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Science, medicine, and quackery


sevenperforce

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28 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

It's all made up by stupid narcissistic nutters

Professional marketers reading this thread will be very offended by “stupid” and “nutters”.

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3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Never bluntly accept modern dietary fads.

The problem in the US is that the government diet guidelines are in effect a modern, dietary fad, and we've now had decades of experiment, and it's caused harm, but they don't really change them. If nutrition was well understood, then we'd know what was nonsense and what wasn't, but the sad reality is that even so-called experts setting official guidelines in many (most?) cases have literally no idea what they are talking about, which makes other fad diets look reasonable in comparison (because they're all equally nonsense).

Exercise is obviously important (taking the stairs, etc), but for the morbidly obese, that's not going to drop their weight, they can't possibly exercise enough (few can, they'd need to be running marathons daily or something to burn enough)---they need to eat less, a lot less. The US dietary guidelines are very carbohydrate heavy, and the federal guidelines are in fact as evidence-free as any other dietary fad.

People who eat a balanced diet of meat and vegetables, with smaller amounts of everything else are generally healthy. They are also generally not hungry. Too many people eat overly processed food in the US, I think. What happened with the diet guidelines from the government is that they said fat was bad, and all the food companies dutifully eliminated fat. In order to make their food taste good, they then changed the recipes, and likely added sugar, etc, to make up for the lack of fat. "Low fat" foods tend to be terrible, IMO, we don't buy them. Look at all the sugar people drink. My coffee has coffee in it (espresso, a little water). My first cup had a tiny splash of heavy cream. If I was drinking "lattes" each coffee, I'd end up drinking a liter of lowfat milk,. Better to have a small glass of real milk. When I was a kid, juice at breakfast came in a small glass, looks like a shot glass compared to now. Soda sizes are huge (and there are people who actually drink that every day, last time I had a coke was at Disneyland). I remember we were at a local New Mexican place (Sadie's) when the kids were toddlers, and the waitress offered them coke. To put in a sippy cup. You want fat kids? Cause that's how you get fat kids, lol.

Edited by tater
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On 1/1/2019 at 4:08 PM, sevenperforce said:

positive for exposure to Lyme disease

A little bit late into this foray, but;  I've had a bit of experience with Lyme in an aging parent.  What I can tell you is that simply treating Lyme with antibiotics is not sure fire, Lyme can return.**  After the initial treatment, your patient should be retested... I would say about a year out after treatment.  Insist on it.  Been there, had to deal with it.  My 'patient', on their second go-round, was discovered to be in stage 2 over a year after the initial infection and treatment, where the Lyme was then beginning to have an affect on internal organs which led us to think other ailments were at play.  Eradicating the Lyme resolved nearly all of the other issues.

Inflammatory foods affecting the gut, as in gastritis;  Gastritis can be tied to a bacterial infection and can be treated.

I've never heard of 'leaky gut', but I have heard of 'lazy stomach' (gastroparesis), which is an actual condition where the stomach does not process food in a timely manner, and 'lazy gut' or 'sluggish bowel'.  Food remaining in any part of the gut too long can cause a multitude of problems, including very painful spasms.

 

** There have been some studies done (back in 2012?) which state Lyme does not return, that the issue is reinfection.  Whatever.  I'm sure both cases have potential, either of which merits retesting.

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I've heard of 'leaky gut syndrome' before, but it was pure quackery. The person was trying to claim that gluten can cause autism (amongst other things) by opening pores in the gut lining, allowing undigested food into the bloodstream... 

Yeah, it's probably BS. 

Just to be clear, that is sort of, but not really, what gluten does, but there is no evidence that it actually affects gluten tolerant humans (surprisingly, most of us have evolved to eat our staple food). 

But on a more serious note, as someone who is on the autism spectrum, I've had mild gut issues for a long time, and as far as I can tell, altering my diet was about as effective as consulting my horoscope. Reducing stress did help, but diets didn't. 

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7 hours ago, MinimumSky5 said:

I've heard of 'leaky gut syndrome' before, but it was pure quackery. The person was trying to claim that gluten can cause autism (amongst other things) by opening pores in the gut lining, allowing undigested food into the bloodstream... 

That's what I have heard most.

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I've had IBS for a long time, and the symptoms are highly variable. I have, from time to time, convinced myself that a change in my diet was correlated to a change in the symptoms, and then usually later convinced myself that it had been randomness.

