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I've never heard of the Hunza and kind of suspected that these "older people in traditional cultures" sounds too good to be true, and sure enough: > A widely r
by twelve40 3y ago
I've never heard of the Hunza and kind of suspected that these "older people in traditional cultures" sounds too good to be true, and sure enough:
> A widely repeated claim of remarkable longevity of the Hunza people has been refuted as a longevity myth, citing a life expectancy of 53 years for men and 52 for women, although with a high standard deviation.
- xcv123 3y agoThat statistic could be skewed by a high childhood mortality rate.
- contingencies 3y agoLike all modern claims, there's probably a kernel of truth. The "standard deviation" probably masks it. As with the whole world, one doesn't doubt the current population has succumbed to modernity. Similar health can be observed in physically active people with conservative consumption levels globally.
- twelve40 3y agoI'm not really sure what "succumbed to modernity" means in this context. World life expectancy went from 46 years in 1950 to 72.63 in 2020 to 73.16 in 2023. Is that the right metric to look at? If it is, succumbing to modernity doesn't sound too terrible.
- wkat4242 3y agoIsn't that figure from 1950 also impacted by the fact they just had a major war killing millions of young people prematurely? After all this calculation is done over a longer term than 1 year as far as I know.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoWorth noting that the only source for that excerpt from Wikipedia, for the life expectancy, is some NYT article written by a journalist in 1996 which is now paywalled.