Lloyd's 115th geezer rant

There's new books about health and diet coming out so fast, there's no way of keeping track of the reviews, let alone reading the books. The internet is such a miraculous thing. It has taken me a long time to just learn the basics of operating a computer. But now I don't watch TV at all. The internet is TV and books combined. If I watch TV, I'm in a really bad funk. Or under the weather. There's a kind of common thread in many of these new diet books. The recognition that obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are on the rise. And we are treating the symptoms of these diseases because we can't treat the cause. We can't treat the cause because we still have a long way to go in understanding the hugely complex metabolic system that is our body. It's the study of life itself. The uptick of these diseases has been in the last 25 to 40 years. Some hypothesize that these diseases are "diseases of civilization". That our "cave man" body is not ready for the flour and concentrated sugars and starches that come from no longer being a hunter/gatherer. No longer living from feast to famine. It's always a feast in the USA. The new diet books will tell you to stay out of the "middle aisles" of the grocery store. Buy the produce and meat from around the edges, but stay away from the "processed" food. The middle aisles are the constant feast with no famine. A feast specializing in foods that were not available to primitive man. A diet that may be bringing on the surge of these diseases. I believe this for the most part. But all I really care about is me. And the things that affect me. Yes I do go to the grocery store and I "hunt and gather" around the outside edges. But I do it for a low carb. diabetes diet, not because of a new "cave man diet" fad. Another reason for the "diseases of civilization" rise is simply that we live so much longer now, that we get a chance to get these diseases. 140 years ago our life expectancy (if we survived birth) was about 40 years. They say that gen X's kids will live to be 100. And they're searching for the "aging" genes in our DNA. And through my reading I have learned that "growth hormones" keep coming into play in the metabolic cycle. And that hormones and enzymes are molecules that act differently in different places and time in the blood or tissue. Book after book is being written about the hormone insulin. Of course it's not just for control of blood sugar! We are coming out of the dark ages in this metabolic cycle knowledge. And we don't agree about the cave man diet theory. We don't "agree". As if science is something a committee decides to agree on! People don't agree on science. Whether it's how the world began, whether man's use of the planet is causing global weather, whether stem cells should be used to further research, whether a low fat diet is best for us, whether caffeine, or wine, or animal fat, is bad for us. We don't know these things. But we will. So why can't people just wait for the knowledge instead of shooting off their mouth. You don't know. So start learning. Don't waste your time teaching me your "dark ages" fears, superstitions and habits. They are not knowledge. They never were.