24 replies to this topic

[Kombaticus]

I am of the volition, after reading material by Dr. Atkins and others, that humans are biologically predisposed to be more efficient at digesting and using foods that were available throughout most of our history as a species, such as meat and nuts. Farming has only been around for about 10,000 years. Before that, foods that were as rich in carbohydrates as cereal grains were practically unheard of, or at least were not consumed by humans before this time.

So I got into a debate with my dad the other day. He believes that 10,000 years of farming is more than enough time for people to have evolved the ability to process these foods effectively. I'm still not so sure. I'm wondering if many of the diseases we have today, like diabetes, are a result of evolutionary lag in our ability to adjust to an agrarian diet.

The Inuit, for example, live an almost completely carnivorous lifestyle without nutrient deficiency. Question is...if you were to take an Inuit baby and raise him with a more agrarian diet, would he be less able to adjust?

Just a few things I've been turning over in my head. I've been on a Ketogenic diet (lifestyle, really) for a while now and I feel amazing. Please share your thoughts folks.

[SG-1]

Right now I have gotten more conscious about my eating and exercise habits.

I used to think that a young person wouldn't need to worry about health until he is in his late 20s. I now realize that is wrong. If I want to have a good chance to see the future of medicine I will need to keep myself in good health.

Maybe in the near future it will be useless. For example, there is a new way of penetrating the skin barrier and delivering medicines that deactivate and activate certain genes http://www.scienceda...0702192500.htm.

It may be possible to rub some cream on your arms and be able to eat whatever you want without getting fat, then it would be easier to keep healthy. Or a gene that allows you to create vitamins that you need, or maybe be immune to the harmful effects of UV rays http://www.abc.net.a...-study/2864562.

AR combined with nanosensors in your body will allow real time monitoring of every aspect of your health, from free radicals, heart disease, vitamins, etc. Mobile Dr programs like WebMD and the Xprize's goal of creating a tricorder http://www.xprize.or...tricorder-prize will allow us to have plans tailored to our genome, which is getting faster and cheaper (15 min and $900 http://www.popsci.co...enome-sequencer), we will be able to keep ourselves in top physical condition increase our life spans and achieve longevity escape velocity http://singularityhy...ith-twist.html.

It will be interesting to have sensors every where, toilets that monitor diseases, simulations of the human genome to allow virtual testing instead of animal or human trials. We could virtually tailor medicines for us using that. Cancer cells will be spotted when they are few and able to be physically destroyed, rather than waiting for them to become life threatening. Clothes that give us CPR, and call the police for us during emergencies with GPS signals that are accurate down to the millimeter. Nanofabrics can make virtually all surfaces bacteria fee too.

Basically the future of nutrition goes hand in hand with the future of medicine, it is important today since nutrition along with exercise is about our limit of "programming" our body - but we will not be limited to foods that make us healthier in the future, especially be mid-late century.

[Lily]

I really do hope so, SG-1.

As to your question, Kombaticus, I think if you took a Inuit baby and raised him with a more modern type of nutrition, this baby could suffer from severe consequences. I read that Aboriginies who went to the big cities to find work and started living in the modern world, while adapting to and adopting a modern, more sedentary lifestlye with a more agrarian diet were more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes than "normal" Australians. They would get quite ill pretty fast if they adopted such a diet, according to that article. It's been quite some time since I read it, so unfortunately I have no link for you.

Edited by Lily, 31 July 2012 - 10:58 PM.

[Kombaticus]

Oh that's not a problem, thanks for the info. This would maybe suggest that aboriginies did not adapt to an agrarian diet over the last 10,000 years. So maybe there were some changes as far as our diet, and maybe some ethnicities are better able to adjust.

[kjaggard]

nutrition is increadible complex. I have to know insane amounts about food and digestion to survive with my illness as it effects the nutrient absorbtion portion of my digestive tract.

There are many things the body needs to form the chemicals it uses to self regulate and build. And awesomely there are many sources for each of those things.

