science

 I want to explore the evolution of the evolutionary nutrition concept and how evolution was lost from it.

An early variant, The Stone Age Diet, by Walter L. Voegtlin, shows up in the record in 1975, but whether this carnivorous book is an ancestor of later variants is questionable, so it's hard to consider it an ancestor. A more likely candidate would be the paper written in 1985 by Dr. Boyd Eaton and Dr. Melvin Konner, Paleolithic nutrition. A consideration of its nature and current implications. While elements of the paper seem dated today, it was a pioneering collaboration between a medical doctor and a medical anthropologist.

This paper explored how evolutionary concepts could shed light on modern health problems. It was not just a paper about eating well, it was about eating well in the context of human beings having a long evolutionary history, one shared by many other species. And that the selection pressures faced during the long evolution of primitive species to humans could tell us things about diseases, particularly chronic degenerative diseases, humans face today. It was unapologetically a Darwinian paper. It has been cited 964 times. 

Around this same time, in 1980, Paul Ewald, a zoologist, published Evolutionary biology and the treatment of signs and symptoms of infectious disease, which explored the implications of host-pathogen adaptations and the "potential importance of determining whether signs and symptoms are adaptations of the host, of the disease organism, both, or neither." The main focus was on acute disease. This paper is considered one of the first in Evolutionary Medicine.

Around this time, the Konner/Eaton team turned their work into a book for layman. Adding Konner's wife Marjorie Shostak to the slate of authors, in 1989 they published The Paleolithic Prescription: A Program of Diet & Exercise and a Design for Living. The book drew extensively from the fossil record of hominid evolution, as well as Konner and Shostak's own fieldwork with the !Kung, one of the last foraging societies that exists today (Shostak's books on this fieldwork are also a great read). It mentioned the word evolution 40 times. They also published a commentary together in 1989 Stone agers in the fast lane: chronic degenerative diseases in evolutionary perspective (PDF).

In 1991, evolutionary biologist George C. Williams and psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse published a paper titled The Dawn of Darwinian Medicine, another pioneering work in Evolutionary Medicine that outlined methods for applying evolutionary biology to modern medicine, such as understanding "iron deficiency" as one of many potentially costly adaptations to a war between ancestral vertebrates and pathogens that has gone on for millions of years. 

Many people seem to think that an adaptationist approach is based on the assumption that organisms are perfect. This is a misconception. It is true that the adaptionist holds the power of selection in high regard and is skeptical of explanations that take quick refuge in proposed defects in the organism. Paradoxically, however, the adaptationist is also particularly able to appreciate the adaptive compromises that are responsible for much disease. Walking upright has a price in back problems. The capacity for tissue repair has a price of cancer. The immune response has a price of immune disorders. The price of anxiety is panic disorder. In each case, natural selection has done the best it can, weighing benefits against costs. Wherever the balance point, however, there will be disease. The adaptationist does not view the body as a perfect creation, but as a bundle of compromises. By understanding them, we will better understand disease

The Eaton/Shostak/Konner team continued to refine their approach over time. The last paper they wrote together was An evolutionary perspective enhances understanding of human nutritional requirements in 1996, published after Shostak's death, along with her book recounting her last journey to visit the !Kung, Return to Nisa. 1996 also saw the publication of Nesse and Williams' book for layman about Evolutionary Medicine, Why We Get Sick (mentions evolution ~78 times).

Eaton and Konner started collaborating with exercise physiologist Loren Cordain and medical doctor Staffan Lindeberg. Cordain became particularly prolific on the subject, publishing a wide variety of academic papers and inspiring a Ray Audette's Neanderthin in 1998, which mentioned the word evolution 14 times. His own diet book, The Paleo Diet, was published in 2001 and mentions the word evolution roughly 11 times. Around this time you start to see intersection between the work originating from the Eaton/Konner paper and Evolutionary Medicine, with the original 1999 compilation Evolutionary Medicine edited by Wenda Trevathan containing Paleolithic nutrition Revisited by Konner, Eaton, and Boyd Eaton's son S. Boyd Eaton III. Nutrition was always part of both approaches and bringing them together influenced many later books and papers on the subject of evolutionary nutrition.

