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Comment by kesor | Hacker News Reader

The more important question is why people are being sick for so many years with "modern medicine" doing absolutely nothing to get them out of their sickness state. Diabetes type II, heart problems, autoimmune problems, all these chronic diseases plaguing most of the human population on planet earth for the last several hundred years (when "modern" medicine existed) and none of them going away.

Covid mostly takes the people who are already sick, and kills them. Would be nice to figure out how to not have so many people sick in the first place.

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> them out of their sickness state. Diabetes type II, heart problems, autoimmune problems, all these chronic diseases plaguing most of the human population

You mean all these diseases that are almost exclusively due to lifestyle, ie. lack of physical activity, poor diet choices, &c. ?

People knew 2000 years ago that gluttony and sloth weren't good things, it's not "modern medicine"'s role to cure our lack of will.

I'm interested to know where you got the idea that autoimmune disorders are due to lifestyle?

I assume they are primarily referring to the effects of obesity and type II diabetes on the immune system dysfunction in general.

That said, it seems that obesity also plays a major role in autoimmune disorders.

>Moreover, obesity worsens the course of RA, SLE, IBD, psoriasis and PsA, and impairs the treatment response of RA, IBD, psoriasis and PsA. Extensive clinical data and experimental models demonstrate the involvement of adipokines in the pathogenesis of these autoimmune diseases. Obesity appears to be a major environmental factor contributing to the onset and progression of autoimmune diseases.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15689...

Please read the site guidelines and refrain from ill intentioned comments.

In my opinion DangitBobby's comment is reasonable and interesting, not ill-intentioned.

lm28469 quoted a list which includes "autoimmune problems" and linked all of them to gluttony, sloth and lack of will.

That strikes me as nonsense. To the best of my knowledge, people suffering with autoimmune problems can't just fix it with a bit of will, and life's hard enough without people making it worse by telling them their disease is their own fault.

But regardless of what I think it is perfectly reasonable to question that link.

OP said “almost exclusively” leaving room to exclude autoimmune diseases.

> “ life's hard enough without people making it worse by telling them their disease is their own fault”

This is absolute nonsense.

> This is absolute nonsense.

Please refrain from breaking the site guidelines...

> it's not "modern medicine"'s role to cure our lack of will.

I don't see why not. Sure, people will make bad choices and suffer the consequences thereof. However, medicine aims to cure maladies of all sorts regardless of cause, not sit in moral judgment.

Basic logic dictates that after medical science has found cures for 90% of diseases, you will tend to notice the remaining 10%.

"Modern medicine", as you feel apt to call it, has been nothing if not spectacular successful against infectious diseases. It strikes me as implausible that the profession is somehow corrupt in a way that specifically hinders progress against chronic diseases, compared to the banal explanation that these are more difficult, and maybe that we've had less time dedicated to their study because they only appeared when people started to routinely live to old age.

Modern medicine has not existed for several hundred years and these diseases you are mentioning have only started killing a large part of the population after medicine dealt with infections. As we cure more and more diseases other diseases that used to be rare become more common causes of death. Maybe at the end of the tunnel lies immortality, but who knows.

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