8/13/2019 Now, What's Really Ailing Us?

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 {f~e .l{oustou1Jost

SUNDAY,

ovember 9,

1989 1

Now, what s

re lly

ailing.

us?

The facts suggest

newset ofpriorities

in livingour lives

BY NICHOLAS S. MARTIN

SPECIAL TO THE HOUSTON POST

Prior to the industrial revolution, the

~reat percentage 9f the world s popula

tion was dead by age 20. In 1900, the

average life span of an Amerka n was less

than 50 years. Today it s in the mid-70s,

and moving upward at a

prisk pace.

Except among smokers, the incidence

of most cancers is stable or declining .

Death from heart disease has dropped

dramatically . As devastating as the AIDS

epidemic soon became , we had the tech- ·

nical know-how to quickly figure out

what caused it, how it was spread, and to

push ahead with treatments and possible

cures.

Given these momentous events , one

\.YOUldxpect Americans to be ecstatic to

live·at this fortunate time. Not so. Para

doxically, the healthiest people in history

live in continual fear of death . Not a day

passes without activists and the news

media trumpeting some awesome new

threat to life and limb. They tell us -

usually shriek at us - that the techno

logical way of life which has proved .so

beneficial is secretly leading to doom .

Fortunately, scientists are providing

the means to analyze these morbid

claims. By examining things such as life

style, geographic location, and educa

tional level, researchers are able to quan

tify and rank health risks. The results

should surprise many people and bury

unfounded health concerns . They should

also make us wary of celebrities who ·

double as health experts .

. Gne way researchers are ranking

health threats is by the average number

of days they shorten life. This method is

, called Loss of Life Expectancy (LLE). An

LLE 500, for instance , would mean that a

particular activity or condition would re

duce a person s life span by an average

of 500 days. · .

In the LLE ranking, just about the

most dangerous thing that can happen is

to be borri male (LLE 2,800) . Females

long outlive males , due to natural , social,

and self-inflicted hazards . ·

Being unmarried (LLE 2,000) is 160

times more dangerous than becoming a

rll,djation worker (LLE 12), and 1,000

times more hazardous than drinking one

diet cola per day (LLE 2) .

Being 15 pounds overweight (LLE

450) is a whopping ·1, 125 times more

risky than living next to a nuclear power

Martin Is executive director of the Consumer

Health Education Council, a non-profit group

based In Houston.

Dick Westbrook/The Houston Post

plant (LLE 0.4) . The power plant would

lop off 10 hours of life, compared to the

200 days lost to automobile drivers on

the average.

Based on estimates by the Union of

Concerned Scientists, if all electricity in

the United States came from nuclear

power the average American would lose

just I .5 days off is life, compared to 50

days lost by driving a small car instead of

a big one , and 40 days lost by raising the

speed limit from 55 to 65 . The 1.5 LLE

for being totally nuclear powered is over

200 times safer than living in Louisiana

or Mississippi (LLE 350) , and over 700

times safer than being a coal miner.

It

is

4,000 times safer to live next to a nuclear

Please see AILING, C-5

8/13/2019 Now, What's Really Ailing Us?

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AILING:

Thin~

aren t s badas

you

might think

From C~

plant than to smoke a pack a day .

Other rankings : Hurricanes and

torna?oes (LLE 1 ; firearms (LLE

11) ; fire (LLE 27); qrowning (LLE

40);

accidents (LLE

435);

murder

(LLE 90).

The major threats are not from

t~ings like nuclear power, saccha

n.ne , or h~rricanes, which get the

big headlines . The big risks are

things which ·don 't

usually- even

make headlines, like accidents

gender , marital status, and body

weight. .

The same comparison holds true

in the world of toxic chemicals

~h~re scientists can now perfor~

s1mllar safety c-0mparisons.

For instance, the alcohol in one

beer is

14,000

times more carcino

genic than a year 's worth of PCBs

~ven though the PCBs get a millio~

times more press coverage. A pea

nut-butter sandwich is roughly 100

times more likely to lead to cancer

than ·was the pesticide DDT before

it was banned. (And don't forget

that DDT saved 2 million lives per

year just in Ceylon - now known

q S

Sri L~nka .:..___y killing mosqui

toes which spread malaria.) One

raw edible mushroom packs a can

cer .risk 250 times greal~fl fian l he·

fumigant EDB, which was banned

a couple of years ago after screams

from activists.

. Based on the amo unt of carcino- .

genie f laterial inhaled, a single cig

arette 1s more hazardous than two

weeks of smogg y Los Angeles air.

The amount of pollution inside ·

homes - from sou rces like radon

formaldehyde , and gas stoves - i~

considerably higher than outdoor

air pollutjon.

S~ienf sts a~ the University of

Cahform a estimate that we ·eat

10,000 times more of natural tox

ins in our food than man-made

ones . Apples , oranges, bacon, ba

nanas , cabbage , black pepper, and

parsley all contain natural carcino-

_ ge~. as do.almost all other foods.

Du you remembe r the several

,public scares about man-made

dioxin in the environment? Now

we know that the much-beloved

broccoli contains natural dioxin at

a . level

20 million times

higher

than the. amount considered safe

by the Environmental Protection

Agency . No deaths have yet been

reported due to broccoli overdose

just as no deaths were traced t~

dioxin in the environment.

The main benefit of these sorts

of comparisons is to allow us to

learn about real risks and protect

ourselves against them. But a sec

ond benefit is to allow . is to assess

the repeated claims by activists that

we are being poisoned by man-

1:1ade hazards . Knowing that the

. n~ of death by fire (LLE 27) is

675 times greater than the risk of

living next to a nuclear power plant

(LLE 0.4), how could we have tak

~n seriously Ralph Nader's accusa

tions about the health threat of ra

diati on from smoke detectors

which is about equal to the radia~

tion in potted-plant dirt?

Knowing that broccoli contains

naturally large (but probably harm

less) amounts of dioxin , would we

have agreed to spend over $1 bil

lion to research the effect of far

smaller amounts of dioxin in the

environment? .One billion dollars

of education in swimming safety

( or AIDS research) would have

saved i:nany lives, or paid for many

operations, or bought essential

drugs , or put many.more police on

the streets .

Americans are going to have to

get wise about health risks. We

can't afford to go off half-cocked

every time some lawyer or actress

shouts "Cancer ' -'We have genuine

experts working hard to alert us to

real hazards, and it would be nice

if

there were a few dollars left over

after all the rec;kless panics to sup-

port them in their work . .