4 ms·

I think you have to be careful because there are two things that need to be separated: 1) the human digestive tract is adaptable -- this measures the amount of

I think you have to be careful because there are two things that need to be separated: 1) the human digestive tract is adaptable -- this measures the amount of adaptation the individual is capable of. 2) evolutionary pressure selects individuals who are highly adapted to their environment (I.e. The others simply die off!) -- this measures the adaptations of a population towards diet. Ex: Swedish ability to digest lactose in adults. Asian insulin response to high carb/rice diets. It seems that if we really want to crack this nut, we should be looking at DNA data as well. I.e. This population gets this response with this diet, while that population has a completely different response. And yes, unfortunately adding DNA populations makes all of this research even more complex than it already was.

facepalm 11y ago
Absolutely, just because population A does well on some diet doesn't imply everybody does. Actually that is for me often a good heuristic to discard most nutrition advice right away. A lot of recommendations I see include lots of diary products. Yet 16% or more of the (European) population are lactose intolerant (even more in other countries). So that advice simply can't be true, and it seems like a good idea to regard the rest of it with suspicion, too. I guess that at least shows it is not completely hopeless for the individual, some common sense might go a long way. A lot of people are Fructose intolerant, yet the "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" advice won't die. Then again there is a lot of fear mongering about milk going on. But the ability to digest lactose (as an adult) spread like wildfire at some point in time, seems to have had some evolutionary advantage. "my body tells me what I need" doesn't reliably work either, because it might crave for sugar, alcohol and nicotine :-/ Nassim Taleb avoids foods that haven't been eaten by his population for thousands of years, for example Mangoes. Might be too extreme, but worth thinking about. Atm there is a new craze in my country about some new healthy grain from South America. I pass - it seems obvious that people can be healthy without that grain (because people have survived in Europe for millennia), so why risk it? So maybe if Bananas were a new fad I would feel the same way, I only eat them because they were already a fad when I was born.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  There's little to no lactose in many dairy products. Notably, cheeses and yogurt have essentially none. (I'm of northern European heritage and lactose intolerant) What is fructose intolerance? Lactose intolerance is the lack of production of a certain enzyme (lactase) in adulthood, but I wasn't aware that there were humans that lacked the ability to metabolize fructose in the liver (which is what I would expect given the analogous name).
  - facepalm 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption I know there are dairy products without lactose, but then the nutrition guidelines should at least mention the issue.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  The ability to digest lactose probably spread like wildfire because it was a genetic mutation and those with the mutation had a new source of nutrition they could take advantage of which helped them survive better than those without. So, as a result, most Europeans now are lactose-tolerant. Personally, as someone of northwestern European ancestry, I seem to do just great with a lot of milk in my diet. But back when I was younger and drank a lot of soda with HFCS, I got fat. But I wouldn't expect someone of, say, Asian ancestry to do so well with a lot of milk; they probably wouldn't even be able to drink it without having a lot of gas problems or needing to add lactase (or buy "Lactaid" brand milk). What we really need is nutrition advice that's tailored for an individual's genetic profile, and probably also of the genetic profile of their gut bacteria.
atomical 11y ago
Do you have a source for Asians having a different insulin response to high carb diets? High protein diets also trigger a large insulin spike.

facepalm 11y ago

Absolutely, just because population A does well on some diet doesn't imply everybody does. Actually that is for me often a good heuristic to discard most nutrition advice right away. A lot of recommendations I see include lots of diary products. Yet 16% or more of the (European) population are lactose intolerant (even more in other countries). So that advice simply can't be true, and it seems like a good idea to regard the rest of it with suspicion, too. I guess that at least shows it is not completely hopeless for the individual, some common sense might go a long way. A lot of people are Fructose intolerant, yet the "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" advice won't die. Then again there is a lot of fear mongering about milk going on. But the ability to digest lactose (as an adult) spread like wildfire at some point in time, seems to have had some evolutionary advantage. "my body tells me what I need" doesn't reliably work either, because it might crave for sugar, alcohol and nicotine :-/ Nassim Taleb avoids foods that haven't been eaten by his population for thousands of years, for example Mangoes. Might be too extreme, but worth thinking about. Atm there is a new craze in my country about some new healthy grain from South America. I pass - it seems obvious that people can be healthy without that grain (because people have survived in Europe for millennia), so why risk it? So maybe if Bananas were a new fad I would feel the same way, I only eat them because they were already a fad when I was born.

maxerickson 11y ago
There's little to no lactose in many dairy products. Notably, cheeses and yogurt have essentially none. (I'm of northern European heritage and lactose intolerant) What is fructose intolerance? Lactose intolerance is the lack of production of a certain enzyme (lactase) in adulthood, but I wasn't aware that there were humans that lacked the ability to metabolize fructose in the liver (which is what I would expect given the analogous name).
- facepalm 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose_malabsorption I know there are dairy products without lactose, but then the nutrition guidelines should at least mention the issue.
Grishnakh 11y ago
The ability to digest lactose probably spread like wildfire because it was a genetic mutation and those with the mutation had a new source of nutrition they could take advantage of which helped them survive better than those without. So, as a result, most Europeans now are lactose-tolerant. Personally, as someone of northwestern European ancestry, I seem to do just great with a lot of milk in my diet. But back when I was younger and drank a lot of soda with HFCS, I got fat. But I wouldn't expect someone of, say, Asian ancestry to do so well with a lot of milk; they probably wouldn't even be able to drink it without having a lot of gas problems or needing to add lactase (or buy "Lactaid" brand milk). What we really need is nutrition advice that's tailored for an individual's genetic profile, and probably also of the genetic profile of their gut bacteria.

atomical 11y ago

Do you have a source for Asians having a different insulin response to high carb diets? High protein diets also trigger a large insulin spike.