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If no medical assistance and fitness was applied.................
ninerbuff
Posts: 48,974 Member
in Debate Club
How long would the average life span be? I posted on something about this awhile back. If we look at it objectively, our hormones start peaking from teens to about 30 years on average. Girls can procreate in their teens and many males are somewhat more fit in their teens and 20's than after.
And if you look back well before agriculture, it was the young that were doing all the physcial work, hunting, etc.
By the time we hit 40, eyesight starts to diminish, you physically start slowing down, joints start to wear, etc. It's why IMO I believe that the average human likely doesn't live beyond 60 years old, but medical science has obviously prolonged lifespans.
Would like to hear opinions on this because I've always been fascinated on human anatomy and physiology.
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And if you look back well before agriculture, it was the young that were doing all the physcial work, hunting, etc.
By the time we hit 40, eyesight starts to diminish, you physically start slowing down, joints start to wear, etc. It's why IMO I believe that the average human likely doesn't live beyond 60 years old, but medical science has obviously prolonged lifespans.
Would like to hear opinions on this because I've always been fascinated on human anatomy and physiology.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
4
Replies
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I make no claims whatsoever as to the historical accuracy of this, but I'm reading The Name of the Rose right now which is a story set in the 14th century, and there are characters with ages given in the 50-60 year range described as being quite old. Again, I don't know if Umberto Eco was trying to be in any way historically accurate about life expectancy in his monastery murder mystery written in 1980, but there's a data point for you.0
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So, one of the things I read recently that was dealing with history was that while the AVERAGE lifespan was quite low in the medieval period (which of course had some medical assistance, though not to modern standards) that those numbers skew low not because you were old at 30 or 40, but because of the high infant and child mortality rates. But that once out of childhood and removing accident/severe injury people still lived about as long as they do today (70-80, with some outliers), which makes sense to me.
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.6 -
A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.1
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Which then begs the question: Do people start looking at their mates medical history more definitively if they want to have offspring with lower chances of disease or propensity for it? And while it sounds unethical, there's so much research going on now with the attempt to remove genes from hereditary maladies that can cause disease risk. Crazy how far we've advanced in 100 years.A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.
If you've never seen the movie Gattaca, check it out.
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2 -
Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.7
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According to the Bible (Psalm 90) the lifespan of man is said to be threescore years and ten.
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."
Which is 70 years. According to this (no idea of accuracy):
https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/parallel/paral18.cfm
Psalm 90 was probably composed in 1489.
So even back then the age of 70 was not unusual, and 80 was certainly attainable.1 -
wunderkindking wrote: »So, one of the things I read recently that was dealing with history was that while the AVERAGE lifespan was quite low in the medieval period (which of course had some medical assistance, though not to modern standards) that those numbers skew low not because you were old at 30 or 40, but because of the high infant and child mortality rates. But that once out of childhood and removing accident/severe injury people still lived about as long as they do today (70-80, with some outliers), which makes sense to me.
Agreeing with this. There's evidence from ancient Greece that lifespans into 70's-80's where not uncommon **IF** one survived childhood. Childhood mortality brought the average down considerably. Something like 20-25% died before age 20?
I understand the question you are getting at, and if you asked about average life expectancy among those who make it to 20, I would guess modern obesity rates would lower life expectancy without medical intervention compared to pre-1970's (when rate of obesity increase rose sharply) and maybe 100's of years before that, too.3 -
Well again we're taking into consideration that there was some medical intervention. But what if there wasn't any? A simple infection could easily kill someone off or what if they got the measles or flu with no medical help?Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.
As amazing as the human body is, we're still pretty susceptible like any other animal to disease and injury. If not for medical intervention, our current population would likely be half of what it is now around the world.
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Well again we're taking into consideration that there was some medical intervention. But what if there wasn't any? A simple infection could easily kill someone off or what if they got the measles or flu with no medical help?Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.
