From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: What is man?
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 02:13:30 -0600

> Now, how about trying to grasp what I have presented?  Man is by
> biological standards a "frugivore.

Nah.  We can keep a high blood level of vitamin C with a lower dietary dose
than any other primate, by far. We conserve it fantastically, with a
half-life around 20 days once we reach renal threshold. None of this would
be necessary for a frugivore. Instead, it appears to be an adaptation from a
former frugivore which has undergone quite a bit of additional natural
selection.

Show me a human with very dark skin with all his excess nutritional calorie
storage fat on his butt, where it can sit without giving him heatstroke, and
I'll show you somebody adapted for a tropically sunny, hot climate where
eating fruit all year around might be possible.  Show me somebody with light
skin and and a more even fat covering, not to mention good enough vitamin C
conservation to make it through a winter without fresh greens, and I'll show
you a human who's undergone considerable genetic adaptation to other
lifestyles where fruit-eating is clearly not a year-around thing, and hasn't
been for a long, long evolutionary time. In short, a hominid no longer meant
genetically to eat any class of foods in particular, anymore, all the time.

If you look at a human being's gut, it looks quite a lot like the gut of a
pig. This is not the gut of a tree-dwelling, fruit-eating monkey.  Learn
from it.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: More demonization of fat
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 00:54:13 -0600

"Quentin Grady" <quentin@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:25ruftsvtkkqbohjtegptk3rui3tjh1q8a@4ax.com...
> This post not CC'd by email
>  On Sun, 13 May 2001 16:57:41 -0700 (PDT), daleo80@webtv.net (Dale
> Omenson) wrote:
>
> >The ancient Romans had a diet of basically whole wheat and corn. How, do
> >you suppose, did they avoid becoming overweight and developing
> >diabetes???

Myth. Excavations at Roman military latrines have shown that even Romans
soldiers got a lot more fruit than had been generally supposed.

As for the Roman upper classes, they didn't eat like Henry VIII, but also
had a much more varied diet. The Roman expression for everything from soup
to nuts was "ab ovo usque ad mala" literally "from the egg to the apples."
The traditional opening and closing courses of the Roman meal.

Classically,

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,misc.fitness.weights
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores (Was: vegetarian friend ate beef. -- lost 
	headaches.)
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 16:25:13 -0600

"rawimmortal" <rawimmortal@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:vkYL6.2653$p33.59332@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
>
> "Scott K." <skurland@chicago.us.mensa.org.removethis> wrote in message
> news:9dpi3n$cfn@dispatch.concentric.net...
> > > > It has already been pointed out to you that it is characteristic
> > > > of herbivores that they turn toes up and die if you give them a
> > > > diet of meat. That's true of rabbits, and I've no doubt it's just
> > > > as true of elephants.
> > >
> > > In case you haven't noticed, we're not herbivores. We're frugivores.
> >
> > Name ten frugivores.  Can any of them except humans survive on a pure
> > animal diet?
>
> There have been cultures in which the preferred method of executing a
> prisoner by the agonizing means possible, was to feed them nothing but
> flesh. They died horribly.
>
> Name even 10 humans who can survive for long on a diet of only animal
> flesh.
>
> Habib


The Eskimos have been mentioned to you. Their traditional diet is as close
to being carnivorous as that of most carnivores.

Of course, it should be noted that even carnivores usually end up sometimes
eating whole animals, or at least the gastric contents of herbivores. The
fact that my cat sometimes grazes on my lawn does not mean it's not a
carnivore.

Can a human live on nothing but what a wolf or a lion eats?  You bet. As
long as you like.  Can a rabbit do that?  Nope. Feed a rabbit nothing but
meat and it will be dead in 2 weeks. They tried that for the cholesterol
studies, and didn't get far because the animals didn't live to get
atherosclerosis.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: vegetarian friend ate beef. -- lost headaches.
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 15:37:28 -0700

DRCEEPHD wrote in message <20010516155346.00574.00000038@ng-mi1.aol.com>...

>Humans, as frugivores, have a limited capacity to digest animals.  We
>cannot digest the hide, the hair, the collagen, or the ligaments, but we
>can digest the muscle tissue.

Wrong. We can digest all but the hair. Which most carnivores can't either.


>Over consumption of the muscle mass requires that the bacteria digest and
>consume the mass for us to avoid impaction and blockage. Our longer
>digestive tract and digestive times, allows for the bacteria to act upon
>the non-digestible portion producing toxins, poisons, gas, and odor to
>which the human is then exposed.  Minerals must also be released from the
>bones for the human to counteract the acidity of meat and allow the
>excretion as calcium urate.

More nonsense. Protein digestion creates acid, but any protein (including
plant protein) does that. It needs to be neutralized by base in the diet.


>Lastly, no farmer would spread the feces of carnivores on his garden.  The
>feces are toxic to the plants.


Only the dose makes the poison. Sure, carnivore waste is too high in
nitrogen to use full strength, but there's nothing toxic about it, if
diluted in other compost.  If you've ever examined a dog turd on your
lawn you'll see that the lawn immediately under it is dead, but in a ring
around it the grass grows greener and more lush.  The same happens with
any chemical fertilizer-- use too much and it's bad.  Use just the right
amount and it's good.

Sort of like vitamins, don't you know.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,misc.fitness.weights
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores (Was: vegetarian friend ate beef. -- lost 
	headaches.)
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 15:53:53 -0700

rawimmortal wrote in message
<47CM6.14667$p33.253834@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com>...
>
>"Dry Ice" <nomail@nomail.com> wrote in message
>news:3b02acfd_3@news4.newsfeeds.com...
>
>> So, perspiration is irrelevant to diet when
>> comparing meat eaters and grass eaters, but
>> not when comparing meat eaters and fruit eaters.
>
>I never said or implied that. I said and implied that it was meat eaters
>and frugivores I referred to, rather than grass eaters, because I have
>less knowledge about perspiration in grass eaters than I do about meat
>eaters and fruit eaters.


All right, so what is it you think you know about perspiration
in meat and fruit eaters?

So far as I know, no other animal perspires in the way
that humans do. We use our eccrine glands for thermal
control, and that's unique. Many mammals have eccrine
glands on their paws, and I assume they use them to keep
from having dry feet and loosing good grip. Monkeys included.
Monkeys also have eccrine glands under the hair all over their
bodies, but they don't use them for thermal control.
Sweating for thermal control is hard for a non
running animal with hair, since there's not enough
convection to make it work.  Horses manage because they
run, but they use apocrine glands for it, like the ones under
your arms. They're great perspirers, but they don't do
it at ALL like we do it.

What you think any of this has to do with diet is beyond me.
It looks to me like you've been reading creationist literature or
some fool thing.

SB

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 15:32:03 -0700

laurie wrote in message ...
>
>"Dry Ice" <nomail@nomail.com> wrote in message
>news:3afe34d2_3@news4.newsfeeds.com...
>> ===== Humans as Omnivores =====
>> There is overwhelming archeological evidence, going
>> back before Neanderthal, that humans were omnivores.
>> Even a superficial examination of the literature of
>> cave findings reveals this.
>    Getting beyond the 'superficial', archeological "evidence" exists ONLY
>AFTER culture had started being developed.
>    No evidence of human existence exists -pre-culture-, just as no evidence
>of chimps existence 10,000 years ago survives to this day.  It is only
>through TOOLS that enough lingering damage to the ecosystem exists to
>this day to document human existence.  The 'evidence' you refer to is
>most likely ancient fire-pits and burnt, and/or tool-scarred bones.  Most
>important to this discussion is the fact that tool/fire use is a -very
>recent- human endeavor, existing only in a very small percentage of our
>evolutionary past, thus any dietary evidence post-tool is totally
>irrelevant to understanding the natural human diet.  This is a simple
>concept that anyone should be able to understand.


