
Humans are the highest energy apes, making us smarter but also fatter - Petiver
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/humans-are-highest-energy-apes-making-us-smarter-also-fatter
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gajomi
The Science magazine article seemed to me scarce on a number of critical
details which are made clear in the abstract:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature17654.html)

Of particular interest is the fact that the study tries to account for the
effects of activity, which is obviously widely variable across human societies
and individuals (e.g. French professional cyclist versus Khomani San tracker
versus Japanese Sumo wrestler). The abstract specifies that they found an
elevated basal metabolic rate, which is activity independent. There is the
important and interesting issue of variance. A closer look at Figure 1 one
might help in this regard (alas, a paywall...).

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xioxox
I see in Table 1 that their average human female is 6 kg heavier than their
average human male. Strange!

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personjerry
Might this be because of the higher % body fat in women?

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xioxox
I don't think so - men are heavier than women on average, e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight)
. Is it a mistake in the table or a weird sample?

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johnlbevan2
They did select "relatively sedentary humans"; perhaps in that subset, women
are heavier than men?

\- Men tend to do more muscle-increasing sport than women; meaning a sedentary
man isn't gaining that muscle weight.

\- Women tend to do more cardio activities to burn fat; meaning an active
women may be losing weight.

I suspect you're right about it being a misprint though.

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thatcat
>men aren't gaining that muscle weight they already have >Women tend to do
more cardio activities to burn fat; meaning an active women may be losing
weight.

The muscle weight is a metabolic load that requires constant caloric intake to
support, sedentary women do more cardio to compensate for their otherwise low
metabolism. May not be a misprint.

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carlob
Does that mean we would live shorter lifespans than other apes without
medicine, sanitation (and all the other stuff the Romans did for us)?

I remember something about the metabolic rate being tied to lifespan.

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emn13
The question is whether that's cause or effect - and regardless, the
correlation between metabolic rate and lifespan clearly isn't very strong (as
in there are many other factors that probably matter).

In the big scheme of things, a mere 27% difference isn't all that great. I
mean, heck, hummingbirds can live to be 10 which is more than twice as long as
even record-breaking genetically engineered mice, despite hummingbirds having
an unusually high metabolism.

The 27% difference more remarkable if you consider how similar we are to other
apes. Regardless, I can't imagine that simplistically extrapolating lifespan
from metabolism is particularly accurate, even if it gets you in the right
ballpark.

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llovan
The homo genus needs a new species: Homo Sapiens Corpulentus

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ChemicalWarfare
There are other factors impacting one's body composition not mentioned in the
article - things like testosterone levels, growth hormone levels etc.

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appleflaxen
higher energy use does not mean fatter, if you /use/ all of that energy.

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thaumasiotes
Animals don't operate on the principle of "run the tank until it's empty". If
they did, they would frequently die for no good reason by getting caught out
at an inopportune moment. Imagine if, whenever a car ran out of gas, it
exploded. You'd probably keep your car close to full, and that is what animals
do too. In normal health, you can go several weeks without needing to eat.

Higher energy use means we store more energy than other animals need to. We
_do_ balance energy intake against energy output, very precisely. But we still
need greater reserves, and those reserves are fat.

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monsieurbanana
As long as a some specific crowd doesn't use the article as another excuse for
being morbidly overweight, I'm fine with that.

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squul
Makes sense to me

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dfsdfsdfsdfs
Do you mean "it made sense to me" as in "I understood it, having read it" or
"I knew that already, it's obvious"

If it's the former, then good for you, you understood the text

If it's the latter then good for you, you're a genius

Either way, your understanding of it is a great contribution to the
discussion. Thanks.

