Thanks nickcarraway.
Posted on 09/24/2024 3:56:26 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A recent analysis of classical medical texts suggests dementia was extremely rare in ancient Greece and Rome 2,000 to 2,500 years ago.
The USC-led research, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, bolsters the idea that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are diseases of modern environments and lifestyles, with sedentary behavior and exposure to air pollution largely to blame.
“The ancient Greeks had very, very few—but we found them—mentions of something that would be like mild cognitive impairment,” said first author Caleb Finch, a University Professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.
“When we got to the Romans, and we uncovered at least four statements that suggest rare cases of advanced dementia—we can’t tell if it’s Alzheimer’s.” said Fich, “So, there was a progression going from the ancient Greeks to the Romans.”
Dementia in ancient Greece was not mentioned by Hippocrates Ancient Greeks recognized that aging commonly brought memory issues we would recognize as mild cognitive impairment or MCI, but nothing approaching a major loss of memory, speech, and reasoning as caused by Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.
Grecian Delight supports Greece Finch and co-author Stanley Burstein, a historian at California State University, Los Angeles, pored over a major body of ancient medical writing by Hippocrates and his followers.
The text catalogs ailments of the elderly, such as deafness, dizziness, and digestive disorders, but makes no mention of memory loss.
Centuries later in ancient Rome, a few mentions crop up. Galen remarks that at the age of eighty, some elderly begin to have difficulty learning new things.
Pliny the Elder notes that the senator and famous orator Valerius Messalla Corvinus forgot his own name.
Cicero prudently observed that “elderly silliness…is characteristic of irresponsible old men, but not of all old men.”
Finch speculates that, as Roman cities grew denser, pollution increased, driving up cases of cognitive decline.
In addition, Roman aristocrats used lead cooking vessels, lead water pipes, and even added lead acetate into their wine to sweeten it, unwittingly poisoning themselves with the powerful neurotoxin.
Scientists turned to indigenous people to learn about Greece and Rome For this paper, Finch did not just think about the Roman Empire or the Greeks.
In the absence of demographic data for ancient Greece and Rome, Finch turned to a surprising model for ancient aging: today’s Tsimane Amerindians, an Indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon.
The Tsimane, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, have a preindustrial lifestyle that is very physically active, and they have extremely low rates of dementia.
An international team of cognitive researchers, led by Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology, gerontology, and preventive medicine at the USC Leonard Davis School, found that among older Tsimane people, only about one percent suffer from dementia.
In contrast, eleven percent of people aged sixty-five and older living in the United States have dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“The Tsimane data, which is quite deep, is very valuable,” Finch said.
“This is the best-documented large population of older people that have minimal dementia, all of which indicates that the environment is a huge determinant on dementia risk. They give us a template for asking these questions.”
My thoughts as well.
Most, an average, did not live to the ages when dementia is usually seen. Thus dementia cases were fewer because death was more often before average onset of dementia.
Hmmm...
Would we not expect otherwise when the average life expectancy was about 50% of todays’?
Want to lower the risk of dementia?
Easily done by increasing your smoking, drug use, covid injections, alcohol consumption, weekends spent in Chicago, and flying on Boeing or Russkie airlines...
“When the average life expectancy was 30 or so, one would not expect to find much dementia.”
Ever been to a college campus and tried talking to the coeds there?
idiotic “study” ...
the ancients didn’t live long enough to succumb to cancer,dementia, heart disease, and a plethora of other diseases and genetic time-bombs that set in after age of 60.
the ancients died LONG before that of illnesses that modern medicine routinely cure with a couple bucks worth of antibiotics and other cheap generic medications and relatively simple procedures and surgeries ...
Not surprising...the median life expectancy was 35.
“What was the average life span back then?”
Basically 60+, but only if you made it to age 20, which was less than half of the people born, but then the birthrate was far higher than today’s birthrate.
The main reason for not people not getting dementia was that no one took statins, and thus their brains received the high levels of cholesterol needed to operate properly.
I was thinking of the life expectancy, but there was a certain portion of the population that lived to be quite aged.
How many of them lived past 80? I’ll bet they didn’t get a lot of prostate cancer, either.
It looks like the life expectancy was around 35, with a chance of making it past 40 if you could make it to 15.
So, not many cases of “old timers disease”. This story smells like a cattle feed lot on an August afternoon.
Yes,I’m sure that’s true.But if 1.2% of the population made it to 70 then seeing someone with brain rot would have been very rare.
Life expectancy was low as many have observed because of huge infant and early life mortalitiy. Those that survived to old age had to be the smart ones.
It is foolish to base a study on writings from over 2000 years ago. Why would those writers mention dementia?
Also there is no basis for blaming modern air pollution for any difference. Burning wood for cooking and heat, and oil for light isn’t a healthy environment either.
Because they died of old age at 45.
Getting outside is wonderfully therapeutic.
We have a decent amount of acreage and are clearing some old logging roads that have started to get overgrown and found some great trees that have come down recently and will make great firewood.
So mr. mm and I are busy cutting it up and getting it to the woodshed to split and season.
My Mother in law has dementia. Until she got it I really never thought about it. Let me tell you, hi it is the worst disease you can get as a human being. Worse than cancer. Worse than schizophrenia. Worse than rabies. It is so dehumanizing. The only thing good about it is that maybe she is so out of it she doesn’t realize what is going on.
RE: Dementia Was Rare in Ancient Greece, New Study Finds
And what was the average age that people live to in Ancient Greece?
How many percent of Ancient Greeks live to the age of the famous dementia sufferer today — Joe Biden?
Thanks nickcarraway.
Right!
What was considered old back then...
How long a life did Greeks and Romans live 2000-2500 years ago ?
In the US, if you born in 1900, life expectancy at the time of birth, was approx. 46 for a man and approx. 48 for a woman.
I would think the obvious conclusion was they didn’t have global warming.
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