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Five theories about why middle-aged, white Americans are dying at such shockingly high rates
National Post ^ | November 6, 2015 | Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post

Posted on 11/07/2015 6:08:40 AM PST by rickmichaels

"Half a million people are dead who should not be dead," Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics told my Post colleagues Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach.

Deaton, an economics professor at Princeton, was talking about the stunning finding that he and his wife, Anne Case, made while analyzing U.S. death data from the past few decades. The researchers found that the mortality rate for white men and women ages 45 to 54 with less than a college education took a sharp turn upward in 1999 - a disconcerting reversal that has been virtually unheard of in advanced countries.

To put that number into perspective, Deaton estimates that a half-million deaths is "about 40 times the Ebola stats." He added, "You're getting up there with HIV-AIDS."

The couple's study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, offered a number of possible reasons that this might be happening. And since its publication, other experts have weighed in on other trends that might explain this phenomenon. Below is a look at five of their theories. Many of them have to do more with psychological distress than traditional causes of death such as heart disease or lung cancer.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Society
KEYWORDS: health; middleage
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To: rickmichaels; LucyT

Thanks for the post; for the ping. Placemark BUMP (for later read)


141 posted on 11/07/2015 4:36:52 PM PST by PGalt
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To: Ouderkirk

Your situation is very tragic: can you become self-employed; it may be your only recourse?


142 posted on 11/07/2015 4:40:33 PM PST by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: sagar
When people die, it’s usually their fault.

If people don't want to die, then maybe they should have thought about that before they were born.

143 posted on 11/07/2015 4:42:40 PM PST by Sirius Lee (Cruz or Lose 2016)
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To: cuban leaf

With no health insurance, you might be extra slow and cautious when doing work or driving. Never get in a hurry if you can avoid doing so except for emergencies.


144 posted on 11/07/2015 4:42:55 PM PST by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: cuban leaf

KY even taxes your out-of-state bank accounts and the value of your furniture, or has that changed?


145 posted on 11/07/2015 4:45:07 PM PST by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: Salvation

I was under the impression that those who procured popular abortions are the happiest people on earth, like the sign at Disneyland says.


146 posted on 11/07/2015 4:48:07 PM PST by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: spokeshave

“Butties are inch thick white bread slices, soaked in egg, fried-——”


Isn’t that what we call French Toast?

Served with butter and maple syrup in my house.

My kids used to love it.

.


147 posted on 11/07/2015 4:51:47 PM PST by Mears
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To: ASA Vet

>>Vacation? Oh ya, I remember now. That was something I last did in 2007. Scheduling the next one in April 2016. Didn’t want to wait the normal ten years.

I’m at 12 years right now. Going on 13. Maybe 2017 is my year.


148 posted on 11/07/2015 4:58:43 PM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Chickensoup
Crazy schedule, and know something? It doesn’t do the kids any good. Kids need to be socializing slowly with friends, not teammates, who often are not friends. Childhood is about development of the core, the self, the soul.

I agree.

149 posted on 11/07/2015 5:05:37 PM PST by Grampa Dave ("If you use FR and don't donate. That means that you are a LeYft Wing or Rino plant, to be ignored!)
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To: Grampa Dave

PPS Since I posted we had 2 families who needed Babysitters.My husband just got back from driving our 11 year old Granddaughter to a soccer game and they are just eating dinner and I have 3 others in the bedroom 4 to 14.This is funny.:)


150 posted on 11/07/2015 5:07:28 PM PST by fatima (Free Hugs Today :))
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To: Theodore R.

Yeah, I Drive an FR-S 160 miles on my commute every day and just cut up a ton of felled trees on my 32 acres today with a chain saw.

;-)

I strongly suggest prayer, my friend!


151 posted on 11/07/2015 5:11:03 PM PST by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Theodore R.

All they tax from me is my income and my real estate. And my annual real estate taxes on my 32 acres with a five year old home is $200 less than the MONTHLY real estate taxes of my friends house on one acre in Maple Valley, WA.


152 posted on 11/07/2015 5:12:53 PM PST by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Theodore R.

All I could find was this sign.

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AlJIIEJxIhDaBIv5l3zLrWmbvZx4?fr=yfp-t-901-s&toggle=1&fp=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&p=disneyland%20sign%20abortion%20laws


153 posted on 11/07/2015 5:23:40 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: House Atreides
I predict that next "they" will be coming for the Asians in America.

The hard-working, studious and family-oriented Far East Asians, that is.

154 posted on 11/07/2015 5:25:11 PM PST by Albion Wilde (If you can't make a deal with a politician, you can't make a deal. --Donald Trump)
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To: rickmichaels

Not enough poontang?