As you can see, the whole foundation of this was always Darwinian Evolution, the idea that humans share a common ancestor with all life forms.

Unfortunately, many Americans reject this. A recent survey found that only 39% of Americans accept evolution as fact. One of the reasons for this is in America, evolution has become politicized due to forms of powerful Evangelical Christianity that started promoting a reactionary anti-science form of Biblical Literalist Creationism (when I refer to Creationism, I refer to this) in the 1920s. Welding significant political power, they have managed to suppress the teaching of Darwinian evolution in public schools. 

I have pointed out that Creationism and Creationists are harmful and incompatible with evolutionary nutrition. On Paleohacks, Karen from Paleo Periodical referred to this when she said: "I'm seeing the accusation that someone doesn't "believe" in evolution more and more, which strikes me as intolerably elitist (I say "believe" because I don't think evolution cares what you think about it)."

It's only elitist because Creationists have succeeding in making sure that most Americans are ignorant of evolution. There is no "believing" in evolution, there is accepting scientific evidence. And while you don't need to accept evolution to eat real food, evolution is the foundation of the paleolithic diet concept. So it is disturbing to see Creationists like Jimmy Moore framing debates within the paleo diet community. Over the past few years, he has moderated panels on paleolithic diet debates, published "state of the paleosphere" articles, and generally positioned himself as a person with clout in the "paleosphere." At some point he stopped just putting out podcasts with various paleo  voices and instead stepped over a line into shepherding the paleo movement, which alienated many science-based paleo writers like Dr. Kurt Harris and many others, some who simply stopped describing themselves as "paleo" in lieu of a being part of a movement gutted of all meaning. 

I do get hatemail for saying this and expect to get more. The latest letter said "Who cares if Jimmy Moore doesn’t believe in evolution? Truth is, there is not much to this Paleo “thing”. Exercise, eat like a caveman and reap incredible benefits." If you need a story about cavemen to tell you not to eat crap and that sprints are good exercise, I think we have a problem. There is already a "real food" movement among Christians. Go to Wise Traditions and you'll meet many of them, though a paleo dieter might have trouble convincing them of their common quasi-religious precept that grains are the devil.  I think it's great when people start to eat real, whole foods. And there are many reasons to do so that have nothing to do with human evolution (even if a lot of the science behind them is based on evolutionary models).

But I also think that evolutionary models are important in biology and are the future of understanding what makes our bodies tick. It is more than about eating meat, fruit, and vegetables, it's can help us develop sophisticated treatment protocols for all kinds of diseases. It is sad for me to see that suppressed and stifled for marketing purposes. As Staffan Lindeberg said:

Why does the same thing happen to a piece of food after it has been swallowed by humans of different ethnicity? Why is the anatomy and physiology of the gut virtually identical in a Chinese and an African? Why do all human have the same endocrine system and metabolism? You know the answer: because we share an ancestor from way back when. The experts estimate that our latest shared ancestors lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa.

Before that, during millions of years of evolution, the digestion and metabolism of our primate ancestors had been fine-tuning how it uses the available food substances in the most beneficial manner possible. Nobody would doubt that the best food for the human species would be the kind of food that was available in those days, rather than those that were introduced long after the construction of our physiology. Funny that nutrition authorities never say it loud.

Our primate ancestors have been consuming fruit, vegetables, nuts and insects for 50 million years or more. Meat was successively added, with a probable increase around 2 million years ago. Underground storage organs (roots, tubers, bulbs, corms) possibly become staple foods 1-2 million years ago. The variability was large: single plant foods were rarely available in excess, which reduced the risk of adverse reactions to bioactive substances in plant foods.