As amazing as the human body is, we're still pretty susceptible like any other animal to disease and injury. If not for medical intervention, our current population would likely be half of what it is now around the world.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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The thing is, these are, were, and have been mostly things that kill children and the elderly - even today. Medical care keeps more of those folks alive but again if you survived them as a child, you grew some immunity (to some things) or survived and lived on. So it was STILL mostly killing off people in youth (lowering the AVERAGE but not the median) or the elderly (affecting neither much)
Human lifespan even with medical intervention has not changed all that much. The things that killed us then, kill us now -- cancers, heart attacks, diabetes, serious infections, heart attacks and accidents - they just do so LESS OFTEN because of medical intervention.
But my grandma died of a UTI. A simple infection.
It just happens less in childhood - changing the average lifespan, but not hte median - but once you hit old, you're frail no matter what. Old then is old now. Elderly and fragile then are elderly and fragile now. Changing individual outcomes for individuals doesn't change those things.
But yes, medical intervention HAS lowered the incidence of death in childbearing and young childhood.1 -
Also I highly doubt all our gyms come close to competing with the fitness required to live the life of a medieval peasant.8
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A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.
Thankfully for me, medical advances literally saved my life when I was born, and it's possible they saved my son (and even my daughter's) as well (born via unplanned and planned c-sections). I was born prematurely and very sick due to Rh incompatability, something that is purely influenced by the mother's blood-type interacting negatively with the fetus'. However, I am not and never was a sickly person, and in fact rarely get sick. Yeah, I have some allergies and digestive issues, but nothing life-threatening.
Fitness in and of itself probably wouldn't have prolonged my dad's life (if he hadn't of already been active), and in fact pushing himself too hard could've caused him to die younger. He died from a type A aortic dissection, which is largely hereditary--the same thing that John Ritter and Alan Thicke died from. We didn't know he had this until he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly from it, and didn't have the risk factors that often can cause it (high blood pressure, for example). In fact, his doctor had called him "the healthiest 65-year old he had ever seen" 9 months prior to his death. It's possible stress could've brought this on sooner, but things were stressful in the past...just a different kind of stress.
I'm grateful for medical interventions not only for my own life as a newborn, but to hopefully prolong mine, as I'm also at risk for an aortic dissection as well. In fact, I may have to even curtail my more strenuous activity at some point (e.g, heavy lifting), as aortic dissections can happen with extreme exertion in those who are prone to them.3 -
I agree in age, but as to the health of an individual I believe age is irrelevant because I know many other elder individuals who are healthier, stronger and more resilient than people half their age today. What we know about the body now compared to say the early 1800's and how we can enhance lifespan through exercise, good eating habits and rest surely extended average life span after childhood.wunderkindking wrote: »
Well again we're taking into consideration that there was some medical intervention. But what if there wasn't any? A simple infection could easily kill someone off or what if they got the measles or flu with no medical help?Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.
As amazing as the human body is, we're still pretty susceptible like any other animal to disease and injury. If not for medical intervention, our current population would likely be half of what it is now around the world.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
The thing is, these are, were, and have been mostly things that kill children and the elderly - even today. Medical care keeps more of those folks alive but again if you survived them as a child, you grew some immunity (to some things) or survived and lived on. So it was STILL mostly killing off people in youth (lowering the AVERAGE but not the median) or the elderly (affecting neither much)
Human lifespan even with medical intervention has not changed all that much. The things that killed us then, kill us now -- cancers, heart attacks, diabetes, serious infections, heart attacks and accidents - they just do so LESS OFTEN because of medical intervention.
But my grandma died of a UTI. A simple infection.
It just happens less in childhood - changing the average lifespan, but not hte median - but once you hit old, you're frail no matter what. Old then is old now. Elderly and fragile then are elderly and fragile now. Changing individual outcomes for individuals doesn't change those things.
But yes, medical intervention HAS lowered the incidence of death in childbearing and young childhood.
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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No doubt they struggled hard and worked physically, but they also could have been undernourished. As well as suffered from issues we can fix today like oral health. Isn't this an interesting subject?wunderkindking wrote: »Also I highly doubt all our gyms come close to competing with the fitness required to live the life of a medieval peasant.
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2 -
Just think now too that women who may be high risk for breast cancer due to heredity have the option to have them removed if they fear it could happen to them. Imagine if you didn't have that option. You'd stress out everyday wondering if and when you might get breast cancer. Even if you did all the right things with your health tto lower risk.Speakeasy76 wrote: »A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.
