The Evolution Discussion

[quote]John M Berardi wrote:

There are Venus sculptures from paleolithic times…about 25,000 years before the Roman empire thrived.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html

And these paleolithic ancestors knew corpulence!

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html[/quote]

The Venus sculptures are pregnant. Faulty logic :slight_smile:

[quote]A~D wrote:
John M Berardi wrote:

There are Venus sculptures from paleolithic times…about 25,000 years before the Roman empire thrived.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html

And these paleolithic ancestors knew corpulence!

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html

The Venus sculptures are pregnant. Faulty logic :-)[/quote]

pregnant with what? an elephant?

[quote]A~D wrote:
John M Berardi wrote:

There are Venus sculptures from paleolithic times…about 25,000 years before the Roman empire thrived.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html

And these paleolithic ancestors knew corpulence![/quote]

Maybe the ones you cited happened to be. The Romans, Egyptians, and other cultures had plenty of overweight people. The response to it varied culturally. When food was not so plentiful as it is today, corpulence was a sign of prosperity and valued. Only the rich could be fat. There are places in the world where it is still like this, and fat is coveted. There is actually an African culture (I forget the name) where there is a several week ritual for brides. They are sent to a fattening hut, and they try to get as fat as possible before the wedding. (At the end, they are still probably slimmer than a large percentage of American women)

[quote]
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/artifacts/venusfigurines.html

The Venus sculptures are pregnant. Faulty logic :-)[/quote]

Here’s another thought that I didn’t see posted:

The whole paleolithic nutrition thing is very compelling and logical (I.e., “we’re genetically almost identical to our early ancestors and hard-wired to eat what they ate.”)

BUT in the interest of being complete, our bodies are already equipped to handle all sorts of toxins that we may never experience…for example, you may have never encountered arsenic, but your filtering organs are already designed to deal with that poison (albeit in very small amounts). Just a thought from the Southwest compound…

Dr. Berardi,

You bring up some very interesting points. With regards to the subject at hand, what to you think of diets like the Metabolic diet, where one is trying to identify one?s genomic makeup and design a diet in accordance with it.

Or you could even take it a step further (as Poliquin does) and recommend that someone undergoes Genomic testing in order to accurately construct a proper diet according to there genetic makeup.

I would really like to hear what you think of these approaches to dieting.

Thank you for your time and any advice that you give.

[quote]Charles Staley wrote:
Here’s another thought that I didn’t see posted:

The whole paleolithic nutrition thing is very compelling and logical (I.e., “we’re genetically almost identical to our early ancestors and hard-wired to eat what they ate.”)

BUT in the interest of being complete, our bodies are already equipped to handle all sorts of toxins that we may never experience…for example, you may have never encountered arsenic, but your filtering organs are already designed to deal with that poison (albeit in very small amounts). Just a thought from the Southwest compound…[/quote]

Interesting. And probably a good thing considering the crap that is probably in even clean food today.

Dr Berardi:

Thanks for the article. I found myself asking some of the same questions while reading the recent Paleolithic diet-related posts/articles, especially the one where Chris Shugart interviewed Dr DeVany.

In these, many suppositions are presented as fact, without enough evidence (statistical or otherwise) to warrant it. And, for those of us attempting to succeed in our own body composition experiments, these are important issues.

So, because my genetic makeup demands it, I should fast frequently, deny positive nitrogen balance, and try to puke during my workouts to release additional GH? Damn! And I had just gotten into the habit of eating more frequently, lost fat and gained muscle, and upped all my poundages.

Why do so many sources start with a few basic observations and then correlate an entire structure without additional empirical evidence?

What to do, what to do.

Richard

My only difficulty with this kind of approach is that it implies that man can only harm himself by tampering with nature. I.e. any manmade food is bad for you. Even if this were the case at the moment, it’s not a final answer. I’m sure it is possible to make food healthier. We’ve already made it more abundant, allowing the support of more and more people.

Also, I fail to see how genes are the only answer to all this. Aren’t lifetsyles a huge factor? We have completely different activities and livelyhoods than our ancestors. We live in a remade world. Their needs and our needs are not necessarily interchangable. Although we may not have actually evolved since then, what is optimum is no longer the same. Our new lifestyle hasn’t been around long enough for the fittest to be the only ones left. We still have some with genes that wouldn’t make it in the long run.

But we have many things (like medicine) that allow genes to survive when left to nature they wouldn’t. Evolution is about adaption and culling of those unable to - but it’s the surroundings and lifestyle that we adapt to. We no longer have the same lifetsyle and we can prevent the culling through other means. The lifestyle we live may not be made optimal by eating the way our ancestors did for their lifestyle - just because our genes are the same, our demands are not.

Many Germanic and Scandinavian peoples have been “large” by American standards for centuries. I wonder what the correlation between hormone-injected foods over the last few decades and the premature physical development of American youths are?

[quote]NateN wrote:
John M Berardi wrote:
Ever seen the Venus sculptures? Ancients CLEARLY had and knew what fat people looked like!

I think this whole evolutionary discussion is talking about life WAY long before the Romans.
[/quote]

He’s not talking about the Venus of Milo (that’s a greek sculpture, by the way) but the Venus figurines found throughout Europe, that belong to the Upper Paleolithic (about 2 million years ago), just after Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared on the scene. You can read an interesting article on them here (sketches are included):

http://cmsu2.cmsu.edu/~ldm4683/2.htm

[quote]slimjim wrote:
Don’t leave underage daughters around Nate Dogg. Check.
[/quote]

Your underage daughters are safe with me. I’ll be nice. Muhahahaha!

