Interview with Dr. Art De Vany

For a lesson in Stone Age Sense that illustrates how important it is to connect with our bodies on an instinctive level we must look at the principles behind Evolutionary Fitness.

Dr. Art De Vany a Professor of Economics at the University of California in Irvine and noted author has published numerous books and articles on various topics including the principles of evolutionary fitness. His own lifestyle is modeled on hunter gathers from 40,000 years ago and at 72 years of age and between 7-8% body fat he exemplifies the attributes of applying such principles. It was his ground breaking essay Evolutionary Fitness, a mixture of the high tech with the Stone Age that started people talking. Now Dr. De Vany has released a DVD with more than 7 hours of lectures and discussions which utilize modern research on gene expression, metabolic networks, muscle physiology, complex dynamical systems tools, and chaos to distill principles for healthy and successful living. As an avid athlete all his life Dr. De Vany has found no reason to slow down and insists nor should anyone else!

I believe you became interested in metabolism after your wife and son were diagnosed with diabetes, how did it lead to a study of pre-historic nutrition and fitness behaviors?

Yes, my interest in metabolism was triggered 30 years ago when my 2 year old son developed type 1 diabetes. This is different from the type 2 diabetes which is primarily caused by obesity, which led some to call it diabesity. I had to learn how to keep my young son well. Later, about 15 years, my wife developed type 1 diabetes as well. We had been too closely following the advice of various doctors and my son had had some difficulties. I renewed my efforts and began testing my wife’s blood glucose levels following meals. I soon learned what foods drove her blood glucose (BG) up and which ones did not.

I also knew that the present dietary recommendations for diabetics were completely different from those of just 30 to 50 years ago.

In the late 1800s and even 2000 years before, most doctors and folklore blamed diabetes, the failure to metabolize sugar and the craving for it with constant hunger and sugar in the urine, on the consumption of sugar or simple carbohydrates. Hunter gathers, Eskimos, Kalahari Bush men, the American Indians and nearly all primitive people were known to not suffer diabetes. I found that our blood sugar testing had already eliminated virtually all the pasta, potatoes, rice, beans, soft drinks and sports drinks, manufactured sauces and condiments and other things that people think of as a normal modern diet. They are not “ordinary” from an evolutionary perspective; they are very recent.

Dr. Schweitzer, Dr. Price-Potenger and many other pioneering doctors who treated “primitive” cultures reported the almost complete absence of cancer, colitis, varicose veins, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and other “modern” ills in these healthy long-lived and fit people. The natives outlived the foreign pioneers who lived nearby. They became ill only when they began to consume the foods brought in to feed the European, American or other foreigners who came from more modern civilizations. Reading of the physical beauty and prowess of these hunter gathers and of the extent to which they retained their health and fitness throughout their lives was so inspiring I began to work on their activity patterns and how it integrated with their eating patterns and the foods they consumed. Tying this in with my knowledge of muscle physiology and chaos theory led directly to the principle of power law variation, one of the key elements along with gene expression in my approach.

 

What Stone Age principles have you identified as being most influential to our health and functionality?

1.     Stone Age eating from plant and animal sources, with the almost complete absence of simple carbohydrates is a first principle. I had verified this with my son and wife for our research had led us to the same diet principle. Now that nutritional science has lost some of its political correctness the research is flowing in regarding the harm of simple carbs and high glycemic index substances, they are hard to call food, in human metabolism.

2.    Acute rather than chronic stress. The “fight or flight response” was not uncommon during the Stone Age but it is brief and intermittent, not chronic. Acute stress brings adaptations. Chronic stress tears us down. Modern humans live with too much low grade, constant stress, which is destructive. They do not have enough acute, adaptive stress.  Selye called this eustress or good stress.

3.    Natural variation of activity and food intake. A natural variation of activity is one that mimics the dynamics of wild animals and hunter gatherers. There is an intermittence in natural activities which is described by a power law; there is much rest and languid activity and play with bursts of intense effort. There is no meaning to an average in this; variation occurs over all scales or sizes of activity. Modern life is one of compressed variation; sitting in an office doing spread sheets for hours on end is too routinized. We can do it and must to earn our living. But, we should not carry this industrialized approach over to our other activities or eating patterns.

4.    Carrying the natural variation over to eating, intermittence means that food intake should not be routine. Three square meals a day will cause an upward drift into obesity. The same food intake, done intermittently will not.

