7 ms·

You mean the one for people whose life expectancy was less than half the modern day? Who lived completely different lives?

jdminhbg 5y ago
Pro or con the diet, the difference in life expectancy is mostly antibiotics.
- finite_jest 5y ago
  Antibiotics rock, and I think penicillin is rightly praised as being as closed to a Panacea as it gets. However, we shouldn't underestimate the positive effect of better hygiene, vaccination, and advances in surgery techniques. I share the feeling that better nutrition is probably not as much of a significant factor in developed countries. For what it's worth, we are more obese than our ancestors. Our World in Data has this nice chart of life expectance by age in England and Wales [1]. I have this pet hypothesis that a good chunk of the increase in the life expectancy of the younger people in that chart is due to vaccination and better hygiene. And, for older ages, the a good chunk of increase is due to advances in surgery. The effect of antibiotics is probably more uniform across the ages. It is note-worthy that penicillin was discovered in 1928, so the increase in life expectancy before then can't be due to antibiotics. I have no expertise in this area, so you should take all of this with a pinch of salt. The Our World in Data chart is really cool though. That steep fall and rebounce due to the Spanish flu, and the contrast with COVID-19 with respect to affect on different age-groups is also interesting. [2] [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#it-is-not-only-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#it-is-not-only-ab... [2]: I think comparing the naming of the diseases also tells us something about how society has changed.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > the difference in life expectancy is mostly antibiotics Life expectancy made huge gains throughout the century before antibiotics.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    If you look at life expectancy graphs, they mostly correlate with GDP per person. You can't really see the invention of antibiotics clearly in the curves. The way I think of it is that of course penicillin increased life spans, but the discovery and industrialization of it was highly correlated with rising GDP.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  Clean water was the single most important advancement in human health of all time. Next was hygiene, especially during birth. Next is antibiotics. Next is anesthesia.
BurningFrog 5y ago
This argument pretends that diet is the only cause of death.
- cgrealy 5y ago
  No, it doesn't. It acknowledges that a diet for hunter-gatherers that rarely lived to 50 might not be best diet for a people who expend less energy and live far longer.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    I don't buy the paleo stuff, but you're not disproving it. We don't live longer lives purely because of our diet. Also, low life-expectancy in the past was in large part because of child/infant mortality, not croaking at 50.
slickrick216 5y ago
I have been thinking a lot about this exact point lately. Very interesting but hard to answer.
SamReidHughes 5y ago
Powhatan lived to 70, Opechancanough lived to 92 (when he was murdered), Massasoit lived to 80, Canonicus was 82.
- zeven7 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier You should make sure you understand what outliers are. The fact that you can name people from outside modern times that lived a long time is meaningless to the discussion.
  - SamReidHughes 5y ago
    As if I don't understand what outliers are. They weren't outliers. I simply looked up famous Indians because I remembered one had lived to a startlingly old age, and skipped those who got killed by other people. If their diet caused health problems, you wouldn't have all these folks living to a decent age. All the Indian leaders would have bene these young guys who died off at 45 from eating too much venison.
    - zeven7 5y ago
      I definitely don't think modern diets are better than what I imagine Native Americans ate hundreds of years ago. Venison sounds like a very healthy staple in a diet.
omosubi 5y ago
If your ancestors have a line that was able to create you, clearly they were doing something right
carry_bit 5y ago
Overall life expectancy was low due to massive childhood mortality. If you survived to adulthood your life expectancy was much higher.

jdminhbg 5y ago

Pro or con the diet, the difference in life expectancy is mostly antibiotics.

finite_jest 5y ago
Antibiotics rock, and I think penicillin is rightly praised as being as closed to a Panacea as it gets. However, we shouldn't underestimate the positive effect of better hygiene, vaccination, and advances in surgery techniques. I share the feeling that better nutrition is probably not as much of a significant factor in developed countries. For what it's worth, we are more obese than our ancestors. Our World in Data has this nice chart of life expectance by age in England and Wales [1]. I have this pet hypothesis that a good chunk of the increase in the life expectancy of the younger people in that chart is due to vaccination and better hygiene. And, for older ages, the a good chunk of increase is due to advances in surgery. The effect of antibiotics is probably more uniform across the ages. It is note-worthy that penicillin was discovered in 1928, so the increase in life expectancy before then can't be due to antibiotics. I have no expertise in this area, so you should take all of this with a pinch of salt. The Our World in Data chart is really cool though. That steep fall and rebounce due to the Spanish flu, and the contrast with COVID-19 with respect to affect on different age-groups is also interesting. [2] [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#it-is-not-only-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#it-is-not-only-ab... [2]: I think comparing the naming of the diseases also tells us something about how society has changed.
WalterBright 5y ago
> the difference in life expectancy is mostly antibiotics Life expectancy made huge gains throughout the century before antibiotics.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  If you look at life expectancy graphs, they mostly correlate with GDP per person. You can't really see the invention of antibiotics clearly in the curves. The way I think of it is that of course penicillin increased life spans, but the discovery and industrialization of it was highly correlated with rising GDP.
cryptonector 5y ago
Clean water was the single most important advancement in human health of all time. Next was hygiene, especially during birth. Next is antibiotics. Next is anesthesia.

BurningFrog 5y ago

This argument pretends that diet is the only cause of death.

cgrealy 5y ago
No, it doesn't. It acknowledges that a diet for hunter-gatherers that rarely lived to 50 might not be best diet for a people who expend less energy and live far longer.
- xdennis 5y ago
  I don't buy the paleo stuff, but you're not disproving it. We don't live longer lives purely because of our diet. Also, low life-expectancy in the past was in large part because of child/infant mortality, not croaking at 50.

slickrick216 5y ago

I have been thinking a lot about this exact point lately. Very interesting but hard to answer.

SamReidHughes 5y ago

Powhatan lived to 70, Opechancanough lived to 92 (when he was murdered), Massasoit lived to 80, Canonicus was 82.

zeven7 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier You should make sure you understand what outliers are. The fact that you can name people from outside modern times that lived a long time is meaningless to the discussion.
- SamReidHughes 5y ago
  As if I don't understand what outliers are. They weren't outliers. I simply looked up famous Indians because I remembered one had lived to a startlingly old age, and skipped those who got killed by other people. If their diet caused health problems, you wouldn't have all these folks living to a decent age. All the Indian leaders would have bene these young guys who died off at 45 from eating too much venison.
  - zeven7 5y ago
    I definitely don't think modern diets are better than what I imagine Native Americans ate hundreds of years ago. Venison sounds like a very healthy staple in a diet.

omosubi 5y ago

If your ancestors have a line that was able to create you, clearly they were doing something right

carry_bit 5y ago

Overall life expectancy was low due to massive childhood mortality. If you survived to adulthood your life expectancy was much higher.