Also the lifespan was much shorted at that time, so people had less changes to get these illnesses.
Of course as cities were built, the life expectancy went right back down to the 35-40 years it had been previously.
You're right of course that living longer gives us the chance to get "old people's" diseases. But the majority of the gains were made from 1900 to the 1940s, the climb is much, much slower after that.
That makes a lot more sense than a lot of the nutrition bullshit that gets posted to HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8827382
Yes, the absolute number of cancer cases experienced by an individual over the course of life will increase if the individual lives longer by surviving other causes of death, as cancer is mostly a disease that takes a long time to develop. But at a given age, individuals in the developed world are at less risk than ever before to have a case of cancer, and cancer cases are less likely to have fatal outcomes than ever before.
Remember that whenever you hear a curious claim like "But back then, 40 was considered elderly!" Never was.
Oh, I see, you downvote people other than the hivemind comments so that they never reach the levels to downvote themselves. I get it. Kinda sad and pathetic, but whatever, Internet numbers don't mean quite that much to me. It's additonally sad that I don't have any discreditation to my comment. You know you are wrong, but you downvote me anyway.