Matti Narkia's Library tagged evolution →  View Popular

"Meat eating made us human. The anthropological evidence strongly supports the idea that the addition of increasingly larger amounts of meat in the diet of our predecessors was essential in the evolution of the large human brain. Our large brains came at the metabolic expense of our guts, which shrank as our brains grew.

In April 1995 an article appeared in the journal Current Anthropology that was an intellectual tour de force and, in my view, an example of a perfect theoretical paper. “The Expensive-Tissue Hypothesis” (ETH) by Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler demonstrated by a brilliant thought experiment that our species didn’t evolve to eat meat but evolved because it ate meat.

It was our gradual drift toward the much higher quality diet provided by food from animal sources that allowed us to develop the large brains we have. It was hunting and meat eating that reduced our GI tracts and freed up our brains to grow. As I wrote at the start of this post, the evidence indicates that we didn’t evolve to eat meat – we evolved because we ate meat."

www.proteinpower.com/...-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii - Preview

2009 September proteinpower Eades blog_article humans meat eaters meat-eaters vegetarians vegetarian omnivores diet paleolithic paleolithic_diet evolution preagricultural human part_II nutrition brain

"One of the problems - if it could be called a problem - in writing this blog and moderating the comments is most readers are pretty intelligent. Occasionally I have the angry vegetarian wander in, take me to task for my errant ways, and, after a comeback or two on my part, drift away to never be heard from again. Thanks to the confirmation bias, this blog pretty much selects against the non-meat eater. So, I tend to forget how many people there are out there who are pretty much clueless about basic nutrition, and how many people there are who bobble through life spouting cliches they've heard along the way as great nutritional truths. Based on the comments I get on this blog, it seems to me that most people are pretty nutritionally sophisticated and reasonable."

www.proteinpower.com/...t-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-i - Preview

2009 September proteinpower Eades blog_article humans meat eaters meat-eaters vegetarians vegetarian omnivores diet paleolithic paleolithic_diet evolution preagricultural human part_I nutrition

Diet, evolution and aging--the pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet.
Frassetto L, Morris RC Jr, Sellmeyer DE, Todd K, Sebastian A.
Eur J Nutr. 2001 Oct;40(5):200-13. Review.
PMID: 11842945

www.springerlink.com/...jhphtup0jne8u63k - Preview

2001 October ejn study review humans Frassetto Sebastian acid-base acid_base nutrition evolution diet net_acid_load protein organic anions aging post-agricultural inversion potassium-to-sodium potassium sodium base-to-chloride base chloride medline

"One of the problems – if it could be called a problem – in writing this blog and moderating the comments is most readers are pretty intelligent. Occasionally I have the angry vegetarian wander in, take me to task for my errant ways, and, after a comeback or two on my part, drift away to never be heard from again. Thanks to the confirmation bias, this blog pretty much selects against the non-meat eater. So, I tend to forget how many people there are out there who are pretty much clueless about basic nutrition, and how many people there are who bobble through life spouting cliches they’ve heard along the way as great nutritional truths. Based on the comments I get on this blog, it seems to me that most people are pretty nutritionally sophisticated and reasonable."

www.proteinpower.com/...t-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-i - Preview

2009 September proteinpower Eades blog_article humans meat-eaters meat eaters meat_eaters vegetarians evolution nutrition paleolithic diet paleolithic_diet part_i

Meat eating made us human. The anthropological evidence strongly supports the idea that the addition of increasingly larger amounts of meat in the diet of our predecessors was essential in the evolution of the large human brain. Our large brains came at the metabolic expense of our guts, which shrank as our brains grew.

www.proteinpower.com/...-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii - Preview

2009 September proteinpower Eades blog_article humans meat-eaters meat eaters meat_eaters vegetarians evolution nutrition paleolithic diet paleolithic_diet part_ii

The carnivore connection: dietary carbohydrate in the evolution of NIDDM.
Miller JC, Colagiuri S.
Diabetologia. 1994 Dec;37(12):1280-6.
PMID: 7895958

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...7895958 - Preview

1994 December Diabetologia study research carnivore connection insulin resistance insulin_resistance dietary carbohydrates nutrition paleolithic diet paleolithic_diet type_2 diabetes evolution Miller

A Palaeolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischaemic heart disease.
Lindeberg S, Jönsson T, Granfeldt Y, Borgstrand E, Soffman J, Sjöström K, Ahrén B.
Diabetologia. 2007 Sep;50(9):1795-807. Epub 2007 Jun 22.
PMID: 17583796
DOI: 10.1007/s00125-007-0716-y

