An article advising that over half of all deaths globally are due to 4 preventable causes.
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Whatâs in a headline!
I did read the news item and was left wondering:
Q1 If I have one or more of these 4 preventable causes of death should I make the most of today?
Q2 If I donât have one of these 4 preventable causes of death will I live any longer?
Q3 If I have one or more of these 4 preventable causes of death and get a cure Iâll live forever?
Isnât the real story for the ABC more than headlining just the stats?
I like my ABC. Perhaps it needs some more funding to do the other half of the report and add context?
I see the topic is more correctly about deferring death or extending existence. Whether acting or not acting is of greater economic outcome or loss is also a consideration.
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I donât have any of those 4 factors, so I have deduced that I have a 50% chance of being immortal 
But realistically, why are we even discussing this on the Choice Community Forum? It has nothing to do with consumer issues.
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I posted it under the Health & Beauty category as it is a health matter.
And unless you consider that Choice Community members are excluded from these health matters, them how do you not consider a consumer issue?
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@gordon Weâre happy to have discussions about general health or public health concerns on the Community. We consider that these are consumer issues, or if not, they are indirectly related to our core concerns. Itâs one reason we produce the CHOICE Health Reader magazine, which can occasionally include articles with similar themes to this one.
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Itâs no surprise to see the ABC publishing rubbish for entertainment. Governments long ago insisted on the ABC lowering its standards so as not to provide unfair competition against the private sector white noise. Sadly itâs not as rare as we might hope for the Lancet to follow similar guidelines. Think MMR. (Or search âMMR Brian Deerâ)
The information, if itâs worthy of the name, in that pretty pie chart, would come from epidemiology, a branch of statistics (the original branch as it happens, so maybe the trunk?) and people who know anything about statistics (which would surely include the editors of the Lancet and the peer reviewers) know that stats donât provide evidence of cause.
The media totally unreliable in reporting scientific information, and medical info is routinely distorted, sensationalised, and even fabricated. I had a glance at the Lancet paper, and it appeared to be more of a global bureauracy product than science, but, as far as I could be bothered with it, it spoke of ârisk factorsâ, which is legitimate, even for BMI, where the ABC report preferred âcausesâ.
Has anyone heard of a death certificate that cited BMI as cause of death?
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The answer may well be with the âhealthâ of the ABC as a service. The recent saga involving the ABC board and MD and itâs relationship to the government is one symptom of a serious condition.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/11/15/abc-funding-cuts-2/
None of us know what is being discussed in the party rooms or within the leadership teams of each major political organisation to be able to comment factually. Australia is still too small to fully support commercially a diverse media landscape. The alternative would be to have an open invite to all international media groups to provide all our content.
Closer to the original topic.
The risk to individual health of such an outcome might be a skewing of our local knowledge base and view points to that of a nation that is not typical of our own environment.
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The only news here is the ABC posting shocking news articles, which sadly these days isnât news either.
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Perhaps a better way of describing what the article was aiming for is that a large number of people could prevent an earlier than otherwise death if they dealt with 4 mostly lifestyle issues. Some people have abnormally high blood pressure or BMI or glucose levels just because of genetics but no one has a genetic smoking problem (it is entirely lifestyle). Those who can reduce their BMI, Blood Glucose levels (and I mean here by altering lifestyle) or Blood pressure to ânormalâ levels or cease smoking are statistically more likely to have a longer healthier life than those who do not make those alterations if warranted.
We are all going to die and the causes are many including accidents but if you want to try to get the best possible chance of a longer, and healthier life then take some steps to reduce the preventable risks that the ABC article graphically illustrates. This also is why I think these are matters of consumer interest and are important topics of warning and advice just like scam alerts, what things are worth your money and so on.
