Hunter-gatherers vs Westerners

Also, a lot of key genetic factors can be modified by dietary habits, e.g. FOXO transcription is stimulated in response to fasting (along with HGH production, and a variety of other beneficial responses).

You'd be quite surprised with my results when lab ratting at USF, it didn't quite work the way they thought it would, especially in the production of HGH.

Don't you agree though that the maternal inheritance matters?The egg you developed from , with half of your chromosomes, was created in your mother's ovaries while she was still in your grandmother's womb. New research shows that that when our grandmothers passed those epigenetic signals to your mother she was also passing those signals to the egg that would provide half of your DNA.

You don't think that the early nutrition influenced the establishing of epigenetic marks?

I'm curious, not arguing.

One other interesting thing is that rats don't appear to respond to leptin the same way humans do, so that makes metabolic comparison somewhat questionable (I am not knocking rat research at all, but in this case there are some distinct differences).

OTOH genetically suppressing the insulin response in rats results in a doubled lifespan, which is pretty cool.

Before the low-carb folks jump in, a low carb diet still results in almost as much insulin production as a 'healthy' high carb diet (barring huge intake of high GL foods), so will not produce the same results. Fasting on the other hand...

For the record I am not anti low-carb diet, I just get annoyed at all the misinformation that gets thrown around on the subject (basically, if someone doesn't even know what acylation stimulating protein is, they don't need to be talking about what is or isn't responsible for lipogenesis).

My first reaction was that the hunters and gatherers have become more efficient at burning calories because I have to work so much harder now to burn the same amount of calories as I did when I first started losing weight.

The issue highlighted in the study is that they are thinner and lighter than you, so they burn less calories on account of that - even accounting for greater activity levels.

Doubly labelled water and respiratory gas analysis was used to determine energy consumption and expenditure, they also had GPS devices fitted and were measured for energy walking on a test track. It's all in the paper.

The "paleo diet" is mentioned by Dr John Briffa's blog http://www.drbriffa.com/2012/07/27/hunter-gatherers-most-likely-to-be-leaner-than-us-due-to-differences-in-diet-not-activity/ where he points to papers that find the "Paleo diet" to be more satiating resulting in lower ad lib energy intake of ~1400 vs 1800 cals/day compared to a "Mediterranean" style diet.

"Paleo diet" - http://www.springerlink.com/content/h7628r66r0552222/fulltext.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009971 includes macro & micro nutrient profiles.

I use "Paleo diet" in quotes to indicate what is currently eaten by those following such a diet, without any reference to ancient history ;-) There's a lot less carbs in the Paleo vs Mediterranean diet comparison.

Why do you defend a diet that has never been shown to have anything going for it?

You still haven't posted those links...

What links? Surely you are not asking me to repost links to the China Study, the German Study, the Framingham Study or any of the dozens of others that we have argued about in the past? If you are asking me to do that, why?

In case you are intersted, however, I will give you this link:

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/slideshows/top-rated-diets-overall

I am not at all defending this "study," or its conclusions, or for that matter anything else it says. The US News College Report is about as accurate and scientific as this, but I did find it interesting that of all the diets mentioned (of which I am unaware of most) the Vegetarian diet, the Vegan diet, the Ornish diet , and virtually all of the veggie diets finished on top in just about every category, while the Paleo diet finished last. Any comments?

Really, the China diet, that has been debunked so hard it should be more rightly called fiction, than a study.

Oh my it didn’t take long for the Paleo haters to come running out of the bushes, even thought it has Absolutely nothing to do with the OP. The ignorance about the paleo diet is so think it could be cut with a knife. For someone to say that Paleo people only lived to 30, and some how try to use that to say “see their diet is stupid” is the hight of ignorance. There are so many reasons for the supposed short life span of paleo people that to try and link it to diet is,,,,,, well foolish.

Fad? Really? How on earth can you say a diet that was the standard for millions of years be a fad, if anything is a fad it’s the SAD diet.

One last thing, yes we can tell what they ate, there is this little trick they do with bone, to see what they ate. Look it up, facts are really cool.

Yes the average lifespan was in the 30s, and yes they died for reasons other than diet. But the fact that they died off early means that any evidence of whether the Paleo diet was beneficial long-term does not exist.

