Nothing brings out woo speculation like health issues.

Health books and fad diets are easy sales because everyone wants a short cut and, on the other side, pundits can engage in some causalation and insist they can cure those things you already have.

Diet faddists insist, for example, that no one had heart disease or cancer way back when. It was a reasonable guess. Even with the prevalence of guns you are far less likely do die a violent death than at any time in world history, which means you are more likely to die from something else.

Yet ancient Egyptians had cancer, they had heart disease - nothing modern at all about that.It may be time to stop looking for magical bullets in sugar or high-fructose corn syrup or vegan diets or going gluten-free.

Because high fat diets and lack of inactivity did not give ancient workers atherosclerosis.

How did ancient Egyptians end up with an affluent ‘modern’ disease? By Michael Russell, Cosmos
H/T Real Clear Science