Some of those campfire remains are hundreds of thousands of years old.
That's plenty of time for evolution to have adapted to a very great
difference in diet. That's a concept that anyone should be able to
understand, too.  One of the things that put Darwin onto the case of the
mechanism of evolution was nothing that his island finches weren't all
eating the same diet, but had all had a common land ancestor quite
recently.

How fast can this happen?  In Hawaii there are a number of species of
banana moth that occur nowhere else in the world. But bananas don't
hop from island to island by themselves like coconuts, and they aren't
native to Hawaii. They were brought by Polynesians less than 2000 years
ago. The moths evolved SINCE then to eat bananas.

Now, this happens more quickly with insects than it does mammals, but to
give you an idea of what is possible, consider the brown bear (grizzly,
Kodiac, Alaskan Brown, etc) and the polar bear. Formally these are two
different species, and don't interbreed in the wild. Brown bears are
omnivores who dig in the earth and in many places are largely vegetarian.
Polar bears live on the ice, and are pure carnivores. But these are
basically different versions of the same animal, diverging through
evolution in less than a million years. They can still interbreed in
zoos, and the offspring are fertile.  The polar bear is just an extremely
ice- and water-adapted brown bear.

Human beings have used fire for a large fraction of that kind of time, and
we've had plenty of pressure and plenty of evolutionary time to have
made digestive adaptations as extensive as these two bears.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 16:54:08 -0700

laurie wrote in message ...

>    Further, what would be the mechanism whereby dozens of metabolic
>pathways could magically change overnight in a highly orchestrated way to
>allow 'adaptation' to a _radically_ different diet?  And how many
>generations would that take?  I maintain there are none, and challenge
>anyone to elucidate them in quantitative and qualitative detail.


Look, none of us are going to type in a textbook of freshman evolutionary
biology for you. There are plenty of them out there, and they mostly deal
with things like lizards and thrushes that have radiated to islands as
isolated populations and soon adapted to radically different diets. This
is COMMON in biology, not rare. It can happen easily in 10,000
generations, and can even happen in 1000.

I mentioned the polar bear T. maritimus and the brown bear U. arctos.
They are separate species which do not interbreed in the wild, but will
interbreed in zoos, and have fertile offspring. Basically they are no
different from each other than various races of humans or dogs are from
each other. They are thought to have diverged from each other less than a
million years ago, far less time than humans have been chipping rocks to
help them eat meat.

BUT the brown bear is basically a vegetarian; you could call it an
omnivore if you wanted to push things (and this depends a lot on where
the bear lives, as inland bears are more herbivorous than coastal ones).
The polar bear, however, is a carnivore, period.  Yet the two bears have,
needless to say, essentially the same dental structure.  You must
understand that your idea that you can tell what a creature is
"naturally" supposed to be eating, is blown out of the water here by a
single example. Those are the bear facts <g>. That's the end of your
argument, unless you want to dispute some of these specific bear facts
with me.

>    IF the human digestive system 'adapted' to a flesh-oriented diet, then
>WHY did NOT the rest of the body also 'adapt'?

Answer the question for the polar bear, or else quit asking it.


>Why weren't the physical
>equipment necessary to catch animals also co-evolved with this alleged
>digestive 'adaptation'; that is, why did not the human also become
>fleet-of-foot enough to catch animals, why did we not develop sharp, pointy
>things to catch and tear animal flesh -- where are the sharp teeth and
>claws?

We didn't need them. What we needed was equipment to run down prey
and throw a stone or spear accurately. Which we have. Have you ever seen
a chimp try to catch or throw a ball?  It's pathetic, far worse than any
girl's softball team. Have you seen a chimp walk on its hind legs? Can you
imagine one waddling after a porcupine with a spear?  Forget it.

We ARE adapted for hunting and killing game. You just have to notice.

What... you think we can run marathons, and are better distance runners
than any other animals save the canids, so that we can stalk and run down
tired radishes and carrots? We humans are full of equipment that is of no
use to a frugivore whatsoever, unless you happen to know of any
long-winded lemon trees.


SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,sci.med
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 22:44:00 -0700

DRCEEPHD wrote in message <20010529210247.11078.00001404@ng-mc1.aol.com>...
>>Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
>>From: "Steve Harris" sbharris@ix.netcom.com
>>Date: 5/29/01 6:54 PM Central Daylight Time
>>Message-id: <9f1cs7$knq$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>
>
>>We ARE adapted for hunting and killing game. You just have to notice.
>>
>>What... you think we can run marathons, and are better distance runners
>>than any other animals save the canids, so that we can stalk and run
>>down tired radishes and carrots? We humans are full of equipment that is
>>of no use to a frugivore whatsoever, unless you happen to know of any
>>long-winded lemon trees.
>>
>>
>>SBH
>>
>Very funny.  I enjoy the comparison.
>
>However, after we run down the prey, how do we kill the prey and tear
>through the hide?  Do you relish the thought of attacking a cow to suck
>her uddrers for the milk?  Do you mentally relish the thought of laying
>in a pile of dead herbavore like the cow to feast on her entrials ( your
>salad) before eating the muscle meat?  And where is the protective Bull
>in all of this?  ( I have been chased many times out of the pasture by
>the ever present bull.)


Answer:

No, why should I?  Suppose you ask an otter if it relishes getting a
mouth full of sea urchin spines, or an Alaskan beaver if it relishes
spending the winter out in the bush freezing its tail off, without any
protection from the wolverines or the snow. If these animals would talk,
they'd tell you that you were nuts. The otter would reply that breaking
open urchins is what rocks are for, and that you can't really look at his
face and paws and tell what he's "supposed" to be eating, because he ALSO
uses tools. The beaver will tell you the same-- that he constructs dams,
moats, and lodges, and that you can't tell how he spends the winter just
by looking at his coat. He's not adapted to living out in the open in an
arctic winter, but he does it anyway by using his brain, his paws, and
his teeth to construct protection that is better than that afforded by
his hide alone.

Humans aren't any different. We use tools to get though hides in the
same way otters use stones to get through shells (originally, in fact
WE used chipped stones for this). You can't tell what we're "supposed
to do" entirely by looking at us, although you can guess some things.
We're adapted clearly for running and for throwing, of course. Children,
especially male children, start running and throwing things at moving
objects as soon as they can, compulsively. They're instinctively training
to do something, and it's not training to bring down wild rutabagas.
Moreover, we're not adapted for the kind of climate in which fruit is
common. Do we look like chimpanzees? No, strangely, we don't.
Humans have lost most of their hair and we sweat more effectively
than any other animal, save the horse. We are adapted not only for
running, but running on a hot savanna, like the zebra. But we don't
eat grass. We're creatures of the savanna but we weren't grazing
out there, and we certainly weren't picking peaches or bananas out
there. What are we eating out there? If you watch your boys play, you
can figure out exactly what we ate and did out there. Games of
throwing and running are in your DNA, and so is your ability to run
and throw on a hot, grassy plain. Watch TV and tell me the next
time you see a group of men fascinated by a contest to see who
can shinny up a tree and reach the last and highest plum. Does
that sound like kind of game all humans are fascinated by? No?
Okay, what kinds of sports do fascinate humans in all cultures?
Think. Hint: fruitpicking-like activities don't rank. Not with the
Irish any more than the Mayans or the Huns. That isn't who we are.

