[gracezw]

Jeff, I really like this from you below.

I think Nathan Pritikin was very unfortunate to have died of leukemia at 69 when he started to eat healthy at 40. In the last 29 years,he was able to reverse his heart disease, but was not able to reverse leukemia. How do you explain it?

==
3) Half Truths and kernels of truth. In these cases, the kernels of truth are distorted to become sweeping statements that are not true. Because they are based on the truth, such half-truths are among the most ubiquitous and persistent misunderstandings. Two principal half-truths are refuted below.

“ My grandfather smoked and was overweight and he lived to 96”.

Answer: In any population, there will be a certain number of people who do not demonstrate the typical patterns seen in the vast majority. For chronic diseases, there are two major types: 1) people with many chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless live a healthy and long life; 2) people with no or few chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless develop chronic disease and/or die from complications at a young age.

These people undeniably exist, but they are rare. The vast majority of chronic disease can be traced back to the common risk factors, and can be prevented by eliminating these risks.

[gracezw]

Jeff, if someone asks me to prove "These people inevitably exist, but they are rare. The vast majority of chronic disease can be traced back to the common risk factors, and can be prevented by eliminating these risks," what can I show him or her?

==
halF-truths
Another set of misunderstandings arises from kernels of truth. Because they are based on the truth, such half-truths are among the most ubiquitous and persistent misunderstandings.
halF-truth #2
“My grandfather smoked and was overweight – and he lived to 96”
In any population, there will be a certain number of people who do not demonstrate the typical patterns seen in the vast majority. For chronic diseases, there are two major types: people with many chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless live a healthy and long life; people with no or few chronic disease risk factors, who nonetheless develop chronic disease and/or die from complications at a young age. These people inevitably exist, but they are rare. The vast majority of chronic disease can be traced back to the common risk factors, and can be prevented by eliminating these risks.

[Atheria]

Longevity is not all about diet. Yes, diet helps (or hurts) though. Genetics plays a big part...but more importantly...low stress, happiness, fulfillment, love, etc. I saw some study of healthy old people, where the ONLY factor they all had in common was that they exercised/stayed active.

Peace,
Atheria

[gracezw]

Atheria, I read from your website that you are “a psychic medium and trance channel.” I now understand better your point of view.
Exercises, socializing, stress reduction, spiritual and emotional health all help. As I read more, I have realized that diet is the biggest part for me. Exercises are the second biggest. These two, together with all the rest, can turn down/off the bad genes and turn on the good ones.

Longevity is not all about diet. Yes, diet helps (or hurts) though. Genetics plays a big part...but more importantly...low stress, happiness, fulfillment, love, etc. I saw some study of healthy old people, where the ONLY factor they all had in common was that they exercised/stayed active.

Peace,
Atheria

[PJK]

Longevity is not completely understood.

Looking at group of old people and trying to figure out what let them live long? That's conflating correlation with causation. In other words, just because 2 things occur together does not mean the first caused the second.

Maybe all those old people had good genes for longevity. Maybe the exercise helped. Maybe they were exceptions. Or had low stress. We simply don't know what caused them to live a long time.

Science is about pushing on the frontiers. There's a lot about the human body we don't yet know or understand.

[Barrycudda]

I would also like to know why low carb diets are so effective for weight loss for some, but for others like me, they had the opposite effect.