I think loss of this is one of the reasons why more and more books are published on paleo that either contain nothing about evolution at all or have evolutionary narratives that seem pulled out of thin air. If the caveman stories are just stories, I suppose it doesn't matter to people much whether or not they resemble the Flintstones more than they do science. Paleo Diet guided by those who don't care about evolution is low-carb dressed up in a sexy leopard skin coat. By far, it's not Creationists who are wholly responsible for this, there is also a secular anti-intellectual slant that overemphasizes self-experimentation and scoffs at reading about science or at those who point out certain "facts" about evolution peddled by gurus are not based on anything but fiction. 

The loss is ours, as the difference between caveman stories that tell us not to eat garbage and the adaptationist evolutionary approach is enormous. The former does rely on reenactment of some golden age in which humans lived according to our design. Is it any coincidence that this resembles the story of Adam and Eve? In contrast, the adaptationist approach is one in which species are constantly under pressure and must adapt. Some of these adaptations are imperfect and even costly. It is possible we can do even better by thwarting some of these adaptations through modern technology. Evolutionary medicine isn't just about eating like your ancestors, it's possibly about outrunning some of the adaptations that cause things like aging through pharmaceutical or even cybernetic augmentation. It's not regressive like some calls by various authors like Lierre Keith to give up our technology and return to the Stone Age, it's cutting edge, even daringly post-human. 
 

We have the opportunity to be on the front lines to show that evolution is important to humans now, that evolution, by enhancing our understanding of ourselves, can improve the way we live.  

Some have also accused me of discriminating against Christians. As far as I'm concerned, Jimmy is welcome to learn more about biology and join the millions of Christians who are not anti-science. I made that journey myself, having been educated in Creationism as a child, with such anti-science absurd books like It Couldn't Just Happen. I was reading the reviews for that book on Amazon and it's interesting how many other people grew up with that book, but later learned more about evolutionary biology. Some became disillusioned atheists, others realized you don't have to be a Creationist to be Christian. Christians have been fighting Creationism for a long time. A notable example is Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, who wrote the essay Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution in 1973 response to anti-evolution Creationists:

Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. ...the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.

It's funny awhile back someone recommended that I just attend some less extreme churches than the ones I grew up in, just to see what it's like to go to a church that doesn't spend time preaching against homosexuality or evolution. Because at that point, that was really the only Christianity I knew. I really enjoyed going to those churches and met a lot of wonderful people, people who generally do not take Genesis literally, people who do not reject evolutionary biology and in fact some who work as evolutionary biologists! I also have learned much about the history of Early Christianity through attending Orthodox churches and it was stunning to me to realize how divorced modern Evangelical Christianity is from those roots or understanding how the Bible was put together by humans. I also came to question many things "paleo" dieters accept almost religiously as facts. Did you know that the monks on Mount Athos live long lives free from modern disease thanks on a diet that is pretty much vegan and high in grains? It is possibly partially due to ancient Christian fasting traditions. 

I think American Creationists (and people who think Christianity requires such nonsense) could use some history lessons on their religion, the Bible, and on life itself. As priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said "Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems much henceforward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of though must follow this is what evolution is." 

If you are interested in learning more about how human evolutionary origins shape us today,  some great books for anyone to read are Your Inner Fish, Written in Stone, Why Evolution is True, Why We Get Sick, or Before the Dawn, especially if like me, you did not learn much about evolution in grade school. Talk Origins is also a good resource.

In academia, Evolutionary Medicine continues to thrive. It has a society and many different conferences. It is also too bad that so many interesting and relevant evolutionary medicine/nutrition resources are so expensive. Many books on the subject cost upwards of $100 each. Two extensive papers were just published on the subject. One is $45, thank goodness the other is free, which is very unusual. But why aren't these folks publishing writings for laymen like the original pioneers of evolutionary medicine and nutrition did? As we discover more and more about how humans evolved, books become outdated quickly, so perhaps they should consider blogging rather than books.

 I'd love to see more writings for laymen by them and more writings not afraid to mention evolution and even to educate readers about it. I think such interactions would not only be beneficial for us, but for them, since I feel the online community in particular can generate hypotheses faster than in academic publishing. You can see some academic researchers, like anthropologist Miki Ben Dor, drawing on hypotheses that have primarily been pushed by the online community like the idea that larger amounts of fat might have been more important in hominid evolution than previously thought. 

