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Comment by glangdale | Hacker News Reader

Aside from DUI risk and passive smoking, most of these risks are specific to the person. I can't catch obesity from being in the same room as a obese person, and while public health costs go up from drinkers/smokers/heavy people, I haven't heard of ambulances being gridlocked outside a hospital due to a spike of lifestyle diseases.

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This pandemic would be a blip if everyone was in shape.

>CFR (case fatality ratio) in the large cohort in China was elevated for patients with comorbidities, with 10.5% of those with underlying cardiovascular disease, 7.3% of those with diabetes, 6.3% of those with chronic respiratory disease, and 5.6% of those with cancer dying of COVID-related illness. [1]

That looks like a clean 17% reduction for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So yes, hospitals are getting gridlocked during this pandemic because of lifestyle diseases.

>The NCHS statement broke down the death certificates mentioning COVID-19. For 94% of people who had COVID-19 also had other conditions listed. COVID-19 alone was cause of death for 6%.

>Dr. Maja Artandi ( here ), medical director of the Stanford CROWN Clinic for COVID-19 patients ( here ), told Reuters via email that the CDC’s numbers “are really not a big surprise,” as “patients who have a comorbidity such as diabetes, hypertension or obesity have a higher risk of getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19.” [2]

Without COVID they would still be alive, but no doubt lifestyle disease has been a serious contributing factor to deaths during this pandemic.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guida... 2.https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-94-percent-covi...

Not to scare this mostly young group of people, but one thing you’ll find is that as you get older, there is no beating these co-morbidities over the long haul. You list them because you figure if people just took care of themselves it would all work out. That’s not how old age works except for a very limited, lucky bunch. The rest of us should think of life more like a game of Dungeons and Dragons: you start with a base set of stats that help you make saving throws against disease and such. Every year, your stats get worse, and they take away your advantage. No matter how much exercise you do, or how well you are off, you will lose on those dice. More importantly, you will lose a lot. The first couple times won’t kill you. But eventually, it catches up with you, and that’s that. Covid is a difficult saving throw without assistance from medicine.

> Every year, your stats get worse, and they take away your advantage. No matter how much exercise you do, or how well you are off, you will lose on those dice.

Plenty of people get into much better shape in their 30s and 40s than they were as teens or twenties because they take it more seriously. There is obviously a yearly cost, but it's highly, highly variable how much that decline has to be, especially when you are younger. Sleep better, exercise more, eat mostly vegetables and your decline rate will stay close to 0 most years and may improve in some years. You will catch fewer diseases and be sick for less time when you do catch one.

Father time always wins, but you can play defense and make it a competitive match.

> >with 10.5% of those with underlying cardiovascular disease, 7.3% of those with diabetes, 6.3% of those with chronic respiratory disease, and 5.6% of those with cancer dying of COVID-related illness. [1]

>That looks like a clean 17% reduction for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Sorry for not writing a complete reply but you can't add those numbers like that.

Fair enough, there is probably some overlap there.

Okay, but they aren't and it's not

But doesn't a population's overall poor health contribute to the potential gridlock of the healthcare system? I mean, what is the percentage of non-accident emergencies in the system and has it increased with the overall decline in society's fitness? (assuming it has declined I suppose, I don't have any numbers as I am not in that field)

It probably adds some load, but it's a predictable amount spread out across decades, not a giant clump right now. It will consume more healthcare resources, but it's not going to overload the healthcare system and prevent other people from using it.

Children can “catch” obesity from their parents. Once you’re sufficiently overweight, it’s hard to turn back, even when you leave your parents house.

> Aside from DUI risk and passive smoking, most of these risks are specific to the person. I can't catch obesity from being in the same room as...

That's not entirely accurate. Human behavior is effectively viral (per any of the Jonah Berger books among others). What we see becomes the norm, a behavioral norm.

Smoking has decreased because it has become "less fashionable." And so on. So while you might not catch obesity in the strict virus sense, if you're exposed enough, that exposure can and often does influence your behavior.

Even though a large percentage of us adults are obese I don't consider it normalized since it'd a target of ridicule, there's a massive industry around losing weight, and I'm assuming if you ask most fat people if they want to be thin they would say yes.

For fitness I do want to be fair and point out general health and muscle building are parts of that health industry

What you're missing is...how did they get there? It wasn't overnight.

When you can be 20 to 30 lbs overweight...look around the room...and think "oh, I've nothing to worry about, I'm not as bad as most ppl here..." that has influence. When everyone sitting around your dinner table (i.e., family) is unhealthy...that has influence.

Yes, consciously they'd answer as you said. Of course. However, we're wired different subconsciously, and those signals and nudges are far more influential than most ppl realize.

And again I'll default to Jonah Berger. He's the scientist. I'm only the messenger.

More expensive.. more limited.

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