"Hey, if you don't like the paleo idea, go ahead and keep eating crap. I don't care."

Your answer is good enough if it's just a dinner party sort of back and forth. The people tossing out that attack aren't really thinking about it, so your response will probably overwhelm them. Its only weakness is that it validates their statement by responding to it directly; you can also simply question where they heard that number and if they've ever validated it. Since no one actually has, this gives you an opportunity to insert your own research to fill the void.

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf

Basically, modern industrial societies beat out modern HGs by a decade or so, likely due to modern medicine. That's a far cry from modern Americans living to 70 and cavemen dying at 40, and disarms the thrust of their argument, which is that cavemen died before manifesting the diseases of civilization.

"Caveman did not die young, he was killed young - by traumatic birth, animal threats, accidents, or a jealous boyfriend (ever wonder why you hesitate to ask a girl out?)."

The caveman lifespan was as long as ours or longer.

"If someone is killed in a car smash - does it mean their diet was to blame?"

It is as logical as saying that a cave man who died of, say, a fall from a tree when there were no emergency services to call on died because his/ her diet was faulty.

These days we go to the doctor if we get sick, wounded, or infected. Cavemen died.

Our statistical longevity is primarily due to a decline in infant mortality

Before 100-200 years ago average life expectancy at birth was low (roughly 30 years?) for everyone everywhere. I have read that in 18th century London it was about 18 years.

Eating a paleo diet does not prevent you dying of infection as a baby or as an adult or during childbirth. Probably half of children died before the age of 15 in both paleolithic and agricultural times, mostly from infectious diseases.

Modern life expectancy is largely due to sanitation, hygine and modern medicine (vaccination, childbirth care, antibiotics etc).

A paleolithic type way of eating healthy food, of which there are many varieties, is about staying "healthy" as best you can and avoiding preventable modern problems including obesity, diabetes and others.

In my opinion many traditional societies ways of eating are likely to be similar to a paleodiet in terms of these benefits, such as Polynesian, Okinawan, Cretan and others. It depends what suits the individual.

Ah! But old stone age man (caveman) didn't die young. He outlived his immediate successor, new stone age man (farmer), by about 65%. Take a look at these life expectancy statistics.

This is my response verbatim regarding my English teacher's response to my argumentative essay about the benefits of the Paleo diet towards t2 diabetes: "the argument that they only lived to 30-40 years is a misconception, average life expectancy at birth (higher rates of death in childhood brings the average way down) does not mean that most people died at 30-40 years of age.  It is the same as saying that 'the average human has one testicle and one ovary', it is likely that no one is average in that regard."

It was more of a spontaneous response and not a research based one, he did increase my grade however because of it.

Jared Diamond calls agriculture (and this paper) "The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race"

Our life expectancy went down when agriculture was introduced, not up. Diet had nothing to do with it going back up in the last century.

And you can't forget quality of life. Even if our life expectancy has gone up recently, we now have an explosion of diseases that were virtually non-existent in traditional societies. The gut reaction is to blame this on our longer life expectancy... until you remember that even children are becoming obese at alarming rates.

I read it on the Internet.

Seriously.

That's how much we know about cavemen. What I do know is how I look, feel, and perform in all ways always

And I know what people rating standard health fare:wheat look...

Does it make sense that bad food gives me the body of an athlete and wheat the body of a slob?

Then again, evolution is not about optimization but comparative advantage. Grok didn't need to live forever or always be full of energy. He just needed to be able to scrounge his food when he needd it and make it to reproductive age plus a few years for provision for his offspring. I think that's the discussion to have: Was what we ate in the past, because it sprang from the forces of evolution, necessarily the best for us or was it simply good enough? This is no way posted to support the argument for the modern agri-based diet.

Once you meet modern day cavemen who are 70-80-90 years old you will not believe in that fairy tale any longer.

