TimFreeman comments on Living Forever is Hard, or, The Gompertz Curve - Less Wrong
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Comments (86)
Based just on the title, they seem to be looking at the wrong thing. You want to know the effect of daily aspirin on long-term risk of death, not on long-term risk of death from cancer. Your life isn't improved much if you trade death from cancer for death from (say) depression and suicide. (I have no reason to expect such a trade.)
I read the abstract too, and my concern was not changed. I have not read the whole paper.
Nevertheless, if that's the best available information, that's worth knowing. Thanks for posting it. Have an upvote.
I haven't read the whole paper, but I also wanted to see what aspirin's effect on all causes of death was. (I wondered whether the higher risk of bleeding would offset the lower risk of cancer; it didn't.) The magic keywords to Ctrl-F for are "all-cause".
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p. 36:
p. 39:
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The big caveat I have in light of this is that the trial patients were in their 40s and older. I would guess the cost-benefit balance tilts the other way for sufficiently young people because younger people have a lower risk of cancer or CVD.