[Jake Neiffer]

Some interesting points made here, I think: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/

[Schenk]

Wow...those Victorians seem to have had a very robust lifestyle! 20 tons of dirt shoveled, overhead, per day I was quite worn out just from spreading, leveling, and hand compacting 15 tons of gravel on my driveway in one day....sheesh! I can't imaging shoveling it back into a dump truck, over my head, in one day. But they seem to have eaten well.

[Navy salad]

Very interesting that cancer was quite rare as well as degenerative diseases. When people had heart problems, they were due more to diseases damaging the valves, such as scarlet fever, rather than the clogged artery problems so prevalent today.

[RumiDude]

No charts make me skeptical. Further, this doesn't appear to be peer reviewed. I'm not sayin' it ain't all or partially true, just that it raises red flags. Rumi

[tigermn]

Well the first line starts out that once past age 5. I suspect a lot more early deaths at birth or in early childhood. That's like in football saying the defense only gave up 200 yards if you don't count the one 100 yard run. I have a hard time believing that someone born back then with much more primitive medical care than today would have a life expectancy equal to someone born today.

[grannyhiker]

Actually, it's quite accurate. Once you got past childhood diseases, accidents (for men) and childbirth (for women), plus other killers of adults like tuberculosis and typhoid, you had as a a good chance of living as long as you have today. Of course, getting past those barriers was far more difficult than it is today, which is why the average life span (a statistical number) was so short! Of course, this being a UK study, it doesn't include the traumatic years of 1861-1865 in the US. During the Civil War, disease killed far more than battlefield injuries. The Civil War Trust states, "For every three soldiers killed in battle, five more died of disease."

[KarlK]

[RumiDude]

Well, over all the article lacks scientific backing for it's assumptions and conclusions. An example of this is: "These figures suggest that breast cancer during the Victorian period was significantly less rapidly progressive than is the case today, probably due to the Victorians’ significantly higher intakes of a range of micro- and phytonutrients which slow cancer growth." Really? And what evidence do the authors present for this conclusion based on a single physician's observation? This article is full of such assumptions and conclusions. IMO, this article is not scientific, it merely uses scientific phrases and terms to sound scientific. This is an article which seems to cherry pick it's ideas to fit it's conclusion. Just read the final paragraph to notice its slant: "Do not, therefore, look to the drug companies to provide remedies for the appalling state of our health; nor to our politicians who seem unable, in many cases, to see far beyond the brims of their parliamentary troughs. Look, instead, to the food and beverage industries, and to a lesser extent the supplement companies, who may well step up to the plate with better designed foods and nutritional programmes once the currently profoundly counter-productive regulatory system has been re-drafted." This is instead a political statement rather disguised as scientific research and as such offers little or nothing to guide us today. I am not saying the Victorian lifestyle has nothing to offer us as insight into how to live, but this article isn't it. I wanna see meta analysis, good definitions, and real numbers rather than descriptions like "compares surprisingly favourably with today’s figures". I wanna see charts and tables that show real figures rather than words with vague descriptions. Rumi