You are right, infant deaths pulled the average age of death down. However, even when that is accounted for, it is much lower than today.

What I wish to comment on is that this site rightly points out that we must not mistake correlation for causation or misinterpret science or data, but when talking about the health or not of our ancestors, the article refers to their average life span being half as long as ours. This is unhelpful as it tells us nothing about maximum life span, nor, in the absence of other data, cause of death or the health of the population generally. The media regularly point to the shorter life spans of people from times past, without making it clear that the data refers to “average” life spans and not total length of life.

This can mislead even trained experts, thus archaeologists excavating a crypt in London containing bodies buried in the 18th century were completely surprised to find a large number of burials recording deaths in the late 70s and above. This was a family tomb and mainly contained adult bodies. The average life span of the time WAS much lower, but this was due to the massive infant mortality and death due to illness or accident in childhood or early maturity. If a person survived their early years and had access to a good diet there was no reason for them not to live to old age.

It is not true, therefore, to say, as is often stated, that people aged 35 or 40 were “old”. Indeed, in the absence of refined sugar many people had better teeth than modern populations. I would also expect many people to have better bone density, not simply because of exposure to vitamin D, but because of a more active lifestyle, where almost all activity depended upon human or animal muscle. Only the very wealthy could afford to have slaves or servants do work for them.

Even in the late Victorian period, “average” life span was relatively low, but this is because of the huge numbers of infant deaths, up to 50% I believe. Adult life expectancy appears to have improved and adult mortality was much lower, barring accident or untreatable disease. Indeed, we forget how much difference antibiotics made in the treatment of otherwise fatal diseases.

In the same way, average life expectancy during 1914-1918 or 1939-1945 in Britain would be low, but not because of poor diet.

On the other hand, I admit that studies of very ancient skeletal remains indicate that age of death was, indeed, in the mid 30s. But, even if the sample sizes are big enough to extrapolate to the entire human population of the time, this would still only be relevant to the discussion of vitamin D and sunlight or to a discussion of diet if it could be shown that these deaths were not due to violence or to some epidemic and were typical of most of the population. If most people died because of illness or violence or because they were no longer able to avoid predators or enemies, their age at death would tell us very little about the virtues of sunlight or vitamin supplementation. What is needed is research into their diet and the presence or absence of deficiency disorders and diseases.

A final point that might be raised is that we know that much longer life spans are not simply a modern phenomenon. There may be more old people today, but old age, even extreme old age, did occur in agricultural societies in the distant past. Nevertheless, “average” life span has tended to increase as we move through time and into the modern period. If life expectancy is strongly linked to diet, this increase through time might suggest that Paleodiets are actually less healthy than modern diets. But such a conclusion requires more than anecdotal comments about “average” lifespans.

That, in essence, summarizes it! 🙂

I am not a supplement person but I also live in a sunny climate and probably get enough Vitamin D from the sun. But then I have to wear sunscreen too – it’s so complicated!

It took me a while to decide to write a recommendation, as I pretty much feel the same way about it you do.

However, it seems that light vitamin D supplementation is fairly safe and the amounts gotten from food rather low. The megadosages found in many of the available pills (most often 3,000 or 5,000 IU) are of course overkill.

Yep, when I set out writing this, I figured it would be a straightforward affair. Then I learned about the entire discussion that entirely goes on about the RDA and the UL.

Neither of these are set in stone – it seems more like the current numbers were used to just have some that can be communicated.