I do think there is some amount of inflammation involved, and anti-inflammatory drugs seem to help. Sometimes.

I first heard of the concept of a paleo diet in an unlikely place -- a book about cave art. The author was pretty strongly opinionated on several related subjects. One of them was that he felt most cave art was basically graffiti drawn by kids (probably boys). His research and experience had indicated to him that ancient people probably didn't spend any more time in deep caves than we do today, so when art is found deep inside caves it was probably left there by young people exploring the caves as a lark. With the exception of there being no written words, ancient cave art does kind of look like stuff you would find drawn on a bathroom stall. In particular, a really high percentage of cave art is "fertility symbols" (i.e. sketches of naked women).

Anyway, this guy was also a hunter, and he proposed in this same book that the diet of most paleolithic people would be pretty heavily meat (especially fatty meat) and stuff that can be gathered like wild tubers and berries and fruit. The main thing that they would not have had is grain and sugar. So he was advocating that high amounts of animal fat and meat is not a problem at all, but grains and sugars are bad for people.

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3534406.html

(By the way, I highly recommend the book.)

Edited by mikegarrison
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I guess the paleos were eating grain where it grows, and weren't where it doesn't.
Otherwise they would not invent agriculture as a way to gather food right near the hut.
Grain grows faster, a crop field gets revived in a year. unlike a fruit garden.
2 paleohumans - 3 paleodiets.

Edited by kerbiloid
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Dale Guthrie is a nut. He sat in a backwater institution in Alaska working on frozen mammoths. His naive and somewhat pubertal "opinions" about paleolithic art have no significance in prehistory. Without hurting anybodies feelings, the book is a bad and grossly misleading introduction into paleolithic art and its possible significance.

Paleolithic art, especially that of the European Upper Paleolithic, has been discussed and is discussed, unfortunately many good texts are in French and German, i know only very few English speaking people working on it and they work on detail questions and when they find something they feel they must share they publish it in journals. Paleolithic art is so fascinating, it actually played a huge role in my decision to study stone age.

Diet and paleo: as a former prehistorian, i repeat: people have eaten many things throughout the times and spaces, from dug out roots to megafauna. Folks in the continental ice age did have a high meat part, but also ate herbs, nuts, fish or seafood if they had the opportunity. Others living at the cost also ate seafood in a higher concentration and variety, while some gatherer groups concentrated more on berries and roots. This really depends on the conditions and there is no generalization, not "this is superior than that". We have enough find places and analyses to tell this. To insinuate there is only one way or put a lifestyle of certain groups over that of others is misleading, a little like "i am the guru, follow me !". I find that educated people do not need that.

 

If i may give a tip: eat fresh, veggies, fruit, a piece of meat from time to time if you like, avoid industrial food, go to the farmer's market, cook at home; if you have a sickness and need help then do not seek help and fall for those omnipresent gurus that try to catch your attention. If medicine can't help (that happens) then there might eventually be no help or not yet. After all, the treatment of rare cases does not generate much money and so institutions might have not much of an interest to do research. It is a sad reality, but people actually die from sicknesses that cannot be treated.

 

Edited by Green Baron
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On 1/1/2019 at 10:08 PM, sevenperforce said:

There are a whole host of certifiably fake diseases out there, which usually go by names like "chronic candida", "adrenal fatigue", "non-celiac gluten sensitivity", and the lovely "[Wilson's Temperature Syndrome](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/naturopathy-vs-science-fake-diseases/)" (which is supposed to be some chronic thyroid dysfunction). With a perpetually hypochondriac parent who bounced from fake disease to fake disease for my entire life, I am familiar with many of these.

The problem with many of these so called "fake diseases" is that the term is either real close to a real disease, or describes a real disease. "Chronic candida" for example... yeast infections occur, so its not unreasonable to think some people may experience chronic infections.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/candida-and-fake-illnesses/

Note that systemic and long term infections do occur, which that site acknowledges: "Candida can also rarely cause serious systemic infection, but this is mostly restricted to those with compromised immune systems, such as patients undergoing chemotherapy or with advanced AIDS. Candida became the focus of a fake illness beginning in... "

It then goes on to describe attributing BS symptoms to it, and claiming 90% of the population has it. E coli and other bacteria infections are a real thing for example, and everyone has bacteria and ecoli on their skin/in their digestive tract... doesn't mean everyone has a bacterial infection. It seems most of the "fake illnesses" follow this trend... taking a name for something real, or similar to something real, and then attributing vague symptoms to it... then selling some unproven "cure"

It seems they acknowledge some validity to the term, just not as the quacks use it: " You can definitely have a fungal infection throughout your body – and it may send you to the intensive care unit. But “chronic candida” infection, as diagnosed by alternative medicine purveyors, is a fake disease " (my emphasis added).

