Hunter-gatherer diet

Dietary pattern has been modified throughout the human evolution. The origin composition of a hunter-gathered diet with a lower intake of total fats has been altered by a higher intake of total lipids with a high representation of saturated and trans-FAs, which are detrimental for health. Contemporary Western human diet is noted for a low content of a-3 EFAs that results in an imbalance of 0)-3 and (B-6 EFAs and in a progress of various pathophysiologies. 

Cordain, L., Eaton, S. B., Brand Miller, J., Mann, N., and Hill, K. (2002). The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets Meat-based, yet non-atherogenic. Eur.. Clin. Nutr. 56, 542-552. 

Saturated Fat in Historically Studied Hunter-Gatherer Diets.120... 

Quantitatively Determined Proportions of Plant and Animal Food in Hunter-Gatherer Diets... 

Using the same model we developed for estimating the macronutrient content in hunter-gatherer diets,it is possible to estimate the dietary saturated fat content, provided saturated fat values in the plant and animal food databases are known. Similar to our previous model, a range of plant-to-animal subsistence ratios are utilized to estimate the most likely range for dietary saturated fat. 

Characteristic Hunter-Gatherer Diet and Lifestyle Western Diet and Lifestyle... 

Humans have not had time to evolve a toxic harmony with all of their dietary plants. The human diethas changed markedly in the last few thousand years. Indeed, very few of the plants that humans eat today, such as coffee, cocoa, tea, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, avocados, mangoes, olives, and kiwi fruit, would have been present in a hunter-gatherer s diet. Natural selection works far too slowly for humans to have evolved specific resistance to the food toxins in these newly introduced plants. 

Table 1 Characteristics of Hunter—Gatherer and Western Diet and Lifestyles ...

Western diets typically contain low levels of n-3 PUFAs (Simopoulos, Leaf, Salem, 2000). Furthermore, relative to the diet of early man, today s diet is not only higher in saturated fats but has an altered ratio of the two major groups of PUFAs. Modern-day humans are, most probably, descendants of coastal-dwelling hunter-gatherers, with a primary diet of fish, shellfish, and plant matter. This omnivorous, and opportunistic, diet was varied and most probably low in saturated fat. The ratio of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids during the early part of human evolution was close to 1, whereas, today, the ratio is 10 1 or more (Eaton, Eaton, Sinclair, Cordain, Mann, 1998 Simopoulos, 1998). Arecent study in Australia (Sinclair, unpublished) indicates that DHA intake is 0.1 % of fat intake, or about 100 mg/d. The recommended intake is 0.5-1% (Simopoulos et al., 2000). Furthermore, recent data from our group (Sinclair, unpubUshed) has shown that reduced DHA levels in neural tissue occur in animals that are maintained on high saturated fat diets similar to that of a Western diet. 

Question How important was seafood in the diet of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Denmark 6,000 years ago Did diet change with the introduction of agriculture ... 

A common view of antagonistic pleiotropy is that our genes are out of step with our lifestyle. We spent half a million years evolving as hunter-gatherers. Restless wandering was combined with an ability to subsist on a meagre diet for weeks or months at a time. Then, a few thousand years... 

Eaton, S.B., Konner, M., and Shostak, M., Stone agers in the fast lane chronic degenerative diseases in evolutionary perspective. Am. J. Med., 84, 739, 1988. Eaton, S.B., Eaton, S.B., 111., and Konner, M.J., Paleolithic nutrition revisited a twelve-year retrospective on its nature and implications, Eur. J. Clin. Nutr, 51, 207, 1997. O Keefe, J.H., Jr. and Cordain, L., Cardiovascular disease resulting from a diet and lifestyle at odds with our Paleolithic genome how to become a 21st-century hunter-gatherer, Mayo Clin. Proc., 19, 101, 2004. 

Frassetto LA, Schloetter M, Mietus-Synder M, Morris Jr RC, Sebastian A. Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter—gatherer type diet. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 63 947-955. 

Truswell AS (1977) Diet and nutrition of hunter gatherers. Ciba Foundation Symposium, 213-221. 

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