5.    Activity. Playful exercise is not an intervention. We inherit the active genotype from our ancestors. It is what our genes are adapted to. Healthy gene expression is produced by natural foods similar to those of the Stone Age, intermittent eating and hungry periods, and varying activity with some bursts of intense activity. These are essential to the Active Genotype.

 Translating this into modern day circumstances how can the average person best assimilate these principles (especially for people who aren’t athletes or don’t frequent the gym)?

These principles are readily carried over into a peaceful and productive life. Think of the power law variation as the 20/80 principle: 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your activities. This is true in our work and in our exercise. It is also true of the people we know and of those we learn to love. It is true also in investment. With respect to exercise, just find a few things you love to do and add some episodic intensity to the activity. Do bursts of more intense effort mixed in with easy and other efforts. Tennis is a good example of a power law sport, but doing it all the time on a hard court can cause damage.

You once stated that “the primal characteristic of humans is they are omnivores and that they are highly adaptable” however one of the concerns with patterns in modern eating is how we have not evolved on a genetic level to adjust with the change in resources (as of the agricultural era) what prevents us from adapting to a different food source?

We can alter our gene expression through what we eat, but not our genes. On a genetic level, we are completely unsuited to the modern diet which is so high in sugar and simple carbohydrate. They trigger a burst in the reward centers of the brain and damage our metabolism. We now eat about 180 pounds of sugar a year. Our ancestors ate zero.

For those who choose to prescribe to a vegetarian diet can the principles still be applied to their benefit and what would they need to do differently in-order to get achieve this (supplements)?

The only advice I have for vegetarians is to stop. Be an omnivore. Eat a bit of everything. Eating is not a religion. Too many vegetarians I know are driven to eat junk because they eat far too much simple carbohydrate to get some flavor. A potato chip is not a vegetable, yet I see the vegetarians eating them.

Had we been designed to be vegetarians, we would have huge stomachs, massive jaws, and have pointed head because a crest on the skull is required to anchor the massive jaw muscles required to be a vegetarian. We would, on the whole, look more like gorillas than humans. And function like them too.

 

You advocate food deprivation as a useful method of activating growth hormones and negating the effects of too much insulin in the system, how does this principle work (could provide an example of your own eating patterns)?

I eat when I am hungry, not in a pre-programmed way. I skip meals with no regret and find I work out and work better a bit hungry. Research clearly shows that intermittent caloric restriction is healthful. It is also the natural way. You can eat later to satisfy your hunger, which will be a bit elevated after, say, skipping a dinner.

Would you consider this a more efficient way of sparing muscle and gaining lean mass than taking supplements or post-workout shakes?

Post-work out shakes are pretty awful. They are loaded with simple carbs. Even the protein in them is readily metabolized into fat if your insulin is high, which the sugar almost guarantees. After a workout, you are a bit resistant to insulin because your growth hormone is high. GH burns fat. You have to let it happen. Most of a high protein shakes right after a workout goes straight to fat. Look around you in the gym. How many lean bodies do you find there?

Only the very young and they are not a lean as I am. The bulky guys have high levels of triglycerides (fat) in their muscle, which gives them that bulky look. Stay away.

What guides the level of deprivation so as to avoid catabolism and encourage growth?

Forget about growth. Look for a healthful body composition; lots of lean muscle mass and little fat. In the post work out period, a process called autophagy “eats” the damaged proteins caused by the work out and by life to fuel rebuilding. This is nature’s way of recycling the protein in damaged tissues to replace them with fresh, functional tissue.

This strategy has been effective for improving longevity but are there any advantages or disadvantages on performance?

What kind of performance does one want? I don’t want to be a marathoner or a triathlete. They are dangerous and damaging. The performance I want is to move through life easily with a grace, energy and poise to do anything I am called upon to do. On those grounds, there is no better way. There is so much energy in body fat; there is no requirement in a healthy life way for “energy” drinks and other junk.

Could describe the theory of compressed morbidity and how this reflects your own aspirations on aging?

Compressed morbidity is a life in which your illness and progression to death occur in a shortened interval of you total life. Unfortunately, that is not what most people will experience in their life. Losing insulin sensitivity and progressing into the accelerated aging associated with metabolic disease (the result of loss of insulin sensitivity) will cause many people alive today to suffer an expanded period of morbidity during their lives. Modern medicine will help to keep them alive, but they will suffer their chronic disease for many years before they die.

In your research you discuss gene expression highlighting the human ability to influence the internal factors that affect our physical health. How much of our body is actually within our control?

