When Gail and I visited Pompeii in December 2007, I had an urgent need to pee about every hour. But when we visited the forest in Borneo in April 2008, I was comfortable without a pee stop from 7.30 am to 6pm each day. A new book suggests why.
On the night we arrived in Sorrento, there was some rain and in the morning Vesuvius had a snow cap. We visited Pompeii that cold and damp day. Despite drinking little, I needed to urinate frequently and the pressure was strong. There is only one toilet, at the cafeteria, and Pompeii is spread over a big area. When we were at the amphitheatre, a long way from the cafeteria, I had to relieve myself behind a tree.
By contrast, in warm steamy Borneo, I did not need to pee for 10 hours despite drinking several litres of water.
I put the latter down to the large amount of sweat I lost but could not explain the former.
Until I read Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince (HarperCollins 2007).
It seems that, along with shivering, urination is a way to deal with the cold – reducing the water content of the body lowers the temperature at which the body freezes. Diabetes (type 1) also helps reduce the temperature at which blood freezes – by increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. The high proportion of Europeans with diabetes is likely to be a result of survival of the fittest during the last ice age.
Moalem also has a hypothesis to do with hemochromatosis and survival of the fittest during another major challenge to humanity.
This is a fascinating book which suggests some innovative ways of dealing with diseases such as malaria.
By the way, he notes that ice cores show that the planet moved from a temperate climate to an ice age in only 10 years – so I am glad that I have a way of maximizing my chances of survival.