Some people think we are better today than ever before, while others look to the past as a golden age. It seems that neither view is exactly correct. There are some improvements today, but there are also some troubling physical and mental health trends that have arisen quite recently. There are also some changes with effects that are unknown.
- Body temperature has dropped nearly 1 degree on average. This suggests widespread thyroid concerns.
- TSH may have risen, suggesting thyroid issues.
- Digit ratio changes to a lower testosterone profile
- Testosterone has dropped from a projected 900 ng/dl (this is a rough estimate) some time before 1960 to about 700 ng/dl in 1970 to about 400 ng/dl today. See our article for a lot more details about the drop in testosterone.
- Skull and body frame changes
- Height increase by quite a lot. This is a good change!
- Flynn effect – IQ has risen apparently!
- Autistic traits on the rise
- Grip strength has dropped – this could have more to do with neural matters than muscles.
- Incidence of mental distress and mental disorder has risen. About 4x more American high school and college students have low-empathy, pseudo-psychopathic traits.
- People have many less friends on average than they used to.
- Incidence of degenerative disease has increased tremendously.
- But a huge improvement in the treatment of infectious disease.
- Reaction time slowed from about 0.15 seconds to a good deal higher. There’s reason to believe that humans in a “natural state” may have had reflexes of 0.12 or 0.10 seconds. This is about the same as a similar sized animal’s reflexes, and this speed is just about the hard limit of the nervous system. You have to wonder why reflexes would be slow at all, and why our reflexes aren’t as fast as our nerves can go all the time?
This article is a work in progress! Check back soon for more info, and sources for all this data.
More info we want to add soon
details on reaction time (bring in that native american study and the canine study)
details on other hormones if known
details on skull (length, jaw, palate and maxilla), height, robusticity (elbow width)
frequency of Minor Physical Abnormalities?
hypothalamus (navigation)
iris contraction? achilles tendon relaxation speed
incidence of balding
incidence of myopia
Insights from the book The Shallows – creativity, focus, open-mindedness, friendliness (to strangers), independence
Show some differences in living conditions – EMF, lifestyle+philosophy, diet both good and bad, disease eradication, exercise, light source, pollution