Contributor: Rich Butler, MS, USPTA
To learn more about Rich, click here.
“It (Industrial Revolution) changed what we eat, how we chew, how we work and how we walk and run, as well as how we keep cool and warm, give birth, get sick, mature, reproduce, and socialize. Many of these changes have been beneficial, but some have had negative effects on the human body, which has yet to evolve to cope with this new environment.” ~ Paleoanthropologist professor and author Daniel E. Lieberman, The Story of the Human Body
Watching Wimbledon this summer brought back the incredible memories of my childhood. Tennis changed my life, and Atul was at the center of it all. Atul was my tennis rival and my best friend. For the 40 years I knew Atul, we were more different than alike. I loved McEnroe, and he loved Lendl. I borrowed racquets while he had the new expensive ones. I played doubles; he played singles. Sadly, while I continue to be free of illness, Atul had his first heart attack at age 38, then died of cancer 9 years later at age 47.
Atul’s parents were from India. His father pursued dentistry, and, after serving as a dentist in the Army, they settled in the Catskill Mountains of NY. That is where I met him. The smell of spices as soon as you walked in the house, the reverence to various Hindu leaders on the walls, and the Bhatt family traditions were all there. But there were also the Nike sneakers, the big Buick in the driveway, and the bag of Chips Ahoy. Atul’s genes were not prepared for a ‘Westernized’ world. A mismatch was born.
The mismatch hypothesis centers around the idea that many of the features of the human body were adaptive to the environment of the time but have become maladaptive to the environment we are in now. Not surprisingly, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers are non-existent in tribes of hunters and gatherers in Africa, yet they are the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. Atul was likely partially a victim of living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Humans around the world come in different shapes and sizes. Those sizes and shapes lead to different amounts of lean mass, bone density, and fat mass. They also lead to differences in heart strength, lung size, calorie output, and VO2 (shows how much oxygen uptake is used when you're doing intense exercise). All of these lead to strength, stamina, and musculoskeletal differences. Lifestyle habits, dietary plans, and fitness goals need to be tailored to recognize those differences, especially in a country like the U.S. where the diversity in the population continues to rise.
I can’t claim Atul would not have developed coronary artery disease if he had grown up in India, but the epidemiological evidence supports the idea that here in the U.S. the likelihood of an ‘evolutionary mismatch’ is clearly rising at rates rarely seen in other countries. And for certain immigrants this mismatch is unrelenting and fatal.
Atul has two sons that now join in the slow and inevitable march of human evolution with the hope their adaptations lead to some sweeter Breakfasts at Wimbledon.
Contact Rich: [email protected]
Reference
Lieberman, D. E. (2014). The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease. Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, LLC