It's mostly obesity, which the article sort of mentions ("known links to obesity") but kind of obscures by saying "obesity does not fully account for the rise" and "a clear answer remained elusive." The medical establishment and journalism have found it extremely uncomfortable over the past decade to notice that obesity has negative health consequences because it might embarrass some fat people, and this is more of that. We know obesity is really bad for you, including causing higher rates of cancer. We know over what time periods young people became more obese.
Have diets really gotten noticeably unhealthier over recent decades? I'm not sure that's the case. We used herbicides and pesticides 20 years ago too, of course. It's becoming increasingly clear that fiber intake is linked to cancer rates, but again I'm not sure diets 20 years ago had higher fiber on average.
> I remember being in my 20s and not being able to sleep, but the most distracting thing I could reach for was a pile of books in my bedside table.
Back when I was young in the 90s, this was exactly how I spent the last 5-6 hours of my days, reading books in my bed until the sun came up in the morning and I actually started getting tired.
Now, I sleep much better, the bed and bedroom is limited to just two activities, sleeping and funtime with partner, otherwise I never just chill in the bed or have anything else interesting in there. And if I can't sleep, I go up again and do something else until I'm tired enough to actually lay down in the bed. Probably helps a ton, as even with the phone on the nightstand next to me, I do fall asleep relatively quick.
Lack of sleep, not because of phones but because of more demanding lives due to modern education and workplace demands. Phones might contribute too, but consider how normal it is today to work till late hours compared to previous generations.
What a shame that "no definitive culprit yet" somehow becomes "nothing specific to worry about yet, carry on" instead of "we can't answer because there are too many horrifying trends all at once".
Besides all the other factors mentioned, which I think are all valid, there's also indoor air pollution from things like aerosol sprays, cleaning products, fragrance, creams, soaps, other products.
Plastics, the increase in background radiation, pesticides, and or a side effect of extra calories are all possibilities. Daily allergy medicines might also be a factor as those reduce immune response slightly.
I believe that county specific studies seem to support your thesis. For instance, countries that eat less processed food (eg Italy) and have stricter rules about pesticides didn't see an increase in stuff like colorectal cancer [1]. Some cancers incidence did grow, but others decreased keeping incidence more or less the same.
I’m not obese or overweight and while my main meals (breakfast and dinner) are generally very healthy - I can still eat a lot of trash (ultra processed)food as snacks.
One study (sorry, can't recall the source off the top of my head) claimed 20% of calories in the average U.S. diet was replaced by processed foods over that period. I'm over 50 years old, and it agrees with my own observations. Those "big gulp" beverages became popular in the 80s, and "low fat" foods just replaced fat with added sugar.
One example: long ago I used to buy Bush's baked beans in a can. They had a vegetarian version which I assumed was healthier, and it even tasted better than the original. But one day I compared the labels and found the vegetarian version had more added sugar and more calories per serving.
We were fed a massive amount of misinformation about healthy foods in the 1980s. Hopefully things will improve from now on.
Your guess is not wild at all, and the article implies that (at least until the payment popup shows up)
My grandmother used to grow her own vegetables and fruits and had a minimal chicken farm for eggs until the early 2000s, all in her regular backyard, it's not ancient history or something that required a lot of real state.
Now there's a 15-story building and no land whatsoever where her house used to be.
As a kid I used to do that with my family: Grow our own everything.
I'm currently trying to get back to it, until then I try to eat ecological and as much as I can cooked by myself. It is hard though, not everybody can aford a plot of land (ideally next to some decent sized town)
Without counting anything out it's worth saying that artificial sweeteners are some of the most-tested food ingredients because of concern about their health impacts. It's possible that we missed something, but you have to weigh that against the chance we missed something about every other possible food ingredient (all of which have been tested less).
Nah, technology advancement is full of free lunches.
It breaks our ape brain intuition that anything good must also be bad. But consider all the food tech you take for granted while singling out zero-cal sweeteners.
No till farming is probably helping. I learned this year what that really means by seeing farms where they spray herbicide to kill the plants,then they plant new seed while the old dead is still standing around. They then use herbicide as a desiccant to kill the plant at harvest. They probably use pesticides too. The cycle then repeats. I was so disgusted as seeing new crops sprouting amongst the dead vegetation. It must be engineered for that. I came to the inescapable conclusion that the farmers are poisoning everyone rather than have to offer real jobs to native born laborers.
Buckets of *cide, herb and insect, through the cycle. Those no till fields full of crops are some of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. That soil will have applications and applications of *cide soaked in it top to bottom. Like eating plants from a toxic waste dump.
Disgusting. That's the critical national need for glycosphate. Feeding us all engineered stuff from toxic waste dumps so farmers can not need workers or mowing and tilling equipment.
I don’t doubt what you’ve seen, and how some farmers are doing no-till.
However, there are better ways to do no-till that don’t require large herbicide input. No-till is really good for reducing the amount of water needed to farm and preserving soil structure, which is beneficial for all kinds of reasons. It’s not inherently a bad thing.
