Can Money Buy You a Longer Life? (msn.com)
- Reference: 0175785907
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/12/29/2252216/can-money-buy-you-a-longer-life
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/senior-health/money-can-buy-a-longer-life-to-a-point/ar-AA1wDyl4
> The rich get richer — and older. People with high salaries and net worth tend to live longer lives, research shows. Once Americans make it to their late 50s, the wealthiest 10% live to a median age of around 86 years, roughly 14 years longer than the least wealthy 10%, according to a study published earlier this year in [2]JAMA Internal Medicine . People with more money can afford healthier food, more healthcare and homes in safer, less-polluted neighborhoods, says Kathryn Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and a medical director at the Boston Public Health Commission.
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> Though you can't add more months or years to your online shopping cart yet, health and aging researchers say there are ways to spend money to improve your chances of living longer. They suggest favoring purchases that help you track your health, stay active and reduce stress. "We know the things that help us age better, and everyone's always disappointed when you tell them," says Andrew Scott, director of economics at the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, England. "Eat less and eat better, sleep more, exercise more and spend time with friends...." But certain gadgets and luxuries can be worth the cost, some researchers say. Devices such as the [3]Apple Watch and [4]Oura Ring can instill healthy habits and catch worrying patterns that might emerge between annual checkups, says Joe Coughlin, the director of the MIT AgeLab... Coughlin says he once went to the emergency room because his Apple Watch detected a spike in his heart rate that he hadn't noticed himself.
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> "For the superwealthy, suddenly living longer and living better has become the new prestige," Coughlin says. Higher incomes correlate with longer lives, but there are diminishing returns. Each successive jump in pay is linked to smaller boosts in longevity, a 2016 study from [5]the research group Opportunity Insights found ... A key to the relationship between income and longevity is that money doesn't just buy stuff that helps you live longer. It also buys time and reduces stress. "If you've got a nice place to live and you don't have to worry about food on the table, you have the mental head space and resources to prioritize your health," says Steven Woolf, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine... Moreover, many lower-income jobs are more physically taxing and more prone to workplace accidents and exposure to harmful substances.
The article also includes examples of spending that promotes health, including things like home gym equipment and even swing-dancing lessons.
But it also adds that "plenty of things that are good for you don't come with a bill, such as going on a walk or minimizing screen time before bedtime."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/senior-health/money-can-buy-a-longer-life-to-a-point/ar-AA1wDyl4
[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2814487
[3] https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apple-watch-series-10-features-1dac2fec
[4] https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/oura-smart-ring-review-12ece82c
[5] https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/lifeexpectancy/
Absolutely, yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing even modest amounts of money will buy you is a reduction in stress and a better diet. As your wealth increases, you can further reduce your stress and you can have more leisure time to keep fit and happy. At the top end, you can simply access healthcare resources that normal people can't, right up to shopping for new organs or getting access to bleeding edge treatments.
Of course, money isn't magic - all of the above assumes that you spend some of your money on a healthier lifestyle. You can be filthy rich and miserable, unhealthy, and stressed into an early grave.
Also smarter choices (Score:5, Interesting)
There's also the correlation/causation thing.
People with lots of money have probably made other smart choices in their life, and this might effect longevity as well.
It's not completely clear to me that rich people use their wealth to live longer, it may be that smart and practical people tend to be both rich and long lived.
I'd like to see this studied among people who inherited their wealth. People who inherit their wealth tend to be not-as-good in the methods of the parent/grandparent who made the fortune, so aren't as good at building wealth.
Do people who don't *earn* their wealth have a similar increase in lifespan?
Is wealth causative or just a correlation with longer life?
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that smart doesn't automatically make you wealthy. And 'smart' can apply to a fairly narrow area of expertise. Lots of smart people do dumb things.
Teasing out the cause and effect beyond 'possesses wealth, likely to live longer' is possibly an incredibly difficult task.
Reversed conditional (Score:3)
> The problem is that smart doesn't automatically make you wealthy.
Yeah, but built wealth correlates with smart. We can use Bayes theorem to sort that out.
