John Sankey wrote:
: where do modern people who rely totally
Quoted message said:upon northern non-fish food sources get their birthright of
omega-3's for their brains? Laplanders and a few northern
Siberian tribes are about all that's left of the northern
'Palaeolithic' diet. I'd appreciate references.
The 'Paleolithic' diet is probably not a model to follow. The
first 90% of the last 150,000 years of our evolutionary history
is likely to be more biologically appropriate than the last 10%
regarding cancer risks (and also likely, longevity):
Urology. 2001 Apr;57(4 Suppl 1):31-8.
Similarities of prostate and breast cancer: Evolution, diet, and estrogens.
Coffey DS.
James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute, The Johns Hopkins Hospital,
Baltimore, Maryland 21287-2101, USA.
Environment determines the risk of both prostate and breast cancer, and
this risk can vary >10-fold. In contrast, no risk exists for human
seminal vesicle cancer demonstrating tissue specificity. There is also
species specificity, because there is no risk for prostate cancer in any
other aging mammal except the dog. A study of evolution indicates that
the prostate and breast appeared at the same time 65 million years ago
with the development of mammals. All male mammals have a prostate;
however, the seminal vesicles are variable and are determined by the
diet so that species primarily eating meat do not have seminal vesicles.
The exception is the human, who has seminal vesicles and consumes meat,
although this is a recent dietary change. Human lineage departed from
other higher primates 8 million years ago. The closest existing primate
to humans is the bonobo (pigmy chimpanzee), which does not eat meat but
exists primarily on a high fruit and fresh vegetable diet. [censored] sapiens
evolved only about 150,000 years ago, and only in the last 10% of that
time (10 to 15 thousand years ago) did humans and dogs dramatically
alter their diets. This is the time when humans domesticated the dog,
bred animals, grew crops, and cooked, processed, and stored meats and
vegetables. **All current epidemiologic evidence and suggestions for
preventing prostate and breast cancer in humans indicates that we should
return to the original diets under which our ancestors evolved. The
recent development of the Western-type diet is associated with breast
and prostate cancer throughout the world.** It is believed that the
exposure to and metabolism of estrogens, and the dietary intake of
phytoestrogens, combined with fat intake, obesity, and burned food
processing may all be related to hormonal carcinogenesis and oxidative
DNA damage. An explanatory model is proposed.
PMID: 11295592 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
some excerpts from the full paper:
"There appear to be very similar lifestyle risk factors accompanying
both prostate and breast cancer, including a lower risk associated with
high intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber, and soy products and,
alternatively, a higher risk associated with increased intake of red
meat, animal fats, dairy products, and steroid exposure, as well as body
mass and birth weight."
"Approximately 7 million years ago humans evolved from a common ape
ancestor, with our closest relative being the pigmy chimpanzee called
the bonobo. Like the other great apes, the bonobo eats primarily fruits
and vegetables and no meat."
"Other types of chimpanzees occasionally eat meat as opportunist
scavengers, sometimes even with very limited hunting. Even in humans,
highly effective hunting was not the major source of high meat caloric
intake until later in human development. When early hominoids such as
"Lucy" came down from the trees 4 million years ago and began to roam
the savannas, they picked up the ability to become hunter-gatherers."
"This major phase shift in food style occurred only about 10,000 years
ago, when humans became farmers and domesticated both plants and
animals. This technology quickly evolved into a tighter focusing of
human diets from wild fresh vegetables and fruits to an eating pattern
toward limited plants that could be domesticated and grown in great
quantities and stored, like wheat, rice, barley, corn, potatoes, and
other tubers. This resulted in approximately 20 plant types rapidly
replacing the high diversity of 3,000 plants and fruits that were
earlier eaten fresh as they came into season and were gathered from the
wild. With large-scale domestication and breeding of cattle came a high
meat intake, and this was combined with storage, curing, drying, and
cooking as well as a propensity to use milk and cheese from dairy
processing. Cooking, burning, and smoking produce high levels of
heterocyclic molecules, many of which make adducts to DNA, and are
carcinogens."
"Since separating from the great apes and chimpanzees approximately 8
million years ago, humans evolved into [censored] sapiens sapiens that are
very similar to our present form in little as 150,000 years. However, we
dramatically changed to a Western-style diet only in the very recent
past (ie, 15,000 years)--at a pace much faster than we could
biologically evolve (Table V). This Western diet consists of high meat
and fat; dairy products; stored, processed, and cooked meats; and low
fruit and fiber intake, along with a more sedentary lifestyle."
"In summary, we were not biologically selected by the evolution process
to eat the way we do today, and the damage is manifested in prostate and
breast cancer. Indeed, all of the present suggestions of the National
Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society as to how Americans
might reduce their chances of getting prostate and breast cancer revolve
around adapting dietary changes in our lifestyle back toward the early
human diet of more fruits; a variety of fresh vegetables and fiber; less
burning, cooking, and processing; diminished intake of dairy products,
red meat, and animal fats, as well as decreasing weight and increasing
aerobic exercise. That is, we must return to a diet and lifestyle that
more closely matches the first 135,000 years before technology modified
our lifestyle and diet."
TABLE V. Human development and the change of diet
Time During Human Development (150,000 years)
First 90% (135,000 years) ; Last 10% (15,000 years)
Diet: high; low
Fruit: high ; low
Fiber: high; low
Plant diversity: high (3000); low (20)
Red meat: low; high
Animal fat: low; high
Dairy products: low; high
Food: fresh/wild ; cooked/preserved
Movement: High; Sedentary
"Certainly, looking for simple relation will not be sufficient, but
delineating the exact mechanisms of cell cycle control and stem cell
development in prostate cancer should be helpful in understanding these
early preneoplastic lesions and their relation to diet. In the end, we
still must explain why approximately 90% of prostate and breast cancers
are sporadic and acquired, and why only 10% are directly inherited in a
Mendelian manner. The acquired cancers may indicate why this phenomenon
is so geographically centered and may be capable of being altered. If
these cancers are set in place within the neonatal or developmental
periods, as has been proposed by many, then this process will require
far more research to unravel the timing of these critical events."
