Chapter 29 Chapter 27 The way of keeping in good health in line with the development of species

For 120,000 generations, humans lived as hunters and gatherers.The next five hundred generations were engaged in agricultural life.Judging from the numbers, human beings spend more than 99.5% of their time as hunters and gatherers, while only less than 0.5% of their time lives in agriculture.Ten generations lived through the advances brought about by the Industrial Revolution, while the youngest generation, living in industrialized countries, had their lives dictated by computers.The human gene pool has been gradually developed during the evolutionary process that lasted billions of years.However, the human genome has barely changed since the appearance of our European ancestors, the Cro-Magnons who lived in the middle and late Stone Age.Human genes are 30,000 to 40,000 years old.In contrast, the environmental conditions in which we live have undergone tremendous changes at an alarming rate.Human beings seem to be sent to a wonderful new world by a time machine.We carry the genes of the Stone Age and live in a high-tech age.

From our earliest beginnings until the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, the acquisition and preparation of food was at the heart of human life.Of course, there are also other small things that need to be taken care of, such as settling down in a safe and comfortable campsite for sleeping every day.In addition, clothing and weapons must be manufactured and maintained.When food stocks ran out, humans had to hunt neighboring tribes as prey. No matter what you do, you have to work with your own hands.Muscular strength and endurance are therefore key conditions for everyday life.The physical condition of our Stone Age ancestors had to adapt to this requirement, lean, agile, and muscular.This is evidenced by physical reconstructions based on unearthed skeletal fossils, as well as by modern hunter-gatherers.

Until modern times, diet and exercise have been inseparable.People hunt and gather to obtain food and survive.Muscle load and relative energy and nutrient expenditure on the one hand, and nutrient and energy intake provided by food on the other, are interdependent and indispensable.Under such special living and environmental conditions, human beings have formed a special metabolic and biochemical mechanism, which is fixed in the form of genes.Human beings have survived for millions of years under such natural conditions. Some specific genetic traits have been screened out for further optimization due to their role in maintaining life, while others have little effect or are redundant. Knock out or close.Therefore, today our genetic programming still works best when we maintain daily physical activity.

With the expansion and deepening of the industrial revolution, human beings have gone astray in terms of diet and exercise, causing countless troubles.In modern times, machines have gradually replaced manpower, and in recent decades, it has been computers and chips.The scale and impact of this development trend has been investigated and calculated in the UK. From 1956 to 1990, the energy consumed by human beings in physical labor has decreased by 65%, and this trend is still continuing.Today, most work is done in front of a computer.In a job like this, the only tool that requires the use of muscle is the mouse.Indeed, this is very relaxed and comfortable, which is a real improvement. Under such a physical load, it is guaranteed that you will not even sweat and accumulate fat in your stomach.

Let's look at a few examples.Suppose a young, still slender female manager weighs fifty-eight kilograms, and her basic energy metabolism is about 1,335 kcal.A male colleague of hers weighs 70 kilograms and is still relatively slender. He consumes 1,645 kcal of energy in a quiet place.The two drive to work every day, and they have to walk several times a day between the corridor of the workplace and the office.During their lunch break, like most people, they either browse the Internet, or sit and chat with their colleagues, and smoke. According to a new German statistics, this is a typical way for employees to pass their lunch break.On such an ordinary working day, they need to walk a total distance of 300 to 700 meters, including work and the way back and forth.

After get off work, they went to buy something for dinner.When you get home, bake the semi-finished product you bought in the oven and eat it.Sitting in front of the TV, the muscle exercise that must be completed is to hold the remote control in your hand and press it casually from time to time.In a modern family, the exercise that consumes the most energy is to bring dinner into the mouth, and then digest, absorb and metabolize the food.Depending on the distance between the TV and the bed, this movement process also consumes a certain amount of energy.On such a day, our young ladies consume about 500 kcal of heat in addition to basal metabolism, and our men consume about 615 kcal.The two of them consume an average of nine kilocalories per kilogram of body weight per day.

According to scientific calculations, in the past our ancestors consumed an average of 18 to 27 kcal per kilogram of body weight per day, which is two to three times that of today.If this has been the case for millions of years, it is reasonable to assume that our genes are adapted to this amount of exercise. The evolutionary development of diet and exercise is completely broken today.Our genes simply cannot adapt to such a large change in such a short period of time (from an evolutionary perspective).We must realize that our genes are not prepared for lack of physical activity.Our bodies don't have software specially adapted to this new condition.In the new environment, the unsuitable situation of continuing to use the old genetic software caused the body's operating system to malfunction frequently.The body must run various auxiliary programs, but the breakdown of the metabolic system is still unavoidable.The consequences of our pursuit of a high-quality life are becoming more and more obvious, and the disease of civilization with a very high incidence is gradually spreading.According to experts, it will be at least several thousand years before our genetic program can be updated.

