And, thinking more afterthoughts about this, it is largely true that modern science doesn’t really think very much about nutrition until there is some kind of a health-related crisis that can be addressed by breaking down nutrition into its chemical components. As in the examples of Scurvy, Beri-beri and Pellagra, which, each in its turn, spurred medical science to explore nutrition more deeply than had ever been needed before the emergence of those diseases as widespread issues.
Nope. What we knew about nutrition was not enough to support 7 billion people. What we knew was what we liked to eat out of what was available and living at low population densities in a hunter-gatherer style had us evolve such that those who did not prefer to eat a diet that ended up as nutritionally balanced died before reproducing as well. What happened was not the industrial revolution, not globalization, but the agricutural revolution which is what allowed for much greater population densities. Job one for achieving greater population densities was adequate calories. Nutritional diversity decreased as producing more calories more efficiently in a few crops replaced the variety that had preceded.
As we have increased the globe’s population the trick of supplying both enough calories and enough nutrition is more important to master. We are not there yet as a matter of political will but we do now have the knowledge to pull it off.
Feeding the soon to be 8 billion with more than adequate calories requires more knowledge than huner-gatherers needed. Hell, even avoiding obesity in a world in which we have industries creating products of extremely high calories and high palatability but not always of the highest nutrtition is tricky. The knowledge is adequate and necessary … it is not however sufficient.
Yes, that is how medical science has usually worked. Medical science is usually motivated by a desire to treat or to prevent problems, to treat and prevent disease. This is a revelation?
I don’t wish to derail this thread but I think there may be a couple billion people scattered around Africa and Asia that might question what you mean by knowing enough about nutrition to support 7 billion people. Having the knowledge is one thing, having the production and delivery capability is another, no?
Of course. So the thrust of the OP question then becomes “Why does the public health effect of poor nutrition get so little recognition as a problem that needs to be treated or prevented?” Why isn’t medical science, as you say, more motivated to address nutrition, in comparison to the amount of research dedicated to much more peripheral issues of public health?
When a a few people presented goiters, medical science quickly found out why, and the federal government mandated that all table salt in American be iodized. Ignoring the hypertension caused by all that salt in the first plalce. Yet, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol are contributing causes of death of maybe half of all Americans, and your doctor prescribes statins because he has no idea whatsoever how you can reduce your cholesterol by adjusting your diet, and conflicting new claims to that effect come out every few years, each with a scientific imprimatur…
I’m inclined to think that “so little ls known about nutrition” because there is a great deal more profit to be made from addressing the effects of ignorance, than in “fighting ignorance”.
Please read my post #2 again.
And my last post, and the point of Nipless’s …
We actually have the scientific knowledge to deal with the major nutritional issues of our time. We do not however have the political will and systems to utilize that knowledge effectively to deliver both adequate nutrition and calories to where it is desperately needed and to prevent the problems of caloric excess triggered by the products of the Food Industrial Complex. So we instead essentially debate about how many angels are dancing on the heads of pins.
Actually, we pretty much know all that we need to know to feed many more people than currently live on the planet. It’s just that human beings are exceedingly bad at consistently applying best practices.
Also, by definition we produce enough food (and therefore know how to do it) to feed the entire world population… because if we didn’t, some number of people would starve, and then we’d be back to equilibrium between the amount of food and the number of people.
An interesting thought: suppose food really was scarce. How far could we reasonably reduce our food intake? Take cars, elevators to avoid exercise, turn up the heat to avoid burning calories…
You are wrong.
“Scurvy, or described ailments equivalent to modern day scurvy, has been prevalent throughout much of human history. Scurvy likely began to occur in humans when agriculture was discovered.[114] Upon the adoption of an agrarian lifestyle, people were able to store various grains for use during winter months.[115] In turn, people were able to move into more temperate regions previously uninhabitable due the lack of a food supply during the long winters.[116] However, stored grains are extremely low in vitamin C, so it is likely that ancient people developed scurvy during the long winters because these grains would dominate their diet.”
Beri-beri was described in 2700 B.C. in China, and likely existed well before that. Pellagra was around for centuries before it was riddled in the early 1900s. It is in general ludicrous to suggest that nutritional disorders did not exist until modern industrialized societies formed.
Your doctor prescribes statins knowing that he/she can talk up calorie reduction and proper diet until blue in the face, and a limited percentage of patients will actually take that advice.
I suggest that jtur88 allow some facts to temper his resentment of the medical profession.
First point I agree with.
Second - well we do have people starving. Likely will have more. Not the best method of dealing with the issue in my mind.
And more not dying but in poorer health as a result of inadequate nutrition, some even in the face of adequate calories. That was the point of the bit I had quoted.
Yes, we need to apply our knowledge better.
Yes, we do produce enough food to feed everyone and yes, some number of people do starve. Why do you think they don’t?
The exact number is hard to ascertain and various groups have given various numbers at various times. That number is definitely greater than zero, though.
I found a factchecking piece that looked into these claims and found sources for them that seems legitimate.
That’s somewhere near 8,000,000 people a year depending on which number you decide to use. Admittedly, that number is tiny compared to the whole, within rounding error, so it does not provide equilibrium on a global basis. Within certain areas for short periods, however, I’m sure that it does lead to population decline.