Trickily some of those things you can overdose on, while others you can't and they sometimes get paired together. For example Vitamin D isn't a vitamin it's actually part of the endocrine system and is something the body can make... with exposure to UVb radiation from the sun (which only gets through the atmosphere at certain angles of the sun, so certain regions at certain times of day and times of year get none). Lack of D is being linked to immune regulation and inflammatory responses and may make somebody more vulnerable to things like Diabetes or flares of autoimmue diseases. Not to mention rickettes and increased child mortality.

Increased sun exposure to UVb also mean exposure to UVa and between those two an increase in cancer risk.

Dietary sources of D are almost nill. There are a very few exceptions, like sardines and sword fish and cod liver oil. Cod liver oil contains also high levels of Vitamin A which is toxic if too much is had, and can compete with vitamin D for absorbtion. Vitamin A has serveral forms and the most commonly found is carotene which is in peas, salad greens, peppers, carrots, yams, squash, ect but the funny thing is this form is converted by the liver to Vitamin A only as much as it needs, the rest can be store in skin giving the person a yellow or orange color. But the same veggies that supply so much carotene also are needed to get levels of magnesium, calcium and potassium to regulate the nervous system and muscle contractions for movements and pesky things liike heartbeat.

Thing is that is you consume enough spinach to get those things you get more than enough Vitamin A made by your liver, so consuming cod liver oil to get vit D might add Vitamin A that isn't shuntable to the skin and becomes toxic... but at the same time if you don't get enough magnesium from food sources there is no other way to get it and too low magnesium prevents absorbtion of vitamin D and can actually cause heart arythmia and hypercalcimia may also develop.

it's a delicate game of trade offs. I'm always amazed we don't constantly kill ourselves with stupid imbalances. In the long run the human body has some top notch filtration system, and waste disposal systems... when they work properly. But the vast majority of our abilty to make these things useful and filter out things that would otherwise make us sick isn't being done by us. There are more bacterial cells in our bodies doing these things for us that there are our own cells in our body. Some estimates are that ten percent of you is human genetic material and the rest is an absolute mish mash of bacteria, fungus, yeasts, and even viruses that work in concert with our cells to carry out the processes of living.

Throw that biome out of balance and you get yeast infections, or food poisoning, or infectious diarhea, or menigitis ect ect. and everybody has their own system balance and gets much of it from their mother during birth and breast feeding. Each system has been developed to balance best to the lifestyles people live.

You can however partially reset those bacteria. Antibiotics often do it as collateral damage and if re balance isn't established can lead to complications. But there is also a slightly disgusting therapy that exists now that is showing great promise in fixing problems from imbalances. It's sometimes called fecal transplant. Where the waste from a healthy balanced persons digestion is used in an enema to repopulate the right bacteria in a sick persons digestive tract.

It has the power to effect how we absorb and process our nutrients. I don't doubt that at some point we will be able to simply create bacteria that do the job right and ingest those in pill form. and even eventually be able to just build a whole degiestive system with nano machines lining it that could turn hardwood and old sneakers into all the nurtrition your body needs to survive. Least wise I hope it happens soon. So I can get this digestive tract that's trying to kill me out and have something more functional instead.

[eacao]

Nutrition. I hear it's very nutritious. Like lettuce.

I don't think that it's the crops that have had the impact on our health. I'd say it's the trans fats, high concentrations of salts and sugars in soft drinks and the lack of physical activity. Never before have we ever had such high fat and salt intakes. It's not the carbohydrates from cereal which will be making you fat, it's the 15 piece KFC bucket that you eat at night before you go to bed, while you watch TV or comment on FT.net. I think if you took that inuit baby and raised them to live off fish and wheat, they'd do just fine. Feeding them packaged foods, roasts cooked in fat and salt or take-away will kill them.

[Dramatism]

Nutrition. I hear it's very nutritious. Like lettuce.

I don't think that it's the crops that have had the impact on our health. I'd say it's the trans fats, high concentrations of salts and sugars in soft drinks and the lack of physical activity. Never before have we ever had such high fat and salt intakes. It's not the carbohydrates from cereal which will be making you fat, it's the 15 piece KFC bucket that you eat at night before you go to bed, while you watch TV or comment on FT.net. I think if you took that inuit baby and raised them to live off fish and wheat, they'd do just fine. Feeding them packaged foods, roasts cooked in fat and salt or take-away will kill them.

