
Achieving Hunter-Gatherer Fitness in the 21st Century: Back to the Future (2010) - tomaskazemekas
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(10)00463-8/pdf
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jacquesm
I know a girl that is a fervent supporter of the Hunter-Gatherer meme. She
believes fully that in paleolithic times everything was better because back
then we didn't pollute as much as we do and the people that are currently in
power would not be. Everybody was healthy and lived long and carefree lives,
flowers braided in long hair, snatching the occasional berry of a brush and
once in a half year butchering a rabbit.

When I argue with her about this I can't seem to get the point across that in
paleolithic times she'd most likely be dead already, and that even though we
may have missed the path to some kind of nirvana in our local maximum limited
hill climbing algorithm we are _very_ much better off than anybody, even the
most healthy and lucky person in the long ago past.

Hunter-Gatherer fitness is not a thing to strive for in isolation, the utility
of the energy expense is not balanced by anything you really need to have
(say, the ability to outrun a predator) in our modern society.

That said, there is also no reason to let your body go to pot.

~~~
k__
You're probably right.

But as far as I know, the short average lifespans back in the days had mostly
to do with higher child mortality.

~~~
pinaceae
count the times you took anti-biotics, cut yourself deep enough or needed
surgery (from bad teeth to things like an appendectomy) - if anything of those
applies, you would very likely have died in the good old days.

my eye sight requires contact lenses, without i cannot survive.

there is a reason earth only had a minimal population at that time. the
current billions of people are only possible through the modern marvels of
medicine, agriculture, etc.

~~~
hendryau
Most people's eyes are affected by modern lifestyle (all day staring at a
computer screen). Eyes are muscles, use 'em or lose 'em. Looking at a two
dimensional plane all day instead of constantly focusing on things at varying
distances makes your eyes weaker. I bet a lot of us devs who wear glasses now
and have terrible eyesight would have been better off in the olden days in
terms of vision health.

~~~
pinaceae
i was 5 years old when they mounted ashtrays on my face due to really bad
astigmatism. my family only had a black and white tv back then, i didn't watch
much tv until much later in life.

not entirely sure your theory applies, to me at least.

i think you see much more people with bad eyesight nowadays as life/nature
does not kill us off immediately. with minimal corrections we can be
productive members of society (unlike 5k years ago).

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raverbashing
And why would I want "hunter-gatherer fitness"?

Running slowly for long distances is not the epitome of top-health. In fact it
reduces body fat (good) and muscle mass. Just take a look at any marathoner,
compare it with short-distance runners.

This looks like "Paleo diet" for exercise. And similarly to it, some aspects
make sense, but others don't.

~~~
biot
From the fine article:

    
    
      "Prolonged and excessive aerobic exercise efforts such as
       marathons, ultra-marathons, full-distance triathlons, and
       very-long-distance bicycle rides are inconsistent with our
       genetic heritage. The pattern of exercise for which we are
       genetically adapted involves a diversity of activities
       performed intermittently, at moderate intensities and 
       moderate durations. Even in highly trained individuals,
       high-intensity, multi-hour endurance exercise effort is
       associated with damage to the myocardial cells and
       connective tissue."
    

If your idea of hunter-gatherer fitness is running marathons all day, perhaps
reading the article would enlighten you otherwise?

edit: See Table 2 in particular for a list of hunter-gatherer activities and
corresponding modern activities. Note only 1 or 2 out of 13 activities
involves running.

~~~
gaius
But see
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting)

------
gadders
Obligatory New Yorker Cartoon: [http://www.newyorker.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/Newslett...](http://www.newyorker.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/Newsletter-Cave-1-2.jpg)

~~~
ckuehne
Those who cannot differentiate between life expectancy at birth and life
expectancy at adulthood are doomed to draw misleading cartoons.

------
golergka
I'm pretty sure that once we subject current human population to natural
selection that was in effect in paleolithe, everyone who survives a year later
will be pretty fit.

------
lucozade
My understanding is that, ignoring infant mortality, life expectancy for
paleolithic humans was around 50 years.

Does it not follow that the genetic fitness argument can only work if you're
some way below that age? The article doesn't seem to address this at all.

Disclosure: I know next to nothing about this subject so I appreciate my
argument may be naive to the point of laughable.

~~~
1stop
Well that would be relevant if paleolithic humans died from cardiovascular
disease or physical injury caused by exercise.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the case, and they died of things that are
completely solved now (hence our longer life expectancy).

~~~
lucozade
That's not quite what I meant.

My point is that, if only a small fraction of the population survived past,
say, 65 for 8000 generations, we're unlikely to be genetically pre-disposed to
anything much that optimises for long term health. It just wouldn't make
genetic sense.

So a regimen that focuses on what is good for our paleolithic selves strikes
me as being probably only coincidentally helpful for anything much beyond a
healthy 20s or 30s.

TBH it's not obvious why we would be genetically optimised to survive much
beyond child rearing age, say, mid 30s to early 40s but, again, I don't know
enough about paleolithic society to make anything other than a superficial
case.

I'm also not arguing against the likely health benefits of daily exercise etc.
Long term or otherwise. Just against the genetic case that uses the "what was
good for our ancestors" argument.

