AHS Slides_Don Matesz
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This document discusses ancestral health and an alternative approach to diet based on evolutionary principles. It argues that for millions of years, human ancestors and their primate relatives subsisted on high-fiber, plant-based diets, and only began incorporating meat into their diets relatively recently with the advent of tools and fire. It notes that humans retain physiological mechanisms adapted to plant-based diets and have historically used culinary herbs and plants to balance potentially congesting effects of animal foods and maintain nutritional balance.
AHS Slides_Don Matesz
- 1. Ancestral Health: An Alternative Approach Don Matesz, M.A., M.S.
- 2. Figure 1: Big Picture Evolution and Diet of Hominoids 0 5 10 15 20 Millions of years ago Plant-based diet Gibbons high fiber Plant-based diet Orang-utan high fiber Plant-based diet Gorilla high fiber Plant-based diet Chimpanzee high fiber Plant-based diet Human Meat-based diet? fire stone weapons
- 3. Homeodynamics For any essential nutrient X: If the CONTEXT limits availability or increases losses of X, the organism has to develop mechanisms to increase synthesis, intake, and accumulation to prevent deficiency. If the CONTEXT supplies excess X, the organism has to develop mechanisms to antidote, or increase expenditure and excretion, to prevent poisoning. Management of homeodynamics in a specific CONTEXT (niche) drives biological and behavioral adaptation.
- 5. = Homeo-dynamic adaptation
- 6.
- 7. All predate meat-based diets by tens of millions of years.
- 8. The Primate Diet 5.5 kg food in 1.0+ kg feces out 1g bile acids lost
- 9. Daily Intakes of Vegetable Protein, Fiber, Phytosterols & Nuts Jenkins DJ, Kendall CW et al. Metabolism;(2001)
- 10. Intake + Synthesis + Recycling Outflow + Expenditure
- 11. Diseases Hyper- development & Accelerated ageing Hypo- development & retarded ageing Overweight, hyper-X-emia, hyperoxidation, hyperinflammation, hypercoagulation, hyperimmunity, congestion & stagnation Underweight, hypofunction, hypo-oxidation, hypo-immunity, hypothermia, weakness, fatigue, pallor Ex: Anemia Excesses Usual context: Affluence Deficiencies Usual context: Poverty
- 12. QUALITY + QUANTITY + CONTEXT = EFFECTS Fatty domestic meats Lean wild meat Lifelong caloric excess Lifelong caloric restriction Plagued with excess conditions Tendency to deficient condition Potential Paleodieter Hunter-Gatherer No parasites Parasites Low lifetime/concurrent ‘antinutrient’ Intake High lifetime/ concurrent ‘antinutrient’ intake Excess meat acts as poison Meat acts as medicine Low energy expense High energy expense High food availability Low food availability Baseline high body fat Baseline low body fat
- 13. Every nutrient becomes toxic at some level. The more nutrients in excess, the more disorder. Excess caloric intake increases the toxicity of individual macronutrients. Low caloric intake reduces or abolishes toxicity of Individual macronutrients. Acute extreme excess acute toxicity Lesser but chronic excess slow-to-manifest toxicity &
- 14. Provide draining phytochemicals that balance the potentially congesting effects of a animal-based diet. Humans universally use culinary and medicinal herbs and gums. Animals evolved another way to improve in/out balance: Non-nutritive ingestive behaviors
- 15. The Masaai Use 28 herbs and 25 gums Meat always consumed with a bitter herb soup A dozen herbs added to milk. The Masaai state that a person would not maintain health without using these additives.
