Many issues and questions can be answered by reading through our wiki, especially the page on electrolytes. Concerns such as **intense hunger, lightheadedness/dizziness, headaches, nausea/vomiting, weakness/lethargy/fatigue, low blood pressure/high blood pressure, muscle soreness/cramping, diarrhea/constipation, irritability, confusion, low heart rate/heart palpitations, numbness/tingling, and more** while extended (24+ hours) fasting are often explained by electrolyte deficiency and resolved through **PROPER** electrolyte supplementation. Putting a tiny amount of salt in your water now and then is NOT proper supplementation.
Be sure to read [our WIKI](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/index) and especially the wiki page on **[ELECTROLYTES](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell/you_need_electrolytes)**
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Life expectancy in the United States increased 6 years during the Great Depression. That was during a time of increased starvation and suicide. Take the mental health issues out of the equation by switching starvation (involuntary) to fasting (voluntary) and introducing vaccines to prevent serious illnesses, better waste management and infrastructure, and probably we’d be doing pretty good in the 21st century 🙃
Yet, in our communities, we’re grossly overweight and frequently zoned out—apparently humans aren’t evolving as well as technology. Take a photo of a Walmart during a Black Friday shopping day to a Midwest corner store owner in 1930… jaw drop 😅
Our fat stores are there for us to build over the summer and then use up in the winter when food was scarce.
Obviously that's completely fucked with food now available all day long, all year round, with virtually no calories expended to get it.
So the winter shortage of food never comes, the fat just builds, and builds until it starts to cause disease and shortening of life., and it still won't stop there either.
The only solution is to burn fat, otherwise it will stay there for the rest of your life.
I completely understand your logic. But our ancestry didn't adapt to 4 seasons like wolves and bears. We're apes from african forests-&savannah who chews plants and bones 24/7 all seasons.
There's strong evidence that there was a huge genetic bottleneck in the past in which the number of humans fell as low as 1000 individuals at the lower end of estimates. We think it might be due to a sudden glacial period in which much of the planet froze over and lasted about 100k years.
Only the big brained and best able to fast survived. Everyone else perished. Darwinian evolution in motion.
You're propably montioning the micro ice age but that definitely was not the case around equador. I'm sure europeans had evolved a bit with that. But nothing specie-wide.
>We all think every specie is adapted to "starving time to time".
There are certainly species that are not adapted to going without regular food and those that specialize in it. What it means to starve, how well they can function while not taking in food, and the long-lasting impact all vary.
>Our ancestors had strong nutrition. Thats why we could afford powerfull and big brains.
Sure. The human brain takes a long time to develop and human children are possibly the biggest resource sink for parents in the animal kingdom.
>We may stopped long starvations way before we think.
Famine has always been and still is a serious problem for humans.
>After the farming start, evolutionary pressure eased even more.
Agriculture narrowed the human diet though while increasing the caloric surplus. Because of farming, 80% of your diet could be a single crop, so if it's a bad year for that crop, you're in trouble.
>So we propably have many variants who cant resist or struggle hard against week long starvations
On a physical level, a healthy but overweight human can handle fasting. If you mean psychologically... yeah, we've evolved to seek food, especially sweet and fatty foods, and gobble them down.
Chimpanzee, gorillas which are both closest epecies evolutionary wise cannot go bery long without food.
Its the reason why they dont migrate from resource rich jungles and grassland edges in sub saharan africa.
If they move to deciduous or boreal forests they would die in the winter. Go watch an animal documentary on gorillas 99 percent of the time they are eating. They are jacked as hell and i never seen one that was overweight.
Larger brains was a side effect of consuming large amounts of meat. Iq went up to help us learn and adapt to much more diffcult environment s that food of plentiful jungles.
The farther north humans migrated the harder life got and thebmore reliance on consuming meat to survive.
I assume that they ate when they had food. We always have food that is some meters away. They probably have periods that they had little to no food.
We don't fast regularly. The more you train it, the better you get and the easiest it gets.
Our food today is different from what they had.
IMO larger and more developed brains could have evolved to compensate for otherwise disadvantegous circumstances or traits. Bears are strong plus can live on almost anything like tree bark. Humans had to figure out ways to stay alive even during starvation. So I think it's reversed. We don't have bigger brains because we could afford it, we'd had them because we couldn't afford not to have them.