Humans have fewer instincts than other animals and more of
our programming is cultural. But aside from our taste in sports,
we do have certain universal tastes. One of them suggests
our long use of fire. We eat raw meat from steak tartar to
sushi, but we often prefer it cooked. We've been using fire
since our brains were 75% of their present size, when we
were called Homo erectus and from the neck upward, looked
considerably more gorilla-like than Fred Flintstone (though
from the neck down we looked pretty much as we do today).
All known human cultures have used fire into antiquity. We are
fascinated by fire. Our children are fascinated by fire. These
things cause infinitely many fire accidents (why are children
driven to play with matches and not, say, spiders or snakes?
Spiders and snakes are MUCH safer). And we have a taste
for fire's products. We like char and browning and toasting
and glazing and caramelizing and barbecuing, and we
spend a lot of money getting it, as well as the taste of smoke
(you can buy liquid smokehouse flavoring...!) Some of our
worst addictions even involve inhaling smoke, and we can't
figure out why delivering the drug in other forms doesn't work
as well to break it. Even inhaling cold nicotine vapor isn't the
same, as a manufacturer of nicotine inhaler sticks found out
some years ago. Smoke itself is mildly addictive. It is a sweet
smell unto the Lord, says Leviticus about smoke and burned
meat. And to your genes, also.

The only other animal we know of that seems to prefer the
taste of cooked food is the dog, and dogs have probably been
sharing our fires as long as we've been making them.

In short, I'm sorry to be bringing you more bad news about
those fairy tales that you believe. However, we are not the
descendents of women who got weak in the knees at the sight
of the most agile orange picker, or men who enjoyed the favors
of that hungry woman and her baby after finding them a nice
romantic raw turnip. That just isn't the way our species works.
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, as the song goes. We are anatomically
built to be hot-climate corsairial tool-using hunters, not tree-climbing
fruit-eaters. We are tool-using fire-using animals, and though-out
the history of our species, the main thing we used fire and tools
FOR, is the procurement and preparation of meat.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 01:18:40 -0700

big benz wrote in message <3B149508.70B65664@benz.car>...
>Steve Harris wrote:
>>
>> BUT the brown bear is basically a vegetarian; you could call it an
>> omnivore if you wanted to push things (and this depends a lot on where
>> the bear lives, as inland bears are more herbivorous than coastal
>> ones). The polar bear, however, is a carnivore, period.  Yet the two
>> bears have, needless to say, essentially the same dental structure.
>> You must understand that your idea that you can tell what a creature is
>> "naturally" supposed to be eating, is blown out of the water here by a
>> single example. Those are the bear facts <g>. That's the end of your
>> argument, unless you want to dispute some of these specific bear facts
>> with me.
>>


>Bears are opportunistic eaters, that's what tends to dictate their diets.
>so, brown bears are omniverous in that they'll eat what make the most
>sense for them to eat.  bears aren't stupid, year a bear could run down
>prey, kill it and eat.  but heck, if it can eat berries, that's a easy
>meal, full of sugars, and they don't have to expend a lot of energy to
>get it.

That doesn't explain why polar bears don't go South where they can
feast on berries which don't try to get away. The truth is that bears are
NOT complete diet opportunists. Polar bears like to stay north of brown
bears and that means they like to eat what there is to eat there.



>polar bears are carnivorous because there's not a whole lot of vegetation
>growing in the areas that they frequent.


Begging the question. There's no fence keeping them up there.


>however, polar bears that
>spend summers in the hudson bay area of canada near areas of human
>habitation will raid the garbage dumps and won't be real choosy about
>what they eat.

How do you know?  The fact that a bear is raiding a dump doesn't
necessarily mean it's eating anything it can find there.

Anyway, we're still not focusing on the point. We have two bears with very
different diets due to where they live. They have the same teeth because
they are closely related. Is somebody going to claim that one or the
other bear is somehow flying in the face of god and nature by eating
what it actually eats? How come humans seems to catch this kind of
argument from nutcases, but animals never do?

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 02:06:01 -0700

laurie wrote in message ...

>    The human species is the sickest on the planet, morbid obesity kills
>300,000 people/year in the US; cancer, heart attacks, and strokes are
>killing younger and younger people as time goes on.  There is NO such
>rampant "degenerative disease" that occurs in the domain of the natural
>animal.

COMMENT:

Let's just start with this statement. Any biologist will tell you that
any wild animal population is full of parasites and degenerative
diseases, and the only thing that limits this is the fact that animals
have no hospitals or nursing homes or retirement plans, and die pretty
quickly if they get too ill. But that's not to say that they don't have
all kinds of maladies. I've appended five papers below on just arthritis,
but there are many more for all kinds of other problems.

Whereever did you get the idea otherwise? Do they teach this nonsense is
some kind of Seventh-Day Adventist school for people who don't know
anything about biology at all?  Why do you think you can get away with
just blathering on about such stuff?

And where do you get the idea that humans die prematurely?  How long do
you think a mammal of our size should last?  Mice and elephants get about
a billion heart-beats in a lifetime. That's the mammalian average. Try
thinking for a while about how much metabolic lifetime a human gets.




1: Equine Vet J 1999 Jan;31(1):73-81

Naturally occurring osteoarthritis in the metacarpophalangeal joints of wild
horses.

Cantley CE, Firth EC, Delahunt JW, Pfeiffer DU, Thompson KG.

Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston
North, New Zealand.

This study identified changes consistent with osteoarthritis; articular
cartilage damage, subchondral bone sclerosis and marginal osteophytes, in
the metacarpophalangeal joints of wild New Zealand horses. The articular
cartilage lesions were identified by Indian ink staining techniques and
histology. The lesions occurred on the proximodorsal aspect of the first
phalanx (P1) and were more severe on the medial compared to the lateral
eminence of the bone, and their severity increased with age. The bone
mineral density of the subchondral bone underlying the cartilage lesions,
assessed using conventional radiography and dual energy absorptiometry,
also increased with age and with severity of the overlying cartilage
lesion. Subjective assessment of cabinet radiographs revealed that the
subchondral bone sclerosis was greater in horses with severe articular
cartilage damage. Ossicles, with a distinct trabecular bone pattern, were
identified at the proximo-dorsal margin of P1 in 8 specimens from 5
horses from the older age groups (greater than age 5 years). The results
of this study demonstrate age-related changes consistent with
osteoarthritis in the metacarpophalangeal joints of wild horses. There
appears to be a significant relationship between subchondral bone
sclerosis and overlying cartilage degeneration in the proximodorsal
aspect of P1. We have identified an age-related osteoarthritic process
naturally present in horses; and postulate that the stresses of racing
and training may accelerate this ageing process.

PMID: 9952333 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




2: J Wildl Dis 1997 Apr;33(2):211-9

A case of spondylosis deformans in the defleshed skeleton of a wild
coyote and its significance to osteopathologic interpretation.

