Diets And Dinosaurs

A scientific article on evolution and ageing
vindicates theories about humans being of
palaeontologist hunter-gatherer decent, we
should have been raised on protein and meat
instead of wheat

As proved by multifarious allergies, I was right
in surmising the reptilian brain stem overrides
mammalian tendencies in its crocodilian glory,
our dinosaur cousins went extinct because of
allergy to grass and wheat

The unnatural agricultural products we eat lead
to death but protein diets let us live indefinitely
yet such a diet would make life so insufferably
boring, we would seek ways to end our lives,
the release from the desire

For delicious fare to satisfy our gourmandise,
if wheat and grass did not multiply, leading
dinosaurs into temptation, they would have
been with us still!



The end of ageing: Why life begins at 90
....10 August 2011 by Michael R. Rose
....Magazine issue 2824. Subscribe and save

Michael R. Rose is professor of evolutionary biology at the
University of California, Irvine. For more on this topic, consult
Does Aging Stop? by Laurence D. Mueller, Casandra L. Rauser
and Michael R. Rose (Oxford University Press).

IN 1939, British statisticians Major Greenwood and J. O. Irwin
published an article in the journal Human Biology containing an
unexpected discovery. Mortality figures for women aged 93 and
over were expected to indicate death rate rising with age - but
instead, between 93 and 100 years of age acceleration in death
rates came to a screeching stop. Little old ladies aged 99 were
no more likely to die than those aged 93. The authors were
dismayed because they assumed "decay must surely continue".

But if ageing stops very late in our lives, is there any way we
can make it stop earlier, when we are in better health? The
idea that ageing stops makes little intuitive sense. Ageing
seemed a physiological process of cumulative damage,
disrepair or disharmony. Evolutionary biologists studied
how natural selection allow cumulative damage to happen.
All that changed in 1992, when the labs of Jim Carey at
the University of California, Davis, and Jim Curtsinger
at the University of Minnesota published landmark
articles in the journal Science (vol 258, p 457 and p 461).
Carey and Curtsinger studied thousands of flies of the
same age in controlled conditions and recorded the death
of every fly until the whole group was dead.
They found the same thing as Greenwood and Irwin:
at first mortality rate increased exponentially, but after
a few weeks death rates stopped rising. Signs of life after
ageing were found in every laboratory experiment, flies,
nematode worms and beetles. There is a "third phase"
of life after adulthood characterised by stable mortality
rates. And that just didn't make sense. For me, an evolutionary
working on ageing for 15 years prior to 1992, confronting the
Carey and Curtsinger results was like a near-death experience.
My mind reeled. Then I had an idea; a hopeful speculation.
What if ageing was caused by declining forces of natural
selection? Once these forces bottomed out, the ageing process
would stop. A computer modeller, statistician and evolutionist
ran computer models of the ageing process incorporating this
new theory. In every case, ageing came to a stop. It seemed
evolutionary theory of unending ageing was wrong.

Could we predict the evolution of different stopping points for
ageing – yes - the last age at which a population reproduces
over many generations is key - if reproduction stops earlier, so
too does ageing. Stop reproduction later and ageing follows suit.
We tested this experimentally by comparing ageing patterns of
different fly populations in large experiments. Results were striking
as models predicted, populations with an earlier last age of reproduction
stopped ageing earlier and lived longer, and vice versa.
We still don't have a full explanation of the underlying genetics of
the cessation of ageing. Ageing is not a cumulative process of
progressive chemical damage, like rust, but a pattern of declining
function produced by evolution.

I propose it would great to stop ageing early rather than slow
its progression with greater effect on lifespan and healthspan.
If we stop human ageing in middle rather than old age, useful,
enjoyable life would extend indefinitely and decrepitude avoided.
There is a way by which it might be possible. Natural selection
declines with age, we are best adapted to our environment
when we are young and less so when old. Ageing is progressive
decline in adaptedness as we get older. And environmental
change adds to the declining health with age. RECENTLY HUMANS
MADE MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE, SWITCHING TO AGRICULTURE
AND A GRASS AND DAIRY PRODUCE DIET. THIS MAY BE THE REASON
WE MAKE THE SHIFT TO A POST-AGEING LIFE AT SUCH A LATE AGE.
We are well adapted to an agricultural diet at early ages, but less
so at later ages. This amplifies decline in adaptedness of ageing.
An agricultural way of life increased human fertility at later ages
and pushed back the last age at reproduction - fly experiments
show this leads to a later transition to the late-life plateau.

To improve the course of ageing and stop it earlier, we need
look at evolutionary history. The simplest is people whose
ancestors never lived under agricultural or industrial conditions.
People from Papua New Guinea, whose ancestors were exposed to
agricultural foods and lifestyles during the past century, are not
well-adapted to them. In the 2009 book FOOD AND WESTERN DISEASE,
Staffan Lindeberg of the University of Lund in Sweden documents
the health benefits by reverting to ANCESTRAL HUNTER-GATHERER
DIETS. Hunter-gatherer ancestry people stop ageing earlier by
switching to THEIR ANCESTRAL LIFESTYLE AND DIET.

We are best adapted to agriculture when young, under 30. At later
ages, there were too few generations of natural selection to adapt us
to that lifestyle and it is beneficial TO SWITCH TO THE DIET
AND ACTIVITY LEVELS OF HUNTER-GATHERERS. I AVOIDED ALL
GRASS-DERIVED FOODS - GRAINS, RICE, CORN AND SUGAR CANE,
AND MILK PRODUCTS, FOR TWO YEARS AND RESULTS ARE GOOD.
I DON’T THINK EVERYONE, AT EVERY AGE, SHOULD ADOPT
A STONE-AGE DIET, AS THE "PALEO" DOCTRINE ADVOCATE.
WE ARE ADAPTED TO WHEAT, RICE AND CORN WHEN YOUNG,
BUT NOT WHEN WE ARE OLDER. [Hence my 1st conclusion I
was born old – literally and figuratively. Dinosaurs
went extinct from an agricultural diet and since I am
a crocodile in brain and spirit, I continue to suffer
from these allergies.]

See gallery: "Secrets of the centenarians: Life begins at 100"
Michael R. Rose is professor of evolutionary biology at the
University of California, Irvine. For more on this topic, consult
Does Aging Stop? by Laurence D. Mueller, Casandra L. Rauser
and Michael R. Rose (Oxford University Press).