Hypothesis: longevity in the Blue Zones is not so much a function of good air and nutrition but of an environment that remained stable for many generations. Frequent change in environmental factors like diet increases need for adaptation, so fertility and aging happen earlier.
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Replying to @Plinz
Why does "need for adaptation" imply earlier fertility and aging? Is there literature on this? One of the five Blue Zone populations comprises Seventh-day Adventists in California, who live on the other side of the world from their recent ancestors and are mostly vegetarian.
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Replying to @robjohnnoble @Plinz
And people in small-scale hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations (whose environment has remained stable for many generations) are lucky to reach 70 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25434609 ]. Have I perhaps misunderstood your hypothesis?
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Replying to @robjohnnoble
I think senescence is tuned to not outcompete your grandkids. The speed of optimal generational change is a function of length of childhood (less turnaround means better ratio of exploitation to exploration) and environmental variability (more variability = faster turnaround).
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Replying to @Plinz @robjohnnoble
It is difficult to compare hunter gatherer societies to early agrarian societies and modern society, because of vulnerability to starvation, different selection pressure and almost non existent health care.
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Replying to @Plinz
I agree. But your original tweet said long life was a result "of an environment that remained stable for many generations", which is more true of hunter gatherers than of modern society. So your hypothesis needs refining.
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How stable is a hunter gathererer environment? It usually requires a nomadic lifestyle, which exposes the group to frequent migration, territory war, changes in available food, new pathogens etc.
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