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by fivestar 3287 days ago
The article is not as focused on infant mortality as the post title suggests.

Am wondering about the statement regarding cancer being rare. Is that only because people didn't live long enough?

I went to a Wal-Mart this past weekend, I know full well what is wrong with contemporary health--excess eating!

3 comments

"Is that only because people didn't live long enough?"

According to the article, their life expectancy after the age of 5 was comparable to ours.

"excess eating"

According to the article, their calorific intake was approximately twice ours because they expended so much more calories working & keeping warm. 3000 calories for a "sedentary" man, over 5000 for a labourer.

It makes no sense unless we truly have way more carcinogens in our modern world. Something doesn't add up--either the stats are skewed because modern populations are so much larger, or record keeping was bad, or...something.

Also, you downvoted me, then posted "life expectancy after age 5" which, in my thinking, only validates that article has little to do with "infant mortality" since age 0-5 covers a wide band of people who are not infants, right?

In The Case Against Sugar, Gary Taubes makes the case that basically all of what kills people in old age now (diabetes, heart disease, and cancer) are the result of the way extremely large amounts of sugar are metabolized by our bodies. Sugar consumption per capita is way, way higher now than it was then.
Men lived three years longer back then, according to TFA.
Is that related to death during childbirth?