> On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Eva Hedin wrote:
>
> > What do you mean with alcoholism? The moral bit, the economic bit or the
> > medical bit?
>
> I'm not sure I fully understand the question,

Below list talks of alcoholism in cultures and says that northern europeans
have higher occurrence of alcoholism than mediterraneans and since
winedrinking mediterraneans have higher incidence of medical problems than
northern europeans have, my thoughts are: Why are the ones that are more
sick in alcohol relatead illnesses the ones considered less alcoholic? It is
the social implications we are talking about when we say that northern
people are more exposed to alcoholism, not the medical.

> > > culture                 exposure to alcohol     alcoholism
> > > -----------------------------------------------------------
> > > medditeranean           long term               low
> > > northern europeans      med term                med
> > > American Indian         short term              high


> Our paleo ancestors (or at least the vast majority) didn't consume beer,
> wine or whiskey.

Just a little curiosity: The vikings made something we call "mjöd" from
honey and water. That disappeard when beer brewing came to Sweden but we can
still buy it. Sort of come back.

>The interesting point though is alcohol as an example of natural
> selection since the dawn of agriculture.

It could only be if it affected the ability to have off spring and I don't
think it ever did. Only a few very badly alcoholized young women could have
been taken out of the gene pool because of drinking.
>
> So you could say that some groups of people are more 'paleo' than others,

Yes, and they will have more individuals taken out of the gene pool for
instance due to high insulin resistans which is one of the reasons why some
young women are infertile.

> Let's say theoretically that budweiser and mcdonalds became the
> predominant foods worldwide (or is it already? :). People on this list
> probably wouldn't fair to well, but given enough time (10, 20, or 100,000
> years) a population of humans would exist that thrive on Budweiser and
> Mcdonalds.

Only if they got children that in their turn had children that in their
turn....! The problem with that imagined diet and the modern western diet is
that it does not kill you before your children are old enough to have their
own children. That's why people, let's say over 40 are the one's troubled by
high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke etc. That is also why we do not
adapt to modern western diets. It does definitely not stop us from having
children.

Eva