the-psoriasis-treatment

Like most animals, our Paleolithic ancestors had to regularly undergo short periods of low calorie intake. If they were successful at procuring food, those ancestors alternated between periods of mild famine and feast. As a result, nature allowed them to survive and leave offspring. The periods of feast likely involved higher-than-average consumption of animal foods, with the opposite probably being true in periods of mild famine. Almost anyone who adopted a low carbohydrate diet for a while will tell you that they find foods previously perceived as bland, such as carrots or walnuts, to taste very sweet – meaning, to taste very good. This is a special case of a more general phenomenon. If a nutrient is important for your body, and your body is deficient in it, those foods that contain the nutrient will taste very good. This rule of thumb applies primarily to foods that contributed to selection pressures in our evolutionary past. Mostly these were foods available in our Paleolithic ev...

As far as explaining natural phenomena, Darwin was one of the best theoretical researchers of all time. Yet, there were a few phenomena that puzzled him for many years. One was the evolution of survival-impairing traits such as the peacock’s train, the large and brightly colored tail appendage observed in males. Tha male peacock’s train is detrimental to the animal’s survival, and yet it is clearly an evolved trait ( ). This type of trait is known as a “costly” trait – a trait that enhances biological fitness (or reproductive success, not to be confused with “gym fitness”), and yet is detrimental to the survival of the individuals who possess it ( ). Many costly traits have evolved in animals because of sexual selection. That is, they have evolved because they are sexy. Costly traits seem like a contradiction in terms, but the mechanisms by which they can evolve become clear when evolution is modeled mathematically ( , ). There is evidence that mental disorders may have evolved as c...

Source: Greg Wray The story about how humans evolved bigger brains begins some seven million years ago in central Africa. There, in a dense rainforest, there lived the last ancestor that we share with our closest living relatives. Our evolutionary paths diverged when the global climate changed and a new habitat took shape. While ancestors of chimpanzees retreated deeper into the rainforest to subsist on a diet mainly of fruits, our ancestors found themselves in on strange, new, dry grassland. The savanna would mean a new way of life for our ancestors. They'd learn to use tools, communicate with each other using language, and work together to hunt animals for food. Based on fossil evidence and stable isotope data, our hominin ancestors shifted to a diet where meat was a principal energy source about two million years ago. It would be a major shift in diet that coincided with an increase in cranial capacity. Now, scientists like Greg Wray, a professor of biology at Duke Uni...

Champagne supernova. Credit: Space Daily "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." When you eat a slice of apple pie, or any pie, or any food at all today, on Carl Sagan Day, it may be worthwhile to reflect on this quote, one of the beloved television series host's most famous from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. A look back at our origins is a good way to gain some perspective, amidst the accumulating scientific evidence, on how to understand our own biology and predicting ways in which we can keep our own healthy. Or, at least, that has been my conclusion. Starting at the beginning with the chemistry of life , our own evolution , and to that of our close cousins , then on to our current situation , and the future , this blog has explored all sorts of topics relating to diet and health in the past and forthcoming. Over the years, what's evident is that there exist numerous ongoing debates in the world of food, nutrition, and me...

Female blue-eyed lemur What lessons can humans learn from our far distant prosimian primate cousins about living well and eating a healthy diet? This was the question on my mind as I toured the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina with colleagues attending Science Writers 2012. (Read Christie Wilcox’s full report about our tour over at  Science Sushi  on  Scientific American. ) When I learned on the tour that lemurs were getting sick, I inquired further from our tour guides, education associate Chris Smith and education manager Niki Barnett. The thought of these adorable creatures—somehow related to me because of a common ancestor some 50 to 80 million years ago—suffering from the same types of chronic diseases as modern-day humans encouraged me to want to find out more about their care and treatment. Lucky for me, Chris, who might’ve tired from me badgering with so many questions, helped me arrange an interview with the center’s senior veterinari...