Traditional Chinese medicine is profound, but why is the average life expectancy of the ancients not high?

I am a western doctor, but to be honest, I think the questioner has ulterior motives, deliberately provoking the contradiction between Chinese and western medicine and deliberately bringing rhythm. Life expectancy is influenced by factors such as nutrition, living standard and health level, which is not determined by Chinese medicine or western medicine. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the continuous growth of life expectancy in China is mainly attributed to the peaceful environment, the improvement of people's nutritional level and the popularization of overall social health knowledge, which is not determined by Chinese medicine or western medicine. Otherwise, look at those African countries. They are also western doctors, and their life expectancy is just a joke.

1, longevity, heredity accounts for a large proportion, so we can often see that through physical exercise, a person's spirit is good, but not necessarily longevity, and the elderly in Changshou Village are not necessarily athletes.

Before the Tang Dynasty, there was always a war in our country. How many people died when Qin Shihuang unified the six countries? Even in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, there was an Anshi rebellion, and even until the Republic of China, warlords scuffled and the average life expectancy of the population could not go up. Most young people joined the army or were forced to grow up and lost their lives at a young age.

In ancient times, the productive forces were underdeveloped, and people lived by water. However, there are always floods in the Yellow River and Huaihe River. People don't have enough food and clothes, and many people die of cold and hunger. The poor and the sick don't need to beg. How can they afford medicine?

There is nothing wrong with the profoundness of TCM, but people still have ignorance and superstition. Before liberation, many people jumped into the sky and asked the Buddha for incense and ashes. To this day, some people still don't believe in doctors, but believe in "magic wand".

5, quack liars do exist, and good medicinal materials are not easy to collect.

The development of productive forces can promote human development, and the liberation of productive forces can promote human liberation.

Three diseases that people are most likely to get: occupational disease, mental illness and lifestyle disease. If people pay attention to regulation and health care, there is no need to use drugs to solve the problem.

The bottom of my heart is selfless, and all diseases are not born! Broad-minded and fat, positive! What's so strange about this? In ancient times, not only the average life expectancy of China people was short, but that of foreigners was even shorter! China also benefited from the treasures of traditional medicine in China, and China almost perished in the great European plague before the Middle Ages. So later, only China people became the most populous country.

If we want to discuss why the average life expectancy is short, there are mainly the following reasons: First, low productivity in the past caused widespread malnutrition. Second, regular natural and man-made disasters? According to historical records, there are different kinds of disasters almost every year, such as drought, flood, locust, fire and earthquake. And there are very few years without disasters (this is also limited by the ability and system at that time, and the ability to resist reality is generally poor. Man-made disasters are mainly caused by war and corruption. During the Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the population decreased greatly, and it was almost empty. You said that most of them were slaughtered, and many of them were short of food and clothing. Will the average age be high?

There is another contemporary example. Many senior Indian officials have a high life expectancy, but the average life expectancy in his country is only over 50 years old, which is much worse than that in China. Why? It is caused by poverty!

The president of Zimbabwe in Africa lived to be over 90 years old, but the average life expectancy of Zimbabwe is only over 40 years old. It can be seen that people's nutritional needs are not guaranteed, and the harm to the body is very severe!

Thanks to traditional Chinese medicine, China has maintained its position as the country with the largest population since ancient times. Obviously, people who denigrate Chinese medicine are blind, wearing colored glasses and blind!

Let's just say that without Chinese medicine, the average life expectancy of ancient people in China was even lower.

Why are there so few Europeans and Americans now? I'm afraid this has a lot to do with the fact that European and American countries didn't have the technology of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine at the beginning, and they are not so good now. Europeans and Americans are not only bellicose, but also have a high mortality rate, which is directly related to the helplessness of European and American countries in the face of several large-scale plague outbreaks. You can check the number of people who died in Europe because of repeated outbreaks of plague, which will definitely make you feel the greatness of traditional Chinese medicine.

