Living below the line 2014

[borofergie]

Also, a lot of the grains we grow are used as livestock feed so that we in the UK can generally afford to eat meat.

I'd dispute that - grain fed meat is there to increase the profit margin of the people who run the factory farms. I can find grass fed meat cheaper by purchasing it directly from the farmer. I try to avoid grain fed meat wherever possible, ruminants are supposed to eat grass.

 

[borofergie]

Population longevity now is double that of the mesolithic.

How do you define longevity in this instance?

Life expectancy of the Kalahari Bushmen is 40 - 50, much less than modern agrarian societies so I cannot agree with your statement above.

Same question, how do you define life expectancy?

 

[Kat100]

Doesn't bare thinking about, makes you grateful for what we do have.

That is a big YES from me ......

 

[borofergie]

@LittleGreyCat

(Ignoring all of the delicious and free road kill at this time of year)

If I had to survive on £1 a day, I'd mainly eat eggs, cheese and spinach. The first and last of these are just about the most nutritious foods you can get. The first and second are the cheapest non-carbohydrate sources of energy.

15 Value Eggs = £1.35 = 81kcal per egg = 900kcal / £
Value Cheese @ £4.91/kg = 847kcal / £
Leaf Spinach @ 1.67/kg

Of course bread is the cheapest energy source of all:
Value Bread @ 47p per loaf = 3948kcal/£

So for 100g of carbohydrate LCHF menu I'd have:

5 slices of bread = 10p = 510kcal
6 eggs = 54p = 486 kcal
-------------------------------------------------
Total 65p for 996kcal

I'd use the other 35p a day to pay for the spinach.
Once in a while I might change the eggs for cheese for variety.

Altogether, this doesn't sound very difference from what I ate as a student, only any spare cash was spent of beer rather than spinach.

Also note that these are based on Tesco prices, and could be reduced by shopping around.

 

[borofergie]

Total 65p for 996kcal including 100g of carbohydrate

What do I win by the way?

 

[borofergie]

This is of course why we have bothered to eat grains at all - the planet simply can't support the current population if you are going to eat only meat.

Yes. We've fueled massive overpopulation of the planet using cheap grain carbohydrates, with that fantastic side effects of obsesity and diseases such as T2D. Good work by the grain lobby I reckon!

Let's grow more grains and overpopulate the world some more!

 

[Yorksman]

How do you define longevity in this instance?

Same question, how do you define life expectancy?

Fair question as both are related to lifespan.

Strictly, I'd use longevity when referring to populations in historic periods, such as the average lifespan of people in the periods below. Note the drop at the start of the neolithic which is what spiker refers to.

Taken from The Neolithic Revolution and Contemporary Variations in Life Expectancy (Galor & Moav 2007)

As the lifespan of individuals decreases, paradoxically over time longevity increases because of genetic adaptation to selective pressures. Some people cannot live side by side with domesticated animals and die because their immune systems cannot combat the zoonoses. On the other hand, some people can cope with this so they don't have the disadvantage of dying but do gain the benefit of extra nutrition. Thye are better fed and live longer because they can benefit from a ready supply of food. People today can reasonably expect to live until their 70s. Amongst the San however, it is between 40 and 50. This is better than the 30 or so of the mesolithic and due to the fact that they are not entirely hunter gatherers anymore and have adapted genetically themselves. In fact, they are a diverse population in this respect.

Hence my interjection at the point where the claim was made that "Agrarian societies have worse health than hunter gatherer and pastoralist societies - this can be seen clearly from skeletal analysis." with my reference to !Kung nutritional status and the original "affluent society"--a new analysis and their observation that "the few remaining foraging groups studied in the 20th Century are unlikely to serve as the ideal models of that ancient way of life."

These matters are invariably rather more complicated than the simplistic way in which they are presented. Overall fertility rates and infant mortality rates are too, important factors and human populations need to adapt to the changing circumstances. Local food sources are another genetic adaptation. For example, lactase persistence amongst nomadic Bedouin populations was a genetic response to the availability of camel milk whereas the northern european and sub saharan african genetic adaptations, were due to cattle, though via different polymorphisms.

For an overview of some of the considerations, see A bioeconomic view of the Neolithic transition to agriculture which is readable until the mathematics.

 

[borofergie]

Strictly, I'd use longevity when referring to populations in historic periods, such as the average lifespan of people in the periods below.

Average lifespan is meaningless, since it is almost totally dominated by infant mortality.

 

[borofergie]

This is what I have for median lifespan:
30,000 to 9,000 B.C. (Late Paleolithic): Male 35.4 Female 30
9,000 to 7,000 B.C. (Mesolithic): Male 33.5 Female 31.3
7,000 to 5,000 B.C. (Early Neolithic): Male 33.6 Female 29.8
5,000 to 3,000 B.C. (Late Neolithic): Male 33.1 Female 29.2
3,000 to 2,000 B.C. (Early Bronze): Male 33.6 Female 29.4

That shows a marked decline in median life expectancy from the Paleolithic to the Late Neolithic.

 

[Yorksman]

Average lifespan is meaningless, since it is almost totally dominated by infant mortality.

