HADZA GUTS HAVE THE ANCESTRAL CORE MICROBIOTA IN ABUNDANCE; High Dose RAW Starch Can Suppress Bifidobacteria, Roseburia, F. prausnitzii That Make Us Human (Part II)

Baobab Tree
Harvested by Hadza: fruit, seeds, honey, bark, etc

COOKING BROADENED HUMAN UTILIZATION AND FORAGING OF WILD AND TOXIC PLANTS

Let's neo-romanticize the Hadza hunter-gatherer studies for a moment. They eat a diet rich in starchy tubers, raw roots, chewing some of the tough, fibrous ones for several minutes, extracting as much starch, nutrients and energy as they can. The carbohydrate content varies from 27 to 70% of the tuber (see chart at end). Fiber varies from 3-35%. Cooking generally breaks tough fibers down. Stewing, boiling and roasting all make these more easily chewable and thus digestible.

Fermentation does as well. Paleophil has a short list of tubers that are fermented to process them into safe to eat starches (truly ancient 'safe starches' lol). Several varieties were put underground and allowed to pickle/ferment to remove toxins. The great majority of tubers on earth are toxic if raw. Nature provided underground protection for them. Potatoes contain trypsin and protease inhibitors (never fed raw to livestock or eaten by humans raw) and cassava, cyanide derivatives.  In Africa, co-evolution of consumption of toxic cassava may have actually conferred an advantage by improving sickle cell anemia. On the other hand, trypsin inhibitors in yams and potatoes are heat labile and easily deactivated by cooking. Heat rapidly degrades these toxins, making them safe for eating for everyone: small toddlers, children, elderly and adults.

In Africa and the tropics, extracts from toxic potatoes and yams can even be isolated for use in making poison arrows for hunting wild game.




RS3 AND RS2 FEED DIFFERENT FLORA IN THE GUT

Cooked starches with skins feed the great majority of our gut flora whereas raw, native starches feed only a few (but important few). From recent gut profiles from individuals who submitted samples to Genova, uBIOME and American Gut, a distinct pattern emerges if a high-dose raw resistant starch diet is implemented. Diversity is markedly low. The immunoprotective Roseburia/clostridia XIVa are missing. Is Roseburia important? I think so -- it is one of the strains that make us human, no hamsters or chimps. See prior post: Bifidobacteria longum, Roseburia, F. prausnitzii (and Akkermansia) Made Us Human (NONE OF THESE EAT RAW POTATO STARCH) (Part 1) NSFW



N=1, THREE HIGH-DOSE RS2 INTREPID SELF-EXPERIMENTERS

Here are 3 individuals (reports: a, b, c) who biohacked their guts and used high dose RS2 for a period of time before submitting stool samples to various testing groups: uBIOME, American Gut.

Bacteroidetes-Prevotella and Bacteroides overlap -- they both consume RS2 heartily and easily, as you can see below. On the other hand, the great majority of the core ancestral microbiota do not and with report c, one may observe that even consuming significant fiber as RS3, the Roseburia fails to 'bloom' in the gut. Normally RS3 (alone, sans RS2) feeds or cross-feeds Roseburia extensively based on Alan Walker et al research group. These 2 groups Prevotella and Bacteroides are big starch eaters of cooked digestible carbohydrates as well as resistant starch (cooked cooled, RS3). So they eat EVERYTHING. This is what I have an overgrowth of on/off the last few years of gut healing (and didn't realize). Prevotella is implicated in many cases of dysbiosis and uppergut overgrowths (SIBO/SIFO). Ck out pubmed: Prevotella/dysbiosis.
--T2 diabetes/Obesity
--colorectal cancer
--T1 diabetes
--IBD (Crohn's, UC)
--IBS-C IBS-D
--colorectal cancer
--HIV infection

When I saw the Prevotella on my stool reports I had previously (up until a few weeks) HEY THIS IS LIKE THE HEALTHY BURKINA FASO KIDS. I was totally wrong. My gut was like the dysbiotic HIV and other gut disrupted subjects actually.

