On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 13:45:40 -0500, Dena L. Bruedigam <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>>Amadeus Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
..
>>Humans or humanoids in the wildlife probably need the very best
>>level of health and vitality. Otherwise they would be eaten by predators
>>or
>>outperformed by fitter contemporaries -
>>as happened to the several human predecessor branches like
>>australopethines
>>homo erectus, neanderthals... .

Dena:
>
>You can't logically deduce that simply because a being survived in the
>wild, he had achieved optimal health.  Sometimes the weakest of the litter
>will survive, either by pure luck or by help from another.

I'd say that depends on the degree of competition to other beeings,
and length of exposure.

If you have a big competition by fit contemporaries (e.g. less dependant on
some vitamins) then these will outperform the "litter" by competition
on food and (in the same species) mates.
Seems like vitamin dependency, which is significant by todays WOE
didn't play that role in that evolution times - there was enough of them.

If time is very long and environment relatively constant, than i think you
can expect that even slight advantages above others (of the same species)
will outperform the others. It may be a long run of many generations.
1 million years will be about 40,000 generations of genetical interbreeding
mixing and producing slightly new variations in descendants.
Primates lived for 30 million years in the woods on fruits.
This should result in an *ideal* adaption to this environment.
Then the environment changed to savannah, and better suited variations
of hominids emerged in the following 1-2 mio years.

It seems to me, that the variation was more in size and variation of
organs (extremeties and brain) than of the metabolism.

>
>The cave man had no mechanism to determine what was and was not healthy for
>him.
I can think of such a mechanism:
The mechanism was - that others (e.g. homo xyz above homo erectus)
who did *not* have a headache or did *not* feel tired
had eaten up all the available food resources nearby.

Why did neanderthals die out after 550,000 successful years?
Someone other fitted the ecological niche better.
Possibly it was our anchestors.

>  Could the cave man have increased his
>physical abilities with it?  (creatine) Seems logical to me.

That's an interesting point.
Did he, really?
I think that NOT.
Creatine is synthesied by some enzyme system in humans (or eaten).
If it would have been possible to inclease his abilities by the
cave man, then: ...
Maybe some other caveman (or savannah-man) with a slightly
increased creatinine synthetisation *would* have done better
and on the long run been more successful.

>..
>I can't think of any reason to start my day without my Life Extension Mix,
>among other things.

After that we live now in a rapidly changed environment of foods and other
factors this may be a good idea.
Provided, that the supply of your "Life extension mix" will be there every
single day of your future life. Or there may be a drastic effect
from a cut-down on the essentials - if your body isn't used to construct
them itself (vitaminoids) or retrieve them efficientely from the food.

regards

Amadeus

>
>--Dena