Edit: here is a great editorial written by Randolph Nesse and Detlev Ganten recently: 

The human body is a living archive of evolution, written in our genes, cells, and organs. The line is continuous to the beginning of life on this planet, so nature is inherently conservative. Sequences that are ancient parts of our genomic heritage tend to persist. Those important for survival and reproduction change less over the eons, so genes important for basic functions are generally “old” genes. The basic mechanisms that regulate cellular metabolism, cell division, and gene duplication are fundamentally the same as those occurring in unicellular organisms at the beginning of life on earth 3.5 billion years ago. Likewise, the molecules, cellular functions, organs, complex organization of muscles, bones, sensory organs, and nerves in vertebrates derive in an unbroken line from ancestors millions of years ago. Much of modern man's biology dates back to the origins of life; a complete understanding of this biology can only be appreciated with an evolutionary perspective [6].

We are not "designed", we are "adapted," and adaptations can be incomplete and imperfect. It matters less what our ancestors ate, than what selective forces were at play and how we adapted to them. Such a paradigm can help us see the costs and benefits of something like getting large amounts of calories from meat, which humans are definitely not perfectly adapted to, which is possibly responsible for such diseases as hemochromotosis. 

Edit: Also worth reading is evolutionary biologist Michael Rose's 55 Theses on using evolutionary biology to improve your health, particularly in understanding (and possibly beating) aging.

 In my last post on the subject of Dr. Jack Kruse, AKA, The Quilt, I briefly touched on the misuse of the ideas of quantum theory. Not long after, the WSJ had an excellent article on the mis-use of that subject. 

Actually, it's pretty interesting because I agree that both the mis-use of evolutionary biology and quantum science aren't that bad, because they show that people really are interested in science. They are just suseptible to bad science, which isn't a surprise considering the abysmal state of scientific education in this country. Only about 4 in 10 Americans actually believe that evolution is a real thing.

Well, here is some background for new readers. My original post confused some people who do not post on Paleohacks, where my rivalry with Dr. Kruse has a very long history.

The question of what drives popular interest in such evolutionary fantasies is a difficult one. Frequently, they are bundled in with good advice, further increasing credibility among laymen. They contrast with legitimate evolutionary biology in that they contain simple and often epic “just so” narratives that appeal to people, in contrast with the complexities and fervent debates in the academic study of human evolution.

An example of one such internet popularizer is the aforementioned Dr. Jack Kruse, a Tennessee neurosurgeon and dentist who started plying a “paleo” diet and lifestyle program called the Leptin RX Reset on various popular paleo diet websites (particularly Mark’s Daily Apple, which is ranked 2000 on the Alexa web traffic rating system in the US, and Paleohacks, which is ranked 8000) in 2010. Calling himself “The Quilt,” his posts quickly became some of the most popular on these sites. In June of 2011, he launched his own website, containing a blog and his master “Quilt” manifesto and cracked Alexa’s top 100,000 sites in the US within months, hitting 26,581 in March 2012. He gained a further audience from the online Paleo Summit, where his talk was among the most popular and where many people learned about the next part of his Leptin RX Reset program, the Cold Thermogenesis Protocol (CT). Then he was a keynote speaker at PaleoFX, an Austin paleo conference sponsored by The Ancestral Health Society that drew many of the movement’s most popular speakers. In the fall of 2012, he will be a panelist on a debate about “safe starches” at the Ancestral Health Society’s main conference, the Ancestral Health Symposium.

Evolution is central to Dr. Kruse’s ideas and recommendations. In a comment to reader he explained “ Adapting evolutionary biology to what we learn makes us a better physician not matter what we do.” His writings contain many references to human evolutionary origins and how his readers can use them to improve their health in a modern context. Many of his readers have reported success from using his recommendations, but is the evolutionary basis behind them sound?

