What is their longevity though? I could not find it anywhere in the BBC article.
Healthy heart is nice and does bring quality of life, but what is their life expectancy?
Healthy heart is nice and does bring quality of life, but what is their life expectancy?
http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/culture&mind/people/gu... (that is the site of one of the anthropologists quoted in the BBC article)
They also have very high parasite load, which was kind of mentioned in the article; may influence fertility as well as heart health and overall longevity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3529658/
Edit: I probably don't need to point that out to the typical HN reader, but its something I personally wouldn't have picked up on a few years ago
PS: The problem with an 'average' is that there are so many to choose from!
A large part of "the strides medical progress has achieved" in terms of longevity is entirely about dealing with "the diseases of civilization" that we invented in the first place (out of necessity and lacking better info) with a chronic highish intake non-stone-age food-stuffs, cities, heavy industries etc.
Citation? It's pretty bold to claim that tribes essentially have/had no health issues. I assume there must be some really compelling evidence backing that up.
"As the savage state also protects them from gout and rheumatism, and old age is, of all ills, that which human aid can least alleviate, they cease to be, without others perceiving that they are no more, and almost without perceiving it themselves.
With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false declamations which most healthy people pronounce against medicine; but I shall ask if any solid observations have been made from which it may be justly concluded that, in the countries where the art of medicine is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is less than in those where it is most cultivated. How indeed can this be the case, if we bring on ourselves more diseases than medicine can furnish remedies? [...]
When we think of the good constitution of the savages, at least of those whom we have not ruined with our spirituous liquors, and reflect that they are troubled with hardly any disorders, save wounds and old age, we are tempted to believe that, in following the history of civil society, we shall be telling also that of human sickness."