Not to be gloomy, but I wish they wouldn't phrase these studies that way.

What they really mean is that people who ate a lot of hot dogs tended to die years earlier than those who didn't.

Well, no, not quite that either. They mean that there was a higher incidence of earlier death among those who are a lot of hot dogs. So some of the careless food choosers die much earlier.

So in no way is it 36 minutes. But that number makes people give silly responses.

I try very hard to eat healthily. Not because I care so much about living longer but because of what studies like this don't say: most of the people who died early didn't pass away peacefully in their reclining chairs. They died from nasty things like cancer and heart disease.

That's a bit more unsettling than 36 minutes, isn't it? I don't care how long I live but I would like to die sleeping in that recliner.