On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:04, Todd Moody wrote:

<snip>

>Finally, I was struck by the following assertion.  I don't remember if
>it made it into his book or not, but it sums up what I have come to
>believe about nutrition and health.
>
>"I have been asked to summarize in a single sentence what would best
>promote health. It is this: Health and lifespan is determined by the
>proportion of fat versus sugar people burn throughout their lifetime.
>The more fat that one burns as fuel, the healthier the person will be,
>and the more likely they will live a long time. The more sugar a person
>burns, the more disease ridden and the shorter a lifespan a person is
>likely to have."
>
>Todd Moody
>[log in to unmask]

Partly true, but I'd like to make two qualifying points:

1.  nutrition is a small component of overall physiology and physiological effectiveness depends
on more than our bodies: environment, climate, activity, age, pollution, injury, psychological well-
being all impact on our health and longevity.

2.  there does not appear to be any necessary evolutionary link between longevity (or lifespan as
the quote above has it) and health.  It would be nice to think otherwise, but the evidence for
people surviving during the palaeolithic into what we now call old age is lacking. We're flying in
the dark here.

I'm comfortable with the usefulness of Rosedale's quote for people into what we now think of as
mid-middle age.  After that, who knows?

Keith