Duckler GL.

Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles 90024, USA.

The skeleton of a wild coyote (Canis latrans), collected in Alturas,
California (USA), in 1940 and reported to have died of a blowfly
infection, was analyzed.  The axial components, primarily a series of
fused and deformed vertebrae, had classic osteological indications of
spondylosis deformans, a trauma-induced disorder. Severe crippling due to
a crushing-type strain was identified as the primary pathological
condition to which the coyote succumbed, with death hastened by vertebral
degeneration and the complicating infection.

PMID: 9131550 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




3: Aust Vet J 1994 May;71(5):143-5

Polyarthritis in wild mice (Mus musculus) caused by Streptobacillus
moniliformis.

Taylor JD, Stephens CP, Duncan RG, Singleton GR.

Toowoomba Veterinary Laboratory, Queensland Department of Primary
Industries.

Mice trapped on farms in south-eastern Queensland had chronic
abscessating osteoarthritides mainly involving the carpi and tarsi.
Pleomorphic bacteria were shown by silver staining to be plentiful within
lesions. Streptobacillus moniliformis was isolated from the joints, and
streptobacillary polyarthritis was diagnosed. Other lesions observed
included subcutaneous and hepatic abscesses.

PMID: 8067948 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




4: Aust Vet J 1993 Oct;70(10):394-5

Secondary degenerative arthropathy (osteoarthrosis) of the hip joints in
ageing, free-living koalas.

Canfield PJ, Spencer AJ.

Department of Veterinary Pathology, University of Sydney, New South Wales.

PMID: 8257324 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




5: Am J Phys Anthropol 1990 Mar;81(3):399-412

Skeletal and dental pathology of free-ranging mountain gorillas.

Lovell NC.

Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.

The mountain gorillas of the central Virungas have been the subject of
field study for the last 30 years; however, our understanding of
morbidity and mortality in these apes is limited. This paper describes
pathological conditions of the skeleton and dentition of these animals
and evaluates lesions in relation to behavioral and environmental data.
The skeletal remains of 31 mountain gorillas from the Karisoke Research
Center were examined for enamel wear, carious lesions, abscesses,
periodontal disease, antemortem tooth loss, trauma, inflammation,
arthritis, neoplasia, and developmental anomalies. Two infants, three
juveniles, 13 adult males, and 13 adult females form the sample.  Enamel
wear in the permanent posterior dentition is moderate. Six periapical
abscesses were seen; three are associated with antemortem tooth breakage.
No carious lesions were observed. Pronounced calculus buildup and
alveolar resorption are the most notable pathological conditions of the
dentition and affect all adult animals. The primary affliction of the
skeleton is arthritis, which affects 14 animals. Vertebral degenerative
disease predominates, but there is also temporomandibular joint
involvement. Fractures occur at seven locations in the postcranium. In
addition, there are five cranial injuries, including a fractured sagittal
crest, and a penetrating wound to the vault, which is believed to result
from a bite. Also thought to result from a bite is a case of cranial
osteomyelitis. The only other inflammatory responses are two cases of
idiopathic periostitis and one idiopathic lytic lesion. Button osteomas
affect two animals and are the only neoplastic conditions observed. Two
animals are afflicted by developmental abnormalities: one animal by
idiopathic vertebral fusion and the other by spinal scoliosis.

PMID: 2327480 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Humans as Omnivores
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 03:18:32 -0700

>laurie wrote in message ...
>>
>>
>>    The human species is the sickest on the planet, morbid obesity kills
>>300,000 people/year in the US; cancer, heart attacks, and strokes are
>>killing younger and younger people as time goes on.  There is NO such
>>rampant "degenerative disease" that occurs in the domain of the natural
>>animal.




How much of this do you want? You mention cancer and stroke. What's
your idea of "degenerative disease"? Do you think wild animals don't get
cancer? Don't get sick?


Cesk Patol 1996 May;32(2):78-83

[Tumors in wildlife].

[Article in Czech]

Karpenko A, Bukovjan K.

Oddeleni patologie SZZ, Benesov u Prahy.

Wild animal tumours have not been much studied yet. Authors found six
mostly benign cases in Czech Republic in checking hunts between the years
1988 and 1993: Mature differentiated ovarian teratoma and apocrine skin
adenoma in field hare, intraductal mammary papillomatosis in a roe,
complex odontoma and pleomorphic mammary carcinoma (single malignancy in
the group) in fox. A soft tissue tumour in a fallow-buck's neck could not
be histogenetically classified.  A high structural equivalence of animal
and human tumours allows using ICD-O classification as a whole.

PMID: 9560906 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




J Vet Med Sci 1997 Aug;59(8):703-6

Spontaneous gastric carcinoid tumors in the striped field mouse (Apodemus
agrarius).

Oh SW, Chae C, Jang D.

Department of Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul
National University, Suwon, Kyounggi-Do, Republic of Korea.

Gastric carcinoid tumors were found in seven of 135 striped field mice
(Apodemus agrarius) by routine histopathologic examination. All these
carcinoids occurred in mature striped field mice aged 72-100 weeks. Six
animals were females and only one was male. Only two of seven tumors were
detectable by gross examination. Grossly, tumors were located in the
fundus of the glandular stomach. All seven tumors were microscopically
single in the stomach and two mice exhibited extragastric metastasis.
Tumors from all the mice were characterized by densely packed sheets of
round to polygonal cells, subdivided into packets by a fine fibrovascular
stroma. The cytoplasm of all tumor cells from all the mice contained
argyrophil granules when stained by Grimelius and Sevier-Munger silver
procedures. All seven mice with gastric carcinoids exhibited positive
immunoreactivity to neuron specific enolase. Psammoma bodies,
concentrically laminated microcalcification, were characteristic findings
in gastric carcinoids from five mice. There were also a concomitant and
independent hepatocellular adenoma in one case and hepatocellular
carcinoma in two cases.  The present cases provide the first description
of spontaneous gastric carcinoid tumors in the striped field mice.

PMID: 9300368 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




Leukemia 1997 Apr;11 Suppl 3:170-1

Plasmacytoid leukemia of chinook salmon.

Kent ML, Eaton WD, Casey JW.

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo,
B.C., Canada.

Plasmacytoid leukemia is a common disease of seawater pen-reared chinook
salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in British Columbia, Canada, but has
also been detected in wild salmon, in freshwater-reared salmon in United
States, and in salmon from netpens in Chile. The disease can be
transmitted under laboratory conditions, and is associated with a
retrovirus, the salmon leukemia virus.  However, the proliferating
plasmablasts are often infected with the microsporean Enterocytozoon
salmonis, which may be an important co-factor in the disease.

PMID: 9209333 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




Pathol Int 1996 Dec;46(12):919-32

Mouse mammary tumor virus and mammary tumorigenesis in wild mice.

Imai S.

Nara Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Japan.

The current knowledge of the distribution of the mouse mammary tumor
virus (MMTV) proviral genomes and the mechanism of mammary tumorigenesis
by MMTV in mice, with the main emphasis on Asian feral mice, is reviewed.
The relevant earlier discoveries on the mode of MMTV transmission are
summarized to provide an outline of the biology of MMTV. Finally, the
viral etiology of human breast cancer will be discussed.

