While I've appreciated some of the author's articles in the past, I think the numbers in this one miss the mark quite a bit.
> the risk of dying from the screening exam was 1/660
> The usual rule of thumb is that one extra Sievert = 5% higher risk of dying from cancer, so a 30 mS dose increases death risk about one part in 660.
Well not quite. First of all, this assumes that exposure events are additive over a lifetime (rather than individual events being more damaging at higher doses). This does seem to be the case, though I'm curious if we really know.
More to the point, it's a 5% increase of chance of death from cancer. Combining 5% with 30mSv/1Sv, you get an extra 0.15% chance of dying of cancer indeed.
But the chance of dying of cancer in the U.S. is something like 17.5%, although that does increase (and then decrease) with advanced age. According to https://usafacts.org/articles/americans-causes-of-death-by-a... , something like 29% deaths in the 65-74 age group are cancer, while in the 75-84 year age group it drops again to 25%.
Regardless, this means if you figure out your lifetime chance of dying by cancer based on your current age, it's 30% at the most (in aggregate, obviously personal risk factors vary a lot from person to person).
A 0.15% increase in that is 0.045% additional chance of dying by cancer, or 1 in 2,222. Using the average mortality incidence of 17.5% its more like 1 in 3800. And for someone who's this concerned about dying of cancer and I assume limiting risk factors much more than the average citizen, perhaps it's a 1 in 5000 chance.
All in all you're much more likely to reduce your chance of death by cancer by much more than a CT will increase it, via a number of lifestyle changes: healthier eating, quitting alcohol, staying out of the sun.
Sunlight exposure is associated with reduced all-cause mortality, as well as reduced incidence of several specific diseases including some types of cancer.
It’s also associated with higher endorphin levels, and the maintenance of proper circadian rhythm through melatonin synthesis.
Most of these effects have been found to be unrelated to vitamin D, but that’s also a significant benefit considering the poor bioavailability of supplements.
The reduction in all-cause mortality from sunlight exposure is significant enough that people with an early diagnosis and treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer have a higher average life expectancy than the general population.
I've always assumed that those results are caused by exercise, and since many people exercise outdoors, being outdoors more is correlated with better health, but the better health is actually caused by by the exercise, not the being outdoors. As for the circadian rhythm, SAS should embrace More Dakka [0] and cover his entire ceiling in bright white LED modules. He has Substack money to spend after all. I thought D3 was pretty good with absorption, though he could start drinking milk and take GLP-1 inhibitors to offset that if needed.
> the risk of dying from the screening exam was 1/660
> The usual rule of thumb is that one extra Sievert = 5% higher risk of dying from cancer, so a 30 mS dose increases death risk about one part in 660.
Well not quite. First of all, this assumes that exposure events are additive over a lifetime (rather than individual events being more damaging at higher doses). This does seem to be the case, though I'm curious if we really know.
More to the point, it's a 5% increase of chance of death from cancer. Combining 5% with 30mSv/1Sv, you get an extra 0.15% chance of dying of cancer indeed.
But the chance of dying of cancer in the U.S. is something like 17.5%, although that does increase (and then decrease) with advanced age. According to https://usafacts.org/articles/americans-causes-of-death-by-a... , something like 29% deaths in the 65-74 age group are cancer, while in the 75-84 year age group it drops again to 25%.
Regardless, this means if you figure out your lifetime chance of dying by cancer based on your current age, it's 30% at the most (in aggregate, obviously personal risk factors vary a lot from person to person).
A 0.15% increase in that is 0.045% additional chance of dying by cancer, or 1 in 2,222. Using the average mortality incidence of 17.5% its more like 1 in 3800. And for someone who's this concerned about dying of cancer and I assume limiting risk factors much more than the average citizen, perhaps it's a 1 in 5000 chance.
All in all you're much more likely to reduce your chance of death by cancer by much more than a CT will increase it, via a number of lifestyle changes: healthier eating, quitting alcohol, staying out of the sun.