Re: Cavalli-Sforza Doesn't Support AAT (Diet)

From: firstjois (firstjoisyike_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/24/04 

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:20:16 -0400

Rich Travsky wrote:
>> Pauline M Ross wrote:
>>>
[snip]

>>> But we can agree that "fat development is natural" in humans, as
>>> demonstrated by the difficulty many people have in losing it.

The mechanisms for weight gain and loss are rather complex and if you can
imagine this you can see how essential the mechanisms are - if hunting (and
or gathering) did not provided food on a stable regular basis then the body
would have to adapt to large amounts of food today (storage, increased
metabolism, waste treatment) and no food tomorrow (removal from storage,
decreased metabolism, different waste by products) - instead, the body has
a "smoothing" process that allow excesses in food intake in a single day
and great decreases in food intake to occur without making a big mess of
the current status. At the same time the overall effect must be like a
balanced (or unbalanced) equation - If calorie intake equals calorie use
body weight stays the same. If calorie intake is less that calorie use one
day nothing happens - see "smoothing" process above. Many overweight people
simply aren't active enough to burn off the calories the comsume and the
interesting alternative is that many overweight people consume many more
(easily obtained!) calories than they can burn off. Those people who
haven't managed to do one of the 2 choices above and find themselves losing
weight for whatever reason, not only lose fat but also muscle mass. Now,
that is mal-adaptive if the reason is long term, the current human body
probably (my best guess from observation) needs to be losing weight for 2-3
weeks before losing some muscle mass. The speedy diets like Atkins and
South Beach demonstrate this.

End to end, fat development in humans may be natural but not because
"demonstrated by the difficulty many people have in losing it" more likely
as temporary protection when food is less available.

Jois

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