During a panel at PaleoFX in Austin Dr. Kruse said

Only humans who fail to listen to evolutions rule book of engagement die. You can eat a banana in the winter and feel fine but Mother Nature says it’s impossible………therefore we ought not to do it. I will follow her lead over a diet book guru or the opinions of a bunch of people who let their thoughts subjugate their genes. Feelings and thoughts do not trump neural biochemistry …

But his writings reveal a more ambivalent view of evolution. On one hand, on one blog post he says that “The speed of evolutionary change has far out stripped the ability of our paleolithic genes to catch up.#” But in his Quilt manifesto he outlines an extremely plastic view “A human is the only animal that can actually change its DNA just by thinking. Moreover, what we really think is just a biologic secretion. No different than any hormone released by the pituitary gland. Thinking is… well it is a meme that hijacks our brain’s chemistry. Any one thought can alter our genetic and biologic purpose in life.#” Therein lies an essential paradox- on one hand our genes are “paleolithic,” but on the other they are malleable simply by thinking differently. Perhaps it is just part of our genes that are “paleolithic.” For example, he refers to our brains being neolithic and able to “subjugate” our paleo genes, with negative consequences: "our neolithic brains allow us to make decisions that subjugate out paleolithic genes all too often.”

The idea that human genetics have not changed since the end of the Paleolithic roughly 10,000 years ago and that they are mismatched to the modern neolithic environment is a common one in paleo diet circles. Unfortunately, its origin can be traced back to academia and it lives on as a popular principle despite the fact that it has been the subject of considerable controversy in evolutionary biology. A common citation in paleo books is to An evolutionary perspective enhances understanding of human nutritional requirements, a paper written by Boyd Eaton, Melvin Konner, and Marjorie Shostak in 1996:

Geneticists believe that the increased human number and mobility associated with civilization have produced more, not less, inertia in the gene pool and that when the humans of 3000-10,000 years ago (depending on locality) began to take up agriculture, they were, in essence, the same biological organisms as humans are today (Neel 1994).

More recent research has come to the opposite conclusion, as newer statistical genetics models have actually found that human evolution has accelerated greatly in the past 40,000 years, certainly not freezing with the advent of agriculture. However, along with many other paleo authors, Dr. Kruse is still of the less dynamic mindset, writing that “Evolutionary pressures are selected for by the environments of our ancestors were exposed to and not for what we face today.”

n academic anthropology, new discoveries in archaeology and rapid advances in genetics have spawned a discipline in which textbooks are outdated as soon as they are published. Human origins are constantly under debate, which means that even if scientific education were adequate in the US, it is fairly hard for anyone to keep up. But even a basic outdated education on the topic would help a layman be critical of several pop-science fringe evolutionary theories that have cropped up, such as the “aquatic ape” theory. Why do such theories become popular? As anthropologist Jim Moore put it:

Even among scientists, as we've seen with Hoyle, there are times when assertions are put forth which are poorly drawn, yet, because they strike a chord, often of wishful thinking, they catch on and are repeated. Yet refuting them can be an exercise in futility. A good scientific review and critique is a lot of work, and takes a lot of time. But it's far easier to pop off with a theory that's poorly researched than it is to accurately go over all the things that the original theorist should've, and to provide a point by point refutation.

In the case of the Aquatic Ape theory, Jim Moore did a major service by creating a website to refute it, since as he elucidates there, there is very little incentive for academics to engage in debates with popular pseudoscientific theories, since they are so focused on doing their own original research for the benefit of their careers.

This is unfortunate, because pseudoscience has great power to shape the public’s consciousness. As anthropologist John Hawks puts it:

Is the Aquatic Ape Theory fairly described as pseudoscience? Every statement of natural causes is potentially scientific. What distinguishes science from pseudoscience is social. Pseudoscience is supported by assertions of authority, by rejection or ignorance of pertinent tests, by supporters who take on the trappings of scientific argument without accepting science's basic rules of refutation and replication. Pseudoscience is driven by charismatic personalities who do not answer direct questions. When held by those in power, like Lysenkoism, it destroys honest scientific inquiry. When held by a minority, it pleads persecution.