~~~
ucaetano
Actually, there is a genetic advantage for having old people who can't
procreate. In societies, having old people to take care of infants frees young
people's time to either obtain resources or procreate more.

~~~
VLM
Also the extensive education and experience hunter gathering requires is all
in the old people's heads.

"I'm young and strong but starving"

vs

"Before you were born I was killing wild deer down in that obscure valley you
overlooked, now you and a couple kids head out there, and drag some meat back
for the rest of the tribe, also we're dying of thirst and I used to play in a
freshwater spring in that other valley as a kid"

"Ah yes that is a very attractive looking mushroom to a hungry youngster, but
I regret to inform you that 37 years ago one looking exactly like it poisoned
my great aunt when I was just a kid like you"

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gkya
Cookie absent?

I have cookies disabled and am redirected to a blank page with the URI:

    
    
      http://secure.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/action/cookieAbsent
    

What does this mean? Was the site expecting to have put a cookie in advance of
my visit, given that this page would be the first ever I saw from this site?

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euroq
Anyone who is glorifying hunter-gatherers needs to look at the hard evidence,
of which we actually have. There are plenty of recorded evidence of hunter
gatherers societies and there are still many that exist, such as in Papa New
Guinea for example.

Their lives are full of incredible violence and murders happen all the time.
There is a reason that the populations do not exceed a certain capacity.
Because they kill each other. (Sometimes it's because there is only so much
food in a certain area to support them) There are plenty of sources. Guns,
Germs, and Steel is a great book that can explain some of this.

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seivan
Food, yeah defiantly (and definitely). The rest? Meh not so much. Just stand
up more than sitting and you'll be alright.

But I genuinely believe we had less carbohydrates (regardless of complexity).
A single slice of bread is too much for the average person.

With "normal" food, I only lose weight if I run 5k every day. Otherwise I rise
to the point where my kcal requirement increases because of my weight and it
"evens" out.

My definition of "normal" includes bread, rice, pasta and stuff like potatoes.
Even whole grain.

------
panglott
The main problem with this is how you conceptualize "hunter-gather" exercise.
Hunter-gatherers comprise ancient societies spread across the planet in a huge
range of ecosystems, from the Arctic shore to African deserts. Most of the
remaining hunter-gatherers live in very marginal or sensitive environments
that are difficult to sustainably convert to agriculture, like deserts or deep
rainforest. As with most articles of this type, I fear that the authors are
assuming an overgeneralized and not-very-empirically-grounded overview of
"the" hunter-gatherer lifestyle and exercise regimen. Their sources to
characterize hunter-gather lifestyle include things like _The Paleolithic
Prescription_ (and some paywalled journal articles).

There were hunter-gatherers where everyone walks thousands of miles over the
course of the year, and hunter-gatherers where people stay near their
villages, and hunter-gatherers where everyone travels great distances, and
hunter-gatherers where the women stay at home, and societies where everybody
stays at home and just pulls some fish or brazil nuts out of the river/forest
when they're hungry, and hunter-gatherer societies so rich that they had
hierarchical proto-states with leisured elites and slavery. And most hunter-
gatherer societies disappeared so long ago that we simply have no real
information about them, as far as questions like this go.

And frankly, looking at their Table 2, while it is true that the actual
activities people may do on day-to-day basis may be different (carrying logs
vs. carrying groceries) at the same level of activity, the premise that
hunter-gatherers had very different exercise patterns may be exaggerated.
Compare the discussion here: [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-
beast/200910/...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-
beast/200910/how-much-physical-activity-do-we-really-need)

"Detailed research on two hunter-gatherer societies (or "foragers") allows us
to calculate how active they are. These are the Ache of Paraguay and the !Kung
of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. The !Kung are rather smaller (at
about 100 lbs) and have comparatively low activity levels whereas the Ache are
bigger (at about 130 lbs) and highly active thanks to their high birth rate.

A !Kung male uses about 2,200 (kilo)calories per day in total, almost exactly
the same as a male office worker... Out of their respective total daily energy
consumption, the !Kung use about 894 calories on physical activity (compared
to 607 for office workers) whereas the Ache use a whopping 1772 calories this
way.

Since the !Kung and Ache are so much lighter than Americans, it is important
to take body weight into account. ...If Americans wanted to be as active as
the !Kung, they would need to add the equivalent of 3.8 miles of walking to
their daily activity. ...An hour-and-a-half of shopping with a cart uses about
the same amount of energy as walking 5 miles."

Sure, the !Kung are exercising more, but only on the scale of say,
walking/cycling instead of driving for short trips. Not on the scale of
running daily marathons. It seems like an exaggeration to say: "Humans remain
genetically adapted for a very physically active hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Many of the health problems endemic today result from lifestyle that is at
odds with this evolutionary milieu."

Although to be fair they do insist that the difference does just imply a need
for some more low- to moderate-intensity exercise.

------
alberto_ol
It's a pdf