Publication Types:
Review
Review, academic

PMID: 9110343 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




Adv Neurol 1991;56:473-9

Retroviral leukemia and lower motor neuron disease in wild mice: natural
history, pathogenesis, and genetic resistance.

Gardner MB.

Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis
95616.

Publication Types:
Review
Review, tutorial

PMID: 1649545 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



J Wildl Dis 1985 Oct;21(4):386-90

Diseases diagnosed in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) of the southeastern
United States.

Davidson WR, Nettles VF, Couvillion CE, Howerth EW.

Diagnostic findings are presented on 139 sick or dead wild turkeys
examined during the period 1972 through 1984. Turkeys originated from
eight southeastern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia) and included 31 turkeys
categorized as capture-related mortalities and 108 turkeys categorized as
natural mortalities. Frequent diagnoses (greater than or equal to 10% of
case accessions) in the natural mortality group were trauma, avian pox,
and histomoniasis. Less frequent diagnoses (less than or equal to 4% of
case accessions) included malnutrition/environmental stress syndrome,
coligranuloma-like condition, crop impaction, bumblefoot, organophosphate
toxicosis, infectious sinusitis, a lympho-proliferative disease,
salmonellosis, aspergillosis, toxoplasmosis, crop trichomoniasis, and
melorheostosis.

PMID: 4078973 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




Acta Vet Scand 1985;26(1):61-71

Leukaemic neoplasia in free-living mammals in Denmark.

Elvestad K, Henriques UV.

PMID: 3839967 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




Int J Cancer 1981 Aug 15;28(2):241-7

Natural killer cell activity in a population of leukemia-prone wild mice
(Mus musculus).

Scott JL, Pal BK, Rasheed S, Gardner MB.

Natural cell-mediated cytotoxicity against YAC-I targets was measured in
splenocytes from leukemia-prone wild mice trapped near Lake Casitas (LC)
in southern California. Cytotoxicity was mediated by cells that were
non-adherent to nylon wool, non-phagocytic and resistant to thy-1.2
antiserum plus complement. Natural MuLV viremia in LC mice did not impair
splenic cytotoxicity against TAC-I target cells, Cells infected with
amphotropic and ecotropic MuLV of wild mouse origin were not appreciably
lysed by LC splenic effectors.  Although variable levels of cytotoxicity
were detected against TAC-1 by normal spleen cells, consistently low
levels of cytotoxicity against allogenic LC lymphoma, sarcoma and
carcinoma targets were found using the same splenocytes.  These results
indicate that LC mice possess splenocytes with the characteristics of
natural killer (NK) cells as defined in inbred mice. The resistance of
LC-derived targets to lysis by LC NK cells suggests that NK cells may not
be involved in natural tumor immunosurveillance or that the development
of spontaneous tumors may involve escape from NK-mediated effector
mechanisms.

PMID: 6274813 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



Vet Pathol 1977 Nov;14(6):539-46

Gynecologic pathology in the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). II. Findings in
laboratory and free-ranging monkeys.

DiGiacomo RF.

The most prevalent findings in reproductive tracts of 38 laboratory and
17 free-ranging Rhesus female monkeys were vaginitis, cervicitis,
metritis, pelvic endometriosis and uterine adenomyosis. Several monkeys
had cervical dysplasia and one had a serous cystadenoma. The findings in
the two groups were similar although prevalence for several diseases
differed. There was a significant relationship between the occurrence of
vaginitis, metritis, adenomyosis and endometriosis and gravidity, time
since last pregnancy, number of matings, hysterotomies, reproductive
ability and reproductive status.

PMID: 412291 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



J Wildl Dis 1999 Oct;35(4):804-7

Relating tumor score to hematology in green turtles with
fibropapillomatosis in Hawaii.

Work TM, Balazs GH.

U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resource Division, National Wildlife
Health Center, Honolulu Field Station, Hawaii 96850, USA.
thierry_work@usgs.gov

The relationship between hematologic status and severity of tumor
affliction in green turtles (Chelonia mydas) with fibropapillomatosis
(FP) was examined.  During 1 wk periods in July 1997 and July 1998, we
bled 108 free-ranging green turtles from Pala'au (Molokai, Hawaii, USA)
where FP is endemic. Blood was analyzed for hematocrit, estimated total
solids, total white blood cell (WBC) count and differential WBC count.
Each turtle was assigned a subjective tumor score ranging from 0 (no
visible external tumors) to 3 (heavily tumored) that indicated the
severity of FP. There was a progressive increase in monocytes and a
decrease in all other hematologic parameters except heterophils and total
numbers of white blood cells as tumor score increased. These data
indicate that tumor score can relate to physiologic status of green
turtles afflicted with FP, and that tumor score is a useful field monitor
of severity of FP in this species.

PMID: 10574546 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




J Wildl Dis 1999 Oct;35(4):753-62

Descriptive epidemiology of roe deer mortality in Sweden.

Aguirre AA, Brojer C, Morner T.

Department of Wildlife, The National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.
aguirre@wpti.org

A retrospective epidemiologic study was conducted to examine causes of
mortality of 985 wild roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) submitted to the
National Veterinary Institute (SVA; Uppsala, Sweden) from January 1986 to
December 1995. Age, sex, body condition, and geographic distribution as
related to disease conditions are reported herein. The most common causes
of mortality in roe deer were trauma (19%), winter starvation (18%),
gastritis/enteritis (15%), bacterial infections (11%), parasitic
infection (11%), systemic diseases (11%), neoplasia (2%), congenital
disorders (1%), and miscellaneous causes (6%). Cause of death was not
determined in 6% of the cases. The distribution of causes of death
reported in this study differ from previous works in Sweden in that
infectious and parasitic diseases were more common than winter
starvation. The pathologic findings in studies like this do not
necessarily represent what is occurring in the natural environment, but
they do provide a good indication of distribution of diseases over time
as well as age and sex structure in relation to disease conditions.
Further research and more detailed studies are in progress to better
understand specific mortality factors as well as etiologies of certain
described diseases in roe deer in Sweden.

PMID: 10574535 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




J Zoo Wildl Med 1999 Mar;30(1):165-9

Herpesvirus-associated papillomas in koi carp (Cyprinus carpio).

Calle PP, McNamara T, Kress Y.

Wildlife Health Sciences, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York
10460-1099, USA.

From January through November 1994, 32% (7/22) of koi carp (Cyprinus
carpio) maintained in indoor aquariums developed proliferative cutaneous
lesions that consisted of single to multiple 2-10-mm whitish to pink
fleshy masses usually associated with fin rays. Although scaleless koi
were more commonly affected (3/6) than were normally scaled koi (4/16),
the difference in incidence rates was not significant (chi2 text, P >
0.05). Lesions typically resolved spontaneously in 1-3 wk, occasionally
persisted for >3 mo, and recurred in several fish after 2-5 mo. Fish were
otherwise asymptomatic. Wet mount preparations from lesions were densely
cellular and consisted of hyperplastic epidermal cells of normal
morphology without parasites or inflammatory cells.  Histologically,
biopsies were consistent with papillomas and were characterized by a
marked benign epidermal hyperplasia without inclusion bodies or
inflammatory infiltrate. Transmission electron microscopic examination
revealed intranuclear and intracytoplasmic herpesvirus virions. Virus
isolation attempts were unsuccessful.