The average life expectancy of the ancients in China was not high, mainly because the development level of ancient productive forces was not high, and people's ability to transform and conquer nature was relatively low. All kinds of natural disasters seriously threaten people's lives, and countless people die every time because of natural disasters. Second, there were frequent wars in ancient China. Every time the regime changes, the population of the whole country drops sharply. You can check how much the number of household registration in each dynasty recorded in this history has increased or decreased. Third, the ancients did not have as much energy as people do now, and the food they ate was relatively complete and nutritious. In addition, the medical technology was not high at that time, and there is no combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine now, so their life expectancy is very short.

Chinese medicine is indeed profound. Why is there a problem of distrust of Chinese medicine? I think it has a lot to do with the accelerated pace of life and the increased pressure of life. Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the treatment of incurable diseases as well as incurable diseases. The treatment cycle is long, and the effect is slow. It depends entirely on the doctor's listening, listening and asking, unlike western medicine, which relies entirely on instruments to see a doctor, and doctors then prescribe the right medicine. Moreover, if Chinese medicine doctors are not skilled, it is sometimes difficult to accurately grasp the patient's condition, which is one of the important reasons why many people do not believe in Chinese medicine now.

The biggest problem of Chinese medicine is that it depends entirely on doctors' listening, listening and asking questions, which puts higher demands on the skills and experience of Chinese medicine doctors, which also leads many Chinese medicine doctors to give up Chinese medicine and study western medicine, which leads to Chinese medicine being questioned.

Traditional Chinese medicine can cure many diseases that western medicine can't see well, such as facial paralysis and other intractable diseases. Chinese medicine has played a decisive role in this worldwide epidemic in COVID-19.

Only by adhering to the combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine can we truly ensure the health of human beings. Chinese medicine will never be out of date, because Chinese medicine itself is a science.

Traditional Chinese medicine is profound, but why is the average life expectancy of the ancients not high? This is indeed a thought-provoking question. I think there are the following aspects. The grain output in ancient times was not high. I remember the old man in my village said that an acre of land can produce 150 kg to 2000 kg of wheat, even if it is high-yield. This shows that what the ancients ate in life, there were few non-staple foods. This shows that most of the ancients were malnourished, and the resulting diseases were impossible even for immortals. 2, machinery, in ancient times, there are not so many machines now, no matter what you do, it is manual, which leads to people's physical exhaustion and illness, and nutrition can't keep up. What about being a doctor? This is also the direct reason why women live longer than men. 3, Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine is slow to take effect, and many acute diseases die without treatment. 4, public health, now the elderly over the age of 50 and 60 still remember the health situation in the 1950 s and 60 s, needless to say. 5, Chinese medicine doctors, most of the ancients can't read, so there are few famous doctors. Actually, we should call a doctor. There are also old people, mostly officials, businessmen and Chinese medicine practitioners. They have the right to have money all their lives and live a carefree life without capital contribution. In fact, even people who live at the bottom of society now have a short life expectancy.

From a global perspective, the life span of ancient people in China is not short.

War, natural disasters+sequela (flood, famine) and plague are the main reasons for the sharp decline in population. These huge abnormal deaths are the root of the short life expectancy of the ancients.

Needless to say, war is definitely the first! Needless to say, ancient times are modern times. Look how many people died in World War I and World War II. China's recorded war only killed hundreds of thousands!

Natural disasters, floods, droughts and earthquakes, and most importantly, the resulting famine and plague.

The problem of plague, not to mention ancient times, even today when medical technology is changing with each passing day, you see, a small coronavirus makes billions of people around the world panic all the time.

Why China became the center of the world and a country with a large population in ancient times is actually closely related to the health preservation, disease prevention and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine.

Today, I only saw that Western medicine seemed to control some minor problems at once, and I felt that Western medicine was amazing! However, it ignores the function of Chinese medicine to "prevent diseases"! Laozi said, "It's too high, I don't know." Really don't bully people!

Let's review the primary school story of Bian Que's three brothers' medical skills.

According to statistics, there are 302 emperors with exact dates of birth and death, and the average life expectancy of these 302 emperors is only 44 years old. Among them, more than 120 emperors died before the age of 40.