- 16. Affluent Balance The drug antidotes are plant-derived or phytochem mimics. Phlebotomy, surgery Extreme exercise Caloric restriction Aspirin, statins, coumadin, antihistamines, amphetamines, diuretics, etc. Coffee, tea, alcohol, fiber supplements, red yeast Excess meat, milk Excess P, F, C Refined P, F, C VT&Min supplements Hormone supplements High sodium Overnutrition Draining Antidotes Congesting
- 17. Humans retain basic physiologic mechanisms maladapted to diets rich in meat and fat. By homeo-dynamic drive we evolved use of plants or mimics to reduce accumulation and congestion. Similarly we use meat and animal derivatives (e.g. hormones) to correct deficiencies. We became capable of animal-BASED diets primarily by route of technology, not biology.
- 18. Quality Quantity & Context Anything can be poison or medicine . Your Primal Wisdom Constantly Seeks Balance It all depends on: Do I have excess or deficiency? Listen to it. Ask yourself: Eat accordingly.
- 20. Homeodynamics synthesis + intake > expenditure + elimination = accumulation & congestion expenditure + elimination > synthesis + intake = Reduction & decongestion Applies to P, F, C, VT, MIN, Everything.
Editor's Notes
- #2: Thank you all for coming. I am amazed and grateful to have this audience. I imagined that everyone but my wife would want to hear Rob Wolf after my “Farewell to Paleo” blog stirred up the community. I wrote that blog after ~14 y of tinkering with paleo principles under the common assumption that we are fully adapted to a meat-based diet. My wife and I had increasing problems with inflammation, accumulation, congestion and stagnation from meat-based nutrition, despite eating a large amount of produce. It seems paleo has for many people become synonomous with meat-based nutrition, and so many are also including processed meats (bacon) and dairy products, that it has become little more than a kind of rehashed Atkins. It is to that paleo that I said good bye. After thinking things through, and experimenting a bit, I now have a different idea of paleo diet. So let’s take a look.
- #3: This chart puts human evolution in the larger CONTEXT of primate evolution. Our primate ancestors were eating plant-based diets for more than 65 million years previous to humans becoming capable of meat-based diets about 1.5 mya. That makes meat-based diets quite new to our genome. If the entire 65 million years was condensed into 24 hours, we only started eating meat-based diets in the last 30 minutes (<2% of evolutionary time). Ninety-eight percent of the human genome is identical to that of chimps, who eat a 95% plant-based diet. In that 98% lies our physiological similarities to chimps. We become capable of meat-BASED diets primarily by technology, not biology. We all know that technology moves much faster than biology. So, are we really all that well adapted BIOLOGICALLY to long-term diets delivering a high proportion of energy from animal protein and fat? I don’t think so. Humans have more than a few physiological adaptations to a plant-based diet, some of which are potentially maladaptive for a meat-based diet, depending on QUALITY, QUANTITY, AND CONTEXT.
- #5: Plant foods and animal foods have complementary and opposite characteristics relative to primate physiology. Draining phytochemicals include: Fiber Phytates PUFAs Statins (fungi) Glucosides, e.g. Salicin Saponins Sterols Phenols Since primates evolved on a plant-based diet, they had to incorporate mechanisms to counterbalance the draining effects of phytochemicals.
- #6: Li et al, Cats Lack a Sweet Taste Receptor. J Nutr. 2006 July; 136(7 Suppl): 1932S–1934S.
- #7: Carotene complexion: Stephan et al. Facial Skin Coloration Affects Perceived Health of Human Faces. Volume 30, Number 6, 845-857.
- #8: Carotene complexion: Stephan et al. Facial Skin Coloration Affects Perceived Health of Human Faces. Volume 30, Number 6, 845-857. Uricase knock-out occurred at least 15 mya. All hominoids have relatively high uric acid levels. Knock out of ascorbate synthesis results in lower VT-C levels; since VT-C increases urate excretion and blocks fructose metabolism to uric acid, a loss of VT-C synthesis worked to increase serum urate levels and fat storage. Richard J. Johnson, M.D., (by invitation) Peter Andrews, Steven A. Benner, and William Oliver Theodore E. Woodward Award: The Evolution of Obesity: Insights from the Mid- Miocene Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc. 2010; 121: 295–308 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917125/?tool=pubmed Watanabe S et al, Uric Acid, Hominoid Evolution, and the Pathogenesis of Salt-Sensitivity. Hypertension 2002, 40:355-360 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12215479 Since high-protein diets increase availability of purine substrate for urate synthesis, the loss of both VT-C synthesis and uricase is potentially maladaptive for an animal-based diet in the context of low VT-C intake.
