[extropy-chat] Living longer due to early nutrition?

[Damien Sullivan]

NYTimes has an article on people living longer, growing taller, and
living healthier, including lower rates and later onset of chronic
diseases.  Due to things like the Dutch famine of 1944 and the 1918 flu
pandemic, the article leans toward the Barker hypothesis, that nutrition
and health in the fetal stage and first two years of life have a massive
effect on later life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/health/30age.html

This has a couple points of relevance to Robin's "medicine doesn't
matter much" thesis.  One, it gives a mechanism for skeptics like me to
cling to, making the thesis more acceptable.  Two, it suggests that
while socialized medicine over lifespan might not make much difference,
"socialist" policies can still take credit for good health in many
countries, in making sure young children are well fed, vaccinated, and
treated.  Low poverty rates may be more significant in population health
than high wealth rates -- note how Cuba outlives most of Latin America
even with a crappy GDP.

Tangentially (on government policies working), I read Amartya Sen's _The
Argumentative Indian_ recently, and liked it a lot.  Alongside
discussion of ancient Indian atheism was his crediting China's economic
boom to ao combination of post-reform economic policies and pre-reform
(Communist!) emphasis on universial health and education, especially the
latter.  India has more higher education but China has more basic
literacy, which matters more for general employability, at least at
their development level.

Even more tangentially (on Asian literacy), he mentioned a historical
Buddhist link with basic literacy.  They were involved with early
printing, and the oldest dated printed book is a Chinese translation of
the Diamond Sutra.  Burma and Thailand have pretty high literacy rates,
and even Laos is higher than India.  I found websites talking about
children or at least boys traditionally getting a basic education in
Buddhist temples, in that region.  OTOH, Buddhist Bhutan has literacy as
low as Hindu Nepal.

-xx- Damien X-)