http://www.badscience.net/2008/09/the-medicalisation-of-everyday-life/#more-784
The World Health Organisation's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health reported this week, and it contained some chilling figures. Life expectancy in the poorest area of Glasgow – Calton – is 28 years less than in Lenzie, a middle-class area just eight miles away. That is a lot less life, and it isn't just because the people in Lenzie are careful to eat goji berries for extra antioxidants, and a handful of brazil nuts every day, thus ensuring they're not deficient in selenium, as per nutritionists' advice.
People die at different rates because of a complex nexus of interlocking social and political issues including work life, employment status, social stability, family support, housing, smoking, drugs, and possibly diet, although the evidence on that, frankly, is pretty thin, and you certainly wouldn't start there.
---Steve
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