Consider this analogy: Imagine a community of 30-year-olds on an island that eats nothing but protein, fruit and veggies every day but the entire island is wiped out by a tsunami. On autopsy, they were all found to be in perfect health.

Should we adopt their diet long-term? You can't say because there's no data. It may have looked good at 30, but what about age 50, 60? Would the diet have produced complications?

Besides, there have been studies showing Paleolithic individuals did have disease issues.

That's why it's a fad. I agree that the focus on natural foods and away from overly processed is sound, but the diet itself is based on half-truths and faulty assumptions.

Oh my it didn’t take long for the Paleo haters to come running out of the bushes, even thought it has Absolutely nothing to do with the OP. The ignorance about the paleo diet is so think it could be cut with a knife. For someone to say that Paleo people only lived to 30, and some how try to use that to say “see their diet is stupid” is the hight of ignorance. There are so many reasons for the supposed short life span of paleo people that to try and link it to diet is,,,,,, well foolish.

Fad? Really? How on earth can you say a diet that was the standard for millions of years be a fad, if anything is a fad it’s the SAD diet.

One last thing, yes we can tell what they ate, there is this little trick they do with bone, to see what they ate. Look it up, facts are really cool.

Yes the average lifespan was in the 30s, and yes they died for reasons other than diet. But the fact that they died off early means that any evidence of whether the Paleo diet was beneficial long-term does not exist.

Consider this analogy: Imagine a community of 30-year-olds on an island that eats nothing but protein, fruit and veggies every day but the entire island is wiped out by a tsunami. On autopsy, they were all found to be in perfect health.

Should we adopt their diet long-term? You can't say because there's no data. It may have looked good at 30, but what about age 50, 60? Would the diet have produced complications?

Besides, there have been studies showing Paleolithic individuals did have disease issues.

That's why it's a fad. I agree that the focus on natural foods and away from overly processed is sound, but the diet itself is based on half-truths and faulty assumptions.

Again, I agree 100%

My first reaction was that the hunters and gatherers have become more efficient at burning calories because I have to work so much harder now to burn the same amount of calories as I did when I first started losing weight.

The issue highlighted in the study is that they are thinner and lighter than you, so they burn less calories on account of that - even accounting for greater activity levels.

Doubly labelled water and respiratory gas analysis was used to determine energy consumption and expenditure, they also had GPS devices fitted and were measured for energy walking on a test track. It's all in the paper.

The "paleo diet" is mentioned by Dr John Briffa's blog http://www.drbriffa.com/2012/07/27/hunter-gatherers-most-likely-to-be-leaner-than-us-due-to-differences-in-diet-not-activity/ where he points to papers that find the "Paleo diet" to be more satiating resulting in lower ad lib energy intake of ~1400 vs 1800 cals/day compared to a "Mediterranean" style diet.

"Paleo diet" - http://www.springerlink.com/content/h7628r66r0552222/fulltext.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3009971 includes macro & micro nutrient profiles.

I use "Paleo diet" in quotes to indicate what is currently eaten by those following such a diet, without any reference to ancient history ;-) There's a lot less carbs in the Paleo vs Mediterranean diet comparison.

Why do you defend a diet that has never been shown to have anything going for it?

You still haven't posted those links...

What links? Surely you are not asking me to repost links to the China Study, the German Study, the Framingham Study or any of the dozens of others that we have argued about in the past? If you are asking me to do that, why?

In case you are intersted, however, I will give you this link:

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/slideshows/top-rated-diets-overall

I am not at all defending this "study," or its conclusions, or for that matter anything else it says. The US News College Report is about as accurate and scientific as this, but I did find it interesting that of all the diets mentioned (of which I am unaware of most) the Vegetarian diet, the Vegan diet, the Ornish diet , and virtually all of the veggie diets finished on top in just about every category, while the Paleo diet finished last. Any comments?

Really, the China diet, that has been debunked so hard it should be more rightly called fiction, than a study.

What is the "China Diet?" I have never heard of that.

The China Study, on the other had has yet to be seriously debunked. It has some problems, and Campbell the author of the study stated that given hindsight he might have done some things differently, but by no means did he ever state that his study had been "debunked." As far as I know, no one else with any scientific credentials has ever said that either.

First read the article at the link I posted.