Quote

My elementary-aged oldest son has high-functioning autism. We reject pseudoscientific nonsense about vaccine injuries; all of our kids are fully immunized.

I would say good for you regarding the vaccines. Autism diagnosis is another area of concern though... particularly as its a "spectrum disorder" and a behavioral disorder. I just consider myself "nerdy"/"socially awkward"/a loner/mildly-antisocial (many people are just terrible, so its justified :p )... but my parents and other adults in the past have wondered if I might be "on the spectrum"/mildly autistic or such... I'm glad my parents didn't seek any treatment (FWIW, I am employed, married for >1 year, discussing having kids... so I think I turned out ok). My cousin (who I think was just a brat and needed stricter discipline) was diagnosed with "bipolar disorder", and was heavily medicated... he life is all screwed up and I don't think any of the drugs helped. A family friend was recently depressed (and I've suffered from severe depression too, but I think it was caused by life circumstances, so drugs can't treat the root cause) and took her own life, she had been heavily medicated for depression...

If your son is indeed "high-functioning", I hope that you treat him normally and don't pressure him too much.

Some people clearly have problems (severe autism clearly requires special consideration), but where does one draw the line between just normal personality variation, and a "disorder". I think it can be damaging to diagnose someone with a "disorder" if such a diagnosis isn't needed to get required help. I can tell you myself that I didn't like the insinuation that there was something inherently wrong with who I am.

Quote

My son has tested positive for food allergies in the past, but only peanuts appear to prompt serious reactions.He recently began exhibiting some persistent edema and irritation in his extremities; we took him to the pediatrician and she was unable to diagnose but did do some blood tests. He came back positive for exposure to Lyme disease, so we started him on antibiotics. He has an upcoming appointment with a specialist referred by the pediatrician.

Well, peanut allergy is real... I still don't understand why it seems to be becoming more common (or is it just our awareness?). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4522975/ this one seems to show actual changes in prevalence... but I wonder if the sample is too small, some of their P values aren't great: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20078504

Lyme disease is real with objective tests for exposure... but I'm not sure the antibiotics will help if he doesn't have an active infection now.

On 1/1/2019 at 10:27 PM, Green Baron said:

I am not a doctor (archaeologist), so my answer is as good as anybody else.

I'm not a medical doctor (PhD, studied molecular and cellular biology, my thesis was on mitochondrial RNA regulation), but right now I work for a company that analyzes clinical trial data and generates safety (Not efficacy) reports. I review many significant adverse events and write a summary that then goes to medical doctors for review (so far they've never said I was wrong/full of excrement, etc). Years ago (around 2008/2009) I worked for a company that expressed human and other genes in plants (the idea would be to purify the recombination proteins from rice grains for large volume low'ish cost production). At one point I was helping write a grant proposal for the preparation of an OspA based lyme disease vaccine, which would be distributed to animal/rodent populations via food (potentially just the rice grains with no additional processing needed), to immunize the wild populations against Lyme disease, so that humans wouldn't get it from ticks that transmit it from rodents/deer/etc to humans.

The OspA peptide was to be the same as a previously developed Lyme disease vaccine that was given to humans, but pulled from the market over concerns of something like "chronic lyme disease"... which is again a probably real disease, that the linked site lists as a "fake" one:  https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic-lyme-disease-does-anyone/

There is a real, chronic condition associated with Lyme disease, with a plausible biological mechanism. An "exposure test" can be looking for antibodies against B. burgdorferi in the blood. The thing is that the subject can have those antibodies even long after the bacteria is gone. To confirm the presence of the bacteria and an active infection, you'd need to look for bacterial protein/nucleic acid/culture it from a sample.

