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Modern Humans Far More Robust Than Ancestors
joeljkp writes "The New York Times has an article up discussing how modern humans are 'So Big and Healthy Nowadays That Grandpa Wouldn't Even Know You.' Despite the hyperbole, the article makes several excellent points regarding the impact of antibiotics and modern medicine on humans in their youth. The 'baby boomers' of today have an overall level of health far higher than their parents did in middle age, and reason stands that their children will have even better health to look forward to." From the article: "The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before. Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person's chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years."
what I believe is likely the real reason.
Life was just plain a lot harder then.
It's as simple as that. We've moved from an agrarian society to an industrial one to a service economy. Life is easier. No more scythes or plowing with a horse. No more mining coal with pick axes. No subsistance farming or clearing new fields by hand (unless you want to, I suppose). People are more educated about what's healthy and what's not, no more mercury based patent medicines, or blood letting with leaches.
The article has it half right - modern medicine play a large part, but I believe the major effect is because it's able to recognize and address the true nature of ailments, not because it's making the human body more robust. That is, it's a remedial effect more than a prophylactic one.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Also: salt. Despite what you hear about salted fries and such, the average human eats VASTLY less salt today than they did 50 or 100 years ago, when salting meat was the primary means of preservation. Today virtually every house has great refrigeration, the foods have better preservatives, and people have an awareness of the dangers of salt on the cardiovascular system.
That being said, the water and soil pollution, horrible animal farming techniques, and a lack of any new antibiotics or other non-deathbed "wellness" medicine over the past 50 years probably argues in the grandparent-poster's favor.
E pluribus unum
One thing this article misses is the impact of the industrial revolution on health. People are healthier today than they were 150 years ago or even 75 years ago, yes. The 19th and early 20th century had people in the industrialized world in rather unhealthy conditions with quite poor diet. The real question is looking at the health of people century by century over the last 10,000 years in a variety of places and cultures. Changes in medicine, population patterns (rural to urban) and diet have changed health, but not in the ways implied by this article.
Consider disease.
Antibiotics and modern medicine have changed disease in a big way. However, how common were major wide-spread outbreaks of disease 5000 years ago? The flu of 1918 and the plague of the Middle Ages were widespread because of increased travel and contact among peoples compared to say in 1500 BC. AIDS is a modern example of a disease that has spread quickly globally today, which would not have reached many populations in earlier times. People's in Western Hemisphere were almost totally isolated until 500 years ago. Australia as well was isolated.
Diseases brought from Europe such as small pox were the primary cause of the annihilation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Native American peoples had no immunity to such diseases.
Some diseases such as polio and small pox were common 1000 years ago and have been all but eliminated today, but probably were not so common in 3000 BC. Other diseases that have been eliminated such as leprosy seem to have a long history in some populations, but probably not all.
Consider nutrition.
In modern times people in the industrialized world by and large never want for calories. Excess calorie consumption is a far greater public health threat than lack of calories. However, this is not true world wide as famine kills hundreds of thousands in Africa in particular.
500 years ago, a lack of abundance of calories at some point during a person's life was fairly common globally. Also, poor nutrition from an unbalanced diet was far more common in Europe 500 years ago than today. Poor nutrition is a major problem today in South Asia and other areas.
How was the diet of peoples around the world in 2500 BC? Because the world was far less populated then, nutrition on average may well have been better than in 1500 AD.
The diet of woodlands Native Americans 600 years ago was probably as balanced as the diet of modern US residents. This was not necessarily true of the Native Americans of Central America, who relied more heavily on corn agriculture.
Much of this information on disease and nutrition can be ascertained from looking at skeletal remains.
One thing we do know from archeology: humans today are generally larger than they have been over the past 10,000 years. This is probably because of an abundance of calories throughout their lives, although reductions in disease may also be a factor.
Well, I was going to point out the numerous articles linking diets high in animal fats to strokes, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, etc. But your link to a non-peer-reviewed article by an author who uses all his footnotes to quote his own research totally set me straight. Screw this vegetarian stuff, I'm gonna go eat me a cow or two.
Of course, in order to create enough meat to feed everyone a basically carnivorous diet, we'd probably need to quintuple our agricultural output, with all the associated environmental problems.
Finally, Jared Diamond said exactly what I expected him to say. Rather than attributing the poor health of agricultural societies to a lack of meat in the diet, he attributes it to three other factors. First, agrarians ate a less varied diet. Second, there were more people living closer together and trading diseases. Third, because of the previous two factors, it was much rougher on a society when a single crop failed.
So, no, I'm not buying this whole "we need to eat more meat" line you're selling.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!