Epidemiological, migration, intervention, and genetic studies in humans and animals provide very strong evidence of a causal link between high salt intake and high blood pressure. The mechanisms by which dietary salt increases arterial pressure are not fully understood, but they seem related to the inability of the kidneys to excrete large amounts of salt. From an evolutionary viewpoint, the human species is adapted to ingest and excrete <1 g of salt per day, at least 10 times less than the average values currently observed in industrialized and urbanized countries. Independent of the rise in blood pressure, dietary salt also increases cardiac left ventricular mass, arterial thickness and stiffness, the incidence of strokes, and the severity of cardiac failure. Thus chronic exposure to a high-salt diet appears to be a major factor involved in the frequent occurrence of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases in human populations.

Links between dietary salt intake, renal salt handling, blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases.

Magnesium: nutrition and metabolism.

https://www.drtsoukalas.com/uploads/file/SODIUM%20INTAKE%20HYPERTENSION%20FINLAND.pdf

Sodium intake and hypertension.

New discoveries reveal how crucial interactions which determine our destiny occur before birth, when our genes interact with their environment as the embryo and fetus develop. These processes - in the matrix of the womb - are evolutionary echoes of mechanisms which allowed our hunter-gatherer ancestors to survive. These exciting insights into predictive adaptive responses suggest new ways of protecting the health of the fetus, infant and adult. If inappropriate they can trigger obesity, diabetes and heart disease, formerly thought to result solely from adult lifestyle. The new concepts in this book are crucial to understanding the daunting public health burden in societies undergoing rapid transition from poverty to affluence. They add an important new dimension to evolutionary theory. Synthesising developmental biology, evolutionary history, medical science, public health and social policy, this is a ground-breaking and fascinating account by two of the world's leading pioneers in this important emerging field.

https://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/21/21302/21302478_vorw_1.pdf

The Fetal Matrix: Evolution, Development and Disease

Objective: Field studies of twentieth century hunter-gathers (HG) showed them to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Consequently, the characterization of HG diets may have important implications in designing therapeutic diets that reduce the risk for CVD in Westernized societies. Based upon limited ethnographic data (n ¼ 58 HG societies) and a single quantitative dietary study, it has been commonly inferred that gathered plant foods provided the dominant energy source in HG diets. Method and Results: In this review we have analyzed the 13 known quantitative dietary studies of HG and demonstrate that animal food actually provided the dominant (65%) energy source, while gathered plant foods comprised the remainder (35%). This data is consistent with a more recent, comprehensive review of the entire ethnographic data (n ¼ 229 HG societies) that showed the mean subsistence dependence upon gathered plant foods was 32%, whereas it was 68% for animal foods. Other evidence, including isotopic analyses of Paleolithic hominid collagen tissue, reductions in hominid gut size, low activity levels of certain enzymes, and optimal foraging data all point toward a long history of meat-based diets in our species. Because increasing meat consumption in Western diets is frequently associated with increased risk for CVD mortality, it is seemingly paradoxical that HG societies, who consume the majority of their energy from animal food, have been shown to be relatively free of the signs and symptoms of CVD. Conclusion: The high reliance upon animal-based foods would not have necessarily elicited unfavorable blood lipid profiles because of the hypolipidemic effects of high dietary protein (19 ‐ 35% energy) and the relatively low level of dietary carbohydrate (22 ‐ 40% energy). Although fat intake (28 ‐ 58% energy) would have been similar to or higher than that found in Western diets, it is likely that important qualitative differences in fat intake, including relatively high levels of MUFA and PUFA and a lower o-6=o-3 fatty acid ratio, would have served to inhibit the development of CVD. Other dietary characteristics including high intakes of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and phytochemicals along with a low salt intake may have operated synergistically with lifestyle characteristics (more exercise, less stress and no smoking) to further deter the development of CVD.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATION The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets: meat-based, yet non-atherogenic

The nutritional patterns of Paleolithic humans influenced genetic evolution during the time segment within which defining characteristics of contemporary humans were selected. Our genome can have changed little since the beginnings of agriculture, so, genetically, humans remain Stone Agers--adapted for a Paleolithic dietary regimen. Such diets were based chiefly on wild game, fish and uncultivated plant foods. They provided abundant protein; a fat profile much different from that of affluent Western nations; high fibre; carbohydrate from fruits and vegetables (and some honey) but not from cereals, refined sugars and dairy products; high levels of micronutrients and probably of phytochemicals as well. Differences between contemporary and ancestral diets have many pathophysiological implications. This review addresses phytochemicals and cancer; calcium, physical exertion, bone mineral density and bone structural geometry; dietary protein, potassium, renal acid secretion and urinary calcium loss; and finally sarcopenia, adiposity, insulin receptors and insulin resistance. While not, yet, a basis for formal recommendations, awareness of Paleolithic nutritional patterns should generate novel, testable hypotheses grounded in evolutionary theory and it should dispel complacency regarding currently accepted nutritional tenets.

S B Eaton

Papers

Paleolithic vs. modern diets--selected pathophysiological implications.