> And 'smart' can apply to a fairly narrow area of expertise. Lots of smart people do dumb things.
> Teasing out the cause and effect beyond 'possesses wealth, likely to live longer' is possibly an incredibly difficult task.
Dunno about that. The rule "built their own wealth" versus "inherited their wealth" should be sufficient to see the effect.
I was under the impression that science has tools available to detect correlation versus causation, but I'm not a sociologist.
Maybe it's impossible to tell.
Re:Reversed conditional (Score:5, Insightful)
Bayes' theorem does not work that way. Bayes' theorem can determine correlation, but not causation. It could be that having wealth makes your bad decision less impactful, and give your good decisions more chance for a hefty return on investment. And it's easy to see why. If a bad decision costs you 10,000, but your net worth is 5,000, you are 5,000 in debt. If your net worth is 100,000, you are still quite comfortable at 90,000, and if your net worth is 1,000,000,000, losing 10,000 does not even put a dent in your wealth. And if you see a chance to increase your wealth by 10% with a good decision, and you have 5,000 to invest, you will earn just 500. But with 1,000,000,000, you can easily get 100,000,000, more wealth than 99% of the population.
The old saying goes: It's easy to become a millionaire, if you can start with 10,000,000 in your bank account.
Make it even simpler (Score:2)
If we're going to associate being wealthy with living longer, I can come up with several theories that go BOTH directions.
Wealth leads to better health and thus longer life:
Being wealthier leads to being able to access additional health resources - this goes from diet all the way to having a private jet on standby so they can be on multiple organ transplant lists. They can afford personal dieticians, trainers, spas, resorts, etc...
Being wealthier leads to less stress - You're not worried about your next me
Re: (Score:2)
> Generational wealth tends to only last 3 generations
1st generation acquires it, 2nd generation lives off the investments, 3rd generation chews through the principal.
However, I think with today's billionaires you're looking at a bit of a paradigm shift, at least until the torches and pitchforks happen. They have money enough to control everything that could take wealth away from them. Trump has actually done worse than blue chip investments in the stock market, and look at him... Musk has massive inf
Re: (Score:2)
> The problem is that smart doesn't automatically make you wealthy. And 'smart' can apply to a fairly narrow area of expertise. Lots of smart people do dumb things.
Sure, but so do dumb people.
On average, I think the claim that intelligence positively correlates with wealth should be pretty non-controversial.
> Teasing out the cause and effect beyond 'possesses wealth, likely to live longer' is possibly an incredibly difficult task.
Seriously?
I mean there's health factors that can come up earlier in life and impact both longevity and the ability to accumulate wealth.
But considering that wealth almost inevitably predates increased longevity the causal relationship seems pretty clear.
Re: (Score:2)
When, you achieved a point of good money and you make a choice to reduce your lifetime obligations to the rat race ( going from full time to part time but not retirement ), your stress level decreases.
the reduction of stress will add healthier life to you, but I don't know if it will add time to the clock.
I know because I choose one day to change my views, and I am happier, slightly overweight, eat with joy and exercise more. so while I think the clock ends still when it's suppose to, I think I will live a
After you wasted that life making money? (Score:2)
Seems like a really stupid approach to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Imagine living till you're 120 and spending 90% of your waking time shitposting on X. That's quality living that only the rich can afford!
You do you (Score:2)
> Seems like a really stupid approach to me.
a) Some people enjoy making money
b) Making money typically involves building things, which add to civilization
c) Making money is a good way to protect and support a family
d) People with money typically give it away to good causes
d.1) Possibly their family, which they view as a good cause
d.2) Much of the charity institutions in our civilization are funded by the rich
To quote Cabaret: "personally, I prefer money".
But you do you...
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, the rich after all are well-known for having healthy family relationships and are definitely not using charities to benefit themselves. Also many of them making their money from well-known civilization-improving practices like renting land, running hedge funds, selling drugs, selling weapons, maintaining monopolies, gaming law etc.
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You should cut back on the propaganda consumption. It has started to seriously rot your brain.
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Sounds like denial to me.
