7 ms·

Indeed, it's a review by someone with an axe to grind about a book by someone with an axe to grind. I'm not a "Paleo" person, but the hinting in this article t

by ellyagg 14y ago

Indeed, it's a review by someone with an axe to grind about a book by someone with an axe to grind. I'm not a "Paleo" person, but the hinting in this article that folks trying to infer better living patterns from the past are loons is faintly preposterous. We have just mounds of evidence (which doubters are free to research themselves) that many pre-Agricultural societies had (and have, actually) far lower rates of the so-called "diseases of civilizations". More abstractly, evolution isn't magic. There is some rate of lifestyle change due to technology that will outstrip evolution's ability to accommodate it. Hunters and gatherers weren't obese. We are. By irrefutable inference, some lifestyle difference explains this. One valid way to approach the problem of our accelerating obesity is to study what has changed. The theory that I consider most likely at this point is the one argued by Stephan Guyenet, a PH.D. neurobiology researcher who studies the link between obesity and the brain. He posits that modern industrial food is hyperpalatable, so we eat too much of it. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/10/case-for-food-reward-hypothesis-of.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/10/case-for-food-... It wouldn't be the favorite theory in the Paleo community, I imagine, but it springs from the same intuition.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tjogin 14y ago
Diseases of civilization are a function of congregation, not eating grains. Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury.
- kbenson 14y ago
  > Cavemen didn't have that luxury. Do we know that? I thought there was some research indicating the hunter-gatherer societies actually had to devote rather little (comparative) time to gathering sustenance.[1] Is there some research I should be aware of that refutes this, or at least asserts more information as to a likelihood one way or the other? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
  - tjogin 14y ago
    If they were obese it's because they had a caloric surplus (I doubt it). The laws of thermodynamics applied then, as they do now.
    - radio4fan 14y ago
      If the body digested everything with 100% efficiency and didn't produce waste, and also treated all 'calories' equally, then I'd agree that thermodynamics tells us everything we need to know. But even people coming from the complete opposite end of the argument to the paleo crowd ("Eat more whole grains!") agree that the amount of heat produced by a substance when it's burnt in a calorimeter doesn't tell the full story about its potential for causing obesity.
      - tjogin 14y ago
        Yes, fans of either reductionist fad diet of the day are all ignorant.
        regularfry 14y ago
        Or not. I can be a fan of a reductionist diet without buying the party line on the mechanism by which it works.
    - kbenson 14y ago
      I thought it was rather obvious I was looking for justification as to why you thought cavemen didn't have the luxury of caloric surplus. You already made it clear that you more than doubt they they had that luxury, you definitively said they did not. Again, the question is why?
      - tjogin 14y ago
        I have no idea how cavemen lived, and it doesn't interest me all that much either, but my guess is that they weren't as sedentary and they weren't as proficient in the art of preserving food. Overall, it should have been quite difficult for most of them to create a caloric surplus, day after day. What I do know is that bodymass is lost and gained with deficits and surpluses of calories. Transient spikes in insulin and stuff like that are irrelevant. This is well established in nutritional science.
- radio4fan 14y ago
  > Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury. No obese cavemen? How about a cavewoman? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
  - SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
    The Venus of Willendorf Is widely regarded to represent an exceptional, ideal image not a typical person. People who are short of food idealise a food surplus.
    - radio4fan 14y ago
      An alternative view, according to the wiki page: > The nickname, urging a comparison to the classical image of "Venus," is now controversial. According to Christopher Witcombe, "the ironic identification of these figurines as 'Venus' pleasantly satisfied certain assumptions at the time about the primitive, about women, and about taste." Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott hypothesize that the figurines may have been created as self-portraits. But let's face it, the evidence must be scant either way.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Still, if people from traditional societies enter the western world they tend to be afflicted even worse from civilization diseases (obesity, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks...). I think part of the problem is that our foods are engineered to trick the regulation of our food intake. Jared Diamond describes how New Guineans empty whole bottles of salt on their food, because they are much more "optimized" for craving salt. So the energy in/energy out thing might hold, but it is just part of the problem. The real problem is how to regulate food intake appropriately. Actually Dimaond also describes traditional people overeating to the extreme when they have meat on rare occasions (some kind of meat festival). So of course abundance of food is part of the problem - if those people had meat all the time, perhaps they would overeat immediately. But so we could still learn about sane frequencies of food intake from traditional societies.
- Evgeny 14y ago
  Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury. Obesity epidemic is a very recent phenomenon. Are you arguing that there were no societies that had caloric surplus up until late in the XX century? Or would you say that American Samoa with obesity levels of 70% [1] somehow have the luxury of having calorie surplus, while people of Switzerland (8.2% obesity) are struggling to get enough food? Speaking about Paleo diet in particular, why don't those guys gorge themselves into obesity [2]? The Kitavan people have been under greater study for their remarkable health characteristics. The people show no indication of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, congestive heart failure, acne, low or high blood pressure, or obesity. There is also almost no indication of cancer. The Kitavans have abundant food supply and are not threatened by malnutrition or famine. [1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... [2] http://wiki.whebsite.com/kitava http://wiki.whebsite.com/kitava
  - tjogin 14y ago
    > Are you arguing that there were no societies that had caloric surplus up until late in the XX century? No, only that a caloric surplus is necessary to gain weight. Matter cannot be created from nothing, a surplus of energy is required to perform all the bodily functions and to also build body mass. A people can have an abundance of food and still not get obese, if they simply don't eat too much of it, relative to their caloric expenditure.
dualogy 14y ago
> Hunters and gatherers weren't obese. We are. By irrefutable inference, some lifestyle difference explains this Yeah and that difference is the sheer abundance of cheap calories. People can and did get fat when eating too many calories of Paleo (easily possible if you overemphasize the fatty meats and sweeter fruits), people can and did lean out on breads and junk-food by simply consuming fewer calories than they expended over a prolonged period. I have no axe to grind here, I'd say I myself eat 99% Paleo 99% of the time, save for the occasional brownie. Otherwise it's meats, vegs, fruits for me. But that's just my personal taste, and for body-fat storage or lack of it, consuming in excess of your energy expenditure surely must account for most of the most of it.
- olefoo 14y ago
  It's not even the Paleolithic that had a 'better' diet; sugar production in industrial quantities didn't happen until the 19th century and High Fructose Corn Syrup [1] didn't become a staple of the human diet until the second half of the 20th century. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
  - riffraff 14y ago
    > High Fructose Corn Syrup [1] didn't become a staple of the human die until AFAICT HFCS didn't become a staple of human diet, it just became important in the US, the rest of the world still uses _way_ more sugar than HFCS (e.g. a 60:1 rate of production in the EU).
    - olefoo 14y ago
      Well. I am an American and we are the world, right....? // I jest. But if your colas are still made from sugar you are having the last laugh.
      - edu 14y ago
        Yes, here colas are still made of sugar :) Even though... better to drink just water!
akiselev 14y ago
Can't say something like "(which doubters are free to research themselves)" and follow it up with a claim like "many pre-Agricultural societies had (and have, actually) far lower rates of the so-called "diseases of civilizations." Actually you shouldn't even want to as there's a certain problem with gathering data on populations that lived 10,000 years ago with a geographically dispersed sample size of ... oh, I don't know, single digits?
- Tichy 14y ago
  This information does not just come from fossil records but also from studying living specimen, who still exist in the world today. The article mention that those people also had time to evolve, but I don't think that is much of a killer argument. Then the question would still remain (speaking of diet, which is only one aspect) why they were able to adapt to their diet and we weren't able to adapt to our diet.
  - reycharles 14y ago
    > Then the question would still remain (speaking of diet, which is only one aspect) why they were able to adapt to their diet and we weren't able to adapt to our diet. I think perhaps the point is that there isn't evidence that we haven't been able to adapt to our diet.
    - Tichy 14y ago
      We have certainly adapted to an extent, but not enough yet. Proof: civilization diseases do exist. (Not necessarily all about diet, but general lifestyle compared to traditional societies). The fact that these diseases exist shows that we haven't adapted to not have them.
- Evgeny 14y ago
  The keyword, I would suggest, is paleopathology Here is what I consider a decent introduction into the subject http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/paleopathology-at-origins-of.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/paleopathol...
pistacchioso 14y ago
If you spend your day harvesting a field or running after animals to pray them, you're not going to be obese, you're more likely to gather fat if your day is taping on a computer, but this has nothing to do with diet. Also, I won't the lifestyle of a period of our history, as a species, where the expected longevity was something like 30 years against 80+ of today.
randomsearch 14y ago
> Hunters and gatherers weren't obese. The obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon. It has nothing to do with the change from hunter gatherer to farmer.
maxerickson 14y ago
Pedantically speaking, a paleo-something probably shouldn't have an axe to grind. (I don't really have a point, but it's interesting how focused pop culture is on chipping rocks when polishing them is one of the foundational aspects of civilization)
hawleyal 14y ago
Obesity is not being heavily pressured by natural selection, only by sexual selection. Obesity may be targeted by certain disease, but usually only after the age of reproduction.

