Which definition of premature death is used in this analysis? Is it the WHO standard or NCI’s or do you have your own definition?

Shouldn’t you differentiate chronic diseases that are debilitating and those that are mostly benign?

Dying prematurely and abruptly is bad, but dying prematurely after a long chronic disease — losing life from years before losing years from life — is no bargain either.

This is packed with misleading.

Dying prematurely and abruptly is bad.

Really, if you led a happy fulfilling life eating, drinking and marry making but died of an abrupt heart attack a year before the average age of death, is that bad?

dying prematurely after a long chronic disease

Are you counting Hypertension and Coronary Artery disease as chronic disease. These are silent killers, no losing life from years before losing years from life. Even diabetes when treated is not debilitating.

You indicate that diet contributes to many diseases but you don’t substantiate that better diets will eliminate those diseases. Exactly how big a change is required to make a meaningful improvement in ones life.

Personally I am not very happy with most recommended dietary changes. They are worse than the disease. I am over sixty so I can really say live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse but a certain amount of eat drink and be merry for we don’t know what tomorrow will bring makes more sense than suffering with punishing dietary restrictions for decades.

You quote that 3 out of 4 adults are overweight or obese. I have read that being slightly overweight improves longevity. Would a 60 year old be better off with a BMI of 28 or 16. Better overweight than underweight. I read a story that said 28 was better than 24.

We wrote the book together not because we weren’t already busy enough, but because infusing the conversation about diet and health in America with science filtered through a generally missing lens of sense is that important.

I guess you are properly qualified to discourse on the subject but what is this “generally missing lens of sense” you claim to provide? It should be apparent by now that people are ignoring this kind of advice because it lacks a sense of what people value. People value experiences and joyful living not extra years of penance like it is lent all year long. Did you get an advance to write the book, who is publishing it and does your contract provide you any income from sales of the book?

If eating right we more delicious, easier and more fun than how we eat and drink now we would have changed already. A prude has a very low probability of contracting an STD but it probably missing something valuable too.

Yeah, the whole COVID-19 scare is just that, it is too early to know how big a threat it will be. Even a new disease that is no worse than a common cold is not a good thing. Not happy thinking that I will need to add a new annual vaccination either.

TEK