Caveman Did Not Have a Long Life Span - Why Eat Like One?

SFBarbear

I understand what you are saying and I think that is accurate to a point. Genetic testing by hundreds of anthropologist and scientist has shown that early man did not have a majority of these diseases. An even better example is that breast cancer was almost non existent in the Japanese culture until they started raising cows and consuming cows milk. Pretty interesting...

Can you quote some sources for these two assertions? About genetic testing - firstly, we generally do not know what genes in modern humans are linked (a causative link) to cancer, except for one or two (the BRC gene and breast cancer risk, for example). Secondly, it is rather difficult to recover uncontaminated genetic material from ancient remains - it's possible but not common. It seems unlikely, therefore, that an exhaustive survey of ancient humans' cancer makers has been done in the way your suggest. Even remains from 2-300 years ago present many practical problems for gene screens.

About the Japanese milk/cancer link - it is my understanding that there has never been a definitive link between any food and breast cancer. Add to that the high proportion on lactose intolerance among Asian adults (so milk consumption is generally low), and that the primary proponent of this theory is a woman who stopped eating dairy but also underwent traditional chemotherapy during her cancer treatment, and I find this case to be weakly supported.

If you do have the sources, I would be grateful if you could post them though. Thanks.

http://chestofbooks.com/health/natural-cure/Ross-Horne/Health-and-Survival-in-the-21st-Century/The-Natural-Diet-of-Man.html

http://www.alsearsmd.com/missing-link-ate-meat/

http://freefromharm.org/health-nutrition/20-experts-on-the-dairy-—-breast-cancer-connection/

http://rense.com/general35/av.htm

http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/sboydeaton/eaton.htm

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.001153?journalCode=anthro

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/09/us/new-testing-on-fossil-remains-indicates-prehistoric-man-ate-balanced-diet.html

http://www.greenfacts.org/en/diet-nutrition/index.htm

http://phys.org/news/2010-10-scientists-cancer-purely-man-made.html

http://www.quora.com/Ben-Ferguson-1/answers/Cancer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8064554/Cancer-caused-by-modern-man-as-it-was-virtually-non-existent-in-ancient-world.html

http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/tests/pcr.htm

There is a wealth of information right there, as well as many books, documentaries and thoughts on how diet and modern environment vs primitive diet and environment alters the human body making it a more hospitable environment to cancers and illness.

RobynC79

I understand what you are saying and I think that is accurate to a point. Genetic testing by hundreds of anthropologist and scientist has shown that early man did not have a majority of these diseases. An even better example is that breast cancer was almost non existent in the Japanese culture until they started raising cows and consuming cows milk. Pretty interesting...

Can you quote some sources for these two assertions? About genetic testing - firstly, we generally do not know what genes in modern humans are linked (a causative link) to cancer, except for one or two (the BRC gene and breast cancer risk, for example). Secondly, it is rather difficult to recover uncontaminated genetic material from ancient remains - it's possible but not common. It seems unlikely, therefore, that an exhaustive survey of ancient humans' cancer makers has been done in the way your suggest. Even remains from 2-300 years ago present many practical problems for gene screens.

About the Japanese milk/cancer link - it is my understanding that there has never been a definitive link between any food and breast cancer. Add to that the high proportion on lactose intolerance among Asian adults (so milk consumption is generally low), and that the primary proponent of this theory is a woman who stopped eating dairy but also underwent traditional chemotherapy during her cancer treatment, and I find this case to be weakly supported.

If you do have the sources, I would be grateful if you could post them though. Thanks.

http://chestofbooks.com/health/natural-cure/Ross-Horne/Health-and-Survival-in-the-21st-Century/The-Natural-Diet-of-Man.html

http://www.alsearsmd.com/missing-link-ate-meat/

http://freefromharm.org/health-nutrition/20-experts-on-the-dairy-—-breast-cancer-connection/

http://rense.com/general35/av.htm

http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/sboydeaton/eaton.htm

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.001153?journalCode=anthro

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/09/us/new-testing-on-fossil-remains-indicates-prehistoric-man-ate-balanced-diet.html

http://www.greenfacts.org/en/diet-nutrition/index.htm

http://phys.org/news/2010-10-scientists-cancer-purely-man-made.html

http://www.quora.com/Ben-Ferguson-1/answers/Cancer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8064554/Cancer-caused-by-modern-man-as-it-was-virtually-non-existent-in-ancient-world.html

http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/tests/pcr.htm

There is a wealth of information right there, as well as many books, documentaries and thoughts on how diet and modern environment vs primitive diet and environment alters the human body making it a more hospitable environment to cancers and illness.

