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Animals living alongside humans produce amylase, enzyme that breaks down starch
- spraak 7y ago> This may suggest that our lineage has evolved specific adaptations to digest starch-rich foods, underlining the long and continuing importance of these staples in our diet This reminds me of the interest in keto dieting and the frustrating misunderstanding that carbs are the cause of excess weight, diabetes etc. If that were true, the whole world would be diabetic and obese, since everywhere has a staple carb. It's only with excess calories and fat that carbs contribute to, but are not the cause of, the problem.
- rhinoceraptor 7y agoThere are a few populations without (much) staple carbs, for example the Inuit and the Maasai. But I don't think many people solely blame carbs. It's processed carbs and sugar, hyper-palatable foods, lack of sleep, lack of sun exposure, microbiome damage from antibiotics, and a ton of other lifestyle factors. But once you're in a compromised state (autoimmune, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc.), the ketogenic diet can be a very good way to treat or reverse those conditions. It doesn't mean that no one can eat carbs, it just means there are a lot of people who really do benefit from it.
- ves 7y agoApparently Inuit people are actually fine on carbs because the meat they eat tends to retain its glycogen stores better because of the arctic conditions.
- BurningFrog 7y agoInuits have mutated to adapt to that diet. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/sep/how-inuit-adapted-ice-age-living-and-high-fat-diet https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/sep/how-inuit-adapted-ice-ag...
- taurath 7y agoAs societies get richer and more sedentary they do get more diabetic and obese though. That’s not really due to carbs existing of course - but as we get easier access to luxury ultra rich foods it causes a lot of problems.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kccqzy 7y agoIt's usually more of an issue with simple carbs, ie monosaccharides and disaccharides. Starch isn't one of them.
- Noumenon72 7y agoIt is after amylase gets through with it. Amylase converts starch into disaccharides and trisaccharides. (Does that still count as simple?)
- dilap 7y agoUndoubtedly multi-factorial, but excessive omega-6 fats as a major driver is the most convincing theory I've heard. Interesting reading: https://www.breaknutrition.com/omega-6-fatty-acids-alternative-hypothesis-diseases-civilization/ https://www.breaknutrition.com/omega-6-fatty-acids-alternati...
- teslabox 7y agoYour link references the street lamp joke - love that one, referenced it in a comment yesterday. My understanding is the omega-3 oils are problematic for humans too, they’re just not as acutely toxic as the omega-6 oils. I started avoiding seed oils in college. It was not the specific intervention I needed, but I believe avoiding this anti-food has helped keep me from deteriorating like people commonly do...
- cheesymuffin 7y agoWhich scientific journals have you read on the matter to form your opinion? Just curious -- always looking to learn.
- BurningFrog 7y agoUntil recently, everyone has lived near the border of starvation, and not had an opportunity to get obese. Since the agricultural revolution, carbs are what we have been able to mass produce, and therefore breed ourselves to greater numbers on. That it probably hasn't been the ideal diet for us is a distant secondary concern. Now that we're finally overproducing food, we actually are getting obese on the carb diet. Coincidence? Maybe.
- twic 7y agoI think the Venus of Willendorf and her equally thicc cousins are, if you'll excuse the expression, ample proof that some people had an opportunity to get obese long before the agricultural revolution.
- BurningFrog 7y agoSure. When I said "everybody" I really meant "almost everybody". Of course, in preindustrial times, obesity was a sign of wealth, and that statue might be an ideal to strive for, made by paper thin worshippers.
- chrisco255 7y agoThe Venus is a fictional character. In the same era you would see statues of men with phalluses as big as their bodies. Obesity was probably rare before the agricultural revolution.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoDidn't someone put a theory out that the Venus of Willendorf was not venerating the Fat Goddess, but rather what someone sees when they look straight down at their body? (cuz cave people didn't have good mirrors and all) Deeper explanation: https://steemit.com/science/@deeallen/self-portraits-of-fertility-symbols-venus-figurines-of-upper-paleolithic-eurasia-nudity https://steemit.com/science/@deeallen/self-portraits-of-fert...
- twic 7y ago
- chrisco255 7y agoThe number of carbs your body can tolerate without being converted and stored as fat is highly variable and may come down to specific genetic factors that are largely inherited from one's racial makeup. There's no doubt that carbs and sugars make a higher percentage of our diets than historical, traditional diets.
- jp57 7y agoThe image of the wolf with the deer leg in its mouth and the German shepard with the pizza slice in its mouth is basically the entire tl;dr.
- trhway 7y agoGood quality dog food is closer to deer leg then to pizza. Unfortunately there are too much low quality made of unbelievable junk pet food around compare to which even pizza sounds good and healthy. That prompts a lot health problems to the dogs.
- jp57 7y agoBut specially made dog food has only existed for 100 years or so. Dogs evolved eating humans' food scraps.
