9/10/2019 New blood test accurately predicts when people will die — within 5–10 years

New blood test accurately predicts

when people will die — within 5–10
years

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A research team found 14 biomarkers can accurately predict death

within 5–10 years.
Such a test could help doctors and researchers prescribe better
courses of treatments for patients.
Information about mortality might inspire people to eat better and
exercise more, thus reversing the effects of some biomarkers.

Portending the future has long been a preoccupation of our species.

Whether fortune or destruction, for millennia our greatest myths foretell
wars and romances (which of course are easy to write in hindsight). Still,
fortune tellers and astrologers remain in business — we love to pretend we
have a futuristic telescope. Even the most mundane of possible activities
pique our curiosity.

Some uncover the future in tea leaves, others with yarrow sticks. What
about our blood? What if getting routine blood work could clue us in on our
end? That's what a team of data scientists from across Europe (with the
research based in the Netherlands) are proposing. Their new study,
published in the journal Nature Communications, discovered that by

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9/10/2019 New blood test accurately predicts when people will die — within 5–10 years

measuring 14 metabolic substances they could accurately predict who

would die in the coming years.

A broad poll with 44,168 participants and baseline ages from 18–109, data
was collected over the course of 17 years. The team, led by Leiden
University molecular epidemiologist Eline Slagboom, notes that determining
death within a year is basic science at this point. Guessing it from five to 10
years out is a different challenge, one they believe they've started to
understand thanks to the constitution of our blood.

Forget Counting Steps. Quantifying Health Will Save Your

Life.

Using a "well-standardized metabolomics platform," the team began with

226 metabolic biomakers, discovering 136 that show an association with
all-cause mortality. They eventually landed on 14, including blood sugar
levels; inflammation markers; HDL, a common cholesterol marker; albumin,
a protein produced by your liver that clues you in on kidney or liver
problems; acetoacetate, a beta-keto acid normally used to test diabetics for
ketoacidosis (as well as monitoring people on ketogenic diets); and
isoleucine, an amino acid that can ultimately lead to damaged brain cells
and death.

Of the initial population sample, 5,512 died during the testing period. Using
the biomarkers for another survey, the team predicted death rates from a
participant pool of 7,603 Finnish people initially tested in 1997. They were
able to predict with 83 percent accuracy who would die over the five to 10
year period. One caveat: when testing those over 60 years of age, the
prediction rate dropped to 72 percent. Another: the pool was entirely
comprised of Finns. Extrapolating to apply to the global population raises
eyebrows.

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9/10/2019 New blood test accurately predicts when people will die — within 5–10 years

Still, given that this test includes popular and broadly applied biomarker
tests for cardiovascular, cancer, and inflammation issues, all of which are
known causes of mortality regardless of ethnicity, using this blood profile
could clue doctors in on the expected longevity of their patients.

While aware of the study's limitations, the team feels it provides a

potentially useful platform for determining overall health. As they write,

"The currently used metabolomics platform can be incorporated in ongoing

clinical studies to explore its value, opening up new avenues for research to
establish the utility of metabolic biomarkers in clinical settings."

Photo credit: Paul Harris / Getty Images

Early morning joggers enjoy the wooden paths that go the length of Moonstone Beach next
to Moonstone Beach Drive which parallels Highway 1 in northern Cambria, California.

The question is: do patients want to know? There are two potential
problems with such knowledge.

First off, existential dread. Armed with an awareness that death is

imminent, the participant could spiral into depression. At the same time,
they could also be inspired to live more in the moment and appreciate
every day. More importantly, if some of these markers are reversible (such
as inflammation or cholesterol markers) they could take action to eat better
and exercise more. If it takes the sound of a death rattle to awaken them to
their unavoidable mortality, such a test could have positive effects.

The second is insidious though feasible: if insurance companies gain

access to these tests, they could refuse or end coverage for those on the
brink of death. As the AARP reported last year, the most Medicare dollars
are spent in the last year of a person's life. Given how close one political
party has come to overturning the pre-existing conditions clause in the

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Affordable Care Act, this biomarker test could ultimately serve insurance
and pharmaceutical companies instead of patients.

Even contemplating such a scenario is tragic, yet that's where we are in

America. Fortunately the Netherlands-based team provided this research
for more useful ends, such as arming us with a better test for understanding
how healthy we actually are and how much we should worry about it. We
will all face death, some with more warning than others. Best to use such
knowledge to pursue a healthier lifestyle.

--

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook.

Marchetti’s Constant: The curious principle that shapes our cities

Self driving vehicles will be mandatory, obviously; no need to amortize crew
means no big rigs, trains, busses, planes, ships etc, and no terminals to
service them; no warehouses,, ports etc, no parking nor traffic courts, no
accidents; — essentially no reason for cities except fot the human need for
accidental contact. Sixty percent of city land will be available; humans will
congregate in mini cities centered on tourist attractive places.

World Leaders Tell Biden To Run

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Culture & Religion

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9/10/2019 New blood test accurately predicts when people will die — within 5–10 years

When Abraham Maslow developed his hierarchy of needs, he focused

entirely on students, peers, and historical figures, all of whom were
from the West.
This led many critics to argue that his model of human development
and the concept of self-actualization were not universal; they merely
reflected Western ideas about development and self-improvement.
Other cultures ranging from Blackfoot Native Americans to the Chinese
have similar ideas that run parallel to self-actualization. What are they,
and how do they differ?

