Humans Natural/Optimal Habitat

[nummi]

To clarify, I had actually stated that if there was an excess of calcium, as long as magnesium-intake was much less than the calcium-intake, there  would be a magnesium-deficiency even if the magnesium-intake had been sufficient for health.

You have said no such thing.

As for the person I mentioned, he had been on a rawpalaeodiet(low carb) for some time so must have been getting enough magnesium.

Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown.
With all your supposed experience in dieting and health, how can you still miss such fundamentals? What are you doing?

[TylerDurden]

You have said no such thing.

I had indeed said just that. I cannot help it if you became confused re the meaning.

Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown.
With all your supposed experience in dieting and health, how can you still miss such fundamentals? What are you doing?

I am always leery of hysteria or conspiracy theories  whether in the RVAF diet or elsewhere. A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted. I do agree that some foods are deficient in nutrients if they are intensively farmed but the very fact that we eat the various foods raw means that we are eating foods much higher in nutrient content than cooked foodists would be doing, generally. So, it is very unlikely that my acquaintance RVAFer had low magnesium levels, that is until he started consuming raw dairy.

[van]

It is true that often farmers will add ca. rich supplements to the soil before adding mg.   Also with many  waters, spring, well etc.,,  you can sometimes get 1000 mg. ca. in a days worth of water consumed.  Mg, in water is usually very low.      For now I tend to believe the un-scientific literature that talks about getting minerals from food (bound up organically vs. rock dust).   And tend to believe that excess ca. from food or rock sources do accumulate and in the body.    And some write about using mg. to 'flush' out deposited ca.       Ca. is pretty much in all foods.  Mg. isn't
    My food grade sources of mg. include sea weed, greens, and nuts and seeds.   Pretty hard to find good sources in meat.  Seafood is rich almost in all cases.    Maybe that's why salt was so valuable, for the amounts of mg. it has.   

[PaleoPhil]

Do you actually read through and think through the information you provide? It certainly seems you do not.

And make sure you read the full text of the studies he cites before accepting his interpretation, because the full text sometimes contradicts his interpretation, which does raise the possibility that he quickly scanned just the abstract, looking for what he wanted to see. At least he does cite studies and articles, though, which is more effort than many make.

Just because somewhere is something written does not immediately mean it is true, you also have to verify the origin of that text, and then that one and so on. Otherwise, what are you doing?

Yeah, isn't Rense.com a conspiracy/UFO site? I see it get linked to every now and then on the Internet and it's usually relating to some off-the-wall stuff like that (though that doesn't necessarily mean it's all wrong, of course). Tyler even trashed one of their articles as mindless propaganda here: http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/hot-topics/my-6-favorite-fat-lies-by-alan-graham/msg43982/#msg43982

I think there was even some strange Neo-Nazi stuff in something there someone had linked to? Or maybe I'm confusing them with another kook site? At any rate, you can tell when someone links to Rense.com that they didn't put a lot of effort into it. LOL

Beware any time someone writes assumption-tinged language like "must have been." It often means they don't have evidence to back up their claim.

My food grade sources of mg. include sea weed, greens, and nuts and seeds.   Pretty hard to find good sources in meat.  Seafood is rich almost in all cases.    Maybe that's why salt was so valuable, for the amounts of mg. it has.

Yup, and perhaps it's not mere coincidence that many LC/carnivore dieters report taking Mg supplements?

Here's an ancestral inland food that interestingly complements red meat by being rich in Mg (86.88 mg/100g) and some other nutrients that red meat and liver are relatively low in:

http://freetheanimal.com/2014/01/tigernuts-tuber-tubery.html
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://diet.es/alimento/chufa-cruda/

That same food is also high in fermentable dietary fiber, which has been found to enhance Mg absorption:

Effects of Dietary Fibers on Magnesium Absorption in Animals and Humans
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/1/1.long

And check out the wide range of its original habitat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus

Of course, I'm not trying to imply that we all have to eat that specific food, just that it's interesting how complementary it appears to be to red meat--one of the favorite types of Paleo foods.

