The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization

Abstract

It is increasingly recognized that certain fundamental changes in diet and lifestyle that occurred after the Neolithic Revolution, and especially after the Industrial Revolution and the Modern Age, are too recent, on an evolutionary time scale, for the human genome to have completely adapted. This mismatch between our ancient physiology and the western diet and lifestyle underlies many so-called diseases of civilization, including coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, epithelial cell cancers, autoimmune disease, and osteoporosis, which are rare or virtually absent in hunter-gatherers and other non-westernized populations. It is therefore proposed that the adoption of diet and lifestyle that mimic the beneficial characteristics of the preagricultural environment is an effective strategy to reduce the risk of chronic degenerative diseases.

Current Food Classifications in Epidemiological Studies Do Not Enable Solid Nutritional Recommendations for Preventing Diet-Related Chronic Diseases: The Impact of Food Processing

“…Indeed, dietary patterns rather than food groups consider more realistic ways of eating by considering the ways differently processed foods are combined together into meals. Thus, recent observational studies and subsequent meta-analyses have tended to show that the prudent (16), healthy (16), vegetarian (17), Nordic (18), and Mediterranean-style (19) dietary patterns are more protective than the Western diet (20,21). Whereas healthy dietary patterns are generally characterized by a high level of plant-based and/or local traditional foods (e.g., in the Nordic and Mediterranean-style diets), the Western diet is characterized by a high level of processed animal-based and/or refined foods, most of which are ultraprocessed food and drink products, i.e., formulated with previously refined ingredients (22).…”

Postnatal exposure to voluntary exercise but not the antioxidant catechin protects the vasculature after a switch to an atherogenic environment in middle-age mice

“…Beyond genetic susceptibilities, the environment we live in is the main determinant of our health span [9]. It starts during the intrauterine environment that influences health outcome at adult age, as low birth weight is associated with an increased risk of diseases [2].…”

“…Epidemiological studies have clearly established that a lifelong healthy lifestyle, composed of moderate but regular physical exercise (EX) and a balanced diet, prolongs lifespan and reduces the odds of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) [10,16,45,46,59,76]. The detrimental effects of the so-called Western diet (WD) and lifestyle on the cardiovascular system have, therefore, been established by numerous studies showing the contribution of physical inactivity (PI) and poor-quality/high-calorie intake on the development of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and CVD [9,37].…”

Significant Dietary Changes during Human Evolution and the Development of Cancer: From Cells in Trouble to Cells Causing Trouble

“…In contrast, low serum insulin levels and a persisting excellent insulin sensitivity is characteristic of HGs, and diseases of IR are rare or absent, as long as they adhere to their traditional low-carbohydrate diet and their ancestral life style [14,16,[40][41][42][43]. But with acculturation and transition to a westernized lifestyle, especially to high-insulinemic diets, these populations develop high prevalence rates of hyperinsulinemia, IR and the metabolic syndrome [31,41,[44][45][46].…”

“…However, with transition to a high-carbohydrate/highinsulinemic "Western style" diet (HCHID), whether by migration or acculturation, invariably leads to a dramatic increase in this disease(s) [14][15][16][17][18]. In the Inuit, cancer incidence increased steadily through the 20 th century; meanwhile the circumpolar Inuit and Athabaskan/Dene have rates for several cancer sites that exceed all other regions in the world [15,17,19].…”