Actually, signs of protein-calorie malnutrition have generally become more common in history rather than declining (Cohen 132).
With this stable diet it helped them in their fight against disease. Cohen states that in an earlier chapter data suggests that hunting and gathering populations would have been visited by fewer infections and suffered lower overall rates of parasitization than most other world populations, except for those of the last century, during which antibiotics have begun to offer serious protection against infection. The major infectious diseases experienced by isolated hunting and gathering bands are likely to have been two types: zoonotic diseases, caused by organisms whose life cycles were largely independent of human habits; and chronic diseases, handed directly from person to person, the transmission of which were unlikely to have been discouraged by small group size. By a virtue of mobility and the handling of animal carcasses, hunter-gatherers are likely to have been exposed to a wider range of zoonotic infections than are more civilized populations. The chronic diseases, which can spread among small isolated groups, appear to have been relatively unimportant (Cohen 135). .
Overall hunting and gathering populations major health problems were quite minute. They had a very healthy diet for the most part and were experienced to a range of diseases that were not all too serious. Taking that into consideration it may have given them one important advantage over many civilized groups. Given the widely recognized (and generally positive or synergistic) association of malnutrition and disease, the relatively good nutrition of hunter-gatherers may further have buffered them against the infections they did encounter (Cohen 137).
With the simple ways of the hunter-gatherer you would think that a more highly developed technology would lead into a higher standard of living for all members of the civilization.