Hey, late reply, but since it seemed to interest you, I’d like to share some thoughts I had in the meantime. It’s mostly based on limited personal observations.
Smoking just has to play a significant role in that. You super rarely see any women smoking, and I really mean super extremely rarely, in the whole country. But men of all ages (including some teenagers) smoke everywhere, constantly. With the drinking, it’s maybe a bit similar but way less extreme, cuz there is no stigma against women drinking (again, limited personal observation! might be different in other regions or small villages)
But then it hit me: the biggest factor could be drugs like amphetamines; stuff that overworked factory workers use to stay awake, but also shop clerks, lorry and bus drivers etc. literally an endless list. Work time is generally WAY too long, people simply cannot earn enough to survive without “little helpers”. Drug use in this context is a real problem, government doesn’t hide it.
I suspect that men tend to use that stuff much more than women.
Anyway, thanks for your reply, but to be super honest, I didn’t really understood it 🙈, can you maybe send me the articles? Just if you still have them, not super important.
Acceleration of cardiovascular-biological age by amphetamine exposure is a power function of chronological age
Background:
People are using amphetamines more around the world.
Nobody has looked into whether amphetamines can make your cardiovascular system (heart and blood vessels) and overall body age faster.
Methods:
They used a device called the SphygmoCor system to measure the pulse from the wrist of the participants.
They had 55 people who took amphetamines, 107 who smoked tobacco, 483 who didn’t smoke, and 68 who used methadone (another type of drug). So, 713 people in total took part from 2006 to 2011.
They tried to find out the “biological age” of the heart (how old the heart seems, compared to the person’s actual age).
Results:
The ages of the participants were between about 30 and 40.
They made sure to control for age differences in their analysis.
Both male and female participants were equally represented in the groups.
Almost all (94%) of the amphetamine users had taken the drug in the past week.
They found that the “biological age” of the heart was not just increasing linearly (like a straight line) with the actual age. Instead, it increased faster, like a curve.
When they compared “biological age” with other factors like time, BMI (body weight related to height), and actual age, the curve-like relationship was even stronger.
Even after considering all other factors that can hurt the heart (like smoking, high blood pressure, etc.), amphetamine still made the heart age faster.
Conclusions:
Taking amphetamines seems to make the heart (and perhaps the body) age faster than it should.
This aging effect increases even faster as one gets older, suggesting the drug could be accelerating the natural aging process.
There’s also some good national library of medicine articles about the cultural differences like Viet women trying to heal themselves, in contrast to the men:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338901/
You’re definitely right about amphetamines being bad for you, I’m sure I read articles about consequential heart failure because of amphetamines, and when I was in Vietnam vices were exactly as you say, I almost never saw a woman smoking, but all of the men smoked and drank energy drinks!
Like multiple a day, while they were driving or exercising in the square, delivering packages, everywhere.
I’ll go look back at my original reply and get those articles to you.
Hey, late reply, but since it seemed to interest you, I’d like to share some thoughts I had in the meantime. It’s mostly based on limited personal observations.
Smoking just has to play a significant role in that. You super rarely see any women smoking, and I really mean super extremely rarely, in the whole country. But men of all ages (including some teenagers) smoke everywhere, constantly. With the drinking, it’s maybe a bit similar but way less extreme, cuz there is no stigma against women drinking (again, limited personal observation! might be different in other regions or small villages)
But then it hit me: the biggest factor could be drugs like amphetamines; stuff that overworked factory workers use to stay awake, but also shop clerks, lorry and bus drivers etc. literally an endless list. Work time is generally WAY too long, people simply cannot earn enough to survive without “little helpers”. Drug use in this context is a real problem, government doesn’t hide it.
I suspect that men tend to use that stuff much more than women.
And I sure suspect that the use of amphetamines does not increase one’s life span. Interesting study; small but wonderfully selected sample group imo. Check the GPT-generated summary at the end.
Anyway, thanks for your reply, but to be super honest, I didn’t really understood it 🙈, can you maybe send me the articles? Just if you still have them, not super important.
Was that the “Vietnamese women have 11 years sick, Viet men have 8?”
That’s this one: https://ampe.vnexpress.net/news/news/vietnamese-live-longer-yet-suffer-many-diseases-survey-4208834.html
There’s also some good national library of medicine articles about the cultural differences like Viet women trying to heal themselves, in contrast to the men: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338901/
You know what, this is a great hypothesis!
You’re definitely right about amphetamines being bad for you, I’m sure I read articles about consequential heart failure because of amphetamines, and when I was in Vietnam vices were exactly as you say, I almost never saw a woman smoking, but all of the men smoked and drank energy drinks!
Like multiple a day, while they were driving or exercising in the square, delivering packages, everywhere.
I’ll go look back at my original reply and get those articles to you.