Dr. DeVany cautions against eating multiple times throughout the day in order to regulate insulin levels. His words:

[quote]Dr. De Vany: Many meals per day reduce insulin spikes a bit, but by substituting a nearly constant flow. Hence, total insulin is increased over the course of the day eating six or seven meals. This will make you more resistant to the action of insulin. Hence, your body must make more of it.

As your insulin drifts upward and you become resistant, you’re on your way to the Metabolic Syndrome X: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, and a pre-diabetic state. No wonder a number of bodybuilders develop diabetes. [/quote]

His nutrition principles seem to disagree with much of T-Nation’s universal teachings, especially against John Berardi’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs. The Evolutionary Fitness interview has created doubts about my current dietary habits. Eating 6-7 meals a day, that is. Will such a pattern lead to health problems later in life due to insulin resistance? Do our current eating habits create great short term results but undermine our long term vitality?

[quote]Boangiu wrote:
Dr. DeVany cautions against eating multiple times throughout the day in order to regulate insulin levels. His words:
Dr. De Vany: Many meals per day reduce insulin spikes a bit, but by substituting a nearly constant flow. Hence, total insulin is increased over the course of the day eating six or seven meals. This will make you more resistant to the action of insulin. Hence, your body must make more of it.

As your insulin drifts upward and you become resistant, you’re on your way to the Metabolic Syndrome X: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, and a pre-diabetic state. No wonder a number of bodybuilders develop diabetes.

His nutrition principles seem to disagree with much of T-Nation’s universal teachings, especially against John Berardi’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs. The Evolutionary Fitness interview has created doubts about my current dietary habits. Eating 6-7 meals a day, that is. Will such a pattern lead to health problems later in life due to insulin resistance? Do our current eating habits create great short term results but undermine our long term vitality?[/quote]

I’m sorry, but diabetes is not rampant because of people eating several times a day. It is rampant because of food choices, and I would be willing to bet that the majority of the people in this country do not eat 6 times a day. I am more than sure most are like “average” and eat 3 huge meals a day with their intake being largely simple carbohydrates. The fitness crowd and bodybuilders are not the ones coming down with diabetes left and right so I fail to see your concern.

i think youre opinions are mostly based on the assumption that doctors who recommend paleo diets base their opinions on solely anecdotal evidence from the past. that is at least where most of your criticisms seem to be coming in at anyway.

the fact is, paleo type diets of meat, fruit,vegetables,and nuts are just about the cleanest way to eat, regardless of whether or not our ancestors ate that way

I would have to agree with NateN here.

Living longer could be a huge factor in evolution.

If I lived 20 years longer than my neighbor, I could potentially father SEVERAL THOUSAND more children than him, hence tipping evolution towards my traits.

[quote]NateN wrote:
John M Berardi wrote:

There’s no evolutionary advantage to living longer.

[/quote]

Environmental estrogens are EVERYWHERE. Read “Our Stolen Future” or “Hormone Deception” these books will change the way you look at the entire world.

[quote]PGA200X wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I agree. I don’t know about anyone else, but people seem much taller today than they did just 20 years ago. When I was a kid, 5’8" was supposed to be “average”. That’s short now.

Kids are bigger as far as lean body mass (at least in the inner city schools I have been to), and while much of that may depend on nutrition, the shift over the last two decades has been pretty drastic. Society as a whole seems to play a role in this that seems to be overlooked so that the idea can be simplified to diet.

Look no further to the girls in high school now. They were not built like that when I was in highschool 15 years ago thats for damn sure. They develop at a much earlier age. One of my professors touched on this during one of her lectures. She thinks it has to do with the way food is manufactured (drugged, preserved, etc.) which leads people to develop at a much earlier time than they have in the past.[/quote]

What about conditions such as:

(1) Asian blush - Asians turn red when they drink alcohol.
(2) European (white) lactose tolerance - most people around the world can’t digest lactose.

To me, this suggests that human populations aren’t universally adaptable.

But of course, this also suggests that all ancient populations did not develop with similar diets.

[quote]John M Berardi wrote:

THOUGHT #3
As humans we’re damn adaptable. Want evidence? Well, the “eat that way” in the quote above isn’t universal for ancient man (as many folks would make you think to sell you their paleo-type diet)!

[/quote]

[quote]John K wrote:
If I lived 20 years longer than my neighbor, I could potentially father SEVERAL THOUSAND more children than him, hence tipping evolution towards my traits.[/quote]

With all that humping, when would you have time for your workouts?

I bet you’d get killer abs and lower back, though :wink:

[quote]NateN wrote:
John M Berardi wrote

Ever seen the Venus sculptures? Ancients CLEARLY had and knew what fat people looked like!

I think this whole evolutionary discussion is talking about life WAY long before the Romans.
[/quote]

The Venus sculptures were WAY before the Romans. The Venus of Willendorf is 22,000 - 24,000 years old.

Sorry to repeat what others have said re. the Venuses. This is interesting though:

Two much older finds are also often categorized as Venus figurines - the Venus of Berekhet Ram, dating to between 800,000 and 233,000 BCE, and the Venus of Tan-Tan, which dates to between 500,000 and 300,000 BCE

From Wikipedia.