Western lifestyle may cause blood pressure to rise with age
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
[unsurprisingly] I saw many 90yo persons there with good health. Walking with family to rituals. Good memory, good spirit. These people often lived in tiny houses with not much. Something to think about.
I gather that people who are addicted to stimulants also become anxious if they start to sober up.
The data are mixed. One analysis, for example, showed that "Type A behavior" was not correlated with CVD[1]. Another showed that increased tension was associated with heart disease[2]. You can find plenty of other papers on the subject as well.
Job-related stress is a particularly interesting aspect of this. Conceptually, it makes sense that demanding work would increase cortisol levels and lead to CVD, but a number of studies don't bear this out after correcting for smoking, exercise, and so on. However, one could argue that job-stress leads to higher rates of smoking, drinking, etc., which makes the interpretation harder. It may also be that stress at work is not the only factor, and that the combination of high stress plus low control over one's work is substantially worse than one or the other alone.[3]
It is a bit unsatisfying to not have a clear answer, but I think the issue is more nuanced than I would have assumed.
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/665654 [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16204425 [3]https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/jaha.117.008073
I grew up in a slow, small town so the pace and friendly nature felt more natural to me than living in the city does (don’t smile too much or be too engaging if that’s not your station or people will treat you with suspicion at first).
At the same time (in and around Kona) I constantly saw people excercizing. And everybody seems to hangout outside regularly. And they get up with the sun because it tends to set pretty sharply after 12 hours.
exactly, tropical sun makes you rise early too, which is quite nice. We're really animals tied to sun cycles etc.
Also being around nature makes you lock in its rhythm too. Rain, insects, animals.. it's such a different feeling I can't really describe it. It has no meaning, just tree waving, rivers flowing but you feel happy moving along.
I can't say I could live all year long on an island, because I was born and raised near Paris so.. if pains me a little not to see it. But I know I feel very different on this island.
Hawaii has the highest life expectancy of any US State, over 81 years vs some other states that are over 5 years less!
But, I was only a visitor- did not bargain-hunt- and I am only an anecdote of one.
From the wiki:
>In addition to the ban on garlic practically all Mahayana monastics in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan specifically avoid eating strong-smelling plants, traditionally asafoetida, shallot, mountain leek and Allium chinense, which together with garlic are referred to as wǔ hūn (五荤, or 'Five Acrid and Strong-smelling Vegetables') or wǔ xīn (五辛 or 'Five Spices') as they tend to excite senses. This is based on teachings found in the Brahamajala Sutra, the Surangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra (chapter eight). In modern times this rule is often interpreted to include other vegetables of the onion genus, as well as coriander. The origins of this additional restriction is from the Indic region and can still be found among some believers of Hinduism and Jainism. Some Taoists also have this additional restriction but the list of restricted plants differs from the Buddhist list.
I actually learned this from Chef's Table S3E01 which is a great intro to Buddhist Cuisine if you're interested in learning more. It seems ironic that the five "pungent" herbs are avoided but fermented vegetables are not.
Tropical climate is really strong so much sun and rain.
I didn't find food too bad except for certain items that aren't common on the Island. Then again I'm from Canada and we have to ship a lot up from Mexico in the winter if it hasn't been frozen.
The Costco in Kona is your friend.
I think what surprised me the most is that imported things with indefinite shelf lives were still quite expensive.
But it's certainly true that I am accustomed to having access to produce & spices that are probably not grown locally in Hawai'i.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pr...
> the study is very small – only 11 Yekwana individuals over the age of 40 took part in the research
I am not surprised.
My grandparents (85ish) do the same, they go on walks and occasionally bike rides together. Not very far, around 5km. But it beats just sitting around doing nothing!
Some of my geriatric relatives are ridiculously healthy, by choice. Two of them were part of this program:
"Are you Fitter than a Pensioner?" [2010]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00txmm3
In response to the obesity & diabetes epidemic, the BBC sent kids to live and train with seniors in the USA. The before and after interviews are quite telling.