by ellyagg 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

tjogin 14y ago

Diseases of civilization are a function of congregation, not eating grains. Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury.

kbenson 14y ago
> Cavemen didn't have that luxury. Do we know that? I thought there was some research indicating the hunter-gatherer societies actually had to devote rather little (comparative) time to gathering sustenance.[1] Is there some research I should be aware of that refutes this, or at least asserts more information as to a likelihood one way or the other? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
- tjogin 14y ago
  If they were obese it's because they had a caloric surplus (I doubt it). The laws of thermodynamics applied then, as they do now.
  - radio4fan 14y ago
    If the body digested everything with 100% efficiency and didn't produce waste, and also treated all 'calories' equally, then I'd agree that thermodynamics tells us everything we need to know. But even people coming from the complete opposite end of the argument to the paleo crowd ("Eat more whole grains!") agree that the amount of heat produced by a substance when it's burnt in a calorimeter doesn't tell the full story about its potential for causing obesity.
    - tjogin 14y ago
      Yes, fans of either reductionist fad diet of the day are all ignorant.
      - regularfry 14y ago
        Or not. I can be a fan of a reductionist diet without buying the party line on the mechanism by which it works.
  - kbenson 14y ago
    I thought it was rather obvious I was looking for justification as to why you thought cavemen didn't have the luxury of caloric surplus. You already made it clear that you more than doubt they they had that luxury, you definitively said they did not. Again, the question is why?
    - tjogin 14y ago
      I have no idea how cavemen lived, and it doesn't interest me all that much either, but my guess is that they weren't as sedentary and they weren't as proficient in the art of preserving food. Overall, it should have been quite difficult for most of them to create a caloric surplus, day after day. What I do know is that bodymass is lost and gained with deficits and surpluses of calories. Transient spikes in insulin and stuff like that are irrelevant. This is well established in nutritional science.
radio4fan 14y ago
> Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury. No obese cavemen? How about a cavewoman? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  The Venus of Willendorf Is widely regarded to represent an exceptional, ideal image not a typical person. People who are short of food idealise a food surplus.
  - radio4fan 14y ago
    An alternative view, according to the wiki page: > The nickname, urging a comparison to the classical image of "Venus," is now controversial. According to Christopher Witcombe, "the ironic identification of these figurines as 'Venus' pleasantly satisfied certain assumptions at the time about the primitive, about women, and about taste." Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott hypothesize that the figurines may have been created as self-portraits. But let's face it, the evidence must be scant either way.
Tichy 14y ago
Still, if people from traditional societies enter the western world they tend to be afflicted even worse from civilization diseases (obesity, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks...). I think part of the problem is that our foods are engineered to trick the regulation of our food intake. Jared Diamond describes how New Guineans empty whole bottles of salt on their food, because they are much more "optimized" for craving salt. So the energy in/energy out thing might hold, but it is just part of the problem. The real problem is how to regulate food intake appropriately. Actually Dimaond also describes traditional people overeating to the extreme when they have meat on rare occasions (some kind of meat festival). So of course abundance of food is part of the problem - if those people had meat all the time, perhaps they would overeat immediately. But so we could still learn about sane frequencies of food intake from traditional societies.
Evgeny 14y ago
Obesity is the result of a caloric surplus. Cavemen didn't have that luxury. Obesity epidemic is a very recent phenomenon. Are you arguing that there were no societies that had caloric surplus up until late in the XX century? Or would you say that American Samoa with obesity levels of 70% [1] somehow have the luxury of having calorie surplus, while people of Switzerland (8.2% obesity) are struggling to get enough food? Speaking about Paleo diet in particular, why don't those guys gorge themselves into obesity [2]? The Kitavan people have been under greater study for their remarkable health characteristics. The people show no indication of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, congestive heart failure, acne, low or high blood pressure, or obesity. There is also almost no indication of cancer. The Kitavans have abundant food supply and are not threatened by malnutrition or famine. [1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... [2] http://wiki.whebsite.com/kitava http://wiki.whebsite.com/kitava
- tjogin 14y ago
  > Are you arguing that there were no societies that had caloric surplus up until late in the XX century? No, only that a caloric surplus is necessary to gain weight. Matter cannot be created from nothing, a surplus of energy is required to perform all the bodily functions and to also build body mass. A people can have an abundance of food and still not get obese, if they simply don't eat too much of it, relative to their caloric expenditure.

