Starvation, overwork may make you live longer

Starvation and overwork will certainly make you feel like you're living forever.

But now, thanks to the success of Cuba's economy during the penultimate final* decade of the previous century, we can see that poverty really does make people live longer.

At least, that's what one study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Cienfuegos, Cuba and Loyola University says.

I particularly liked this passage:

"Population-wide approaches designed to reduce caloric intake and increase physical activity, without affecting nutritional sufficiency, might be best suited for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes."

No word yet on what the numbers were for suicides, for childbirth complications -- or, for that matter, precisely how many Cubans skewed the numbers by opting out of this study, via transport to Miami.

But we do have the beginnings of a plan:

"Future steps towards prevention of cardiovascular disease and diabetes should focus on long-term population-wide interventions by encouraging physical activity and the reduction of caloric intake," explained Franco, who is also affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Welch Center for Prevention and Epidemiology.

Yeah. I'm looking forward to somebody telling me I have to get moving more than I already do. I think my use of a cane might actually have an impact on him.


Update: It might be fun to get the folks from this study together with these guys. Will low birth weight trump starvation and overwork?

* my math skills were always pretty embarrassingly bad.