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Exploring Human Evolution, Nutrition & Health

 
OPINION 
Embrace your inner hybrid
Can jargon of the “go green” movement reboot human health?
Being sustainable and going green are all the rage these days – and for good reason. The ground swell around these often-overused words has been gaining for decades, due in large part to the hard work of many, the public outcry to outrageous denials and policies of a recent few, and a little film starring some guy named Al.
(more)

 
PEER REVIEW
High dietary intake of prebiotic inulin-type fructans from prehistoric Chihuahuan Desert
Archaeological evidence from dry cave deposits in the northern Chihuahuan Desert reveal intensive utilization of desert plants that store prebiotic inulin-type fructans as the primary carbohydrate. IAncient cooking features, stable carbon isotope analysis of human skeletons, and well-preserved coprolites and macrobotanical remains reveal a plant-based diet that included a dietary intake of ~135 g/d of prebiotic inulin-type fructans by the average adult male hunter-forager.  (more)

OPINION 
In defense of bugs
On October 30, the thirteen newly appointed experts to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will have their first meeting in Washington, D.C. to begin the important job of culling the latest scientific and medical research on human health and nutrition to update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and accompanying food pyramid for 2010.  Unfortunately, given the fact that 90% of the cells in the human body are microbial and only 10% are human, the absence of any gut microbiologists amongst the gathered expertise will assure yet another set of dietary guidelines will all but ignore . . . (more)

 

OPINION / Letter 
Eat bugs. Not too much. Mainly with plants.
As of August 22, 2008, the Food and Drug and Administration (FDA) will allow food processors to irradiate iceberg lettuce and fresh spinach for the purpose of zapping E. coli and other pathogens. This ruling has been some time in the making and was recently fast-tracked due to the high profile spinach outbreak of 2006 and the pesky Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak of 2008. (more)


 

 
OPINION Op-Ed
San Francisco Chronicle  

Gut Check
The ongoing outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul has drawn outcry from media, predictable knee-jerk proposals from lawmakers, and understandable fear and confusion among consumers. As with outbreaks in the past, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and processing plants and farmers continue to take the blame for tainted food making us ill. But is our All-American sick gut deserving of some blame as well? (more)

 

OPINION
Are government recommendations for daily fibre intake too low? an evolutionary perspective
It’s safe to say that our current chronic low-intake of dietary fibre in the western world (~12 to 15g/d) – coupled with our overuse of antibiotics and the increase in multiple antibiotic resistance in pathogens – has started a large-scale genetic “re-engineering” experiment on the slowly evolved and critical symbiotic relationship between humans and our little evolutionary hitchhiking friends, with limited discussion of its outcome on public health. (more)

 

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OPINION
E. coli and the future health of America
In 2006, Americans learned that a salad could be hazardous to your health. The media flurry and the elected official posturing that followed the September 14 outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 associated with spinach, is still fresh on American minds and making daily headlines thanks in no small part to the brisk recalls associated with tainted beef. So is our food supply less safe and are the growers, shippers and various groups and agencies tasked with oversight not doing all they can to protect the consumer from deadly microbes as some believe? (more)


OPINION / Letter to the Editor

Paleo Longevity Redux
Geoffrey Cannon1 repeats a widespread affirmation that “paleolithic people usually did not survive into what we call later middle age.” His underlying point, which is widely shared among researchers and the public at-large, is that our ancestors did not live long enough to develop cancer, heart disease and other chronic illnesses. All of which forms the basis for the near universal belief that ancient hunter-gatherers (our ancestors) really were not healthier or fitter than us moderns, and therefore their ancient dietary practices have little relevance to modern health, well-being, and longevity. (more)

 

PEER REVIEW
Prebiotics in Ancient Diets
While modern studies continue to expand our knowledge of the health benefits of prebiotics, virtually nothing is known of their use among ancient populations. Drawing on select ethnographic and archaeological data, examples of prebiotic use in ancient diet is presented. By utilizing well-documented cooking facilities found throughout the archaeological record of North America used to cook inulin-bearing plants as a proxy, prebiotic consumption is documented in Europe and the Mediterranean possibly as early as 40,000 years ago.  (more)

 

 


OPINION / Op-Ed
San Francisco Chronicle

Fighting E. coli the old-fashioned way
In the wake of E. coli 0157:H7 outbreaks associated with spinach and other produce in 2006, the new 110th Congress will be dusting off and reintroducing the Food Safety Act (S. 729), initially proposed in 2005 by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), to assure the American public that the government is working hard to substantially reduce future food-borne outbreaks.   (more)

 

OPINION
Unintended Consequences
What happed to the Human Hybrid?
As you read this, there are millions of tiny microbes swimming around in the fluid surrounding your eyeballs. But you can’t see them. There are millions more under your finger nails, on your hands, arms, legs and just about every imaginable section of your fleshy real estate. There are millions more lining your moist nasal passage, many more maneuvering about your liver, heart, lungs, pancreas and trillions more living throughout your continuous gastrointestinal tract – from mouth to anus. (more)

 Digestive system organs

PEER REVIEW
Evolutionary perspective on dietary intake of fibre and colorectal cancer 

From an evolutionary perspective, the ongoing discussion of fibres role in colorectal cancer is possibly limited by the overall low intake of fibre across study groups. Our ancestral diet consistently included a diverse range of plants that regularly contributed >100 g/d of dietary fiber. Importantly, this diversity assured that, due to a range of physical and chemical structures, a steady flow of fermentable substrates promoted metabolic activity into the distal regions of the colon.  more>>

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paleobiotics
 


 



 

Paleobiotics are plant parts that, due to their physical and chemical structure, escape digestion and absorption in the small intestine of humans. These nondigestible plant remains reach the colon where they are fermented by the residing intestinal flora and have been shown to selectively stimulate the growth and / or activity of health promoting bacteria that confer demonstrated benefits upon the host. Prehistoric populations that diversified their diet to include paleobiotics would have enjoyed a selective advantage over competitors.

                see also    prebiotics     probiotics      synbiotics
 

general interest articles

Human Evolution, Nutritional Ecology and Prebiotics in Ancient Diet

We discuss evidence for prebiotic use in the archaeological record from select areas of the world. It is suggested that members of our genus Homo would have had sufficient ecological opportunity to include prebiotic-bearing plants in diet as early as ~ 2 million years ago, but that significant dietary intake would not have taken place until the advent of technological advances that characterized the Upper Paleolithic of ~40,000 years ago. more>>

Reconsidering Prehistoric Yields of Cultivated Agave in AZ


The annual caloric return from harvested agave has been overestimated by ~55% when you consider that inulin-type fructans are the major storage carbohydrate in agave. As a nondigestible carbohydrate, inulin and its subgroup oligofructose are not absorbed in the small intestine, but are fermented in the large bowel and thus have a lower net energy value than traditional carbohydrates such as starch. more>>


Prebiotics, fiber and health

 

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