>
>D's points are quite valid but our current longevity has nothing to do
>with our modern diet. ...
>
>Our high life expectancy is more related to public hygiene, antisepsis,
>aseptic surgery, immunisation, antibiotics, anithypertensive therapy,
>diabetic therapy etc than to any improvements in the diet in the last 100
>years. I would hate to think of what our life expectancy would be without
>these measures.

Sorry, can't let this pass.

-As anti-vaccination pundits often point out, the drop in many illnesses
cannot be correlated to immunization jabs -- even polio had dropped off
dramatically before the Salk vaccine was widely available.

-Any improvement in longevity due to antibiotics is/was purely
temporary, as the equilibrium shifts and the bugs stay ahead of
the pharmo's products.

-Aseptic surgery has been around for quite some time, and I'd
like to see figures for average life expectancy (ALE) of those who
have never had surgeries requiring fully sterile theaters.
Ditto for those with the other conditions in the list: does
ALE increase on antihypertensives, anticholesterols? Quality
of life, maybe, but age at death?

I hypothesize, and I'm not the first, that ALE increase has much more
to do with better personal and public hygiene (bathing, brushing teeth,
replacing the village pump handle) AND with better nutrition.
On this last point I emphasize the wirespread supplementation of
foodstuffs with vitamins generally, and ascorbic acid in particular.

Ascorbate's use as a food antioxidant started in the 1940s,
and its consequent elimination of widespread borderline scurvy
has probably done more to increase overall public vitality
than all of the aformentioned non-Paleo drugs and immunizations
combined. Surgeries have better outcomes in resistance to
shock and in better healing when just a little ascorbate is
added to the diet or used IV during the operation. Seasonally
people used to drop dead on the table due to shock, especially
in the winter months when their ascorbate levels were low
and other bodily stresses high. References available on request.
Better surgical technique may be contributory, but better
diet is more significant.

So saying that "our current longevity has nothing to do" with
diet is strongly misleading, and serves merely to reinforce the
notion that health can only be achieved and maintained through
high-tech means and intervention -- something that true Paleoeaters
and others besides know to be patently false, and which profits
only the makers & sellers of drugs etc.

Diet isn't everything -- it's the only thing.