After all, modern medicine has surely been extending the human lifespan for hundreds of years … hasn’t it? Many imagine that humans in the past all died young and that, thanks to medical science, people are now living longer and longer. In the grand scheme of human longevity, “the contribution of modern medicine is minor,” said Jan Vijg, a genetics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “As soon as farming got involved, [life expectancy] shot down,” said Daniel E. Lieberman, an evolutionary biology professor at Harvard University. Eventually, humans adjusted to farming and began surviving somewhat longer, but life expectancy remained in something of a slump for millennia.

Source: Huffington Post January 10, 2019 12:00 UTC