Change in Micronutrient Intake among People with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Adapting the Swank and Wahls Diets: An Analysis of Weighed Food Records.

The low-saturated fat (Swank) and modified Paleolithic elimination (Wahls) diets have shown promise for MS symptoms; however, due to their restriction of specific foods, inadequate intake of micronutrients is concerning. Therefore, as part of a randomized trial, weighed food records were collected on three consecutive days and were used to evaluate the intake of micronutrients among people with relapsing remitting MS adapting these diets. After randomization to either the Swank or Wahls diets, diet education and support was provided by registered dietitians at baseline and throughout the first 12 weeks of the intervention. Usual intake of each micronutrient was estimated and then evaluated with the EAR-cut point method. At 12 weeks, the Swank group had significant reductions in the proportion with inadequate intake from food for vitamins C, D, and E, while the Wahls group had significant reductions for magnesium and vitamins A, C, D, and E. However, the proportion with inadequate intake significantly increased for calcium, thiamin, and vitamin B12 in the Wahls group and for vitamin A in the Swank group. Inclusion of intake from supplements reduced the proportion with inadequate intake for all micronutrients except calcium among the Wahls group but increased the proportion with excessive intake for vitamin D and niacin among both groups and magnesium among the Swank group. Both diets, especially when including intake from supplements, are associated with reduced inadequate intake compared to the normal diet of people with relapsing remitting MS.

How long do people stick to a diet resolution? A digital epidemiological estimation of weight loss diet persistence.

OBJECTIVE: To use Internet search data to compare duration of compliance for various diets. DESIGN: Using a passive surveillance digital epidemiological approach, we estimated the average duration of diet compliance by examining monthly Internet searches for recipes related to popular diets. We fit a mathematical model to these data to estimate the time spent on a diet by new January dieters (NJD) and to estimate the percentage of dieters dropping out during the American winter holiday season between Thanksgiving and the end of December. SETTING: Internet searches in the USA for recipes related to popular diets over a 15-year period from 2004 to 2019. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals in the USA performing Internet searches for recipes related to popular diets. RESULTS: All diets exhibited significant seasonality in recipe-related Internet searches, with sharp spikes every January followed by a decline in the number of searches and a further decline in the winter holiday season. The Paleo diet had the longest average compliance times among NJD (5.32 ± 0.68 weeks) and the lowest dropout during the winter holiday season (only 14 ± 3 % dropping out in December). The South Beach diet had the shortest compliance time among NJD (3.12 ± 0.64 weeks) and the highest dropout during the holiday season (33 ± 7 % dropping out in December). CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the first of its kind to use passive surveillance data to compare the duration of adherence with different diets and underscores the potential usefulness of digital epidemiological approaches to understanding health behaviours.

Maritime Hunter-Gatherers Adopt Cultivation at the Farming Extreme of Northern Europe 5000 Years Ago.

The dynamics of the origins and spread of farming are globally debated in anthropology and archaeology. Lately, numerous aDNA studies have turned the tide in favour of migrations, leaving only a few cases in Neolithic Europe where hunter-gatherers might have adopted agriculture. It is thus widely accepted that agriculture was expanding to its northern extreme in Sweden c. 4000 BC by migrating Funnel Beaker Culture (FBC) farmers. This was followed by intense contacts with local hunter-gatherers, leading to the development of the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC), who nonetheless relied on maritime prey. Here, we present archaeobotanical remains from Sweden and the Åland archipelago (Finland) showing that PWC used free-threshing barley and hulled and free-threshing wheat from c. 3300 BC. We suggest that these hunter-gatherers adopted cultivation from FBC farmers and brought it to islands beyond the 60th parallel north. Based on directly dated grains, land areas suitable for cultivation, and absence of signs of exchange with FBC in Sweden, we argue that PWC cultivated crops in Åland. While we have isotopic and lipid-biomarker proof that their main subsistence was still hunting/fishing/gathering, we argue small-scale cereal use was intended for ritual feasts, when cereal products could have been consumed with pork.

Measuring local depletion of terrestrial game vertebrates by central-place hunters in rural Amazonia.