- #9: Here’s an example of the ‘draining’ and decongesting effect of plant-foods Draining bile acids = draining cholesterol = decongesting the blood (simply, reducing the concentration of stuff in the blood) Primate physiology evolved in adaption to a diet that depleted cholesterol In that context, natural selection would favor individuals who had avid bile acid recycling AND endogenous cholesterol synthesis sufficient to counterbalance the drain. Put this primate on a diet lacking the plant chemicals that inhibit cholesterol production or faciltating cholesterol excretion, and its own endogenous cholesterol production will be too much, I.e. it will have elevated serum cholesterol and the consequences Add dietary cholesterol to this mix and there will be an even greater rise in serum cholesterol.
- #10: In two weeks a high-fiber, vegetable-, fruit-, and nut- based ‘primate’ diet produced a >30% reduction in LDL cholesterol, moving it closer to the natural values found in wild primates and humans, less than 100 mg/dl, a result similar to first-generation statins. It also reduced CRP by ~30%. BTW, statins and similar hypocholesterolemic phytochemicals naturally occur in edible fungi….a part of hunter-gatherer diets. This demonstrated that human cholesterol metabolism is naturally adapted to a diet rich in fiber, sterols, and other hypocholesterolemic phytochemicals.
- #13: What about Inuit? Hypertension, osteoporosis, accelerated ageing N-3 PUFAs are hypocholesterolemic
- #14: For example, saturated fats and cancer or heart disease. Many animal studies show that eucaloric to hypercaloric high fat diets strongly promote cancer, but a caloric deficit abolishes this effect. Nigerian Fulani people eat a diet consisting largely of milk, fat provides nearly 50% of energy and saturated fat provides 50% of total fat intake and 25% of total energy. However, total fat intake amounts to only about 93 g/ d for men and 81 g/d for women, and total caloric intake is only about 1700 kcal for men and 1500 for women. They maintain low serum cholesterol (~135 mg/dl) and appear at low risk of coronary disease. They do NOT show that ‘high fat diets don’t harm the cardiovascular system.’ They show that high saturated fat intake might not harm health IF in the CONTEXT of low calorie intake.
- #15: As noted by Timothy Johns, Human evolution involved gains in body size and lifespan, introduction of toxins from cooking food, and increased intake of animal foods, calories, fats, and cholesterol, with decreased intake of ‘anti-X’ phytochemicals. These factors all increased oxidative stress at a rate faster than human biology can adapt.
- #16: The herbs and gums have antioxidant, anticancer, antimutagenic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antifungal, anthelminthic, antidiarrheal, anticoagulant, hypocholesterolemic, hypolipidemic, thyroid-stimulating, and hypoglycemic activities.
- #17: The body constantly strives to balance intake and elimination/expenditure. If you intake an excess of any nutrient, your innate intelligence will drive your physiology toward some way to eliminate, expend, or safely store the excess. We balance excess nutrition with non-nutritive compounds: herbs, drugs, fasting, restriction, mental or physical activity, mental, emotional, or physical symptoms. A more natural approach: Eat a produce-dominated diet with just enough starch and meat to satisfy nutrient requirements.
- #18: Which is why we find so many former vegetarians at some point adopting meat-rich diets. But the pendulum can swing the other way eventually.
- #20: I wrote a portion of this book. I wish I could fully endorse it. It has a lot of great recipes, and some good information, but it definitely needs revision. I have learned a lot since I wrote it. I now think it prescribes a diet too high in meat/animal protein, and fats, and too low in plant protein, plant fats, and possibly produce, for many people, for long-term use. A new book forthcoming.