Russians have a habit of employing scientific information in their daily lives. For instance: I've been told that a Russian or Eastern European weather forecaster sometimes gives health advice based on the air pressure changes.
In America or the UK I know this would be dismissed as 'woo'.
Unless it was contextualized correctly of course. Such as between friends or within a relevant domain like medicine.
You might want to talk to some engineers about that.
It may be possible to have a fine degree of control over air pressure in today's high spec houses because of their high air tightness requirements.
I don't know that it is possible, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because they are so tight they have to employ mechanical ventilation. I know hospitals employ air pressure as a way of controlling for disease spreading.
> It may be possible to have a fine degree of control over air pressure in today's high spec houses because of their high air tightness requirements.
Houses are not that airtight. Long before a house gets airtight enough to maintain a pressure differential efficiently, the occupants will get ill as off-gassing from carpets and paints and wood finishes cannot escape. If you run a large negative pressure in a typical house, you also risk carbon monoxide poisoning from sucking exhaust from the furnace into the living space.
> I know hospitals employ air pressure as a way of controlling for disease spreading.
They use air pressure this way specifically because construction is not airtight. If you run a negative pressure differential (which requires a pretty beefy blower to accomplish and isn't very energy efficient), you end up pulling air in from all the gaps and cracks and porous materials, which means that contaminated air is not going into all the gaps and cracks and porous materials.
> Houses are not that airtight. Long before a house gets airtight enough to maintain a pressure differential efficiently, the occupants will get ill as off-gassing from carpets and paints and wood finishes cannot escape.
They are that airtight. That is why they put in mechanical ventilation such as HRV and ERV. The houses are that air tight that off-gassing is a problem once they get down below 0.6 ACH @ 50 pascals as they do in passive house builds.
> If you run a large negative pressure in a typical house, you also risk carbon monoxide poisoning from sucking exhaust from the furnace into the living space.
> They use air pressure this way specifically because construction is not airtight. If you run a negative pressure differential (which requires a pretty beefy blower to accomplish and isn't very energy efficient), you end up pulling air in from all the gaps and cracks and porous materials, which means that contaminated air is not going into all the gaps and cracks and porous materials.
I understand why a negative pressure room works. The linked to Wikipedia page explains it. They are an example of manipulating air pressure to affect an outcome.
What I don't understand is what point you're trying to make.
If it is that the air tightness of a house coupled with a HRV is not sufficient to effect barometric pressure on a human body, then I already acknowledged that might be so. It also might be sufficient, which is why suggested getting an expert's opinion.
> They are that airtight. That is why they put in mechanical ventilation such as HRV and ERV. The houses are that air tight that off-gassing is a problem once they get down below 0.6 ACH @ 50 pascals as they do in passive house builds.
Yes, off-gassing is a problem. Off-gassing is a problem long before a house is really airtight enough to efficiently maintain a pressure differential, though.
0.6ACH@50Pa means that your house is extremely airtight by even modern standards. It also means that a very light pressure is sufficient to cause your house to completely exchange it's interior air in less than two hours. If you want to depressurize a house enough to offset a high pressure weather system, you're going to be moving a lot of air.
> It happens, I read this the other week.
Yes, I know it happens. That's why I said it. This is another reason that you cannot significantly depressurize a house.
Plus your door would fly open and break your face when you turned the knob.
> What I don't understand is what point you're trying to make.
> If it is that the air tightness of a house coupled with a HRV is not sufficient to effect barometric pressure on a human body, then I already acknowledged that might be so. It also might be sufficient, which is why suggested getting an expert's opinion.
Yes, I'm saying it won't work. For many reasons. You don't need an expert. It doesn't even pass the sniff test.
OK, we're moving far from "meterologist warning people about health" to "let's make a sealed home".
(BTW, I'm an engineer. I've built low vacuum systems and attempting to keep a home at a specific pressure is nearly impossible. It's certainly very expensive.)
True. I do have a related question for you if you'll permit a final digression while we're on this subject.
What are your thoughts on vacuum insulation panels?
They have incredible R values, but leak over time. Do you see them being used in the housing of the future? I know somebody in Canada (the Leaf) is using them for a Tiny House project.
If you have migraines, wouldn't you always have your meds? Pressure isn't the only cause, so it's not like people would say "oh, I might get a migraine" and bring their pill that day, but leave it home otherwise.
You're coming up with increasingly implausible explanations for why metereologists giving "health" advice means a culture is more scientific.
