Tell Me About Your Pills

[Al B. Sure!]

Has it occured to you that your substantial exercise regimen might have more to do with it?

I don't even consider what I do 'substantial'. 20-40 minutes 4-5 days a week is hardly substantial.

[kentonio]

Paleo is more than what you eat. It's a lifestyle. Paleo requires an endurance-based exercise regimen. Otherwise, you're half-assing it. Many paleo practitioners also fast and put their training at the end of the fast; essentially simulating a hunt: long-time no eating, run a couple miles (the chase), do burpees and pullups (the kill), carry around a log (head back to camp), and eat meat (the hunted animal).

Some morons actually do that ****?!

This is what human biology demands.

Which is why lifespans are so much shorter in modern times, right?

[Al B. Sure!]

Which is why lifespans are so much shorter in modern times, right?

We don't get murdered by other tribesmen or gored by animals today. Meanwhile, heart disease and diabetes are unknown among primitives.

It's not even about lifespan in years, anyway! Why bring this up? I surely made no claim that paleo enhances longevity! It's about quality of human physical condition. Human lifespans are pretty static if you don't get killed or fall victim to an infectious disease (or get heart disease or diabetes in the modern age).

Or are you like Rush Limbaugh and anti-exercise?

[Al B. Sure!]

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf

Agriculture and pastoralism have been practiced for only about 10,000 years, and most extensively in the past 5,000 years. The genus Homo has existed for about 2 million years, and humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for the vast majority of their evolutionary history. While some important genetic changes may have occurred in populations after the advent of agriculture, the major distinctive features of our species (Wang et al. 2006), such as large brains, long lives, marriage and male investment in offspring, long child dependency on parents, and grandparental support of grandchildren, appear to have evolved during our preagricultural history (see Kaplan 1997 for reviews; Kaplan et al. 2000, 2001). Despite recent improvements in human survivorship, it is likely that the age-specific mortality pattern and the timing and pace of development and senescence evolved during our hunter-gatherer past as well.

Our conclusion is that there is a characteristic life span for our species, in which mortality decreases sharply from infancy through childhood, followed by a period in which mortality rates remain essentially constant to about age 40 years, after which mortality rises steadily in Gompertz fashion. The modal age of adult death is about seven decades, before which time humans remain vigorous producers, and after which senescence rapidly occurs and people die. We hypothesize that human bodies are designed to function well for about seven decades in the environment in which our species evolved. Mortality rates differ among populations and among periods, especially in risks of violent death. However, those differences are small in a comparative cross-species perspective, and the similarity in mortality profiles of traditional peoples living in varying environments is impressive.

We summarize our main findings to this point:

Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and of the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is achieved by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can last an average of 20 years. Adult mortality appears to be characterized by two stages. Mortality rates remain stable and fairly low at around 1 percent per year from the age of maturity until around age 40. After age 40, the rate of mortality increase is exponential (Gompertz) with a mortality rate doubling time of about 6–9 years. The two decades without detectable senescence in early and mid-adulthood appear to be an important component of human life span extension.

The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68–78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an “adaptive” human life span.

Departures from this general pattern in published estimates of life expectancy in past populations (e.g., low child and high adult mortality) are most likely due to a combination of high levels of contact-related infectious disease, excessive violence or homicide, and methodological problems that lead to poor age estimates of older individuals and inappropriate use of model life tables for deriving demographic estimates.

Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 percent, and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our sample. Illnesses largely include infectious and gastrointestinal disease, although less than half of all deaths in our sample are from contact-related disease.

Like I said. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle only had increased mortality due to violence and lack of medical technology. Hunter-gatherer lifespans were typical of modern humans otherwise.

Strawman disproven. Now back to quality of physical conditioning. Are you denying the benefits of exercise?

[Aeson]

Like I said. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle only had increased mortality due to violence and lack of medical technology.

Because a natural disaster that wiped out local food sources definitely could never have affected hunter gatherers ...

[Al B. Sure!]

Because a natural disaster that wiped out local food sources definitely could never have affected hunter gatherers ...

What? What does this have to do with anything? Are you saying I missed potential causes of death? Fine. Add massive catastrophe to the list and note the death toll (230,000 people) from the 2004 tsunami as a point that modern man has yet to transcend nature.

I guess I didn't say falls from high ledges either. Or death by lightning strike. Or drowning.


Interestingly enough, it could very well be argued that increased complexity makes us more, not less, susceptible to disaster. I believe it was Brian Fagan who posited the metaphor of human society as a boat of ever-increasing complexity on the open sea. The small simple raft can ride along the highest waves, just as a simple hunter-gatherer society can adapt to a changing circumstance because it lacks the baggage of added complexity. Meanwhile, the same high waves crash against the hull of the huge 'civilized' vessel.

That is not to say we should somehow return to a hunter-gather level of complexity. It is a remark to contrast your idea that simple societies are less resilient in the face of environmental catastrophe. There was certainly significant environmental changes in our prehistory yet primitive societies continued.

[kentonio]

The complexity of our lives allow vastly increasing numbers of humans to exist. So 230,000 people get wiped out in a tsunami? Did that threaten our existence as a species? At various points that would have been enough to send us extinct. We came very close on several occasions.

My point about the paleo thing was more that its just ridiculous. With our modern understanding of biology, you think the best physical practise is to carry a log around to represent carrying an animal carcass? Please..

[Al B. Sure!]

The complexity of our lives allow vastly increasing numbers of humans to exist. So 230,000 people get wiped out in a tsunami? Did that threaten our existence as a species? At various points that would have been enough to send us extinct. We came very close on several occasions.

My point about the paleo thing was more that its just ridiculous. With our modern understanding of biology, you think the best physical practise is to carry a log around to represent carrying an animal carcass? Please..

What's better? A Nautilus machine?

The psychological benefits of setting simple goals, even if imagined, such as carrying this log 800m so I can eat, are important in exercise.

[Uncle Sparky]

Do you think we will go extinct if Alby doesn't reproduce? We are do-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-med!

[Aeson]

What? What does this have to do with anything? Are you saying I missed potential causes of death?

No. I'm pointing out that you were denying the existence of actual causes of death, pointing out one specifically which works off the nature of the hunter-gatherer diet.

It is a remark to contrast your idea that simple societies are less resilient in the face of environmental catastrophe.

I made no comparison between simple or complex societies, or even mention of complex societies.

[-Jrabbit]

Alby makes these arguments reflexively. It's his way of telling us that he's thought the topic through, made his call, and will never, ever change his mind. Reliable.

[Nikolai]

I don't take any vitamins other than the occational Omega 3, but I take my daily Orap 4 mg Tourettes meds(was Haldol 4 mg until 3 years ago) and diabetes meds(insulin + Amaryl 3 mg).

[Gibsie]

Magnesium pills are helpful

[Al B. Sure!]

I don't take any vitamins other than the occational Omega 3, but I take my daily Orap 4 mg Tourettes meds(was Haldol 4 mg until 3 years ago) and diabetes meds(insulin + Amaryl 3 mg).

You have Tourettes?

[Nikolai]

Obviously.