[van]

Thanks for the links, just read throughout them.    I have always been curious when I read zero carb forums comments,, how they don't really tend to suffer, especially those who have been there some time, and really just eat cooked meat.    Yes, I do read where many only poop every several days or so.   but then that  might be 'normal' since they aren't creating miles of bacteria from carbs.   But particularly how most will go through some sort of cramping, and then it will end,, as if the body is adapting somehow and coming to some state of balance.   Charles is always quick to point out that a meat and fat diet only doesn't waste nutrients ( mentions Vit-c quite often ).     But somehow their hearts are still beating without supplementing with mg. etc.   Just pointing this out, as a curiosity.     I know you'll most likely point out the one time members who did not fair well.   Ok.   But the one's that are able to seemingly flourish makes one wonder, at least me.    And my wondering has mostly to do with possibly  how the body can create and or ration what it needs if it isn't having to deal with putting out fires in the rest of the body.   

     have you found a good source or truly raw organic chuffs?    I'd love to try them.    thanks

[PaleoPhil]

I have always been curious when I read zero carb forums comments,, how they don't really tend to suffer, especially those who have been there some time, and really just eat cooked meat.

I was too until I noticed that Charles silenced or banned anyone who reported bad results from ZC. LOL  The ZIOH forum is a lot like the 30bananasaday forum in the way that coctivore ZCers do.

Yes, I do read where many only poop every several days or so.   but then that  might be 'normal' since they aren't creating miles of bacteria from carbs.

If you check out the work of Jeff Leach, Graham Rook, Juliette C. Madan and others who study microbes, you'll discover that those bacteria are very important and it doesn't make sense to cavalierly deplete them.

Charles is always quick to point out that a meat and fat diet only doesn't waste nutrients ( mentions Vit-c quite often ).

Yes, Charles did talk about vitamin C and scurvy quite a bit and I questioned Charles face-to-face on it years ago and he didn't have a good answer. Wish I could remember the exact question. I do remember that he wasn't as knowledgeable about it as he pretended, but his devoted followers ate up what he said anyway. I didn't pursue it further to avoid stirring up a hornets nest of anger at a friendly gathering.

But somehow their hearts are still beating without supplementing with mg. etc. 

Boy, if hearts still beating is the new standard for healthy diets, then I guess they all pass muster.

have you found a good source or truly raw organic chuffs?    I'd love to try them.    thanks

I didn't care much for the two Internet sources I tried, though I didn't hate the better one (which was more raw, unsurprisingly). I was told that fresh tiger nuts are much better, but don't have access to those. I was surprised that the people I gave some tiger nuts and horchata to liked them quite a bit. They do have a bit of an almond taste I could probably get used to if they weren't also relatively expensive.  So I currently eat other tubers, roots, fruits, nuts and legumes that contain some of the same or similar stuff--not just RS, but also the other fibers you have discussed. I suspect that Jeff Leach is right that there is some benefit to diversity of foods. It's a boring heuristic, but research and anecdotal reports do appear to support it.

One of the early clues I had that all was not well in VLC-ville was when LC "experts" and devotees responded to questions about the low levels of Mg in meat-heavy diets and resulting negative symptoms with answers along the lines of "No problem, just supplement with magnesium." WTF? It reminded me of the vegans who said that B12 deficiency is not a problem with vegan diets because all you have to do is supplement by injecting B12 into yourself with a needle. 

[nummi]

I had indeed said just that.

You indeed did not. But either way, completely irrelevant because that was not the aspect of your post I was referring to.
Why are you going around the issue? Are you aware that you are going around the issue, ignoring it completely? Are you doing it on purpose? How about you "mature up" and start acting like an "adult" should?

I cannot help it if you became confused re the meaning. I am always leery of hysteria or conspiracy theories  whether in the RVAF diet or elsewhere. A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted. I do agree that some foods are deficient in nutrients if they are intensively farmed but the very fact that we eat the various foods raw means that we are eating foods much higher in nutrient content than cooked foodists would be doing, generally. So, it is very unlikely that my acquaintance RVAFer had low magnesium levels, that is until he started consuming raw dairy.

