Older people have become younger | Hacker News Reader

Older people have become younger

jyu.fi

161 pointsbetocmn131 comments

People are shocked when they rewatch "The Golden Girls" from the 80's.

Those actresses were all ~63 when it started (one was 53).

But by today's standards, they look like they were all 70-80.

It's remarkable what our current "norms" of fitness and nutrition have done. Or conversely, the toll (and associated clearly visible accelerated aging) that normalized heavy drinking and smoking took on older generations.

Maybe they were made to look that old. I have a hunch it's a lot harder to manage 80 year olds. They might struggle with remembering the script and such.

What people tend to over look is how far a little makeup goes, when the audience is viewing the 12 to 19 inch, 360p display screen across the room.

Nit: NTSC is more like 480i.

Except for Betty White she is still acting, remembers her lines and is 98 years old. I bet a lifetime of memorizing helps.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/05/15/betty-white-to-star-in...

Yes, but you do not want to have to rely on this as a producer.

This is ageism.

In what sense?

In the sense that you can actually find 80 years old actors who are not senile. And not just actors, people in general.

Also, not that I think following is good thing, but check how geriatric us supreme court is or politicians are.

Can you talk about actors without talking about cosmetic surgery and digital retouching?

Or even just sunblock?

I am about 95% sure they were made to intentionally look older

And suntanning.

An aside - I loved the simplicity of the "do you accept our cookies" banner - it just has two buttons "accept" and "decline". Every other design is evil.

You are the first person I've seen like any of those popups.

I think he means how simply it is to 'decline'. Most websites will have an 'accept' and an extremely convoluted 'decline' or no 'decline' at all.

Right.

Probably because if they can't give you a cookie then they have to give you a cookie warning on every page you hit. That's fine for sites where you are just reading an article and then leaving. I really find the whole thing so annoying and wish sites would just ignore that rule or allow a default-on setting in the browser that lets the vast majority of people who don't care about cookies one way or the other just default it to accept.

these banners are the BANE of the internet. Just block cookies yourself if you don't want them used. And if someone wants to track / fingerprint you their are myriad ways to do so. Why people love pushing these absolutely crazy interactions I don't get - it makes you realize how clueless and/or out of touch privacy advocates sometimes are.

My city website has so many popups / popover you have to accept EVERY single time you visit it is not usable on mobile. Accept / decline I don't care on cookies. And many websites just bump you off the website if you don't accept.

I'm serious - when you have ISPs selling your browsing history, addins and trackers and website profile tools live capturing your every mouse movement, are cookies the great evil of the internet that must drive a billion (?) click on "accept" every day?

My own solution - allow for an "I accept cookies" header - you set it ONCE on your browser and people owe you $100 if they show you a cookie popup. Now THAT would be a law I could get behind!

You can blame so much of it on the broken GDPR law. If you run a website, you have to put up a cookie banner. It does nothing - practically everyone just clicks accept.

Lawmakers are living in some imaginary universe where consumers read the terms and conditions of every website they visit. Their privacy laws are seriously out of touch. Or maybe they're designed purposefully to be that way.

I seem to recall this actually being a common but incorrect take on the cookie banner, my understanding is that no cookie prompt is necessary for basic site functionality (passing data between pages, user preferences, etc.). And actually a banner is only needed when the cookie use case is user tracking or could be used as such i.e could identify a unique visitor.

So most sites could choose to give up analytics (altough tbh the most important metrics would still be fine like daily page hit count, etc.) but it's easier to add the banner and blame GDPR.

But perhaps, once a company is a certain size their legal department just screams all day about needing a cookie banner? Also very possible.

https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/114973/are-se...

No, you don't have to put up a cookie banner if the cookies are essential to your website. For example, to handle logins or purchases.

If you include non-essential cookies (like, for example, tracking cookies set by two or three hundred advertisers), you must ask the user for their consent. The site must have "decline all" as the default option, and should continue to provide basic functionality when the user declines.

All the banners that don't have the opt-out option or making it difficult to opt-out willfully break the law.

And yes, GDPR is a good law.

You run a free website that survives based on advertising. This is essential for the website to continue to be viable. Are cookies essential then?

You run a shopping cart. As part of your fraud detection you put a fraud cookie beacon on every page. Is the fraud beacon essential?

