Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes

From: Su Solomon (susol_at_zemail.com)
Date: 08/03/04 

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 18:27:09 +1000

Philip Deitiker wrote:
>
> Su Solomon <susol@zemail.com> says in
> news:410E2B36.4E95@zemail.com:
>
> > Which is all very interesting, but Phil, it really begs the
> > question.
> >
> > Acute (deadly) Shellfish allergic reactions are found in
> > all people all round the world, but fortunately this is
> > only a small percentage of the population.
>
> > Now, is this acute allergic reaction a "mutation" that
> > affects only those that carry that "mutant" gene and has
> > been dealt with, in Darwinian terms over the generations,
> > or is it something that has always been part of our genetic
> > makeup? If the latter is the case, then postulating an
> > Aquatic Origin for hominids (who would be eating shellfish
> > as part of their survival strategy) would indicate that
> > Darwinian selection didnt work.
>
> I was trying to explain to you that there could be factors today
> that trigger a reaction which may have been much less frequently
> triggered in the past. This is my whole line of study,
> tangentially, I look for triggers of autoimmune diseases.
> The fact is that the prevelance of autoimmune diseases is
> markedly on the rise and it parallels the rise in allergies and
> asthma. I believe that gliadin may be partially responsible for
> this rise, as stated earlier, but there are many other things
> that have been discussed in the literature also.
> The point I need to make is other than the exposure of the
> fatal allergan at the time of death, there are conditions that
> lead to the fatal response, triggers. These things are complex
> and make reflect the complexity of modern life.
>
> > All the other foods you mentioned, are a very recent
> > addition to our diets (only within the past few thousand
> > years) and I agree, there are a number of problems
> > associated with these foods that will continue to 'plague'
> > the health of a great number of people. But as this
> > problem does not appear to affect the reproductive success
> > of the sufferers (the diseases associated with them taking
> > a long time to take affect) am not too sure that this will
> > arise in an evolutionary change.
>
> You are dancing around the issue. Shellfish mounds from asia all
> the way to the new world suggest very strongly that either
> people had death wishes or that oysters were a very valuble
> resource.

Nope not dancing, questioning.

Shell fish middens occur everywhere where these foods are available, but
as far as I know there are no people (hunter-gatherers) that subsists
entirely on these foods, for the protein portion of their diet. Most
info on shell fish is that they are used as a 'snack food', much like we
use them as an entree today. See:

Meehan, Betty. 1982. Shell Bed to Shell Midden. Australian Institute
of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

for a good example of this.

> Gliaden intolerance/gluten allergies have not stopped
> Scandinavians from basing their grain culture on wheat.
> Here is the deal, every culture must compete, they compete with
> other cultures. If Scandinavians are less productive without
> wheat than another culture in their place with wheat, then
> eventually they would be displaced, they loose. Therefore they
> must grow wheat and some percent will get sick and die,
> eventually 0301/0302 & 0501/0201 will decline in that population
> via selection on that little scrap of chromosome. IOW the
> evolutionary reasoning they would forgo keeping part of the
> genome so that the rest of their genes persist. HLA evolve fast
> anyway so this is not an issue of genetic identity.

This is a modern (post agricultural) problem, our diets are extremely
limited in their breadth of diversity.

In your post to Jim Moore you said:

<start quote>

Jim, I am acutely allergic to beef or anything that comes from
beef, I was not born allergic to beef or milk products, these
allergies came as a secondary result of eating wheat. Because
the order of things I ate during the silent phase of my
intolerance were beef, milk products, chicken, shrimp, tuna,
fish (snapper) and turkey. The order of my food allergies
reflects the order of foods I once ate, beef being the worst
because I consumed both beef and beef products. Conceptually
speaking if I had been eating batter fried oysters everyday, I
would be most allergic to oysters now. But I only ate oysters
occasionally and when I did I ate them raw.

<end quote>

You only occasionally ate oysters, but it appears that your diet was
predominately beef with some additions of wheat and milk products. If
you were a hunter-gatherer, you would have eaten a little bit of
everything, in its season.

> This is different in central america, because corn is probably
> a healthier crop than wheat,

Corn based diets just rots your teeth : )

> but there is social pressure from
> the west to change, and the result may be future class warfare
> and large scale rejection of western culture in societies with
> high 0301/0302 levels. I think that this may have been one
> factor in the case of the Ache if you already have corn, why
> should you be forced to adopt a wheat culture?
> But in terms of shellfish middens in the new world. In the new
> world it appears that south american settlers moved up from
> south america and into eastern US after expanding within south
> america. There may have been peoples who settled directly, but
> there is a strong stream of 0301/0302 in the native peoples east
> of the mississippi. Thus give middens in Japan, and given the
> strongest node in the new world for people who share genetic
> similarity with the Ryukyuans I would argue that shellfish
> consumption for the first settlers to the new world was not a
> problem, it was a means of survival and expansion. And when
> those hunters finally came from wherever they came from, that
> shellfish consumption kept the riparian/lagostrian/coastal
> peoples from being displaced by a more technologically advanced
> people. Now if those people had an intolerance to shellfish
> greater than shellfish eaters, what do you think it would
> balance the selective effect of new technology long enough for
> the old guys to learn a few new tricks?
> It is not clear to me that shellfish eaters might not have
> followed a trail of snails, grubby things, and clams all the way
> from africa to the new world via indonesia. The only little
> hangup I see would be along the aluetian chain where it would
> seem likely to me, that these maritime travelers had moved on to
> pelagic resources.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes
    ... > Scandinavians from basing their grain culture on wheat. ... I am acutely allergic to beef or anything that comes from ... allergies came as a secondary result of eating wheat. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes
    ... > Aquatic Origin for hominids (who would be eating shellfish ... Gliaden intolerance/gluten allergies have not stopped ... Scandinavians from basing their grain culture on wheat. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes
    ... > Aquatic Origin for hominids (who would be eating shellfish ... Gliaden intolerance/gluten allergies have not stopped ... Scandinavians from basing their grain culture on wheat. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes
    ... wheat intolerance can be life ... For one, irritable bowel disease ... > with this one developes food allergies, ... > whereas typical food allergies are IgA. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Shellfish Allergies Re: Grass or sand apes
    ... > gluten) although children can have 'cows milk' allergies. ... Wheat intolerance is both an allergy, intolerance, ... For one, irritable bowel disease ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
Quantcast