So time only moves forward, but... (Score:2)
History matters. Do you think those up to 59 years before they started tracking people mattered at all? Heck no, it was only the current money and actions.
Oh and poor people often were poor before. (Score:2)
Can't say that I know the precise statistics, but I can attest that becoming poor makes you much more likely to stay poor, or get worse.
Anyway, I should just stop caring what these click-bait stories are. Think /. might be dead for me soon. Just glance at titles at most, then laugh and ignore them. Maybe that's what I'll do... start on a personal AI filter.
The rich are better off than the poor (Score:2)
So, the wealthiest 10% live longer than the poorest 10%. How amazing. Better housing, better food, better medical care, less chance of being shot, less body damaging work. This has probably been true since the dawn of time.
"minimizing screen time before bedtime" ?! (Score:2)
I do not do this.
I sleep well and 7-8 hours.
Even if I didn't, I very much doubt that late screen time would shorten my life.
Is the WSJ throwing random nonsense into their stories, or is there some (presumably dubious) research to back this up?
Re: (Score:2)
> I do not do this. I sleep well and 7-8 hours. Even if I didn't, I very much doubt that late screen time would shorten my life.
I do this regularly. I make the window much smaller and keep the same screen time as always.
Yeah (Score:2)
From 1776 to 1992, no ex-president has lived past age 92 (out of nearly 40 ex-presidents). Since 1992 we've had 4 presidents do that (Ford, Reagan, GHW Bush, and Carter).
Re: (Score:2)
If you're "old", get TRT (or get tested for it). [1]TRT is associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality [nih.gov], and definite improvement in quality of life. Rich people have been getting in on it because they have better doctors, but it's available from normal doctors too, if you ask.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26482385/
Slow News Day (Score:2)
Stories from the no-shit-department. How is this news for nerds?
Re:Slow News Day (Score:5, Insightful)
> Stories from the no-shit-department. How is this news for nerds?
I am convinced slashdot's mission in life these days, as well as the rest of "social" media and legacy media is to piss off one slice of America so they go to war against another slice of America.
Pretty much all media is designed to make you angry.
I find myself consuming less and less of it.
How's your mobile hits, asshats? The mobile hits have tanked, amirite?
Re: (Score:2)
> I am convinced slashdot's mission in life these days, as well as the rest of "social" media and legacy media is to piss off one slice of America so they go to war against another slice of America.
> Pretty much all media is designed to make you angry.
> I find myself consuming less and less of it.
> How's your mobile hits, asshats? The mobile hits have tanked, amirite?
Why would a simple question make you so angry? If you keep getting pissed off at all the media then maybe the problem is you and not the media.
The "slice of America" you speak of seems a bit fragile. A snowflake is a good analogy.
Can Money Buy You a Longer Life? (Score:2)
Can Money Buy You a Longer Life? Yes, and that stinks. Healthcare should be effective - cheap, decentralized, and very very highly automated. Right now, the rich can afford it and the poor get by with less.
By now we have [1]self driving toy cars for 7 tears [designboom.com]-- so why cannot we have cheap at-home robots that take venous blood samples safely and analyse it? At-home AI-driven stethescopes, ultrasound, ECG, EEG machines ?
The medical system has become too structured and burdened-down with licensing, departmental si
[1] https://www.designboom.com/technology/amazon-aws-deepracer-self-driving-car-11-29-2018/
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there's any country in the world where poor people get the same healthcare as rich people.
It’s a bimodal thing (Score:2)
If you get one of the bad cancers or deadly diseases, it’s gonna kill you and no amount of money will change that. If one your key arteries bursts and you’re more than 10 minutes from a tier-1 hospital, you’re dead and no amount of money will change it.
If you have more chronic-type stuff or just plain old age, oh hell yes money can extend your life.
I’ve seen both these things at play. First hand.
With biotech going the way it is, money will be able to buy more and more lif
\o/ (Score:1)
It seems logical given the imminent population issue that this would be one of the best kept secrets...
Old age is no reward. (Score:2)
Humans live because we could not evolve without fearing death.
