Our ancestors' diet: surprising lessons from a 5,000-year-old mummy
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- A mummified man found in the mountains of Italy on a nutrition science podcast? Have we gone completely off track?
We haven’t - we promise.
This unfortunate soul could be the key that unlocks an entirely new understanding of human health.
This mummy, discovered in an alpine snow drift by two hikers, gives us a remarkable glimpse into the surprising dietary choices of our ancestors.
In today’s episode, Jonathan discovers some secrets held by our ancestors by speaking to two outstanding guests:
Frank Maixner works at the Institute for Mummy Studies in Italy and travels the world uncovering the secrets of our ancestors.
Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.
If you want to uncover the right foods for your body, head to joinzoe.com/podcast and get 10% off your personalized nutrition program.
Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:10 - Topic Introduction
01:39 - What happened thirty years ago high in the mounts on the border between Italy and Austria
03:01 - Who was the Iceman?
03:42 - What happened to him, and what did we discover about him?
05:29 - How old was he, and what do we know about his lifestyle?
06:33 - What was he eating?
10:27 - What’s surprising about his health?
13:46 - The Iceman & mushrooms
15:15 - Iceman’s microbiome
16:29 - The most surprising information about the Iceman’s microbiome
17:55 - What’s microbiome diversity?
20:22 - Iceman’s origins
20:52 - The start of a new academic discipline
22:48 - Finding out about salt miners
24:26 - What did these salt miners eat?
26:55 - How plant-based was their diet?
27:35 - Did they eat dairy?
29:20 - Their diet diversity
31:11 - What do their microbiomes tell us?
38:01 - What does this mean for us? What is the actionable advice?
42:21 - Summary
44:26 - Goodbyes
44:53 - Outro
Episode transcripts are available here: joinzoe.com/learn/category/nu...
Follow Frank: / frankmaixner
Follow Tim: / timspector
Follow ZOE on Instagram: / zoe
This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions. - Наука та технологія
An exceptional podcast. The dry wit was a bonus. Thank you gentlemen.
Because of chronic stress in childhood I had 2.5 years on antibiotics for tonsillitis. Subsequent years brought many more prescriptions and ultimately interstitial cystitis and microscopic haematuria, wrongly treated with another 4 years of antibiotics. This has left my gut biome a tad short of bacteria and a high level of histamine. I AM gradually building back up, only this week starting to tolerate Apple Cider Vinegar but just a teaspoon. This is a SLOW process folks! Not eating majority of great ferments is a real stumbling block but these recordings have really benefited my knowledge and moved me forward. The mitochondria shutting down from glucose spikes resulting in inflammation was a real revelation. Eating greens first then prot and fibre then carbs = magic. Thanks guys for all of your generosity of sharing.
Thank you Team Zoe. What an educational institution is Zoe. Absolutely timeless and classic. Best regards, Valérie ❤️♥️
I really enjoyed listening to the podcast (I almost always do :-) It's a delightful mix: technical details presented in a way that's accessible to non-technical people. Thought provoking stuff, so thank you!
wow, things still being learned from the Iceman - what a find! Fascinating as ever, thanks all involved 👍
A fascinating episode, well done guys 👍🤯
Fascinating- as always. Many thanks.
Thanks a lot for this episode. I cherish the information this chanel provides. Our GP's are mostly helpless dealing with the increase of gut related health issues. And your good work helps a lot to increase the understandig of us patients.
The Icemans mushrom is called Piptoporus betulinum. It is helpful with my MCAS. I was desperate enough to try it and it improved my symptoms.
So interesting!! This channel has some of my favorite presentations. Thanks.
Soooooo interesting. I learn so much every time I listen to your fascinating discussions. Many thanks to you all
Hmmm looks like an oilfree fatfree whole food plant based diet as researched and proven by Dr Caldwell Esselstyn and also Dr Dean Ornish is the healthiest way to go to avoid and also reverse heart disease!!! Doesn't matter how free-range yr animals are as their meat are still inflammatory to the endothelial cells
additionally, meat was stored in fat as a preservative in the past. Smoked & often salted, then sometimes stored dry & sometimes integrated into fat which hardened in the colder weather.
