Hunter Gatherers- Getting Back to our Primal Selves

Hunter-gatherers: a new health kick?

This was cool title that caught my eye today: Achieving hunter-gatherer fitness in the 21(st) century: back to the future- published in the American Journal of Medicine.

 

The authors argue that the systematic displacement from a physically active outdoor lifestyle (hunter-gatherers) to that of sedentary, indoor lifestyle (modern man) is the cause of many chronic diseases plaguing us.

 

The proposed solution is to simulate the hunter gatherer activity pattern to an extent that is practically achievable. The authors provide suggestions for exercise and activities such that out lives will be realigned with that of the hunter-gatherer archetype encoded in our genes. They even provide a nifty table summarizing modern activities that are equivalent to hunter gatherer activities.

 

Here are some examples from Table 2 in the manuscript:

Hunter Gatherer Activity	Modern Equivalent Activity	Caloric Expenditure (Kcal/hour)
Carrying logs	Carrying groceries	893
Carrying meat back to camp	Wearing backpack while walking	706
Digging tubers in field	Gardening	605
Tool construction	Vigorous housework	216
Butchering large animal	Splitting wood with axe	408
Picking lice off each other	Text messaging	OK, I made this one up!

 

For some, getting back to our primal selves may be a long stretch, especially when our hunting and gathering is limited to hunting for the misplaced remote control in the den and gathering snacks from the kitchen.

 

I am inspired.