PMID: 10367660 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]




J Wildl Dis 1999 Apr;35(2):392-4

Adenocarcinoma of the mammary gland in a red fox from Austria.

Janovsky M, Steineck T.

Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, University of Veterinary Medicine,
Vienna, Austria.

A mammary gland adenocarcinoma was diagnosed in an adult red fox (Vulpes
vulpes) which was shot in Austria in August 1995. Metastases were found
in the kidneys and liver. This is the first reported case of an
adenocarcinoma in a fox, and lack of mammary gland carcinoma in this
species may be age related.

PMID: 10231770 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.food.vegan,sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: frugivorous fruits!  (Re: excessive dietary protein)
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 15:36:36 -0600

"Steve_C" <kenaz@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3B1E4585.B023DAF1@hotmail.com...
> Just exactly who here has suggested living on an all fruit diet? What
> you are doing is similar to posting to, for example, an egg cooking
> newsgroup and suggesting that living on eggs alone is dangerous for your
> health. Fruitarians eat seeds, grains and nuts as well as fruit.

They eat grains??  That's weird.  Grains (a product of active agriculture)
are a lot more recent in the diet of humans than meat is.  If you eat
grains, you're going to have to give up these evolutionary arguments right
from the start.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,sci.med
Subject: Re: Grain & the pyramid
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 11:41:52 -0700

walt wrote in message ...
>Thanks to all who replied here.
>
>I understand the thesis that the pyramid was designed to increase profits
>in agro-business.



Well, how stupid can that idea be? After decades of whining that the four
food groups were invented to increase agrobiz profits by going away from
plants, NOW we have another group of paranoid people complaining that
more plants are being pushed in the USDA pyramid, in order to do the
same?  Hello?

Have we not had Diet-For-A-Small-Planet people pointing out for years
that vegetarian diets are more efficient because they are lower on a food
chain that loses efficiency with every step? The most efficient and least
expensive diet is one which has only the meat from retired milk-goats and
milk-cows who have spent a lifetime converting the fraction of the
agricultural output which really is unfit for human use, but which still
contains theoretically usable calories. (You can feed a cow sawdust or
cornstalk silage and turn these calories partly into milk).  But retired
milk animals and a chicken or two won't give you a lot of meat, and the
result doesn't look a thing like the USDA pyramid.  It looks a cross
between the Masai diet where they live on milk and blood, and the diet of
some incredibly poor New Guinea tribe where they eat sweet potato most of
the time and have a meat feast a couple of times a year. We're talking
rather a diet containing mostly potatoes and goat milk, just like the
poor Irish, and for the same reason.

Max profit in Ag business happens where all humans eat nothing but meat,
all the time.  No plants, no dairy products.  Just meat, and as high
on the food chain as possible.  Veal.


SBH


P.S. If you have limited sunlight and land resources, you get a pretty
vegetarian diet if you want to survive. I wanted to call the Biosphere II
book "Diet For A Really Really REALLY Small Planet," but Walford didn't
like it.

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 15 Aug 2005 19:51:28 -0700
Message-ID: <1124160688.186875.54490@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

David Wright wrote:
> In article <1124157743.722754.301190@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Ann <Well4Life0@lycos.com> wrote:
> >If the proof was in our dental architecture, we'd have sharp teeth as
> >do cats, dogs, tigers, etc.
> >Monkeys have straight teeth as humans do.
> >They do not eat meat! They eat fruit, nuts, NO meat....
>
> Chimpanzees, our closest genetic relative, eat meat.  They hunt, kill,
> and eat monkeys.  You bonehead.


COMMENT:

Yep, they sure do.

Let's forget teeth (which are fairly omnivorous in humans) and take a
look at vitamins.

Consider vitamin C and beta carotene. Humans store vitamin C far, FAR
better than any herbivore needs to. We can go months without getting
scurvy-- a period that would kill a monkey.  Obviously we're adapted
for a very low vitamin C diet even though our distant ancestors had a
very high one in the past (a time which caused our prosimian ancestors
to lose the ability to make vitamin C). There's only one way to get a
diet that is as low in vitamin C as that which humans are designed to
withstand, and that's to eat almost nothing but fresh meat (which has
vitamin C, but not much). Some of our ancestors must have done that.
Some of us still do it. Eskimos would have died of scurvy if humans
had the full the metabolism of chimps (a sort of ape), let alone a
monkey. If you fed a monkey nothing but seal and seal guts, it wouldn't
last two months. Obviously humans are capable of far better.

As for beta carotene, you can tell an herbivore by the way it splits
beta carotene. True herbivores are so good at splitting beta carotene
that you cannot turn their skin or fat yellow or orange, no matter how
much of it you feed them. You can't turn a horse's skin or fat orange
with carrot juice, or a cow's. You can't even do it with a lab rat,
which made beta carotene studies quite difficult in the days when they
were trying to get a good model for human skin buildup of it (for
porphyria treatment)  But it's easy to do with a ferret or cat, because
these are true carnivores. Cats cannot split beta carotene at all, and
require all of their vitamin A as they'd get it in meat. A cat fed
nothing but beta carotene for it's "vitamin A" would go blind and die.

Humans?  We can split beta carotene, but not very well. We turn orange
with too much of it, and our skin and fat turns yellow. We are rather
like the chicken, which eats everything-- bugs, worms, and grain. We
are neither the horse nor the cat, but somewhere in between. Our
digestive systems look like those of pigs or bears. Which both love
snakes, and love meat. But will eat anything they can get.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 16 Aug 2005 14:09:25 -0700
Message-ID: <1124226565.520040.146240@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> But wrong.
>
> Inuit and northern peoples get a LOT of vitamin C from their diet.
> Euro-centric and misinformed whites didn't know this, wouldn't credit
> the people with any intelligent knowledge about their diet, wouldn't
> eat the aboriginal diet, became ill and died.


COMMENT:

How much is "a lot"??

Since you're not being quantitative, you're NOT EVEN wrong. I don't
think 50 to 60 mg a day is "a lot."  But it's enough.

For reference, it takes 10 mg a vitamin C a day to keep a human being
from scurvy. The present RDI is about 60-75 mg (more for men than
women, due to body size). Yukon and Metis peoples get 50-60 mg from a
traditional diet, and a little more from fortified Western foods
(though it's worth noting it's only a little more, and the fortified
diet is marginally superior only in C and folate-- the traditional
native diet is otherwise superior in all ways).