I've had a lot of questions more than evolution lately:

What is the pattern that high dose RS2 exerts on the flora?
Does the resultant flora appear Bacteroides heavy and dominant? Why?
What is overgrown?
What is suppressed?
Does this have implications for the host?

Also if a gut is dysbiotic and we throw fire on the flame, will this cause dysbiotic-related metabolic changes? The research is inconsistent but I think the answer is, yes. It is entirely gut dependent. Many do great on raw potato starch and see gut healing. Others may run into obstacles like mine. Even testing for me didn't reveal the obstacles.

Dr Bill Lagakos reviews some studies where RPS or HAM-RS2 may worsen insulin by raising it and adversely effect blood sugars: here. It is not every study but appears to be seen in studies that are more recent IMHO and I suspect that the influence of livestock and human antibiotics adversely skewing our gut flora.

Journal club: new study in healthy pig gut flora, RS2 appears to raise insulin

Gut Microbe Genus Level ANCESTRAL CORE	N=1 (a) 20-40g RS2 VLC UBIOME	N=1 (b) 10-20g RS2 VLC UBIOME	uBiome Normal Avg	N=1 (c) 20-40g RS2 10-20g RS3 PHD CARBS 100-150 g AMGUT
Akkermansia	3.52	undetect	1.2%	0.07
F. prausnitzii	8.56	3.58	9.3%	4.8
Roseburia	0.601	0.166	3.4%	0.4
Eubacterium	0.0591	0.00310	0.9%	0.1
HIGH DOSE RS2 APPEARS TO OVERSELECT Bacteroides (+B-Prevotella)	28.0 (+undetect)	0.617 (+77.4)	9.4% (+7.36%)	46.2 (+undetect)
Bifidobacteria	undetect	0.0311	0.88%	11.32
Ruminococcus	2.21	0.292	6.06%	13.0

HIGHLIGHTED: suppressed immunoprotective and butyrate-producting gut flora



HADZA GUTS (AND HEALTHY MEDITERRANEAN) HAVE NEARLY ALL THE ANCESTRAL CORE MICROBIOTA

See below - this is comparing apples and oranges but let's do it for fun anyway. Comparing healthy (no inflammation or disease) Italians on the Mediterranean diet and Hadza guts, nearly every species of the 7 ancestral core microbiota of healthy humans (per Julien Tap et al research) are accounted for. They are similar or in higher abundance than USA ubiome healthy averages.

It is questionable whether or not the Hadza are truly 'missing' bifido or that lab errors in collection and subsequent bifido determination happened. Personally I think bifido are there!

“The conclusions about relative proportions of bacteria are likely not valid,” says Rob Knight, a microbiome scientist with expertise in technical issues. “Unfortunately there is no published reference for this yet; we’re working on one.” It’s not clear if this problem affects the study’s other conclusions, like the lack of Bifidobacteria. Source: NATGEO

For those on high dose raw starches -- you may observe vast differences.

• the bifidobacteria are absent or nearly extinct (except for report c). 
• F. prausnitizii which typically makes up 10-20% of healthy stool microbiota is only HALF OR LESS of 'normal' for either a hunter-gatherer Hadza or Western urbanite. 
• Bacteroides appears overselected
• low eubacteria 
• no Roseburia/cluster XIVa

To me the most striking losses are bifido, F prausnitzii and Roseburia. These are hugely immunomodulating to the point where when these are used as probiotics in animal models, it is observed that disease and inflammation reverse. Bifidobacteria longum has been widely studied and since it is so easy to culture and grow, offered as a commercial probiotic for years.

Roseburia has recently been shown to reverse peanut allergies in a rodent model. In the gut, this is the superstar butyrate producer.  I think Roseburia/XIVa was key for me when I reversed gluten and dairy allergies after gut healing with eating soil probiotics, B longum probiotics (FloraMEND), steamed mountain white yams and purple potatoes (high RS3 diet) and consuming daily fermented root vegetables. Roseburia eats everything (except raw starches); its favorite foods are inulin, GOS (beans or supplements), chitin, beta glucan (grains, oats, mushrooms) and cooked starches (RS3). I talked about Roseburia HERE.