Fascinating - thank you
Re: Mice. Thanks for the translation Tim. This was a very helpful podcast. Many thanks to all concerned. Best wishes, John
Mice and kettle meat. :)
The presenter threw out a statement about animal fat being a low quality fat, without substantiating that statement in any way. I have only seen recent literature indicating the opposite. What research was he alluding to, or is he a vegan?
Would be interesting to know what recent literature you are talking about? I‘ve personally never seen a single well designed study that shows a diet high in saturated fatty acids produces better health outcomes than a diet high in unsaturated fatty acids. I mean there is a reason why all nutrition & health associations (like the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics or the WHO) recommend a diet low in saturated fats and high in unsaturated ones.
@@stefanalexanderwennberg This information is clear, and is readily available all over the place for at least the last 7 to 10 years. But it's been very robustly communicated throughout academia and research literature in the last 4-5 years. If not sure where to start, maybe check out Nina Teicholz.
However, all that being said, to try to get context on where this guy's mind might be at regarding fats, I watched his video from last month dedicated to fats. I was pretty horrified to see that he posited that "you can drink Coke or have fat, and the body doesn't know the difference"... That is not any exaggeration. It is a direct quote, which he later reinforced again during the episode.
That told me everything I needed to know about him. He lacks basic a understanding of these matters, and I won't be watching any more of his "podcasts".
With regard to WHO and others, a lot of research findings take years to implement. WHO and many other organizations just recently retracted everything they used to say about cholesterol. Big surprise. These organizations are essentially businesses, with interests.
@@stefanalexanderwennberg Money is the reason not health.
Meat causes inflammation of endothelial cells within 2 hrs of ingesting and inflammation continues for 8 hours
The source of his statement is ignorance and bias.
Super interesting! Thank you 👏
Thank you very much so interesting!
Just found this channel. Absolutely fascinating.
So very interesting
Thanks
Very interesting, thanks guys (-: Marion
Fascinating!!! Looking forward to the discovery of what got us out of track from the XVIII to the XIX centuries in terms of microbiome.
39:13 “ … eat dirt …” I’m hoping that my consumption of an earthworm when I was about four years old has contributed a few healthy microbes to my biome 🤔
The Ice Man was a farmer. It is impossible to draw conclusions about the ideal human diet from studying him. Stefansson lived among the Inuit, who prospered on an all meat diet, and had for generations. Our ancestors had to be opportunists and eat whatever their environment provided. The digestive tract of each of the great apes is different, and each consumes a different diet. When the African rain forests retreated millions of years ago, our ancestors with high stomach acids were able to survive on carrion. Ruminant brains and bone marrow were the primary foods of those who survived, and contributed to the evolution of our brains. Plants have always been a part of the human diet. Herbs and spices have been treasured for centuries. But our energy hungry brains relied on animal fats for fuel. See Amber O'Hearn's Lipivore video for details.
Nobody has ever proved he was a farmer. His DNA is close to farmers coming from Anatolia, but this does not mean he was a farmer as well. He was certainly a hunter--but whether this was only to survive his last trip to the icy climate of the Alps or his main occupation is everybody's guess.
@@prossi4216 The Ice Man lived 5300 years ago. He had einkorn grain in his stomach. Einkorn wheat is one of the oldest types of domesticated grain which count as pre-cursors of modern wheat. Are you suggesting that he foraged wild wheat in the Alps?
@@BigPictureYT what is a farmer doing at the top of the alps? With a perfect equipment for traveling and hunting there? Looking for new land to plant crops in the snow?
There were farmers in the lower lands, if he was a trader or a hunter he could have got the einkorn easily from other communities.
Trading was widespread at the time (e.g., parts of his equipment was made with materials coming from a long distance away).