Throughout the ages, the average life expectancy of emperors was the longest in the Qing Dynasty, because the knowledge of diet and health care in the Qing Dynasty was constantly improved, and health preservation and longevity became the strong desire of many emperors.

It can be seen that the balance of nutrition and diet is important for human health and longevity.

In addition, whether people live in peacetime or wartime, whether the economic level is well-off or poor, and whether medical technology is advanced or backward have a close impact on people's lives and further affect people's life expectancy.

Even the emperor who was in charge of the world probably died of a cold, because the comprehensive environment in which people lived at that time was relatively backward, and it was also a Chinese medicine for treating colds. I believe that modern technology is better than ancient times.

In the final analysis, Chinese medicine only treats people when they are sick, and it can't change the environment at that time, so that people can get healthy from the root and get sick less.

Chinese medicine is the essence of thousands of years' history in China. It pays attention to "harmony of yin and yang" and "coexistence of five elements" and integrates them into one. It diagnoses the cause by observing, smelling, asking, feeling the pulse and hearing, and adopts natural medicinal materials, combined with pharmacological characteristics, and takes targeted drugs, which has the magical effect of treating both the symptoms and the root causes. If you learn the essence, you can even achieve the effect of "coming back to life" in the treatment of some intractable diseases.

Well, since Chinese medicine is so awesome, why is the average life expectancy of the ancients not high? In fact, this has little to do with the superb medical skills of Chinese medicine.

First of all, I asked why the average life expectancy of the ancients was not high, and it was aimed at everyone, not individuals. There were many people who lived long in ancient times. The famous drug king Sun Simiao lived 10 1 year, Bian Que, a doctor too much, lived 98 years, and Ma Xilin, a doctor too much, lived 85 years. These are all doctors with superb medical skills in history, and their life expectancy is generally higher. This also shows from the side that Chinese medicine has a certain effect on people's health, treatment and longevity.

So why is life expectancy low? According to historical records, the average life span of primitive Neanderthals in Beijing was only 14.5 years. In the Han dynasty, I was about 25 years old. In later dynasties, the average life expectancy was around 30 years old. At the end of the Qing dynasty, the average life expectancy was close to 40 years old. It can be seen that the average life expectancy of ancient people increased with the development of society. As for the reasons for the short life span, I think there are mainly the following points.

I. Statistical methods

The statistics of life expectancy include everyone, from newborns to the elderly. However, in ancient society, due to the limitation of environment and living conditions, the probability of premature death was very high, reaching an astonishing 30% in some periods. These newborn babies joined the statistics, which naturally reduced the average life expectancy.

Second, feudal superstition harms people.

In ancient times, human society was full of all kinds of myths and legends, and all kinds of "monsters" and "immortals and bodhisattvas" were people's "beliefs". Whenever people get sick, they think it is "the evil of China". Their first thought is not to see a doctor, but to pray to God to worship Buddha and pray for the blessing of the gods they believe in to drive away the disease. Or invite some gloomy wizards, Taoist priests and the like to do a ceremony and do some cover-up to achieve the effect of deception.

In fact, these are just lies of wizards. They have no ability to drive away diseases at all. They just use ghosts and gods to cheat good people out of their money. Patients can't get treatment, and even hurt them in some rude ways, such as roasting, bleeding and hanging upside down. After some tossing, the patient let himself die. This kind of treatment, which could have saved people through treatment, is often tossed to death in the end.

Feudal thought has a more terrible scene. For example, if there is a drought in a certain place, several beautiful young women will be burned to "sacrifice to heaven" in order to beg for rain. In some places near the rivers and seas, boys and girls are "sacrificed" to the gods and monsters in the water every year, praying for good weather. Anyway, this bad habit is a common phenomenon in feudal society.

Young people are sacrificed, they can't live, and the average life expectancy is low.

Third, war.

The history of our country for thousands of years is a history of war. The dynasties were more relaxed, and all kinds of rebellion, suppression, expansion and land grab were completed through war. However, war is the most terrible thing, which means that a large number of young soldiers will die and many people will be displaced. Since it has caused all kinds of disasters, military disasters, famines and cannibalism, all these represent the unnatural scale of human death.