Conclusions/interpretation A Palaeolithic diet may improve glucose tolerance independently of decreased waist circumference.

www.springerlink.com/...h7628r66r0552222 - Preview

2007 September Diabetologia study research clinical_trial rct humans paleolithic diet paleolithic_diet Mediterranean Mediterranean_diet comparison glucose tolerance glucose_tolerance type_2 diabetes intolerance evolution nutition CVD CHD IHD medline

Effects of a short-term intervention with a paleolithic diet in healthy volunteers.
Osterdahl M, Kocturk T, Koochek A, Wändell PE.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 2008 May;62(5):682-5. Epub 2007 May 16.
PMID: 17522610

Conclusion: This short-term intervention showed some favourable effects by the diet, but further studies, including control group, are needed.

www.nature.com/...1602790a.html - Preview

2008 May ejcn study research clinical_trial humans healthy volunteers nutritional intervention nutrition paleolithic diet paleolithic_diet CVD risk_factors evolution human human_evolution medline short-term risk factors

"In general, evolution depends on a special combination of circumstances: part genetics, part time, and part environment. In the case of human brain evolution, the main environmental influence was adaptation to a 'shore-based' diet, which provided the world's richest source of nutrition, as well as a sedentary lifestyle that promoted fat deposition. Such a diet included shellfish, fish, marsh plants, frogs, bird's eggs, etc. Humans and, and more importantly, hominid babies started to get fat, a crucial distinction that led to the development of larger brains and to the evolution of modern humans. A larger brain is expensive to maintain and this increasing demand for energy results in, succinctly, survival of the fattest."

www.worldscibooks.com/...5769.html - Preview

worldscibooks book survival fattest diet diatary fat brain human evolution human_evolution humans nutrition big origins paleolithic paleolithic_diet

What is PāNu?

PāNu is an approach to living centered on the thesis that the diseases of civilization are largely related to abandonment of the metabolic conditions we evolved under - what I have termed the "evolutionary metabolic milieu" - EM2.

Returning to EM2 is not based on paleolithic food re-enactment. You don't have to eat bugs or wooly mammoths. Unlike many popular "diets", it doesn't require a calculator, or even a recipe book once you learn some basic science about food.

www.paleonu.com - Preview

PaNu PāNu Blog paleonu paleolithic nutrition paleolithic_nutrition paleolithic_diet diet evolution evolutionarry paleodiet

Fish consumption and depressive symptoms in the general population in Finland.
Tanskanen A, Hibbeln JR, Tuomilehto J, Uutela A, Haukkala A, Viinamäki H, Lehtonen J, Vartiainen E.
Psychiatr Serv. 2001 Apr;52(4):529-31.
PMID: 11274502

After the analysis adjusted for potential confounders, the likelihood of having depressive symptoms was significantly higher among infrequent fish consumers than among frequent consumers.

psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/...529 - Preview

2001 April study research epidemiological humans omega-3 fish consumption depression Finland Tanskanen Tuomilehto nutrition medline Paleolithic diet Paleolithic_diet evolution

"(NaturalNews) People still don't get it: Vitamin D is the "miracle nutrient" that activates your immune system to defend you against invading microorganisms -- including seasonal flu and swine flu. Two months ago, an important study was published by researchers at Oregon State University. This study reveals something startling: Vitamin D is so crucial to the functioning of your immune system that the ability of vitamin D to boost immune function and destroy invading microorganisms has been conserved in the genome for over 60 million years of evolution.

As this press release from Oregon State University (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...) explains:

The fact that this vitamin-D mediated immune response has been retained through millions of years of evolutionary selection, and is still found in species ranging from squirrel monkeys to baboons and humans, suggests that it must be critical to their survival, researchers say.

"The existence and importance of this part of our immune response makes it clear that humans and other primates need to maintain sufficient levels of vitamin D," said Adrian Gombart, an associate professor of biochemistry and a principal investigator with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University."

www.naturalnews.com/_D_immune_system_vaccines.html - Preview

2009 October naturalnews 60 Sixty million years of evolution vitamin_D swine flu influenza H1N1 virus infection immune response nutrition prevention

Vegetarians deserve our respect. They're usually thoughtful, conscientious people who make sacrifices for environmental and ethical reasons. I was vegetarian for a while myself, until I decided I could find ethical meat.