Why are you using the typical "troll tactics" here? By the way, this isn't the first time I've noticed you do this, in fact I noticed you're doing this about ten months ago. And you haven't changed. The funny thing is that genuine persons, individuals, they actually learn and grow from mistakes they make but you persistently are not admitting and accepting the mistakes you make and instead you take a defensive position and attack that which proves you are wrong and persistently try to go around the issue, instead of correcting yourself as you should be doing. Genuine people learn and change, you don't seem to exhibit such qualities.
Why are you doing this? Are you aware you are doing this?

"Conspiracy theory"? Not conspiracy theory, but merely a theory or a suggestion, and yes some are wrong, and also there is deliberate misinformation (oddly very similar to the kind you are spewing here...).
Just because something is branded as a "conspiracy theory" does not immediately, without any investigation or analysis or reasoning into it, mean it is not true or is true. Just as with any information, you have to verify it. If you don't even consider the possibility that some "conspiracy theories" might be true, then you are severely missing out on actual reality, because many of them actually are true. If you write them off as impossible and nonsense before even looking into them, then you can never know whether they are true or not, which makes you saying "they are not true" what exactly?

"A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted." Oh wow... generalization evidently without actually thinking over what you just wrote.

Why are you bringing in cooked foods in comparison to raw? Why are you again trying to go around the issue? This here was never about cooked foods! I will simply repost the part you completely ignored, as obviously it refuted your nonsense as you are trying to go around it, trying to ignore the issue: "Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown."

I will say it again. Just because someone eats a specific diet, does not immediately mean the person gets all the nutrients he/she needs. Just because someone eats raw and low carb, does not immediatelly mean the person gets enough magnesium.

Obviously you do not care not one tiniest bit about honesty nor veracity. As when it is shown that you are wrong you simply try to go around the issue of you being wrong, ignoring your own mistakes completely and bringing in irrelevant points as if that was what was discussed.
What are you doing here?

The entire time I've been here I have not noticed you change not one bit, but I have noticed others change, and myself change. People learn, people change, people grow. So why are you not? Are you aware you are not? Are you aware not changing is a problem?

It is obvious you do not care about anything but spewing nonsense and misinformation and irrelevant points. So I'm just gonna leave it at this.

[TylerDurden]

Well, that was the biggest amount of b*llsh*t I have read in a long time, all emotions and zero backable facts.

I will correct the very few actual claims made:-

1) I did not troll, I simply quoted anecdotal evidence and used a bit of common-sense, which you dismissed without providing any genuine evidence to back up your claims. Indeed, you appear to be trolling.
2) I, ages ago,  checked into this  soil-depletion theory and the more extreme proponents of this theory go haywire and claim that all, absolutely ALL, soils on this planet are mineral-deficient and therefore need lots of artificial adding of minerals before the soils can be said to be sufficiently  full of all the right nutrients. This is obviously not true as there are plenty of pieces of land which are not touched by humans which clearly have all the right nutrients(that is, unless the craziest soil-depletion advocates are trying to claim that soils in palaeo times were also deficient in nutrients, which is truly crazy).

I used to be 100% against this soil-depletion theory but have come to accept that it is accurate as regards intensive farming, hardly a sign of unchanging attitudes. Obviously, overfarming land will have consequences. I just am reluctant  to be paranoid and assume, like you, that the problem exists absolutely everywhere.

3) Why am I bringing in  cooked foods in comparison to raw? Very simple, really. The vast majority of the soil-depletion advocates are talking about nutrient-poor foods from the context of cooked foods. Since raw foods have a much higher nutrient content(including magnesium) than  cooked foods, it is obvious that a raw foodists' intake of magnesium will be much higher than in the case of a cooked foodist.