@@prossi4216 The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has a dataset of more than 10,000 prehistoric individuals and over 100 persons from the same period as Ötzi have now made it possible to reconstruct his genome more precisely and compare it with others.
The hunter-gatherers of Western Europe merged into early “Anatolian” farming populations who migrated from the Middle East around 8,000 years ago. When compared to his contemporaries, the DNA experts found that Ötzi had a higher proportion of “Anatolian” genetic material.
Since he had both ibex and grain in his stomach, it is likely that he was both a hunter and a farmer.
Oddly enough, he did not have a functioning bow, but he had a stave that he was making into a bow. He had two completed arrows and eight shafts that he was making into arrows.
He was found in a glacier at around 10,000 feet. He was less than five miles from a valley with a lake at around 5000 feet.
Unsolved COLD CASE 😂. We still air dry meat and edible insects. We also air dry vegetables and fruits. In Zimbabwe 🇿🇼
Excellent show
A very interesting podcast thank you to all concerned.
Wonderful talk . 🇨🇦
Hi Tim & Jonathan, more info on prevotella and blastocystis please. John
Very interesting! Makes me realize the obvious: they ate what they could get, leaning toward an omnivore diet(s) and some surprisingly advanced technologies (i.e. cheese making). Too bad we couldn't interview Otzi!
Very interesting podcast thanks.
excellent talk about how the diet and modern healthy practices have changed our microbiome
Oetzi suffered from Gastritis: Helicobacter pylorii infection was diagnosed in his gut.
H pylori is common in the human stomach.it is not necessarily a pathogen.
The man who discovered Ötzi died in a similar manner.
Air drying existed before salting or pickling. Jerky and pemmican don't require cooking. D3K2 is essential for preventing calcification Dairy reached Britain 6 millennia ago
Thanks for posting- this is really interesting! I'm unsure why the Ice Man's diet was judged as 'healthy' when he also had atherosclerosis though. Instead of concluding that it might not be associated with lifestyle, could it be that there was something in the Ice Man's diet that contributed to this? Also, could the diversity of gut bacteria be linked to the less sanitised environment he lived in; possibly it is not that a diversity of gut bacteria is sufficient for health but that it is an indication of relying less on anti-bacterial products/pesticides etc, which may be a necessary condition for health. Also, could it also be that eating lots of fibre is not the best way to produce a healthy gut microbiome and it is instead eating seasonally and being in touch with nature and your environment that may be more helpful? Obviously I don't know any of this so if anyone has any research around these topics I'd love to gain some insight!
Tim Spector's books are a good place to start
No research but I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t need fibre. Since switching to a healthy organic diet I don’t get constipated anymore. On a modern diet I ate loads of fibre and it didn’t help.
Before industrial agriculture and food processing, humans ate food seasonally. Looking at an ancient mummy would only tell us what the individual was eating in the moment during that time of year. But it wouldn't say what he was eating most of the time in other seasons. It can't even tell us what is healthy. The reason that this mummy was frozen means he may have been forced into isolation or was escaping. He probably was forced onto a survival diet, not one that promotes human thriving.
@@n0killz44 - I've had the same experience. My health vastly improved when I restricted fiber and carbs. Interestingly, one doctor, maybe Shawn Baker, said his patients on the carnivore diet had large diverse microbiomes when tested.
@@MarmaladeINFP Pickling, preserving &drying of seasonal foods has ALSO been around for thousands of years, so it is not as black and white as that . The Dr talks ab how savvy they were ab food preservation in this video
Very interesting
Interesting as always. What I can't get my head around is the 30 plants for a healthy gut microbiome. I mean they wouldn't have been counting and choosing 30 different plants then. They would of ate what was available. Also the foods weren't messed with like they are now which must make a huge difference
Only if you accept that civilisation started a few thousand years ago
They ate wild plants,not just the plants they cultivated. Tollund man for example had many plants in his gut that we regard as weeds now,but then were valuable sources of food. 20 different plant species in that one meal.
