High carb necessary for height?

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Thomas
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High carb necessary for height?

Post by Thomas »

I have read many statements by either Wai or RRM that state a high-carb diet is necessary for height. This claim is further supported by the fact that neanderthals living in the north were short in stature.

However, what about the native americans?
Here are a couple of statements from Weston A Price's website:

----"The early explorers consistently described the native Americans as tall and well formed. Of the Indians of Texas, the explorer Cabeza de Vaca wrote, "The men could run after a deer for an entire day without resting and without apparent fatigue. . . one man near seven feet in stature. . . runs down a buffalo on foot and slays it with his knife or lance, as he runs by its side."7 The Indians were difficult to kill. De Vaca reports on an Indian "traversed by an arrow. . . he does not die but recovers from his wound." The Karakawas, a tribe that lived near the Gulf Coast, were tall, well-built and muscular.


Was the height of our northern ancestors a result of a high protein-high fat diet, or simply an adaptation to the climate (short stature is evolutionarily adaptive in the north)?

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RRM
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Re: High carb necessary for height?

Post by RRM »

Thomas wrote:what about the native americans?
Any reliable info about the height of native americans?
How much starch did they consume?
benzapp
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Re: High carb necessary for height?

Post by benzapp »

RRM wrote:
Thomas wrote:what about the native americans?
Any reliable info about the height of native americans?
How much starch did they consume?
I think their height was highly variable, as was their diet... If anything though, I believe the exact opposite was true. The nomadic native americans in North America were physically taller than the established agrarian people in Central and South America. Even today, Native Americans on reservations in the US always seem taller than Mayan descendants from Mexico. Those people are very short, probably among the shortest in the world. Inuit I've met in Canada, whose descendants ate virtually no starch, also appear to be average height.

Of course, these are all my personal observations.
summerwave
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height/growth and glucose

Post by summerwave »

There is a news item about the birth of a heavy, 'tall' (long) infant in Indonesia in the past few days... The infant is 8.7 kg and looks, in photos, just enormous (he is proportionally long, and healthy, not 'obese' at birth).

The enormous size of the baby is being attributed to his mother's diabetes; that is, in utero the child experienced extremely high glucose levels throughout its development.

Rather interesting!
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

Who are attributing it to the exposure of glucose?
(any link?)
summerwave
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gigantic glucose-fueled baby

Post by summerwave »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090923/wl ... 0923113911


All of the news items on this cite the comments of the attending ob/gyn, who attributes the baby's size to the mother's diabetes.

Now all the baby has to do is a) be breastfed and b) follow the Wai diet, and he will be a genius. :o
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Post by RRM »

Ha Ha :)
Very interesting, though...
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Post by johndela1 »

I wonder if people who follow very low carb diets have small kids
summerwave
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low-carb

Post by summerwave »

I think that the amount of energy sources circulating is the critical factor, and there can be ample energy on a high-protein diet. The protein is used as a sugar for energy, no?

I wonder if the development fueled by extraordinarily high blood sugar in utero can be "kept up with" by cholesterol and other factors for brain development. That is, the size of the child's brain and body must require a proportional increase in other nutrients. But the main nutrient in excess is glucose, and it may not be matched by other nutrients brain development is dependent on.
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Re: low-carb

Post by RRM »

summerwave wrote:I think that the amount of energy sources circulating is the critical factor, and there can be ample energy on a high-protein diet. The protein is used as a sugar for energy, no?
Precisely.
summerwave wrote:I wonder if the development fueled by extraordinarily high blood sugar in utero can be "kept up with" by cholesterol and other factors for brain development. That is, the size of the child's brain and body must require a proportional increase in other nutrients. But the main nutrient in excess is glucose, and it may not be matched by other nutrients brain development is dependent on.
Well, actually the child may take up as much nutrients as required, from mum's blood, so that this can always keep up with the glucose.
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