PaleoTerran Enters Dormancy. Thanks.

Thank you for visiting PaleoTerran over the past couple of years! This is the last post before PaleoTerran enters dormancy. For now, the content will remain online. Hopefully someday, the site will reawaken.

A special thanks to John Michael and Leslie Why Reap for their contributions and encouragement.

For those new to Paleo/Primal health, the Start Here page provides some introductory articles and a few links. Much more is available by browsing or using the Search box or Categories menu.  

As noted in the previous post, 2013 & The Urge to Explore, we are entering a new era of exploration in search of new ideas, new directions, and new horizons. My online effort has shifted to the development of a new professional forum called Chiari Medicine. On occasion, I will post on Paleo/Primal health on the PrimalDocs website. 

This is one of my favorite images. Nestled in southern France, this stream runs below a cliff-side hominid cave occupied 400,000 years ago. Although the occupants were not our direct ancestors, the image takes us back to the Garden. Yes, there were threats. But also clean air, clean water, and a rich, productive environment.  And also, as Mark Sisson would likely say, it was, and remains, a great place to play. While we may not want to return to the Paleolithic, we don't want to loose the Terra we have. 

Human health and the health of our environment are fundamental to our future. Both are under threat. By taking care of ourselves using clues from our Paleolithic ancestors and by taking care of Terra, we become paleoterrans. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were consummate explorers relying on cunning, physical skills and social bonds. In this spirit, let’s push forward to explorer new ideas, new directions, and new horizons.

Take care,

John J. Oró, MD

2013 & The Urge to Explore

“Ernest Henry Shackleton, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Dr. Edward Adrian Wilson on the British National Antarctic Expedition (a.k.a. Discovery-Expedition), 2 Nov 1902.” Image: Wikimedia. PD-US – published in the US before 1923 and public domain in the US.

Tomorrow, The National Geographic Society begins celebrating their 125th anniversary. In a special issue of National Geographic magazine titled Why We Explore, the Society  is “kicking off a year of stories about the new age of exploration.” In the article Restless Genes, David Dobbs discusses with Svante Pääbo our Paleolithic ancestor's urge to explore:

No other mammal moves around like we do,” says Svante Pääbo, a director of the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where he uses genetics to study human origins. “We jump borders. We push into new territory even when we have resources where we are. Other animals don’t do this. Other humans either. Neanderthals were around hundreds of thousands of years, but the never spread around the world. In just 50,000 years we covered everything. There’s a kind of madness to it. Sailing out into the ocean, you have no idea on what’s on the other side. And now we go to Mars. We never stop. Why?”

Why indeed? Pääbo and other scientists pondering this question are themselves explorers, walking new ground. They know that they may have to backtrack and regroup at any time. They know that any notion of why we explore might soon face revision as their young disciplines – anthropology, genetics, developmental neuropsychology – turn up new fundamentals. Yet for those trying to figure out what makes humans tick, our urge to explore is irresistible terrain. What gives rise to this madness to explore? What drove us out from Africa and onto the moon and beyond?

Dobb’s goes on to discuss genes that may allow us explore by giving us “great mobility, extraordinary dexterity” and “brains that can think imaginatively.” These three factors form a feedback loop: imagination acted upon by our mobility and ability further fires imagination of what is possible. Our long childhoods also play a role: “we have an unmatched period of protected 'play' in which to learn exploration’s rewards.”

Migratory waves of courageous and exploratory people carry these genes forward, which in a new environment can be further favored. As Dobbs notes, migration “would have selected for multiple genes that favor curiosity, restlessness, innovation, and risk taking” and created another “self-reinforcing loop, amplifying and spreading the genes and trait’s that drive it.”

Finally, we have our tools – such as the ship, compass, sextant, sleds, protective clothing and many other tools that allowed Ernest Shackleton (above) and his team to explore unknown lands.

This New Year, follow your urge to explore. It is our heritage.