Oh dear Tim, cold case? Thanks for this podcast. All fascinating. I've been following discoveries about Otzi the Ice man since he was found and all are fascinating. Some ideas about him seem to have changed, so I wonder whatl science will tell us in 10, 20 years time.
Have you visited his museum? It’s worth the effort!
@@fnewington Hi Fiz, sorry for the delay in replying to you, I didn't get your message for some reason. No, I haven't but would very much like to go. Thanks for recommending it. Best wishes.
A 2018 paper identified cheese making in modern Croatia from 5200 BCE. I don't know whether I can post a link here, but there's a link from the Wiki article on the history of cheese (ref 3 - the paper itself is on PLOS ONE).
A question for Prof Tim that I hope you can address in a podcast at some point. Does changing your diet to include a lot of plants, pre and pro-biotics avoiding ultra-processed food and all the things you advocate lead to clear changes in gut microbiome? And, short of - I can't quite remember the term you used in your book but the gist was - "poo pills" to inoculate the gut, how can we get the beneficial bugs that we might lack? I get that this is research in progress but it would be fascinating to hear the current state of play and what approaches are being looked into. Thank you.
Gut microbiomes do change as the diet changes, but it’s as long as the diet remains that certain way.
Going back further could teeth development give clues to food eaten?
You might look into the oldest Peruvian ancestors over 5000 yrs old from Caral that Ruth Shady discoverd near Supe ..as they found cotton made nets and started fishing …
I didn't know that Autism spectrum disorders were linked to the diversity in your gut microbiome, I'm awaiting a confirmation of an Autism diagnosis and I was sure up until this point it was because my paternal side has it, some of my male cousins having been diagnosed in childhood but myself, born in 58 and brought up in the 60s was overlooked as it was thought to be a male thing. I have such strong traits, that after being told by a psychiatrist that he thought I had an ASD, he had the Autism 50 test done in which I scored 47 out of the possible 50, I believe my assessment has been held up by Covid, but that is really interesting to know. I have been eating mostly plant based whole food for a while now and am on day 41 of the Zoe Big IF study, I have found that my IBS bloating and insomnia have improved heaps since starting and I intend to keep to an 8 or 9 hour window (whichever is easiest to stick to as I have learned that it's pointless to try to do too much at once and would rather tailor my restricted eating to times that come naturally to me.) I'm really grateful to Zoe for all these podcasts and this study as I have found it relatively easy to stay within the 10 hour window, without Zoe I probably wouldn't have tried restricted eating.
Thank you for explaining so clearly the remarkable evidence of what some humans ate (and didn’t eat) thousands of years ago. Also for relating it to the modern western diet and medicine. Fascinating!
I am thinking the toxic plant in his stomach could have been medication to treat infection or fever from the wound or was he poisoned?
Perhaps he was shot with an arrow then poisoned when the arrow did not kill him?
Plants are definitely often used as medicine. In being injured and in harsh conditions, he was probably struggling with his health and possibly infections. None of the plants may have been for food.
western diets also contain ALOT of sugar
sugar is anti-microbial. It has been used to pack wounds to stop them getting infected as it is cheaper and easier to obtain in poverty situations
i recall one lady in america complaining about sub-standard care, that her caesarean cut was treated with sugar
Last 15 mins is fascinating. But what can I DO now I'm old and falling apart?
I'm a pensioner. I played in dirt and was exposed to loads of nasties as a kid (my children were protected from such evils). Now I'm overweight with high BP and cholesterol. I take kefir and pomegranate daily. What more can I do?
Look into the carnivore diet. It's a miracle diet. Many are doing it. Just don't believe what it's said about meat and animal fats. It's all lies due to biased old studies.
How dose diet effects your bowel movement as these can be a problem to many from constipation to the runs
In 5000 years time, humans will look at a mummy from 2020s and say our ancestors ate potato chips, McDonald’s and KFC, we need to eat this!
