An article by Dave Pollard lists the five causes of human death:

1. They wear out, and suffer one severe or a series of cascading ‘mechanical’ failures
2. They are unable to recover from self-inflicted trauma
3. They are unable to recover from trauma caused by other people or human activity
4. They are unable to recover from trauma caused by a non-human biological agent
5. They succumb to ’system failure’ caused by an inherent genetic defect

I am not sure if this list would include non-human, non-biological causes of death like radiation from the sun. Examples like that may or may not fall under the first category, depending on the definition of “mechanical failure”. Regardless, this list is a strong starting point for the argument Dave makes in his article.

There has been a lot of effort, and thus a lot of progress in categories 4 and 5. But when trying to figure out how to help people live longer and healthier lives, we tend to ignore numbers 2 and 3.

Most people pay very little attention to what they are taking into their bodies. People are quick to drink pop from an aluminum can(Alzheimers) or to fill up a glass of fluorinated water. These same people can be very conscentious about washing their hands to kill bacteria or getting regular doctor checkups to make sure all their parts are working properly.

This article discusses quite a few ways that we poison ourselves. And there are many more.

The four leading causes of death in the U.S. are: heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic lower respiratory disease. All of these are strongly linked to what we consume!

Heart disease is often caused by what we eat, cancer is linked to taking in radionuclides and other carcinogens, stroke is often related to smoking, diabetes(has a strong diet factor) and chronic lower respiratory disease is usually caused by breathing bad air.

Longevity might be linked tighter to diet and exposure to non-biological compounds, than to genes and harmful bacteria. Bacteria and genes have been around a long time. Our evolution is based on successful gene use. Likewise, it’s been proven that people who are not exposed to bacteria are unhealthy. In contrast, the widespread and hefty consumption of artificial compounds is new.