That would infer that we know what the infant mortality rate was during the mesolithic or indeed the fertility rate. We don't even know what those figures are for the 1st millenium AD in the UK. Infant remains are rare in prehistory because they don't survive well in the soil. The only thing they have to go on are the C14 dates for skeletal remains and the associated age estimates. Hence analyses in the last decade or so use stochastic models and not simple means or medians.

By the way, I wrote average and didn't specify mean, median or mode. It's just the age estimates of the discovered skeletal remains.

 

[borofergie]

Almost every reference I can find shows a decline in "longevity" and health from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. This is completely uncontroversial.

Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models, the adoption of agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health

Larsen, C. S. (1995). "Biological changes in human populations with agriculture." Annual Review of Anthropology

Here is some nice data on historical agrarian vs hunter gatherer longevity from Egypt:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...iculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/#more-2877

There is also some good evidence that contemporary hunter gatherer societies had longevity comparable with our own (once you exclude infant mortality):
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/mortality-and-lifespan-of-inuit.html

 

[borofergie]

View attachment 4258
Taken from The Neolithic Revolution and Contemporary Variations in Life Expectancy (Galor & Moav 2007)

So this graph shows a significant DECLINE from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. If the graph had included the Paleolithic that decline would have been more marked. As the authors themselves put it:
"The rise in population density, the domestication of animals, and the increase in work effort
in the course of the Neolithic Revolution increased the exposure and the vulnerability of humans
to environmental hazards, such as infectious diseases, and led to the decline in life expectancy
during that period"

If that were true, we wouldn't have billions of people with the longevity that we see.

Population longevity now is double that of the mesolithic.

All of which can be ascribed to antibiotics and reduced infant mortality.

 

[Yorksman]

Almost every reference I can find shows a decline in "longevity" and health from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. This is completely uncontroversial.

I agree, this element is uncontroversial and I stated as much on the first page of this thread:

"It is also true that the onset of the Neolithic was associated with negative health trends, exhibited e.g., in skeletal pathologies .."

I reiterated it in my reply to you, on page 3 of this thread,

"Note the drop at the start of the neolithic which is what spiker refers to."

I see no reason for you to go over this old ground yet again.

The point is, it is by no means the whole story and, if you read back, you will see some possible explanations researchers posit as to why longevity decines initially, but rises subsequently.

By the way, quoting studies which are some 20 years old lack the accuracy afforded by improved C14 calibration and better stochastic analyses of the data. The science has moved on consideraby. Although the initial finding holds, it is a temporary phenomenon.

 

[Yorksman]

So this graph shows a significant DECLINE from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. If the graph had included the Paleolithic that decline would have been more marked. As the authors themselves put it:
"The rise in population density, the domestication of animals, and the increase in work effort
in the course of the Neolithic Revolution increased the exposure and the vulnerability of humans
to environmental hazards, such as infectious diseases, and led to the decline in life expectancy
during that period"

To avoid repetition, see my post above, my comments on zoonoses and on positive selection.

All of which can be ascribed to antibiotics and reduced infant mortality.

Antibiotics weren't even discovered until the 20th century and as I have pointed out, we have no idea what the infant mortality rates were even during the first millenium AD. Neither of the factors you suggest can explain the increase in longevity shown on that graph by the time of the chalcolithic or the bronze age. Have a look at it again:

In fact, there is already a difference between the onset of the Neolithic, the LBK and the late Neolithic, the TRB. No antibiotics exist during these periods and there is no information about infant mortality rates. What you suggest cannot be true and the results are simply age estimates of C14 dated remains. Likely errors are in the C14 data and in the age estimates. Neither antibiotics nor infant mortality enter the equation.

 

[Spiker]

Population longevity now is double that of the mesolithic.

And also about double what it was in 1840. So no net improvement between the Mesolithic and the mid 19th century.

By the way I'm not referring to longevity being compromised by T2D, nor evolutionary fitness. Nor am I conflating the neolithic agrarian revolution with the emerging T2D pandemic. But thanks again for putting all those views in my mouth and then opposing them. You are a veritable one-man band.


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[Spiker]

Well currently 18.8 million have diagnosed diabetes in the USA and 7 million are estimated to have undiagnosed diabetes in the USA. That equates to 25.8 million or 8.3% of the population. If the global pattern were to reflect the USA figures, you'd end up with just over 520 million, considerably fewer than your 'billions'.

So project that 20 years to 2034... and also don't assume that prevalence in the US population has hit its maximum, nor that it establishes a maximum prevalence for other populations. By 2007 there were already 2 billion obese & overweight individuals in the world. That trend also is both increasing in the affected areas, and spreading geographically. And spreading into genetic groups that trigger T2D at much lower levels of BMI.

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[Indy51]

I guess I wonder why people still talk about longevity as if its a great thing. What's the point if you're decrepit and being overmedicated for the sole purpose of keeping you alive, with no attention being paid to quality of life? I also can't see that longevity really does anything for the species - if anything, it works against the species. Might be great for a wealthy individual, but in social terms I just don't see it. Seems these days, elderly people take longer and longer to die because of the high level of medical intervention. I don't see how that helps anyone, especially the elderly people?

