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> There’s no evolutionary benefit to eating as little as possible any time in human history In multiple organisms we see that under-eating and fasting extends

> There’s no evolutionary benefit to eating as little as possible any time in human history In multiple organisms we see that under-eating and fasting extends lifespan, so I'm not sure that's the case. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-01163-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-01163-z https://www.science.org/content/article/why-eating-less-means-living-longer https://www.science.org/content/article/why-eating-less-mean... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03277-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03277-6

herval 2y ago
Humans (and other mammals) starve to death way more often than died of calorie overconsumption, since the first little mammal climbed a tree
- nkozyra 2y ago
  Eating at little as possible means enough to live, though. That's what the "as possible" means, otherwise it would be "not eating"
  - herval 2y ago
    And then you store the rest of the food cache you found… where again? A prehistoric fridge? Oh wait that’s called fat cells, one of the best evolutionary advancements ever! Overeating really pays off.
    - nkozyra 2y ago
      I'm not really sure what you're arguing, because the initial claim was there's no evolutionary benefit to undereating. Yes you can store visceral fat and I'm not arguing there isn't a benefit for that, just that there's a clear benefit for undereating as well.
      - herval 2y ago
        No evolutionary benefit.
        nkozyra 2y ago
        But there's a demonstrable one - a longer lifespan. In most animals (including mammals) a longer lifespan gives more time for reproduction.
        jvanderbot 2y ago
        Jumping in to try to settle on common ground. It's not that there isn't a benefit to under eating. Demonstrably there is. Nor is there a strict disadvantage to overeating sometimes - it keeps you alive and is a great way to store food. It's just that we probably regularly did both. We probably ate a lot, then very little, either on daily, monthly, or annual cycles. So it just so happened that beneficial things took advantage of those cycles as the right time to do beneficial things. Think of it this way: I need to defrag my hard drive, but I cannot do that when I'm playing games. It's not that there's a benefit to stopping playing games, it's just that that's when I can defrag. It's probably similar with all the autophagy benefits of fasting - we were probably regularly not eating so we did it then. During eating we can't really do all that good stuff. And conversely, I really need to build muscle and brain tissue, and that's probably easier to do when I'm calorie rich. It's just the right time, and I can count on a calorie-reduction later to do the other stuff. We just never have that calorie deficit anymore.
        herval 2y ago
        Overeating doesn’t cause any issues to any animals during their average reproductive period (younger ages). Longer lifespans and calory deficits lead to lower quality offsprings. Nothing “demonstratable” there.
scheme271 2y ago
Yeah but lifespan benefits usually come after the animal has had a lot of chances to have offspring. Also undereating is much more likely to kill you in times of famine.

herval 2y ago

Humans (and other mammals) starve to death way more often than died of calorie overconsumption, since the first little mammal climbed a tree

nkozyra 2y ago
Eating at little as possible means enough to live, though. That's what the "as possible" means, otherwise it would be "not eating"
- herval 2y ago
  And then you store the rest of the food cache you found… where again? A prehistoric fridge? Oh wait that’s called fat cells, one of the best evolutionary advancements ever! Overeating really pays off.
  - nkozyra 2y ago
    I'm not really sure what you're arguing, because the initial claim was there's no evolutionary benefit to undereating. Yes you can store visceral fat and I'm not arguing there isn't a benefit for that, just that there's a clear benefit for undereating as well.
    - herval 2y ago
      No evolutionary benefit.
      - nkozyra 2y ago
        But there's a demonstrable one - a longer lifespan. In most animals (including mammals) a longer lifespan gives more time for reproduction.
        jvanderbot 2y ago
        Jumping in to try to settle on common ground. It's not that there isn't a benefit to under eating. Demonstrably there is. Nor is there a strict disadvantage to overeating sometimes - it keeps you alive and is a great way to store food. It's just that we probably regularly did both. We probably ate a lot, then very little, either on daily, monthly, or annual cycles. So it just so happened that beneficial things took advantage of those cycles as the right time to do beneficial things. Think of it this way: I need to defrag my hard drive, but I cannot do that when I'm playing games. It's not that there's a benefit to stopping playing games, it's just that that's when I can defrag. It's probably similar with all the autophagy benefits of fasting - we were probably regularly not eating so we did it then. During eating we can't really do all that good stuff. And conversely, I really need to build muscle and brain tissue, and that's probably easier to do when I'm calorie rich. It's just the right time, and I can count on a calorie-reduction later to do the other stuff. We just never have that calorie deficit anymore.
        herval 2y ago
        Overeating doesn’t cause any issues to any animals during their average reproductive period (younger ages). Longer lifespans and calory deficits lead to lower quality offsprings. Nothing “demonstratable” there.

scheme271 2y ago

Yeah but lifespan benefits usually come after the animal has had a lot of chances to have offspring. Also undereating is much more likely to kill you in times of famine.