The valuable thing is that you'd know in advance that you are likely getting a migraine, giving you a chance to adjust your activities for the day. For example, you may want to reschedule your dream job interview.
Barometric pressure directly affects your ability to breathe.
Recently several people died by asthma attack in Australia and thousands of people with no preexisting history of respiratory illness suddenly developed symptoms. The most likely explanation so far was the sudden change in barometric pressure and high pollen counts.
If atmospheric pressure decreases it shall lower your blood pressure.
> Barometric pressure directly affects your ability to breathe.
Sure. Go for a jog on a mountain and you'll find that you miss the higher pressure.
> Recently several people died by asthma attack in Australia and thousands of people with no preexisting history of respiratory illness suddenly developed symptoms. The most likely explanation so far was the sudden change in barometric pressure and high pollen counts.
Thousands unexpectedly developed symptoms? This is hard to believe. Also impossible to separate from the high pollen count that's known to cause problems for millions.
> If atmospheric pressure decreases it shall lower your blood pressure.
That's some serious cherry-picking. It's an article about cold weather causing higher blood pressure with a brief mention of other potential factors that mostly only affect people over 65.
> More generally, weather has a direct effect on mood and behaviour.
"An eighth person has died following last week's freak thunderstorm asthma event in Melbourne, health authorities have said.
One person remains in a critical condition in intensive care, the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services said.
Last week hospitals were overwhelmed when after a cool change and storm caused respiratory problems for thousands of people, with more than 8,500 attending emergency departments."
"It caused many people, including those who had no history of asthma or respiratory issues, to experience mild to severe breathing difficulties."
"The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
The good name of Russian Meteorology is exonerated from charges of pseudoscience.
That article says nothing about increased atmospheric pressure being at fault. It lays the blame squarely on pollen as expected.
This is why pseudoscience is so difficult to discuss meaningfully. It's supporters cherry pick, exaggerate, and outright lie to support the claims they make because the actual science does not support the claims.
Low pressure causing high pollen density causing respiratory illness.
This has the power to explain why large numbers of people were abruptly affected. It's all there in the article.
"Last week hospitals were overwhelmed when after a cool change and storm caused respiratory problems for thousands ... The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
> Low pressure causing high pollen density causing respiratory illness.
The news article you're citing literally makes no mention of the barometric pressure. Your citation does not support your claim.
> "The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
This quote clearly does not support your claim. In no way is humidity the same as barometric pressure.
> And I repeat myself from 20 hours ago
I don't know why you're sure insistent on this. You have basically no data to support your thesis that air pressure changes are meaningful to health. You've definitely got no evidence that they're going to cause asthma. You don't even have any evidence that Russian meteorologists actually give health advice based on barometric pressure. You've only "been told that a Russian or Eastern European weather forecaster sometimes gives health advice based on the air pressure changes."
This whole thing makes no sense. You started with the thesis that we're retarded for not having meteorologists give medical advice and you've continued to defend it by claiming with no evidence that air pressure changes have hospitalized thousands, that people with respiratory problems should wear masks when the pressure changes, and that you could pressurize a house to counteract the change in barometric pressure. Your starting point is flawed and the conclusions you're reaching are absurd.
> The news article you're citing literally makes no mention of the barometric pressure.
Areas of low pressure have a colloquial name. Storms.
I suggest you come back to this thread on a different day and re-read it. Or give it to somebody else with a neutral, uninvested perspective to read. The mention I made of houses controlling pressure was merely a hypothetical as I previously stressed. Everything else I said followed from the understanding that low pressure areas are storms. Storms move air. Air that now contains large quantities of pollen.
Setting Russia aside for a second, the UK has a malnutrition rate that's 4-5x lower than the US as well. Why is this? I suspect this is related to the high rates of obesity in the US, and that this site is including all deaths caused by obesity related problems?
France also has a rate ~4x higher than the US, and even Norway has a rate double that of the US. I do wonder how much of this is difference is legitimate differences between countries and how much is a difference in categorization. Are the French really 20x as likely to die of malnutrition as the neighboring Germans?
> Death due to lack of certain nutrients isn't that uncommon.
Citation? My understanding is that study after study has generally shown little impact from vitamin supplementation except in specific cases where subjects show obvious signs of deficiency (e.g. iron deficiency in pregnant women).