In a world where many people are unhappy and unhealthy despite our scientific advances, the idea that conventional science is wrong can be quite appealing. It allows people to buy into fringe pseudoscience for which little evidence exists and not question the lack of evidence.

Dr. Kruse has a new interesting spin on the "paleo" diet, though whether his approach is "paleolithic" is up for debate. His spin on the evolutionary approach lately has emphasized cold. Why?

Considering that 90% of the earth’s current biome lives in extreme conditions on our own planet today still, we might need to consider that what we think is “our normal environment” is not so normal for most of life on our planet or our evolutionary history. Life on Earth evolved in an environment much like we see on Titan today; in a deep ocean frozen solid at its surface with the capability of life buried deep with in it. The only escape was due to ejectants of water vapor from super heated water from underwater volcano’s. All these things are present today on Earth’s crust too. There is one major difference now between the two. We are warmer today than life began. There are others, but when one looks at Titan we see a frozen giant moon with a monsterous ocean beneath it.

This creates an issue of whether or not Dr. Kruse is even promoting a paleo diet or if instead he is promoting a Archean diet. But if he is referring to the Archean, it is mystifying that he emphasizes cold, considering that the Archean was probably warmer than today. Dr. Kruse has "references" on his blog, but I would challenge anyone to tie the meandering list on his blog post with any actual "facts" in his writing, like that cold promotes autophagy or that Neuropeptide Y is downregulated in cold weather. 

Either way, debates as to the origin of life on Earth are still happening, with some (but not a consensus!) emphasizing the possibility that colder temperatures were the ideal place for single-celled life forms to originate. Dr. Kruse believes this is important because “life first adapted to extreme environments and then was naturally selected and adapted to a cyclic warming trend on our planets crust over time.” But he seems to believe that this adaptation was somehow incomplete: “Our hominid species may have adapted during this warming trend, but the DNA we inherited came from animals that were cold adapted.” Did DNA not adapt during this warming trend even through our hominin ancestors themselves adapted? It seems strange since Dr. Kruse believes that “One thought might just alter your DNA!”

Instead, he believes that these adaptations were mostly epigenetic, once again appealing to the idea that he knows more than conventional science “We know today that the power of epigenetics dictates a lot more about newer generations adaptations than we even knew ten years ago.” While epigenetics has become an important field, it is clear that a species adaptation to changing environments involves both epigenetic and genetic adaptations. Unfortunately, epigenetic is an appealing buzzword, which has been co-opted to absurdity. Dr. Kruse says that the warm paleoclimate that our primate ancestors were exposed to might not matter as much as we think it does because we might still carry an epigenetic imprint from the cold that engulfed Earth 3-4 billion years ago:

The modern science of epigenetics shows that who we came from and what they faced has a direct biologic effect upon subsequent generations DNA and phenotypes. It is crystal clear today, but the biologic implications remain unexplored in all modern day literature. What is happening on Titan maybe like opening up a blackhole back to a reality that used to be our own. The ability to see Earth at life’s evolutionary beginning.

This is confusing, because while here he blames epigenetic relics, in other writings he blames static genetics: “ The speed of evolutionary change has far out stripped the ability of our paleolithic genes to catch up. This mismatch causes major problems for modern humans.” Dr. Kruse seems to want to have it both ways.

The idea that epigenetic relics from billions of years ago are affecting us today is questionable, since the latest evidence shows that epigenetic changes are not stable enough to carry on from thirty generations and certainly not from 3-4 billion years ago. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has addressed people who hype up the evolutionary significance of epigenetics: “ There are a handful of examples showing that environmentally-induced changes can be passed from one generation to the next. In nearly all of these examples, the changes disappear after one or two generations, so they couldn’t effect permanent evolutionary change.“ This is in direct opposition to Dr. Kruse’s view of how evolution works:

I think evolution found that epigenetic modifications to be quite effective way to pass on environemental information to succeeding generations. So successful that it became a backbone law of genomic functioning. Evolution follows fractal patterning. So it is also highly conserved in all species. Today that appears to be true too.