[eveheart]

I used to be 100% against this soil-depletion theory but have come to accept that it is accurate as regards intensive farming, hardly a sign of unchanging attitudes. Obviously, overfarming land will have consequences. I just am reluctant  to be paranoid and assume, like you, that the problem exists absolutely everywhere.

The first soil-depletion studies in the US occurred in the 1930s, I think in connection with the Dust Bowl, in which intensive farming and high winds led to severe erosion in intensively-farmed agricultural land.

Mineral concentrations also have natural variations. For example, they say that Brazil nuts from Brazil are high in selenium, but the same cultivar grown elsewhere won't have the same high amounts of that mineral due to normal soil variation.

[nummi]

Tyler, it is a very sad thing that you actually believe your own nonsense. You obviously lack self-awareness, and awareness in general to a significant degree. Sad, very sad.
Neither are you consciously in control of yourself, as is obvious. The outbursts are the evidence of this.
You as well are incapable of understanding what others are saying and suggesting with their posts, as you are also misinterpreting what I have said. Thus you make conclusions of me that simply are not true at all. Evidence is in your posts.

Emotions? Oh really? Care to compare your own posts to my "emotional" posts? Why are you lying here like this? Are you even aware you are lying? Stupid to ask really... of course you are not aware.

I addressed something I noticed, I brought it out, something obvious and fundamentally logical that you missed. And what did you do? Completely, 100% ignored it and "straw manned" and still do.

I've been on forums and argued quite a bit. I know a troll when I see one. I know how a troll conducts and behaves - exactly like you do. "Textbook trolling" is what you do. Now you might not be aware of it but you are doing it.

I've said quite enough to you. But you cannot understand... so to you it's all empty words.

[TylerDurden]

Tyler, it is a very sad thing that you actually believe your own nonsense. You obviously lack self-awareness, and awareness in general to a significant degree. Sad, very sad.
Neither are you consciously in control of yourself, as is obvious. The outbursts are the evidence of this.
You as well are incapable of understanding what others are saying and suggesting with their posts, as you are also misinterpreting what I have said. Thus you make conclusions of me that simply are not true at all. Evidence is in your posts.

Emotions? Oh really? Care to compare your own posts to my "emotional" posts? Why are you lying here like this? Are you even aware you are lying? Stupid to ask really... of course you are not aware.

I addressed something I noticed, I brought it out, something obvious and fundamentally logical that you missed. And what did you do? Completely, 100% ignored it and "straw manned" and still do.

I've been on forums and argued quite a bit. I know a troll when I see one. I know how a troll conducts and behaves - exactly like you do. "Textbook trolling" is what you do. Now you might not be aware of it but you are doing it.

I've said quite enough to you. But you cannot understand... so to you it's all empty words.

Well, so far in your post(s) you have merely spouted rubbish without backing  it up with evidence. Err, as regards "lying", this is rather stupid. I mean in order to lie one has to be aware of it to do so. Never mind, perhaps English is not your strong point.

I am also highly amused by your post since it is YOu who is behaving like a troll. I , at least, provided some data to back up my claims.

[nummi]

Well, so far in your post(s) you have merely spouted rubbish without backing  it up with evidence. Err, as regards "lying", this is rather stupid. I mean in order to lie one has to be aware of it to do so. Never mind, perhaps English is not your strong point.

I am also highly amused by your post since it is YOu who is behaving like a troll. I , at least, provided some data to back up my claims.

Good luck finding reality, and yourself.

[eveheart]

Here's an article about early people in the high Andes: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/us-science-andes-idUSKCN0IC26U20141023

What I really found interesting was a comment posted on Yahoo's news feed:

I wonder if they were avoiding insects. In some parts of the world today, the far north of Scotland for instance, anything alive that can make the trip, heads up into the hills around dusk because the biting insects come out at lower elevations. It looks like a black smoke whisping up from the ground in the distance. Countless insects. Anything in their path will find themselves in distress very quickly.

Insects and insect-borne diseases played such a large role in global circumnavigation, slavery, and colonization in the last 600 years, so I can easily buy in to the idea that perhaps insect-avoidance played a role in where prehistoric people chose to live.

