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All-Corn Diet Turns Hamsters Into Cannibals
An anonymous reader quotes Engadget:
A new paper outlines the efforts of scientists at the University of Strasbourg to determine why the European hamster has been dying off at an alarming rate... Previously, the rodent's diet consisted of grains, roots and insects. But the regions in which its numbers were dropping have been taken over by the industrial farming of corn... Researchers in France have discovered that a monotonous diet of corn causes hamsters to exhibit some unusual behavior -- cannibalism.
âoeImproperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans," the researchers point out, and they believe it's the absence of vitamin B3 which is affecting the hamsters' nervous system and triggering dementia-like behavior. Hamsters are already an endangered species in Western Europe, so this is being heavily-researched. And they obviously won't improve their chances of survival with cannibalism.
âoeImproperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans," the researchers point out, and they believe it's the absence of vitamin B3 which is affecting the hamsters' nervous system and triggering dementia-like behavior. Hamsters are already an endangered species in Western Europe, so this is being heavily-researched. And they obviously won't improve their chances of survival with cannibalism.
Grains are only somewhat harmful.
The problem is not eating grain, but eating ONLY grain. This leads to deficiency in B3, B12, and lysine.
If we had evolved to eat grains we would have four stomachs).
Ruminants don't have four stomachs to digest the starch in grain, but the cellulose in leaves and stems.
The problem is not eating grain, but eating ONLY grain. This leads to deficiency in B3, B12, and lysine.
Depends on the grain and how it was prepared. If the corn has been prepared by some form of nixtamalization, the B3 (Niacin) will be more readily available for consumption. The Aztecs knew about this. A lot of processed corn products (Including junk food) have undergone this process. However if you subsist entirely on corn on the cob (or frozen corn kernels) you will develop a deficiency. The B3 is in there, but not in a form our bodies can digest and utilize.
Between 1906 and 1940 more than 3 million Americans were affected by pellagra with more than 100,000 deaths.
In 1915, Joseph Goldberger, assigned to study pellagra by the US Surgeon General, showed it was linked to diet by observing the outbreaks of pellagra in orphanages and mental hospitals. He noted that children between the ages of six and 12 and patients at the mental hospitals were the ones who seemed most susceptible to pellagra.
Goldberger theorized that a lack of meat, milk, eggs, and legumes made those particular populations susceptible to pellagra. By modifying the diet served in these institutions with "a marked increase in the fresh animal and the leguminous protein foods," Goldberger was able to show that pellagra could be prevented. By 1926, he established that a diet that included these foods, or a small amount of brewer's yeast, prevented pellagra.
In 1937, Conrad Elvehjem, showed that the vitamin niacin cured pellagra in dogs. Later studies by Dr. Tom Spies, Marion Blankenhorn, and Clark Cooper established that niacin also cured pellagra in humans, for which Time Magazine dubbed them its 1938 Men of the Year in comprehensive science.
The Aztecs knew about vitamin B3, and how make it more readily available for consumption? Citation needed. I doubt they even knew some foods and preparations of foods could prevent pellagra.
Don't be dense. The Aztecs (or rather the entirety of the Americas before Columbus) knew that corn as-is was not fully edible. It had to go through a process of nixtamalization (pretty much soak the corn or corn flour in an alkaline solution.) This is no different from how other cultures have dealt with otherwise toxic food items like taro and manioc.
MesoAmerican diets were in fact quite well-rounded until the conquest. For whatever stupid reason the Conquistadors prohibited nixtamalization for a while (work of the devil or some shit). We know from records of the time (as well as bones) of levels of malnutrition that resulted from this until the locals could again do this process on their primary food source: corn.
Old cultures didn't have a modern lab. Sure, no motherfucking surprise. But they had thousands of years of Darwinian trial and error with which to notice what combinations of foods provided the best results as well as how to prepare them for best results (be them nutrition or storage.)
Just because cultures were not modern (or even literate) that does not mean they were not intelligent enough to gather knowledge from empirical observation.