Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.]
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1826
The so-called paleolithic diet has become popular in recent years among some diet enthusiasts. While this diet may soon become one of many passing fads, it is nevertheless true that our human ancestors consumed a diet that was very different from that of today1. The paleolithic diet had about as much cholesterol as is consumed by modern humans, but also contained far more polyunsaturated fat derived from wild game. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived by consuming wild game as their primary source of protein. Fat of wild animals contains about 9% eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and 5 times more polyunsaturated fat per gram than is found in domesticated livestock2, which contains almost undetectable amounts of omega-3 (also known as n-3) fatty acids (FA). The current FA intake must be properly viewed as a more recent alteration of longstanding dietary patterns to which humans had adapted during tens of thousands of years1,3 (Figure 1).
There are good sources of n-3 FA in certain leafy plants and vegetables as well as flax, canola, soybean, evening primrose, and borage seed oil supplements; walnuts are another good source. These terrestrial n-3 sources contain α-linolenic acid (ALA; 18:3,n-3). The …
Address correspondence to Professor J.M. Kremer, The Center for Rheumatology, 1367 Washington Ave., Albany, New York 12206, USA. E-mail: jkremer{at}joint-docs.com