[goodsamaritan]

I would agree with insect avoidance as another factor.
See how the Europeans could NOT migrate to equatorial Africa because of Malaria.

[JeuneKoq]

GS, are you sure Europeans are less resistant to malaria than people native to these equatorial regions?
I will look into this, but it doesn't seem totally right...

To begin with French Wikipedia says malaria was present in Northern Europe till the Nineteenth century, when most humid zones and swamps were dried out. That's only two centuries ago, so Europeans must still be at least partly "adapted" to the parasite.

 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paludisme#Europe (For those who read french)

BTW, I heard that malaria disease was able to develop and spread so vastly because of Neolithic man-made humid zones (plant cultures, cutting down forests, water reservoirs...) and other factors linked to Neolithic lifestyle, such as human settlement. Insect-born diseases probably has had a much greater influence on humanity since the beginning of the Neolithic age, than it might've had in prehistorical times.

[Iguana]

Absolutely true:

Diseases at the Dawn of Western Civilization
(excerpts) by Mirko D. Grmek, published by Payot, p. 125-126
“Spondylitis is indisputably the disease paleontologists most commonly diagnose. In the vast majority of cases, talking of actual disease is mistaken, in view of the fact that documented changes in bone structure cause no major functional disorder. Paleopathological bony processes due to rheumatism were first diagnosed in pre-historic bears. Initially, the cold and dampness of caves were thought to be causative factors. This appeared borne out by a description of like lesions on the vertebrae of Neanderthalian skeletons (...). However, evidence piled up, corroborating that the disease was also common in Neolithic European population groups who were fairly well sheltered from what the weather could throw at them. This especially holds true for the inhabitants of Pharaonistic, Hellenistic, and Roman Egypt. (...) Acknowledgedly then, spondylitis was neither climate- nor germ-bound.
Note: Do not confuse spondylitis with ankylosing spondylitis, which is a serious spinal disease (that joins the vertebrae, completely stiffens the bottom of the spine, causes pain, and so on) of the modern age. Switching to an uncooked diet appears to prevent the condition from getting worse and may even possibly improve it. It will, therefore, come as no surprise that our prehistoric forbears were not prone to ankylosing spondylitis.
pp. 208, 209, 212, 228, 229, 230, 263, 400, 404.
Venereal syphilis, endemic syphilis, and yaws cause bone lesions that often unfailingly warrant diagnosing treponematosis (...).
No bone remains pre_dating 1,500 CE and showing incontrovertible signs of treponemal infection have been found in Europe, Africa, or Asia (...). The Ancient Greek World was free of any kind of syphilis or treponematosis.
Leprosy made its lasting mark on bone remains (...). In France, out of 1,000 skeletons examined that covered the period ranging from the Neolithic Age to the year 1,000, only a single skull and which dated back to the sixth century, was found to bear leprous stigmata.
It is worth noting that there is no trace of leprosy on human remains of the pharaonic period in Egypt (...). Out of some 20,000 samples (...) from three different countries, leprous stigmata were detected on eight individuals who lived before the year 1,000 (...). All those cases date back to a surprisingly recent period, i.e. the sixth century C.E.
Likewise, no TB suspect lesion was detected on human Paleolithic bones (...), the oldest TB-ridden samples dating back to 3,000 B.C. The falciparum type of malarial fever correlates with porous hyperostosis. In the Greek World, porous hyperostosis definitely appears in the Mesolithic Period, reaching a high point beginning with the Neolithic Period.
If malaria was a time-old feature, it didn’t necessarily erupt in every period with the same intensity. Admittedly though, in prehistoric times, its radius of effect was rather restricted. But, subsequently, definite factors presumably caused endemic bursts. This extended the area infiltrated and worsened the clinical outlook (...). Starting at the end of the fifth century B.C., malaria became a standard Greek disease.”

[eveheart]

GS, are you sure Europeans are less resistant to malaria than people native to these equatorial regions?
I will look into this, but it doesn't seem totally right...

