alt Hacker NewsWhenever I look up diseases and it reports a statistic such as "3-5%" I often feel like either I must not be interpreting it correctly, or it is so region-biased as to not be useful for how I'm consuming the data. Because it's hard to reconcile that apparently in the ballpark of 1 in 20 people have this?
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Melatonic • today at 5:26 PM
Lot of these are a spectrum. 3 to 5% might have a mild form that's aggravated by super spicy food or something but otherwise not very noticeable.
And then maybe a percentage of those people have a more debilitating version ?
It seems extremely common as people age. Your body just starts to break down as we get older and this is one, amongst many, ways that this manifests. A quick search suggests it shows up in about 50% of people over 70. [1]
[1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11879357/