I don’t understand why looking at any diet someone ate years ago is something we need to replicate no matter if it’s for plants or not
We simply know the goodness of plants now, eat veggies
How about pesticides, are they a factor in the condition of our gut byome or health in general?
Of course they are. They are designed to kill small critters.
Pesticides, antibiotics, GMO too quite possibly is detrimental to our gut and immunological health. I once knew a vegetarian who didn’t eat meat solely because of what’s injected into our animal food chain.
The ancient Austrian cultural period mentioned is Hallstatt. The transcript has it wrong (Eichstatt).
"Entirely plant based" was never a thing.
My understanding is that the microbiome is not exclusively affected by food, but indeed numerous factors including, but not exclusive to, environment, animals and certain practices or routines, such as the way food is manufactured and preserved.
Can anyone recommend a reliable test company for a microbiome test? Thank you 🙏
How does this compare to Inuit diet and their health.? Barb
I think you will have to do reading on that on your own.
Perhaps he was accidentally shot if he was part of a hunting party? And he was left (and lost) because of an impending blizzard that freeze dried him?
What lessons? Understanding what people were eating 5000 years ago is interesting. However it is not indicative of what we should be eating. There is a large and growing body of nutritional science that can inform our choices.
Did diet play a part in the development of autoimmune disease and if so, can we learn today what foods are best for those with the condition?
Apparently european ancestors who survived the bubonic plague are more likely to have a genome favouring autoimmune disease ..so it has been selected for somewhat .
So when big business in food began it was the end of the better diet, in whatever form, that humans had experienced for all of their existence
I have my own theory that for thousands of years our gut has evolved with grains and food, and that GMO will be a problem in the future as it’s too much of a shock to our gut health.
In what way?most of the plants we eat today have been selectively bred for centuries and is not unhealthy.
Wow, who'd've thought there are no easy solutions to the diet 'problem'.
The masai herders in Kenya are known to be mostly carnivorous, on a diet of raw meat, blood mixed with milk.
They are a specialty case and have probably evolved over a long time to adapt to this.i doubt my gut would be happy on that.humans are omnivores w an ability to eat whatever is on hand.there is no one ancient diet which is why the popularised so called paleo diet makes anthropologists roll their eyes!
Cereals, pulses, and legumes are in this combination mentioned in Ezekiel 4:9. Food trade including cheeses and cured and fermented meats also means they traded the bacteria used to make them. The most interesting bit is to me that food trading was a thing at a time when roads and carts where rather basic. The amount of energy needed to transport an iberico ham from Spain to Austria was massively higher than the energy that ham delivered and not strictly nutritionally necessary as Austria has pigs, too, and made its own hams. In short, it needs some research why people traded food at a time when such food trade was massively energy inefficient and the concept of money had not yet been invented. We may need to see what foods were first traded and if they happened to be traded for the bacterial cultures they were made of.
How does the ice man's condition inform on ancestral diet which had given way to agriculture 5000 years earlier than the death of this iceman?
What was the type of mushroom he was carrying? I tried to look it up elsewhere but can't find it. Is it one still in existence today?
He was carrying birch polypore and also tinder polypore. Birch polypore aswell as being a food item and having medicinal properties could also be used to sharpen blades in its dried form. Its other name is razor strop fungus.
It was Piptoporus betulinum
I like to think of ourselves as opportunistic omnivores.
Could it be that smoke from open fire cause atherosclerosis? I guess people from this time were very much exposed to smoke because fire was their source of heat and their method of cooking etc. Over a lifetime, it must have caused a lot of toxic smoke. It is well known today that poor air quality in larger cities causes cardiovascular disease.
So if he didn’t eat any processed food or any industrial junk food why did he get atherosclerosis???
