Past and present life expectancy question page

[Lazybastard]

I'm a big proponent of the primal way of living, but I still have a question I hope you guys have an answer to.
How come people in the past didn't live longer than people now? While in the past they lived primal and fasted all their lives.



EDIT: Also. Why do Africans have a shorter live expectancy, while they are completely primal.

[StoneAgeQueen]

Because it was incredibly dangerous to live back then. Even something like a broken limb could kill you. As well as that your life was at risk from wild animals, other tribes, bites, cuts, the weather. etc. Don't forget skeletons have been found of primitive men who were 90 years of age.

Which Africans are you talking about as it is a large continent made up of many different countries?

[Lazybastard]

Pygmy peoples in central Afrika. I once heard their life expectancy is around 45.

[Stabby]

Infectious diseases, wild cats, and food shortages are a bitch. If hunter-gatherers could avoid those they lived a very long time but on average a lot of people got killed. We have clean water now and we don't have to risk getting eaten by a crocodile to get it. Expanding on the food shortages idea, if food was short hunter-gatherers would have to eat too much muscle meat, which is gross and harmful. Paleo life was not fun and happy, it was simply free of food that is demonstrably harmful like grains, legumes, and all of the processed junk people eat today.

[Mac]

if food was short hunter-gatherers would have to eat too much muscle meat, which is gross and harmful.

Huh?

[Stabby]

Too much protein in excess of fat is bad. Ask any hunter-gatherer. It's gross. Why the fuck modern humans have this fixation on protein protein protein is beyond me. For every calorie of protein I like at least 3 calories of fat. The hunter-gatherers kill a deer, eat the bits of fat that they have and are left with tons of muscle meat and are still hungry. This situation sucks and at such a point I would be looking at the fattest of my hunting companions for my next meal. The Inuit know it and traditional peoples know it. That's why we have such things as butter and tallow.

[say_rahhh]

Life expectancy also takes into account infant and childhood mortality. We have much much much lower infant/childhood mortality in developed nations and in modern ages.

[Harry]

Yes, I believe I have had past lives and expect future ones. Oh, wait, that isn't what you are talking about.

[naiadknight]

Life expectancy also takes into account infant and childhood mortality. We have much much much lower infant/childhood mortality in developed nations and in modern ages.

+1
That combined with the hazards of the wild world make for a short statistical lifespan. In reality, if they managed to avoid trauma, getting eaten, and dying of disease, they live quite long lives.

[mayness]

There's some evidence that people lived a little bit longer before agriculture... I've seen a few numbers before, but here's one chart: http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w...-1984-1a.shtml