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There's a reasonable amount of evidence that following (generally) a diet as outlined in the article would be beneficial to one's health across the spectrum. Go

by sci 18y ago

There's a reasonable amount of evidence that following (generally) a diet as outlined in the article would be beneficial to one's health across the spectrum. Google 'paleolithic diet' (alternative spelling, 'palaeolithic') for further information.

tokenadult 18y ago
The best book about life in Paleolithic days is The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie, http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp/0226311260 http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp... who is a professor of zoology specializing in Paleolithic fauna and an accomplished artist and bow hunter. He cites all the best primary research literature on Paleolithic life in the notes in his book. One fact Guthrie points out is that the lifespan for Paleolithic Homo sapiens was only forty years.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Lifespan at birth or at adulthood? I thought it was accepted that lifespan at adulthood for hunter-gatherer types was often essentially of modern length, and it was agriculture that lowered it (while increasing number of children) until modern times?
  - tokenadult 18y ago
    There is good paleontological evidence for how long adults survived in Paleolithic times, and it wasn't for very long.
    - randallsquared 18y ago
      Wikipedia agrees with you, for values of "not very long" that are about 60 at mid-life. Since that includes essentially no medical care, however, I'm not sure how much of it is attributable to diet.
- catz 18y ago
  > lifespan for Paleolithic Homo sapiens was only forty years. That is 10 years longer that people in Swaziland. 40 is not that bad if you think that most hunter gatherer societies abandon old people (since food is a scarcity). So the life expectancy in those times was basically the modern day retirement age.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    Actually average life expectancy has consistently been inaccurate. If half our species died at birth, and the rest lived until 80 years old, our average life expectancy is only 40 years. Anyone notice a problem? The length of a human life has usually rested around 70 years, which is actually seen in nomadic people today. Their life expectancy can be appallingly low due to their environment, it doesn't mean everyone's dropped dead by the time they're 40, it means lots were lost at a ridiculously young age. During the industrial revolution 75% of children in London died before 5 years old. This meant that life expectancy was only around 30 years, despite the fact that poor houses were predominantly old people. The UK instituted the Old Age Pension Act in 1909 to deal with this problem and the claiming age was 70 years, which means people were expected to work until this age. If people were really only living until 30, why would people have invented a pension for 70 year olds? IIRC the breakdown for the Paleolithic was, at birth life expectancy was ~33 years. If you lived to 15, your life expectancy was, on average, actually between 39-55 and I wouldn't doubt that if you lived to 55 you had a solid chance of making it to 70. During the Bronze Age life expectancy at birth was 18, this was due partly to wars, population densities and essentially the plagues caused by such (this is the essential reason why Europeans had diseases that wiped out 70-80% of Native Americans). At about 1000 BC we hit our average of 30 years again, although for Greece and Rome it actually ended up being 20-30 years because again of wars and some diseases (although by this time we were more disease resistant). Another example of this is the USA. People in the US have a lower life expectancy than many other countries, which aside from my problem with privatized health care (which is primarily a quality of life, not a quantity of life issue), is mainly due to the US having an appalling infant mortality rate... however if you actually survive infancy you're good to go. IMO stating life expectancies is very misleading, due to the fact that it creates the impression of a Logan's Run environment where you're dead at 21. Only in modern society has life expectancy surpassed 40 years, but Genghis Khan died at age 72 (IIRC) due to an infection after his horse bucked returning from war. Apparently this was no mean feat in the Mongol armies as many of his generals were as old, if not older, than him as they'd been with him since the beginning.
- billswift 18y ago
  The main cause of early death was injuries and infections following injury. Disease was relatively low because the population was dispersed. Contrary to much belief, startvation was also rare, it was an anthropologist who coined the term "the original leisure society" for hunter-gatherers; Google the term in quotes for many references.
Ardit20 18y ago
Is that the diet about not eating bread or pasta or rice because the hunter gathers did not eat those foods? See, if evolution is about the survival of the fittest, then would have not those hunter-gathers who got unhealthy because of eating pasta not pass on their genes? What I mean is: have we stopped evolving since hunter- gathering times?

