Poor nutrition, more likely to live in more heavily polluted areas. Can't be a good combination. We now have a pretty good understanding of how bad leaded gasoline was. Maybe in another fifty years we'll look back at junk food and wonder "how could we have been so stupid"?

I think it would be wise to increase funding of nutritional science. Many of the most basic controversies remain unresolved (fat, sugar, salt). The most bizarre conditions can sometimes be treated using supplements of seemingly unrelated nutrients (behavioural problems: omega 3, migraine: b2). But sample sizes are always small, double blind studies are hard and rare, there are tons of confounding factors.

> I think it would be wise to increase funding of nutritional science. Many of the most basic controversies remain unresolved (fat, sugar, salt).

Yep, just be careful. We are just now recovering from the phase where one actual scientists mislead others to think that fat was bad and sugar wasn't :-/

In the eighties many children died because of SIDS because of one scientist who convinced others that infants shouldn't sleep the way they had always slept - face up.

etc etc.

Yes completely! Medicine has done wonders but also has some serious skeletons in the closet when it comes to medical reversals.

I’ve found this book to be fascinating and super enlightening about what has gone wrong even in recent history.

https://www.amazon.com/Ending-Medical-Reversal-Improving-Out...

I’m hopeful one day that fat demonization will be formally reversed.

I agree. Nutritional science is in its infancy but it's impact could be huge in a few years if it's properly funded. Unfortunately there are lots of vested interests in nutritional science not advancing and remaining a gray area. The main contenders are fast food companies, companies that produce unhealthy foods for the supermarket and big pharma who can't patent a food or food supplement.

To be blunt it's just not a profitable business to sell good nutrition, much more profitable to get people hooked on junk food and pain pills.

To make it even worse:

A major improvement for a lot of people would be to eat way less.

Add to this that it would probably be better to replace a lot of what is left by some of the cheapest items we find - plain vegetables, not any kind of "superfood" and I can see why big companies don't line up behind this.

Sadly, vending machines are filled with mars bars and not celery stalks. Cities are overflowing with McDonalds' and Pizza Huts. You can stuff 2000kcal worth of fast food down your gob for under a tenner of whatever currency. But if you want a healthy salad, you'll be paying a premium. I feel like there's a business opportunity in healthy fast food, but as far as I can tell there's no such thing, at least not in any of the cities I've lived in.

Healthy fast food is not that appealing (to current consumer preferences).

Tetraethyllead was added to gasoline to reduce knocking. Unleaded gasoline wasn't appealing to consumers at all, but the market for that is now dead and consumers continue to fill up their tanks. The evidence for its harm was overwhelming. The evidence for fast food being harmful is a lot less overwhelming at the moment. Maybe once that becomes clearer, consumer demand will shift, hopefully without requiring legislation?

I don't see the analogy. Evidence for fast food being less healthy than a salad is pretty overwhelming, consumers don't care and choose fries anyway.

Lead pollution harms everyone, not just the person who burns it. And, lead isn't really needed to avoid knocking. If you want consumer preference to change you need to make a salad that is as delicious and cheap as fries.

It is thought that wide spread contamination of food with lead, caused by lead cookware used by the elite, is the origin of the demise of the Roman empire.

It’s a pretty fringe opinion. Lots more info here: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wi...

Sure it is only an assumption. However the linked study seems to ignore the fact that lead accumulates in the body over time. Which causes a decrease of cognitive functions in the long term with no acute symptoms.

That was an interesting read. Thanks for posting.

I wonder how much of the association of poverty with crime can be explained by how capitalism works.

Not to mention systemic racism...

I wonder how much of the world's dearth of personal responsibility can be blamed on an incredibly meaningless definition of economic systems.

Pretty sure there's only one economic system. Try another one and get bombed, couped, sanctioned, etc.

I wonder how much self deception exists in western society when the evidence suggests you live in a lawless oligarchy, one example from endless copyright extension.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#/...

But first HN, you can be told the facts and the figures and you won't reason to the right conclusion see the science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Does the upper class and the business community believe in Free markets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY

IMF subsidies for the rich and their corporations

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/Environment/energy- subsidies

So looking at all that free cash from the state, did the upper class really "earn" all that cash or could it be they own the government and can just rubber stamp whatever they like because the average HN poster and person on our planet is illiterate and well indoctrinated?