On Population Kinetics of an Aging Society: Aging and Scurvy

Abstract

Evidence from skeletal remains and pictorial records for the past several millennia established that humans have had a very inadequate ascorbic acid intake and commonly exhibited signs of frank scurvy, as well as the invisible signs of subclinical scurvy (absence of AA in scorbutic urine is universal). They suffered scurvy's mortality, being a major cause of death especially in times of stress due to dietary fluctuations, climate, migrations, voyages, battles, etc. Rapid aging and death by acute scurvy, and infectious and degenerative diseases related to chronic scurvy added to the toll. In this era, the loss of function and changes in appearance that we see in humans in the second 50 years of life are theoretically simple to avoid. However, this is very rare because there is almost no one who does not eat the refined diet of the affluent societies. We present here an overview of a vast array of evidence on the connections between aging and scurvy.