I know you said this like two weeks ago, but I'm going to say it anyway! KFC doesn't have a 15 piece. Just a twelve and sixteen. I would know, as I work there.

I agree that the problem with our diet is more of too much bad than not enough good.

[SG-1]

It's cheaper to eat unhealthy too.

[EVanimations]

He believes that 10,000 years of farming is more than enough time for people to have evolved the ability to process these foods effectively. I'm still not so sure. I'm wondering if many of the diseases we have today, like diabetes, are a result of evolutionary lag in our ability to adjust to an agrarian diet.

I don't know about that.

During my trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, I went on a tour to find wild horses. During that tour I learned that these horses are actually descendants of Spanish Mustangs that were caught in shipwrecks or abandoned about 500 years ago. During those 500 years they evolved to only be able to eat the sparse grasses and rough vegetation, and even developed a symbiotic relationship with the cattle egret, another non-native species.

This evolved diet was so extreme to the point that if you fed the horses anything other than those beach grasses, their stomachs would twist up and they would die painfully in a couple hours. This includes apples, carrots, and other "normal" horse foods.

Point is, I think 10,000 years is plenty of time to evolve a different diet. Whether or not we actually have a more evolved diet is subject to debate.

[Kombaticus]

Right, but have they actually evolved on a genetic level to eat it, or have their stomachs simply adapted from a lifetime of eating it (to the point they have trouble processing anything else)? Are they still as healthy as horses on a "normal" horse diet?

I'm wondering if you could take one of these mustang foals and switch it with a "normal" foal at birth and they would both be able to adapt or not.

Edited by Kombaticus, 15 August 2012 - 02:17 PM.

[EVanimations]

Just looked it up, they've evolved on a genetic level. Their stomachs work completely differently than those of their ancestors 500 years ago. Same goes for the wild horses on Assateague.

Taking one of these wild island horse foals and feeding it mainland food would kill it in a matter of hours, so don't do that.

In all fairness though, this is probably because these horses spent 500 years in a mostly isolated environment about 2-5 miles from the mainland. Isolation always leads to rapid evolution.

I think our bodies have long since adapted to cope with agricultural food in the last 10,000 years. The way I see it, if certain people's bodies were intolerant to bread and alcohol, they would have died quickly in an ancient city environment. That just leaves us with the people who were just fine with it.

Now, as for that industrialized crap laden with preservatives and sodium, our bodies aren't nearly adapted to that yet.

[Saradus]

This is going off on a little bit of a tangent; but it's related to nutrition, and life extension is mentioned on the forums fairly frequently so thought I'd mention it here. BBC Horizon made an interesting documentary on the effect of partial fasting on lifespan and health. Not sure whether I'll give it a go, but I certainly found it to be well worth the hour's watch and rather fascinating.

[Kombaticus]

Just looked it up, they've evolved on a genetic level. Their stomachs work completely differently than those of their ancestors 500 years ago. Same goes for the wild horses on Assateague.

Taking one of these wild island horse foals and feeding it mainland food would kill it in a matter of hours, so don't do that.

In all fairness though, this is probably because these horses spent 500 years in a mostly isolated environment about 2-5 miles from the mainland. Isolation always leads to rapid evolution.

I think our bodies have long since adapted to cope with agricultural food in the last 10,000 years. The way I see it, if certain people's bodies were intolerant to bread and alcohol, they would have died quickly in an ancient city environment. That just leaves us with the people who were just fine with it.

Now, as for that industrialized crap laden with preservatives and sodium, our bodies aren't nearly adapted to that yet.

Well damn, I gotta concede that. Can I please have the link to the article?

I can see how isolation would maybe speed things up, especially with a smaller population. Humans come from a variety of cultures and do a lot of mixing, so it probably ends up somewhere in the middle, with individual people having different requirements.

Thanks though, that really got me thinking.

Edited by Kombaticus, 15 August 2012 - 06:44 PM.

[EVanimations]

...
Taking one of these wild island horse foals and feeding it mainland food would kill it in a matter of hours, so don't do that.
...
...
Now, as for that industrialized crap laden with preservatives and sodium, our bodies aren't nearly adapted to that yet.

Hold on now, turns out they can be fed industrialized horse chow from birth and grow to a larger stature, says wikipedia.