The degree to which terrestrial vertebrate populations are depleted in tropical forests occupied by human communities has been the subject of an intense polarising debate that has important conservation implications. Conservation ecologists and practitioners are divided over the extent to which community-based subsistence offtake is compatible with ecologically functional populations of tropical forest game species. To quantify depletion envelopes of forest vertebrates around human communities, we deployed a total of 383 camera trap stations and 78 quantitative interviews to survey the peri-community areas controlled by 60 semi-subsistence communities over a combined area of over 3.2 million hectares in the Médio Juruá and Uatumã regions of Central-Western Brazilian Amazonia. Our results largely conform with prior evidence that hunting large-bodied vertebrates reduces wildlife populations near settlements, such that they are only found at a distance to settlements where they are hunted less frequently. Camera trap data suggest that a select few harvest-sensitive species, including lowland tapir, are either repelled or depleted by human communities. Nocturnal and cathemeral species were detected relatively more frequently in disturbed areas close to communities, but individual species did not necessarily shift their activity patterns. Group biomass of all species was depressed in the wider neighbourhood of urban areas rather than communities. Interview data suggest that species traits, especially group size and body mass, mediate these relationships. Large-bodied, large-group-living species are detected farther from communities as reported by experienced informants. Long-established communities in our study regions have not "emptied" the surrounding forest. Low human population density and low hunting offtake due to abundant sources of alternative aquatic protein, suggest that these communities represent a best-case scenario for sustainable hunting of wildlife for food, thereby providing a conservative assessment of game depletion. Given this 'best-case' camera trap and interview-based evidence for hunting depletion, regions with higher human population densities, external trade in wildlife and limited access to alternative protein will likely exhibit more severe depletion.

Reproductive trade-offs in extant hunter-gatherers suggest adaptive mechanism for the Neolithic expansion.

The Neolithic demographic transition remains a paradox, because it is associated with both higher rates of population growth and increased morbidity and mortality rates. Here we reconcile the conflicting evidence by proposing that the spread of agriculture involved a life history quality-quantity trade-off whereby mothers traded offspring survival for increased fertility, achieving greater reproductive success despite deteriorating health. We test this hypothesis by investigating fertility, mortality, health, and overall reproductive success in Agta hunter-gatherers whose camps exhibit variable levels of sedentarization, mobility, and involvement in agricultural activities. We conducted blood composition tests in 345 Agta and found that viral and helminthic infections as well as child mortality rates were significantly increased with sedentarization. Nonetheless, both age-controlled fertility and overall reproductive success were positively affected by sedentarization and participation in cultivation. Thus, we provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, of an adaptive mechanism in foragers that reconciles the decline in health and child survival with the observed demographic expansion during the Neolithic.

Paleolithic and Mediterranean diet pattern scores and risk of incident, sporadic colorectal adenomas.

The Western dietary pattern is associated with higher risk of colorectal neoplasms. Evolutionary discordance could explain this association. We investigated associations of scores for 2 proposed diet patterns, the "Paleolithic" and the Mediterranean, with incident, sporadic colorectal adenomas in a case-control study of colorectal polyps conducted in Minnesota (1991-1994). Persons with no prior history of colorectal neoplasms completed comprehensive questionnaires prior to elective, outpatient endoscopy; of these individuals, 564 were identified as cases and 1,202 as endoscopy-negative controls. An additional group of community controls frequency-matched on age and sex (n = 535) was also recruited. Both diet scores were calculated for each participant and categorized into quintiles, and associations were estimated using unconditional logistic regression. The multivariable-adjusted odds ratios comparing persons in the highest quintiles of the Paleolithic and Mediterranean diet scores relative to the lowest quintiles were, respectively, 0.71 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.50, 1.02; Ptrend = 0.02) and 0.74 (95% CI: 0.54, 1.03; Ptrend = 0.05) when comparing cases with endoscopy-negative controls and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.56, 1.26; Ptrend = 0.14) and 0.77 (95% CI: 0.53, 1.11; Ptrend = 0.13) when comparing cases with community controls. These findings suggest that greater adherence to the Paleolithic diet pattern and greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet pattern may be similarly associated with lower risk of incident, sporadic colorectal adenomas.