A Quilt of Nuanced and Multifaceted Webs...On a Series of Tubes

I'm taking a break from lit reviewing and abstract writing for my senior anthro project, and I'm catching up on some podcasts. There was a bit of kerfluffle on twitter and the net about Jack Kruse and his Paleo Summit presentation. And lately his blog has had a series of posts on cold thermogenesis as part of "the ancient pathway," which I have to admit, causes a tiny little geek wearing a pink cashmere sweater that lives inside of me to get all riled up:

An...ancient...pathway? Whowhatwherewhyhow! Let's look on pubmed! Can we activate the Stargate with it? What does it all mean? How is this related to anthro? What's the evidence? What does John Hawks think? And does it come in paisley?

Choice of prints notwithstanding, I'm set to read Dr. Kruse's posts and see what I make of the whole thing before I comment further on cold thermogenesis and ancient pathways beyond my hopes that it will enable us to have interstellar adventures with Richard Dean Anderson.


All this got me to thinking about the facets of bioecology that we've seemingly diverged from, or at least people have argued that we've diverged from. We have several authors and voices in the paleo community suggesting that we eat seasonally and in a manner befitting our genetic adaptations, that we get light exposure in ways that compliment our circadian rhythms, and move/exercise in ways that mimic life in the wild. Now, Dr. Kruse suggests we pay attention to the temperature of our environment. Maybe there's someting to it. We'll have to test it out and see. I'm beginning to run out of time to manage all of these divergent qualities while still maintaining a job and school. To summarize the laundry list of things we've "messed up" according to books and blogs in the paleo-sphere:

1. Food (grains, too much sugar, the wrong fats, the wrong milk, grain-fed cattle, etc)
2. Sleep (not enough, monophasic, biphasic, or otherwise)
3. Light exposure (too late in the day, too much blue light,)
4. Endocrine disruptors (to include chlorinated water, floride, parabens in food and personal care products, pesticides on food, and the remnants of birth control hormones in municipal water supplies)
5. Activity levels (We sit too much and move too little/too slow/too fast/too far/not far enough)
6. Electromagnetic radiation exposure (I've seen or heard everything from our cell phones being too much, to our house's electrical system messing w/ us)
7. Contact with the earth, or lack thereof (I haven't even looked into Eathing yet)
8. Effects of tool use (from shoes to desks and beds. Maybe the Luddites were late to the game on this)
9. The Twilight series (Quite possibly the worst disease of civilization since the '80s pop music)
10. And now, temperature of our environment.

The next step? I'm waiting for someone to come forward with a hypothesis related the epigenetic effects of squatting and/or living without furniture. There's already some sites on the net that sell "squatting aids" for your western toilet, which will help ease strain of fecal elimination and supposedly reduce the incidence of appendicitis and colon cancer. Or perhaps an enterprising chiropracter might incorporate squatting, John Durant's adventures in floor sleeping, and some research on sciatic nerve impingement, muscular development of the lower-limb, and the metabolic effects of efficient innervation to leg muscle, such that it leads to testosterone production. 

Am I being a jerk? No. A little absurd, perhaps. At times it seems like we keep refining and refining and refining our approaches to life, and it sends me down the rabbit-hole of infinite possibilities that could be affecting our health. I appreciate the work by all of the bloggers and thinkers out there, but my paradigms already have more strech-marks than a maternity ward. Sometimes I wish for time to master one thing before another interesting idea comes down the pike

 But, it is nice and cozy here in the rabbit-hole, so I guess I'll stay for a while. Two years ago gluten and zonulin were nowhere on my radar, and diseases of civilization was just a topic in my World Pre-History class. Who knows what will be on the radar in another two years, or two decades? I welcome the information and just wish I had enough time and resources to absorb, verify, and apply it all.