Thanks for your thoughts and insights, Jo. It is becoming more and more clear that lifestyle beats genes. I'll be writing an article on that subject soon. I do that with the hope of motivating readers.

To name one example: while the carriers of a certain variant of the APOE4 gene have an elevated risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, the risk reduction achievable through lifestyle modifications is equally impressive and significant. And all that for a disease for which there is no pharmacological cure.

Anyway, you have raised an interesting question that has been bugging me for a while (when you mention the health evangelists being the ones that die earlier): Could it be that many of the carefree ones are carefree because they are constitutionally healthy, and are the sick evangelists sick because their health is constitutionally fragile? Is thre possibly a link that we, in science, are unaware of?

This may sound crazy, but I'm actively exploring this angle.