As part of your product development / ab testing etc you track users on your website. Is this essential?

For affiliate link fraud control third parties want to have a cookie on your site that leads through to their clickthrough link. Essential?

Reality - you need to stick up a cookie banner to operate a website or get into long complicated legal arguments and face big liability. And that's what folks do, including practically every government agency.

GDPR has little to do with the cookie pop ups, which predate it. In any case, the cookie law allows essential cookies (Login, shopping cart etc) without consent (and GDPR allows data that is necessary for operation eg collecting your address to ship a product).

When it's mandated by law to have those popups, then there isn't much you can do.

The current implementation is malicious compliance. The intent was to stop so many cookies being put on your computer without realising it or without reason.

I feel it is very dangerous to encourage us to accept clicking on things as the norm. The windows virus era taught us that was a very bad idea and now we have to click on nearly every website and accept things due to GDPR. This part of GDPR was really silly and a step backwards.

Exactly - for the vast majority of users we have been trained to just click accept automatically on this absolute crap.

Yeah! And this is the only legit way to do it if you actually follow GDPR. It has to be just as simple and easy to opt out as it is to opt in. But unfortunately most sites that rely on surveillance don't want to give an easy way to opt out.

I think the real answer is more banal than that: most sites just installed the first Wordpress/Drupal cookie banner plugin they could find, maybe themed it a little, and called it good.

Also, most sites would rather you accept cookies than not do so, that's why they're giving them to you. But I don't think most websites rely on surveillance in any meaningful way, the landscape is just guided by the ones that do.

There may be some like that. But studies have proven that 90%+ people say no to tracking when given a fair chance. So any site that monetizes with personalized advertising banners (or any site that uses tracking such as pixels for marketing purposes) doesn't want to give that fair chance as they would lose out on what they can do now.

Actually the GDPR says this is what is legal. Two Buttons with equal accessibility for agreeing to the use of cookies or not. A single "accept" is unlawful. A submenu to select which cookies to block one by one is unlawful. A loading screen while "saving your preferences" is not just unlawful but you deserve to be whipped in public for creating that monstrosity.

The best banner experience is to use "I don't care about cookies" (https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/), and then simply block the cookies you don't want. I didn't even realize that this website had a "cookie banner".

This is illegal. You should have the opportunity to review the details and to cherry pick.

As a European profoundly attached to privacy and whatnot I think that there should be a special place in hell for the useless consultants and politicians who came up with this idiotic cookie law.

This study was done in Finland folks not America. I don't think the same results would hold here for the average person, for the average person living here wrestling with a life time of obesity, debt and stress will make them functionally 100 at the age of 60

I have a large extended family and have a few dozen first cousins. There is a stark contrast between those of us who have stayed relatively thin and fit and those that have not, it's almost like two entirely different generations.

I wouldn't be so quick to presume causality when it may just as well be correlation.

In other words, California probably isn't a wealthy state because it is less obese than most other states. It probably less obese than other states because it is wealthy.

Obesity prevalence by country: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

There are both rich and poor countries near the top of the list.

Replying very late, but I've always found it interesting that in poorer countries, obesity can indicate wealth (you have money to overindulge) whereas in richer countries it's often the reverse (poorer people buying sugary/fast food, can't justify a gym membership, etc).

Looking younger does correlate with both wealth and health. But while wealth and obesity are only correlated, there's certainly a casual relationship from obesity to health, and therefore from obesity to looking older.

There is probably a third variable that explains both physical fitness and wealth: education or discipline for instance.

Of course, it is more than one variable. Reality tends to be multidimensional.

What causality are you implying here? My extended family is all blue collar for the most part and almost all live in the same few small towns. I'm saying, in my blue collar family, the cousins who stayed fit, thin, avoiding alcoholism and smoking look a decade or more younger than those that didn't.

My 30 year high school reunion was similarly shocking.

Some of my classmates look pretty rough. Others remain vital.

I'm sure genetic and zip code lottery are huge factors. But the kids who never stopped partying are much worse for the wear.

I took my Dad out of coffee in my home town and met a guy who looked at least a decade older than me who said he remembered me from high school. Then he said I probably wouldn't remember him because I was older and in grade 12 when he was in grade 9. My Dad said after ward, "I didn't know if he was saying he went to high school with you or me"

Some people live hard.

