[harry8]

In general something being normal for humans for millennia does not mean it was healthy. It was normal to have incredibly painful teeth, probably not healthy. It was normal to die before reaching adulthood.

It is entirely possible that something that was done for a long time is a healthy thing just as it is entirely possible that it was a terrible thing that we conquered with knowledge and abundance. Evidence is what tells you if the thing falls into one of those categories.

I like living in a time where we are outraged if children in our community die and in cases where there was nothing that could have been done we want to do research to find something we can do in the future. That was not normal for millennia until really very recently and it seems healthy to me?

[remarkEon]

> It was normal to have incredibly painful teeth, probably not healthy.

Is this actually true? I thought archaic humans had much better dental outcomes because their diets had a small fraction of the sugars that modern diets do. Could be wrong but I was definitely under the impression that poor dental health was more a function of modern diet and not something that necessarily existed throughout history.

[harry8]

I'm no expert, this could be wrong, what I was told by an ancient historian was even the Pharohs with all their wealth had terrible painful teeth from sand in food which was ubiquitous until fairly recently. I have recollections of dental records of pre-historic persons being reported as pretty nasty.

Feel free to nit-pick that example, there are an absolute plethora of others. When did surviving appendicitis become a thing? What was the median life expectancy for a newborn baby at various times in history? Calling out the fetishism of humans in a "natural state" needs to be done. Just as there are things we can learn from our pre-historic existence. Evidence is obviously the required thing not just amusing anecdote about how we have totally "lost our way."

[remarkEon]

Yeah I should’ve made it clear in my comment that I agree with you, I think the fetishism of pre-historic humans is a little odd. Of course there’s things to learn, but it’s strange to think that a period when you died from something as trivial as a minor infection is somehow ideal. I was only nitpicking on the dental thing, because eating so much sugar really is relatively new in human history and is the source of a number of health problems, beyond bad teeth.

[OJFord]

Probably not so modern in regions with native sugar cane? E.g. doesn't jaggery (unrefined cane sugar reduced to a semi-solid block) production in India and thereabouts go back centuries?

Certain palms are also (and have been for... Again I don't know, but I believe 'a very long time') 'milked' for a sugary sap that's drunk fresh or fermented.

[lossolo]

Yeah, this seems inaccurate, tribes in Africa that still live hunter-gatherer lifestyle have good teeth without cavities. It changed after humans moved from hunter-gather to agriculture.

[arriu]

I agree but I think we’re still working on understanding what a healthy human actually is. Other than the obvious signs, it’s quite complicated.