Eliot Martin Glick wrote:

> The problem is that nutrient availability and cost in modern times
> are quite different from the cost/availability profiles our ancestors
> faced.  Therefore, it makes sense that the best nutrition for us is
> likely to be a systematically different diet from the one our ancestors
> followed, and - in particular - larger doses of nutrients which they
> found scarce may well be in order.


This is a reasonable *hypothesis*, which is as yet unconfirmed.  And it
may only be confirmable for some nutrients, not all.  Example:  Why do
sweet things taste so good?  To phrase the same question in
scientific-sounding jargon:  Why do foods containing sugar have such a
potent motivating effect on behavior, such that we will tend to consume
more and more of them, if they are available?  Well, it *could* be
because more sugar is better for us, or it *could* be because we are
adapted to environments where sugar is valuable but scarce.  Why
valuable?  Because the brain does require some of the stuff, and red
blood cells require it, and fast-twitch muscle fibers require it, and
those fibers are especially needed in fight-or-flight situations, so
it's good to be able to top up their fuel supply once in a while without
always having to depend on the slower gluconeogenesis.  So a case can be
made that in the paleolithic environment sugar was valuable but scarce,
but I think we can say with confidence that it does *not* follow that a
diet containing a lot of sugar is a good thing.

I think I also heard, about a week ago, some research indicating that
megadoses of vitamin E may not be so healthy either.  Vitamin E is
another nutrient that is difficult to obtain in large amounts in the diet.

So in my view, this hypothesis, while reasonable, has to be cautiously
tested on a case by case basis.

> It doesn't do to romanticise the diet of our ancestors *too* much.
> Very many of them probably suffered from various kinds of malnutrition
> for much of their lives - out of a mixture of scarcity and ignorance -
> and lived shortened lives as a result.


What makes this probable?  Malnutrition is not a common problem among
extant hunter-gatherers, and if scarcity is a problem it's because some
of them have been pushed onto some of the harshest real estate on the
planet.  I see no reason to believe that, prior to agriculture and its
expansion, paleolithic hunter-gatherers chose to live in areas where
scarcity was a concern.  The science of paleopathology shows that
malnutrition is a disease of civilization.  It is well known that
paleolithic people were taller than the first neolithic people, had
denser bones, better teeth, etc.  It is the early neolithic farmers,
struggling to scratch a living from the earth, who bear the marks of
malnutrition, scarcity, and ignorance.

As for the "shortened lives"...


> Keep in mind that most
> of your "paleo-persons" only lived to be 25-35 years old.
> We are trying to "fool Mother Nature" into letting us live,
> in health, to 90 or longer.


Does anyone have the research, published within the last 4 or 5 years,
showing that these numbers are probably wrong?  I can't find it.  The
gist of it was this: Paleoanthropologists *inferred* that these people
died young because their bones were in excellent condition, the bones of
a young person.  But some other kind of measurement showed that in fact
they were more likely to be in their 70s.  The problem was that the
paleoanthropologists had assumed that elderly people would have
deteriorated bones, as modern humans do, but this assumption was
unwarranted.  I wish I could find the reference...


> I would speculate if you put most present day
> humans in the paleo environment they wouldn't
> make it close to as long! I don't think we are
> fooling mother nature at all. We just don't have
> to deal with many of the issues that caused
> our ancestors premature demise.


That's probably true, but it's irrelevant.  The fact that I couldn't
hunt and gather my way out of a paper bag, and would probably end up
being lunch for the first predator that came along, doesn't mean that
the diet of the hunter-gatherer is in any way problematic.

Todd Moody
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