Dr. Melissa Ilardo

So yeah, diet as a driver of selection is extremely strong.

So it may be that this has been shaping our species in ways that we don't even know.

Yeah, so we found two different adaptations. And I say adaptation, but there's kind of adaptation in a physiological sense, this thing that you can do by training, or adaptation in a genetic sense. And we have found one of each. So the training adaptation that we found was that I mentioned before that when you dive, your heart rate slows down to try to conserve oxygen.

Yeah, so we found two different adaptations.

Yeah, so we found two different adaptations. And I say adaptation, but there's kind of adaptation in a physiological sense, this thing that you can do by training, or adaptation in a genetic sense. And we have found one of each. So the training adaptation that we found was that I mentioned before that when you dive, your heart rate slows down to try to conserve oxygen.

Yeah, so we found two different adaptations. And I say adaptation, but there's kind of adaptation in a physiological sense, this thing that you can do by training, or adaptation in a genetic sense. And we have found one of each. So the training adaptation that we found was that I mentioned before that when you dive, your heart rate slows down to try to conserve oxygen.

And I say adaptation, but there's kind of adaptation in a physiological sense, this thing that you can do by training, or adaptation in a genetic sense.

And we have found one of each.

So the training adaptation that we found was that I mentioned before that when you dive, your heart rate slows down to try to conserve oxygen.

So their heart rate through a lifetime of training slows down even more. So we could actually – you could visually see this when they were doing these dives – Watching their heart rate, you could just see it plummeting. We had one individual whose heart rate dropped more than 40 beats per minute in less than 15 seconds. Yikes. So really dramatic.

So their heart rate through a lifetime of training slows down even more. So we could actually – you could visually see this when they were doing these dives – Watching their heart rate, you could just see it plummeting. We had one individual whose heart rate dropped more than 40 beats per minute in less than 15 seconds. Yikes. So really dramatic.

So their heart rate through a lifetime of training slows down even more. So we could actually – you could visually see this when they were doing these dives – Watching their heart rate, you could just see it plummeting. We had one individual whose heart rate dropped more than 40 beats per minute in less than 15 seconds. Yikes. So really dramatic.

So their heart rate through a lifetime of training slows down even more.

So we could actually – you could visually see this when they were doing these dives –

Watching their heart rate, you could just see it plummeting.

We had one individual whose heart rate dropped more than 40 beats per minute in less than 15 seconds.

Yikes.

So really dramatic.

And the reason that we think that that's a training adaptation rather than a genetic adaptation was that it was only true in the divers.

And the reason that we think that that's a training adaptation rather than a genetic adaptation was that it was only true in the divers. So non-divers with the same genetics... didn't have this phenomenon. So that was, I mean, that has, you know, it's interesting to think about how, what the potential health benefits of that could be. I mean, it's clearly something that you can train.