Thankfully for me, medical advances literally saved my life when I was born, and it's possible they saved my son (and even my daughter's) as well (born via unplanned and planned c-sections). I was born prematurely and very sick due to Rh incompatability, something that is purely influenced by the mother's blood-type interacting negatively with the fetus'. However, I am not and never was a sickly person, and in fact rarely get sick. Yeah, I have some allergies and digestive issues, but nothing life-threatening.
Fitness in and of itself probably wouldn't have prolonged my dad's life (if he hadn't of already been active), and in fact pushing himself too hard could've caused him to die younger. He died from a type A aortic dissection, which is largely hereditary--the same thing that John Ritter and Alan Thicke died from. We didn't know he had this until he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly from it, and didn't have the risk factors that often can cause it (high blood pressure, for example). In fact, his doctor had called him "the healthiest 65-year old he had ever seen" 9 months prior to his death. It's possible stress could've brought this on sooner, but things were stressful in the past...just a different kind of stress.
I'm grateful for medical interventions not only for my own life as a newborn, but to hopefully prolong mine, as I'm also at risk for an aortic dissection as well. In fact, I may have to even curtail my more strenuous activity at some point (e.g, heavy lifting), as aortic dissections can happen with extreme exertion in those who are prone to them.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
1 -
Speakeasy76 wrote: »A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.
Thankfully for me, medical advances literally saved my life when I was born, and it's possible they saved my son (and even my daughter's) as well (born via unplanned and planned c-sections). I was born prematurely and very sick due to Rh incompatability, something that is purely influenced by the mother's blood-type interacting negatively with the fetus'. However, I am not and never was a sickly person, and in fact rarely get sick. Yeah, I have some allergies and digestive issues, but nothing life-threatening.
Fitness in and of itself probably wouldn't have prolonged my dad's life (if he hadn't of already been active), and in fact pushing himself too hard could've caused him to die younger. He died from a type A aortic dissection, which is largely hereditary--the same thing that John Ritter and Alan Thicke died from. We didn't know he had this until he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly from it, and didn't have the risk factors that often can cause it (high blood pressure, for example). In fact, his doctor had called him "the healthiest 65-year old he had ever seen" 9 months prior to his death. It's possible stress could've brought this on sooner, but things were stressful in the past...just a different kind of stress.
I'm grateful for medical interventions not only for my own life as a newborn, but to hopefully prolong mine, as I'm also at risk for an aortic dissection as well. In fact, I may have to even curtail my more strenuous activity at some point (e.g, heavy lifting), as aortic dissections can happen with extreme exertion in those who are prone to them.
I should have mentioned in my original post that prenatal care and medical advances dealing with childbirth and also antibiotics and vaccines have played a big role as well. I am also grateful that these medical advances exist.4 -
My grandmother's brother died of pneumonia as a young man in the early 1920s. The outcome would probably be different today.
I have idiopathic hypertension and have been on blood pressure medications to control it since my mid-30s, I'm now 57. Who knows what my lifespan would be with uncontrolled hypertension, or if I'd even still be alive right now?
I'm a firm believer in the "use it or lose it" philosophy though. The elderly people I see maintaining function are the ones who have kept moving and doing (barring serious conditions that curtail activity level). The ones who kind of give up and adopt a sedentary lifestyle tend to lose functional ability. My father is a great example of this, he became so sedentary that he lost muscle, had less ability to move so moved less and lost more muscle. and ended up in a rehab hospital for 5.5 months while they built him back up again. The day he was admitted to hospital he couldn't even turn his head to look out the window.1 -
wunderkindking wrote: »So, one of the things I read recently that was dealing with history was that while the AVERAGE lifespan was quite low in the medieval period (which of course had some medical assistance, though not to modern standards) that those numbers skew low not because you were old at 30 or 40, but because of the high infant and child mortality rates. But that once out of childhood and removing accident/severe injury people still lived about as long as they do today (70-80, with some outliers), which makes sense to me.
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.
