Meat and brain development

[Michael Halbfish]

I am searching for articles on meat and brain development. I know one of teh affiliates recently posted an interesting link, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Here is one interesting article.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...-14-1999a.html believed to be w/f/s

[Frank E Morel]

Use keywords of protein amino acids fetal developement

I doubt your going to something on meat specifically

[Max Lambert]

This is one of the interesting thing about chimps which are our nearest genetic relative. They have a mostly vegetarian diet, but research is showing that chimp colonies that eat ants and more animal protein are developing tools better and are able to use tools to hunt larger game.

[Michael Halbfish]

I found this on the Conditioning Research Blogspot. I believe it is w/f/s

Meat - fuel for the brainvia At Darwin's Table by Dr Dan on 1/15/09




Primates, especially humans, have large brain size relative to body size when compared with other placental mammals. In humans this dramatic increase in brain size has occured in the last 4.5 million years. What was the evolutionary factor that lead to this increase?

What we know is two requirements had to be met in order to achieve this large brain:

1. The brains chemical requirement for long chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, particularly arachidonic acid and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). had to be met

2. increased metabolic demand

The fatty acids mentioned are the major structurally significant and biochemically active components of the grey matter of all mammalian species. The availability of these may have provided the substrate necessary to increase brain size. Because little of these fatty acids are found in plants, in order to achieve large brain size, it would have required us to be eating meat! Could meat consumption have been the driving force for our large brains? More evidence follows.

The metabolic demand of the brain is nine times that of the whole human body. To sustain such an expensive bit of machinery there would have to have been two evolutionary adaptations to allow this.

1. elevate the basal metabolic rate (we simply eat more food), or

2. lower the metabolic rates of other tissues.

The basal metabolic rate can be accurately predicted in mammals by the Kleiber equation. Humans fit this predictive value well, which indicates that we have NOT increased our metabolic rate to feed our large brains. So this leaves us with the second idea and that is we have reduced our metabolic rate in other tissues….. but where? When we predict the energetic cost of organs, relative to body size, across mammals we see that the brain energy surplus is closely matched by the reduction in size, and energy requirement, of our gastrointestinal tract. This makes sense because the gut is the only organ which can vary in size sufficiently to offset the extra energy requirements of the brain.



Diets high in bulky food of low digestibility require large guts to break that food down and digest it. Diets consisting of high amounts of high quality food are associated with smaller guts, smaller colon size and simple stomachs - as seen in carnivores. For us humans the problem would have been providing adequate levels of high quality food to permit the necessary reduction in gut size. With the relatively poor macronutrient density of wild plant foods, especially in open woodland areas, the only solution would have been to incorporate large amounts of animal-derived foods in the diet. The sudden worldwide expansion of grasses six million years ago led to increases in the number and amount of large bodied grazing mammals (see this post). Until this occurred there would not have been a reliable year round supply of high quality energy to fuel the evolution of our brains. Thus the increasing consumption of meat rich in fats would have supplied enough energy and the correct fatty acids that would have allowed the massive threefold increase in the size of our brains to occur since 4.5 million years ago.

[Frank E Morel]

all links wfs
Intelligence, Evolution of the Human Brain, and Diet
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/...-anat-4a.shtml

Growth- and breed-related changes of fetal development in cattle
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m..._/ai_n28526047

Mom's meat-rich diet affects kids' stress response not dev related
http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-ex...-43535-66.html

overview of nutrition on fetal development the basics of basics
http://www.matfet.com/webhelp/How_Nu...evelopment.htm

Role of red meat in the diet for children and adolescents.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Role+o...s.-a0169311698




Fish May Aid Fetal Brain Development
http://preventdisease.com/news/artic...tal_fish.shtml

Fetal brain development: The role of maternal nutrition, exposures and behavior note open pdf


http://iospress.metapress.com/content/aqh73na9v13jtbcb/

[Michael Halbfish]

http://barrygroves.blogspot.com/2008...e-smaller.html w/f/s


03 December 2008
Study finds vegetarians have smaller brains


Supports Chapter 13: Homo carnivorous

Scientists at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain – with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.



The study involved tests and brain scans on community-dwelling volunteers aged 61 to 87 years without cognitive impairment at enrolment, over a period of five years. When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.

Vegans are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish.

This study confirms other findings, covered in Trick and Treat, which shows that overall human brain sizes have reduced by an average 11% since we adopted an agricultural diet based on cereal grains rather than the meat-based diet of our Palaeolithic ancestors.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Michael Halbfish

I am searching for articles on meat and brain development. I know one of the affiliates recently posted an interesting link, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Here is one interesting article.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...-14-1999a.html believed to be w/f/s

Is this what you were looking for?

http://www.performancemenu.com/forum...ead.php?t=3570 (wfs)

Originally Posted by Michael Halbfish

http://barrygroves.blogspot.com/2008...e-smaller.html w/f/s


03 December 2008
Study finds vegetarians have smaller brains


Supports Chapter 13: Homo carnivorous

Scientists at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain – with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.



The study involved tests and brain scans on community-dwelling volunteers aged 61 to 87 years without cognitive impairment at enrolment, over a period of five years. When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.

Vegans are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish.

This study confirms other findings, covered in Trick and Treat, which shows that overall human brain sizes have reduced by an average 11% since we adopted an agricultural diet based on cereal grains rather than the meat-based diet of our Palaeolithic ancestors.

The diet of our paleolithic ancestors wasn't meat based it was plant based the same as every other primate. This is covered in some detail in the above link along with the other two (wfs) links on that page.

[Oliver Bradley]

Modern vegans are well aware that their diet is deficient in B12. There are enough vegan sources of B12 to get just as much as a meat eater. These include chlorella, miso and nutritional yeast. I would be interested if there was any brain-shrinkage in vegans who eat a balanced diet.