dualogy 14y ago

> Hunters and gatherers weren't obese. We are. By irrefutable inference, some lifestyle difference explains this Yeah and that difference is the sheer abundance of cheap calories. People can and did get fat when eating too many calories of Paleo (easily possible if you overemphasize the fatty meats and sweeter fruits), people can and did lean out on breads and junk-food by simply consuming fewer calories than they expended over a prolonged period. I have no axe to grind here, I'd say I myself eat 99% Paleo 99% of the time, save for the occasional brownie. Otherwise it's meats, vegs, fruits for me. But that's just my personal taste, and for body-fat storage or lack of it, consuming in excess of your energy expenditure surely must account for most of the most of it.

olefoo 14y ago
It's not even the Paleolithic that had a 'better' diet; sugar production in industrial quantities didn't happen until the 19th century and High Fructose Corn Syrup [1] didn't become a staple of the human diet until the second half of the 20th century. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
- riffraff 14y ago
  > High Fructose Corn Syrup [1] didn't become a staple of the human die until AFAICT HFCS didn't become a staple of human diet, it just became important in the US, the rest of the world still uses _way_ more sugar than HFCS (e.g. a 60:1 rate of production in the EU).
  - olefoo 14y ago
    Well. I am an American and we are the world, right....? // I jest. But if your colas are still made from sugar you are having the last laugh.
    - edu 14y ago
      Yes, here colas are still made of sugar :) Even though... better to drink just water!

akiselev 14y ago

Can't say something like "(which doubters are free to research themselves)" and follow it up with a claim like "many pre-Agricultural societies had (and have, actually) far lower rates of the so-called "diseases of civilizations." Actually you shouldn't even want to as there's a certain problem with gathering data on populations that lived 10,000 years ago with a geographically dispersed sample size of ... oh, I don't know, single digits?

Tichy 14y ago
This information does not just come from fossil records but also from studying living specimen, who still exist in the world today. The article mention that those people also had time to evolve, but I don't think that is much of a killer argument. Then the question would still remain (speaking of diet, which is only one aspect) why they were able to adapt to their diet and we weren't able to adapt to our diet.
- reycharles 14y ago
  > Then the question would still remain (speaking of diet, which is only one aspect) why they were able to adapt to their diet and we weren't able to adapt to our diet. I think perhaps the point is that there isn't evidence that we haven't been able to adapt to our diet.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    We have certainly adapted to an extent, but not enough yet. Proof: civilization diseases do exist. (Not necessarily all about diet, but general lifestyle compared to traditional societies). The fact that these diseases exist shows that we haven't adapted to not have them.
Evgeny 14y ago
The keyword, I would suggest, is paleopathology Here is what I consider a decent introduction into the subject http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/paleopathology-at-origins-of.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/paleopathol...

pistacchioso 14y ago

If you spend your day harvesting a field or running after animals to pray them, you're not going to be obese, you're more likely to gather fat if your day is taping on a computer, but this has nothing to do with diet. Also, I won't the lifestyle of a period of our history, as a species, where the expected longevity was something like 30 years against 80+ of today.

randomsearch 14y ago

> Hunters and gatherers weren't obese. The obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon. It has nothing to do with the change from hunter gatherer to farmer.

maxerickson 14y ago

Pedantically speaking, a paleo-something probably shouldn't have an axe to grind. (I don't really have a point, but it's interesting how focused pop culture is on chipping rocks when polishing them is one of the foundational aspects of civilization)

hawleyal 14y ago

Obesity is not being heavily pressured by natural selection, only by sexual selection. Obesity may be targeted by certain disease, but usually only after the age of reproduction.