155 posted on 11/07/2015 5:34:47 PM PST by Candor7 (Obama fascism article:(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: fatima

Aw shucks. Thank you fatima.


156 posted on 11/07/2015 5:41:32 PM PST by Art in Idaho (Conservatism is the only Hope for Western Civilization.)
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To: baltiless
I dont know what the hell Im doing even writing this message.

You are talking, creating, informing, speaking of life.

As Cormac McCarthy put it "(the) breath of God is (your) breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time."

I'd just as soon hear your voice in the chorus for a good long while.

157 posted on 11/07/2015 5:41:43 PM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: rickmichaels
just saw the thread...so haven't read all the replieds. First thought was, "because they WANT to"

geez. being a white male is freaking exhausting these days...what with all the apologizing people want and all the $$$ people expect from them.

Good thing Jesus is coming back soon....I hope. :)

158 posted on 11/07/2015 5:45:52 PM PST by ZinGirl (kids in college....can't afford a tagline right now)
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To: Theodore R.

With no health insurance, you might be extra slow and cautious when doing work or driving.


BTW, If I get hurt while driving, car insurance covers it. And I did injure myself pretty badly three months ago. I was boiling tung oil to finish a 12’ desk I was building and somehow stepped on the pot of boiling water in stocking feet. I got bad blisters on my toes and a 4” blister on the top of my foot (starting at the toes and moving up the foot) that was roughly 1.5” tall. But I went to the internet and learned several things:
1. DON’T pop the blisters. They protect the newly growing skin.
2. Use lots of Aloe. We happen to have several Aloe plants around the house.
3. Neosporum will fight off any bacteria and reduce the chance of getting an infection.

It healed in two weeks. I was careful to put NOTHING on it. Not even a bandage. In those two weeks the blisters got ugly, eventually popped, but I left the skin on and kept using aloe. Within three weeks the old skin was gone and the entire area had shiny new red skin. There was not a hint of infection and looking at my foot now you would never know it happened.

All of this without doctors, emergency rooms, etc.

The doctor is good for setting broken bones, but even then it’s less expensive than a single month’s health care insurance premium. Health car insurance is simply not worth the cost.

BTW, when I DID have health insurance, I had a VERY sore toe and thought I’d broken it, even though I don’t remember any event. I went to the doctor and he took x-rays but couldn’t find anything. He sent me home and said I should use asprin or similar to deal with the pain and see what happens.

So I went home and went straight to google. In five minutes it was OBVIOUS that I had gout, and a classic case. In another 5 minutes I knew I should be drinking black cherry juice. I bought some and two days later the pain was gone.

I get it about once a year and now I have black cherry pills (six year supply for $25) and as soon as I feel the slightest twinge of pain there, I start taking two pills a day and it goes away without getting bad.

The doctor had no clue. Google is actually replacing MD’s for most stuff.

Oh, and we also have an acquaintence that was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She used the Gerson method and has been cancer free now for over five years. She did have to buy a $2600 juicer though. That’s just a little over two months bronze premium for my wife and I.

The US has been sold a bill of goods regarding health care and health care insurance. We choose not to participate.


159 posted on 11/07/2015 5:46:31 PM PST by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Art in Idaho
Ideological isolation is something of a 20th century construct (paradoxically, we are more mobile and more technologically capable of communication than ever)).

Not only do we have the influences of the 'mobile' family (scattered out), but there is the general tendency to live in more urban environments.

Funny how people who live in a town of 2-300 have to actively resist knowing everyone and all about them, but people who live in a building with 2-300 people in it know only a handful of those people at best.

We have been isolated through social trends, employment, and technology, and are only really beginning to use technology to communicate with like minded people (last 20 years, a cultural eyeblink).

Even in the midst of that, there is the Government hovering, listening in, reading what we say and effectively squelching protest and complaint by its very presence.

That adds a level of stress, much like someone looking over one's shoulder while you are performing some delicate task--fearing upsetting the gods of Political Correctness.

The proper attitude, of course, can be expressed in two somewhat crass words, and is inherently defiant.

Internalizing stress is a killer, and not even allowing people to discuss the things which stress them, preemptively negating their arguments and feelings with carefully crafted propaganda and assailing them with even more of the same only increases that stress.

In my personal defiance of that crap (and considering how high rent is in this area), I refuse to let them live in my head rent-free.

As I said, "Let go, Let God".

I live secure in the idea that He will take care of them as He sees fit, in ways I cannot imagine. If 'they' start something, I will do what I can to finish it, and like an ever-increasing sector of the American public, have done what my means and prudence permit to be ready to do so.

In the meantime, I attempt to focus on providing for my family, guiding a couple of generations of children, and (thankfully) can express myself here.

160 posted on 11/07/2015 5:53:16 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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