Latest issue of Paleo Magazine

I picked up a copy of the Dec/Jan issue of Paleo Magazine at a local Barnes & Noble. The issue contains 7 new Paleo recipes, columns from various contributors, and the following articles:

• Movnatting Through Winter
• Carbohydrates For Female Hormonal Health
• 4 Common Paleo Foods That Could Be Making You Sicker
• Ghosts Of Our African Gut
• Paleolithic Human Migration and the Genome

Related Posts

• Paleo Magazine in natural foods stores
• Paleo magazine Aug/Sept issue at newsstands
• Paleo Magazine: Oct/Nov issue at newsstands

Rev. Sally Bingham on faith and the science of climate change

I couldn’t stand in a pulpit and talk to a community or congregation and tell them that humans are changing the climate if I didn’t have people like Katharine Hayhoe behind me to show the science, where I can fall back on the scientific evidence. It wouldn’t make sense for me to say, “The climate is changing, it’s coming from human-induced activity,” if I couldn’t back that up with science. I always say that scientists are today’s prophets. They are the people giving us the news that we need to pay attention to, and we need to listen to them.

Read the interview at Climate Progress

A Beautiful View of the Heavens

Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 5189

Toxic metals, inadequate nutrition & autism

Is there a link between toxic metal exposure, the typical modern diet (which is nutritionally deficient), and autism?

This year, toxicologists from Hersbruck, Germany published a research study evaluating hair samples from 44 children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The researchers compared the levels of toxic metals and essential (beneficial) elements such as iron, magnesium and zinc, to levels found children without autism:

By comparing hair concentration of autistic vs nonautistic children, elevated hair concentrations were noted for aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, antimony, nickel, lead, and vanadium. Hair levels of calcium, iron, iodine, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, zinc, and selenium were considered deficient. There was a significant positive correlation between lead & verbal communication (p = 0.020) and general impression (p = 0.008). In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between zinc & fear and nervousness (p = 0.022). Conclusion: Our data supports the historic evidence that heavy metals play a role in the development of ASD. In combination with an inadequate nutritional status the toxic effect of metals increase along with the severity of symptoms. (emphasis added)

Maedica (Buchar). 2012 Jan;7(1):38-48.
Toxic Metals and Essential Elements in Hair and Severity of Symptoms among Children with Autism.
Blaurock-Busch E, Amin OR, Dessoki HH, Rabah T.
Lecturer and Advisor, International Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology & German Medical Association of Clinical Metal Toxicology, Hersbruck, Germany.

Movie Preview: Chasing Ice

Acclaimed photographer James Balog was once a skeptic about climate change. But through his Extreme Ice Survey, he discovers undeniable evidence of our changing planet. In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world'schanging glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.

Google

How healthy is your heart?

People were considered to have optimal heart health if they met the following criteria: They did not have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes; they were not overweight, underweight or obese; they did not smoke; they did at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week; and they ate five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

Few Americans Have 'Healthy' Hearts
MyHealthNewsDaily

Is depression an inflammatory & degenerative disorder?

Image by Hendrike, Wikimedia CommonsAccording to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), depression affects 1 of 10 adults in the U.S. While many factors, such as abuse, medications, conflict, or death or loss, increase the chances of depression, Maes and colleagues writing in Neuroendocrinology Newsletters, propose depression to be an inflammatory and degenerative disorder:

There is now evidence that depression, as characterized by melancholic symptoms, anxiety, and fatigue and somatic (F&S) symptoms, is the clinical expression of peripheral cell-mediated activation, inflammation and induction of oxidative and nitrosative stress (IO&NS) pathways and of central microglial activation, decreased neurogenesis and increased apoptosis.

As listed in the abstract, this would help explain the frequent co-existence of depression in brain disorders such as "Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke", and medical disorders such as "cardiovascular disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut, diabetes, obesity and the metabolic syndrome, and HIV infection."

The authors propose the “common denominator” in these disorders is activation of the microglial cells (the immune cells of the brain) and/or activation of the body’s “inflammation and induction of oxidative and nitrosative stress pathways” (IO&NS pathways). These “pathways function as a smoke sensor that detect threats in the peripheral and central parts of the body and signal these threats as melancholic, anxiety, and fatigue and somatic (F&S) symptoms." (emphasis added)

The authors' conclusion:

It is concluded that the activation of peripheral and / or central IO&NS pathways may explain the co-occurrence of depression with the above disorders. This shows that depression belongs to the spectrum of inflammatory and degenerative disorders. (emphasis added)

Now, for the mental health question of the decade: Is depression largely a nutritional disorder?

Related Posts

• Brain Health: Omega-3 fatty acids reduce anxiety
• Inflammation impairs frontal lobe brain function
• Brain Health: Fish oil helps maintain brain volume
• Quotes: High carb diet and Alzheimer's Disease
• Success Story: After 20 years on a plant-based diet
• Paleo diet helps young woman overcome anorexia
• An "Insight of the Decade": Chronic inflammation kills

Did the Roman Empire & the Han Dynasty begin the Anthropocene?

