
Stanley Boyd EatonEmory University | EU · Department of Anthropology
Stanley Boyd Eaton
M.D.
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92
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (92)
Beginning in 1985, we and others presented estimates of hunter-gatherer (and ultimately ancestral) diet and physical activity, hoping to provide a model for health promotion. The Hunter-Gatherer Model was designed to offset the apparent mismatch between our genes and the current Western-type lifestyle, a mismatch that arguably affects prevalence of...
Physical inactivity (and unhealthy nutrition) has distorted body composition and, in turn, reordered the proportions of myocyte and adipocyte insulin receptors. Insulin acting on adipocyte receptors produces less glucose uptake than does comparable interaction with myocyte receptors. Accordingly, in individuals with disproportionate muscle/fat comp...
Our genome adapts slowly to changing conditions of existence. Many diseases of civilisation result from mismatches between our Paleolithic genome and the rapidly changing environment, including our diet. The objective of the present study was to reconstruct multiple Paleolithic diets to estimate the ranges of nutrient intakes upon which humanity ev...
A quarter century has passed since the first publication of the evolutionary discordance hypothesis, according to which departures from the nutrition and activity patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors have contributed greatly and in specifically definable ways to the endemic chronic diseases of modern civilization. Refinements of the model have...
From an evolutionary point of view, most complex chronic diseases appear to be the result of imbalance, mismatch, between our genetic makeup and the conditions of life in Westernized twenty-first century nations. The basic contentions (Eaton and Eaton, 1999a; Eaton et al., 2002a) are that: The contemporary human genome was selected over thousands o...
Objective:
Better understanding of the relationships between body composition and insulin resistance.
Results:
Average human adiposity and sarcopenia have attained unprecedented levels and the resultantly abnormal body composition distorts insulin receptor balance. Compared to evolutionary norms we now have too many adipocyte insulin receptors (...
Purpose: To explore the possibility that a Palaeolithic diet, i.e. one that corresponds to what was available in any of the ecological niches of pre‐agricultural humans (1.5 million–10,000 years bp), is optimal in the prevention of age‐related degenerative disease. Design: Literature review. Materials and Methods: Between 1985 and December 2002, mo...
Behaviorally modern humans evolved in Africa perhaps as early as 100 thousand years ago (kya) (1) and, by 50 kya, they began spreading throughout Eurasia and Australia. Since that evolutionary watershed, the human genome has changed little. For millions of years, human ancestors, like all other organisms, had responded to altered environmental circ...
The human genome has changed only minimally since behaviorly modern humans appeared in East Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. Genetically, we contemporary humans remain adapted for the foods our ultra-great-grandparents were consuming then, and this insight should advance conventional nutrition science.
At that time and place the best cu...
Awareness of the ancestral human diet might advance traditional nutrition science. The human genome has hardly changed since the emergence of behaviourally-modern humans in East Africa 100-50 x 10(3) years ago; genetically, man remains adapted for the foods consumed then. The best available estimates suggest that those ancestors obtained about 35%...
There is growing awareness that the profound changes in the environment (eg, in diet and other lifestyle conditions) that began with the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry approximately 10000 y ago occurred too recently on an evolutionary time scale for the human genome to adjust. In conjunction with this discordance between our ancie...
At present, human genes and human lives are incongruent, especially in affluent Western nations. When our current genome was originally selected, daily physical exertion was obligatory; our biochemistry and physiology are designed to function optimally in such circumstances. However, today's mechanized, technologically oriented conditions allow and...
A consensus meeting was held in Bangkok, 21–23 May 2002, where experts and young scientists in the field of physical activity, energy expenditure and body-weight regulation discussed the different aspects of physical activity in relation to the emerging problem of obesity worldwide. The following consensus statement was accepted unanimously.
‘The c...
In westernized societies, acne vulgaris is a nearly universal skin disease afflicting 79% to 95% of the adolescent population. In men and women older than 25 years, 40% to 54% have some degree of facial acne, and clinical facial acne persists into middle age in 12% of women and 3% of men. Epidemiological evidence suggests that acne incidence rates...
The available evidence suggests that both genes and environment play a crucial role in the development of juvenile-onset myopia. When the human visual system is examined from an evolutionary perspective, it becomes apparent that humans, living in the original environmental niche for which our species is genetically adapted (as hunter-gatherers), ar...
