U.S. life expectancy hits all-time high

Obesity drugs are in the top 25 for 2025, but don't make up the largest plurality. That goes to oncology drugs at ~1/3rd. Obesity drugs are at ~14%.

I want to mention here that these oncology drugs are mostly antibody methods. Which, what the hell? We're making antibody drugs at scale now?! And that's like some of the highest selling drugs out there?

For comparison, though not in the linked article here, Acetaminophen (Tylenol) only comes in at ~$4.3B, which would put it way down in 13th place, out of the top 10.

Granted, this is sales numbers, and in the US, that's practically taking the savings of very sick people and turning it into stocks. Something that elicits no small reaction here on HN or just about anywhere.

Still, to the point of the main article, yes, we live in an age of medical miracles, and it arrived quite suddenly, only in the last 7 years or so, and we have a lot of gas in this tank.

Your argument about access to healthcare based on race doesn’t make sense either. Hispanics in the U.S. live longer than white people, despite having the highest rate of lacking health insurance.

SubQ pen injections are something even most people afraid of needles can get used to quite quickly, so even if the pill forms never get to the same efficacy there's really no reason that they couldn't solve it for most everyone once they go generic and become affordable, or become otherwise subsidized. China already produces the APIs in huge quantities for insanely cheap for sale on the black market, so we know that they can be produced for extremely low costs.

Cuba has been under embargo for 66 years.

In one sense the Cuban healthcare system is mediocre, since it suffers from the shortages that plague the entire nation.

But that's like saying Cuban auto mechanics, who also suffer from shortages, are mediocre, despite their ability to keep the island's 70 year old American cars and Yugos in pristine condition.

Genocide by denial for decades.

To give Trump credit, at least he's open about his intentions. Much like a certain Austrian painter from the 1930s; he too was open about his plans, and no one took him seriously until it was too late.

Statistics like these often overlay with demographic maps. In all of these states, there are swaths of geography that fall along color and income lines. If we want to change the numbers, taxing prosperous states to benefit these poorer ones would be beneficial.

That makes sense to me. Unhealthy people are less likely to make the (often) physically gruelling trip and take on the potentially gruelling lifestyle, and all the uncertainty. The same, I expect, applies to motivation - people thoughtlessly call immigrants 'lazy', but the lazy people don't give up their familiar lives and move - many crossing jungles and risking criminals - someplace where they have nothing, not even legal status, often not even the language, and start from scratch - with the goal that after a lifetime of hard work, your children will be comfortable.

Higher muscle mass tends to mean better insulin sensitivity, a higher general level of physical fitness, etc. etc. etc. These are all larger beneficial improvements than the problem with just being a larger person.

But if you look at two people of different heights, the same FFMI, etc., the larger person will have lower life expectancy, and it's not because their head is a few inches higher in the air, and despite having a similar body composition and more total muscle mass. (Obviously controlling for all other variables)

We know that blood flow demand increases put additional strain on the heart. We know this is one of the causes of things like LVH and other negative cardiac remodeling. We know that at rest, muscle and fat mass have essentially identical blood flow requirements. Even natural powerlifters when having their heart scans have found increased septum and posterior wall thickness without the increase in chamber size that endurance athletes have that keeps function optimal - they have diastolic function loss. In fact, in many of the negative imaging results, they found minimal difference between natural powerlifters and enhanced - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4079743/

People get obstructive sleep apnea from too much muscle mass, even at low levels of body fat.

On the enhanced side, we see better health outcomes from people that both drop the AAS usage alongside letting them size go down vs. those that just come off the gear. (You can keep very significant portions of your enhanced gains while at physiological levels, as long as you maintain strict training, protein intake, etc. It's one of the reasons that many people argue that the 7-10 year bans in natural powerlifting federations is not actually effective.)

It's a u shaped curve. At some point all of the health benefits of muscle can't make up for the increased cardiovascular strain. The majority of people have more risk from their less-muscular body composition so building more will almost certainly benefit them, but that's not the same as the idea that body size, from any cause, doesn't have a negative correlation with longevity.

>That 5 years difference between men and women keeps being biologically weird

The implication is that the "biological" expectation would be that men and women have the same life expectancy, absent medical intervention and societal standards and whatnot.

But it is possible that, due to having different biologies, men and women simply have different life expectancies. Similar to how men and women have different muscle mass and bone densities and height and yada yada.

Obviously, external factors could also be a factor, but my point is "internal" factors are also in play.

It seems evident that the taller you are, the less life expectancy you have from the simple fact that the heart has to work harder.

Hence, since men are usually taller than women, it might also be expected for men to die younger.

I am making the following scenario up, but what if a difference in men and women's bodies causes men to process cholesterol differently, and increases the probability of atherosclerosis and/or arteriosclerosis. Perhaps it happens simply because men eat more than women, and this compounds over decades of life, eventually resulting in the difference in average age at death.

We already know women live longer than men on average, and also have less muscle-mass than men on average, so clearly it's not having too much of an impact on women.

Without looking into actual statistics here, Japan is known for having a high life expectancy, and stereotypically Japan's population is both relatively thin, and has relatively little muscle, so that also seems to defy that expectation.

What sort of mortality are you expecting here?

Pretty much every man over 45 should get on TRT, because his health and QOL will improve more from that than perhaps anything else.