But those who are responsible for this, are lethargic.Employers managed to eliminate the last bit of manual work.In terms of urban planning, transportation and housing construction, we have tried our best to remove the last burden of human beings.All are talking about emerging technologies, educational programs, the information age and the immeasurable promise of the virtual world.In the face of technological progress, all people, whether employees or employers, are cheering. The former does not have to continue to work so hard, and the latter can obtain higher profits through new rationalization measures.

However, if under such a high quality of life, more and more young people suffer from insulin resistance, who will bear the huge cost to the society?From insulin resistance to sugar metabolism disorders, from chronic hyperinsulinemia, to lipodystrophy, and then to blood coagulation tendency, coupled with high blood pressure, the consequences are the most familiar myocardial infarction and cerebrovascular infarction, and cancer. The "Journal of the American Medical Association" published on May 17, 2000 reported a piece of bad news: long-term high blood sugar will increase the risk of pancreatic islet adenocarcinoma.Whether it is breast cancer, bowel cancer, or pancreatic islet eye cancer, almost all cancers that are common in developed countries are related to high blood sugar, that is, insulin resistance.

There is a fact that we have become more and more aware of, that is, disorders of sugar metabolism and long-term high blood sugar, even if they are far from the standard of diabetes, are enough to constitute the number one enemy that threatens health. Recently, we also found that Alzheimer's disease is also related to high blood sugar.These are diseases of civilization that are unheard of among natural tribes, such as osteoporosis, kidney stones, gout, short-sightedness, etc., and the list could go on endlessly.The disorder of sugar metabolism is always the main suspect.At this time, it will be immediately objected that this is because these natural tribes have a short life span, and most of them die before they are old enough to suffer from these diseases.We will explain this later.

