Food and Western Disease: Health and Nutrition from an Evolutionary Perspective

Preface.

1 Introduction.

1.1 Why do we get sick?

1.2 We are changing at pace with the continental drift.

1.3 Are we adapted for milk and bread?

2 Expanding our perspective.

2.1 The perspective of academic medicine.

2.2 The concept of normality.

2.3 Genetics.

2.4 Dietary guidelines.

3 Ancestral human diets.

3.1 Available food.

3.2 Nutritional composition.

4 Modern diseases.

4.1 Ischaemic heart disease (coronary heart disease).

4.2 Stroke.

4.3 Atherosclerosis.

4.4 Type 2 diabetes.

4.5 Overweight and obesity.

4.6 Insulin resistance.

4.7 Hypertension (high blood pressure).

4.8 Dyslipidaemia (blood lipid disorders).

4.9 Heart failure.

4.10 Dementia.

4.11 Cancer.

4.12 Osteoporosis.

4.13 Rickets.

4.14 Iron deficiency.

4.15 Autoimmune diseases.

5 Risks with the Palaeolithic diet.

5.1 Haemochromatosis.

5.2 Iodine deficiency.

5.3 Exaggerated drug effects.

6 Viewpoint summary.

6.1 Evolutionary medicine instead of vegetarianism?

6.2 Traditional populations are spared from overweight and cardiovascular disease.

6.3 Insulin resistance is more than abdominal obesity and diabetes.

6.4 Non-Europeans are affected the hardest.

6.5 ‘Foreign’ proteins in the food.

6.6 Effects of an ancestral diet.

6.7 The ancestral diet: a new concept.

7 Healthy eating.

7.1 Non-recommended foods?

7.2 Recommended foods.

7.3 Variation.

7.4 Compromises.

Glossary.

References.

Index.