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/slideshows/top-rated-diets-overall

"Experts" rated the Paleo diet the worst of the 25 diets compared.

Also, and perhaps more interesting, this same article shows that only a small percentage of people who followed the Paleo diet reported that it actually helped them. Compare that to the Vegan or Vegetarian diets.

Finally, as I pointed out in a previous post, you are following a diet which cannot be determined with any accuracy, associated with an extinct lifestyle which also cannot be determined, you fail to include worms grubs and insects in your diet, and the diet was a total failure in terms of longevity, or if you cannot except that Paleos died before forty, at least accept that because they died before 40 we have no knowledge of how their diet effects the diseases of old age.

I have yet to see even one good reason for seriously considering Paleo.

Really? Your "study" is nothing more than a opinion piece there is no "study" to it. And it's not surprising Paleo ranked low because as a modern trend it is fairly new.

It's funny how when you are making one point it's "not exact" but when you are making another point it's exact percentages of macros.

Paleo is just a catch word, like Warrior Race, Spartan Race, man I bet those send you to the nearest bridge contemplating a swan dive. It is based on whole foods, and loosely the types of foods that Paleo man would have had available (with a modern twist)

Finally, you should try to be a little more precise. Are you talking about austrolopiticenes, homo erectus? Anatomically modern Humans? Homo Neandrathalasis? Homo sapiens? All had different diets depending upon where they lived. It is the imprecise nature of the "Paleo Diet" which makes it so absurd. Sorry, but I expect you are following a diet that only exists in Never never land.

Precisely the diet as laid out by Mark Session, Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain and others.

And someone mentioned that Paleo people had disease, since we are talking about diet here, may I ask what disease they had, heart disease? Diabetes? Or any of the other numerous diet related diseases?

Are you exercising as much as they do?

I do believe exercise can control weight, and I am somewhat suspicious about this study because the results are counter intuitive (doesn't make them wrong, of course.)

I do not give any credence at all to the "Paleo" diet, but it stands to reason that a farmer who works all day in the field burns more calories than a typical sedentary American.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-office-workers-burn-as-many-calories-as-hunter-gatherers/260384/

I have a good theorized explanation for this:

Hunter-gatherers are on their feet EVERY DAY, getting exercise nearly the entire time they're awake. One thing exercise does is increase the efficiency of your body. The more efficient your body is, the fewer calories it will burn.

Makes sense, right?

So even though they're on their feet 12 hours a day, their bodies are so adapted to doing it, and they do it so much, their bodies don't have to work as hard to do more work. thus, their calorie usage is lower.

Also these people are probably a LOT lighter than the average desk worker, so their "normal" BMR will be a LOT lower.

Now, desk workers are NOT active, and a LOT heavier, so their BMR is higher.

Put two-and-two together, and you'll have equal calorie expenditure.

Now, if you got a desk worker to go out and work in their feet every single day, their calorie expenditure will be a LOT higher than the hunter-gatherers.

I'd like to add what I know bout this ultra-marathon runner I've watched a documentary on. His resting heart rate is 32 beats per minute. 32!!!! Mine is 50-60 some-odd, as is most of yours, I imagine. The slower your heart beats, the fewer calories you burn (it's a good guideline to follow - there are exceptions). In a race, he can run non-stop for 24 hours. In that time, he may burn as many calories as someone who is sitting at a desk all day. Does this mean you shouldn't bother going out to exercise, because the super athlete burns as many calories as you do while sitting at a desk? Heck no.

I feel this is the way people are thinking after reading the article. People need to think more about what they read... Srsly.

I tell you why paleo/primal is so big tight now. The same reason that Pepsi Max and Coke Zero are.... they are targeted to men.

They use languages and images that most heterosexual men feel comfortable with... so while your average men would rather eat **** than to say they are on the Dukan diet most guys are quite happy to say that they eat like a cave man.

PS: I know many women who like this way of eating and the same for gay men, but there is certainly something real macho about this whole plan which there was a gap in the market for before.

Finally, as I pointed out in a previous post, you are following a diet which cannot be determined with any accuacy, associated with an extinct lifestyle which also cannot be determined, you fail to include worms grubs and insects in your diet, and the diet was a total failure in terms of longevity, or if you cannot except that Paleos died before forty, at least accept that because they died before 40 we have no knowledge of how their diet effects the diseases of old age.