by sci 18y ago

tokenadult 18y ago

The best book about life in Paleolithic days is The Nature of Paleolithic Art by R. Dale Guthrie, http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp/0226311260 http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-Guthrie/dp... who is a professor of zoology specializing in Paleolithic fauna and an accomplished artist and bow hunter. He cites all the best primary research literature on Paleolithic life in the notes in his book. One fact Guthrie points out is that the lifespan for Paleolithic Homo sapiens was only forty years.

randallsquared 18y ago
Lifespan at birth or at adulthood? I thought it was accepted that lifespan at adulthood for hunter-gatherer types was often essentially of modern length, and it was agriculture that lowered it (while increasing number of children) until modern times?
- tokenadult 18y ago
  There is good paleontological evidence for how long adults survived in Paleolithic times, and it wasn't for very long.
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    Wikipedia agrees with you, for values of "not very long" that are about 60 at mid-life. Since that includes essentially no medical care, however, I'm not sure how much of it is attributable to diet.
catz 18y ago
> lifespan for Paleolithic Homo sapiens was only forty years. That is 10 years longer that people in Swaziland. 40 is not that bad if you think that most hunter gatherer societies abandon old people (since food is a scarcity). So the life expectancy in those times was basically the modern day retirement age.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Actually average life expectancy has consistently been inaccurate. If half our species died at birth, and the rest lived until 80 years old, our average life expectancy is only 40 years. Anyone notice a problem? The length of a human life has usually rested around 70 years, which is actually seen in nomadic people today. Their life expectancy can be appallingly low due to their environment, it doesn't mean everyone's dropped dead by the time they're 40, it means lots were lost at a ridiculously young age. During the industrial revolution 75% of children in London died before 5 years old. This meant that life expectancy was only around 30 years, despite the fact that poor houses were predominantly old people. The UK instituted the Old Age Pension Act in 1909 to deal with this problem and the claiming age was 70 years, which means people were expected to work until this age. If people were really only living until 30, why would people have invented a pension for 70 year olds? IIRC the breakdown for the Paleolithic was, at birth life expectancy was ~33 years. If you lived to 15, your life expectancy was, on average, actually between 39-55 and I wouldn't doubt that if you lived to 55 you had a solid chance of making it to 70. During the Bronze Age life expectancy at birth was 18, this was due partly to wars, population densities and essentially the plagues caused by such (this is the essential reason why Europeans had diseases that wiped out 70-80% of Native Americans). At about 1000 BC we hit our average of 30 years again, although for Greece and Rome it actually ended up being 20-30 years because again of wars and some diseases (although by this time we were more disease resistant). Another example of this is the USA. People in the US have a lower life expectancy than many other countries, which aside from my problem with privatized health care (which is primarily a quality of life, not a quantity of life issue), is mainly due to the US having an appalling infant mortality rate... however if you actually survive infancy you're good to go. IMO stating life expectancies is very misleading, due to the fact that it creates the impression of a Logan's Run environment where you're dead at 21. Only in modern society has life expectancy surpassed 40 years, but Genghis Khan died at age 72 (IIRC) due to an infection after his horse bucked returning from war. Apparently this was no mean feat in the Mongol armies as many of his generals were as old, if not older, than him as they'd been with him since the beginning.
billswift 18y ago
The main cause of early death was injuries and infections following injury. Disease was relatively low because the population was dispersed. Contrary to much belief, startvation was also rare, it was an anthropologist who coined the term "the original leisure society" for hunter-gatherers; Google the term in quotes for many references.

Ardit20 18y ago

Is that the diet about not eating bread or pasta or rice because the hunter gathers did not eat those foods? See, if evolution is about the survival of the fittest, then would have not those hunter-gathers who got unhealthy because of eating pasta not pass on their genes? What I mean is: have we stopped evolving since hunter- gathering times?