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Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
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Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#62Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#63"..skin covered in soot and pus..", "..diet.. ..rotten meat and unsanitary water..", "..fond of smoking..". "..dies at 94". I don't even know what to say. Those two snippets can't be in the same sentence right? I'll think twice before telling my kids to "eat healthy and don't smoke"!
One of the most interesting things in all of history to me is the longevity in Ancient Greece. Look up nearly any Ancient Greek one is aware of and you'll find life lengths not especially different than modern times. A study of 'Ancient Greeks of Note' [1] found an average life expectance of a bit more than 71 years. The obvious explanation for this is a survivorship bias, but the vast majority of these Greeks made t…
Isn't the idea that the average life expectancy in antiquity is 40 ish years more to do with the high infant mortality rate than anything else?
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#64"..skin covered in soot and pus..", "..diet.. ..rotten meat and unsanitary water..", "..fond of smoking..". "..dies at 94". I don't even know what to say. Those two snippets can't be in the same sentence right? I'll think twice before telling my kids to "eat healthy and don't smoke"!
For what it's worth, we can assume he practiced sexual abstinence for about as long as he didn't bathe.
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#65"..skin covered in soot and pus..", "..diet.. ..rotten meat and unsanitary water..", "..fond of smoking..". "..dies at 94". I don't even know what to say. Those two snippets can't be in the same sentence right? I'll think twice before telling my kids to "eat healthy and don't smoke"!
One of the most interesting things in all of history to me is the longevity in Ancient Greece. Look up nearly any Ancient Greek one is aware of and you'll find life lengths not especially different than modern times. A study of 'Ancient Greeks of Note' [1] found an average life expectance of a bit more than 71 years. The obvious explanation for this is a survivorship bias, but the vast majority of these Greeks made t…
You should take into account that (besides survivorship bias), "Ancient Greeks" you know of are all part of the aristocracy: that means good food, no hard labor, and access to whatever health care was available at the time.
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#66According to [1], he didn't wash in water, but with Fire instead: "He would reject water in favour of what he called a “fire bath”. “Every evening as villagers gather, Kalau … lights a bonfire, smokes marijuana and stands on a leg praying to Lord Shiva,” the paper said." [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/25/worlds-dirties...
That's referring to an Indian man, not this individual. Interesting story nonetheless.
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#67"..skin covered in soot and pus..", "..diet.. ..rotten meat and unsanitary water..", "..fond of smoking..". "..dies at 94". I don't even know what to say. Those two snippets can't be in the same sentence right? I'll think twice before telling my kids to "eat healthy and don't smoke"!
If anything this shows how bad our food has become in the west. It's literally better to eat unprocessed rotten meat, drink unsanitary water and smoke then to eat the modern western diet.
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the most interesting things in all of history to me is the longevity in Ancient Greece. Look up nearly any Ancient Greek one is aware of and you'll find life lengths not especially different than modern times. A study of 'Ancient Greeks of Note' [1] found an average life expectance of a bit more than 71 years. The obvious explanation for this is a survivorship bias, but the vast majority of these Greeks made t…
Isn't the idea that the average life expectancy in antiquity is 40 ish years more to do with the high infant mortality rate than anything else?
Doesn't this mean that modern medicine is pretty horrible though, apart from infant care? With all our know-how, theories, experience, tools, drugs, scanners, etc - we still basically aren't much better than ancient Greece?
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#69I stopped using soap a decade ago. The only time I use it now is for rare occasions where I get something on me that requires soap, such as motor oil or chemicals. I also only wash twice a week or so. People always recoil when I tell them, but then I ask them what I smell like to them. They say I don't really smell like anything. The first month was the worst, because my skin took time to adjust to not having its oil…
Soap isn't what gets things clean, anyway, water does. Soap merely lowers water surface tension, and making water molecules stick together less helps water clean more easily.
That's interesting. But soap also helps in surrounding fats with a water-soluble membrane, right?
Re: Iranian man who didn't wash for half a century dies at 94
#70Hygiene => reduced risks of infection => increased lifespan. Should we also get excited when people die from smoking after a century, eating frogs for breakfast, or growing insanely long nails?
It's not so simple there. To take it to extremes somebody who had literally perfect hygiene (to the point that he was exposed to 0 unintended bacteria/viruses/etc) would undoubtedly become gravely ill, and very possibly die, once being introduced into society at large.
Our bodies are extremely adaptive. A common example of this would be travel. If you move to an area with looser standards of food handling/preparation, then you're probably going to get sick - and possibly quite sick. Repeatedly. Then eventually your body will get used to it, and you'll find yourself able to comfortably eat just about anything.
So there's going to be some sort of a bell curve. Too much hygiene is bad for you. Too little hygiene is bad for you. There's some sweet spot that optimizes strengthening your body without over stressing it.