I was hoping for actual studies, not websites and opinion pieces. For example, 'freefromharm' is a vegan-oriented site that reports many specious associations between consuming animal products and all sorts of unproven ills. Most of the sources you have here are second- or third-hand. Several of these are openly biased.

The Telegraph report is interesting, but more careful reading of various studies indicates that this report is contradicted (as is often the case, it doens't mean what they found for their sample was wrong) by several others, which report identical incidences of bone cancer (advanced metastases) in ancient Eygyptian, middle-age German and modern English samples:

Malignant tumors in two ancient populations: An approach to historical tumor epidemiology.
Nerlich AG, Rohrbach H, Bachmeier B, Zink A.Oncol Rep. 2006 Jul;16(1):197-202.

I suspect it matters how the cancers are diagnosed - if you look for soft-tissue evidence, it may be harder to find in older remains. Either way, the evidence for cancer being a modern thing is equivocal. Does modern lifestyle exacerbate genetci predisposition? I think so. But to claim cancer didn't exist in ancient cultures is unsupportable.


Regarding the reports on ancient diets - there is little contention that ancient hominids ate meat, even prior to their ability to hunt or butcher, they almost certainly scavenged. The arguments focus on the proportion and nutritional importance of meat. It's certainly important as it's more calorie-dense. But the amount available to ancient humans (prior to H erectus, in my opinion) would have been very minimal.

The article you cite called 'missing link ate meat' refers to A afarensis and stone tool use - but the tools the report focuses on are not evidence of hunting, only cutting and slicing - they may have been used on meat, but that's far from conclusive. Either way, you don't need tools to eat meat. There's no controversy here - ancient and modern humans are physiologically omnivores. Our teeth, or digestive tracts and our brains are evidence enough.


Someone else here mentioned that the term 'caveman diet' does this eating plan a great disservice. I agree - if it works for you to eat this way, great! No need to call it ancient or natural or better.

SFBarbear

Everyone can believe and act upon that belief as they wish.

vabchloser

So this is something I've been curious about. I think I need to just read the book. Some people swear by the paleo diet. However, the lifespan back then was about one-third of the lifespan today. So why is it a good idea to emulate that diet?

Plus, another thing I wonder is - people lived all over the world with very varied diets - depending on where they lived and the climate and what was abundant there. Why is a certain supposedly "paleo" diet chosen?

The whole idea just does not pass the common sense test to me. Ok, have at me all you paleo lovers!

lol I said this the other day and someone raged on me : )

CATindeeHAT

Hmmm. I guess I see it as stupid. I don't know what else to say. If you want to be a cave man because they are so superior, than go be one and shut up. Go kill animals with a spear or rock and eat them raw or whatever cave people did. But don't stand there in your $200 loafers and $250 designers jeans and talk to me about the superiority of what cave people ate. There was nothing superior about what they ate. It was all they had available. It wasn't a choice they made.

---

> Yes. The highly educated do tend to be 'yuppies', but that doesn't suggest that they're wrong.

Lol. From a socioeconomic standpoint, I qualify as a "highly educated yuppie." But my diet is far from Paleo. And I don't wear designer jeans. Guess I've got enough critical thinking skills to see through bogus marketing hype :laugh:

If you don't wear designer jeans (or whatever context is meant by it) then you don't really qualify as being a "highly educated yuppie", you're just highly educated.

In no way am I defending the 'primal/paleo' way of eating. I was just simply making an observation.

I think you missed the point of this, not to be defensive.