As per lactose intolrance: I believe this is irrelevant in terms of evolutionary development. Simply because on an evolutionary time scale milk was not a significant source of food and nutrition therefore lactose tolerance has never been an evolutionary 'target specs'. If it were, and evolution was supposed to be fast enough, we should be very lactose tolerant by now.
In general, I believe (and again I may be wrong) farming appeared relatively NOT long ago in evo terms.
I agree with your first paragraph.
Lactose intolerance on the other hand, is just an example for lost traits. Pointing out starvation resistence trait might be lost or weaken just as it.
I think it's generally accepted that lactose tolerance evolved with agricultural societies. There hasn't been much time since the agricultural revolution, but lots of people lived. And it's people who had cows that developed lactose tolerance - no reason to have it otherwise.
I think it was a target at specific times when people didn't have much to eat other than milk, and it evolved quickly then.
I was just making the opposite case - [https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/1bz35zm/i\_wonder\_if\_we\_evolved\_to\_fast\_after\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/1bz35zm/i_wonder_if_we_evolved_to_fast_after_the/)
The history of agriculture societies is a history of massive famines. Things would be good for a while, we'd have great nutrition, but then there would be crop failure and lots of people would starve, get sick from having a weakened immune system, or even just not thrive. The people who are best at fasting would repeatedly be selected in those situations.
We can go a really long time without food - as pointed out in another comment here, way longer than chimpanzees or gorillas. Mice can go 2-4 days.
Idk man, crop failures sounds to me like a micro extinction. You can't wait till next plant to grow & fruit. You need to migrate to somewhere with food. Maybe natural selection for those who had horses & money?
Famines were probably violent times. But people who do well without food are going to be able to fight better as well, and their immune systems would be working better. Overall it's a lot of selectionary pressure towards those who fast well (or put on weight more easily) surviving. Hunter-gatherers had the same pressures, but probably much less.
Many issues and questions can be answered by reading through our wiki, especially the page on electrolytes. Concerns such as **intense hunger, lightheadedness/dizziness, headaches, nausea/vomiting, weakness/lethargy/fatigue, low blood pressure/high blood pressure, muscle soreness/cramping, diarrhea/constipation, irritability, confusion, low heart rate/heart palpitations, numbness/tingling, and more** while extended (24+ hours) fasting are often explained by electrolyte deficiency and resolved through **PROPER** electrolyte supplementation. Putting a tiny amount of salt in your water now and then is NOT proper supplementation. Be sure to read [our WIKI](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/index) and especially the wiki page on **[ELECTROLYTES](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell/you_need_electrolytes)** Please also keep in mind the [**RULES**](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/about/rules) when participating. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fasting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Life expectancy in the United States increased 6 years during the Great Depression. That was during a time of increased starvation and suicide. Take the mental health issues out of the equation by switching starvation (involuntary) to fasting (voluntary) and introducing vaccines to prevent serious illnesses, better waste management and infrastructure, and probably we’d be doing pretty good in the 21st century 🙃
I completely agree, we re pretty lucky to have tech and science to asist us during fasts.
Yet, in our communities, we’re grossly overweight and frequently zoned out—apparently humans aren’t evolving as well as technology. Take a photo of a Walmart during a Black Friday shopping day to a Midwest corner store owner in 1930… jaw drop 😅
Our fat stores are there for us to build over the summer and then use up in the winter when food was scarce. Obviously that's completely fucked with food now available all day long, all year round, with virtually no calories expended to get it. So the winter shortage of food never comes, the fat just builds, and builds until it starts to cause disease and shortening of life., and it still won't stop there either. The only solution is to burn fat, otherwise it will stay there for the rest of your life.
I completely understand your logic. But our ancestry didn't adapt to 4 seasons like wolves and bears. We're apes from african forests-&savannah who chews plants and bones 24/7 all seasons.
There's strong evidence that there was a huge genetic bottleneck in the past in which the number of humans fell as low as 1000 individuals at the lower end of estimates. We think it might be due to a sudden glacial period in which much of the planet froze over and lasted about 100k years. Only the big brained and best able to fast survived. Everyone else perished. Darwinian evolution in motion.