It was said that lack of prior exposure to malaria, therefore lack of malaria antibodies led to higher mortality rates for Europeans when they were first exposed to such tropical diseases. In the western hemisphere, the good tobacco/sugar cane/cotton growing regions were also the malaria zones. European plantation owners could have easily gotten impoverished Europeans to work as slave labor, but the life expectancy of a non-malaria exposed European was often less than one year in the New World, so pre-exposed peoples from tropical and sub-tropical regions were used instead.

This is a strongly-supported theory, In those days, diseases and disease vectors were not well understood, so many reports from that time did not name diseases so much as they named symptoms, such as "he started trembling and shaking, and his skin was dry and hot" might be used to describe malaria.

[TylerDurden]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm

This explains why Africans have developed greater resistance to malaria compared to Europeans.

[JeuneKoq]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm

This explains why Africans have developed greater resistance to malaria compared to Europeans.

I've heard about this.

However it doesn't look like such a "healthy" defensive adaptation against the malaria parasite, IMO. The life expectancy of people with this special blood condition being significantly lower than average...

Is there any other way to protect oneself against the negative outcome of being host to the malaria parasite? As in getting the body to manage it's excessive proliferation, through diet? How do wild animals "manage" it?

If I remember correctly, some instinctos experimented with this, but it didn't end well for them, am I right?

[Iguana]

I lived and traveled in the tropics quite some years altogether and never got any tropical disease, even when I was still eating cooked food. I’ve just always avoided the places known as being very much infested with malaria, such as Halmahera in Indonesia. A raw diet doesn’t make you immune to malaria: as a matter of fact its’s about the only disease which doesn’t heal with instinctotherapy.  Take the proper medicine in case you get it: chloroquin should be ok if it’s malaria vivax, but if by bad luck you get the deadly falciparum, stronger and more specific drugs are absolutely necessary. But I would never take anything preventively, it’s stupid and all the tourists taking drugs uselessly make the plasmodium more and more resistant. 

From this thread, which is very similar to this one: 
Please vote: Are we meant to live in the tropics?
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334

[TylerDurden]

The point is that if they carry only one sickle cell gene they are fine but well-protected specifically  against malaria. They only have problems, I think, if they have two sets of sickle cell genes.Same goes for Caucasians as regards tuberculosis.

[JeuneKoq]

From this thread, which is very similar to this one: 
Please vote: Are we meant to live in the tropics?
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334

Wow, you guys had the exact same discussion back in 2011  .

The point is that if they carry only one sickle cell gene they are fine but well-protected specifically  against malaria. They only have problems, I think, if they have two sets of sickle cell genes.

Yep, that's what the study says:

"Only those individual that inherit two copies of the sickle mutation (one from their mother and the other from their father) develop sickle cell anemia. If untreated, these individuals have a shorter than normal life expectancy and as such it would be expected that this mutation would be rare in human populations."

"Individuals carrying just one copy of the sickle mutation (inherited from either the father or mother) were known not to develop sickle cell anemia, leading rather normal lives. However, it was found that these same individuals, said to carry the sickle cell trait, were in fact highly protected against malaria, thus explaining the high prevalence of this mutation in geographical areas where malaria is endemic"


I wonder however if this sickle mutation can be potentially unhealthy in other situations, even if the individual only has one copy of it. Regarding good transportation of oxygen by the blood cells and whatnot.

[Iguana]

Wow, you guys had the exact same discussion back in 2011  .

You see why I get fed up, sometimes... 

[JeuneKoq]

You see why I get fed up, sometimes... 

Absolutely 

[eveheart]

There are two different issues here: acquired immunity and genetic immunity. The mention in this thread about insect avoidance is about acquired immunity. The old discussion had more of a basis in genetic immunity. If one has genetic immunity to insect bites, for example, there would be no need to avoid biting insects because the body would not react to the bite. If one has acquired immunity to some pathogen in an insect bite, that means that one (or one's mother) has been bitten by the insect before, gotten sick, developed antigens, and recovered. And (of course) it's not that simple!