- trhway 7y agoYes, they are opportunistic carb eaters as a result of that evolution. The business of the low quality dog food abuses that.
- aaron695 7y agoThe argument is cheap bought dog meats are full of X that's not good for the long term health for dogs. Feeding them scraps might be better, but 100 years ago people had a less healthy diet than today (Not really up for argument) so between scraps from the old days, scraps now, cheap dog food, expensive dog food you have to look to see how to order them. Plus how often they eat, as long as the cheap crap is fortified and you don't over feed the dog, fine. Same as humans, eat what you want as long as it's once a day.
- tosca 7y agoNo observed genetic mutation ever resulted in an improvement; it has always resulted in a degradation of the gene.
- Nasrudith 7y agoHmm I wonder if it is just an adaptation (humans mean their staples are about and it gets selected for) - or if it is something mutagenic. The fact it is the same enzyme makes me wonder.
- maxerickson 7y agoThe wild animals have the genes, the ones associated with humans have multiple copies of it.
- Nasrudith 7y agoAh I missed that aspect in my skim. The consistency excess copies seems to imply that losing them entirely would be extra bad for survival enough so that redundant copies would boost offspring survival and dominate for human adjacents but not their more wild counterparts. The domestification might even imply reverse order - that the ones with the starch genes were more likely to wind up in "dog" pools - say because they were attracted to starch and got closer to humans - and thus plenty of extra copies among their descendants. Meanwhile ones without were more likely to stay away and their descendants more likely to wind up in "wolf" pools where prevalence was lower.
- gumby 7y agoAlthough I follow a ketogenic diet and benefit from it I have laughed about the claims that it's somehow aligned with the needs of Paleolithic people. SO I really enjoyed this: "Unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans, who had only two diploid copies, we carry up to 20 copies of the AMY1 gene, which produces salivary amylase. "
- Noumenon72 7y agoIsn't that the opposite of what you believe? Paleolithic people were not genetically adapted to high-starch diets like we are. Ergo, a low-carb diet like keto was more natural for them.
- codemac 7y agoThe "we" in the sentence is homo sapiens. Neanderthals and Denisovans were not the same species as us. > "Unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans, who had only two diploid copies, [homo sapiens] carry up to 20 copies of the AMY1 gene, which produces salivary amylase. "
- arcticbull 7y agoDoesn't that mean we've evolved to eat a lot of starch so the more natural thing for humans to eat is therefore starch, if you follow this line of reasoning? And therefore, we've "evolved beyond" the keto diet? FWIW, I do not think this is good reasoning.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- akiselev 7y agoOP is not making a claim here, he is pointing out counter evidence to someone else's claim, which is that keto diets are optimal for homo sapiens because that is what our genetic ancestors evolved to eat. The presence of significantly more genes for amylase provides strong (although far from conclusive) evidence that homo sapiens have evolved to eat a much more varied diet than paleo proponents assert.
- mrob 7y agoThe argument for keto/carnivorous diet does not depend on human adaptation to digesting starches. I understood it as: * Evolution works at the level of genes, not individuals. It will select for short-term reproductive success at the expense of longevity or quality of life. * All living things evolve to avoid being eaten (at least while they have the potential to reproduce or aid the reproduction of their kin). * Animals primarily defend against being eaten by fleeing or fighting. These defenses can be 100% neutralized by killing the animal. * Plants primarily defend against being eaten by producing toxins. These defenses can be neutralized by metabolism, but evolution has no incentive to select for 100% neutralization. If 100% neutralization of plant toxins is difficult then dying young with a lot of children might be a better strategy. However, there are plants that defend with spines/shells/hiding underground, and plants that produce fruit to attract animals for seed distribution, all of which change the selection pressure for toxin production, and any food may be healthful or harmful purely as a spandrel (a byproduct of evolution of some other characteristic). There are examples of human populations maintaining good health on a wide variety of different diets, so as is usually the case with nutrition, there are no clear answers.
- cageface 7y agoThese arguments are all interesting but I think most relevant is that the best nutrition science we have to date shows that a proper plant based diet is optimal for health & longevity. The plants and animals we eat now are radically different than the ones we were exposed to through most of our evolution so paleo proponents are chasing a lost world.
- chrisco255 7y agoThere is no such clinical evidence. For example, the Sami of North Scandinavia have a 40% lower cancer rate than Swedish people do (who are pretty healthy by Western standards), despite getting the bulk of their calories from reindeer meat. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ The modern cow is not fundamentally different from the ancient Aurochs, or reindeer or bison that used to be consumed in large quantities. Sure cows have been selectively bred for docile behavior and varying amounts of lean and fattyness but genetically speaking they're extremely similar. Meat doesn't vary a great deal (which is why a lot of things taste like chicken).