Osteoporosis
Pick one disease of civilization that interests you in particular, and research how changes in lifestyle may have been associated with its rise.
The disease of civilization that I decided to research was osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a disease in which your body cannot build new bone as quickly as it is getting destroyed. This leads to brittle and fragile bones.
Osteoporosis is a disease that is typically associated with aging, and typically occurs after menopause in women. Osteoporosis is super common in aging populations, and has been named on of the main civilization diseases.
I found an article that discusses how the rise of osteoporosis and decreased bone mass could be a result from our change from hunter/gatherers to farming. The study found that bones from hunter-gathers almost 7,000 years ago where a lot denser that bones of farmer almost 6,000 years later. They specifically found that the hunter-gather bones had 20% more bone mass. The big question is what caused such a difference in bone mass in modern civilization?
One hypothesis is that when we switched from forgers to farmers, diets also changed. These diets weren't able to sustain a heavier skeleton. Another hypothesis is that the switch from forgers to farmers decreased our exercise and movement which led to lower bone mass. The researcher for this study doesn't think the first hypothesis is the reason for decreased bone mass. He thinks that if that was the case, modern human skeletons would be completely distinct from hunter-gathers and living primates. He thinks the more likely reason is the decrease in exercise. If exercise at early stages in life increases, then the bone mass will increase. Having this higher bone mass will help, so the aging and weakening of bones isn't so detrimental.
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Hi Taylor! What aspects of their diets changed? From what I know, I think people generally take calcium and Vitamin D supplements for osteoporosis, so I would assume with farming and the domestication of cattle, the farmers would be drinking more milk and get nutrients that way. I think I tend to agree with that author - that a lack of exercise would be associated with the disease. Great post!!
ReplyDeleteHi Taylor,
ReplyDeleteWhat made you decide to do research on this topic?
Regarding on the research you did, I think I agree with the author about the decrease of exercise causing this disease, even though I think that the nutrients can also have an effect towards this disease!
Hey there Taylor,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I didn't even think about how this disease affected people in the past. I think it's quite odd that they had a decrease in bone mass. One would think it would increase due to the amount of exercise they do when farming.