I spent my HS years in farm county. There were many older farmers who were strong as hell and could work with anyone.6 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »wunderkindking wrote: »So, one of the things I read recently that was dealing with history was that while the AVERAGE lifespan was quite low in the medieval period (which of course had some medical assistance, though not to modern standards) that those numbers skew low not because you were old at 30 or 40, but because of the high infant and child mortality rates. But that once out of childhood and removing accident/severe injury people still lived about as long as they do today (70-80, with some outliers), which makes sense to me.
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.
I spent my HS years in farm county. There were many older farmers who were strong as hell and could work with anyone.
Me, too.
My father-in-law was in his 80s and still working. About 30 years ago.
Our first hired hand was in his 80s. He told us the first day he would only work 8 hours a day, no matter how far behind we were. About 50 years ago.4 -
That's that "country strong" mentality. Had this kid one time who wasn't great at weight lifting, but one time I watch him hand bale hay. At 50lbs per bale he handled it like it was styrofoam. Amazing.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »wunderkindking wrote: »So, one of the things I read recently that was dealing with history was that while the AVERAGE lifespan was quite low in the medieval period (which of course had some medical assistance, though not to modern standards) that those numbers skew low not because you were old at 30 or 40, but because of the high infant and child mortality rates. But that once out of childhood and removing accident/severe injury people still lived about as long as they do today (70-80, with some outliers), which makes sense to me.
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.
I spent my HS years in farm county. There were many older farmers who were strong as hell and could work with anyone.
Gotta give another aree to this - my grandparents on my father's side were farmers and actively worked the farm well into their 80's before giving it up. What finally took my grandfather down was years of badly managed HPB - his fault really since he only took his meds randomly. He was otherwise strong, physically active and mentally alert right up to the day the stroke got him.2 -
(attribution intentionally removed by reply-er)
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.That's that "country strong" mentality. Had this kid one time who wasn't great at weight lifting, but one time I watch him hand bale hay. At 50lbs per bale he handled it like it was styrofoam. Amazing.
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Yeah, that specific thing is maybe "country strong". The PP I quoted/bolded first, though: That's also the "tyranny of low expectations" for people at 65 these days.
Yes, many physical problems become more likely as we age. (Don't I ever know that, in the most profound way, being, y'know, 65 myself.) But the effect is multiplied by all the lifestyle factors that are compromising the health of people of all ages, childhood to elderly, in the US (and probably other countries, but the US is where I have experience).
Some earlier generations, ones that lived through long or multiple stretches under brutal conditions (famine, for just one example), would've suffered cumulative damage from those things, of course. But the reasons we're now not at least as strong and healthy on average as the most robust of those generations . . . a lot of that is about our personal choices.
Expectations of older people have kept up with that slide in health and ability, to the point where often young people think anyone over 60 (maybe younger) is decrepit and incapable, and they expect that for themselves, too. It seems natural. People here on MFP are routinely posting about how they're going downhill after 40, and seemingly expect that it's all a steeper downhill from there, so there's not much point in trying. People over 60 post things like "can I do X after 60?". It doesn't make any difference, really, what "X" is, IMO: If you can't think of any reason why you can't do it, and you want to do it, then condition your way up to X, and *find out* if you can do it. Age, per se, is not a disability.
Expectations are important. Low expectations are a particular kind of curse. We impose them on others, we impose them on ourselves.
No, I'm not talking about cases where someone has known, diagnosed disabilities or limitations. Those can happen at any age, and some do become higher risk, or more common, at older ages. It doesn't make those things synonymous with age. (And yes, very generally, improvement is slower, de-training faster, relatively speaking, with increasing age . . . but progress from a low strength/fitness level to a better level seems to be possible at nearly any age, absent true disability barriers; and a good retained level of early-developed fitness also more achievable than some appear to think.) There are plenty of strong, fit 60+ people here, and not all of them have been strong or fit their whole adult lives. There are plenty in my real-life world, too. We could expect more of ourselves, and not *assume* less of others, as a culture, if you ask me.
Sorry, pet peeve.
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Yes it does irk me when I do get clients who are elderly (over 65) and when I put a beginner training program together for them (after an assessment of capability and know their medical history), it's not uncommon to ask "I can lift weights? Won't that injure my joints and bones more?"(attribution intentionally removed by reply-er)
Because yeah, you can't do heavy farm when you're 65 very well but YOU HAVE ADULT CHILDREN living with and caring for you/ensuring you eat - and those multi-generational families living together were typical until very recent historically-- and is still typical in a whole lot of the world.
