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Mr Epidemiology

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April 2016

Perhaps there is a drug that can prolong your life. It’s called money

A wise man once said that “mo’ money, mo’ problems” (Wallace, 1997). However, despite increases in supposed problems, one of the major benefits is increased life expectancy.

New research published in JAMA last week examined how big a difference earning more money makes in life expectancy, as well as how this changes by geographic location across the United States. Researchers collected tax records from 1.4 billion individuals from 1999 to 2014 aged 40 to 76. Of these, around 4 million men died, compared to 2.7 million women (mortality rates of 596.3 and 375.1 per 100 000 respectively). They examined these data to look at what predicted life expectancy at age 40, after adjusting for race and ethnicity.

What makes New York different to other US cities? | Photo credit Kah-Wai Lin
What makes New York different to other US cities? | Photo credit Kah-Wai Lin (click for more)

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Tackling obesity needs all of us, not some of us

One of the most important issues facing public health today is obesity. Worldwide, approximately 30% of adults are obese,  and costs around $2 trillion annually. A health concern with complex determinants and many intertwined causes, there’s no single magic bullet solution to the rising prevalence of obesity. A new report by the McKinsey Global Institute studied 74 interventions to see what was effective. They studied 74 interventions that target obesity, which range from subsidizing school meals, adding calorie and nutrition labels, as well as restrictions on advertising high-calorie food and drinks.

The report covers areas one would expect, such as energy balance and changing dietary and physical activity behaviours. While these issues are important and do require study, the authors also looked at the environment and how that impacts obesity. There’s a lot of literature that shows that your environment plays a large role in obesity, and simply telling someone to “eat less and move more” is an ineffective strategy at best, and one that further stigmatizes at worst. It’s something we’ve discussed in relation to poverty, and illustrated with the retailer IKEA.

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