A "Paleolithic" Diet to Fight the "Diseases of Civilization?"

[maikeru]

Ever since I worked in a lab years ago on cancer and experimenting with plant-derived antioxidants and other things, I've always wondered how much the diseases we take for granted as "inevitable," like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, dimming vision, dementia or other mental diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc. are avoidable. This interest has grown into an increasingly deeper and more fascinating discovery of nutrition and health over the years.

 

Anyway, years ago my mother told me that before she immigrated to America from Asia, that many of these diseases like Alzheimer's, obesity, and heart disease are relatively uncommon in many Asian countries (or at least they were shortly after WW2 until the '70s, when she arrived in the USA). It has often been noted in the press and publications that certain groups of Asians such as the Japanese and Okinawans often live longer and healthier than many other groups. The Okinawans in particular are renowned for exceptional longevity.

 

The Okinawa Centenarian Study: health, diet & aging research

 

Likewise, I've been doing some reading recently into something called the "Paleolithic diet," which is supposedly based on what Paleolithic humans and historical and present-day hunter-gatherers would be able to eat. A quick summary of the diet is that it places high emphasis on vegetables, fruits, root vegetables, nuts, eggs, lean meats and seafood, and certain kinds of healthy fats and oils. What it does often exclude is grains, sometimes legumes, dairy products, and of course most processed foods. Here's a more detailed description for the willing:

 

The modern dietary regimen known as the Paleolithic diet (abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet), also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various human species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic—a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. In common usage, such terms as the "Paleolithic diet" also refer to the actual ancestral human diet.[1][2] Centered around commonly available modern foods, the "contemporary" Paleolithic diet consists mainly of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts; and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.

 

Paleolithic diet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Caveman diet, yeah, I like that. :phones: In many respects, it seems similar to an East Asian or Mediterranean diet, with the exception of dairy and grains. These diets are also characterized by an abundance of plant-based foods. Eating as much rice and wheat as I do, I'm apparently not caveman enough... But some of the dietary practices like eating seafood, nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and peanuts), and lean meats I do. I've read often in the news that nuts are beneficial, and from my own experience, they seem to keep one feeling fuller and energetic longer, so I often include a "nut medley" as part of my breakfast.

 

The article on Wiki also notes that many of the "diseases of civilization" as I mentioned above don't appear to be common in many or most hunter-gatherer peoples or our "prehistoric" ancestors. I don't have these books on hand, but I used to read histories of some of the Native American groups, Mayans, Aztecs, and Inca and noted with interest that archaeologists mentioned that in the case of the Mayans or other settled farmer/agricultural peoples, skeletons often showed signs of malnutrition, dental caries, higher rates of some kinds of diseases (bacterial infections, for example), poorer healing in response to injuries like broken bones or war wounds, and that people may have died at earlier ages, whether they were children, pregnant women, or more elderly people. Of course much of the time they discovered these were due to famines or wars, but not always. Even during times of apparent plenty and wealth, many common people still appeared to suffer some malnutrition or poor health due to dietary problems. And for example, I was surprised to discover that the Native Americans of the Plains here in the US were supposedly taller, healthier, and more robust than European Americans who were fighting with them over land...

 

Standing Tall: Plains Indians Enjoyed Height, Health Advantage

 

Without a doubt, we know that nutrition, health, and disease are all connected intimately.

 

What I want to ask is how much evidence do you think there is for something like a "Paleolithic" diet or "hunter-gatherer" one being beneficial enough to suggest its widespread adoption and use to fight and prevent these types of diseases? Are we still that much connected to the past though we live in the present?

 

I'm thinking about this as I read the general science news, note that scientists find another veggie or fruit fights cancer, prevents Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, or slows aging. I'm thinking about it as I read reports on DNA studies of modern and prehistoric humans, such as some of those that have been done on Neanderthals and humans that might've lived 20-50K years ago. And also that humans appear to be more prone to cancer than other animals, more so than our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Why?

 

Cancer In Humans: Cost Of Being Smarter Than Chimps?