So less about medicine and more about community/family caring for the elders.
Of course we now have more medical options for disease/accident/industry and relatively less dangerous lives but the basic human body breaking down in catastrophic ways hasn't really changed in quite a long (very long) time.That's that "country strong" mentality. Had this kid one time who wasn't great at weight lifting, but one time I watch him hand bale hay. At 50lbs per bale he handled it like it was styrofoam. Amazing.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Yeah, that specific thing is maybe "country strong". The PP I quoted/bolded first, though: That's also the "tyranny of low expectations" for people at 65 these days.
Yes, many physical problems become more likely as we age. (Don't I ever know that, in the most profound way, being, y'know, 65 myself.) But the effect is multiplied by all the lifestyle factors that are compromising the health of people of all ages, childhood to elderly, in the US (and probably other countries, but the US is where I have experience).
Some earlier generations, ones that lived through long or multiple stretches under brutal conditions (famine, for just one example), would've suffered cumulative damage from those things, of course. But the reasons we're now not at least as strong and healthy on average as the most robust of those generations . . . a lot of that is about our personal choices.
Expectations of older people have kept up with that slide in health and ability, to the point where often young people think anyone over 60 (maybe younger) is decrepit and incapable, and they expect that for themselves, too. It seems natural. People here on MFP are routinely posting about how they're going downhill after 40, and seemingly expect that it's all a steeper downhill from there, so there's not much point in trying. People over 60 post things like "can I do X after 60?". It doesn't make any difference, really, what "X" is, IMO: If you can't think of any reason why you can't do it, and you want to do it, then condition your way up to X, and *find out* if you can do it. Age, per se, is not a disability.
Expectations are important. Low expectations are a particular kind of curse. We impose them on others, we impose them on ourselves.
No, I'm not talking about cases where someone has known, diagnosed disabilities or limitations. Those can happen at any age, and some do become higher risk, or more common, at older ages. It doesn't make those things synonymous with age. (And yes, very generally, improvement is slower, de-training faster, relatively speaking, with increasing age . . . but progress from a low strength/fitness level to a better level seems to be possible at nearly any age, absent true disability barriers; and a good retained level of early-developed fitness also more achievable than some appear to think.) There are plenty of strong, fit 60+ people here, and not all of them have been strong or fit their whole adult lives. There are plenty in my real-life world, too. We could expect more of ourselves, and not *assume* less of others, as a culture, if you ask me.
Sorry, pet peeve.
Like the expectation is that after a certain age, they get frail. And it's true to a degree IF they haven't been doing anything physically active for those muscles and joints.
My dad (who's 87) complained about his knees at 70. I put him on a walking program with a few sets of sit squats (in a chair) and he still does them now. Knees hardly hurt anymore. And he can get up off the floor by himself.
And while he can do it, he is much slower now than when he was 70, but still can do it.
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Workout preventative medicine and screenings, love would be shorter and involve more suffering.0
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Clean drinking water, good basic hygiene, and a safe food supply have done most of the heavy lifting in increasing our life spans.
Most medical intervention does more to improve the quality of life than broadly extend everyone's life.3 -
Just think now too that women who may be high risk for breast cancer due to heredity have the option to have them removed if they fear it could happen to them. Imagine if you didn't have that option. You'd stress out everyday wondering if and when you might get breast cancer. Even if you did all the right things with your health tto lower risk.Speakeasy76 wrote: »A lot of people would die young without medical help nowadays. There are tons of diabetics in this country and people on dialysis who would pass away quickly. Medical advances have allowed sickly people to live longer and pass on their genes.
Thankfully for me, medical advances literally saved my life when I was born, and it's possible they saved my son (and even my daughter's) as well (born via unplanned and planned c-sections). I was born prematurely and very sick due to Rh incompatability, something that is purely influenced by the mother's blood-type interacting negatively with the fetus'. However, I am not and never was a sickly person, and in fact rarely get sick. Yeah, I have some allergies and digestive issues, but nothing life-threatening.