That’s how they do lentils in Canada. They use planes to spray roundup to kill the plant (because it doesn’t die naturally like it does in Europe, because of the climate), then harvest it, then sell it in Europe (without even rinsing them).
For European lentil growers it’s illegal to use roundup. But if the roundup has been applied outside of the EU it’s not toxic nor forbidden anymore and it can be eaten by humans.
That’s one of many many many examples. We live in an insane society.
This would be a great thing for all of the AI companies to devote some energy towards. Especially with their reputations in decline. Surely there must be some patterns the AIs could find if we had enough data about the people who died from cancer.
tl; dr the first 4 sentences:
Ultra-processed foods, obesity, microbial toxins and agricultural chemicals were all considered. But a clear answer remained elusive.
> Current "safe" dosage on coffeine is like 8 shots a day. No side effects!
Still is, since none of the side effects of caffeine could be considered "dangerous". (Unless you're taking absurdly large amounts, of course, just like anything else.)
- too much sugar
- too much artificial sweetener
- obesity
- not enough, and possibly too much fiber
- chemicals, generally
- COVID vaccines
- farmers not giving real jobs to native born laborers
I will now read the article.
Have diets really gotten noticeably unhealthier over recent decades? I'm not sure that's the case. We used herbicides and pesticides 20 years ago too, of course. It's becoming increasingly clear that fiber intake is linked to cancer rates, but again I'm not sure diets 20 years ago had higher fiber on average.
I remember being in my 20s and not being able to sleep, but the most distracting thing I could reach for was a pile of books in my bedside table.
Now, I can't sleep, there's an endless stream of things to keep me awake.
The jokes about "5G gives you cancer" is probably not as funny, if you think about the sleep you miss while you doom scroll.
Back when I was young in the 90s, this was exactly how I spent the last 5-6 hours of my days, reading books in my bed until the sun came up in the morning and I actually started getting tired.
Now, I sleep much better, the bed and bedroom is limited to just two activities, sleeping and funtime with partner, otherwise I never just chill in the bed or have anything else interesting in there. And if I can't sleep, I go up again and do something else until I'm tired enough to actually lay down in the bed. Probably helps a ton, as even with the phone on the nightstand next to me, I do fall asleep relatively quick.
An uninformed comment before you read the article isn't helping anyone.
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03008916241297078
[1]: ubiquitous flame retardants, which in America they put in every couch, carpet, and mattress
[2]: ubiquitous microplastics pollution,
[3]: joint effect of Obesity and Ultra-Processed Foods
[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2022&q=flame+retar... [2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo... [3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo...
They talk about obesity as a separate cause than ultra processed food, I thought it was quite related, something I need to look into
I’m sure that could have an effect.
"Silent Spring" came out over sixty years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring
got massive coverage including a worldwide CBS News broadcast back then
Government and industry were never held to account and instead deregulated everything
We still allow leaded gas to be sprayed all around airports where everyone is exposed during travel and neighborhoods nearby
Golf Course neighborhoods are some of the highest cancer rates in the country
We've learned nothing and now the environment is so saturated with toxins that the immune system is under attack from birth
One example: long ago I used to buy Bush's baked beans in a can. They had a vegetarian version which I assumed was healthier, and it even tasted better than the original. But one day I compared the labels and found the vegetarian version had more added sugar and more calories per serving.
We were fed a massive amount of misinformation about healthy foods in the 1980s. Hopefully things will improve from now on.
My grandmother used to grow her own vegetables and fruits and had a minimal chicken farm for eggs until the early 2000s, all in her regular backyard, it's not ancient history or something that required a lot of real state.
Now there's a 15-story building and no land whatsoever where her house used to be.
I'm currently trying to get back to it, until then I try to eat ecological and as much as I can cooked by myself. It is hard though, not everybody can aford a plot of land (ideally next to some decent sized town)
No way you can just replace (also very very not good for you) sugar with something else and end up with all the upsides and no downsides.
It breaks our ape brain intuition that anything good must also be bad. But consider all the food tech you take for granted while singling out zero-cal sweeteners.
Buckets of *cide, herb and insect, through the cycle. Those no till fields full of crops are some of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. That soil will have applications and applications of *cide soaked in it top to bottom. Like eating plants from a toxic waste dump.
Disgusting. That's the critical national need for glycosphate. Feeding us all engineered stuff from toxic waste dumps so farmers can not need workers or mowing and tilling equipment.
However, there are better ways to do no-till that don’t require large herbicide input. No-till is really good for reducing the amount of water needed to farm and preserving soil structure, which is beneficial for all kinds of reasons. It’s not inherently a bad thing.
For European lentil growers it’s illegal to use roundup. But if the roundup has been applied outside of the EU it’s not toxic nor forbidden anymore and it can be eaten by humans.
That’s one of many many many examples. We live in an insane society.
tl;dr ultra processed foods and pesticides
Its clearly a dodecahedron ;)
Current "safe" dosage on coffeine is like 8 shots a day. No side effects!
Still is, since none of the side effects of caffeine could be considered "dangerous". (Unless you're taking absurdly large amounts, of course, just like anything else.)