http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/6/1447/T2

By contrast, the hunter-gatherer diet that humans evolved on in Africa
supplies 500 mg vitamin C a day. Linus Pauling's calculations, based on
treating human vitamin C needs as if we were just big monkeys, was 1000
to 2000 mg a day.  THAT is "a lot."  A gorilla eating native forage
gets 2000 mg a day, and he's twice human size.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 16 Aug 2005 14:49:41 -0700
Message-ID: <1124228981.888617.194560@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> Steve Harris wrote:
> > fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> > > But wrong.
> > >
> > > Inuit and northern peoples get a LOT of vitamin C from their diet.
> > > Euro-centric and misinformed whites didn't know this, wouldn't credit
> > > the people with any intelligent knowledge about their diet, wouldn't
> > > eat the aboriginal diet, became ill and died.
> >
> >
> > COMMENT:
> >
> > How much is "a lot"??
> >
> > Since you're not being quantitative, you're NOT EVEN wrong. I don't
> > think 50 to 60 mg a day is "a lot."  But it's enough.
> >
> > For reference, it takes 10 mg a vitamin C a day to keep a human being
> > from scurvy. The present RDI is about 60-75 mg (more for men than
> > women, due to body size). Yukon and Metis peoples get 50-60 mg from a
> > traditional diet, and a little more from fortified Western foods
> > (though it's worth noting it's only a little more, and the fortified
> > diet is marginally superior only in C and folate-- the traditional
> > native diet is otherwise superior in all ways).
> >
> > http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/6/1447/T2
> >
> > By contrast, the hunter-gatherer diet that humans evolved on in Africa
> > supplies 500 mg vitamin C a day. Linus Pauling's calculations, based on
> > treating human vitamin C needs as if we were just big monkeys, was 1000
> > to 2000 mg a day.  THAT is "a lot."  A gorilla eating native forage
> > gets 2000 mg a day, and he's twice human size.
> >
> > SBH
>
>
>
> When eating a traditional diet they get enough C that they do not have
> scurvy.

COMMENT:

I never said, or implied, that they did. But a monkey forced to eat
that diet WOULD. Which is the POINT.  Humans do just fine on 1 mg/kg of
vitamin C a day. If you put all the other primates in the zoo on that,
their teeth would start falling out and the USDA and Zoo Commission
would be looking to talk to you. Humans have adapted for about the
amount of vitamin C that an all-meat diet offers (provided some of it
is organ meat and raw fish), which is (surprise) about our DRI/RDA. The
other non-C synthesizing primates have not adapted for vitamin C
intakes that low.

It is amusing that health nuts critisize the DRI/RDA for vitamin C,
pointing out that it's way less than primates in zoos need, and what
primates in the wild get. Duh. Yep it is. But what we'd like to know is
what *humans* need, and what they get "in the wild" over their range,
and THAT is no more than they get on a raw-meat diet. Which is about a
*tenth* of what a vegetarian would get.

To sum up. Eskimos don't have some magically high vitamin C diet. They
get the RDA (now called DRI). Part of our reason for thinking the
DRI/RDA is enough, is the existance of Eskimos.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 16 Aug 2005 15:01:47 -0700
Message-ID: <1124227197.186240.44610@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

Steve Harris wrote:
> fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> > But wrong.
> >
> > Inuit and northern peoples get a LOT of vitamin C from their diet.
> > Euro-centric and misinformed whites didn't know this, wouldn't credit
> > the people with any intelligent knowledge about their diet, wouldn't
> > eat the aboriginal diet, became ill and died.
>
>
> COMMENT:
>
> How much is "a lot"??
>
> Since you're not being quantitative, you're NOT EVEN wrong. I don't
> think 50 to 60 mg a day is "a lot."  But it's enough.
>
> For reference, it takes 10 mg a vitamin C a day to keep a human being
> from scurvy. The present RDI is about 60-75 mg (more for men than
> women, due to body size). Yukon and Metis peoples get 50-60 mg from a
> traditional diet,

And by the way, that also includes the Inuit, which are on the same
table. Full text is at:

http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/6/1447/T2

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 17 Aug 2005 21:03:11 -0700
Message-ID: <1124337791.817397.321630@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> I appreciate the cite. However, it's not the be all and end all for me,
> as it seems to be for you.
>
> Zee

COMMENT:

Since secret native ways don't exactly include how to use a liquid
chromatograph to quantitate vitamin C intake, I think this is the last
word on the subject at the present time. This (you're welcome) is the
single best study that exists in the literature on the subject. And
this is the only one I know of that looks at "traditional" vs. modern
diets in the same people in the same study. The future will no doubt do
better, as the future usually does, but this is impressive in its scope
and control.

There ARE of course other previous studies in the literature on human
arctic nutrition in various peoples, going back many decades. However,
looking at several of them, I see no big differences from this one, so
far as vitamin C intakes for Northern aboriginals goes. So I have no
reason to doubt the conclusions of this study. Why would you?

The basic conclusions here is simple. Eskimos don't need orange juice.
But that's not because they have something just as good as orange
juice. Rather, it's because nobody really needs that much vitamin C
(sorry, Dr. Pauling).  Humans have evolved so that just about any fresh
food varied diet is enough for health, no matter what's in it. Humans
have to really work to get scurvy--eating for many months a *highly*
limited, processed, dried, burned, boiled, preserved, and generally
screwed-up diet. Which is why it scurvy as a disease wasn't seen until
we got "civilization"-- ie, the modern navy and military (a bunch of
dumb men trying to live for 3 months on dry beef and hardtack), and
elderly people with poor dentition living off tea, toast, and stuff out
of tin cans. If you were an elderly Inuit a century ago and lost your
teeth, with luck a daughter chewed your fresh food for you. And failing
that, you got left on the ice when the people moved on. Both sure cures
for scurvy.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Vitamin C RDA / RDI s Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse 
	prostate cancer progression
Date: 18 Aug 2005 14:26:05 -0700
Message-ID: <1124400365.534688.56070@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

George Cherry wrote:

> Here's a point I'd like to squeeze in here. Are
> we trying to "satisfice" or optimize? Are we trying to
> prevent scurvy or extend life by, say, counter-acting
> Reactive Oxygen Species? For example, you CAN
> eat lots of red meat everyday and probably only
> shorten your life by a decade or so. Or you can avoid
> red meat, take anti-oxidants and fish oil, and live an
> extra decade or so.
>
> GWC


COMMENT:

Obviously we're trying for vitamin C optimization, but what are your
test parameters?

The problem with vitamin C is that the people who set the target
numbers for the human RDA/RDI (I'm just going to call it the "RDA")
aren't total morons. They are a bunch of experts on the Food and
Nutrition Board from the US National Academy of Sciences, looking at
both human and animal data, and making intelligent inferences. No, they
don't have some secret kabalistic agenda to make the world unhealthy,
by denying it a reason to take vitamin C pills.

Humans eating the RDA are NOT getting just the amount of vitamin C
needed to prevent scurvy or disease, contrary to what you've heard
from a hundred health quacks. Rather, the RDA amount of vitamin C comes
reasonably close to saturating body stores, and even supplementing at 4
times the RDA only raises the average person's ascorbate levels by 33%,
from about 60 to about 80 umole/L after many months (see study below
for an example). That is only twice the increase you get from adding an
extra supplment of 1x the RDA, which gets you from 60 to about 70
umole/L. Big deal.

Should we do that anyway, by taking as much vitamin C as we'd get from
a vegetarian diet (4 to 10 times the RDA)? Maybe. I don't know. The
problem is that most animals that make their own ascorbate, have plasma
and tissue levels *lower* than humans eating only the RDA, and the
National Academy was well aware of that. But wups, Pauling didn't tell
you that, did he? For example, a racing grayhound (see study below)
which makes its own vitman C of course, has normal plasma levels of 40
+/- 19 umole/L vitamin, and if it's given HUGE supplemental doses for
an animal that size (1 g a day in a 20 kg dog) it only goes up to
levels of at most about 60-- the same as unsupplemented humans have all
the time! And it runs slower, too.  Dogs are evidently optimized for C
levels already. And at lower levels than humans getting the RDA run.