> VDD related deaths are quite common especially in cardiac cases
I'm assuming this is "vitamin D deficiency". I'd against ask for a citation. I couldn't find anything supporting this claim. Seems to be a risk factor but that's very different than being caused by the deficiency.
We’re still a few years away from clinical trials that explore the possible link between taking vitamin D supplements to achieve higher vitamin D levels, and lower cardiovascular risk.
Nothing to do with supplements, that is nonsense but we're talking about very low levels of certain nutrients including vitamins and various minerals.
Low levels of vitamin D have been directly linked to increased death rates from cardiovascular conditions that doesn't mean the swallowing pills would help.
Vitamin A deficiency is one of the leading causes of blindness amongst children and pregnancy related mortality in the world, this also happens in western countries by not as much.
And so on and so on, eventually you can tie a lot of medical causes to poor diet, not getting enough X which causes or makes condition Y worse leading to death.
Dying to starvation proper (excluding famines and other natural disasters) is kinda hard in the west, and in many other places unless it's enforced starvation, you simply tend to die to exposure way before that.
> Nothing to do with supplements, that is nonsense but we're talking about very low levels of certain nutrients including vitamins and various minerals.
I don't know how to interpret this. You're saying that supplements are nonsense but the deficiencies are real? So the deficiency causes mortality but from fixing the deficiency doesn't reduce mortality?
> Low levels of vitamin D have been directly linked to increased death rates from cardiovascular conditions that doesn't mean the swallowing pills would help."
Vitamin D deficiency is correlated with certain cardiovascular conditions. "Directly linked" doesn't really mean anything and is misleading because it could easily be interpreted to be causal which is definitely not established. If it were causal then supplements would fix it.
> And so on and so on, eventually you can tie a lot of medical causes to poor diet, not getting enough X which causes or makes condition Y worse leading to death.
This is the sort of statement that I don't think is supported by the science, but is so vague that it's difficult to meaningfully discuss. What is "a lot"? Is it some small fraction of a percentage? My understanding is that in the western world, vitamin deficiencies are fairly rare and clinical evidence doesn't indicate most conditions are clearly tied to deficiencies.
Obviously what you eat will impact your health but the area is so complex that the contribution of minor deficiencies is basically impossible to separate from the noise. An implication of this is that recommendations of specific supplements or specific foods for correcting deficiencies are generally not scientific.
One suspects that there's a great deal of variability in how a given death gets labelled as being due to "malnutrition" or something else. Or for example whether miscarriages due to poor nutritional health of the mother get labelled as "infant deaths" or not; etc.
Gosh I'd need to know a lot more about this number before drawing any conclusions. For example, what counts as malnutrition? In the US, do addicts die from spending too little on food? If a baby dies due to untreated gestational diabetes, is that malnutrition? Does Russia categorize the death of a drunk differently than the US?
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadIn America or the UK I know this would be dismissed as 'woo'.
Unless it was contextualized correctly of course. Such as between friends or within a relevant domain like medicine.
Sometimes I worry we might be retarded.
Anyway, got more specifics on the weather forecaster giving health advice on air pressure changes? I mean, other than, "watch out for rain"?
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/migraine-heada...
http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/headache-and-migrai...
It may be possible to have a fine degree of control over air pressure in today's high spec houses because of their high air tightness requirements.
I don't know that it is possible, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because they are so tight they have to employ mechanical ventilation. I know hospitals employ air pressure as a way of controlling for disease spreading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_room_pressure
Houses are not that airtight. Long before a house gets airtight enough to maintain a pressure differential efficiently, the occupants will get ill as off-gassing from carpets and paints and wood finishes cannot escape. If you run a large negative pressure in a typical house, you also risk carbon monoxide poisoning from sucking exhaust from the furnace into the living space.
> I know hospitals employ air pressure as a way of controlling for disease spreading.
They use air pressure this way specifically because construction is not airtight. If you run a negative pressure differential (which requires a pretty beefy blower to accomplish and isn't very energy efficient), you end up pulling air in from all the gaps and cracks and porous materials, which means that contaminated air is not going into all the gaps and cracks and porous materials.
They are that airtight. That is why they put in mechanical ventilation such as HRV and ERV. The houses are that air tight that off-gassing is a problem once they get down below 0.6 ACH @ 50 pascals as they do in passive house builds.
> If you run a large negative pressure in a typical house, you also risk carbon monoxide poisoning from sucking exhaust from the furnace into the living space.
It happens, I read this the other week.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TinyHouses/comments/5ec33i/the_big_...