FIRE CHANGED OUR GUT FLORA 

After hominids utilized fire as a routine tool to increase and unlock the energy content in USOs (underground storage organs), tubers, seeds and rhizomes, our gut flora of course adapted to this. I suspect that with routine employment of cooking, our human gut flora began to love RS3 and the additional fibers that came along it in roasted tubers, roots legumes and seeds.

Let's look at the Hadza. Their current diet is high in wild African, starchy tubers.  Both children and adults use sticks to forage these from the shallow ground in gallery forests and by vegetation near water sources. The amount of starch and RS is relatively lower than Western varieties though.  Contrary to what most people think, I think they eat a low net carb diet because their carb, fruit and berry sources are all extremely high in fiber. They do love their honey harvested from the hives in their native baobab trees. The fiber spectrum in their diets are not low but and I believe this is vastly reflected in the diversity which is almost double that of the healthy urban Italian cohort.

Below I compare their relative dominance in terms of the ancestral core human microbiota ( Nature).

Gut Microbe Genus Level ANCESTRAL CORE	HADZA BETTER GUT DIVERSITY 20-60g RS3 African Tubers+	MEDITERR- ANEAN DIET Italian Cohort	uBiome Normal Avg	N=1 (c) HIGH DOSE RAW POTATO STARCH RS2 20-40g RS2 10-20g RS3
F. prausnitzii	11.8	18.5	9.3%	4.8
Roseburia	3.9	7.7	3.4%	0.4
Eubacterium	2.2	1.4	0.9%	0.1
Bacteroides B-Prevotella	0.2 6.2	7.1 0.4	9.4% 7.36	46.2 (na)
Bifidobacteria	0.02	8.1	0.88%	11.32
Ruminococcus	2.1	8.6	6.06%	13.0

(+ guesstimated)

Ancestral core species were sequenced and quantified in relative abundance. Hadza guts have a ton of diversity -- they are not short any of the immunoprotective or the bugs that produce buttloads of BUTYRATE:

• F. prausnitzii
• Roseburia
• Eubacterium

What I observe is that with high dose RS2, an overselection of gut flora that specialize in raw starches and the de-selection (?suppression) of other species despite adequate consumption of other substrates (RS3). Losing diversity in the gut is the problem with aging/inflammaging, disease and debilitation in the Western world. What is ancestral? What is optimal for a diversified and robust gut?

I've polled a few gut researchers because I don't know sh*t about the gut microbiota. They say that it is highly plausible for overselection and competition of substrate media by a single group of gut flora, to the suppression or detriment of other gut flora.

If I neo-romanticize the Hadza, I would say keeping all fiber in context is helpful. Each person's ancestry play into this. Those who emerged from near the Fertile Crescent are likely to tolerate grains better. I'm Asian and I think we favor legumes, tubers and white rice and more net carbohydrates than  those of northern Europeans/Asians or aboriginal ancestry.

Thoughts?

Hadza wild African cooked tuber
2 slices of one mak’alitako tuber (Emminia entennulifa)
Chewed for ~3min to extract carbs and nutrients
Spit out insoluble 'CUD'

Source: Nature
Hadza hunter forager diet

HOW TO CURE SIBO, Small Intestinal Bowel Overgrowth: Step #2 Eat Resistant-Starch-Rich Tubers, Grains, Legumes and Pulses

The second step in Dr. BG's 7-Steps Paleo* Gastro IQ SIBO Protocol is:

"Ancient heirloom potatoes, tubers, roots that are low glycemic index (or high if good insulin sensitivity) and ancient heirloom grains, legumes, lentils/dal that are low glycemic index (or high if good insulin sensitivity), prepared the ancient way (soaked, fermented, etc)"

Potatoes, tubers, roots, grains, legumes, and lentils have been alongside man throughout our evolutionary past. Eating these foods is very important in keeping our gut microflora in top-notch condition. You saw in the Fat Burning Beast blogpost that a digestive system starved of carbohydrates, fermentable fiber, and butyrate leads to a high risk of colon cancer, but it also leads to a dysfunctional and less prolific gut microbiome.