However, it is indisputable that we can prevent many diseases of civilization through regular exercise.A large number of long-term research studies have proved this point (see Chapter 12).Especially for unknown syndromes, the related pathogenic factors and their complications can be prevented through regular physical activity.Depending on the amount of exercise, it can inhibit the disorder of sugar metabolism, the incidence of type 2 diabetes, and reduce the mortality of diabetic patients. The latest research from the United States proves that women who often do a small amount of exercise have a 30% lower risk of developing diabetes in old age than others, and women who exercise a lot have a lower risk of developing diabetes by half. The fact is, however, that ordinary people and politicians have yet to appreciate the importance of this connection.Today, we exercise only consciously and voluntarily, which is regarded as spiritually commendable and health-conscious, and is praised.In fact, from a genetic point of view, there is nothing special about exercising, it is a very common way of life.The body uses movement to judge whether its hardware and software are functioning optimally.Fully enjoying the advantages of a comfortable modern life and other high-quality life may be a good thing under certain circumstances, but we should not over-beautify it, but let the scientific facts speak for themselves: lack of exercise is not normal, but pathological, will shorten our lifespan. Everywhere we hear people talking inexplicably about how many people suffer from the diseases of chronic aging despite the continuous advancement of medicine, new technologies and new treatments.At this point, the Americans are once again our role models.In 1990, 90 million people in the United States were afflicted with one or more of these diseases.It is estimated that the treatment and care of these patients will cost a trillion dollars.How do the backbone of the medical community respond to this epidemic?So far, they are still working on improving the treatment method, but relying on this method, the incidence rate cannot be effectively reduced.The situation in Europe is not much better, we just don't have such accurate records.That said, it won't be long before our society can afford its healthcare system. Changing thinking is imperative.But who is willing to take the initiative to exercise?We seem to have to be forced or pressured to act.Minimum effort, maximum benefit, this is our instinct to pursue the best benefit, and it is also a reasonable goal from a biological point of view.However, science tells us that only if a person engages in a certain amount of physical activity every day or most of the time can he make his genetic potential play a role in maintaining health. It seems that we need some kind of inescapable movement, just as humans in the stone age had to run for food and, in later stages, to toil, go out to work, or do housework.What do you think life would be like without elevators?No one is forcing you to take the elevator up the stairs.You can refuse to take the elevator at all!And shopping bags and beer, boxes and documents will not go upstairs by themselves, so you will have to work hard to carry them. The real challenge is how do you get the entire population, not just the 5% or 10% who visit a sports association or a gym, to be regularly active.When will our politicians and industrial tycoons wake up and realize that illness means not being able to work and will add a lot of extra expenses.We are confronted with one of the most pressing problems of the new century. We now know fairly well what intensity and frequency of exercise our bodies need to stay healthy.This kind of exercise does not take up too much time, and it can be arranged and realized in daily life.We will discuss this in detail in the next chapter. However, I must admit that I am relatively pessimistic on this issue.In our society, which has a tradition of worrying about the country and the people, everyone is more keen to criticize animal experiments. Various international and domestic committees discuss different ways of raising animals that meet the characteristics of the species, and formulate regulations on activity space, outdoor activities, and sunlight exposure. , ventilation and feed strict regulations.The bureaucrats engaged in these tasks may themselves be locked in a reinforced concrete cage day after day, lacking exercise, exposed to artificial light all day long, exposed to unventilated air conditioners, and incessant noise.In terms of diet, they have embraced a diet that fills their stomachs at no extra cost, rather than a diet that is specific to the human species and our genetics.But it's still starch, and it's wrapped in the wrong kind of fat. Tall, strong, plump muscles, and a small amount of carbohydrates, our ancestors developed into Homo sapiens under such living conditions.This condition developed the genetic gene for insulin resistance, which is still active in many people today.But suddenly, these conditions are completely reversed.We have only weak muscles today, and most of them have nothing to do.If the muscle cells are stuffed with fat and languid in seats and couches all day, the genes that make insulin resistance kick in especially quickly.Add to that the amount of carbs we're stuffing our tired muscles, and it won't take long before things start to go wrong. Again, the less muscle you have, the less sugar you absorb from your blood.And the important thing is, if this little muscle is not exercised, the absorption of sugar will be even less.This causes high blood sugar, which in turn leads to an increase in insulin secretion, which drives sugar into the cells.Excessive production of insulin for a long time will gradually exhaust the production capacity of the islet glands, and the secretion of insulin will gradually decrease, and even eventually dry up.This is how humans develop type 2 diabetes. Another rule is that most carbohydrates that cannot be directly utilized are converted into saturated fat by the body and accumulate in muscle cells, which will also reduce the sensitivity of cells to insulin.This is how the vicious cycle begins.If you lack exercise for a long time and eat a high-calorie diet at the same time, whether it is fat or carbohydrates, there will be more and more fat in the muscles.This dangerous combination provides favorable conditions for the formation of unknown syndromes, which are the inevitable result of the way we choose to live and eat. It is indisputable that the introduction of grains into the human diet caused the most profound changes in food intake in the history of human evolution.Before this, our ancestors did not know this kind of food.Today, we are the only primates that eat grains.Today, cereal products are even the most important food source in the world. Perhaps, humans have known since the Stone Age that the seeds of weeds are edible, but it is not available in all regions and in