A large part of the life expectancy calculation was death due to childhood infectious diseases. Antibiotics really made a difference in survival rates. Lots of children didn’t make it past the age of 5. That’ll drag down the life expectancy averages.
Sure... the poster that quoted stats to me skipped the obvious about Eskimos. Those folks live in the harshest environment you can live it. And if they can live to a ripe old age of 43... well God bless ‘em! But you can no way, shape or form compare them with anyone living elsewhere...
Life expectancy at age 20 — a measure that filters out the effects of childhood diseases — has increased 20 years since the turn of the 20th century. The numbers for the Inuit weren’t detailed enough to break out childhood disease, but their climate makes many childhood diseases far less prevalent.
It is also true that while within our lifetimes and our parents’ and grandparents’, we have cut out a lot of the lard and bacon and other former staples; but that diet was largely a relatively recent phenomenon to begin with.
All that bacon fat and beef tallow has been largely cut out, but replaced with trans fats, hydrogenated oils, and far more fried food. Before the 20th century, rich, fatty foods were daily fare only for the rich. Today, with fast food, pre-packaged meals and snacks, obesity is the primary nutritional problem among the poor.
The statement to which I was responding is that if cholesterol, etc. were really unhealthful, our ancestors would have died off. The implication is that their diets were worse, and it didn’t make them less healthy. Two false premises: They were less healthy, and our diet today is not much, if at all, healthier.