Self-actualization has been a pop psychology touchstone ever since

Abraham Maslow coined the term in 1943. Since then, a panoply of articles,
books, podcasts, motivational posters, and even business models have
popped up explaining the best way forward for countless individuals looking
to grow and become the best version of themselves they can possibly be.

The concept of self-actualization and the hierarchy of needs, however, has

taken on a life of its own outside the ivory tower of academia. While the
concept that an individual's highest drive is to become all that they can
possibly be has become accepted as fact, academics still debate whether
the hierarchy of needs is the best model of human development. One
criticism, in particular, is that self-actualization is a thoroughly Western
concept. Maslow developed it by studying the characteristics of his peers
and of famous historical figures, such as Abraham Lincoln and Albert
Einstein.

Why does this matter? The model is meant to be a model of human

development, but the research it was developed from was mostly based on
one sliver of human experience. Other cultures and philosophies have
similar, but slightly varied ways of describing higher states of being. What's
the difference between self-actualization and these other ideals?

Taoism and Buddhism

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Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Japanese Zen Buddhist

One of the biggest commonalities between these Eastern philosophies and

self-actualization is that they all assume there is a drive toward a higher
state of being, whether that's Enlightenment, oneness with the Tao, or self-
actualization. In Taoism, the goal is to achieve unity with the unknowable
underlying principle of the universe (i.e., the tao, or "the way"), while in Zen
Buddhism, the goal is to achieve Enlightenment by understanding the
emptiness of existence.

Already, we can see some significant differences between self-actualization

and these philosophies. There's no religious or even spiritual component in
the hierarchy of needs. It doesn't purport to explain life and death or the
nature of the universe, just the nature of human motivation. But if you strip
away some of the more spiritual elements of these systems, the end goals
are pretty similar.

The sage in Taoism, the enlightened individual in Zen Buddhism, and the
self-actualized individual in Maslow's hierarchy of needs all are concerned
for the well-being of others, are closer to nature, accept reality as it is, and
are extremely autonomous. This last bit, the autonomy and independence,
is probably why many Westerners are so familiar with Taoism, Zen
Buddhism, and the like. Westerners like the idea of independent practice, of
self-work — of self-actualization.

But there are many other ideas about what makes for a higher state of
being that explicitly reject the idea that you can become better in a vacuum.

Confucianism

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Image source: Prisma / UIG / Getty Images

Confucius

Like the hierarchy of needs, there is also an ideal, higher state to be

pursued in Confucianism; specifically, sagehood. The Confucian sage is a
benevolent, wise individual that embodies tian, which can be thought of as
heaven or the underlying laws of the universe. Confucius thought that very
few people reached this state of being, as Maslow did in regard to self-
actualization. A major difference, however, is that Confucius focused
significantly more on the relationship between the sage or developing
individual and the society around them. For Maslow's self-actualized
individual, their relationship with society is pretty much up to them. A self-
actualized individual might care very much about the world around them, or
they could be a hermit; it would depend on their individual nature.

In Confucianism, addressing societal issues is how one enables others to

become sages. As a result, Confucianism prescribes a strict social code for
individuals to follow in order to enable the right kind of society, summed up
in Confucius's quote: "There is government, when the prince is prince, and
the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son."
What's more, by being a father, minister, or whichever role you're meant to
be, Confucianism asserts that you can become more virtuous and develop
further. Perhaps more than the other philosophies listed here, Confucianism
is much more prescriptive, where the hierarchy of needs is much more
descriptive.

Blackfoot Native Americans

Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

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Chief Little Dog, a Blackfoot Native American, on his horse n front of a tipi at Glacier Park
Lodge.

One of the more interesting parallels to Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the

philosophy of the Blackfoot Native Americans. In fact, Maslow is believed to
have used Blackfoot beliefs to develop his theory after a visit to the
Blackfoot Nation in Alberta, Canada, in 1938.

The Blackfoot perspective on self-actualization was quite different than

Maslow's, however.

For the Blackfoot, self-actualization was actually at the base of the pyramid.
As with other philosophies focused on human development and higher
states of being, the Blackfoot model extends the concept outside of the self
and focuses on the impact of self-development on the community. Above
self-actualization comes community actualization, above which comes
cultural perpetuity, or the idea that the knowledge and wisdom of a
community can live on in perpetuity, so long as the individual and the
community become actualized.

Aside from its emphasis on community rather than the individual, this model
is interesting because it also focuses on time — if a community achieves
cultural perpetuity, then it lasts forever. It also explicitly discusses
something that Maslow would later add to his hierarchy: the idea of self-
transcendence. Maslow later believed that all self-actualized individuals
would feel the need to pursue goals outside of the self, a feature that was
already present in the Blackfoot model.

None of this is to say that Maslow's model of human development is wrong

or right — rather, it's important to acknowledge how much of Maslow's
thinking was a product of his culture. Psychology, in particular, is a science
that's easily influenced by culture — just as an example, consider the fact
that nearly all psychological studies are conducted on undergraduate
college students. It's immediately apparent that ascertaining universal
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truths from a sample of undergraduate college students and Western

historical figures is a dubious proposition.

When it comes to pursuing a better version of the self, it pays to keep in

mind that there are many perspectives on what that better version might be.

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