Study points to a link between meat consumption and increased longevity

Life expectancy at birth is the measure that succinctly describes mortality within a population. It is estimated that 20–30% of human life expectancy is determined by genetic factors, and 70–80% by environmental factors. Life expectancy at 5 years of age is similarly influenced by genetic factors, while excluding neonatal, infant, and early childhood mortality, which heavily depends on environmental factors, especially hygiene and infection controls. These percentages, however, have not achieved general scientific consensus. What is clearer is the genetic/environmental interaction that informs human health. Nutrition offers the means to improve health and well-being and acts as a significant predictive factor for healthy aging, thus appearing as one of the main determinants of life expectancy.

Extensive studies on the role of conventional meat-containing diets and vegetarian diets (excluding meat) in increasing our life expectancy have been controversial and circumstantial. Since the beginning of the Paleolithic period, meat consumption (understood as the ingestion of parts of any animal bodies) has constituted a proportion of hominid diets. It has been argued that meat consumption, as a high-quality component of hominid diets, allowed for increases in body and brain sizes, while also enabling the reduction of gastrointestinal tract size, producing typically human increased brain-to-body weight ratios.

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