Old age is a race to failure between body and mind. That race is inexorable be it fast or slow.
You either go mad and die later, or you die before that happens. There are no other outcomes.
Correlation and causation (Score:3)
Of course, correlation does not imply causation, as I'm sure everyone here already knows. In this case there is an obvious confounding variable.
One of the biggest predictors of success in life and higher incomes is the personality trait of conscientiousness . Conscientiousness is one of the five major personality traits in the 5 factor model of personality. Conscientious people are far more likely to go to college, obtain training, work diligently at their career, focus on long-term goals, and so on. Thus, conscientiousness is a major predictor of life success and also income.
Furthermore, it's a reasonable guess that conscientious people are also more likely to follow their physician's instructions, take their blood pressure medications, exercise, lose weight when their physician instructs them to do so, engage in preventative care, follow traffic regulations, and so on.
It would be interesting if research were published which corrected for this variable. You could compare health outcomes in the highest vs lowest decile of income while keeping conscientiousness the same. This could be done by studying people with a lot of money but who have low conscientiousness anyway (perhaps people with large inheritances).
America vs the rest of the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes sense in America as healthcare is expensive and the poor might skip routine checkups or expensive procedures that might extend their lives. I'd like to know what the results would be in countries with better healthcare.
Re: America vs the rest of the world? (Score:1)
Not skip, can't afford. Medi-Cal no longer covers checkups, I think SSI does the same.
Re: (Score:3)
let me know when I can walk into an ER and get chemotherapy
Re: (Score:3)
You sure about that? Correlation is not cause. The cost of healthcare in the US is crazy, but the causes of lower life expectancy include:
smoking (historical), obesity, homicides (guns), opioid overdoses, suicides (guns), road accidents, and infant deaths.
Homicide and infant deaths correlate to poverty, but more so to race.
Also, while wealth can increase health, it works more dramatically the other way: poor health leads to low income. And in the US, to depletion of savings and even b
Re: (Score:2)
While you might not be aware of the following: a long time ago in the late 80's early 90's, I recall in a congressional hearing, that a big pharm stated ...
This is a paraphrase... and it's stuck with me ever since.
" USA pays for the entire worlds R&D, the rest of the world does not pay the USA insurance market rates "
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Medical research only happens in the US? That's an interesting perspective.
Re: (Score:2)
What the American executive meant is that negotiators in the US administrations are weak, so they always overpay for drugs. In European countries, the government negotiators are more savvy and get better prices for American drugs. Obviously the EU researches a lot of drugs. Just recently, an EU company solved the longstanding American obesity crisis.
Re: (Score:3)
> Just recently, an EU company solved the longstanding American obesity crisis.
As a not-fat person, I like how the solution to the "longstanding American obesity crisis" is prescription drugs, instead of just eating appropriately for your physical activity level. I know there are people with actual medical issues that cause weight gain, but that's not the obesity crisis you're referring to.
Re: (Score:2)
> USA pays for the entire worlds R&D, the rest of the world does not pay the USA insurance market rates
If market cap is an indicator they pay for about half.
[1]https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]
[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/worlds-50-largest-pharmaceutical-companies/
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but the rest of us are [1]going to watch celebrity pets grow old before we die [smbc-comics.com]. What with [2]this kind of story [slashdot.org].
[1] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/jimmy
[2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/12/26/1824221/scientists-explore-longevity-drugs-for-dogs-that-could-also-extend-human-life
Re: (Score:2)
One of the unintended consequences of decades of medical research is we now have many, many, many more things to spend money on. Cardiovascular disease risk high? Take a statin, every day for the rest of your life. Have a bad soft tissue injury? Hop in a million dollar MRI machine. Have inoperable brain cancer? Stick your head in this proton accelerator run by the nice (and very expensive) medical physicist.
The good news is all this stuff works a lot of the time. The medicine of 1960 was largely kee
Re: (Score:2)
countries with better healthcare
That's pretty much all countries, right?
Every time I go overseas (I'm in Australia), seeking travel insurance, the very first question is always - "Are you travelling to the United States of America?"