RE: greatest threats to survival (was: why believe the truth?)

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 07:12:17 MDT

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    On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Ramez Naam, in reply to my citing U.S. deaths wrote:

    > This looks like a breakdown of US causes of death to me. When you
    > look at the numbers for the whole world, it's like so (as of 2001).
    >
    > Total Deaths in 2001 56.5 million 100%
    > Non-communicable[1] 33.1 million 58.6%
    > Communicable[2] 18.4 million 41.4%
    >
    > [1] - This category is dominated by heart disease and cancer, both of
    > which are radically more common in old age. Even if we imagine that
    > 20% of deaths in this category are not age-related, we end up with
    > almost half of all deaths being indirectly due to aging.

    But we know that there are people who can live past 90 without
    dying of heart disease or cancer -- so one has to assign a
    significant part of the responsibility to self-inflicted
    causes (smoking, poor diet, etc.) and probably an even larger
    fraction to genetic defects. There are just too many people
    who don't get heart disease or cancer to place the blame on
    "aging" per se. "Aging" may be a contributing factor but
    I suspect poor genetic combinations are a big part of the
    problem as well. Does one call mutations in the FAP or
    HNPCC genes that predispose one to colon cancer or the
    several mutations that predispose one to Alzheimer's disease
    "aging"? I would argue no. Yes those people age -- but
    the "cause of death" should be assigned to having a losing
    ticket in the genetic lottery.

    If one assumes that the genetic lottery is a significant
    factor in determing whether one dies at 70-80 vs. 100-110.
    then it is a major player in "premature" death. Interactions
    between environment & diet & the genetic lottery are probably
    another specific fraction -- there are people who smoke or
    drink who do not die a "premature" death.

    > [2] { snip} Even so, we end up with more than 15 million
    > diseases due directly to infectious diseases, around 26-27% of the
    > total deaths in 2001.

    Granted. Fortunately almost all, if not all, of the significant
    disease causing organisms have had their genomes sequenced. So
    we can rip them apart, as one would open up a shrimp or lobster
    shell, to find their vulnerabilities. The problem will be in
    delivering solutions to less developed countries affordably.

    Great data BTW.
    Robert

    For references, see Collins et al. Nature 422:835-847 (24 Apr 2003).
    In particular Refs #36 and #37.



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