Knowing your risk does not change behavior, at least that seems to be the case with genetic risks. That means dietary and lifestyle approaches towards cardiovascular disease are out. As a good approximation, everyone who wants to have a healthy lifestyle already has one*.
On the other hand, it is possible that more people would benefit from wide-spread use of statins and that they could be convinced to actually take them.
Cardiovascular disease is definitely not a neglected cause area. It is a multi-billion dollar industry and a very popular research field. Neither is targeting cardiovascular disease an effective approach towards improving population health due to Taeuber’s paradox: ”..[the complete] elimination of neoplasms as an underlying cause would result in 3.83 life years to be gained among men, and 3.38 life years to be gained among women. Elimination of cardiovascular diseases results in a larger gain in life expectancy: 4.93 years among men and 4.52 years among women. “ https://jech.bmj.com/content/53/1/32.short
As you can imagine the benefit to human healthspan and lifespan due to a marginal reduction in cardiovascular disease achievable through refinements of diet and drugs would be minuscule.
The only way to significantly (and efficiently) improve human healthspan in developed countries is through slowing aging which is a risk factor for all major diseases.
*A potential cause area would be to work on legislative change that will compel people to change their lifestyle, this could be feasible, e.g. via taxation.
As a good approximation, everyone who wants to have a healthy lifestyle already has one*.
This is an under-explored topic in modern world-optimization and in Utilitarian theory. When a large population has a revealed preference for unhealthy lifestyles, do we respect that and include those choices in our total/average welfare calculations, or do we think that overriding their agency is an improvement?
I didn’t know these numbers and I didn’t know about the Taeuber paradox, but they definitely put Part 5 into perspective.
I wonder if early treatment should be considered a refinement? That is debatable and I honestly don’t know the answer. But it does put an upper bound on the benefits of starting early treatment, for which I’m grateful.
Knowing your risk does not change behavior, at least that seems to be the case with genetic risks. That means dietary and lifestyle approaches towards cardiovascular disease are out. As a good approximation, everyone who wants to have a healthy lifestyle already has one*.
On the other hand, it is possible that more people would benefit from wide-spread use of statins and that they could be convinced to actually take them.
Cardiovascular disease is definitely not a neglected cause area. It is a multi-billion dollar industry and a very popular research field. Neither is targeting cardiovascular disease an effective approach towards improving population health due to Taeuber’s paradox:
”..[the complete] elimination of neoplasms as an underlying cause would result in 3.83 life years to be gained among men, and 3.38 life years to be gained among women. Elimination of cardiovascular diseases results in a larger gain in life expectancy: 4.93 years among men and 4.52 years among women. “
https://jech.bmj.com/content/53/1/32.short
As you can imagine the benefit to human healthspan and lifespan due to a marginal reduction in cardiovascular disease achievable through refinements of diet and drugs would be minuscule.
The only way to significantly (and efficiently) improve human healthspan in developed countries is through slowing aging which is a risk factor for all major diseases.
*A potential cause area would be to work on legislative change that will compel people to change their lifestyle, this could be feasible, e.g. via taxation.
This is an under-explored topic in modern world-optimization and in Utilitarian theory. When a large population has a revealed preference for unhealthy lifestyles, do we respect that and include those choices in our total/average welfare calculations, or do we think that overriding their agency is an improvement?
I didn’t know these numbers and I didn’t know about the Taeuber paradox, but they definitely put Part 5 into perspective.
I wonder if early treatment should be considered a refinement? That is debatable and I honestly don’t know the answer. But it does put an upper bound on the benefits of starting early treatment, for which I’m grateful.