It is these antibodies that plausibly cause chronic lyme disease symptoms, via an autoimmune reaction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2665673/

Spoiler

A subset of patients will progress from acute to chronic arthritis despite treatment with antibiotics and lack of detectable Bb DNA in synovial fluid [8587]. Antibiotic-resistant Lyme arthritis is associated with the MHC class II alleles human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1*0401, *0101 and *0404, indicating that its mechanism is T cell-mediated and distinct from acute Lyme arthritis [88]. Cellular and humoral responses to outer surface protein A (OspA) of Bb develop in around 70% of patients with antibiotic-resistant Lyme arthritis, often at the beginning of prolonged arthritic episodes [8992]. T cell and humoral responses to OspA, but not to other spirochete antigens, were found to correlate with the presence or severity of arthritis [92,93]. Specifically, antibiotic-resistant patients responded preferentially to the T cell epitope OspA165–173, and T cells responsive to this epitope were expanded in the joint fluid compared with peripheral blood in HLA-DRB1*0401-positive patients [89,94,95]. An initial computer algorithm search identified lymphocyte function-associated antigen (LFA)1αL332–340, a peptide derived from the light chain of human leucocyte adhesion molecule, as homologous to OspA165–173, and able to bind HLA-DRB1*0401 [96]. Synovial fluid mononuclear cells from patients with antibiotic-resistant arthritis produced IFN-γ in response to both OspA165–173 and LFA1αL332–340, suggesting that mimicry between these two proteins may cause the inflammation associated with arthritis. LFA-1α has also been identified in the synovia of patients with antibiotic-resistant Lyme arthritis [97].

In short: the B burgdorferi's Outer Surface Protein A has some sections resembling human proteins, and if the immune response to lyme disease generates an antibody against OspA, its plausible that it will then cause an auto-immune disease (so B burgdorferi infections should be treated and cleared ASAP to  reduce the likelyhood of that happening)... although there is also evidence against this actually happening despite being "plausible".

In short, if there is an active infection now, treating it (assuming its not antibiotic resistant) should do the trick. I doubt you would have not noticed the symptoms of the initial infection, and only noticed chronic later ones...

Otherwise, its most plausibly (if the symptoms are linked to Lyme disease exposure at all) would be due to an immune reaction caused by antibodies that were raised against OspA that are now bonding to LFA-1α ... and I don't really see how diet could change that. Any effect would be weak at best.

 

A (now old) scientific article on lyme disease, its open-access, don't worry: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1198743X14628871?via%3Dihub

Quote

Despite robust humoral and cellular immunity against B. burgdorferi in most patients, the disease can become chronic, even after several courses of antibiotic treatment. The pathogenesis of chronic Lyme disease remains a topic of discussion, currently focusing on the concepts of persistent infection and/or autoimmunity. Recently, chronic joint inflammation has been attributed to autoimmunity [101, 102].

(but I would read the whole thing).

If your son has chronic lyme disease... I would start by looking for scientific treatments to alleviate autoimmunity, rather than start by trying to determine if one specific treatment has any merit.

But I am not a medical doctor, so do not take this as professional medical advice.

*edit"

I should have put more emphasis on my earlier statement " although there is also evidence against this actually happening despite being "plausible". "

The vaccine I mentioned was made by GSK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination

Quote

Following approval of the vaccine, its entry in clinical practice was slow for a variety of reasons, including its cost, which was often not reimbursed by insurance companies.[134] Subsequently, hundreds of vaccine recipients reported they had developed autoimmune and other side effects. Supported by some patient advocacy groups, a number of class-action lawsuits were filed against GlaxoSmithKline, alleging the vaccine had caused these health problems. These claims were investigated by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control, which found no connection between the vaccine and the autoimmune complaints.[135]

Despite the lack of evidence that the complaints were caused by the vaccine, sales plummeted and LYMErix was withdrawn from the U.S. market by GlaxoSmithKline in February 2002,[136] in the setting of negative media coverage and fears of vaccine side effects.[135][137] The fate of LYMErix was described in the medical literature as a "cautionary tale";[137] an editorial in Nature cited the withdrawal of LYMErix as an instance in which "unfounded public fears place pressures on vaccine developers that go beyond reasonable safety considerations."[19] The original developer of the OspA vaccine at the Max Planck Institute told Nature: "This just shows how irrational the world can be... There was no scientific justification for the first OspA vaccine LYMErix being pulled."

They pulled it because of complaints (possibly due to those pseudoscience quacks), not because of evidence... I don't remember exactly.. it may not have even had the stretch of amino acids that was similar to a human protein (I don't remember, but that would be an obvious possible next step for a new vaccine if it wasn't already the case.. or just focus on a different surface protein).

You can now get a vaccine for your dog against Lyme disease, but not for humans (although the dog one should work in humans, its obviously not authorized for such a use).

Lets just hope the antibiotics clear it all up.