I see no reason why the lifespan of a paleo would be any different to, say, an Andaman Indian. At least up until the tourist industry found them, that is. Many Indian Indians I know were born, have lived and will die without medical assistance. We boast we have a better diet because we live longer than they but, what if we too lived and died that way? I for one would have died at 51.

Lots of nice answers in this video around 2:55 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCFZoqmKf5M

http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml there is a decent chart that tracks life expectancy and a couple health markers over the ages. Not really an "answer" to the assertion cavemen lived shorter lives. But could be emailed to a doubter.

I don't believe paleo people died routinely of infections. Infections that are unable to be fought by the body are a result of poor diet. People were not crowded together so sanitation was not an issue.

There are researchers doing work now indicating that low/no carbohydrate intake coupled with fasting or less frequent eating leads to increase in lifespan. And the animals being studied age slower. So that an animal living twice as long that is actually 6 weeks old looks like it is 3 weeks old. Given that, how would you actually know the age of paleo skeletons? We're using our point of reference.

Extrapolate this to the bible. I'm not one to use religion to explain science, but I do view the bible as a history book. In the early part, very early in agricultural times, people were living to 900 years. Later the lifespans decreased until they approached what we are more familiar with. I believe that the recording of age was accurate and that prehistoric man actually lived hundreds of years.

I read in a magazine that some scientist had found out that older people where left behind when the younger hunter and gathers moved on from their camps, if the older people couldn`t keep up with them. The older people were left behind to get killed by wild animals..

Infectious disease

Caveman died young because all of the women didn't shave their arm pits, legs and arms. Or Aliens.

Of course paleo man died young, he was on the menu for everything else. just remind them that they are Genetically identical to the people that lived back then yet they didnt suffer modern diseases and they dont have to either. Eating paleo isnt going to kill me. unless i die in a stanpede of horny old women because im the only old man that can still get it up.

I'm confused, I'm a thin,fit,healthy vegetarian who eats most veg foods in moderation... why are so many paleo eaters so crazy sanctimonius? I'm an idiot no doubt, as I don't eat meat..

No doubt you are vaccinating your children... did paleo-man do that?

Saber-toothed tigers, yo.

cave men ate little meat and ate it raw.. because they couldn't catch the animals that often, not to mention what meats they actually ate were rodents and fish (easier catch). Not to mention they ate alot of grains.. so why deny healthy grains and suggest too much animal protein.. tell me this- can you possibly stay alkaline with this diet. ??

I follow an 80 alkaline and 20 acidic diet to keep my ph in balance. I also eat 5o-75 percent raw foods.. Now that there is a more realistic life-time menu to follow.

This is a diet (too close to atkins) and it will see bad long term results, if it is not generalized on the amount of meat that is a healthy daily intake... and it makes no sense taking away smart health filled grains.

btw.. we ARE NOT cavemen! Duh! Would anyone really want to look like one??

It simply sounds like a 'diet'and seems short term, without an aim for lifestlye that has lifetime benefits..

All bodies need to follow the 80/20 rule to stay healthy period! And all people should consume a majority of their daily food raw.. it's the only way to receive all our foods benefits and antioxidants

Mean life expectancy in the paleolithic was around 35. In 1900, world-wide life expectancy was 32.54.

Most of the advancement in life expectancy has come from modern and gestational medical advances. Most of which occurred from 1900 to 1950. Life expectancy is not a valid metric...

The other argument you get is that they see pictures of old Greeks and Romans who lived into their 60s.... Yes, the development of an upper-class increased the life expectancy for the privileged, not everyone.

"You see any Saber-tooth Tigers around here bro? No? Yea, I haven't either."

Factors affecting the average life expectancy of cavemen include: poor shelter and clothing in a harsh climate; incidental deaths from encountering dangerous animals; higher infant mortality. All of these will drive the average down, but does not mean that the population is less healthy. Put a modern person eating SAD in a paleolithic context without modern luxuries and they will not live for very long.