

The secret to man's intelligence? POTATOES enabled larger brains - jdnier
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3189454/The-secret-man-s-intelligence-POTATOES-Humans-evolved-large-brains-ancestors-ate-starchy-carbohydrates.html

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DrScump
Wow, this is sloppy journalism. Ar drallison points out, potatoes (any
subspecies) were unknown to the Old World altogether. The article makes
_multiple_ references specific to potatoes ("It has been argued that an
increase in meat consumption could have triggered the increase in size, but
now scientists believe that we may have another food to thank: the humble
potato.", and "They say starches would have been readily available to
ancestral human populations in the form of potatoes", which is _categorically
false_

The article implies that dietary glucose is necessary for survival, let alone
optimal brain development. Neither is true, as anybody who has eaten a
ketogenic diet (like me) can affirm. Although some organs need glucose (the
brain is _not_ one of them!), the body can make all it needs from protein.

Agriculture only goes back 15,000 years or so, which is a blip in evolutionary
terms. There is no indication of timeframe of the amylase adaptations,

The study is here:
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587)

The abstract makes some similar claims about the _need_ for dietary
carbohydrate, citing a 27-year-old paper, which is simply incorrect.

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drallison
The starchy carbohydrates were probably not potatoes which are a new world
plant and domesticated fairly recently.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato).

The article states: "Dr Karen Hardy and her team at the Autonomous University
of Barcelona say that there are five crucial reasons why a starch-rich diet
was critical in human development." That suggests that the key is "a starch
rich diet" rather than potatoes that enabled larger brains. It would be
interesting to know where the starches came from, given that potatoes are not
an option.

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jdnier
Full subtitle: "POTATOES: Humans evolved large brains because our ancestors
ate starchy carbohydrates"

Our saliva suggests improved carbohydrate digestion: "...humans possess six
salivary amylase genes, while other primates just have two, increasing the
ability to digest starch. ...after cooking became widespread and the salivary
amylase genes multiplied, this increased the availability of dietary glucose
to the brain and foetus which, in turn, allowed the acceleration in brain size
which occurred from around 800,000 years ago onwards."

