Unless I misunderstand QALY, wouldn't n+5 years of misery not necessarily equal n years of actual quality life? assuming a base quality of 0 < k ≤ 1 with n years, and a calorie restricted life at quality 0 < k' < k with n+5, surely you'd end up at k * n QALYs for a normal life, and k' * (n + 5) for a calorie restricted one? Which might very well be lower given how large n is and how much smaller k' is than k.
Concretely: 85 years of misery is not 5 QALYs more than 80y of normal life.
Comments
Unless I misunderstand QALY, wouldn't n+5 years of misery not necessarily equal n years of actual quality life? assuming a base quality of 0 < k ≤ 1 with n years, and a calorie restricted life at quality 0 < k' < k with n+5, surely you'd end up at k * n QALYs for a normal life, and k' * (n + 5) for a calorie restricted one? Which might very well be lower given how large n is and how much smaller k' is than k.
Concretely: 85 years of misery is not 5 QALYs more than 80y of normal life.
Or am I missing your point, here?
Yes, you are missing their point: they meant that they'd be happy to do something that resulted in five additional QALYs, which this is likely not.