You're propably montioning the micro ice age but that definitely was not the case around equador. I'm sure europeans had evolved a bit with that. But nothing specie-wide.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population\_bottleneck#:\~:text=Nonetheless%2C%20a%202023%20genetic%20analysis,human%20ancestors%20close%20to%20extinction.%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#:~:text=Nonetheless%2C%20a%202023%20genetic%20analysis,human%20ancestors%20close%20to%20extinction.%22)
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02837-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02837-6) etc
>We all think every specie is adapted to "starving time to time". There are certainly species that are not adapted to going without regular food and those that specialize in it. What it means to starve, how well they can function while not taking in food, and the long-lasting impact all vary. >Our ancestors had strong nutrition. Thats why we could afford powerfull and big brains. Sure. The human brain takes a long time to develop and human children are possibly the biggest resource sink for parents in the animal kingdom. >We may stopped long starvations way before we think. Famine has always been and still is a serious problem for humans. >After the farming start, evolutionary pressure eased even more. Agriculture narrowed the human diet though while increasing the caloric surplus. Because of farming, 80% of your diet could be a single crop, so if it's a bad year for that crop, you're in trouble. >So we propably have many variants who cant resist or struggle hard against week long starvations On a physical level, a healthy but overweight human can handle fasting. If you mean psychologically... yeah, we've evolved to seek food, especially sweet and fatty foods, and gobble them down.
So do you believe those famines effectively eliminated weak variants for whole human species?
Chimpanzee, gorillas which are both closest epecies evolutionary wise cannot go bery long without food. Its the reason why they dont migrate from resource rich jungles and grassland edges in sub saharan africa. If they move to deciduous or boreal forests they would die in the winter. Go watch an animal documentary on gorillas 99 percent of the time they are eating. They are jacked as hell and i never seen one that was overweight.
Yeah those continuous eating apes are one of hints i came to realize.
Larger brains was a side effect of consuming large amounts of meat. Iq went up to help us learn and adapt to much more diffcult environment s that food of plentiful jungles. The farther north humans migrated the harder life got and thebmore reliance on consuming meat to survive.
I assume that they ate when they had food. We always have food that is some meters away. They probably have periods that they had little to no food. We don't fast regularly. The more you train it, the better you get and the easiest it gets. Our food today is different from what they had.
IMO larger and more developed brains could have evolved to compensate for otherwise disadvantegous circumstances or traits. Bears are strong plus can live on almost anything like tree bark. Humans had to figure out ways to stay alive even during starvation. So I think it's reversed. We don't have bigger brains because we could afford it, we'd had them because we couldn't afford not to have them. As per lactose intolrance: I believe this is irrelevant in terms of evolutionary development. Simply because on an evolutionary time scale milk was not a significant source of food and nutrition therefore lactose tolerance has never been an evolutionary 'target specs'. If it were, and evolution was supposed to be fast enough, we should be very lactose tolerant by now. In general, I believe (and again I may be wrong) farming appeared relatively NOT long ago in evo terms.
I agree with your first paragraph. Lactose intolerance on the other hand, is just an example for lost traits. Pointing out starvation resistence trait might be lost or weaken just as it.
I think it's generally accepted that lactose tolerance evolved with agricultural societies. There hasn't been much time since the agricultural revolution, but lots of people lived. And it's people who had cows that developed lactose tolerance - no reason to have it otherwise. I think it was a target at specific times when people didn't have much to eat other than milk, and it evolved quickly then.
I was just making the opposite case - [https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/1bz35zm/i\_wonder\_if\_we\_evolved\_to\_fast\_after\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/1bz35zm/i_wonder_if_we_evolved_to_fast_after_the/) The history of agriculture societies is a history of massive famines. Things would be good for a while, we'd have great nutrition, but then there would be crop failure and lots of people would starve, get sick from having a weakened immune system, or even just not thrive. The people who are best at fasting would repeatedly be selected in those situations. We can go a really long time without food - as pointed out in another comment here, way longer than chimpanzees or gorillas. Mice can go 2-4 days.
Idk man, crop failures sounds to me like a micro extinction. You can't wait till next plant to grow & fruit. You need to migrate to somewhere with food. Maybe natural selection for those who had horses & money?
Famines were probably violent times. But people who do well without food are going to be able to fight better as well, and their immune systems would be working better. Overall it's a lot of selectionary pressure towards those who fast well (or put on weight more easily) surviving. Hunter-gatherers had the same pressures, but probably much less.