While epigenetics has indeed led to important new understandings, it is less of a game-changer than Dr. Kruse presents: “Evolution uses epigenetics to determine adaptation to environments. We have discarded the strict definition of genetic determinism that came from Watson and Crick, as founders of DNA.” As evolutionary biologist Rama S. Singh succinctly put it:

While the new discoveries of the laws of developmental transformations are enriching our knowledge of the intricate relationship between genotype and phenotype, the findings of epigenetic inheritance do not challenge the basic tenets of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, as other than producing new variation no new processes of evolutionary change have been added to the ones we already know — mutation, migration, selection, and drift

Unfortunately, Dr. Kruse’s erroneous beliefs on human evolution have wide-ranging consequences holistically on his philosophy and recommendations, since it causes him to believe in conservation of many traits for which there is no evidence of conservation in Hominidae. Daniel F. Melia, professor of Celtic studies, recently wrote an article about characteristics of bad books that promote pseudoscience in his discipline. One of these characteristics is “Confident conclusions are often the result of chains of circumstance and supposition so long that even remembering their origin points while reading the books is difficult.” It’s easy to see that here and it shows how particularly ingenious this characteristic is since it makes anyone who tries to criticize the absurdities wade through the mire, further dis-incentivizing criticism.

A reasoning that Dr. Kruse uses for carbohydrate restriction is that epigenetics has sped up: “epigenetics has sped up and you eat a warm climate diet you by definition increase mitochondrial ROS that slowly kills you” A search of the scientific literature and academic databases found zero papers on epigenetics speeding up in modern humans. His article cites Wikipedia and himself. 

The phenomena he blames on an epigenetic speed up also often do not have known epigenetic causes.

This is more fuel or proof that the “metabolic trap door” I found makes all starches less safe when they are eaten outside how our circadian biology accounts for them in our sped up systems. Evolution power laws has sped up too simultaneously to compound the issue. This explains why kids today are huge and bigger than their preceding genrations. It explains also why they reach puberty faster today.

Scientists are not sure what is causing earlier puberty(NYtimes article yesterday). If Dr. Kruse really knows, he should be eligible for a Nobel prize. It’s also interesting because paleo authors are often quick to point out that Paleolithic humans were bigger and stronger than modern humans because of their healthier diets and lifestyles. Yet Dr. Kruse is portraying this phenomenon as a bad thing, which begs the question as to why the paleolithic humans were bigger. Were they eating too many carbs? Why modern humans are catching up to paleolithic humans in terms of height is a matter of debate, but the best theory is it has to do with greater access to calories and less malnutrition stress.

Overall, on the issue of genetics and epigenetics, Dr. Kruse seems willing to rewrite definitions and build a pseudoscientific narrative that has little basis in reality. It shows that new scientific discoveries that become buzzwords in the public consciousness are very easy to manipulate in order to build such narratives. They make them sound scientific and cutting-edge, when in reality they are empty and devoid of factual basis.  

I have MUCH more to write on this subject, including more on the evolution of mammals, hibernation, and hominin adaptations to cold. Also, a history of how he did not invent most of the regimens his followers praise so highly, as well as the actual non-pseudoscience evolutionary biology reasons that they work for those people. 