Of course it does. Within certain areas for short periods car crashes lead to a population decline. Within certain areas for short periods choking to death on peanuts leads to a population decline.
That sort of vaguery doesn’t produce a meaningful statement.
Thanks, but I know exactly what I was saying.
First, I was pointing out the silliness of iljitsch’s dismissal of starvation on a global scale by reminding him that it has profound effects on local scales. Second, I was pre-emptively deflecting the usual type of nitpicking objection that starvation could indeed lead to population decline. Third, I was making sure that the subject remained on mass deaths from starvation rather than individual oddities. Fourth, I was trying to separate out the two major types of mass deaths from starvation: the prolonged lack of resources that produces far more malnutrition than actual death and the temporary severe shortages than come from famine or war.
I do far better than Humpty Dumpty: When I use a sentence, it means just what I choose it to mean. Though usually more than less.
Your determination to attack me instead of my facts has left you with no recourse but to misrepresent what I said. I did not say those diseases did not exist in earlier times, I said they did not represent a significantly widespread public health issue until more modern times, when they rose to epidemic proportions and then more intensified research was directed toward addressing them.
Your ad hominem attacks are getting wearisome, and I have nothing else to say in response to them.
You were not doing too bad with these statements:
Albeit the severe narrowing of nutritional diversity that resulted from the agricultural revolution (again producing more calories but less complete nutrition) resulted in significant nutrition deficiency illnesses before 5000 years ago.
Which is why your statement here is false:
Jackmanni in fact responded with facts to your false claim.
As to hypercholesterolemia … we actually have some decent, albeit still being refined, understanding of how to impact hypercholesterolemia. Not everyone responds though (and apparently some fraction are very sensitive to dietary cholesterol intake while a majority are not) and not everyone complies. The statement that “your doctor has no idea …” is complete claptrap. Even here, the issue is more our lack of efficacy in translating knowledge into implemented actions, more than the still being refined knowledge base.
You are right, I should have said “Those are modern*** epidemics of pre-existing *** diseases, brought on by modern man’s attempts to globalize.” My bad for that oversight.
Part of this reflects the piss poor state of science reporting in the media.
It works like this. Scientists discover that the injection of enzyme XYZ in rats with lymphoma, suppressed tumor growth by 52%. Further, they note that this enzyme is found in peanuts.
Media reports: SCIENTISTS SAY EATING PEANUTS WILL PREVENT CANCER
Then two months later another lab has found that increased concentrations of the Lipid PQW ,is found in the tumors of 20% of women with breast cancer, and notes that Lipid PQW is found in peanuts.
Media reports: SCIENTISTS SAY EATING PEANUTS WILL CAUSE CANCER.
The public therefore concludes that science has no validity.
So while the results reported in research journals are not " contradictory, written by hacks with economic or ulterior motives, in the absence of well-researched scientific data." much of what is reported in the media is, particularly if its written by an alternative medicine supplement company.
Your latest, um, clarification (the claim that nutritional diseases were relatively insignificant in ancient times but exploded into epidemics in the modern era) is based on what evidence?
And how exactly do the scientific advances of the last hundred or so years (which made clear the etiologies of these diseases) support your thesis that medicine knows little about nutrition?
The OP’s flounderings remind me of the oft-repeated mantra that cancer is a modern disease caused by unnatural lifestyles and medical care, which ignores two key points: 1) there is indeed evidence of cancer in ancient times, and 2) cancer is more prominently recognized now due to better diagnosis and to increased life spans, since premature deaths from trauma, infection (and yes, nutritional deficiencies) are less common in much of the world.
Obviously. Before people had running water and doctors started washing their hands, it wasn’t easy to live long enough to get cancer.
(I always wonder about life “styles”. What has style to do with anything?)
Before city living, cars, artificial light, desk jobs and so on and modern medicine, people died much younger than today. So obviously we’re doing something right. Also, if you keep people alive who would have died otherwise, don’t be surprised if you end up with a larger contingent of less healthy people.
That said, there are some diseases that are in large part caused by our modern way of living, and it would be nice if we could do something about that. I’m very interested to find out which ones will go away over the next decades and which ones will only get worse.
Indeed jtur88 most nutritional diseases leave little fossil record. A few do however, in particular severe iron deficiency leaves a particular pattern in skeletal remains. It is pretty well established that the extreme narrowing of the nutritional base associated with the agricultural revolution (and again, which provided enough calories to support increased population densities) was associated with endemic iron deficiency, be it in ancient Egyptor in the Americas. Also severe caries and overall shortened lifespans for those who did not die of trauma. Mind you I am NOT arguing for the so-called “Paleolithic diet” or that grains are teh evil … just that the over-reliance on that one food group that allowed for enough calories to keep more alive also was associated with nutritional deficiencies long before they were recognized as such and long before the industrial revolution or globalization ever occurred. (If anything I think the observation argues against the needless narrowing of the nutritional base excluding all grains, legumes, dairy, etc. that some so-called Paleos practice … but those have been other threads.)
I guess you are right that they were not nutritional epidemics as they were present fairly constantly in large numbers … more properly they were endemics of nutritional deficiency that significantly decreased quality of life.