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advancedatheist comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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If, as Michael Rose argues, our metabolisms revert to hunter-gatherer functioning past our reproductive years so that we would improve our health by eating approximations of paleolithic diets, does that also apply to adaptations to latitudes different from the ones our ancestors lived in?
In my case, I have Irish and British ancestry (my 23andMe results seem consistent with family traditions and names showing my origins), yet my immediate ancestors lived for several generations in the Southern states at latitudes far south from the British Isles. Would I improve my health in middle age by moving to a more northerly latitude, adopting a kind of "paleo-latitude" relocation analogous to adopting paleolithic nutrition?
The statement involves several dubious premises. The first is that we understand metabolism well enough to talk meaningfully about optimal functionality rather than just collect observations. The second is that this optimum corresponds to ancestral patterns. The third is that we know what these ancestral patterns are.
Most of the paleo variants I've seen include debunked claims.
Cardio-vascular disease becomes more common as you move away from the equator.
Yes, but is it genetic or environmental? In other words, do people who move away from the equator have more CVD, or do people whose ancestors lived further from the equator have more CVD?
Australians have less CVD than people in the British Isles, so I'm betting on environmental.
The British diet is actually terrible, though, much worse than that of even British-descended people in Australia.