It grows up is something new for humans. Why are we very bad now?

Aging is inevitable, but it did not always look like the long history of mankind. This is one of the main buildings behind Michael Georvin’s new book, which was just released, Seven decades: How we have evolved to live longer.

Gorvin is an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who spent most of his career in a study and lives alongside societies such as Tsiman in South America, and indigenous population groups that live largely in a mixture of small crops, fishing, and gathering. Although these people have It started increasingly coming In connection with the modern world, they are still giving a glimpse of the past of humanity before manufacturing on a large scale.

Based on his work and others with subsistence communities today, Gurven makes the convincing issue that although the usual age of the ordinary person today has expanded significantly and our health has improved in general, there is nothing new in particular about the length of human life itself. The elderly have always been, even in the past ages when staying more dangerous than it was today. Moreover, he adds, there is a lot that we can get to know about the best ways to multiply in our modern times by studying how our ancestors did this before many biops.

Gizmodo talks to Gurven about his decision not to treat age medicines, the most common misconceptions about aging, and how groups such as TSIMANé can help us better in estimating the elderly. The next conversation was lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

Ed Kara, Gizmodo: I think many people who are taking a book about aging expect to read about the brackets of the corner or lowerly supposed to extend our lives significantly. What made you want to focus more on the development of human aging?

Michael Georvin: Thank you for asking that, because I always feel concerned that the first question that I will get is exactly: “What are the secrets? What are the hidden gemstones?”

Everything is about the potential of where we can end – the power of medicine and renewal technology. but I really wanted back to look forward. One of the book’s buildings is that the longevity is not an incredibly modern thing, but it is built into our DNA. It is integrated into our biology. We have already accomplished the possibility of longevity.

Because of this, I see a different kind of optimism. There is this fear on Silver tsunami And all that is in line with the aging of the world population. I wanted to point out that this is not a new type of problems. There are no elderly elderly and now a lot of elderly people. So I wanted to give a history of understanding that we have already lived with the elderly as part of our inhabitants.

And I wanted to claim that instead of the longevity as a result of our success as a type, causal stocks may be in the opposite direction. We have been a very successful type because of our age.

We have had problems before, and we can solve this proceeding forward, but it will not be a problem that is solved only with new technology and improved molecular medicine. There are lessons that must be learned here by estimating our natural history.

Gizmodo: Your book covers many different aspects and situations on how people era today compared to the past. What do you say are some of the biggest misconceptions about the length of human life and aging?

Jorvin: The largest is just a misunderstanding of what is expected in general.

When people say that the average life expectancy was much shorter in the past and perhaps even in the thirties of the last century, this does not mean that everyone lived until the age of thirty and then died. Even with the shortest average life expectancy, you can have much longer people, because it is average. Because we are used to facing many deaths early in life, this mainly reduces this average.

Gizmodo: On the contrary, are there ways that people can add a romantic character to the past and how did we live and die before manufacturing?

Jorvin: Everyone is looking for the fisherman’s university, and they see what they want to see. Either they see the hellish scene of “everyone against everyone” and how life was really terrible, or some people see a very romantic scenario, as everyone was vegetarian and hugging trees with nature, this type of things.

So, in reality, interest in how the fisherman’s university lives is an important type of lesson that I try to transfer, with experience immediately after I worked with these types of groups. Which of these myths is somewhat outside the base, and which is what may be real in reality?

Gizmodo: Reaching this, what are the things we learned from studying the longevity and the oldest organs in societies such as TSIMANI?

Jorvin: One thing, which may be in line with thinking that no one has lived this time for a long time, is just the idea that many of the aging diseases that we take as a Muslim in it will become only whatever the matter, because it is difficult to think of aging without thinking about heart and dementia and those types of things. But the truth is that in these somewhat high population (such as tsimané), these types of diseases are not seen, and this is not because no one lives for those ages when these diseases usually appear. Even when we follow people from the age of forty ascending, we can see that people do not develop heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease or diabetes.

This is similar to an important type of lesson because this tells us that there is a lot to learn about these diseases, which are our main sources of deaths in the industrial world.

We already know that if you don’t smoke, you are physically active, maintaining reasonable weight, and eating well, you can live a healthier life. But when you can see this at the entire population level, as the entire population can live without heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, this is very cool. Thus, it indicates that these major risk factors – smoking, physical inactivity, excess weight, etc. – calculate the vast majority of deaths from non -infectious diseases, which exceed half of the deaths, which we test today; It explains that these deaths are already preventing them with the things that the entire population is doing already.

I also think there are broader lessons about what the elderly and their expectations do. There is no official retirement at the age of 65 or at any age in the fisherman’s university. There is no expectation that you now have a free life; You know, choose a cruise. Thus, I definitely love the idea that with this kind of growth mentality, learning is a lifelong process, right? And aging is not just the opposite of growth. It is not just a retreat; There is constant growth.

This does not mean that every person continues to do the exact thing until he dies. In fact, there are great transformations in what men and women tend to do in these societies. But the important point, somewhat of zooming, is that it remains relevant, remains involved, and remains involved.

Gizmodo: What do you hope that people will take away more than this book – those who reach their older years, as well as those who have grandparents or the elderly in their lives?

Jorvin: I hope to inspire a new kind of optimism. Optimism not only depends on glorifying our lives, longevity, or even healthy stretching. I mean, these things are important, and I am happy because there are other books and other people working on it. But what I am trying to get is to think about a deeper level about where we are now and where we go during the upcoming marital contracts.

There are no medical solutions that will make children 85 years like children between 35 years old, right? Realistically, in the upcoming marital contracts, I hope that people will recently draw how to rethink the elderly and think of respect for our elderly as elders, while realizing that we have something to learn from them, and that there is a place for them, and that it is not just a service for these elders, but we all benefit from their lives in our lives.

Part of looking back in this book is to show all the different ways we have already done during our evolutionary history.

Seven decades: How did we evolve to live for a longer period Run Published By Princeton University Press, it is available online or in a technical cover.