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joss82

... in mice.

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Ok, we've put some mice in the title above.

...that are running the equivalent of a marathon every night.

... never mind the other potentially adverse effects of platelet activation. Like, you know, clotting.

That's the mentioned exercise.

Yes, it is. But it's quite a lot more exercise than most humans are going to engage in.

I spent a few years walking several hours a day. I was unemployed and homeless at the time.

It was very beneficial to my health, but I hesitate to "recommend" it because I know what most people will tell me: they can't spend that kind of time walking every day, even if it could potentially save their life.

you can install a treadmill under a standing desk and walk while you work.

I've tried this and for usual tasks it's fine but for tasks that require deep concentration it was inhibiting cognition

That was exactly my experience too. Programming + standing was neigh impossible.

It's incredibly distracting, I couldn't imagine trying to work on a treadmill, I can't even manage to play turn based RPGs on the treadmill on the lowest setting. The only treadmill activities that have worked for me are TV and podcasts.

I don't know how they can claim to make this comparison.

Do an image search for mouse skeleton and compare to dog skeleton.

These creatures are hyper specialised to run pretty much nonstop all day every day, as evidenced by the fact that lab mice will voluntarily run 10km when present with a mouse wheel and no prior training.

Human running is bound to be way more laborious.

The comparison is nonsense.

I agree with your broader point though.

Edit to add: My previous pup, a Border Collie x German Shorthaired Pointed, after only five introductory sessions, would voluntarily get on the treadmill we had set up for her.

There is something inherently different about these creatures. One of my pet theories of why they don't live as long is because they're brains are hardwired to make them act like they're on MDMA and amphetamine all the time.

Your suggestion that exercise is more laborious would suggest that smaller amounts of exertion would be sufficient in achieving the same effect.

Yes, that's my claim.

You might find this interesting: most mammals have a maximum number of heartbeats of about 1 billion in their life and the smaller an animal, the faster their heart beats. So the faster the heart beats, the shorter their life is. Why this is a rule, I have no idea.

Humans are an exception to this with approximately 4 billion heartbeats possible in life.

It is only mentioned in the german Wikipedia [0] but not in the english.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzfrequenz#Herzfrequenz_bei_...

Edit: citations 5 and 6 might be a good starting point to delve into this.

I’ve come across this idea before.

I wonder how active a person would have to be over a life time compared to an inactive person to run out or heart beats and die before the inactive person succumbed to the maladies of the lazy.

While the pulse goes up during training, a well-trained athletes can have normal pulse rates that are far less than of untrained persons. Down to less than 50 bpm, so I wouldn't be afraid of them running out of heart beats.

Low resting BPM plus meditation can easily drop it to 30 BPM or less, at least for short periods.

My prior reading contradicts this idea.

It's my understanding that humans, being bipedal rather than quadrupedal, are more efficient runners[0]. Quadrupeds have the advantage over short distances [like dwarves, they are natural sprinters [1]], but their metabolism is not suited to endurance running. They lack sweat glands necessary to cool their bodies over long periods of exertion as well.

There are hypotheses of early humans hunting by purely chasing down their prey during the hottest part of the day and into hyperthermia.[2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4qZrPX60bw

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting#In_humans

Is there any evidence to suggest that humans have ever preyed upon other apex predators?

I'm finding it hard to imagine humans would hunt down wild dogs / cats for food.

Additionally, if lab mice can voluntarily run 10km in an evening, doesn't that alone shoot holes in this theory? My understanding was the theory indicated humans could outrun grazing animals.

A quick search shows the Australian Kelpie can run 60km in a work day, and apparently the Australian Dingo has been know to travel 40km in a day.

Here's an article[1] about long distance runners having canine companions because their human friends couldn't keep up.

1. https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20836779/super-distan...

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