Losing to seniors really changed the kid's perceptions of and expectations for aging.
The closer I get to my forties, the more important it is to take care of my body. Basically, you just realize that your body is not what it used to be, and you have either the choice to do something to stay/get back in shape (more sports, a better diet), or let it go (which is, unfortunately, the first step to health complications).
There is also a strong bias regarding to whom you hang with then. Being "seriously" involved in any sport means that you are going to dedicate a significant part of your free time to training, and therefore, will spent much more time with your fellow sportsmates than "regular" friends.
I always wonder how the people over 40 training for a triathlon do in the long run. Do they accumulate more and more problems until they can't do it anymore? How do they handle injuries that don't allow them to run anymore?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Buder#Triathlon_career
Used to teach yoga classes. During seminars you could see older famous teachers do amazing stuff. I thought yoga is is really healthy until I found out that a lot of them had hip and knee replacements and often lived in painkillers.
I believe most people simply can't do high intensity stuff from a certain age on or have to be very selective.
It's bi-modal isn't it?
Half of people are fatter than ever, the other half are fitnesses obsessed. There's not as much moderation in the middle as there sued to be.
Now, they've similarly "defaulted" into the lifestyle and eating habits that are available to them, but those are worse for their health.
But "blood pressure rise with age" is almost certainly due to atherosclerosis. And atherosclerosis seems to be primarily caused due to inflammation, which destroys the artery walls, which in turn kickstarts the immunity system to come and "repair" them by patching them up with cholesterol and calcium. Then there is less room for blood to pass through the arteries = higher blood pressure. The calcium/cholesterol plaques breaking apart = heart attack.
There's also this new theory that the stuff that acts as protection for your artery walls is destroyed by high glucose in the blood/high-carb meals.
In all seriousness, it's probably genes, but I've also started to suspect it's due to coffee. They each drink about twelve cups of coffee per day. In the past few years, there have been more and more studies suggesting coffee is surprisingly good for you.
Another advantage is that they both worked for themselves; they never had bosses making them do excruciatingly stupid things for years on end.
So, you'd rather they got worse results?
>It is all the more frustrating because my dad smoked for about thirty-five years, and according to his veins it's as though he never smoked at all. I am thinking of asking the doctor if he can fudge the results. In all seriousness, it's probably genes, but I've also started to suspect it's due to coffee. They each drink about twelve cups of coffee per day. In the past few years, there have been more and more studies suggesting coffee is surprisingly good for you.
Sounds very unlikely, and there really haven't been "more and more studies suggesting coffee is surprisingly good for you". At best a few ho-hum studies recycled by countless news outlets and websites. Coffee is not so miracle food (actually there are no such "superfoods"), and tons of people have smoked AND drank lots of coffee and still had bad health.
That said, some of the longer living populations in the Blue Zones smoke just fine and had for all their lives -- stress free, better foods, and regular walking is more important.
E.g. according to this a sedentary lifestyle is worse than smoking + diabetes + heart disease for your survival stats:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/19/health/study-not-exercisi...
Four sentences in.
When doing a 5-day fasting recently I purposefully tried to consume significant amounts of salt because I felt like I was lacking in electrolytes. I could barely maintain my blood pressure around 10.5/6. Normally, it's around 11.5-12/7.
This is a nice video discussing some studies that show that high levels of salt is significantly better if it comes with high levels of potassium compared to low levels of salt but even lower levels of potassium (by ratio):
There’s generally a lot more physical activity in Europe because public transit is good and vehicle ownership is expensive and inconvenient.
Their salt intake is probably similar. But the link between salt and hypertension may not be as strong as once thought, especially among individuals with low salt sensitivity. I have mild hypertension myself that is correlated with weight rather than salt intake.
But the main point is the given definition of a Western lifestyle isn’t descriptive of the lifestyles of a vast number of Westerners.
People keep trying to push their anti meat morality by finding all sorts of made up reasons why its an issue but good science is firmly unable to prove all those myriad of made up fear mongering links.