Comment by hellameta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hellameta | Hacker News Reader

I admit I'm not a researcher but this is seems shotty. First, the abstract does a better job - http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/08/1505063112.shor....

Second, as some other have pointed out, what exactly is self control? What exactly do you do with that self control? This seems to me a little like saying that workers who take 10min breaks from work all have shorter life spans. Only to forget those 10min breaks are to smoke cigarettes. (I believe this contrived example is from Naked Statistics).

What's next, "Diet and exercise forecast better physical outcomes but faster epigenetic aging in low-SES youth"?

The results are interesting, sure, but warrant a lot more research before an article like this makes any sense.

Thoughts?

> Second, as some other have pointed out, what exactly is self control? What exactly do you do with that self control?

That is a simplistic criticism. The way you answer this question for yourself is to (1) look at the paper and how they define self-control (and cellular aging!), (2) follow the references that they cite for measuring self-control, (3) review the literature and critique it. Else, your suggestion is that people in the field of self-control haven't bothered asking your question, which is unlikely since they are specializing in the study of self-control!

I see this but there was another sentence you left out of your quote that I was leading to. I'm not criticizing the research - I'm positive I bring no new line of questioning. What I do want more information on is what happens if your self control leads you to diet and exercise (which plenty of study shows improves cellular aging)?

And I would love to read further in detail but I can't afford the access. If someone has it and can easily answer - please do!

I find it's not helpful to derive any result from this study. It's like a study of personality and health. It doesn't help people be the way they are. The best we can think of is to take vacation every once a while to relief stress, or not too anal on things, etc., which are already being said. So, what's the point? Focus on actually solving hypertension and other health problems make more sense to me.

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