Daniel ReedersIg Nobel prize awarded to a researcher whose work shows data on longevity is 'rotten from the inside out.'
The so-called Mediterranean diet may be pension fraud.
Mike Lynch@engagedpractx this is really interesting and I also don't understand how it qualifies for an Ig Nobel (but then I've never quite understood them, it's part of the nerd gene I missed out on)
@fsvo yeahnah me neither.
Martin Vermeer FCD@engagedpractx @fsvo Yeah, it's a bit out of character for a 'nonsense' or 'null research' prize. This seems valid.
Clifton Royston@martinvermeer @engagedpractx @fsvo
A large fraction of the research that gets Igs is totally valid and often important research that just sounds funny or weird.
haluzinelle bin chicken nicole@CliftonR @martinvermeer @engagedpractx @fsvo
yeah, the thing about it I heard is "first it makes you laugh, and then it makes you think" and that's a concept I quite like :)
Aerliss@martinvermeer @engagedpractx @fsvo The Ig Nobels "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Sometimes they're given to nonsense research, or for research that "cannot or should not be reproduced". But mostly they're given for amusing or extremely novel discoveries.
Prof_Panthera@fsvo @engagedpractx As I understand it, the Ig Nobel is not a scientific ‘Razzie’ because someone has done unscientific work, made methodological errors or an approach is irrelevant per se. Rather, it is awarded because a work has ‘satirical potential’. This can, of course, be because someone has written some thrashy rubbish or had an unfair motive - but it can also, as in this case, be something that simply has a curiosity factor and therefore arouses interest. It's not automatically negative.
Rainer Zufall@fsvo @engagedpractx The Ig Noble Prize is awarded for research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think. Originally it was awarded for research that cannot or should not be reproduced
sadele2"The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements so surprising that they make people LAUGH, then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — & spur people’s interest in science, medicine, & technology."
https://improbable.com/ig/about-the-ig-nobel-prizes/
Newman awarded in the Demography category "for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-&-death recordkeeping."
Scott Feeney@engagedpractx "If they don’t acknowledge their errors in my lifetime, I guess I’ll just get someone to pretend I’m still alive until that changes." 👏
Looking for explanations…I suspect that the Mediterranean diet is very healthy for one’s gut, with reduced rates of bowel cancer, cancelled out by high rates of smoking.
Si Fuller@engagedpractx I'd never have believed people genuinely lose track of their age, until it started to happen to me.
But yeah, fraud makes most sense.
@si_fuller I've seen a COUPLE of people insist that nobody could forget their age or when they gave birth, but the article actually refers to researchers using the UK Biobank to confirm that's exactly what happens, using birth certs and hospital records to check people's memories of their age at key events.
Victor Volle“If they don’t acknowledge their errors in my lifetime, I guess I’ll just get someone to pretend I’m still alive until that changes.” 😂
Albert CardonaHow to make yourself endearing:
"How did you find out about your award?
–I picked up the phone after slogging through traffic and rain to a bloke from Cambridge in the UK. He told me about this prize and the first thing I thought of was the lady who collected snot off of whales and the levitating frog. I said, “absolutely I want to be in this club”. "
#IgNobel
Oz is tired@engagedpractx This is hilarious. I have seen so much health advice based on longevity data over the years. 😄
Markus Redeker 🐘@oz @engagedpractx From the article: “Longevity is very likely tied to wealth. Rich people do lots of exercise, have low stress and eat well.” — So the best health advice is: Be rich. 🙂
Ms. Denie@mrdk @oz @engagedpractx and of course: rich people can afford healthcare (and insurance), they can afford to pay for care.
Which in turn lowers stress, I'm sure.
@A_denie @mrdk @engagedpractx In an international perspective poor people usually do have access to health care and elderly care, but I'm sure the US situation does have some effect on the numbers.
@oz @mrdk @engagedpractx True, but I live in a country which nominally has health care coverage for all (the Netherlands), and highly educated rich people live at least 13 years longer here, and if you take healthy years into the equation the difference becomes larger.
In Sweden it seems to hit mostly dental care (page 15: https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-12/2021_chp_sv_english.pdf)
@oz @mrdk @engagedpractx "unmet dental care needs" often translate into taking more pain killers, that mess up your stomach down the line.
@A_denie @mrdk @engagedpractx That is true. I would still guess that the difference in what kind of work you do, what hours you do it and how much rest and meaningful free time you get is more contributing than the difference in dental care access.
kolya@engagedpractx I'm mostly surprised that so much science and future projections are supposedly relying on statistical outliers like those few centenarians. Either all those scientists and sociologists are really bad at working with statistics. Or those fakes aren't nearly as important as he makes them out to be.
MarjorieR@kolya @engagedpractx the issue is to what extent, in these areas, pension fraud (pension claims for deceased relatives) generalises to those still under a claimed 100.
@marjolica @engagedpractx filtering for outliers isn't a hard line at 100 of course. but if the deceased are really somewhere in the normal distribution (not the point of this article, but anyway) then I'd think it'd be more of a pension fraud issue than a longevity projection issue, as long as there are still people living in the UK.
@kolya @engagedpractx I doubt it would move the actuarial situation much but clearly their are implications for research into what leads to longevity if we were to draw inferences from recorded longevity areas just where pension fraud is more of an issue.
As my own country (UK) I suspect that the biggest driver of early mortality is the effects of poverty on health and the impact of the deleterious working conditions of the poorest in society.
As my own country (UK) I suspect that the biggest driver of early mortality is the effects of poverty on health and the impact of the deleterious working conditions of the poorest in society.
Christian Higton@engagedpractx this a wonderful article highlighting important work.
Fardels BearSometimes the media pick up on purported extreme longevity in a remote, rural place, tying it to a specific thing they eat.
There's never any thought given to the environmental factors. Instead, people rush out to buy the featured snake oil.
Long live the Ig Nobel prize.
Stephen@engagedpractx isn't it in fact about longevity and so called blue zones? Afaik "Mediterranean diet" as a diet for improving cardiovascular markers is supported by intervention studies as well as epidemiology.
Mre. Dartigen [maker mode]@engagedpractx At first I thought 'oh this would have to be self-correcting, as records get better' and then I kept reading...
Bit of a yikes situation for a lot of places and people. And also kind of sad that it's not being taken more seriously, given how much it's affecting health data generally.
Pēteris Krišjānis@engagedpractx it is interesting subject. Considering lots of this is at heart of policies, mostly made up to justify unpopular decisions, I am not surprised at all. If you are looking for data how current economic system has increased how long we live, you not gonna vet it. As for collecting pensions that is classic one.
I would be more interested in qualify of life and other metrics. But those might be quite controversial and unpleasant so no one's gonna bother.
I would be more interested in qualify of life and other metrics. But those might be quite controversial and unpleasant so no one's gonna bother.
Lyle Solla-Yates@engagedpractx “The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.”
Demian@engagedpractx “ 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.”
Wow
Wow
Linza@engagedpractx think you mean the snitch prize
Dan Hatton@u0421793 An interesting article within its domain, but the evidence of health benefits from the Mediterranean diet is not dependent on the genuineness of cases of extreme longevity. (There are randomized controlled trials, there are longitudinal studies with good control of confounding variables.)
Thomas Lumley@engagedpractx most of the Mediterranean diet evidence is from heart disease and cancer in middle-aged people rather than the very old, so it's not that much affected.