very small quantities.These few seeds, because of their hard shells, are difficult to process into food, and cannot be used as daily food.Later, with the growth of population and the reduction of hunting beasts, driven by hunger, humans thought of eating grains as food.The art of grinding and making dough is constantly evolving. Among the calorie sources currently on the world market, cereal products occupy a dominant position.Also, add potatoes, rice and sugar.In turn, people use these things to make Coca-Cola, biscuits, chips, cornflakes, popcorn, bread and other snacks and snacks.Refined carbohydrates and starches abound in our food, and it's all genetically alien.In the United States, more than 60 percent of their daily calorie intake comes from foods that are genetically unfamiliar to humans.How many carbohydrates can those organs of our body consume that are constantly filled in every day?The muscles of modern people are definitely useless.Carbohydrate cramming and high-tech foods have completely disrupted our biological coordination mechanisms. If paleoanthropologists are not mistaken, modern hunter-gatherer tribes ate food very similarly to our Stone Age ancestors.That said, our genes are best suited to a diet low in carbohydrates.The Stone Age diet, then, was originally a diet specific to the human species: about 30 percent carbohydrates, 20 to 30 percent protein, and 40 to 50 percent fat. But the point is not just to reduce our carbohydrate intake today, but to consume other types of carbohydrates as well.It is worth recommending carbohydrates that are not refined and rich in crude fiber. It is best to take most of them from fruits and vegetables. Our current intake is not enough and should be greatly increased.In ancient times, this was a common thing.It is estimated that between fifty and one hundred different plant species were eaten by humans throughout the year during the Stone Age.There was no pizza and pasta, no bread and cereal, and humans ate wild berries and fruits, wild vegetables and green leaves. In addition, we should also eat more protein like stone age humans, and the current intake level should be greatly increased.We should also consume enough fat, perhaps more than we have today, but especially, that the quality of this fat should be different from what we used to eat.Vegetable fats that are widely used today contain a high proportion of polyunsaturated Omega︱6 fatty acids, which should be greatly reduced, while increasing the intake of vegetable fats containing more Omega︱3 fatty acids, plant-based and animal-based monounsaturated fatty acids intake should also be increased.In addition, you should take in more long-chain, highly unsaturated Omega︱ fatty acids, which are only found in animal fats. The ratio of Omega︱6 and Omega︱3 fatty acids should be reduced from 12:1 today to 2:1 to 4:1.This is not easy, because grain farming provides so much grain fat that the world market today is flooded with cheap vegetable oils.If you want to identify the foods that cause the calorie surplus of the residents of the third world countries, these vegetable oils are the first to bear the brunt.For decades, someone has made a fortune off of it.In order to sell it better, they used a clever marketing strategy to make it extra healthy: polyunsaturated fatty acids, lower cholesterol, good for the heart.In fact, the high proportion of Omega︱6 fatty acids in these vegetable oils will lead to a serious imbalance in the ratio of Omega︱6 and Omega︱3 fatty acids in the diet, thus causing sensitive prostaglandin metabolism disorders, which is not beneficial to our blood vessels at all ( see Chapter 16). With the entry of grains into the human diet, many food varieties with nutritional value have been excluded from the human diet.Because we can simply fill our stomachs with cheap grains, we relatively reduce the intake of vegetables, fruits, nuts, mushrooms and fish.And the intake of some specific nutrients contained in these foods is also reduced, which is lower than the amount our genes are used to.Of course, grains also contain a lot of nutrients, especially in whole grain foods, which are quite high, but human genes cannot or cannot fully adapt to some of these substances. Grains and other starch-rich foods have been the basic food of human beings traditionally.It is ludicrous to hear such arguments time and time again from all sides.Today we already know that with the development of agricultural production, the original rich and diverse natural food of human beings has gradually been replaced by the monotonous civilized food focusing on grains, and disasters have also come, such as famine, diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies, and diseases caused by human beings. The resulting shortened lifespan began to invade the human society at that time. If we do some research along the development of agricultural production in history, we will find an astonishing phenomenon.Starting from the Middle East, passing through the Mediterranean region, extending to Central Europe, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe, the incidence of diabetes and myocardial infarction has also been increasing.The inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast were the first to grow grains and took the longest time to gradually adapt themselves. They have a relatively low incidence of civilized diseases today.Conversely, rates of diabetes and myocardial infarction were highest in areas where agricultural production was introduced later and where, due to climatic constraints, cereals were not initially dominant.Wherever grains and starchy foods went, foods that were genetically specific to humans were pushed out of people's diets, and insulin resistance and diabetes spread rapidly. These coincident correlations, of course, cannot be regarded as evidence for root-seeking, but they should at least awaken our authoritative experts and prompt them to rethink their rigid positions with a critical eye. Of course, we must adapt more or less gradually to changing environmental conditions over time.For some genes, it may take thousands of years, for others millions of years.According to statistics, one in two hundred people (the total number in the world is quite considerable) suffers from celiac disease, a disease caused by an innate inability to tolerate wheat gluten.This is the most familiar and most studied example of a human genetic maladaptation to wheat, which is a fairly new food from an evolutionary standpoint in humans.Because the body cannot bear gluten, the intestinal mucosa is damaged, causing discomfort in the gastrointestinal system and affecting the absorption of iron, calcium, folic acid and soluble vitamins.Now people know that this congenital defect is also closely related to many other diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disease, asthma, psoriasis, dermatitis and so on.The number of people suffering from this disease is increasing worldwide. Lactase deficiency due