I have yet to see even one good reason for seriously considering Paleo.

So because you found somewhere a statement that the average lifespan is 30-40 you take that to mean everyone that was born in that time survived as a infant, thru prepubescence, teenage years, young adult, and then just died at 35 years of age? WOW, when I learned averages in GRADE SCHOOL, it meant that some died younger and some died older. The astronomical high rate of infant mortality, not to mention the mortality rate of pre adulthood would seriously skew the average if pre-modern man.

Hopefully in grade school you learned what average meant. That is wonderful and a credit to our public schools for at least teaching that.. However, unless you have better information than anyone else, you cannot say what portion of the population during paleolithic times lived beyond 40. Yes, some certainly did. However without modern medicine, hygene, and protection from pathogens, wild animals and other dangers in the environment, I would doubt many did. If you have any information about some Paleolithic men living 100 years then please share it. As for me, I will take the "average lifespan of 35 years" to mean there weren't a whole lot of AARP candidates around then.

What is the "China Diet?" I have never heard of that.

The China Study, on the other had has yet to be seriously debunked. It has some problems, and Campbell the author of the study stated that given hindsight he might have done some things differently, but by no means did he ever state that his study had been "debunked." As far as I know, no one else with any scientific credentials has ever said that either.

Yes I meant China study, and really a person that did a study saying his study hasn't been debunked, now there's a shock.

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/ (debunk)

http://www.foodrenegade.com/the-china-study-discredited/ (debunk)

http://freetheanimal.com/2010/07/t-colin-campbells-the-china-study-finally-exhaustively-discredited.html (debunk)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x5TKlTJLpE (and for those that can't read here is a you tube debunk)

Some of these overlap, please look at the links to actual studies, don't come back with these are just bloggers or whatever.

I went to your first site and found an article by Denise Minger, who may or may not even have a Bachelor's Degree but certainly has an agenda. Her criticisms might impress someone who know nothing about statistics, or who hadn't even read the book, which I assume you haven't, but they are not,. overall impressive. They did apparently cause a big stir, and T Colin Campbell himself responded to her, on a different web site:

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html

Criticisms that were posted on Denise's website by actual scientists were seemingly removed by her. Read the article.

This is an article by a nobody (albeit a cute nobody) criticizing something she doesn't understand. Remember I said "reputable scientist?" Denise Minger, to the best of my knowledge is not a scientist let alone a "reputable scientist."

I suspect the other references you gave are equally pedestrian, so I am not going to waste my time.

Hopefully in grade school you learned what average meant. That is wonderful and a credit to our public schools for at least teaching that.. However, unless you have better information than anyone else, you cannot say what portion of the population during paleolithic times lived beyond 40. Yes, some certainly did. However without modern medicine, hygene, and protection from pathogens, wild animals and other dangers in the environment, I would doubt many did. If you have any information about some Paleolithic men living 100 years then please share it. As for me, I will take the "average lifespan of 35 years" to mean there weren't a whole lot of AARP candidates around then.

Let’s take a look at the Kitavans, since there’s so much data on them. A healthy, seemingly happy, peaceful culture in the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea eating a Paleo diet. At the time they were studied in the late 1980′s, they ate tubers, fruit, fish, and occasionally pig, and they didn’t suffer from heart disease, obesity, or other common ailments of Westerners.

In fact, none of the 213 adults surveyed had any memory of anyone having chest pain or spontaneously dying (as from a heart attack). Oh, and they smoked like chimneys. Anyway, yes, their average lifespan was lower than ours, but it doesn’t mean that people didn’t live to be very old, even into their 100′s. Here’s the breakdown:

According to this study, their average lifespan was 45 years, which doesn’t seem that old, but it averaged out to that because a lot of children died of malaria. Once they reached adulthood, their chances of reaching old age were possibly about the same as Westerners. 6% of the population was 65 or older (compared to 12% in the U.S.). Their activity level was high, but not outrageously high. And none of the elderly seemed to suffer from dementia or poor memory. When the Kitavans were very old and it was their time to go, they would just stop working one day and go into their houses and die within days.

I suspect the other references you gave are equally pedestrian, so I am not going to waste my time.

LMAO