re: ascorbate (which I am guessing is vit c)

>
> Could you explain what you mean about the extra energy being
> freed up?

> Todd Moody
> [log in to unmask]

Ok this is purely speculation based on the hypothesis put forward by
(alexs I think?). According to (and this is from the murky vaults of my
less than perfect memory) something I remember reading by Linus Pauling,
some (many? most?) mammals can produce their own vitamin c or ascorbate
from I believe glucose. The reason he advocated such mega doses of vit
C  came from extrapolation of how much they produced according to their
bodymass (something which when calculated accordingly  for humans came
out to well over 10 grams per day for the average person - far in excess
of the minimum required daily (his argument being that while the minimum
was something established as being the cut off point for deficiency
symptoms to appear - scurvy and such, but that this is only a minimum,
and should not be considered an optimum.

Just how much glucose is needed to produce each gram of vit c I have no
idea. Further how many additional calories/nutrients are needed for the
systems involved to function would be nothing more than a wild guess
again. Additionally, if the subject in question was carnivorous then it
would have no intake of glucose/carbohydrates, so they would have to be
first made available through gluconeogenesis (sorry if I misspelt it - I
mean the conversion of amino acids to glucose ) all in all this may not
translate into a huge parity and may not have significantly influenced
which genotype was more likely to perpetuate.

Perhaps as environmental changes occurred which brought about higher
incidence of vit c rich edible plant life, it was the case that diet
necessarily shifted a little away from predominantly meat to a diet with
some degree (though this might still be quite minor, especially by
today's standards) and it was just some coincidence or concomitant
product of a one particular gene that allowed better survival rate
amongst those primates able to consume slightly more plant life, and
this carried with it less ability to produce ascorbate?

In certain breeds of dogs that have been bred specifically for certain
qualities, and then some over and over (rotweillers I guess would serve
as an example) it is now quite common for them (at least in Australia -
and I assume elsewhere) to have degenerative problems with their hip
joints. None of them were bred to have or intensify this condition, but
it would seem that is has been an unfortunate bedfellow quite by
accident that has accompanied the other "qualities" that the dogs have
been bred for.

Areas low in sunlight would favour those with lighter skin for better
vitamin d (absorption/production?). Lighter skinned people (as a
generalisation) are more likely to have lighter hair colour - although
this in and of itself offers no particular survival advantage, it is
merely a by product.

(back to lurking)

John McKenzie