On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, James Crocker wrote:
> Although delaying fertility sounds bad there is no reason why it would
> be. Female mammals on CR diets can't reproduce. But if the calorie
> intake in icreased later on, they can. This can occur not only long
> after normal menopause in the control groups, but after the last animal
> in the control group dies from old age!
Delayed fertility may be an indirect bit of evidence in support
of your theory that true paleo was CR. I have read that the
population explosion began with the advent of agriculture, and
the earlier onset of fertility could well be a contributing
cause.
Perhaps CR causes something like neoteny, or the extended
duration of immaturity. Thinking of it another way, perhaps what
we are calling CR is "natural" and "caloric overload" is the
cause of the opposite of neoteny: "premature maturity."
Todd Moody
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