Minor piece of anecdote: I have watched my great grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother age. They all look like they aged at different rates: my grandmother at 70 does not look as old as my great grandmother did at 70. My mother at 50 does not look as old as my grandmother did at 50.

I think people eat better, and engage their brains more.

or do neither and use Korean skincare products

Is this a joke or is there some magic i'm not aware of to Korean products specifically?

Skincare products are a huge industry in Korea, and can include ingredients that seem outlandish to some, such as snail mucus. They seem to have a dedicated following in some circles.

I wonder what causes this, my guess is probably many different factors; Finland social programs encouraging exercise, nutrition improved quite a lot, probably the Internet gave people access to new hobbies and interests. There are probably better in person socialising for old people than 30 years ago too.

FTA: longer education, better nutrition, and access to better healthcare and hygiene

> Internet gave people access to new hobbies and interests

Given that the age group they are looking are already well in their 70s, they might not be heavy internet users. It's hard to tell from these studies that internet had any effect to their health.

In fact, I think we have to wait another ~30 years to see when first internet natives become 70 year olds if it has any effect.

If you're interested in changes to aging and the growing science behind it, I can't recommend Lifespan by David Sinclair highly enough.

What were your favorite parts of it?

I'm halfway through this book and have found basically NOTHING that is actionable.

Caloric restriction, and fasting, are already well known and are not revelations to be found in his book.

Beyond those suggestions, nothing he talks about can the average person take do.

There's a few specific, actionable suggestions at the very end of the book - particularly a couple of pills he takes.

But regardless, my interest is as much in the general progress that's being made and the speed at which it's accelerating. It left me feeling extremely optimistic about what the next 20-30 years is going to hold in terms of developments in anti-aging science. Unless we blow ourselves up in the near future.

Caloric restriction (beyond staying at a healthy weight) has never been shown to actually extend the lifespan of humans, or any primate.

While evidence is emerging, there are ongoing primate and human studies that suggest there is benefit to caloric restriction. This recent review is a good overview of current evidence, studies, and mechanisms:

Balasubramanian, Priya, Porsha R. Howell, and Rozalyn M. Anderson. “Aging and Caloric Restriction Research: A Biological Perspective With Translational Potential.” EBioMedicine 21 (June 19, 2017): 37–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2017.06.015.

For primates, this is a good review:

Mattison, Julie A., Ricki J. Colman, T. Mark Beasley, David B. Allison, Joseph W. Kemnitz, George S. Roth, Donald K. Ingram, Richard Weindruch, Rafael de Cabo, and Rozalyn M. Anderson. “Caloric Restriction Improves Health and Survival of Rhesus Monkeys.” Nature Communications 8, no. 1 (January 17, 2017): 14063. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14063.

Abstract: Caloric restriction (CR) without malnutrition extends lifespan and delays the onset of age-related disorders in most species but its impact in nonhuman primates has been controversial. In the late 1980s two parallel studies were initiated to determine the effect of CR in rhesus monkeys. The University of Wisconsin study reported a significant positive impact of CR on survival, but the National Institute on Aging study detected no significant survival effect. Here we present a direct comparison of longitudinal data from both studies including survival, bodyweight, food intake, fasting glucose levels and age-related morbidity. We describe differences in study design that could contribute to differences in outcomes, and we report species specificity in the impact of CR in terms of optimal onset and diet. Taken together these data confirm that health benefits of CR are conserved in monkeys and suggest that CR mechanisms are likely translatable to human health.

For human studies, here's a recent one:

Redman, Leanne M., Steven R. Smith, Jeffrey H. Burton, Corby K. Martin, Dora Il’yasova, and Eric Ravussin. “Metabolic Slowing and Reduced Oxidative Damage with Sustained Caloric Restriction Support the Rate of Living and Oxidative Damage Theories of Aging.” Cell Metabolism 27, no. 4 (April 3, 2018): 805-815.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2018.02.019.

"Findings from this 2-year CR trial in healthy, non-obese humans provide new evidence of persistent metabolic slowing accompanied by reduced oxidative stress, which supports the rate of living and oxidative damage theories of mammalian aging."

A randomized controlled trial would be great, but that experiment literally isn't going to happen in our lifetimes.

So we have to make the best of other evidence, like animal studies (rats have increased lifespan on restricted calories), observational studies, and biomarkers.