Edited by KerikBalm
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4 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Dale Guthrie is a nut. He sat in a backwater institution in Alaska working on frozen mammoths. His naive and somewhat pubertal "opinions" about paleolithic art have no significance in prehistory. Without hurting anybodies feelings, the book is a bad and grossly misleading introduction into paleolithic art and its possible significance.

Paleolithic art, especially that of the European Upper Paleolithic, has been discussed and is discussed, unfortunately many good texts are in French and German, i know only very few English speaking people working on it and they work on detail questions and when they find something they feel they must share they publish it in journals. Paleolithic art is so fascinating, it actually played a huge role in my decision to study stone age.

Oh, feel free to hurt feelings, I would like to understand your point of view. I'm all for following the evidence, so if you can point me to the evidence that shows his nuttiness, I'd be obliged. Maybe it's because I grew up similar to the way he describes himself (hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, mountain climbing), but his theories sounded plausible enough to me. Evidence is king in science, though. Lots of plausible theories die from counter-evidence.

Anyway, it's been a while since I read his book, but I don't recall anything he said about diet being anything different than you just said.

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3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Well, peanut allergy is real... I still don't understand why it seems to be becoming more common (or is it just our awareness?). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4522975/ this one seems to show actual changes in prevalence... but I wonder if the sample is too small, some of their P values aren't great: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20078504

Interestingly, there have apparently been a couple studies that have shown that lack of early exposure to peanuts increases the prevalence of allergies. So fear of allergies in a sense causes more allergies. A friend is an allergist and all his kids have allergies, lol. My wife is a doc of the "eat some dirt as a kid, it's good for you" camp. Our kids don't have allergies (utterly anecdotal, but funny).

Edited by tater
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Hehe, sure, i'd call you as well. But that'll take weeks to explain and needed access to German and French literature. Just believe me, paleolithic art was not done by pubescent boys and girls, the idea alone caused us to laugh out loud back then. It is not at me, Guthrie has no evidence for this claim and wild guessing (who cites him at all in publications ?), but we can draw analogies to for example shamanism or rites of hunting, rather the contrary.

I know no good book in English, i am sorry, simply because there is nothing comparable art as in France and southern Germany anywhere in the English speaking world. Maybe you can find good English publications on the matter by Nicolas Conard. But that would probably not be for the broad public ...

Take a look at Grotte Chauvet, Lascaux, the figurines of the Swabian Alb, music instruments, atlatls (propulseurs) from France ... Anyone who has worked with the material can tell this was not made by children. The idea is absurd.

 

Edit, texts from people i would consider serious on the matter:

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/meanings.php

 

Edited by Green Baron
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14 minutes ago, tater said:

My wife is a doc of the "eat some dirt as a kid, it's good for you" camp. Our kids don't have allergies (utterly anecdotal, but funny).

The anti-Quarian approach?

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The problem with looking at diet from the perspective of evolutionary biology, is that we are likely not really optimized, since we're not even fully optimized for bipedal locomotion at this point, we have vestigial organs, etc. Nothing is instantaneous, lol. So while we might have evolved to eat marrow from scavenged kills, plus whatever vegetable matter we could forage, plus bugs, and things we might kill, that's certainly not all we can eat. The addition of fire was also a nutritional force-multiplier (from my limited reading on the subject), as it allowed for more possible foods, and different nutrients from those foods to be digested after cooking.

All that conspires to make any overly simplistic notion of what human diet should be likely wrong, or at the very least extremely hard to demonstrate.

I think that it's probably low-hanging fruit to say that people should avoid overly processed foods. As a public health problem, obesity (I'm using obesity as a marker for all sorts of modern issues around diet, even those that don't result in obesity, say gut problems) is almost certainly due to too much sugar/processed carbs. That doesn't mean people generally need to switch to a cave man diet, or go full keto and try and eat nearly zero carbs, but it does mean that perhaps the relative balance of what people eat should change. It's also important to notice that getting food means walking into the market, and buying whatever we feel like. Back in the day, you'd eat what you found/hunted, and some days you might not eat at all (there are apparently health benefits to intermittent fasting from what I have read). In addition, we can now eat, well, constantly. Live someplace without electricity for a while, you find yourself hitting the sack at sundown, and getting up at dawn. No late night eating in front of KSP or the TV, lol. Moderation, and perhaps aiming to eat less energy dense food that has little real nutritional value (foods with loads of calories but no protein, basically).

