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- Humans must maintain a tight balance of water gain and loss each day to stay alive.
- The evolution of water balance mechanism in humans is poorly understood.
- There are no comparative measures from other hominoids regarding water balance physiology.
- Humans drink water daily to maintain the balance.
- In contrast, rainforest great apes typically get adequate water from their food.
- Rainforest great apes can survive days or weeks without drinking water.
- Researchers compare measures of water turnover in apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) with 5 diverse human populations.
- Across all samples, water turnover is highly correlated with energy usage, physical activity, climate, and fat free mass.
- Human water turnover is 30 to 50 percent lower than other apes despite human’s greater ability to sweat.
- Zoo and sanctuary apes had similar water turnover with the wild populations as well as the ratio of water intake to dietary energy intake.
- However, zoo and sanctuary apes took a higher ratio of water to dry matter of food which might lead to digestive issues in captivity.
- Humans appear to target a lower ratio of water to energy intake.
- Researchers speculate that water stress due to changes in climate, diet, and behavior led to previously unknown water conservation adaptations in hominin physiology.
Source:
Pontzer, H., Brown, M. H., Wood, B. M., Raichlen, D. A., Mabulla, A. Z. P., Harris, J. A., Dunsworth, H., Hare, B., Walker, K., Luke, A., Dugas, L. R., Schoeller, D., Plange-Rhule, J., Bovet, P., Forrester, T. E., Thompson, M. E., Shumaker, R. W., Rothman, J. M., Vogel, E., Sulistyo, F., … Ross, S. R. (2021). Evolution of water conservation in humans. Current biology : CB, 31(8), 1804–1810.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.02.045
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The Chromoscience uses AI-assisted tools to support the preparation and editing of science articles. Content is reviewed by the editor for clarity and consistency with the cited research before publication. Readers are encouraged to consult the original scientific publications for complete findings, methods, and limitations.