They covered that. Said it would have been a genetic issue
Is one 5000 year old man reflective of his society norms . Can you imagine if scientists used one individual as reflective of what we now eat it might pain an interesting picture
Thank you that was very interesting,one question ,wouldn’t the iceman have been classed as old at forty to fifty years 5000 years ago ? 🤔
Nope, just middle aged like now. Life expectancy gets skewed by child mortality and deaths by disease/injury. If you live to adulthood then it would be likely you would live as long as we do now. You only need to look at tribes living today to confirm this
Iceman had atherosclerosis according to Frank, so what about the mummies of the poorer region in Mexico where little or no meat was consumed?
Antibiotics should be used only in emergency of life threatening bacterial infections.
Well Jonathan will you invite popular ketoist D. Ken Berry ?
The Iceman keeps giving us new data
Was he the one that we today called Ötzi?
Yes.
5,000 years is quite recent, it is after the most recent glaciation.
Do a fecal transplant from the mummy! Could turn into a John Carpenter movie...?
Surely it's off-piste not track?🤔 In the Alps that is.😉
Really interesting ... cheese 3000 years ago!
I thought he had lime disease.
Cheese is mentioned in the Old Testament.
Microbiome diversity minoring factors are synthetic chemicals as preservatives used in processing modern food, wich make it impossible or difficult for microbes bacteria and fungus to "eat" this food, so the consumer gets it... were the gut microbiome of the consumer then has its difficulties ...and all agricultural chemicals and technics used like fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides and monocultures...they all destroy the "microbiome" and its diversities of the soil, so the plants can not grow as healthy and strong and need therefor be treated with pesticides ...wich destroy then even more species ...all of that changed since the last 100 years and the result we see today
So is atherosclerosis a "modern disease" or not?
Still pushing the "danger" of saturated animal fat, keep up with the research guys
Was there lacto bacillus in his gut?
Fascinating, but please correct the terrible E bot translation! Kettle = cattle. Clogging = clotting.
So many more translation errors
Is there evidence people lived to be old enough for 40 to 50 to be considered middle agged? Is it possible he was actually already very old? I suspect the dieases of our old age may be irrelevant to primative cultures 5000 years ago.
Great show on a few levels.
However Tim managed in one show to insult a few million folks from California and Arizona.
No way to broaden the follower base.
When did the mere presence of a particular gut microbe become indicative or causative for all the things that Tim claims for them?
First finally
Tim would like to believe 40 to 50 is early middle-age
Bryan Johnson eats the same thing every day, so surely his gut bacteria isn't diverse enough.
A high carbohydrate diet - atherosclerosis
What kind of carbohydrates?
@@rachelcoleman4693 all types of grain and white potatoes - this includes pasta. They all become sugar shortly after eating. Leafy green vegetables contain lots of fibre so they are okay.
@@eileenfb1948 I thought that carbs only cause heart disease when combined with fat. I've read that 53% of ancient Egyptian mummies found have had atherosclerosis because they ate large amounts of oily bread throughout their lives.
They were clear to point out the strong possibility of genetic predisposition / component that has existed thru’out the ages . Something which the mega wave of keto /carnivore /high fat low carb brigade proponents of YT’ers all tend to whitewash with their often one dimensional selective focuses and biases. Diet alone might help delay the onset of many modern day ‘epidemics’ like alzh, MS, cancers Parkinson’s , inflammation, heart attacks etc etc etc , but given this ancient snapshot spanning 5000yrs it appears inheritable personal genetic DNA needs to be acknowledged as well . Refined sugars and highly processed carbs need to be eliminated , but beyond that , the genetic lottery still seems to play a contributing factor in many diseases .
@@equatorialjourney4478 Many researchers into health are discovering, through their own personal journey to health, that they have several of these genes which impact their health but through careful adjustments to their diet they can now live a healthy life. They suggest that we may have the gene for an illness but lifestyle turns it on. This gives us all hope.
Tim needs to shave. I suggest you plan an intervention and save him from himself.
Not sure if nutrition of a mummy is good advice. After all he died early 😂
please please stop gesticulating 🥰🥰 thank
Is Spector a Jewish name?