When I share various glorious aspects of Ayurveda and how it can help us strengthen life and slow down aging, I often get rational taunt.
“If Ayurveda is so superb, why were Indians dying early before independence? Life expectancy in India is estimated to have gone up from 31 years in 1947 to 64 years in 2005.”
Many Indians influenced by British accounts of life span in India, claim that why mortality was high and life span was low in land of Ayurveda?
This is answer for them. स्वतंत्रता quotient decides longevity. How free you are? How free our society is? Whales in Sea world lives for 10-15 years. Whales in free sea lives for 100+ years.
Why life span of Indians is considerably short?
पश्येम शरद: शतं, जीवेम शरद: शतं, श्रृणुयाम शरद:
शतं, प्र ब्रावाम शरद: शतमदीना: स्याम शरद: शतं भूयश्च शरद: शतात्।
-यजुर्वेद (36।24)
हम सौ वर्ष तक देखें, सौ वर्ष तक जीवित रहें, सौ वर्ष तक सुनें, सौ वर्ष तक अच्छी प्रकार बोलें, सौ वर्ष तक पूर्णतया अ-दीन होकर रहें और सौ वर्ष से अधिक भी।
There is important concluding remark related to 100 years life span.
It is critical to live self-supporting (ख़ुदमुख़्तार, स्वतंत्र, स्वावलंबी) life. Long life is possible when you strive to live self-reliant life. For last 1200 years and more, large population of Bharat lived as slave. Slaves live short life.
Elephants born into stressful situations have fewer offspring and age faster, researchers at the University of Sheffield have found.
So, this shorter life span is blanket blame on Ayurveda. But for such irrational taunts, here is the answer.
“Scientists discovered that Asian elephants born during times when their mothers experience highest stress levels produce significantly fewer offspring in their lifetime despite having higher rates of reproduction at an early age.”
Can you now correlate? Do you imagine the slavery stress? For last 1000 years, Indians were under foreign rule with constant religious, cultural and economic torture. Under stress, mothers produce babies with short life span. It is Nature’s design to truncate life early for less struggle with the stressful environment.
Even whales and elephants die young in Zoo. Less we talk about humans.
Data which is often presented about life expectancy , is of British India. Large section India was still under different small rulers. Do survey and you will find different results.
So don’t blame Ayurveda. Apply common sense. We are right now slowly building environmental stress for our kids. What do we want to gift our kids?
Research
Elephants born when mothers are stressed age faster and produce fewer offspring
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/elephants-stressed-mothers-age-offspring-study-1.505370
Scientists discovered that Asian elephants born during times when their mothers experience highest stress levels produce significantly fewer offspring in their lifetime despite having higher rates of reproduction at an early age.
The research team, from the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, also found that those animals born under stress declined much more rapidly in older age, decades later.
Lead author Dr Hannah Mumby, said: “Poor early life conditions have been linked to many disease outcomes in humans, but is unknown whether stress in early life also speeds up ageing rates in long-lived species.”
“We found that the decline in reproduction with age is much steeper in the elephants born at the poorer time of year. Even though they reproduce slightly more when they’re young, this still doesn’t compensate for the steep decline and they end up with fewer offspring.”
Zoo Elephants Die Very Young
http://www.livescience.com/3147-zoo-elephants-die-young.html
Elephants in European zoos live dramatically shorter lives than pachyderms in the wild, finds a new study.
The research is based on health information for 4,500 Asian and African elephants living in some 270 European zoos between 1960 and 2005 and their counterparts living in the wild either in Kenya or as working animals in Myanmar.
The wild creatures live decades longer, on average.
Is there any data beyond british period ?