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The Shadow of the Neolithic Revolution on Life Expectancy: A Double-Edged Sword, Franck et al., 2022

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Jaybee00, Jul 12, 2022.

  1. Jaybee00

    Jaybee00 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    https://www.nber.org/papers/w30221

    This research explores the persistent effect of the Neolithic Revolution on the evolution of life expectancy in the course of human history. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that the onset of the Neolithic Revolution and the associated rise in infectious diseases triggered a process of adaptation reducing mortality from infectious diseases while increasing the propensity for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Exploiting an exogenous source of variation in the timing of the Neolithic Revolution across French regions, the analysis establishes the presence of these conflicting forces - the beneficial effects on life expectancy before the second epidemiological transition and their adverse effects thereafter.
     
    Jaybee00, Jul 12, 2022
    #1
    merylg, Hutan, Barry and 2 others like this.
  2. Jaybee00

    Jaybee00 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Jaybee00, Jul 12, 2022
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    TiredSam, hellytheelephant and Peter Trewhitt like this.
  3. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    Nice idea, but doesn't it seem a bit far fetched when it comes to the actual data? The Neolithic period is the first agricultural revolution - when farming was first adopted. That's a long time ago - 4500-1700 BC in France according to Wikipedia.

    They claim that data in the 1870s shows that regions in France that were late to adopt farming had lower life expectancies than in other regions all those centuries later, because the immune systems of human populations were still gearing up to cope with the new onslaught of disease.

    But come the mid 20th century and the introduction of modern medicine and sanitation, those regions that were late to adopt farming had higher life expectancies, because their immune systems had not gone so far into overdrive, and so were not causing autoimmune diseases.


    They claim to have taken into account all the reasons why agriculture might have been slow to develop in a region during the Neolithic period, but that seems doubtful. Isn't a theory that remote regions that were the last to be developed for agriculture maintained low population densities throughout - with poverty largely responsible for low life expectancies in the 1870s. And then in the 1950s, these remote areas were comparatively healthy places to be, with less pollution, more opportunities for exercise and perhaps less processed food. Importantly, a system of social welfare was introduced from the 1930s, so poverty was not such a determinant of life expectancy:
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2022
    Hutan, Jul 12, 2022
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  4. LarsSG

    LarsSG Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Perhaps economists should stick to economics (which they aren't actually very good at anyways), rather than trying to do health research. This seems pretty farfetched; these small differences in life expectancy could be explained by any number of more likely factors than the precise timing of the adoption of agriculture.
     
    LarsSG, Jul 12, 2022
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  5. TiredSam

    TiredSam Committee Member

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    Reminds me of evolutionary psychology - anyone can make up anything and make it sound plausible.
     
    TiredSam, Jul 14, 2022
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  6. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Arnie Pye, Jul 14, 2022
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    Mithriel, Hutan and Peter Trewhitt like this.
  7. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    1950....
    The beginnings of mass chemical use in agriculture.
    The beginnings of engineered products to improve our lives ( cleaning compounds , plastics etc) for mass market in a consumer society.

    Your vegetables may have been sprayed 32 times with a variety of chemicals before they get sold and there is very little study of the effects of that total combination , either snapshot or over time.

    Add in other chemical soup factors from modern life and it's a complex picture. Some people seem to be very sensitive to certain chemicals - an area for some interesting research.

    In developing countries where agricultural chemical use can be overuse there have been studies on the effect in hormonal development in kids ( not good)

    Wood .... trees?
     
    Amw66, Jul 15, 2022
    #7
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