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17th December 2020, 03:02 PM | #241 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I believe there are a lot of factors involved in the related problems of insulin resistance obesity and type 2 diabetes. But I believe that continuous availability of food has a lot to do with it. When a famine might be just around the corner, there is survival value in packing on some fat. It just might make the difference between starving to death and making it through the famine. When there is no famine coming, not so much.
I also think that the typical diet of most people, at least in develoed countries, constains more carbohyderates than is healthy. The combination of too many calories and too much carbohydrates is what leads to both obesity and type 2 diabetes. |
17th December 2020, 05:02 PM | #242 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Caveat: Have not read the whole thread!
It's hard to see how T2 diabetes is going to be an evolutionary advantage. It kills you, but doesn't normally occur until after breeding age so that's not a big deal. The tendency to gain weight, and to find fats to be tasty, may well be an evolutionary advantage. I times not so long past, when the availability of food was far from certain, having some fat reserves would help to get you through the lean times. The downsides, T2 and heart disease, tend to occur after breeding years. |
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17th December 2020, 07:56 PM | #243 |
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I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me like the other way around: a safeguard of sorts against getting TOO fat to hunt for your next meal.
Insulin helps basically convert sugar from food into fat for storage. As you keep forcing the body to do this too much, it starts to develop insulin resistance. Which in turn leaves some sugar in the blood so that you don't get hungry too soon. If you keep at it even more, eventually it can turn into full tilt type II diabetes. Which really is just an extreme form of insulin resistance. It seems to me like way back in the times when this evolved, it wasn't even likely to go all the way. Whether for humans or the occasional obese pet with diabetes, yeah, it involves a rather unusual situation, compared to most animals out in the wild. |
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5th January 2021, 01:54 PM | #244 |
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It wouldn't have been much fun to be obese in a tribe of hunter-gatherers, but I doubt that it ever happened. There may have been hort-lived type-1 cases, but probably no type-2 diabetics. I don't think there are any in the few hunter-gatherer societies that still exist.
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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5th January 2021, 03:17 PM | #245 |
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Excellent points.. i agree with you.
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Maybe later.... |
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5th January 2021, 03:50 PM | #246 |
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5th January 2021, 04:18 PM | #247 |
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5th January 2021, 04:22 PM | #248 |
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A sample size of seven men and seven women - presumably quite young being medical students is hardly a representative sample. A lot would depend on whether they drink regularly, sometimes or never. Whether they were used to such fatty meals and how well they burn off energy (metabolism).
I can't see how drinking red alcoholic wine alleviates type-II diabetes. It's known as an aperitif in France. |
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5th January 2021, 04:33 PM | #249 |
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Well, there are the Saami and there is this study:
Quote:
So, in other words, although the Sami population had a higher BMI it was not linked to DM. There could be all sorts of factors at play here. Modern day hunter-gatherer clans likely get a lot of their food from a supermarket rather than by direct husbandry. |
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7th January 2021, 09:50 AM | #250 |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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7th January 2021, 10:09 AM | #251 |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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7th January 2021, 12:28 PM | #252 |
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7th January 2021, 12:58 PM | #253 |
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OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK |
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13th January 2021, 10:38 AM | #254 |
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Isn't the original question a little bit like asking "what's the evolutionary advantage of drowning"?
Evolution responds to things that are important for passing on our genes and ignores those that are not. It's not the lest bit surprising that conditions evolution hasn't needed to respond to can kill us All the food we could want, all the time with little effort isn't something that normally exists in natural ecosystems because populations tend to grow until food/water is a limiting factor. |
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13th January 2021, 10:46 AM | #255 |
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Pretty much, yes.
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13th January 2021, 07:24 PM | #256 |
Penultimate Amazing
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For a gene to evolve in 42% of the population there must be a + to it, not just a-potency. (you can not force enough carbs down the throats of the other 58% to make them diabetic. Obese, sure)
The Thrifty Gene meme is one +. I didn't start this thread to discuss obesity, or other down sides of diabetes. I wanted to open people's minds to other possibilities. |
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14th January 2021, 02:19 PM | #257 |
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There are genetic sequences which do absolutely nothing but exist in 100% of the population. Founder effects can easily carry genes to become ubiquitous if they are not actively selected again. Alternatively genes get reused so genes can be actively selected for even if they have some bad effects in other circumstances.
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