Interesting...

Dare I draw any parallels?

[SG-1]

This is going off on a little bit of a tangent; but it's related to nutrition, and life extension is mentioned on the forums fairly frequently so thought I'd mention it here. BBC Horizon made an interesting documentary on the effect of partial fasting on lifespan and health. Not sure whether I'll give it a go, but I certainly found it to be well worth the hour's watch and rather fascinating.

Awesome video, it makes me want to think even more seriously about my health. I have made some good changes so far, but I will work out more and alternate days where I have junk food. There is a lot more we can be doing with our bodies that most people don't even know of. I am looking forward to smart AI in my eyes that can give me tips to what I eat and improve health.

[EVanimations]

I'm sure there will be countless apps for calorie-counting when augmented reality becomes a publicly-available thing.

Some features I could see it including would be the amount of calories, the fat and sodium content, how much exercise and what kind you would need to burn the calories, how much weight you would gain if you didn't do anything about it, and possibly other health risks as well.

I certainly hope anorexia doesn't go up because of this.

Edited by EVanimations, 15 August 2012 - 11:38 PM.

[Saradus]

Awesome video, it makes me want to think even more seriously about my health. I have made some good changes so far, but I will work out more and alternate days where I have junk food. There is a lot more we can be doing with our bodies that most people don't even know of. I am looking forward to smart AI in my eyes that can give me tips to what I eat and improve health.

Absolutely, over the past few months I've modified my diet to give fruit and veg a lot more prevalence. Instead of crisps, I'll go for kale chips; instead of sweets, I'll grab a bowl of raspberries. It's made a huge difference and I think I'll be taking even more drastic steps once my thesis is over and done with (it's impacted things a little bit recently!)

The only thing missing is regular, rigorous exercise. That's something I've not focused much on and I think keeping fit is an important part of health too. Being the overly-impressionable guy that I am, the Olympics have kinda got me all fired up for getting back into my old fitness regime. The particular 5-2 diet Mosley speaks about is very interesting though as it's more than just immediate health and beach body (although both of these are upcoming goals of mine) but the fact that it's about staying healthy at older age, which is going to be very important particularly for our generation if we hopefully start to see real, effective life extension drugs and technologies emerging.

It seems quite doable too, particularly as Mosley didn't even have the 2 days consecutive. I think his weight loss in those 5 weeks was fantastic but also sustainable, unlike many of the fad diets we see nowadays.

Exciting stuff!

Yes health-based augmented reality will be very useful and motivating in the near future. Making me think of H+ again

Edited by Saradus, 16 August 2012 - 12:15 AM.

[Kombaticus]

How about these apples?

http://news.softpedi...ht-206313.shtml

"In a new survey of existing studied, the researchers found a consistent, global trend, that saw people becoming smaller as they began harvesting crops. Their health also deteriorated, though the reasons why this happened are still somewhat mysterious."

“Culturally, we're agricultural chauvinists. We tend to think that producing food is always beneficial, but the picture is much more complex than that,” Emory anthropologist and review coauthor George Armelagos explains."

[Lily]

That really gets you thinking... It is always recommended that like 60% of your daily calorie intake (almost 2/3s) should originate from carbohydrates. For us, that often means only bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Carbs from fruits and veggies are not that much a part of it - how much of these do people eat on a daily basis? Not much. It's far easier to grab a toast and be done with it. Sweets, too.

It's pretty depressing to see how difficult it is nowadays to eat healthily, and that every day =/ Meat isn't good either, because of fat and too much drugs residues in the animals like antibiotics with which they're treated as they grow.

Sometimes I really don't know what to eat anymore. Still, I've improved my diet in the past few weeks, albeit not significantly enough in my opinion, there's still a long way to go.
Sport is a very important aspect as well, as we live a really sedentary lifestyle these days and hardly move aroung enough.

Edited by Lily, 16 August 2012 - 03:18 PM.

[SG-1]

I think the secrete is to eat everything in moderation, everything has benefits so don't stop eating something entirely.

Just go easier on the super unhealthy foods, and maybe a little lighter on red meats, like twice a week most.

Edited by SG-1, 16 August 2012 - 03:52 PM.