The Standard Western Diet leads to a Standard Western Microbiome, one that has been starved of healthy, fermentable fibers, flooded with antibiotics, and allowed to proliferate with pathogenic bacteria. This leads to inflammation, metabolic syndrome, and auto-immunity. On the other hand, A paleo diet, with near complete avoidance of refined sugars, flours, gluten, and vegetable oils and plenty of starchy, fibrous plant matter will produce a functional microbiome, replete with beneficial bacteria, flooded with short-chain fatty acids, and ensure immune system homeostasis, glucose regulation, vitamin and mineral uptake, and production of vital hormones and neurotransmitters.

Often times when starting a paleo diet, one restricts carbs. This is an effective strategy for weight loss and may help eliminate unhealthy sugar cravings, but in the long run carb restriction will most certainly lead to a dysfunctional gut microbiome.  Both the Perfect Health Diet or Mark's Daily Apple Diet outline the optimal amount of starch that one should include in their diet. A daily food intake that is roughly half plant matter, including up to one pound of starchy foods is highly recommended.

[Grace~~ Dispelling fairy tales: I love Paul and Mark. (Particularly Mark's pectorals and gluteals and how he recognizes a good thing like RESISTANT STARCH for the gut microbiota and insulin metabolism) We have all evolved but I'm not certain if their respective diets entirely have.

What I like about PHD is the 150 grams per day advice for adrenal dysregulation because ketosis/VLC will instigate susceptible adrenals into hypercortisolism, and subsequent low adrenal and low T3 thyroid syndromes. PHD can heal this. However, the reliance on white rice and not the whole grains, whole legumes and RS-rich tubers will lead to gut dysbiosis for those who are vulnerable. Adding these back in are thus imperative. If I consumed 150 grams of high GI (glycemic index) white rice daily, I'd be T2DM within two seconds.  But if I consumed 150-200 grams of low glycemic index carbohydrates that included RS-rich starches, grains, and tubers, ME AND MY MICROBIOTA ARE GOLD *wink wink*.  And the net carbs are 75-100 grams/day.

MDA has two (ancient) popular posts which offend my gut ;) and the microbiota... (1) The Primal Carb Continuum and (2) All Grains are Unhealthy.  Fiber IS INDEED good for us (and Mark says so HERE).  They feed your microbiota and heal SIBO and promote gut longevity, proper processing requires soaking and fermentation of whole grains, legumes and pulses to make them edible.  So Mat Lalonde has already banished the lectin myths. Please see his AHS 'Invalid Inferences'...  How to make our legumes and whole grains work for us? Soak, soak, soak which ferments the starches. Soaking brings alive the microbes that reside on the grain or legume/pulse.  If Gluten Small Grass Grains and unsoaked legumes wiped out the Neanderthals, then it is perhaps food technology that brought Anatomically Modern Humans to the Great Leap Forward 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.]

If 'carb restriction' means eliminating gluten, industrially processed flour, and refined sugars, that is perfect! If it means eliminating potatoes, rice, and most other whole, starchy foods that's a problem.

The purpose of this blog is to teach you how to chose and prepare starchy, fibrous food in a way that will lead to a high Paleo* Gastro IQ.