Metformin is mentioned 30% of the way through.

Are you taking it?

The actionable stuff will be 3 dot points as with all books.

Calorie restriction traced back to protein/methionine restriction. Better to just fast and take melatonin (sustained-release). 16:8, 18:6, 20:4, 24:24, 36:12, 36:36, etc. I am biased toward 36:36.

1-2 extended fasts per year.

I am wondering about another approach involving a bumping up of protein (0.75 g/lb for 2 days, 1.00 g/lb for 2 days, and 1.25 g/lb for 2 days) and a 42-hour dry fast wrapped around the 7th day. Melatonin (and calories missing on the 7th day) would be taken on the 6 feeding days. Last meal 3-4 hours before bed either way. The fast resensitizes to protein, same as happens when it's bumped up on 3rd days.

While many cry out against mTOR, it is responsible for synthesis of many relevant proteins: creatine, glycine, collagen, etc. The issue is more with mTOR being out of balance with AMPK. Melatonin and dry fasting helps restore the balance.

Ideally, one would increase IGF-1 as much as could be done naturally (ie, vitamins/minerals and eating frequency rather than excess protein or direct supplementation). DHEA, melatonin/progesterone, and hGH would then be adjusted to match the associated growth/pubertal year (eg, matching hormone levels of a 15 year old).

That guy is a scam artist and I’m sad to see him referenced

That's interesting. Can you offer more details?

If there are any non-grifter or a scientist published book on aging and what we know about it intended for a popular audience, I'd love to read more.

Just as an FYI, the "scam artist" David Sinclair is in fact one of the leading scientists in the world studying the biomechanics of longevity:

David A. Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1995. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. with Dr. Leonard Guarente where he co discovered a cause of aging for yeast as well as the role of Sir2 in epigenetic changes driven by genome instability. In 1999 he was recruited to Harvard Medical School where he has been teaching aging biology and translational medicine for aging for the past 16 years. His research has been primarily focused on the sirtuins, protein-modifying enzymes that respond to changing NAD+ levels and to caloric restriction (CR) with associated interests in chromatin, energy metabolism, mitochondria, learning and memory, neurodegeneration, and cancer. The Sinclair lab was the first one to identify a role for NAD+ biosynthesis in regulation of lifespan and first showed that sirtuins are involved in CR in mammals. They first identified small molecules that activate SIRT1 such as resveratrol and studied how they improve metabolic function using a combination of genetic, enzymological, biophysical and pharmacological approaches. They recently showed that natural and synthetic activators require SIRT1 to mediate the in vivo effects in muscle and identified a structured activation domain. They demonstrated that miscommunication between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes is a cause of age-related physiological decline and that relocalization of chromatin factors in response to DNA breaks may be a cause of aging.

Dr. Sinclair is co-founder of several biotechnology companies (Sirtris, Ovascience, Genocea, Cohbar, MetroBiotech, ArcBio, Liberty Biosecurity) and is on the boards of several others. He is also co-founder and co-chief editor of the journal Aging. His work is featured in five books, two documentary movies, 60 Minutes, Morgan Freeman’s “Through the Wormhole” and other media. He is an inventor on 35 patents and has received more than 25 awards and honors including the CSL Prize, The Australian Commonwealth Prize, Thompson Prize, Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Award, Charles Hood Fellowship, Leukemia Society Fellowship, Ludwig Scholarship, Harvard-Armenise Fellowship, American Association for Aging Research Fellowship, Nathan Shock Award from the National Institutes of Health, Ellison Medical Foundation Junior and Senior Scholar Awards, Merck Prize, Genzyme Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Science Award, Bio-Innovator Award, David Murdock-Dole Lectureship, Fisher Honorary Lectureship, Les Lazarus Lectureship, Australian Medical Research Medal, The Frontiers in Aging and Regeneration Award, Top 100 Australian Innovators, and TIME magazine’s list of the “100 most influential people in the world”.

https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/sinclair/people/sinclair.ph...

Wow, thanks for the context. Would still love more book suggestions on the topic if you happen to know any outside of his book; there's been some great papers linked in the thread so far but only one book suggestion unfortunately.