Fitness in and of itself probably wouldn't have prolonged my dad's life (if he hadn't of already been active), and in fact pushing himself too hard could've caused him to die younger. He died from a type A aortic dissection, which is largely hereditary--the same thing that John Ritter and Alan Thicke died from. We didn't know he had this until he died quite suddenly and unexpectedly from it, and didn't have the risk factors that often can cause it (high blood pressure, for example). In fact, his doctor had called him "the healthiest 65-year old he had ever seen" 9 months prior to his death. It's possible stress could've brought this on sooner, but things were stressful in the past...just a different kind of stress.
I'm grateful for medical interventions not only for my own life as a newborn, but to hopefully prolong mine, as I'm also at risk for an aortic dissection as well. In fact, I may have to even curtail my more strenuous activity at some point (e.g, heavy lifting), as aortic dissections can happen with extreme exertion in those who are prone to them.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
I don't imagine anyone back then was thinking in terms of cancer risk but more along the lines of "If I'm good, God won't afflict me with disease."2 -
What about vaccines for diseases? Or antibiotics for infections? Or surgery because of accidents?Clean drinking water, good basic hygiene, and a safe food supply have done most of the heavy lifting in increasing our life spans.
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What about vaccines for diseases? Or antibiotics for infections? Or surgery because of accidents? Or treatments for cancer or poisoning?Most medical intervention does more to improve the quality of life than broadly extend everyone's life.
Majority would mean that the majority of people go to hospitals for what you mentioned when most are in there because they are sick, injured or need medical attention.
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2 -
Well again we're taking into consideration that there was some medical intervention. But what if there wasn't any? A simple infection could easily kill someone off or what if they got the measles or flu with no medical help?Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.
As amazing as the human body is, we're still pretty susceptible like any other animal to disease and injury. If not for medical intervention, our current population would likely be half of what it is now around the world.
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Some medical intervention in medieval times????
Very little and some of what there was did more harm than good.
I agree with others that if you take out infant/ childhood deaths and maternal childbirth deaths the life expectancy was not that much less than today.
Less, sure , but not as dramatically less as one might think.
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Everyone knows a "Fred". I ride my bike a lot and generally move at about 15mph. "Fred" is a guy in his 80's riding some old beat up bike and beat us younger guys (60's). He us shaky and frail looking, but rides along with no effort at 20 mph.4
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Well that's not what stats are saying.paperpudding wrote: »
Well again we're taking into consideration that there was some medical intervention. But what if there wasn't any? A simple infection could easily kill someone off or what if they got the measles or flu with no medical help?Pretty sure that childhood and maternal mortality in the past is what accounted for most of the lower average life expectancy. Once you were out of childhood (and for women past childbearing I guess) you had a pretty good chance of living to be elderly.
As amazing as the human body is, we're still pretty susceptible like any other animal to disease and injury. If not for medical intervention, our current population would likely be half of what it is now around the world.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Some medical intervention in medieval times????
Very little and some of what there was did more harm than good.
I agree with others that if you take out infant/ childhood deaths and maternal childbirth deaths the life expectancy was not that much less than today.
Less, sure , but not as dramatically less as one might think.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/longevity-throughout-history-2224054#:~:text=of Bubonic Plague-,From the 1800s to Today,and 40 years of age.&text=Though it's hard to imagine,surgery in the mid-1800s.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885717/
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
1 -
paperpudding wrote: »Some medical intervention in medieval times????
Very little and some of what there was did more harm than good.
I agree with others that if you take out infant/ childhood deaths and maternal childbirth deaths the life expectancy was not that much less than today.
Less, sure , but not as dramatically less as one might think.
I might quibble a little bit with this. Some methods were harmful, sure, and the explanations and descriptions can sound fanciful or ridiculous to the modern ear, but medieval and ancient peoples were far from stupid - they simply lacked the observational tools we benefit from today. In some things (though not all), modern inventions and techniques were actually MORE harmful at first than what generations past had done. The fields of obstetrics and gynecology in particular are full of this kind of thing (others might be as well, but that's my area of familiarity.)
I'm very thankful for sanitation and germ theory, to be sure, but I think one thing that's hard about the original question is that people have been practicing medicine, of a sort, for all of human history. It might look different, but it's there. People have always tried to take care of themselves.5
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