> They use air pressure this way specifically because construction is not airtight. If you run a negative pressure differential (which requires a pretty beefy blower to accomplish and isn't very energy efficient), you end up pulling air in from all the gaps and cracks and porous materials, which means that contaminated air is not going into all the gaps and cracks and porous materials.
I understand why a negative pressure room works. The linked to Wikipedia page explains it. They are an example of manipulating air pressure to affect an outcome.
What I don't understand is what point you're trying to make.
If it is that the air tightness of a house coupled with a HRV is not sufficient to effect barometric pressure on a human body, then I already acknowledged that might be so. It also might be sufficient, which is why suggested getting an expert's opinion.
Yes, off-gassing is a problem. Off-gassing is a problem long before a house is really airtight enough to efficiently maintain a pressure differential, though.
0.6ACH@50Pa means that your house is extremely airtight by even modern standards. It also means that a very light pressure is sufficient to cause your house to completely exchange it's interior air in less than two hours. If you want to depressurize a house enough to offset a high pressure weather system, you're going to be moving a lot of air.
> It happens, I read this the other week.
Yes, I know it happens. That's why I said it. This is another reason that you cannot significantly depressurize a house.
Plus your door would fly open and break your face when you turned the knob.
> What I don't understand is what point you're trying to make. > If it is that the air tightness of a house coupled with a HRV is not sufficient to effect barometric pressure on a human body, then I already acknowledged that might be so. It also might be sufficient, which is why suggested getting an expert's opinion.
Yes, I'm saying it won't work. For many reasons. You don't need an expert. It doesn't even pass the sniff test.
(BTW, I'm an engineer. I've built low vacuum systems and attempting to keep a home at a specific pressure is nearly impossible. It's certainly very expensive.)
What are your thoughts on vacuum insulation panels?
They have incredible R values, but leak over time. Do you see them being used in the housing of the future? I know somebody in Canada (the Leaf) is using them for a Tiny House project.
You're coming up with increasingly implausible explanations for why metereologists giving "health" advice means a culture is more scientific.
> increasingly
I've only given one (admittedly bad) example!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-04/thunderstorm-asthma-wa...
If changes in barometric pressure change how pollen is dispersed then wearing a mask might be the right answer for a person with respiratory problems.
The weather forecaster is not qualified to give medical advice, so this does not seem to constitute "employing scientific information" in daily life.
If by "woo" you mean pseudoscience worth ignoring then yes, it sounds like "woo".
Barometric pressure directly affects your ability to breathe.
Recently several people died by asthma attack in Australia and thousands of people with no preexisting history of respiratory illness suddenly developed symptoms. The most likely explanation so far was the sudden change in barometric pressure and high pollen counts.
If atmospheric pressure decreases it shall lower your blood pressure.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pre...
More generally, weather has a direct effect on mood and behaviour.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/11/09/weather-can...
Sure. Go for a jog on a mountain and you'll find that you miss the higher pressure.
> Recently several people died by asthma attack in Australia and thousands of people with no preexisting history of respiratory illness suddenly developed symptoms. The most likely explanation so far was the sudden change in barometric pressure and high pollen counts.
Thousands unexpectedly developed symptoms? This is hard to believe. Also impossible to separate from the high pollen count that's known to cause problems for millions.
> If atmospheric pressure decreases it shall lower your blood pressure.
That's some serious cherry-picking. It's an article about cold weather causing higher blood pressure with a brief mention of other potential factors that mostly only affect people over 65.
> More generally, weather has a direct effect on mood and behaviour.
Obviously.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-29/thunderstorm-asthma-ei...
"An eighth person has died following last week's freak thunderstorm asthma event in Melbourne, health authorities have said.
One person remains in a critical condition in intensive care, the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services said.
Last week hospitals were overwhelmed when after a cool change and storm caused respiratory problems for thousands of people, with more than 8,500 attending emergency departments."
"It caused many people, including those who had no history of asthma or respiratory issues, to experience mild to severe breathing difficulties."
"The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
The good name of Russian Meteorology is exonerated from charges of pseudoscience.
This is why pseudoscience is so difficult to discuss meaningfully. It's supporters cherry pick, exaggerate, and outright lie to support the claims they make because the actual science does not support the claims.
The chain of causality was this:
Low pressure causing high pollen density causing respiratory illness.
This has the power to explain why large numbers of people were abruptly affected. It's all there in the article.
