Roman Gladiators were vegetarians (pregnancy, blood tests, heart, feeling)
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Sounds great!!...But if junk food is so bad for us, why are Americans living so much longer now than we used to?
The real answer of course is that many other factors are also in play, and they are much more important than any deleterious effects of diet. In fact, unless you're a diaabetic, have severe liver or kidney problems or specific dietary intolerances, diet makes no difference at all to your health...In America, if you're getting enough calories to maintain a normal weight, you're probably getting eough protein, vits & mins too.
Nobody wants to hear this, but-- our mothers were all lying to us about the importance of diet.
I disagree strongly with this.
The people in their 80s and 90s, pushing our longevity stats, spent much of their lives eating far healthier than those in later generations. The great depression deeply impacted their eating and spending habits.
You are sorta right about diabetes, but today's "normal" diet is leading to an epidemic of diabetes. Diet plays a strong role in type II diabetes. The proliferation of highly processed foods and bad fats is causing higher blood sugar spikes.
Now there are a few people that have the genetics to eat these foods with no bad outcomes but for most of us, it's a problem. Just look at China. As their food supply became more industrialized and processed, diabetes has exploded. I think last I saw there were 100 million plus diabetics in China alone.
Sure physical activity plays a role, but diet plays a bigger role.
Sounds great!!...But if junk food is so bad for us, why are Americans living so much longer now than we used to?
The real answer of course is that many other factors are also in play, and they are much more important than any deleterious effects of diet. In fact, unless you're a diaabetic, have severe liver or kidney problems or specific dietary intolerances, diet makes no difference at all to your health...In America, if you're getting enough calories to maintain a normal weight, you're probably getting eough protein, vits & mins too.
Nobody wants to hear this, but-- our mothers were all lying to us about the importance of diet.
We're living longer because medicine has improved. Diabetes is treatable. There's been amazing progress in cancer treatments. Pacemakers, stents, surgically implanted defib devices -
It's easy to eat badly now, and still live longer than previous generations.
And - it's diet that is the #1 cause of diabetes. Severe liver and kidney problems are often caused by - overindulgence in fatty foods and/or proteins, and/or alcohol. Diet makes a HUGE difference in your health.
But medicine also makes a HUGE difference in your health.
US life expectancy has actually been falling the past couple years.
The "SAD" diet contributes to obesity, which carries a host of health problems. Diet makes a HUGE difference to your health.
Headline from Kaiser Family Foundation: "The U.S. Has the Lowest Life Expectancy Among Large, Wealthy Countries While Far Outspending Them on Health Care"
If you watch this documentary you will be eating your words.
On the other side we have this example of what another great conquerer, and his team ate. I saved the below from 2014.
"I’ve been reading a biography of Genghis Khan. Protein helps Genghis Khan conquer the world written by an anthropologist who spent over five years in Mongolia researching his subject. I came across an interesting paragraph that I thought I would share. A little background.
After Genghis Khan had achieved dominion over the entirety of Mongolia he received notice that his submission was required by the Golden Khan, the leader of the Jurched dynasty centered in what is now northern China. Genghis Khan decided to attack rather than submit. He began preparations for a march by his thousands of troops (the so-called Mongol horde) across the Gobi Desert and an attack on the Golden Khan, who resided in what is now Beijing.
The quote:
>>>The Chinese noted with surprise and disgust the ability of the Mongol warriors to survive on little food and water for long periods; according to one, the entire army could camp without a single puff of smoke since they needed no fires to cook. Compared to the Jurched soldiers, the Mongols were much healthier and stronger. The Mongols consumed a steady diet of meat, milk, yogurt, and other diary products, and they fought men who lived on gruel made from various grains. The grain diet of the peasant warriors stunted their bones, rotted their teeth, and left them weak and prone to disease. In contrast, the poorest Mongol soldier ate mostly protein, thereby giving him strong teeth and bones. Unlike the Jurched soldiers, who were dependent on a heavy carbohydrate diet, the Mongols could more easily go a day or two without food.<<<
I’ve always maintained that one can discover more nutritional wisdom from the anthropological data than from the giant mass of current medical papers. This quote proves it."
"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan.
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege.
From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made."
To correct some misinformatiojn-- diabetes is not "caused" by diet....It is caused by genetics and shows itself when calorie intake is excessive-- a classic example of the interaction of genetics & environment--the Nature + Nurture situation...
Eg- the best treatment for DM is dietary, so if the genetic diabetic always watches his diet and never shows hi BS-- has he avoided diabetes, or merely treated his diabetes adequately?
Secondly-- effect of Fentanyl on Life Expectancy-- 40,000 excess, premature deaths/yr at age 20 (for easy arithmetic to illustrate the math) means 4x10^4 x -6x10 (80 yrs - 20ys) = - 2.4 x 10^6 pt- yrs....
3x10^6 deaths /yr x average age of 80 yrs= 2.4x 10^8 pt-yrs...
The ratio of those "negative" pt yrs to the average is a 1% ie-- a fall in LE by almost 10 months ...I overestimated the Fentanyl deaths a little and underestimated the age at death for easy arithjmetic, but you can see the big impact it has on the final number. Using more precise estimates would bring the answer down to the couple months fall in LE we have actually seen....or should we be blaming Obamacare for the fall (perfect correlation)?
To get back to the gladiators/vegetarian thing-- note that gladiators where exclusvely prisoners of war from barbaric tribes (meat eaters). Comparing their bone density to the city dwelling Roman citizens just proves that they were meat eaters. Eating grains for a few yrs in captivity as adults isn't going to change their bone density.
...Also note that everything we know about gladiators anf gladiatorioal games is based on about 15 lines of contemporary Latin literature, niether of which gives any particulars, and what we can surmise based on just a handful of murals & floor mosaics and artifacts like a couple helmets & swords.....Most of what we think we know is based on Hollywood depictions...even the famous "thumbs up & thumbs down" thing is fantasy extrapolated from the only two references we have from the lit-- "pollice verso" (with thumb turned back) to indicate that the loser be put to death- and that wasn't the usual outcome.
Seeing folks triggered by the word 'vegetarian' never fails to entertain. Just saying the word is a call to arms to ward off the threat of the lettuce eaters.
Living longer with poor health isn't a good idea. Being kept alive by medically and not naturally is not a good way to live.
Yes, quality of life is VERY important. Will my healthy eating make me live longer? I wouldn't count on that.
For me, it DOES give me a better quality of life.
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Living longer with poor health isn't a good idea. Being kept alive by medically and not naturally is not a good way to live.
Dunno. I have family members who are Type 1 diabetics. They get insulin, they live. What's the problem?
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