Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
June 2011
A maxim that has been attributed to Nobel Laureate Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgy is "For every complex question there is a simple answer — and it's wrong." The historical attribution may not be correct but the statement is. This certainly applies to the matter of good health: there is no simple answer.
Sagging bellies, flabby muscles, arthritic joints, clogged coronaries, fragile bones, cancer and a host of lifestyle-shattering problems such as dementia and diabetes are not due to any single factor. They represent a gradual accumulation of poor lifestyle choices that actually begin before we are born to plague us by the time we enter into middle age. Until we acknowledge that almost all of these disorders are modern maladies unknown to our Stone Age ancestors there is no hope of stopping or even slowing the financial crisis that threatens the healthcare industry and with it, the national economy.
The elimination of tobacco would dramatically change the incidence of several cancers, of coronary artery disease, stroke and even osteoporosis but this 400-year-old habit shows no sign of disappearing. Even if it did there are several co-conspirators that contribute heavily to these illnesses, notably our collective refusal to exercise and our intake of sugar on a scale that would appall our great-great grandparents.
Humans are designed to expend 3 or 4 thousand calories every day just to survive, for that's what we needed to do for many thousands of generations. Yet it has been less than ten generations since steam power, the gasoline engine and electricity nearly eliminated the need for human muscle power. The average modern hunter-gatherer walks about nine miles per day; only golfers and mail carriers have done even half that in recent times and almost none do today.
How many occupations can you name that require lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling more than a few pounds? Airport baggage handlers may be the exception, perhaps explaining why few of them, according to my observation, are obese.
Diet is another example. Think of how the foods of hunter-gatherers in the Aleutians and Australia differ from each other. Yet both groups are almost totally free of Western diseases unless they are exposed to Western diets.
Robust health doesn't depend on a single food, herb, vitamin or exercise routine. It does depend on a genetically appropriate lifestyle. More plant food, less feedlot meat, fewer oils except from olives, no bad habits. Not simple, but doable.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.