"Last week hospitals were overwhelmed when after a cool change and storm caused respiratory problems for thousands ... The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
And I repeat myself from 20 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13109702
> Low pressure causing high pollen density causing respiratory illness.
The news article you're citing literally makes no mention of the barometric pressure. Your citation does not support your claim.
> "The humid weather change last Monday caused pollen, most likely from rye grass, to burst into tiny particles that were able to be inhaled through the nose and enter the lungs."
This quote clearly does not support your claim. In no way is humidity the same as barometric pressure.
> And I repeat myself from 20 hours ago
I don't know why you're sure insistent on this. You have basically no data to support your thesis that air pressure changes are meaningful to health. You've definitely got no evidence that they're going to cause asthma. You don't even have any evidence that Russian meteorologists actually give health advice based on barometric pressure. You've only "been told that a Russian or Eastern European weather forecaster sometimes gives health advice based on the air pressure changes."
This whole thing makes no sense. You started with the thesis that we're retarded for not having meteorologists give medical advice and you've continued to defend it by claiming with no evidence that air pressure changes have hospitalized thousands, that people with respiratory problems should wear masks when the pressure changes, and that you could pressurize a house to counteract the change in barometric pressure. Your starting point is flawed and the conclusions you're reaching are absurd.
Areas of low pressure have a colloquial name. Storms.
I suggest you come back to this thread on a different day and re-read it. Or give it to somebody else with a neutral, uninvested perspective to read. The mention I made of houses controlling pressure was merely a hypothetical as I previously stressed. Everything else I said followed from the understanding that low pressure areas are storms. Storms move air. Air that now contains large quantities of pollen.
Those numbers are smaller than 1/100,000. You are counting 200 occurrences an year at the US, and many less at France or Germany.
Death due to lack of certain nutrients isn't that uncommon.
While VAD deaths in the US and the west are probably rare VDD related deaths are quite common especially in cardiac cases.
Same goes for many other things.
If you only count acute starvation then 200 cases per year might make sense but diet has a huge impact on mortality.
A single hospital misclassifying deaths could double it and maybe not even raise an alarm.
Citation? My understanding is that study after study has generally shown little impact from vitamin supplementation except in specific cases where subjects show obvious signs of deficiency (e.g. iron deficiency in pregnant women).
> VDD related deaths are quite common especially in cardiac cases
I'm assuming this is "vitamin D deficiency". I'd against ask for a citation. I couldn't find anything supporting this claim. Seems to be a risk factor but that's very different than being caused by the deficiency.
We’re still a few years away from clinical trials that explore the possible link between taking vitamin D supplements to achieve higher vitamin D levels, and lower cardiovascular risk.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart_vascular_institute/clin...
Low levels of vitamin D have been directly linked to increased death rates from cardiovascular conditions that doesn't mean the swallowing pills would help.
Vitamin A deficiency is one of the leading causes of blindness amongst children and pregnancy related mortality in the world, this also happens in western countries by not as much.
And so on and so on, eventually you can tie a lot of medical causes to poor diet, not getting enough X which causes or makes condition Y worse leading to death.
Dying to starvation proper (excluding famines and other natural disasters) is kinda hard in the west, and in many other places unless it's enforced starvation, you simply tend to die to exposure way before that.
I don't know how to interpret this. You're saying that supplements are nonsense but the deficiencies are real? So the deficiency causes mortality but from fixing the deficiency doesn't reduce mortality?
> Low levels of vitamin D have been directly linked to increased death rates from cardiovascular conditions that doesn't mean the swallowing pills would help."
Vitamin D deficiency is correlated with certain cardiovascular conditions. "Directly linked" doesn't really mean anything and is misleading because it could easily be interpreted to be causal which is definitely not established. If it were causal then supplements would fix it.
> And so on and so on, eventually you can tie a lot of medical causes to poor diet, not getting enough X which causes or makes condition Y worse leading to death.
This is the sort of statement that I don't think is supported by the science, but is so vague that it's difficult to meaningfully discuss. What is "a lot"? Is it some small fraction of a percentage? My understanding is that in the western world, vitamin deficiencies are fairly rare and clinical evidence doesn't indicate most conditions are clearly tied to deficiencies.
Obviously what you eat will impact your health but the area is so complex that the contribution of minor deficiencies is basically impossible to separate from the noise. An implication of this is that recommendations of specific supplements or specific foods for correcting deficiencies are generally not scientific.
So many sad questions.