Most of the expression of the active genotype is affected by our diet and our activities. There is nothing else. Brain gene expression is triggered by nutrition and learning. Muscle gene expression by nutrition and action. Liver gene expression by nutritional composition, body fat, and activity. Everything affects gene expression.

 

Which sporting disciplines or activities best align with those from our Stone Age ancestors?

 

Playful, intermittent activities that are not chronic and routinized. Think of a female gathering plants over a 3 to 6 kilometer trek using her memory and knowledge to seek out high value plant foods. She may be carrying or watching children, climbing trees, digging tubers, hunting small game, and then carrying the whole lot home. But, she only does this when she and her family are hungry and usually only 2 to 3 days a week. Endurance and strength are required, but the demands are mixed and not routine. Males have to hunt in a figurative way.

 

Recently Michael Phelps was reported as consuming 5 times the average man, is this amount of fuel necessary and what are your thoughts on the source of calories (carbohydrates have long been a cheap fuel for athletes but could we duplicate those same results using low carbohydrate foods)?

 

Michael will be lucky to avoid diabetes on his terrible diet. The British athlete who won 5 consecutive Olympic Gold Medals in one-man scull rowing had diabetes by the age of 35 on the same diet Phelps eats. Athletes are poor models.

 

What exercises top your list for their ability to increase metabolism and which make your worst ever list?

Exercises that uses large muscle mass are the best from an anabolic stand point. Chronic exercise, such as marathons and training for long distance runs are the worst. They cause a loss of muscle mass, a transformation of muscle fiber composition from fast twitch to slow twitch, and they produce a large oxidative stress. If you look at the top marathoners you will find that, first they look like death warmed over, and second they have heart disease and upper respiratory inflammation.

In regards to women specifically are there any guidelines you recommend?

Women have plenty of lower body strength but not as much upper body strength. They should protect their rotator cuff, which will tear easily doing exercises men can do. They should stay off tread mills which produce very poor posture (have a look for yourself, do you see good posture on the treadmill?). I will have exercises for women in my forthcoming book. And for men. They are different after all and should exercise a bit differently. But, there are common principles that apply to both.

Aside from depreciated antioxidant levels in modern foods are there any other nutrients worth supplementing?

 

If you stay away from sugar and sugar-like foods, meaning the bulk of what most people eat, you will not only lose fat mass, you will avoid the inflammation that you can spot in almost everyone if you look closely. The puffy, reddish face and the sagging jowls are the product of excess sugars and simple carbohydrates. They promote inflammation (redness) and water retention (puffiness and sagginess). And, they make you hungry too often relative to your real nutritional requirements. There is wide spread Vitamin A and D deficiency which are related to the avoidance of fat and sun. Cod liver oil and D supplements may be called for. Vitamin D deficiency will suppress the immune system. I saw a lot of dilated pupils in my university students, a sign of Vitamin A deficiency. The B complex is important, both as a co-factor in the antioxidant complex and for the nervous system.

Variety and Quality play a key role in your lifestyle and that of the hunter gathers does this mean that all foods even healthy ones can become toxic when eaten every day?

I really don’t know and science does not have the answer to that. Marge Profet (the Macarthur Foundations Genius award researcher) recommends specifically that women “diversify their toxins” meaning that they diversify their foods. I think it is important to men too, as the toxin desaturation pathways may be over loaded on a non-varying diet.

 

How important is it to use knowledge individually and find a balance between instinct and information?

 

Thirst and hunger are evolved adaptations that kept our ancestors alive for millions of years. These healthy instincts, there are simple mechanisms behind so they are more than instincts, they are metabolic processes. But, they do not relate well to commercially driven promotions about fluid and diet intake. If you get the activity and diet right, our instincts work well. Drink when thirsty. Your thirst will be unnatural if you eat poorly because glucose makes you thirsty. Eat right and your thirst will be accurate. The same thing applies to diet. Eat right, be active in an intermittent way and your hunger will accurately guide you. Eat high sugar and carb laden diets and you will be hungry almost all the time and you will crave sugar. You will have to go to my blog or read my book to see why!

 

 

For all the latest from Dr. De Vany or to purchase a copy of the DVD

Evolutionary Fitness visit his website

at: www.arthurdevany.com

Age the way you were intended, still active and full of life until the very end!

 

Posted in: Evolutionary Fitness, Mythes en andere onzin over hardlopen en gezondheid, Paleo Diet, Power Law Variation Training
labels: paleo, Arthur de Vany, Evolutionary fitness, oerleven, stochastisch, power law

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