The lingering health effects of the Civil War

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/04/the-lingering-health-effects-of-the-civil-war/

by e15ctr0n • 11 years ago

36 24 11 years ago

Modern-day heart disease deaths were higher in states that experienced a rapid rise out of poverty between 1950 and 1980 — even when controlling for the effects of obesity, smoking and education level.

No mention of controlling for a predilection for sweet tea, fried everything, and vegetables being limited to fried okra or green tomatoes. I loved southern cuisine when living in the South, but the cultural effects seem to have a much greater impact than biological. Take as a control anyone who has the biological makeup described and grew up in the South but then moved. It seems like poor study design to me.

mfoy_3• 11 years ago

That's what they are talking about... the cultural effects. Not the "South vs North" cultural effects, but the socioeconomic ones.

(EDIT: I was wrong, the article is literally only talking about the biological and physiological effects. You make a good point. The cultural impact seems as important, if not more so, than any physiological one.)

For me, this idea is actually quite intuitive. When you don't know where your next meal is going to come from you don't turn down the opportunity to eat. Once you rise out of poverty you can get that opportunity steadily, but your mindset won't change so fast, so you overeat.

It takes a few generations for the hunger to be forgotten, I think.

kstenerud• 11 years ago

I prefer Occam's Razor. We've already proven that food is one of the largest contributors to heart disease.

Not controlling for this is a HUGE oversight, to the point of invalidating the study.

apalmer• 11 years ago

This is explicitly NOT what the article is talking about.

zeveb• 11 years ago

No mention of controlling for a predilection for sweet tea, fried everything, and vegetables being limited to fried okra or green tomatoes.

All of which were probably intelligent adaptations to living in a post-war economic backwater. The trouble now would be that folks have enough money to drink enough sweet tea and eat enough fried foods that the formerly-subsistence-level foods are now obesity-causing.

cglace2• 11 years ago

Actually, the limited vegetables and fried everything happened much later. Before and after the civil war(up until modern times) southerners ate much more and a wider variety of vegetables. Vegetables were simply cheaper and more widely available than meat.

cfcef2• 11 years ago

Typical epi-nonsense: ignore the huge and omnipresent genetic and other confounds which lead to long pre-existing differences, find congenial event to blame as origin, then leap to the most exotic methods of transmission possible; bonus points for each mention of Holland, rats, or mice.

The South as a region is very distinct from the rest of the country: settled by different ethnic groups (no, not all 'whites' are genetically identical twins; consider the different genetic BMIs by country in http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v47/n11/full/ng.3401.html ), different cuisines, different industrial patterns, different weather and climate... It is eyebrow-raising, to say the least, to bring in the Civil War as at all relevant and speculate even more wildly that it has intergenerational effects.

If they want to talk about that, they should be trying some sort of regression-discontinuity or other natural-experiment design involving borders or Civil War activity, not, effectively, saying 'look at how different the South is! the Civil War?!' Uh, yeah, I think we all know the South differs. That's not very helpful.

creshal• 11 years ago

It is eyebrow-raising, to say the least, to bring in the Civil War as at all relevant and speculate even more wildly that it has intergenerational effects.

I wonder what the results would be if you applied that method to, say, Poland, or north-eastern France.

cglace2• 11 years ago

No mention of controlling for a predilection for sweet tea, fried everything, and vegetables being limited to fried okra or green tomatoes.

You left out collards, green beans, field beans, turnips, turnip greens, etc. Personally, I find the traditional southern sides as tasty as the BBQ/Fried chicken.

wil421• 11 years ago

Dont forget non-fried Okra, Rutabaga, Pole Beans, Corn, Mustard Greens, Succotash, Lima Beans and Black Eyed Peas (these are traditionally consumed on New Years Day to bring good luck).

Its not all fried food in the South. The sides are definitely where it's at.

surge• 11 years ago

Chow chow, sweet potatoes, beets, corn, etc.

To me the fried stuff and BBq is the once a week or less meals that are considered reserved for a big family sit down dinner or special occasions, they aren't an everyday thing. I wouldn't say we eat more of it then say any other region eats pizza, burgers or other traditionally unhealthy foods.

That said the years of poverty does have a distinct effect on the culture and work ethic here. I wouldn't be surprised if it had an effect on diet and physiological effects.

Our dinner last night was some baked chicken with italian seasoning, and potatoes and carrots similarly baked with same seasoning. Wasn't that healthy, albeit healthier than most non-vegetarian meals, but certainly wasn't fried.

That said, I know quite a few people with heart disease, etc, and honestly, I can say diet definitely played a role in it, as well as possible smoking/drinking.

mhurron• 11 years ago

You left out collards, green beans, field beans, turnips, turnip greens, etc. Personally, I find the traditional southern sides as tasty as the BBQ/Fried chicken.

Well traditionally those are cooked in some sort of animal fat, so yes, people seem to love them.

My father in law thought he loved Black Eyed Peas. Then as his health got worse as he got older and did less his wife tried to make food healthier so dropped the ham hock from the pot. Turns out he didn't like Black Eyed Peas at all, he just liked the taste of ham.

crb002• 11 years ago

Or stress methylation of their DNA passed through generations. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390814...

gph• 11 years ago

The more interesting question is what's going on in MN to keep heart disease so low. I'd have thought it would follow the same general pattern of the midwest.

dhuntermn• 11 years ago

I saw the same thing - MN looks like a flat, frozen corn field in that map. I think the data is suspect.

HeyLaughingBoy• 11 years ago

Ever since I moved to MN, I've been hearing anecdotes that it's because that the population tends to be very outdoorsy and gets more exercise than in other states. Don't know if it's true at all, but even in winter, I see an awful lot of people out fishing, hunting, etc.

gozur88• 11 years ago

Doesn't MN have a large Scandinavian population? There might be a genetic factor there.

leshow• 11 years ago

I can't believe this research was even published it's so bad.

Apocryphon• 11 years ago

Why? Please explain.

The lingering health effects of the Civil War

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