Vegetarianism and especially veganism can get pretty ideological sometimes. People who have strong beliefs like to think that their belief system is best for all aspects of their lives and the world, not just bits and pieces. Many vegetarians believe their way of eating is healthier than omnivory or carnivory. It's easy to believe, since mainstream nutrition research has a distinctly pro-vegetarian slant. One of the classic arguments for vegetarianism goes something like this: our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, are mostly vegetarian, therefore that's the diet to which we're adapted as well. Here's the problem with that argument:

wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/...tion-teach-us-about-human.html - Preview

2009 March wholehealthsource Whole Health Source evolution human diet nutrition blog_article

Vitamin D: In the evolution of human skin colour.
Yuen AW, Jablonski NG.
Med Hypotheses. 2009 Aug 28. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 19717244

www.sciencedirect.com/science - Preview

2009 August study hypothesis vitamin_D evolution human humans skin color nutrition medline

Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century.
Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O'Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;81(2):341-54. Review.
PMID: 15699220

www.ajcn.org/...341 - Preview

2005 February ajcn diet health nutrition paleolithic preagricultural glycemic glycemic_load fatty acid macronutrient acid_base acid-base acid_alkaline balance potassium fiber hunter-gatherers evolution food foods disease study Cordain Sebastian review

Estimation of the net acid load of the diet of ancestral preagricultural Homo sapiens and their hominid ancestors.
Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Sellmeyer DE, Merriam RL, Morris RC Jr.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2002 Dec;76(6):1308-16.
PMID: 12450898

www.ajcn.org/...1308 - Preview

2002 December ajcn Sebastian Frassetto health diet paleolithic paleolithic_diet preagricultural net acid load acid-base alkaline balance nutrition study research bone osteoporosis evolution medline

Evolution and function of vitamin D.
Holick MF.
Recent Results Cancer Res. 2003;164:3-28. Review.
PMID: 12899511

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...12899511 - Preview

2003 study review humans Holick vitamin_D evolution function plankton zooplankton phytoplankton sunlight diet VDR 25ohd calcitriol immune system regulation renin-angiotensin MS diabetes nutrition medline latitude PTH hypertension CVD

Vitamin D and skin physiology: a D-lightful story.
Holick MF, Chen TC, Lu Z, Sauter E.
J Bone Miner Res. 2007 Dec;22 Suppl 2:V28-33.
PMID: 18290718
doi: 10.1359/jbmr.07s211

Very few foods naturally contain vitamin D, and those that do have a very variable vitamin D content. Recently it was observed that wild caught salmon had between 75% and 90% more vitamin D(3) compared with farmed salmon. The associations regarding increased risk of common deadly cancers, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and cardiovascular disease with living at higher latitudes and being prone to vitamin D deficiency should alert all health care professionals about the importance of vitamin D for overall health and well being.

Humans have depended on sunlight for their vitamin D requirement. The impact of season, time of day, and latitude on vitamin D synthesis is well documented.(2,3) We now report that altitude also has a dramatic influence on vitamin D3 production and that living at altitudes above 3500 m permits previtamin D3 production at a time when very little is produced at latitudes below 3400 m. It was surprising that, at 27° N in Agra (169 M), little previtamin D3 production was observed. However, there was significant air pollution that caused a haze over the city. It is likely the ozone and other UVB-absorbing pollutants in the air prevented the solar UVB photons from reaching the earth’s surface to produce previtamin D3.

www.jbmronline.org/...jbmr.07s211 - Preview

2007 December study research review epidemiological in_vitro humans Holick vitamin_D synthesis skin cutaneous physiology D-lightful story altitude season latitude evolution 25OHD UVB pollution content fish salmon wild farmed caught nutrition medline

White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.

It was only when early humans gave up hunter-gathering and switched to farming about 5,500 years ago that white skin began to be favoured, say the researchers.

This is because farmed food was deficient in vitamin D, a vital nutrient. Humans can make this in their skin when exposed to sunlight, but dark skin is much less efficient at it.

www.timesonline.co.uk/...article6814896.ece - Preview

2009 August timesonline uk wihte europeans europe skin vitamin_D synthesis evolution agriculture hunter-gathering nutrition health sunlight

Vitamin D and Prevention of Chronic Diseases. A presentation by professor Michael F. Holick

www.youtube.com/watch - Preview

YouTube video Holick vitamin_D Chronic Diseases Chronic_Diseases Chronic_Diseases_prevention prevention UCTV university of California USA evolution evolutionary perspective nutrition presentation lecture