Eating Carbs Helped Humans Develop Big Brains
Tubers like potatoes would have been an accessible form of carbohydrates for early humans Agricultural Research Service via Wikimedia Commons Humans are physically different from other apes in some important ways—including the fact that humans have much bigger brains, which use about a quarter of the calories we consume. But figuring out the diet that facilitated our big, energetically expensive brains hasn’t been easy. Using the findings of several recent studies in this field, an international team of researchers has put forth a theory: By adding starchy foods to their diets, early humans gave themselves the energy boost needed to support larger brains. The study is published in the Quarterly Review of Biology. In human saliva, the enzyme amylase helps to break down starches. Compared to our primate relatives, who mostly munch on...