QALY - a four letter U-less Q-word

My coworkers & I watched a video over lunch about the dangers of eating meat, which prompted discussions about the validity of the arguments for or against meat eating.

I won't reject the hypothesis that modern north american eating habits lead to an early death - quite the opposite, actually. But as one of my colleagues pointed out, life expectancy isn't the only factor to consider in lifestyle decisions. We have to consider quality of life too (ie. enjoy eating lotsa meat).

Enter the QALY. Quality Adjusted Life Year. It's the metric used by Cost-Benefit / Cost-Effectiveness studies of Drugs. A QALY is the product of life expectancy and quality of life. Obviously, quality of life is subjective, so we try to quantify quality of life through surveys (also quantifiable events such as the number of hospitalizations or amount of time spent in a hospital).

So, for example, if you really enjoy smoking and on a scale from 1-10, life with smoking is a 9 and life without smoking is an 7, that's a 20% difference in subjective quality of life [(9-7)/10]. So, how many years does smoking knock off your life expectancy? If it's anything more than 20%, then it's better to quit smoking, because the net QALYs will be less if you smoke than if you don't.

Okay, so what if smoking knocks less than 20% off the end of your life? Well, you have to consider other health effects that will affect your quality of life later on. For example, if you end up with lung cancer, and need to undergo surgery, your quality of life will suck for that duration of time, and for a good period of time after. I mean, your QALYs during chemotherapy will be negligible - you may as well be dead for that period of time. In fact, your QALYs for the remainder of your life will probably be less than if you never had lung cancer at all.

It's quite clear from what we know about smoking that smokers will on average have less QALYs than non-smokers. That is to say, the cost of smoking outweighs the benefits.

Let's take that model and apply it to meat.
Do vegetarians and/or vegans live longer than meat eaters? Anecdotal evidence (for what it's worth) seems to indicate this may be true.
Do people on the atkins diet suffer from poor cardiovascular health and shortened life spans? Again, anecdotal evidence points to some very serious side effects of the atkins diet - case in point: how did Dr. Atkins die, and at what age?
How much will you miss meat? This is the really subjective one that will differ for each person. As in the case of smoking, this is difficult to rate until you've actually tried the lifestyle change.
How will poor cardiovascular health affect overall quality of life?
How will diabetes? A heart attack? A stroke? How does being morbidly obese factor into your enjoyment of life?

Food for thought.

-d

Physio

Went to my second physio session today. It was like an 1.5 hr workout where you only use your core and hamstrings.

Anyway, the PT prescribed me a brutal 3-day workout regimen that I should be doing weekly, for the next 4 weeks.

It seems like most of their performance training is geared towards sports that require a lot of leg strength - skiing, hockey, football, basketball, track, etc. Seems like everyone who goes there is training for something or other.

There's this sign posted on top of their vertical jump measuring thingie. It says,

NHL Average: 26"
NBA Average: 28"
NFL Average: 31"

My current vertical is 19" i think. Hahaha. The owner's personal best is 36" which he recorded in the new year. His ultimate goal is 40".

-d

Work culture

Caught an awesome post about Google's work culture. I know better than to believe everything I read, but man... I want to believe.

Anyway, buried in the article are some tips on how to use gmail more efficiently.

-d

Sexy Man Pants

The New York Times recently published an article about the various fashion faux pas of mens' jeans.

The article pretty much sums up my viewpoint of mens' jeans - the market is flooded with crap, often overpriced crap.

Anyway, it's an okay starter's guide to jeans, but I wouldn't call it great, and I wouldn't follow it to the tee. After all, it's based on a few people's opinions - most of whom are crusty old vintage collectors.

One detail I caught - Sugar Cane, while a great brand, isn't a 'pure' denim. It's been 'tampered with,' you'll quickly find out if you bother to do any research. It's called Sugar Cane because there's sugar cane fibres spun into the weft. Nit-picky, I know - credibility is in the details, though...

I still think that jeans style is based a lot on what image you want to portray. For example, if you're young, dumb, and full of cum, you might want to consider skinny jeans with a lot of bells and whistles. If you're a blue collar hero to your children, then go with the article, and elect for a pair of working man's pants - Wranglers, or Levi's. If you have a little more disposable income, but still want to look masculine, get yourself some raw selvedge. Don't have an ass? Do some squats. Like a nice relaxed fit? Wear sweatpants. Hiding a gun or machete? Pick something a little more relaxed and baggy.

I want to emphasize that wearing something baggy and relaxed isn't very sexy, and really isn't any more comfortable than a pair of sweat pants - so why go there? It was cheap and on sale? Rarely can you beat the MSRP (US$) or value of a nice fitting pair of Wranglers of Levi's.

One last thing - if and when you go and get yourself a nice-fitting pair of man pants, if your balls are getting pinched, it's probably a sign that you're pulling them up too high.

-d