I have seen people called morbidly obese and from a medical advice/news site (Morbid obesity: Symptoms, treatment, and outlook) that tries to explain it in simpler terms:
"A person can be obese without being considered morbidly obese. A person who is obese has a BMI of 30 or above. An obese person has a greater chance of developing:
diabetes
stroke
heart disease
high blood pressure
arthritis
some cancers
Morbid obesity occurs when a person reaches a level of obesity that greatly increases the chances of developing one of these conditions.
These conditions are often referred to as comorbidities and are responsible for causing disabilities or even death."
So no I havenât seen a Death Cert with BMI as the cause of death but I have seen it linked to the disease that did cause the death and described as a contributing factor.
I also link a couple of Wiki articles on the matter that show how obesity is a major cause of âpreventable deathsâ along with hypertension and smoking:
(the article that follows does not format correctly on this site but a visit to the actual page does not suffer from the extraneous characters)
And finally from âThe Obesity Societyâ is their position statement of 2018 on the matter of obesity:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.22378
"Diseases are defined as âdeviations from the normal or healthy structure or function of a part, organ, or system of the body, caused by underlying etiologies, manifested by characteristic symptoms and signs, and resulting in pathologic consequences that affect health, feeling, or functioningâ 9-11. Diseases are thus defined by maladaptive changes from ânormalâ body structure and function that are brought about by underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms and that lead to symptoms and signs that affect health. In this classical context, TOS takes the position that
â[o]besity is a multiâcausal chronic disease recognized across the lifeâspan resulting from longâterm positive energy balance with development of excess adiposity that over time leads to structural abnormalities, physiological derangements, and functional impairments. The disease of obesity increases the risk of developing other chronic diseases and is associated with premature mortality. As with other chronic diseases, obesity is distinguished by multiple phenotypes, clinical presentations, and treatment responses.â
Specifically, excess adiposity above a predefined threshold may be accompanied by, but not limited to, the following:
- Structural abnormalities such as left ventricular hypertrophy, lymphedema/venous stasis, musculoskeletal derangements, liver steatosis/fibrosis;
- Functional abnormalities such as gastrointestinal reflux, urinary incontinence, disability/immobility, and the presence of chronic disease risk factors, including the following: insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, dyslipidemia, and elevated blood pressure; infertility; earlier age at menarche in females; and, with pregnancy, large for age fetus and multiple adverse fetal and neonatal outcomes;
- Signs and symptoms, including hyperphagia with some conditions, obstructive sleep apnea/obesity hypoventilation syndrome, impaired exercise tolerance, and symptoms related to the structural and functional abnormalities noted above;
- Elevated premature mortality risk; and an
- Increased comorbidity risk, including providing the conditions favoring the development of more than 200 chronic diseases, including but not limited to the following (#; 2015 ranking of major causes of mortality in the United States): cardiovascular disease (#1); some cancers (#2); cerebrovascular diseases (#5); type 2 diabetes mellitus (#7); hypertension; asthma; psychiatric diseases, including depression; polycystic ovary syndrome; nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; gastrointestinal reflux disease; gallbladder disease; osteoarthritis; during pregnancy, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus; and, during childhood and adolescence, pseudotumor cerebri.
Taken collectively, the disease of obesity accounts for, directly or indirectly, reduced quality of life of affected individuals and imposes substantial societal economic costs.
TOS ascribes to the position that the benefits of defining obesity as a disease outweigh the commonly advanced counterarguments, such as that excess adiposity should be viewed as an intermediate risk factor rather than as a disease per se or that medicalizing obesity would increase rather than decrease some of the adverse social and psychological consequences for those afflicted."
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That is a very nice account of what a serious issue obesity is. In the process, it illustrates quite well the distinction between cause and risk factor.
If the BBC article were half as informative for each of the risk factors, it would have been quite helpfulâŠ
I was mistaken in at least one respect: I blamed the BBC article for confusing cause and risk, but I realise that the the Lancet pie chart was the source of confusion. Iâm so used to scientific writing being misrepresented in the media, but in this case the Lancet published the deception and BBC just passed it on, even having the good grace to inform us how the the original author(s) massaged the risk data to make them look like causes.
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