[bognition]

Back in school I was often told the lead pipes in Roman aqueducts likely played a key role in the fall of Roman. We know lead is a poison with negative long term effects on cognition.

The aqueducts were also responsible for Romes ability to proliferate and grow. Lead was both a blessing and a curse.

I wonder what future generations will say about our highly enriched and processed diets. Calories have never been cheaper and food is ubiquitous. However I believe our food is playing a huge role in our degraded health.

It’s not surprising that most studies looking at the consumption of unprocessed food, fresh fruit and vegetables show benefits to our health.

The challenge is how do we get this food in the hands of those who need it cheaply and without sacrificing the nutritional (and microbial) content.

[papercrane]

The lead pipes theory is mostly just pop-science. Romans were likely getting more lead exposure from using lead cooking vessels and utensils.

[declan_roberts]

Not to mention the fact that their pipes immediately become mineralized, and very little lead leeches in cold water.

Headline science has a way of sticking around for a long time.

[didgeoridoo]

Plus literally “flavoring” their wine on purpose with lead acetate.

[buovjaga]

Joseph R. McConnell et al. (January 6, 2025). Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2419630121

[edwardbernays]

So is the idea that widespread lead exposure led to the decline of the Roman empire largely pop science? Are you saying that's not accurate, or that the source of the lead exposure is miscounted?

[dathinab]

also lead flavoring

lead tastes sweet, sugar wasn't cheaply & widely available, honey is expensive etc.

and knowledge about lead poisoning was not really a think AFIK

at the same time lead pipes tend to gain a crust of chalk over time (depending on chalk content of the water) which mostly defuses their danger. Like you will find some very old houses with lead tape water pipes in the EU today but if you test their tape water you won't find (much of) an issue due to 1) the chalk 2) the water not staying long in the pipe if it's e.g. a 4 apartment house.

[bayindirh]

Interestingly, in 2017, a research found that crime rates in US dropped as lead pipes are replaced with better alternatives [0].

[0]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-evidence-that-lead-ex...

[adastra22]

Which continued pretty much into the modern age. Nothing specifically Roman about it.

[boston_clone]

Could you provide some evidence to support your assertion that highly enriched foods are degrading health?

Public health experts contend that enriched foods have improved baseline quality of life. Wheat breads with iron, folate, and B vitamins in the US is an easy example.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Could you provide some evidence to support your assertion that highly enriched foods are degrading health?

Getting nutrients from whole foods is generally superior, for absorption and balance and avoiding overdosing, than getting it from supplements, whether taken directly or via enrichment.

That said, getting a nutrient any way is better than running a deficiency. For most of agricultural human history, in most societies, most of the population was nutritionally sufficient [1]. That changed with enrichment. It’s healthier to eat whole over enriched food; it’s better to have enriched food versus a vitamin decency.

It’s ahistoric to claim we’re unhealthier today than we’ve been over most of human history. But we can do better. In that way, Roman pipes brought clean water to its populations in a way that made them healthier than people had been in cities to date. But it also gave them lead poisoning, which while better than cholera, is worse than no lead.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9460423/

[slumberlust]

If interested in Ultra Processed Foods, of which enriched foods usually are UPF, you can check out a good book called Ultra Processed People. It's not definitive, but it makes a compelling argument that while we don't know why exactly, processed foods containing the same nutrients as their whole brethren have deterious effects on our long term health.

[cpursley]

Trace those public health experts funding sources...

Hint: it's the farm-bill dependent carb farmers who apparently need our money via farm subsidies and want poor people hooked as they get it from the other end in the form of SNAP.

[Etheryte]

The lead pipe thing is one of the best known urban legends that's both completely false and also constantly making rounds on the internet.

[SapporoChris]

Not sure where you get completely false. Like most urban legends it's a little truth and a lot of falsehoods. Lead pipes are a known health hazard. Lead pipes didn't lead to the fall of the Roman Empire.

[bigmattystyles]

Don’t lead pipes or any pipes for water actually get a patina of calcium carbonate or something so while not great it’s not as bad as told. Only if the ph of the water changes because you change the water source, kinda like in flint?

[bongodongobob]

Yes. There's nothing wrong with lead pipes.

[giantg2]

"Back in school I was often told the lead pipes in Roman aqueducts likely played a key role in the fall of Roman. We know lead is a poison with negative long term effects on cognition."

I highly doubt there was much effect from the pipes. They would quickly be sealed in mineral scale. Cups or utensils - maybe, but would be more about specific important people using them rather than being widespread.

[MengerSponge]

Wine (and grape juice) was cooked in lead vessels, which generates Lead(II) Acetate aka Sugar of Lead. They lead poisoned themselves coming and going.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate

[underlipton]

It should be noted that juice is a highly-processed food. It concentrates the sugar, vitamin, mineral, and water content of a plant while removing the fiber.

As to your last question, part of it may be rethinking the profit motive in food production. Food waste to keep prices high is a huge issue.

[throawaywpg]

Apparently it wasn't the pipes, which wouldn't have leached enough to make a difference. It was the fact that the Romans used lead acetate as a sweetener in their food and drinks!

[tim333]

The Victorians used lead pipes and then the British Empire declined. Coincidence?

[kmeisthax]

The Roman Empire did not fall because of lead pipe. It fell because the empire's elites ran out of territory to conquer and turned against one another.

Also, the Roman Empire didn't fall, either. It split in two. The Western half continued splitting into a bunch of competing kingdoms while the Eastern half slowly shrank over about a thousand years. It eventually wound up being rolled into the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until WWI.