<html><head></head><body><div><span data-mailaddress="foozler83@gmail.com" data-contactname="William Flynn Wallace" class="clickable"><span title="foozler83@gmail.com">William Flynn Wallace</span><span class="detail"> <foozler83@gmail.com></span></span> , 28/5/2014 2:09 AM:<br><blockquote class="mori" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div><div class="mcntgmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline;">​When it comes to health, it is worth noticing that
the health of people in developed countries (where we likely have
the richest mix of molecules) is increasing and far better than in
counties where we can expect a more 'natural' environment (Anders)<br><br></div><div class="mcntgmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline;">That is doomed to fall, given the horrendous epidemic in obesity, which is increasing in every country that is eating a Western diet. </div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>Maybe... obesity and the accompanying metabolic syndrome are pretty bad for health. But the impact doesn't seem to have showed up in life expectancy yet:</div><div>https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:USA:MEX:JPN:NOR&ifdim=region&tstart=549327600000&tend=1338332400000&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false</div><div>Here I plotted two high obesity countries - US and Mexico - and two low obesity countries - Japan and Norway. While obesity might be part of the explanation of why US and Mexico are below Norway and Japan, the level of obesity has been growing exponentially during this period, yet life expectancy is still going up linearly:</div><div>http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/health/feature/forty/images/obesity_large.jpg</div><div>Looking at the impact of obesity on life expectancy in US states shows that it does reduce it by a few years</div><div>http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~branderr/usamed/avg_life_vs_obesity.png</div><div>- but it might be that the trend towards stronger life expectancy is bigger than this decrement. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br>Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University</body></html>