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I'm not sure that "Our digestive systems are too inefficient" is the most important health problem to solve. If anything, in general our digestive systems appe

I'm not sure that "Our digestive systems are too inefficient" is the most important health problem to solve. If anything, in general our digestive systems appear to be too efficient to optimize the health outcomes of diets in the developed world.

MisterBastahrd 6y ago
Our digestive systems? They suck. Part of the problem of our intelligence is that we adapted our environments to us instead of the other way around. Cats can eat an all-meat diet. Dogs can do fine on rice and meat. Why? It's because their bodies produce the vitamins they need to survive. We created agriculture and had such rich diets that when we lost our ability to create certain vitamins in our own bodies, we never even noticed. The genes are still there, they're just broken. "Fixing" that issue would be one of the greatest feats in the history of humanity. If mankind ever wants to leave this rock and colonize other worlds, they better figure out how to fix that problem. Would suck to have a starship travelling for hundreds of years only to land on a planet suitable for colonization and realize you ran out of Vitamin C so everyone is going to die of scurvy.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Guinea pigs also lost the ability to manufacture Vitamin C; it's hard to blame that on their development of agriculture. It's also not necessary to eat a rich diet to maintain levels of Vitamin C. Everything alive contains it. (Even the guinea pigs.) The things that suppress it are probably things you would associate with "rich food", like cooking and long storage periods. Eat one onion and you'll get far more Vitamin C than you need.
- wbc 6y ago
  Are you saying agriculture cause humans to lose the ability to create vitamins (specifically C)? I don't think that is true, at least according to Nature: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-mystery-of-vitamin-c-14167861/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-mystery-of-vit... The article posits the loss of Vitamin C to be much earlier: Notably, not only all humans, but also gorillas, chimps, orangutans, and some monkeys have this inborn genetic flaw, meaning that the loss of vitamin C biosynthesis must have occurred first in one of our primate ancestors.
- ben_w 6y ago
  > Why? None of that. Cats are obligate carnivores, their bodies don’t produce taurine. And all animals need to eat something because none of us are photovores. And some plants are carnivores. If we colonise other worlds, rather than O’Neill habitats or mind uploads, we’re almost certainly taking the farms with us for the trip, not rely on local stuff.
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    And, our metabolism depends on Vitamin B12, which is ONLY made by bacteria. Every plant and animal that needs B12 has to get it by eating something else with B12 in it, or having the bacteria responsible in it's digestive tract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12
    - alexmingoia 6y ago
      It’s far from being fully understood. The Wikipedia article isn’t accurate. Many animals including humans have been found to have B12 producing bacteria in the small intestine. B12 producing bacteria has been found in human small intestine as far back as 1980: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7354869/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7354869/
- bluGill 6y ago
  I'm not sure fixing it would be good. Genetics is tricky, and we don't know what we would lose by fixing that gene. Loss of intelligence is one trade off I've seen suggested, but I don't know what would really happen.

MisterBastahrd 6y ago

Our digestive systems? They suck. Part of the problem of our intelligence is that we adapted our environments to us instead of the other way around. Cats can eat an all-meat diet. Dogs can do fine on rice and meat. Why? It's because their bodies produce the vitamins they need to survive. We created agriculture and had such rich diets that when we lost our ability to create certain vitamins in our own bodies, we never even noticed. The genes are still there, they're just broken. "Fixing" that issue would be one of the greatest feats in the history of humanity. If mankind ever wants to leave this rock and colonize other worlds, they better figure out how to fix that problem. Would suck to have a starship travelling for hundreds of years only to land on a planet suitable for colonization and realize you ran out of Vitamin C so everyone is going to die of scurvy.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Guinea pigs also lost the ability to manufacture Vitamin C; it's hard to blame that on their development of agriculture. It's also not necessary to eat a rich diet to maintain levels of Vitamin C. Everything alive contains it. (Even the guinea pigs.) The things that suppress it are probably things you would associate with "rich food", like cooking and long storage periods. Eat one onion and you'll get far more Vitamin C than you need.
wbc 6y ago
Are you saying agriculture cause humans to lose the ability to create vitamins (specifically C)? I don't think that is true, at least according to Nature: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-mystery-of-vitamin-c-14167861/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-mystery-of-vit... The article posits the loss of Vitamin C to be much earlier: Notably, not only all humans, but also gorillas, chimps, orangutans, and some monkeys have this inborn genetic flaw, meaning that the loss of vitamin C biosynthesis must have occurred first in one of our primate ancestors.
ben_w 6y ago
> Why? None of that. Cats are obligate carnivores, their bodies don’t produce taurine. And all animals need to eat something because none of us are photovores. And some plants are carnivores. If we colonise other worlds, rather than O’Neill habitats or mind uploads, we’re almost certainly taking the farms with us for the trip, not rely on local stuff.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  And, our metabolism depends on Vitamin B12, which is ONLY made by bacteria. Every plant and animal that needs B12 has to get it by eating something else with B12 in it, or having the bacteria responsible in it's digestive tract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12
  - alexmingoia 6y ago
    It’s far from being fully understood. The Wikipedia article isn’t accurate. Many animals including humans have been found to have B12 producing bacteria in the small intestine. B12 producing bacteria has been found in human small intestine as far back as 1980: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7354869/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7354869/
bluGill 6y ago
I'm not sure fixing it would be good. Genetics is tricky, and we don't know what we would lose by fixing that gene. Loss of intelligence is one trade off I've seen suggested, but I don't know what would really happen.