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A multidisciplinary reconstruction of Palaeolithic nutrition that holds promise for the prevention and treatment of diseases of civilisation
Open accessAbstract
Evolutionary medicine acknowledges that many chronic degenerative diseases result from conflicts between our rapidly changing environment, our dietary habits included, and our genome, which has remained virtually unchanged since the Palaeolithic era. Reconstruction of the diet before the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions is therefore indicated, but hampered by the ongoing debate on our ancestors' ecological niche. Arguments and their counterarguments regarding evolutionary medicine are updated and the evidence for the long-reigning hypothesis of human evolution on the arid savanna is weighed against the hypothesis that man evolved in the proximity of water. Evidence from various disciplines is discussed, including the study of palaeo-environments, comparative anatomy, biogeochemistry, archaeology, anthropology, (patho)physiology and epidemiology. Although our ancestors had much lower life expectancies, the current evidence does neither support the misconception that during the Palaeolithic there were no elderly nor that they had poor health. Rather than rejecting the possibility of ‘healthy ageing’, the default assumption should be that healthy ageing posed an evolutionary advantage for human survival. There is ample evidence that our ancestors lived in a land–water ecosystem and extracted a substantial part of their diets from both terrestrial and aquatic resources. Rather than rejecting this possibility by lack of evidence, the default assumption should be that hominins, living in coastal ecosystems with catchable aquatic resources, consumed these resources. Finally, the composition and merits of so-called ‘Palaeolithic diets’, based on different hominin niche-reconstructions, are evaluated. The benefits of these diets illustrate that it is time to incorporate this knowledge into dietary recommendations.
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“These social and environmental characteristics are believed to have predominated during most of hominin evolutionary history until industrialization66,82,89.”
From Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span (2019) · cites this paper as [89]
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“Their lifestyles, for example, are characterized by higher levels of physical activity67,71,87, diets composed mainly of fresh or minimally processed food sources66,88,89, and less exposure to environmental pollutants66. In addition, individuals living in these environments generally have circadian rhythms that are more closely synchronized with diurnal fluctuations in sunlight exposure90 and the”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Kuipers, R. S., Joordens, J. C. A., & Muskiet, F. A. J.
- Affiliations
- University Medical Center Groningen (NL)
- Leiden University (NL)
- Venue
- Nutrition Research Reviews
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2012-06
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 96-129
- ISSN
- 0954-4224 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-2700
- OpenAlex
- W2135921357
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 457
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 5.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nutrition Research Reviews (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutritional Studies and Diet
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Fatty Acid Research and Health
- Keywords
- Paleolithic diet, human evolution, evolutionary medicine, chronic degenerative diseases, healthy aging, dietary recommendations
- MeSH terms
- Aging, Animals, Archaeology, Civilization, Diet, Biological Evolution, Feeding Behavior, Health, Humans, Longevity, Hominidae, Genome, Ecosystem, Interdisciplinary Communication
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