If you must read a book, Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey is maybe the best introduction but IMO you're still better off reading the papers/tracking the latest research if you're interested in the topic. You'll save a lot of time and be more up to date, as it's a rapidly developing field:

West, Michael D, Hal Sternberg, Ivan Labat, Jeffrey Janus, Karen B Chapman, Nafees N Malik, Aubrey DNJ de Grey, and Dana Larocca. “Toward a Unified Theory of Aging and Regeneration.” Regenerative Medicine 14, no. 9 (August 28, 2019): 867–86. https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2019-0062.

Shetty, Ashok K., Maheedhar Kodali, Raghavendra Upadhya, and Leelavathi N. Madhu. “Emerging Anti-Aging Strategies - Scientific Basis and Efficacy.” Aging and Disease 9, no. 6 (December 4, 2018): 1165–84. https://doi.org/10.14336/AD.2018.1026.

Brown-Borg, Holly M., and Rozalyn M. Anderson. “Metabolic Adventures in Aging Research.” Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, Metabolism of Aging, 455 (November 5, 2017): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mce.2017.08.012.

Longo, Valter D, Adam Antebi, Andrzej Bartke, Nir Barzilai, Holly M Brown-Borg, Calogero Caruso, Tyler J Curiel, et al. “Interventions to Slow Aging in Humans: Are We Ready?” Aging Cell 14, no. 4 (August 2015): 497–510. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.12338.

López-Otín, Carlos, Maria A. Blasco, Linda Partridge, Manuel Serrano, and Guido Kroemer. “The Hallmarks of Aging.” Cell 153, no. 6 (June 6, 2013): 1194–1217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.039.

A couple resources for keeping track of recent developments:

* https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/

* https://www.fightaging.org/

* https://www.sens.org/srf-publications/

Can you elaborate ?

This is basically meaningless if you don't qualify why you think so. He is a harvard medical doctor and one of the leading researchers in the field, so I'd like to know what makes him a fraud

No, he is a researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School. According to Google Scholar he was cited almost 70 thousand times.

I'm gonna listen to the world renowned scientist instead of some random guy named logicslave12 on the internet, but that's just me.

Look at Paul Rudd today and Wilford Brimley in Cocoon, both the same age (51)

For sure something is keeping people looking and acting younger.

Wilford Brimley was only fifty years old at the time of this film's production. He had to have his hair dyed gray in order to make him look geriatric.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/trivia

Paul Rudd had access to 4d3d3d3 which - sadly - was not available in Wilford Brimley's time.

Now, Tayne I can get into.

I think it's hard to judge with movie stars though because they are really not representative of the general population. There are particular selection pressures deciding who gets screen time, and the standards of today are not the standards of 40 years ago.

It would not be uncommon to have plastic surgery, for instance.

Wilford was artificially aged for the film especially to be able to showcase the “improvements” it was easier to make an actor look older than younger.

It also doesn’t help that he wasn’t exactly in good shape.

It’s quite a bit about genetics and lifestyle look at Val Kilmer for example he aged quite terribly and he is only 2 years older than Tom Cruise but looks 2+ decades older.

Val Kilmer also had a bout with throat cancer.

Yeah he did, so fine let’s take Dean Norris the guy is younger than Tom Cruise but he looked 50 since about his 20’s.

Tom Cruise has most certainly had cosmetic surgery several times, so there's that.

Tom Cruise's physical and dietary regimen is a lot more interesting. I believe it includes restricting calories and really changing up the workouts.

Further to that his dedication to the art is second to none, whether it involves learning a new language or performing stunts and physical feats at an almost Goggins-like level of defying what's possible.

I see a sharp mind in a trained body, belonging to a person with an impeccable work ethic.

Nah, it must have been the exorcism of body thetans that kept him looking young.

Based on the acts he performs he is probably in better shape than most 18 year olds and for sure better than most 30 year olds.

At this point his movies are what crazy stunts can I get the studio to pay for today.

look at John Oliver an John Cena, both born on the same exact day. The differences between any two people don't prove anything.

75-80 years old people as they studied are really not that old to have significant issues with cognitive functions, of course physical functions get hit.

My father who will be soon 70 is doing hiking in mountains pretty much all summer, while his mother when she was in her 80s took care about her house, garden and animals and only in the very end with tumor on brain experienced very fast decline.

I'd say, just stay active, don't sit at home all the time, if you want to stay in good physical condition and socialize to keep good cognitive functions.

