2016 Volume 40 Issue 2 Pages 115-122
According to evolutionary medicine, human beings are considered to have lived as exercise ‐prone hunter-gatherers from the beginning of the homo lineage from 1.9 million years to the upper Paleolithic period of 10 thousand years ago. During this long period of time, hominids as an omnivorous animal relied mainly on plant content and additionally on animal content. After metabolizing upper Paleolithic foods, an alkalizing component remains, causing light metabolic alkalosis, while contemporary diets produce an excess acidic content, causing light metabolic acidosis. Because hominoids adjusted best to their living environment including food and life style until the upper Paleolithic period, the human genome should have stored the information on these living environments.
We discuss the possibility that the mismatch between genomic information and the physiological responses to contemporary diets might well be one of the reasons for the prevalence of hyperuricemia and gout. Based on this consideration, in the process of dietary intervention to these diseases, principal conditions are as follows: 1) the amount of acid generated from the metabolic degradation of foods should be less than 70 mEq/day; 2) on planning a menu, the ratio of the total amount of protein (in g) versus potassium (in mEq) should be below 1.5; and 3) the urine pH should be higher than 6.0.
