Atkins Diet May Have Helped Human Evolution

[nobimbo]

Atkins diet may have helped human evolution!:

[Health India]: Washington, Feb 19 : Early humans may have gained a competitive evolutionary advantage by taking on a primitive version of the Atkins Diet, according to new research.

The researchers at Stanford of the University of Southern California said that studying our ancestors' lifestyles may not provide concrete diet tips for today's weight-conscious humans, but we may gain fundamental insights to our origins and our behaviors, by investigating the fossil record.

Craig B of Stanford of the University of Southern California said, "Our earliest ancestors weren't buying cartons of eggs from the market, and probably ate many more raw vegetables, fruits and lean meats than today's heavy-protein advocates,"

Craig said that studies of 'gorillas in the mist' may have left many with the impression that gorillas are docile, cow-like creatures who favor leaves, while meaty foods are left to high- energy chimps. But, gorillas compete aggressively with chimps for available meat sources, and offer useful clues to the dietary adaptations of our early hominid ancestors.

According the researchers, increased meat consumption triggered genetic changes that allowed early humans to eat more fatty foods without developing heart disease.

Peter S. Ungar of the University of Arkansas also studied dental evidence to understand the evolution of the modern diet.

"Tooth shape reflects diet. Think of carnivorous dinosaurs with their sharp, dagger-like teeth. We can infer the diets of fossil primates by comparing the lengths of shearing crests on unworn molars with those of living species with known diets," he said.

Stanford says that early humans' meat consumption was limited to game they were able to chase down and kill, whereas modern humans in the developed world can stock up on nearly limitless amounts of protein.

Bernard Wood of George Washington University, said, "We've evolved to eat mush! We're a pretty puny bunch, really, with small teeth and small jaws. If we can't get the foods we like, and we have to adapt quickly, we might be in a terrible mess because our teeth and jaws aren't equipped to cope with anything very substantial." (ANI)

http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=74393

[Dodger]

This article is poorly written. What sort of research reference is "Craig B of Stanford of the University of Southern California"? Stanford and USC are two totally different universities. And Craig B.? Was he embarressed by his findings and did not want his name used?

I did find a good article about Peter Ungar's research. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4122

Humans evolved beyond their vegetarian roots and became meat-eaters at the dawn of the genus Homo, around 2.5 million years ago, according to a study of our ancestors' teeth.

In 1999, researchers found cut marks on animal bones dated at around 2.5 million years old. But no one could be sure that they were made by meat-eating hominids, because none appeared to have suitable teeth.

Now an analysis by Peter Ungar of the University of Arkansas has revealed that the first members of Homo had much sharper teeth than their most likely immediate ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, the species that produced the famous fossil Lucy.

Eating meat requires teeth adapted more to cutting than to grinding. The ability to cut is determined by the slope of the cusps, or crests. "Steeper crests mean the ability to consume tougher foods," Ungar says. He has found that the crests of teeth from early Homo skeletons are steeper than those of gorillas, which consume foods as tough as leaves and stems, but not meat.

Ripe fruit

But the crests of teeth from A. afarensis are not only shallower than those of early Homo, they are also shallower than those of chimpanzees, which consume mostly soft foods such as ripe fruit, and almost no meat.

"Ungar shows that early Homo had teeth adapted to tougher food than A. afarensis or [chimpanzees]. The obvious candidate is meat," says anthropologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University.

Ungar used a laser to scan each tooth and mapped the surface as though it were a landscape, using a geographic information system, he told a symposium on diet and evolution at the University of Arkansas in August.

He had to find a way to compare teeth already worn by use, because unworn teeth are extremely rare in fossils. In a previous study on the teeth of gorillas and chimps, he validated the technique by showing that the differences between species' teeth remain constant however much they are worn down (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 100, p 3874).

[seyont]

"Craig B. Stanford", as Google informs me, is an associate professor of anthropology and co-director of USC's Jane Goodall Research Center.

The article itself is a head-scratcher. What was the author's point?

[bluesmoke]

They just have to throw that "lean protein" bs in there as an editorial comment. Every study of hunter-gathers shows that animal fats were (ans are) prized and the most sought after parts of meat were (and are) the fatty parts. Nyah Levi