Based on another source, it's expected that people are generally trending from looking 10 years older in this generation to 15-25 years older.

Melatonin (sustained-release) is the big secret weapon against aging, especially when started younger (right after growth years). And eating the last meal 3-4 hours before bed or earlier. And meeting all RDAs with just a variety of whole quality foods (most don't meet all RDAs, especially with just food). 1:1:1 calcium:phosphorus:magnesium.

Interesting viewpoint on melatonin. Any references?

As a guy in his late 20s who just finished grumbling at his TV whilst going through all the steps to reset it, I could have sworn this title was making something of the opposite claim. LOL

This brings to mind the hypothesis that extreme calorie restriction during youth extends lifespan. Finland 75-80 years ago was not a paradise of plentiful food, for that matter neither was most of Western Europe.

I know the calorie restriction work has been replicated in the lab with animal models, but of course a human study would face most likely insurmountable ethical challenges.

Yes but overtime access to food has increased. I would have expected the study to go the other way if your hypothesis is correct.

I'm almost certain that this is not true. At least results presented here don't support that theory.

People who are now 75-80 had much better nutrition than generations before them. Life expectancy in Finland is projected to increase even more in the future.

Calorie restriction starts to make sense only after adulthood. Prenatal, natal and child nutrition and calorie availability is probably the most important thing extending lifespan.

80 years ago was 1940. There was some widespread activity at the time that interfered with food availability.

Expected lifetime of those who were born during the war decreased relative to previous and following generations.

Finland had a famine 1867-1868. After that expected lifetime started to increase. There was a dip in generations born around civil war and then again during the Winter War and WWII. After that life expectancy continued to increase.

Source: Expected lifetime of population by year of birth. https://www.stat.fi/org/tilastokeskus/elinajanodote.html

>People who are now 75-80 had much better nutrition than generations before them.

I think we have to separate the quality of the food (vitamins, fiber, protein, sodium, etc.) from the quantity that was available, and when. You can have the lack of food in certain periods in Finland in the last 75-80 years, e.g. due to WWII. At the same time it's possible to have better food quality in the same period, due to increased globalization, since Finland probably never had so much access to fruits and vegetables in winter as it does in the last 80 years.

Wasn't that the theory based on results of people who lived through the 1930s US Great Depression. The lack of food actually improved life expectancy.

https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290

>Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930–1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites. For most age groups, mortality tended to peak during years of strong economic expansion (such as 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1936–1937). In contrast, the recessions of 1921, 1930–1933, and 1938 coincided with declines in mortality and gains in life expectancy.

Indeed. And as it happens my father is a member of that cohort. He's still alive and has looked 20 years younger than he is for his entire adult life.

> He's still alive and has looked 20 years younger than he is for his entire adult life.

Must have been awkward as a child.

> his entire adult life

so at 20 as an adult he looked like a baby?

Decreased smoking and alcohol used might be the reason. Pregnant women smoking and drinking was common.

This brings to mind the hypothesis that humans during the hunter-gatherer phase were better off health-wise without the adoption of agriculture.

Agriculture made humanity a lot more resilient to changes in food supply. Maybe this has negative consequences at the individual level but as a species level it's pretty clear which one is more favorable.

I don’t buy this. It’s not like humans had a species-wide conference and decided to adopt agriculture. It must have taken lots of tiny steps, each one somehow beneficial to the individuals taking them. The end result is not a guarantee either — we only think it was beneficial to the species because it survived. There could have been other “good ideas” in the area of food production that lasted for a hundred or a thousand years and then got wiped out in a single unfortunate event.

You dont need to buy it. Humans who relied on agriculture thrived in numbers or at least survives compared to the ones who relied on other means.

Your first comment made sense but this one just sounds like you’re making stuff up. Did you read the hypothesis? It’s been around since the 80s.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mist...

> Agriculture made humanity a lot more resilient to changes in food supply. Maybe this has negative consequences at the individual level but as a species level it's pretty clear which one is more favorable.

Sounds like it would be a trade-off then, not a clear favorite, depending on what you're optimizing for. Especially when we can afford to focus on maintaining health at an individual level too.

Calorie restriction during childhood has catastrophic effects on health, height, cognitive ability, and general mortality. Many of the detrimental effects are permanent, and calorie loss during childhood also explains a lot of the childhood fatalities during the Middle Ages, as a hungry person is much more likely to succumb from disease or a mid-level injury.