I recall (a podcast while driving?) hearing something about avoiding vegetable oils that are highly processed in favor of animal fats (butter, etc), and nut oils (squeeze nut, get oil). I forget the chemistry whoever it was talked about regarding them (polyunsaturated fats no bueno?). I'll have to hunt that down.

 

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15 hours ago, Green Baron said:

people have eaten many things throughout the times and spaces

When you're hungry / starving, just about anything edible is just that.  My personal belief is that man, no matter what era/age, is an eater of convenience (followed by preference) when not faced with dire situations... just as he is today.

 

10 hours ago, tater said:

"eat some dirt as a kid, it's good for you"

Grandma's 'everyone eats a peck of dirt in their lifetime'.

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Kids who grow up on farms have fewer allergies, for example, this has been known for a long time. The very modern world (and I mean the last couple decades) has started to ruin kids in many ways, IMHO. Kids are as Haidt said, borrowing from Taleb, "anti-fragile." In recent decades, kids have been treated as fragile, instead, and they are paying the consequences, both in health (stuck inside, getting allergies caused by over protection, etc), and mentally due to being protected from contrary opinions.

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2 hours ago, tater said:

Kids who grow up on farms have fewer allergies, for example, this has been known for a long time. The very modern world (and I mean the last couple decades) has started to ruin kids in many ways, IMHO. Kids are as Haidt said, borrowing from Taleb, "anti-fragile." In recent decades, kids have been treated as fragile, instead, and they are paying the consequences, both in health (stuck inside, getting allergies caused by over protection, etc), and mentally due to being protected from contrary opinions.

When I was a kid, it's not like my parents didn't care about me, but they let me do a lot of stuff. I was a "free range kid" back when pretty much all kids were "free range kids". Now parents get crucified if they let their kids out of sight.

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16 hours ago, tater said:

My wife is a doc of the "eat some dirt as a kid, it's good for you" camp. Our kids don't have allergies (utterly anecdotal, but funny).

 

5 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Grandma's 'everyone eats a peck of dirt in their lifetime'.

5 hours ago, tater said:

Kids who grow up on farms have fewer allergies

A nonsterile immunity as it is. A must have for humans.

 

15 hours ago, tater said:

is that we are likely not really optimized

Or we are optimized to be multimodal. Like the bears or our cousins rodents. So, any particular diet optimization is an evolutionary pessimization for us.

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9 hours ago, LordFerret said:

When you're hungry / starving, just about anything edible is just that.  My personal belief is that man, no matter what era/age, is an eater of convenience (followed by preference) when not faced with dire situations... just as he is today.

True, only these people weren't hungry/starving. Especially those living in late ice age can be regarded as having lived in a rich environment, where they waited for the herd's wanderings at narrows or river crossings or simply on a hill in the plain looking out. What's on the menu today ? Sure, they had to gather, run, kill, prepare, transport (or transport, prepare :-)), dig or pick for the side dish, cook and sit together, and then there was enough for a few days. It probably was ... convenient.

I can imagine (just a random thought) that this was more convenient, rewarding, social than it is for some of us today.

 

Edited by Green Baron
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1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

I can imagine (just a random thought) that this was more convenient, rewarding, social than it is for some of us today.

It would have also been far riskier and less sustainable - a forced nomadic lifestyle heavily dependent on the whims of the environment, vulnerable to inevitable depletion as human population exploded.

That said, these pressures appear to have driven the nameless, forever unknown predecessors of Columbus and Armstrong.

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1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

True, only these people weren't hungry/starving. Especially those living in late ice age can be regarded as having lived in a rich environment,

Did they also understand the language of birds and animals and needed no clothes?

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15 minutes ago, DDE said:

It would have also been far riskier and less sustainable - a forced nomadic lifestyle heavily dependent on the whims of the environment, vulnerable to inevitable depletion as human population exploded.

You judge from the viewpoint of a sedentary organism. Approach it from the other side: the lifestyle is not nomadic (nomadic lifestyle emerged in the neolithic) and it is not forced. Groups moving are not as exposed to the "whims of the environment" as sedentary ones. The do not depend that much because they adapt their behaviour quickly. It is a good solution for the given situation, the niche of humans, and it worked well for 100.000s of years. Which was far more sustainable than what we do now. It'll not last that long ;-)

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Did they also understand the language of birds and animals [snip]

Sure they did. As do people today who hunt on foot or work with working animals, like dogs for the blind or work horses in the woods.

Edited by Green Baron
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