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?