Everyone knows potatoes and rice, but there is a whole host of other foods that fit the bill for exceptional gut health and getting a variety of these foods is extra-important when healing a broken gut. It would be a very wise move on anyone's part to seek out some of these:

Plantains
Green Bananas
Mt Uncle's Raw Ladyfinger-Banana Flour (high resistant starch content)
Jobs tears/Adlay/croix
Brown rice
Purple rice
Red rice
Black rice

Fermentation/Soaking Tips
Journal Source: HERE

Basmati white rice
Basmati red rice
Mung beans
Green beans
Red beans
Kidney, black, fava, navy, etc beans
Millet
Sorghum
Buckwheat
Teff
Amaranth
Steel cut oats
Lentils
Chana dal
Garbanzo
Quinoa
Taro
Jicama
Cassava
Yams
Konjac
Okinawan purple potatoes
Andean purple potatoes
Nagaimo (Chinese white mountain yams)
Raw or Roasted Potatoes



The list goes on and on, but you get the picture--no need to rely only on potatoes and rice! Each different variety packs a different punch. Beans and lentils are often frowned upon in paleo circles, but when properly prepared, they are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet.

When it comes to grains and legumes, one of the biggest problems is phytates. An exceptional write-up on phytates and how to remove them can be found here. "...phytic acid does indeed bind with minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iron and zinc. If you depend on grains and legumes for a high portion of your diet, then those phytates (phytic acid) could lead to mineral deficiences." Fortunately our ancestors found ways to remove phytates and these methods can be used today to make these evolutionary important foods safe. It would be of great benefit for you to learn the techniques of sprouting and fermenting to increase your range of healthy foods.

A very interesting grain known as Job's Tears, Chinese Pearl Barley, or Adlay has some remarkable properties including effectively alleviating osteoporosis, leukemia, and rheumatism. Oats are an interesting topic of much debate, and don't let a Gluten-Free label fool you! Dr. BG said of Gluten- Free foods in 2010:

"Personally I believe gluten-free is not enough for an ultimately optimal lifespan and health. Gluten-free products often still are refined, vastly processed and full of high carbohydrates and problem oils (oxidized, pesticide-laden crops of omega-6 canola, safflower, cottonseed, etc) which spike and increase blood glucoses (BG) and promote silent inflammation. Chronic silent inflammation leads to cancer, obesity, fibromyalgia, mood disorders, arithritis, weight gain, osteoporosis, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

Gluten free however alone improves stomach and GI symptoms including bloating, constipation, bloody stools, iron deficiency anemia, chronic fatigue, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and gut dysbiosis."

The best advice we can give you is to include plenty of starchy carbs in your daily menu planning and learn to broaden your horizon. The more variety in your diet, the better profile your gut microbiome will develop.

If you have any questions or concerns about our food list or want to see any added, please comment!

Love, Carnivores, Big Brain Evolution, and Mating Systems (NSFW)

Conjure One
'Endless Dream' [click to listen]
Courtesy Youtube.com

"When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. 
Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. 
Only those relationships matter."

~From Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sex: The Birds and The Bees

Sometimes one has to talk about the euphemistic 'birds and the bee's to young adults in one's hormonally peaked household... but really upon contemplation of evolutionary sexual biology, do we want to talk about the mating systems of the b-i-r-d-s and the b-e-e-s (adjunct to plant s*x), unless one is into hardcore advocation of polyamorous systems of mating?

Dunbar et al has produced a fascinating comparison of 4 mammalian groups and birds, comparing the average residual brain volume (corrected for body size and phylogeny) in pair-bonding members and non-pair-bonding members (polygamous, polygynous, etc). Interestingly among primate species (like us) there is no significant difference between average residual brain volumes and respective mating systems. It appears quite vanilla and equally diversified. However for carnivores, the larger the brain volume residual, the higher the percentage of carnivores in pair-bonding mating systems. For non-pair bonding carnivores, the average brain residual was even slightly negative.



Bird-Brains and Bat-Brains

For bats, this differential is way more pronounced.  Smaller-brained bats breed in groups and rear offspring in commune-like settings (e.g. two dads and two moms per two kids).  I've previously discussed bat s*xxxx (NSFW).  What I find the most fascinating about bats is that these omnivorous mammals are so varied and diverse in the way they look and appear and like humans the more complex the social network, the smarter and the more pair-bonded they are.

Birds (yellow circle) display an even greater relationship between small-residual brain volumes and non-pair bonded mating systems. The biological truth is that most birds mate quite non-selectively every season, and, for many species, several times a season if conditions prevail.