 I was poking around papers citing this paper that showed an association between soy intake and low sperm concentrations. Two reviews popped out. One is by Mark Messina, titled Soybean isoflavone exposure does not have feminizing effects on men: a critical examination of the clinical evidence. It basically says that worries about soy affecting masculinity are nonsense. I looked and looked for the conflict of interest statement that is standard on papers these days, but could not find any. It's no wonder, as Mark, an animal-rights vegan, has received funding from the soy industry. His name appears as the author on many industry publications. Another paper from roughly the same time is a little more skeptical. Soy, phyto-oestrogens and male reproductive function: a review says:

Exposure to endocrine disruptors (e.g. BPA or dioxins) during critical periods of reproductive development increases the incidence of reproductive disorders. Given the popularity of soy-based formula, isoflavone supplements and soy-derived products, a better understanding of the influence of phyto-oestrogens on male development is needed. To date, there has been a lack of consistency in human and animal studies examining the effects of soy and phyto-oestrogens on reproductive parameters. These discrepancies certainly reflect the variety of experimental designs, the differences between the specific endpoints measured but also inadequate descriptions or insufficient sample size to permit confidence in the observed results. In humans for example, it would be important to investigate adult male reproductive and endocrine functions of healthy full-term infant fed soy-based formula compared with breast-fed or cow milk formula-fed infants. These studies should investigate pubertal development and reproductive endpoints such as adult testicular function (testicular volume, spermiogram) and endocrine parameters (testosterone, DHT, oestradiol, LH, FSH, IGF1, INSL3, etc). The cohorts should be large enough to ensure statistical power to detect meaningful differences. Concerning animal studies, the choice of the animal model and nutritional differences in animal diets need to be considered carefully when designing experiment. It would be relevant to assess dose response relationships, mutigenerational studies and evaluation of both reproductive and post-natal endpoints. Finally, most studies are designed to investigate the effects of a single endocrine disrupting chemical. Although straightforward in term of scientific design, this approach fails to appreciate the chemical soup that is more typical of the human or animal environment. Thus further investigation is needed to evaluate the consequences of simultaneous exposure to phyto-oestrogens and other EDCs on fertility and testicular function.

Indeed. So they are two ideas at war: the idea that nutritionists are gods that can pronounce with good faith on the health effects on industrial foods. And then the more precautionary idea that we really need to look deeper and at the long-term effects. You know what camp I'm on. Unfortunately the money is behind the other camp and people like Mark get paid to blog and write for the layman. 

Honestly, I'm not really against soy per-se. I enjoy tamari and miso soup every so often. These are delicious traditional whole foods. I'm much more concerned with soy in infant formulas and industrial soy products that are engineered for high-levels of consumption. Cutting soy milk out of my diet was one of the best decisions I've ever made and cured me from several digestive ailments and some menstrual irregularities. I was drinking it with every meal because I thought it was a healthy whole food...
 

 Some of my readers might be interested in The Atlantic's debate on "alternative medicine." Reading it, what amused me is that opponents of alternative medicine accuse it of not being "evidence-based." Unfortunately our "normal medicine" isn't really evidence-based either. What doctors and hospitals do often seems more about the status quo than science. That explains why my sister (a biologist) and I are not exactly our doctor's favorite patients. We don't accept treatments based on outdated science, particularly when they have harmful side effects.

For example, the idea that GERD is a disease of acid burning the esophagus is several years outdated, but doctors continue to hand out medicine based on that theory (proton-pump inhibitors) like it's Halloween candy, despite a growing body of evidence that it causes immune dysfunction and bacterial overgrowth! 

The list really could go on and on, from unwillingness to adopt life-saving safety practices to the handing out of antibiotics to children for every little thing (even illnesses obviously caused by viruses!) to the use of questionable materials for hip-replacements just because they are "new." 

Another example showed up in my RSS reader today: Keeping Mother and Baby Together – It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding. I suggest you read that post, as it has great information. Basically, in our species, the time immediately after birth is critical. Direct skin to skin contact between mother and baby is important for establishing breast feeding, bonding, and regulating the baby's physical health. That's how our species evolved, it's the infant's natural ecology. This isn't about just doing what our ancestors did; science has confirmed that these practices have important functions. Despite that, hospitals often fight this practice and a woman who wants to simply do what is appropriate for her as a Homo sapians must exert an effort to convince the hospital staff, find a sympathetic birthing center, or arrange for a home birth. 

Interestingly, NICU's (new born intensive care units) have been the first to adopt this practice. For babies on the edge, everything counts, but it's something all babies deserve.