to the inability to tolerate lactose is also a manifestation of genetic inability to adapt to new foods.Many people gradually lose the ability to digest lactose as they grow up.This can cause abdominal cramps, gas and diarrhea after consuming milk.The use of animal milk as food for adults was discovered and popularized in Europe and Africa about 4,000 years ago.Of course, milk is not a completely unfamiliar food to humans, and breast milk also contains lactose.Therefore, it is conceivable that many people's ability to digest lactose can be maintained if they have been consuming milk and dairy products since childhood.For some peoples who have historically consumed a lot of milk and dairy products, such as the Nordic people, this dietary trait has strengthened their survival advantage during the evolution process, and this favorable gene is particularly prominent in them.The formation and spread of a genetic variant called a polymorphism can contribute to the ability to digest lactose throughout life. The nutrition of our diet today is far from a diet that truly conforms to the characteristics of the human species.We are the only mammals that get more sodium than potassium from our food.The ratio of these two minerals in the body must be balanced in order to function properly in the cells.In recent centuries, we have consumed excess sodium through the use of large amounts of table salt, and limited the all-important source of potassium due to reduced intake of fruits and vegetables.Therefore, in the case of eating a lot of salt today, in order to keep the water balance and blood pressure in our body from getting out of control, we should take in more potassium.However, if you follow the old advice and eat a lot of salty bread, pastries and other pasta all day long, you will naturally not be able to eat enough potassium-rich fruits, berries, legumes, vegetables and mushrooms.These plants are also great sources of potassium and calcium, two minerals that help regulate blood pressure. For modern hunter-gatherers, whose blood pressure does not increase with age, high blood pressure is completely foreign to them.In today's elderly, high blood pressure is very common.This connection raises a key question: If we also ate like these natural tribes, or like our Stone Age ancestors, would we be as healthy as them? Unfortunately, this question cannot be verified directly through practice.Because, our real Stone Age ancestors left only remains and fossils, which cannot explain too many problems.The stone tool tribes who still lived as hunter-gatherers are dying out, and they are increasingly embracing the Western way of life.Only a few tribes living in the Amazon region and on the Andaman Islands off the coast of India actually lived in Stone Age conditions.Even the well-known Kong and Hazda people can no longer be counted as true hunter-gatherers.The way of life and diet that has lasted for at least two million years in humans will completely disappear from the earth in a few years.Therefore, we can only rely on surveys of hunter-gatherer tribes in the twentieth century, which have revealed a number of very interesting insights: First of all, it must be admitted that in natural tribes, there must be diseases such as arteriosclerosis and cancer, but they are very rare.Both modern hunter-gatherers and their Stone Age ancestors had short lifespans compared with the inhabitants of developed countries today.But they did not have antibiotics and emergency medicines, and most of them died of infection, trauma and sepsis, or died under the claws of wild animals and became food for others. But there is one fact that cannot be changed. Modern hunter-gatherers do not show signs of chronic aging diseases in their young adults.On the contrary, these symptoms are very prominent in Westerners of the same age.Metabolic disorders and their complications, which are so common in our society, are also not found in the elderly among hunter-gatherer tribes.Although they ate a lot of animal foods with high cholesterol and fat, their blood pressure and cholesterol levels (100 to 180 mg per 100 ml) were very low, their insulin sensitivity was strong, and their insulin concentration was relatively low.Eskimos in the Arctic, Kikuyu in Kenya, Solomon Islanders, Navayu Indians, Maasai in East Africa, Aboriginal Australians, Kalahari in South Africa, New Guineans, Pygmarcks in the Congo, and Surveys of many other ethnic groups have shown that both atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease are rare in natural tribes. Professor Eaton pointed out this point as early as the end of the 1980s, and later Professor Cordain, Professor Brand-Miller and other experts successively expressed the same point of view.But so far their arguments have not been accepted. The reason for their opposition is that the medical data of modern hunter-gatherers they have mastered is not credible by today’s standards. In addition, in addition to exercise and diet, the life of these natural tribes There are too many differences between the way and today's Westerners. Now this discussion has added a new and important content.In addition to the extensive clinically monitored metabolic studies documenting the beneficial effects of Stone Age exercise patterns, we have studied in detail various aspects of Stone Age food intake.The meaning of sports has already reached a consensus around the world.Today's modern metabolic research has clearly shown that the Stone Age dietary pattern has a positive impact on all aspects of unknown syndrome, can improve insulin sensitivity, reduce blood sugar, insulin, blood fat and blood pressure.In addition, such a diet rich in crude fiber and fat, as we mentioned in the previous chapter, can prevent obesity. Should we start from now on, go back to the old tricks and eat the bone marrow and brains of animals?Take out the bloody liver from the freshly slaughtered sheep and eat it raw?Snack on crickets and geckos?This is completely unimaginable!In fact, the important thing is not to follow the example.But these findings should prompt us to think.We can refer to the Stone Age diet as a model, trying to emulate its principles with the food materials available today.At the same time, we must test this hypothesis through clinically monitored long-term studies as soon as possible with the final facts such as morbidity and mortality, that is, this diet is truly in line with the characteristics of the human species and beneficial to health. Until then, each of us can test how we respond to such a stone age diet by adjusting our diet, looking at your weight, blood sugar, insulin, LDL and HDL cholesterol, triglycerides Ester and blood pressure changes.Is there anything wrong?I can't promise you that you'll be healthier and all your disorders will return to normal.But I can assure you that it is very likely.I have had the best personal experience myself. As for how to create delicious Stone Age food today, I will give you some tips in the last chapter