What about bees?  Yes they generously help flowers have flower-sex, to inseminate across space and long distances....spreading and mingling pollen from stamen to stamen. Yet bees mate too but only between the chaste newly hatched queen and a squadron of male drones, bred only to inseminate her. Upon escaping the egg casing, a new virgin queen is reared then goes upon a nuptial flight to be mated with a dozen male drones (or even 100). The sperm is saved and the queen lays fertilized eggs for the next few years for the life of the hive and its entire future population. Diagram PDF (click).





Oxytocin

An earlier post discussed a seminal PNAS article which reviewed how ancestral divergence among proteins contributed to the rapid evolution of the primate and hominid brain. Oxytocin is one such protein, a nona-neuropeptide (9 amino acids) which is secreted in nearly every organ system in humans. Tremendous interspecies variation in receptor density and secretion patterns exist. It is quite dangerous to extrapolate animal data to human data. Humans are not voles. Or bees or birds (yellow circle).

Our human hominid oxytocin is different. It goes up with so many of our human deep emotional interactions,  cements the memories we have for positive connections and enables trusted communication in relationships. It helps us to mind-read. To tell the thoughts of our loved ones and others. It helps us to read visual and non-visual environmental cues. It produces perhaps both the hunter's trance and lover's glance....




Carnivores and Iron Deficiency Anemia (Driving Evolutionary Force)

Been reading a lot of Shlain lately, his brilliant and magnificent STP ('Sex Time Power').  He proposes that humans had vast evolutionary changes in our relationships when there was perhaps a bottleneck of female hominids some 150,000 years ago.  Something changed 150,000 years ago and perhaps it was the way that females and males related and hooked up with one another...

Going back to the birds and bees, many things may have changed the last 150,000 years. His theory was that if suddenly there were scarce and only a few female hominids but a relative overpopulation of male hominids (Hss, Hs. neanderthalenesis, H. heidelbergenesis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, etc), something drove a dramatic change in archaic human interconnectedness and relationships. He postulated that maternal mortality was high. Many females may have been suffering and dying from a coalescence of evolutionary events --  bipedalism, narrow hips, early ontogeny and neonatal prematurity, troubled tortuous births and a doubling of neonatal brains (during the first year of life). The demand for iron during maternal gestation, birth and lactation for the maternal hominid was never higher. And still is (except for those genetically adapted with hemachromatosis).

And how could she hunt with babies clinging or fecund bellies? Or leaving predator-triggering, blood-tainted tracks during the period of menstrual blood??

Shlain hypothesizes a lot and I think he is actually right on about the majority.....  from the evolutionary point of view, iron is not only a critical brain nutrient for neurons but it is also crucial for all mitochondrial (e.g. cytochrome structures) and oxygen-related metabolic and circulatory processes. Have you ever drowned? Been anemic? Suffocated? Had CO (carbon monoxide) poisoning?  Seen a subpar-IQ kid with an iron-deficient mom?  Because iron deficiency anemia still plagues humans to this day, I think his point has huge merit and requires consideration.

Iron.

Need it for life or will die... slowly or dumbly or both.



Origins of Human Pair-Bonding?

I can see from Shlain's point of view (a surgeon's) the importance of iron for blood, metabolism, brain growth and maturation, and IQ. Perhaps with other factors, human relationships required the binding transcendant force of a tight pair-bond that only carnivorous pairing could achieve?  When food resources were scarce and fecund females too fatigued to procure, defend, hunt or fight?

In China, a small sexual revolution is occurring.  Because of the last few decades of China's 'one-child birth policy', many families are faced with a crisis and burgeoning population of male offspring and insufficient brides.  Brides are not only scarce, some marry outside of the Chinese race.  As a result many Chinese local females are in a position to bargain for the best candidates.  The resources brought to the table by the male and their familes are I think higher than normal -- house, job, wealth, health, right province, etc.  Looks, romance, hearts-n-flowers?  I don't actually know but if you watch Chinese dating shows (I don't) apparently the check off list also includes talents like killer singing, wooing, and more vocal display.

