Monday, July 31, 2006

HUMAN CHANGE

The July 30th Dallas Morning News had an article “Humans today hardly resemble ancestors.” People today are taller and live longer than humans from the 1800s. It strikes me as hardly news.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments such as heart disease, lung disease, and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 years to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today. . . . Bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before. Even the human mind seems improved. The average IQ has been increasing for decades.

Improved medical care is only part of the explanation; studies suggest that the effects seem to have been set in motion by events early in life, even in the womb, that show up in middle and old age.

American men are nearly 3 inches taller than they were 100years ago and about 50 pounds heavier.

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