Roman sarcophagus with battle scene, Dallas Museum of Art. Source: WikimediaThe Anthropocene, a newly defined "informal" geological era, marks the timeframe in which humankind’s planetary impact has been so intense we alter Earth’s geology. But when did Anthropocene begin?

While some favor the Industrial Revolution as the start of the Anthropocene, I side with those arguing for an onset 8,000 to 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. Now there is new evidence that greenhouse gasses - particularly the potent greenhouse gas methane - took a jump during the Roman empire and Han Dynasty in China which pushes the onset of the Anthropocene to at least 2,000 years ago.

In a study published October 4, 2012 of Nature, C. J. Sapart and colleagues looked at the “Natural and anthropogenic variations in methane sources during the past two millennia.” According to Richard Ingham of AFP, the research found “humans were big emitters of greenhouse gases long before the Industrial Revolution.”

For 1,800 years before industrialisation took off in the 19th century, emissions of methane rose in line with expanding populations, human conquest and agricultural techniques.

Big early increases coincided with the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and the Roman empire (27 BC to the last western emperor in 476 AD), which along with an advanced Indian civilisation at the time chopped down millions of trees to heat homes and power their metal-working industries, often to provide weapons.

Humankind added approximately 28 billion tonnes of methane to the atmosphere per year between 100 BC and 1600 AD through fires, deforestation, and rice paddies. And, according to the study:

Based on archaeological metal production estimates, we calculate that the charcoal used for metal production at the peak of the Roman empire alone could have produced 0.65 teragrams (650 million tonnes) per year of methane. 

More on the Anthropocene:

• Welcome to the Anthropocene: Humankind's layer on the Earth
• The Stockholm Memorandum and the strain of the Anthropocene
• The Anthropocene: The beauty & the beast
• The Great Acceleration
• First "State of the Planet Declaration" 

Self-balancing motorcycle ... or is it 2-wheeled car?

Learn more here.

Skiing in a Warming Climate

Greater increase in winter temperatures in Northeast, Midwest and down to Texas, and parts of the Mountain West. Source: NRDC

This year’s skiing season has gotten off to a worrisome start. According to Bob Berwyn of the Summit County Voice:

With the state’s major ski resorts struggling to open just minimal amounts of terrain in time for the busy Christmas holiday season, two University of New Hampshire researchers estimate that the $12.2 billion industry has already suffered a $1 billion loss and dropped up to 27,000 jobs due to diminished snow fall patterns and the resulting changes in the outdoor habits of Americans.

Katharine Q. Seelye of The New York Times reports that ski centers at “the lower elevations and latitudes” will likely close as the climate warms:

Whether this winter turns out to be warm or cold, scientists say that climate change means the long-term outlook for skiers everywhere is bleak. The threat of global warming hangs over almost every resort, from Sugarloaf in Maine to Squaw Valley in California. As temperatures rise, analysts predict that scores of the nation’s ski centers, especially those at lower elevations and latitudes, will eventually vanish.

Under certain warming forecasts, more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast will not be able to maintain a 100-day season by 2039, according to a study to be published next year by Daniel Scott, director of the Interdisciplinary Center on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

The percentage of ski resorts in the Northeast predicted to be viable by 2039:

• Connecticut – 0%
• Massachusetts – 0%
• New York - 25%
• New Hampshire - 39%
• Maine - 57%

What about the Rockies? According to Seelye's article, “Park City, Utah, could lose all of its snowpack” by end of the century and the snowpack in Aspen, Colorado  “could be confined to the top quarter of the mountain." 

Will artificial snow rescue the ski mountains? In view of the predicted water shortages in the West, this is of doubtful economic feasibility.  Seelye writes: “After last year’s dry winter and a parched, sweltering summer, reservoirs are depleted, streams are low, and snowpack levels stand at 41 percent of their historical average.”

"Skiing Sunday was grand." However, this skiing season is not over. John Meyer, of The Denver Post, had a "grand" experience at Winter Park last Sunday when:

Colorado ski areas were blessed with a nice storm — 14 inches at Winter Park, for example. So I went back to Jones Pass on Sunday, hoping conditions were adequate at last. It was more than adequate. I was blessed with one of my most enjoyable backcountry experiences ever.