My goal at this point is to make sure I've got enough money in the bank for a trip to Dignitas in Switzerland when I decide I've had enough. Maybe I have a darker view than most, living as I do in a retirement village surrounded by increasingly more decrepit people taking forever to die, riding around on their gophers with their oxygen tanks and spending half their lives visiting doctors. I think of it as the Waiting Room...

 

[Yorksman]

I guess I wonder why people still talk about longevity as if its a great thing. What's the point if you're decrepit and being overmedicated for the sole purpose of keeping you alive, with no attention being paid to quality of life? I also can't see that longevity really does anything for the species - if anything, it works against the species. Might be great for a wealthy individual, but in social terms I just don't see it. Seems these days, elderly people take longer and longer to die because of the high level of medical intervention. I don't see how that helps anyone, especially the elderly people?

I guess paradoxically everyone wants to die 'in good health' but would prefer that it happens in their 80s or 90s rather than their 40s or 50s. Quality of life is as you write, the important factor but, it doesn't follow that those who die younger have a better quality of life. My ancestors who lived and worked in the countryside often lived, and worked, through until their 70s and 80s. Those who moved into the industrial towns in the north in the late 19th and early 20th centuries died in their 40s and 50s, struggling to walk home after their shifts. I remember the black oxygen tank my grandfather required because his lungs were shot with cotton dust and coal smoke.

Whilst most of the discussions on this forum are about the quality and types of foods, working and living conditions too are major factors. We have substantially cleaned up the air quality and reduced the dust levels in factories but, with long commutes to and from work, often in heavy traffic, many people find the stress involved deleterious to their health. I see fast/convenience foods as a side effect of this.

As the government will keep increasing the retirement age and rolling back health care provision for the elderly, your vision of the medicated elderly surviving in oxygen masks will recede. Who will be able to retire anyway? The old superannuation schemes, forty eightieths of final salary is giving way to 54ths of average salaries. Once again you will be required to work until you drop.

 

[borofergie]

Antibiotics weren't even discovered until the 20th century and as I have pointed out, we have no idea what the infant mortality rates were even during the first millenium AD. Neither of the factors you suggest can explain the increase in longevity shown on that graph by the time of the chalcolithic or the bronze age.

Eh? YOU are the one who is comparing life expectancy in the Mesolithic against the present day...

If that were true, we wouldn't have billions of people with the longevity that we see.

Population longevity now is double that of the mesolithic.

YOU also compared the life expectancy of the Kung Bush People people against modern agrarian societies:

To the contrary, I partially agreed with your point which I quoted:
Life expectancy of the Kalahari Bushmen is 40 - 50, much less than modern agrarian societies so I cannot agree with your statement above.

When comparing life expectancies of HG populations against modern populations, the most significant difference is down to improved health care, and in particular the availability of antibiotics and improved infant survival rates.

The bushmen’s diet and relaxed lifestyle have prevented most of the stress-related diseases of the western world. Bushmen health, in general, is not good though: 50% of children die before the age of 15; 20% die within their first year (mostly of gastrointestinal infections). Average life expectancy is about 45-50 years; respiratory infections and malaria are the major reasons for death in adults. Only 10% become older than 60 years.

So they mainly die in childhood or of infectious diseases. They are almost immune to western diet related health concerns such as heart disease and cancer.

 

[Yorksman]

Eh? YOU are the one who is comparing life expectancy in the Mesolithic against the present day...

Yes. Today it is double that of the mesolithic to which you replied:

All of which can be ascribed to antibiotics and reduced infant mortality.

And this is not true. Life expectancy increases through the chalcolithic, bronze and iron ages, as the graph shows. How can this possibly be due to antibiotics?

YOU also compared the life expectancy of the Kung Bush People people against modern agrarian societies:

With the caveat that "the few remaining foraging groups studied in the 20th Century are unlikely to serve as the ideal models of that ancient way of life" which must not be ignored because it raises a certain amount of doubt about conclusions drawn from studies which use them as a proxy for mesolithic populations.

To reiterate the point, the earlier studies invariably compare modern hunter gather populations such as the Dobe !Kung with skeletal remains from the early neolithic, even though modern hunter gatherer populations are a poor proxy for the mesolithic. They do not compare the health of mesolithic populations with those found in the late neolithic, chalcolithic or bronze or iron age populatons, all of which show an increase in life expectancy. It's why I wrote that the "hunter-gatherer paradigm is only partially sustainable." Too many conclusions are drawn from a far from complete complete set of data and what data that we do have does not support a contention that "Agrarian societies have worse health than hunter gatherer and pastoralist societies".

Whereas Spiker posited the view above, that agrarian societies have worse health than hunter gatherer and pastoralist societies and you posit the opposite view but claim the improvement is due to antibiotics and improved healthcare, I am simply pointing out that neither of these views account for the fact that life expectancy during the late neolithic, the chalcolithic, the bronze age and the iron age increased.

What could explain this improvement in longevity?