Human Nutrition from an Evolutionary Perspective
Should we eat like our ancestors? Was their nutrition better than ours? What nutritional problems may have accompanied the dietary shift of early humans from a hunting and gathering to an agricultural mode of existence? We will discuss possible answers to these and other questions as we approach human nutrition from an evolutionary perspective, derived in part from Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. We will focus on the diets that archaeologists, anthropologists, and primate biologists believe our hunting and gathering and agriculturalist ancestors ate, as well as those of "modern" primitive societies and of our primate relatives. Using these perspectives along with our modern understanding of nutrition, we will critically examine the ways we eat and how we possibly ought to eat, including consideration of the Atkins high protein diet, traditional diets emphasizing complex carbohydrates and fiber, and the more recent Paleo Diet. We may also investigate such related topics as hypoglycemia and water balance in exercise, insulin and diabetes, brown fat thermogenesis in new-born and hibernating mammals, and the role of fats and lipoproteins in heart disease. Emphasis will be placed on a critical approach to both written and virtual forms of scientific and popular resource material, and students will write several short papers and make an oral presentation of nutritional topics. This course satisfies the Biology elective credit. Students who have taken FYSE 1095 are not eligible to register for this course. (BIOL 0140 and BIOL 0145; or CHEM 0322, or by approval)