Is this any different than Paleo or Pleistocene times?

Perhaps no.

The scavenger/hunter/gatherer/fisherperson of the past 10,000 - 2 million years learned to bring home the bacon (iron)... and provide shelter, warmth, extended family help, and other resources to trade.



Meat/Seafood = Outsourced Nutrition

Nutritional science is fascinating to me.  So many nutrients must be consumed by carnivores and omnivores because they are not produced or synthesized endogenously in any significant amount -- Vitamin B12, Taurine, Vitamin K2 (menaquinones), Retinol/Vitamin A, Vitamin C, etc.   Some require our gut microbiome participation to conjugate or produce these nutrients, but again, outsourcing of these nutrients to the hominid diet was far more nutritionally economical over the millenia as our guts shrunk from transforming from primate frugivores to carnivores and later omnivores.  During gestation, a brain is built from scratch.  In the first year of life, the brain DOUBLES in size. The vehicle which carries our DNA forward, the baby, needs nutrients.

Other nutrients and micronutrients that are 100% or profoundly outsourced:
--iron
--methylated B-vitamins, 5-MTHF, formyltetrahydrofolates, choline (all from yolks, meat/seafood, organ meats)
--long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (IQ-increasing)
--other minerals: zinc selenium iodine

Meat and seafood contains all of the above, particularly iron which is the most bioavailable and easily assimiliated form of iron in existence. Regarding folates, be careful of supplementation with folic acid, one of the synthesized vitamins that is not find in food in great abundance (less than 10%). Animal- and plant-sourced food has a broad spectrum of folates and reduced derivatives: folinic acid, 5-MTHF (5-methyltetrahydrofolate; Dr.Tim Gerstmar's post), and formyltetrahydrofolates (meat meat meat).

Synthetic folic acid supplementation and industrial food fortification are associated with higher incidences of many cancers.  More shades of uber f-cked upness....

All the above nutrients affect a newborn's brain growth and subsequent intelligence.

All the above nutrients are not found in great quantities in vegetable sources, if at all.




The Carnivore-Fisherman Genetic Codes: SNPs

As an ancient SNP, Apo E4 confers longevity to those who follow the native diet of their ancestors.  Perhaps humans were hunter-gatherer-fishermen for so long, that outsourced all fat-soluble nutrients and cholesterol to the diet rather than producing on our own.  This makes sense as these are all downregulated in both absorption from the intestines and for endogenous production.  The global gradient for the E4 allele is increasing northward in Euroasia. The distribution for agrarian-adapted allele, apo E2, is the opposite and radiates in higher frequencies toward the fertile crescent where the birth of grain-dependence occurred. Several other adaptations are I believe protective reactions to phytates and grains/lectins (which chelate and reduce iron bioavailability or cause intestinal permeability, respectively) and less animal-sourced foods to secure nutrients for the fetal and postnatal brain growth and maturation -- altered metabolism of folates (MTHFR) and hemachromatosis (HFE),  higher fluffier LDL and HDL and less chronic diseases in long-lived Ashkenazi-Jewish (I405V CETP) and increased and larger fluffier LDL and HDL in intelligent Ashkenazi-Jewish with exceptional longevity (I405V CETP).





Tripling of Brain Size: Australopithecus to Now (0.45 L to present 1.4 L cranial volume)

For most of our existence, I think we have been predators. However, we are unique, different from lions, tigers, hyenas and bears. We are the only line of successful carnivores that descended from primates.   The introduction of meat to the diet may have occured about ~2 million years ago. The cooking of meat and other foods may have occurred gradually since that time.  Each become more consistent and regular over time.  Shlain asserted that humans experienced an increase in the neocortex and tripling of the hominid brain over that period of time. He believed it was related to a combination of forces -- choosy and picky, bipedal, big brained females and a dire iron deficiency syndrome.  Language flourished. Like gorgeous song birds attracting mates, dancing bees or croaking bullfrogs, suddenly men and women were able to communicate their attraction outside of  pheromonal scents. Tasting kisses and tender touch blossomed. Love songs and lyrics exploded. Symphonies swayed heart and minds.  Operatic drama captured dreams and imagination.

