This is a question that haunts most of us today. I believe that cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes is so prevalent today because of the food that we eat, which isn’t really food but comes in a nice package that says it’s food so we believe it, eat it, get sick, have to go to the hospital to be pumped through with drugs, then we die ugly deaths.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Out of curiosity I compiled a list of one hundred prominent historical figures from the beginning of history to the year 1900 to see how they died—beginning with Menes, the king of Egypt who legend has it was killed in 3040 B.C. either by wild dogs, Nile crocodiles or a hippopotamus. Other illustrious figures among my subjects were Moses, Homer, Lao Tzu, Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ, Charlemagne, Hildegard von Bingen, Leonardo da Vinci, Anne Boleyn, Sir Isaac Newton, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marie Antoinette, Edgar Allen Poe, Crazy Horse and Louisa May Alcott. A dominant cause of death throughout history was violence: crucifixion, assassination, guillotine, suicide, stabbing, shooting, poisoning and other modes of murder. For those who died “natural deaths,” however, because of undeveloped diagnostics, the causes of death were not as clear. The Barbarian invader Attila the Hun, for example, died in 453 A.D. at age forty-seven and is believed to have suffocated from a nosebleed while drunk. The German composer Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750 at age sixty five of “a stroke brought on by quackery.” Many others died of “natural causes” or “fever.”

Prior to the year 1900, hygiene—the basic practice of cleanliness—was an advancement yet to be “discovered.” Raw sewage ran in city streets, contaminating drinking water. Doctors with filthy fingernails blew their noses during surgery. People and their habits were essentially dirty. Prior to the year 1900, the primary cause of disease was due to infectious diseases, so we can assume that at least some of the “natural causes” and “fever” in my list of one hundred major historical figures from the beginning of history to the year 1900 were deaths caused by infectious disease.

In the late 1850s French chemist and bacteriologist Louis Pasteur promoted the “germ theory of disease”: all infectious diseases have a causative agent, such as a bacteria, virus, fungus or parasite. The discovery of microorganisms precipitated scientific advancements such as the use of personal hygiene, antibiotics, sanitation and refrigeration, which systematically eradicated many infectious diseases plagues. In addition, for the first time in the history of humankind, a population as vast as ours was gaining the capacity to produce enough life sustaining meat, fish, poultry, dairy, vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds and nuts to feed our nation. At the turn of the twentieth century, U.S. was poised to evolve into a utopia filled with healthy, strapping people. But this did not occur. Instead obesity and degenerative disease rose throughout the twentieth century and are now epidemic.

I wanted to get a read on how Americans were dying since the Industrial Revolution. I could have picked 100 nurses or 100 teachers or 100 artists. But I decided draw from a list of over 1,000 “famous” people. Then (without consideration to how they died) I whittled that list down to people I thought were the most notable. For example, I considered Jackie O more influential than Madge the Palmolive Dishwashing Lady. This list of the causes of death of one hundred influential Americans from 1910 to the present is aided by advanced diagnostics. While it is by no means a representative sample or a scientific analysis, it’s interesting to note that death by violence and infectious diseases seems to have been usurped by a shocking rise in death from degenerative diseases.

See my list here.

It seems that very few people these days are dying of natural causes or old age (just plain wearing out). We can conclude from this unscientific glance at the way people are dying that something is causing us to die from degenerative diseases. Could it be the supermarket food we’re eating?

Death by Supermarket: The Fattening, Dumbing Down, and Poisoning of America

Om Shanti,
Your girlfriend in health,