Now, animals that make their own vitamin C waste it prodigiously, since
it's metabolically cheap to make from a bit of glucose. Pauling made
much of their synthesis rates. Non-primate animals make a lot of
vitamin C to get levels lower than humans get from just a little.
Humans have a lot of energy intensive vitamin C saving equipment (like
our great C-saving renal pumps), which help us store vitamin C for the
winter (something other animals, and no other primate, has to do).

But here we turn Pauling's argument around and ask: if higher vitamin C
levels in the blood are a good thing and not that hard or metabolically
costly to get for an animal that makes its own, then WHY don't vitamin
C-making animals animals have *high* vitamin C levels in their blood,
relative to humans? Why doesn't the average *dog* run the same vitamin
C levels as a human taking Pauling's recommended 6 grams a day of C?
Either vitamin C is not a totally benign thing, or else chronically
high levels don't help any, from an evolutionary standpoint (we can
argue about whether evolution is interested in chronic disease or
aging). I suspect the only reason humans (and some other primates) run
high is because we're probably running a vitamin C savings account
against hard times, and the only way to store vitamin C is to run high
plasma and tissue levels, since it's water soluble. Doh! But we humans
can do that on remarkably little vitamin C. That's the point.

Here's the dog paper.

http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/132/6/1616S


Here's one of a zillion human supplementation papers.

Eur J Clin Nutr. 1999 May;53(5):367-74.

Do iron and vitamin C co-supplementation influence platelet function or LDL
oxidizability in healthy volunteers?

Yang M, Collis CS, Kelly M, Diplock AT, Rice-Evans C.

The International Antioxidant Research Centre, The Guy's King's
College, and St Thomas's School of Biomedical Science, London, UK.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of co-supplementation with iron and
vitamin C on antioxidant status, platelet function and low density
lipoprotein oxidation in normal healthy volunteers. DESIGN: The study
was carried out with two groups of 20 subjects each acting as their own
control, comparing presupplemention with postsupplemention. One group
was supplemented with iron and the RDA level of vitamin C and the
second group with iron and 260 mg/d vitamin C. SETTING: The
International Antioxidant Research Centre, The Guy's, King's College
and St Thomas's School of Biomedical Science, Guy's Campus, London.
SUBJECTS: Forty normal healthy volunteers, recruited from the staff of
the Medical School and Hospital in which two volunteers withdrew during
the study. INTERVENTIONS: Subjects in both studies were randomly
assigned to one of two groups (5 males and 5 females group) and
received supplements containing iron (14 mg/d) and either 60 mg/d
(Group A) or 260 mg/d (Group B) vitamin C for 12 wk. Blood samples were
taken at 6 wk and 12 wk, and prior to supplementation and analysed for
iron and antioxidant status (transferrin bound iron, vitamin C and E,
and beta-carotene levels) in both studies. Samples from the first study
were analysed for the susceptibility of LDL isolated from plasma to
Cu2+-induced oxidation and samples from the second for platelet
function. RESULTS: Transferrin-bound iron was significantly increased
(P < 0.05) at 12 wk, in Group A subjects (from 14.9+/-5.3 micromol/1 to
19.5+/-2.3 micromol/l; mean+/-s.d.;
n=19), whereas those in Group B showed a significant increase (P <
0.05) after 6 wk (from 15.8+/-4.5 micromol/l to 20.4+/-6.6 micromol/l;
n = 19) which decreased at 12 wk (16.3+/-5.0 micromol/l). Plasma total
ascorbate significantly increased from an initial level of 59.3+/-21.3
micromol/l to 87.6+/-29.0 micromol/l after 6 wk and 81.7+/-11.4
micromol/l after 12 wk following the Group B supplementation, but only
after 12 wk in Group A (from 64.0+/-24.8 micromol/l to 77.2+/-13.2
micromol/l). Plasma alpha-tocopherol concentrations were significantly
increased after 6 wk and 12 wk with both levels of supplementation
(from 24.2+/-5.71 micromol/l Group A and 23.4+/-5.3 micromol/l Group B
to 26.3+/-5.5 micromol/l and 25.71+/-4.7 micromol/1 respectively at
12wk). The mean lag phase to oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL)
was significantly increased in subjects in Group B after 12 wk
ingestion of iron and 260 mg vitamin C (from 80.0+/-14.8 min to
97.2+/-16.9 min; n = 9). Platelet sensitivity to ADP-induced
aggregation was significantly decreased (P < 0.05) by 12 wk in Group A
(from EC50 2.3 < or = 1.3 microM to 3.7+/-2.2 microM; n = 10), whereas
those receiving higher vitamin C showed a significant decrease (P <
0.05; from EC50 1.9+/-0.6 microM to 3.1+/-1.8 microM) after 6wk which
subsequently increased towards presupplemental levels (2.6+/-1.6
microM). Platelets from the latter subjects showed a significant
reduction in ADP-induced ATP secretion at both 6wk and 12 wk.
CONCLUSION: The results show modest beneficial effects on LDL oxidation
and platelet function following supplementation with iron and vitamin
C. No evidence for pro-oxidant effects was observed.

Publication Types:
    Clinical Trial
    Randomized Controlled Trial

PMID: 10369491 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.diseases.cancer,
	alt.support.cancer,misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Vegan diet and exercise may stop or reverse prostate cancer 
	progression
Date: 18 Aug 2005 15:43:37 -0700
Message-ID: <1124405017.396792.4110@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

Jim Chinnis wrote:
> Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
> part:
>
> >
> >Steve Harris wrote:
> >> fresh~horses@despammed.com wrote:
> >> > But wrong.
> >> >
> >> > Inuit and northern peoples get a LOT of vitamin C from their diet.
> >> > Euro-centric and misinformed whites didn't know this, wouldn't credit
> >> > the people with any intelligent knowledge about their diet, wouldn't
> >> > eat the aboriginal diet, became ill and died.
> >>
> >>
> >> COMMENT:
> >>
> >> How much is "a lot"??
> >>
> >> Since you're not being quantitative, you're NOT EVEN wrong. I don't
> >> think 50 to 60 mg a day is "a lot."  But it's enough.
> >>
> >> For reference, it takes 10 mg a vitamin C a day to keep a human being
> >> from scurvy. The present RDI is about 60-75 mg (more for men than
> >> women, due to body size). Yukon and Metis peoples get 50-60 mg from a
> >> traditional diet,
> >
> >And by the way, that also includes the Inuit, which are on the same
> >table. Full text is at:
> >
> >http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/6/1447/T2
> >
> >SBH
>
> Wow. Look at the caloric intakes! And the loss of vitamin D on
> non-traditional diets...
> --
> Jim Chinnis   Warrenton, Virginia, USA


COMMENT:

Good pickups.

The calories ARE unexpectedly low--- 2000 to 2300 kcal for an arctic
diet?  Sheesh!  That's efficiency! BTW, there's an obvious
transposition error in the caloric intake for the Yukon peoples:
instead of 1971 kJ, it must be 9171 kJ = 2192 kcal.

Yes, the high dietary vitamin D's on the traditional diet tells you how
Inuits etc stayed black haired and didn't turn Caucasion complected.
They got it all on diet, and didn't need to. But on a "modern diet" I
would think they'd be at high risk for rickets and osteomalacia, since
they surely don't get any significant vitamin D from the sun.

SBH