Department of Anthropology, University of Utah , Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Department of Anthropology, UW-Milwaukee , Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2024 Aug;291(2029):20240110. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0110. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
Despite agreement that humans have evolved to be unusually fat primates, adipose patterning among hunter-gatherers has received little empirical consideration. Here we consider the development of adiposity among four contemporary groups of hunter-gatherers, the Aka, Savanna Pumé, Ju'/Hoansi and Agta using multi-level generalized additive mixed modelling to characterize the growth of tricep skinfolds from early childhood through adolescence. In contrast to references, hunter-gatherers show several consistent patterns: (i) children are lean with little fat accumulation; (ii) no adiposity rebound at 5 years is evident; (iii) girls on average have built 90% of their body size, and reach menarche when adiposity is at its maximum velocity; and (iv) a metabolic trade-off is evident in young, but not older children, such that both boys and girls prioritize skeletal growth during middle childhood, a trade-off that diminishes during adolescence when height velocity increases in pace with fat accumulation. Consistent results across hunter-gatherers living in diverse environments suggest that these patterns reflect a general forager pattern of development. The findings provide a valuable baseline for adipose development not apparent from reference populations. We emphasize both generalized trends among hunter-gatherers, and that inter-populational differences point to the plasticity with which humans organize growth and development.
尽管人们普遍认为人类已经进化成异常肥胖的灵长类动物，但狩猎采集者的脂肪分布模式却很少受到实证研究的关注。在这里，我们使用多层次广义加性混合模型来描述来自四个当代狩猎采集者群体（阿卡人、萨凡纳普梅人、朱/霍安西部落和阿塔人）的三头肌皮褶从儿童早期到青春期的生长情况，以此来研究脂肪的积累。与参考资料相比，狩猎采集者表现出了几种一致的模式：（i）儿童消瘦，脂肪积累很少；（ii）5 岁时没有明显的脂肪反弹；（iii）女孩平均已经构建了 90%的身体大小，并且在脂肪积累达到最快速度时进入初潮；（iv）在年轻的孩子中可以看出代谢上的权衡，而在年长的孩子中则不然，即男孩和女孩在童年中期都优先考虑骨骼生长，这种权衡在青春期身高增长速度与脂肪积累同步增加时会减弱。生活在不同环境中的狩猎采集者的一致结果表明，这些模式反映了一种普遍的觅食者发育模式。这些发现为脂肪发育提供了一个有价值的基线，而这在参考人群中是不明显的。我们强调了狩猎采集者的普遍趋势，以及人口间的差异表明了人类在组织生长和发育方面的可塑性。