So, it depends on what you mean by “youth”. If you include anything below the 20s or so, then the answer is a strong, emphatic no.

Anecdata from my own grandparents (am Finnish) - diets were a bit less in calories, but also much simpler in nature. Finland has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, but say up to 1990's we didn't really have McDonalds, imported food, etc.

My grandfather is now over 90 years old, and his and my grandmothers diet has mainly been: 1) meats of different kind, sourced of course from grocery shops but also in a significant portion from nature (hunting) 2) fats, definitely of the saturated kind (animal + butter) 3) potatoes.

There were no salads, olive oils or anything deemed healthy by the modern standards on their plates. There were also no hamburgers, chips (or crisps if you're British), no coke (Coke arrived in Finland in the Olympic year 1952 - but it was deemed unhealthy VS orange soda, maybe by the benefit of the local soda company's marketing) and the main sugary treat was licorice candy and the occasional chocolate.

In summary, lower meal frequency would definitely be true, but also a diet with much more "close to source" ingredients.

While that generation lived long and fairly healthy lives (possibly because the weaker members of it were weeded out by the war) the current generation of seniors certainly looks and behaves much differently. My grandparents at 65 looked and behaved old. My parents at 65: much less.

(Yes, anecdata)

I wouldn't be surprised if this is dependent on the country of origin. Some countries have seen large increases in life expectancy, others not so much (the US, though this depends on where, people in some states are much more active than those in other states) or are even seeing declines (Russia).

Life expectancy as usually reported is a mean, and is typically affected more by reduction in things like childhood and childbirth mortality than a meaningful shift in longevity.

I believe life expectancy is a median. I.e. a life expectancy of 80 at birth means that half of them will die before that age.

Also keep in mind that mortality increases exponentially with age.

It is more often reported as a mean.

Either way, it is important to know what is reported when doing comparisons.

Does the life expectancy for U.S. citizens in the top 50% or 25% tell the same story?

Edit: of income I mean. Wealth is also maybe interesting

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't. There was a consistent, world-wide correlation between violent crime and atmospheric lead caused by automobiles and industry, which tanked in the nineties. There's no way that the disappearance of worldwide, generational brain damage isn't a factor.

I have grown old without having been young. - Victor Hugo

Tom Waits said something similar. "I started as an old man" or something along those lines.

> The functional ability of older people is nowadays better when it is compared to that of people at the same age three decades ago.

It better be. I expect the retirement age where I live to be over 70 by the time I retire (it is currently 68)

Remind me a Japanese Manga artist, Osamu Tezuka(1928-1989), His manga depict 60 years old as today's 80-90 years old.

There was a great Twitter thread last year where it was asked if people in the past looked older when they were younger: https://twitter.com/BMcCarthy32/status/1210350854571585537

Title needs (in Finland).

Childhood nutrition. Prenatal - 2 years old.

Finland has also come from a lower place than their neighbours so it's more pronounced. But childhood nutrition matters.

If people in entertainment look younger, realize that plastic surgery, hair transplants, dental bonding and hormone replacement have all gotten much better, cheaper and more mainstream.

It’s leaded gasoline. My parents generation were poisoned by it and is a significant reason for the dip in the critical thinking skills of this country.

Twitter/Reddit does not seem to showcase the best case of critical thinking from younger generations either, so not sure if that is even a factor at all.

It turns out we're mostly all just morons.

Use of leaded gasoline was very high when someone that is now 80 was a child and young adult (~1940 to phase out beginning in mid 70s).

There were many more automobiles post WWII than in the era prior also.

Better nutrition and medicine have to be a big piece of it.

Smoking, too. Not just that people smoked themselves, but 75 year olds in the 90s retired from smoking workplaces; restaurants had smoking areas; bars were smoking areas. You could smoke on planes until 1990.

I’m a gen-xer and when I was in my undergrad the lecture theatres had ashtrays beside all the seats. You couldn’t use them at that time, but I knew PhD students who said they were able to in their undergrad.

Indeed, I remember sitting in the non-smoking section of an airplane, one row behind the smoking section where everyone in that row was smoking.

A lot of good that did me!

It ain't over till it's over. - Yogi Berra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra#"Yogi-isms"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com