Fourth, irresistible disaster.

In ancient times, due to scientific and technological problems, we did not know enough about the micro-world, and we were almost helpless about large-scale infectious diseases. Such as smallpox, plague, cholera, leprosy, miasma (malaria), schistosomiasis, walking dead (tuberculosis), these are major infectious diseases that have appeared many times in ancient history. Every time they appear, they will take away many lives. The only thing people can do is to isolate the epidemic area and give up completely. These infectious diseases cannot be solved by superb medical skills. They involve the microscopic pathological world and need high-tech instruments for discovery, analysis and treatment.

Fifth, the number of doctors is small.

You know, in ancient times, doctors were very popular occupations, and there might not be a doctor in ten miles and eight townships. And those famous doctors are all powerful and powerful people, mainly raised or occupied by people who are responsible for the top of society. As for ordinary people, on the one hand, medical expenses are expensive, and not many people can afford these highly skilled doctors. Secondly, even if they are rich, their doctors may not treat you as a common people. Therefore, it is a big deal for ordinary people to get sick. Either they get close to each other and survive through their own antibodies. If they can't survive, they will die, or they will be treated by the indigenous methods circulated by the people. The effect depends on providence.

After all, there are only a few doctors who have not received money to treat ordinary people for thousands of years. Not all people have good-hearted bodhisattvas like Hua Tuo, Sun Simiao, Zhang Zhongjing and Li Shizhen.

The average life expectancy is not only related to the medical level, but also related to other factors.

The first is agriculture. The output of pure natural manual agriculture in ancient times was low. Most people spend most of their time and energy on agriculture, but there is still not enough food. Many people don't have enough food and malnutrition, which affects their health. Their health is overdrawn by years of high-intensity labor. After hybridization, artificial gene mutation, transgenic technology, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, modern agriculture can mature in just over a year, and its output has doubled compared with that of ancient times. Coupled with large-scale automation, information machinery can be planted on a large scale with a small amount of manpower. Although these technologies are controversial now, it is undeniable that it is possible for agriculture to feed billions of people with these technologies.

Then there is public health. In ancient cities, there were no running water and septic tanks, and feces were directly poured into sewers or rivers to pollute water sources, so infectious diseases broke out every once in a while, and many people died every time.

Some people say it was a war, but in ancient times it was a local war, and there was no world-wide war. For a long time, the average war situation in a region was similar to that in modern times. In the 20th century, the two world wars killed the most people, but at this time, the average life expectancy was greatly improved, so the war had little effect on the average life expectancy of a region for a long time.

Finally, medicine, before modern medicine, there was no prenatal examination from the beginning of pregnancy, and the abortion rate was high. Before the emergence of aseptic technology, giving birth to a child was like entering the gate of hell. Before the invention of incubator, it was difficult for premature babies to survive. After birth, they will grow up without vaccine, and they will die of various infectious diseases, even in the royal family. It is easy to die of bacterial infection when you grow up. Because of the above factors, the ancients rarely lived to be 40 years old and did not get cancer. People with high incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases died.

To sum up, the improvement of human life span is inseparable from the development of science and technology, and modern medicine is also a great development on the basis of science. The traditional yin-yang and five elements also claim to explain everything in the universe, and on this basis, a set of medicine has been developed, but what contribution has it made to the process of human civilization in other aspects?

The profoundness of TCM is our own wishful thinking. The short life span of ancient people is mainly due to ignorance of the micro-world. Countless people died of smallpox, tetanus, diphtheria and meningitis, and most of them were children's diseases. In the face of modern medicine, these diseases were cured by drugs, entirely because of the invention of microscope, which strongly promoted the development of biotechnology. With the introduction of western medicine, smallpox and other diseases have completely disappeared in China. In the 40 years of reform and opening up, people's living standards have been continuously improved, medical care has been guaranteed, and life expectancy has been greatly improved. Imagine that Chinese medicine, which is helpless in the world, should be profound and profound. Isn't it a bit far-fetched?