Sexual dimorphism retreated to the neocortex (brain, the big phat brain). All overt signs of estrus disappeared.  Humans are the ONLY animal species on the planet that does not enter into estrus -- we are sexually receptive ALL THE TIME. (sorta, except during PMS 'pack my suitcase' for the guys) Males can beready to go at any hour, any minute, any second given appropriate cues (visual, verbal, scent, sex-text, etc). Testicular size moderated. Scents, hair, and apocrine glands downgraded. Harems extinguished. Hominid males lost the flaming red cues that signaled female hominid ovulation (without an app). Hooking up became subtle (or tribal orgies, e.g. clubbing). Human males and females were and are both pair bonded and polygamous (83%, Murdock, 1967).

Language became the main sexual dimorphism.  Shlain points to the evidence that iron started it.  Then as brain size and its subsequent accoutrements (language, art, culture) thrived, so did our thinking and metaphysical cognition.

I think on our march of evolution as beings, we have zigged and zagged -- starting as frugivores then emerging as carnivores and then reverting slightly back to herbivores (some ethnicities more than others). Our brains perhaps have followed the same analogous path. We started as primate groups, then had small tribal coalitions similar to social carnivores, then we have perhaps reverted back to large complex primate social networks. We no longer groom each other for hours and hours on end chewing the cud picking off fleas and varmin, but we gab and gossip.  We share stories and tell tales. We admonish our children and train them with truths.  We holler and heed our mentors' words. We solve problems and support in tears and laughter over coffee or sweating out.

The brain and our language serve dimorphic purposes as well maintenance of tight social/family connections and possibly hierarchy.




Foresight

Shlain posits that at a vital point in history, humans determined the relationship between death and its finality. Our thoughts transcended the present dimension and envisioned the future. Funeral ceremonies, burial rituals and grave artifacts may have developed around 50,000 years ago at the same time in human history when art, culture and language erupted ('Great Leap').  Securing consistent brain nutrient and micronutrients I believe heralded these adjustments.  Society brought on more regular trade. Trade of goods enabled complex social networks and enhanced stability.




Play/Foreplay

Only carnivores and certain omnivores engage in play... Why? Why do little boys play guns and war? Why take 10 years of piano or violin lessons?  Why compete in speech and debate, chess or tennis matches? Why enjoy the sparring with kickboxing gals in class or watching MMA fights?

Why?

'It takes 10 years to grow a tree, but 100 years to grow a human being' (ancient Chinese proverb; thanks W).

(Is it all foreplay? . . . m a y b e)



Transcendance: Brain-F-cking (Merging)

Rapid changes have occurred in our communication in just the last short years. Technology has provided tools that never existed. How is our neocortex is adapting? Do you interact differently? Are we more deeply connected? How potent is virtual oxytocin? Is merging of our cognitive beings transforming our brains?  [Personally I've been in deep DEEP awe of my iPhone 4G since I graduated from the archaic one (no camera, no nothing) in January.  Recently I dropped the beloved (phone) which required the LCD to be repaired. Realized in the few days it was broken how we are affected, dependent, and emotionally reliant on technology and being so-called plugged in.]

Shlain believed that a new human species is evolving. Similar insights have been put forth by other luminary thinkers like Gerald Hüther PhD and Bruce Lipton PhD.  Love, harmony, compassion, oxytocin, empathy, and our complex interconnectedness are leading adaptations and understanding that may be creating evolved beings that transcend the physical, hierarchical, material and other barriers.  'Increasing numbers of us live up to the potential that was encoded into each of our chromosomes at the moment of our conception. There can be little doubt that all these drastic alterations in our environment are collectively functioning as transformative agents fueling the human species' metamorphosis....' (Shlain STP, 2003)

[NSFW] As you are reading my thoughts and we connect, am I finger f-cking your brain?