Field studies of twentieth century hunter-gathers (HG) showed them to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Consequently, the characterization of HG diets may have important implications in designing therapeutic diets that reduce the risk for CVD in Westernized societies. Based upon limited ethnographic data (...
Health promotion's promise is enormous, but its potential is, as yet, unmatched by accomplishment. Life expectancy increases track more closely with economic prosperity and sanitary engineering than with strictly medical advances. Notable achievements in the past century--the decreased incidences of epidemic infections, dental caries, and stomach c...
The proposal that Late Paleolithic (50,000-10,000 BP) ancestral experience might serve as a model for prevention research and even, if justified by experiment, as a paradigm for health promotion recommendations is sometimes discounted, before critical assessment, because of reservations based on unjustified preconceptions. Most often such biases in...
Background: In westernized societies, acne vulgaris is a nearly universal skin disease afflicting 79% to 95% of the adolescent population. In men and women older than 25 years, 40% to 54% have some degree of facial acne, and clinical facial acne persists into middle age in 12% of women and 3% of men. Epidemiological evidence suggests that acne inci...
The nutritional patterns of Paleolithic humans influenced genetic evolution during the time segment within which defining characteristics of contemporary humans were selected. Our genome can have changed little since the beginnings of agriculture, so, genetically, humans remain Stone Agers – adapted for a Paleolithic dietary regimen.
Such diets wer...
Both anthropologists and nutritionists have long recognized that the diets of modern-day hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model for defense against certain diseases of affluence. Because the hunter-gatherer way of life is now probably extinct in its purely un-Westernized form, nutritionists and an...
The existing human genome reflects evolutionary experience of human and prehuman ancestral species extending ultimately to the origin of life on earth. Comparative studies reveal that over 98% of our genes are shared by chimpanzees and gorillas (1) so that most of our genetic makeup must antedate the hominid-pongid split when the ancestors of human...
Evolution is the single most important idea in modern biology, shedding light on virtually every biological question, from the shape of orchid blossoms to the distribution of species across the planet. Until recently, however, the theory has had little impact on medical research or practice. Evolutionary Medicine shows how this is beginning to chan...
The model for human physical activity patterns was established not in gymnasia, athletic fields, or exercise physiology laboratories, but by natural selection acting over eons of evolutionary experience. This paper examines how evolution has determined the potential for contemporary human performance, and advances the experience of recently-studied...
The Polyclinic, staffed mainly by volunteers, successfully provided primary health care during 16,519 patient encounters, 64% involving athletes. However, the profile of patient needs held some surprises.
Reproductive experiences for women in today's affluent Western nations differ from those of women in hunting and gathering societies, who continue the ancestral human pattern. These differences parallel commonly accepted reproductive risk factors for cancers of the breast, endometrium and ovary. Nutritional practices, exercise requirements, and bod...
The genetically ordered physiology of contemporary humans was selected over eons of evolutionary experience for a nutritional pattern affording much less fat, particularly less saturated fat. Current dietary recommendations do not accord exactly with those generated by an understanding of prior hominoid/hominid evolution. Similarly, widely advocate...
The nutritional requirements of contemporary humans were almost certainly established over eons of evolutionary experience and the best available evidence indicates that this evolution occurred in a high-calcium nutritional environment. The exercise and dietary patterns of humans living at the end of the Stone Age can be considered natural paradigm...
The nutritional requirements of contemporary humans were almost certainly established over eons of evolutionary experience and the best available evidence indicates that this evolution occurred in a high-calcium nutritional environment. The exercise and dietary patterns of humans living at the end of the Stone Age can be considered natural paradigm...
Three recent observations when considered together indicate means whereby the health of Western countries could be improved and certain diseases still rare in developing countries avoided. The first is the recognition that many of the commonest chronic disorders in more economically developed countries are characteristic of modern Western lifestyle...
From a genetic standpoint, humans living today are Stone Age hunter-gatherers displaced through time to a world that differs from that for which our genetic constitution was selected. Unlike evolutionary maladaptation, our current discordance has little effect on reproductive success; rather it acts as a potent promoter of chronic illnesses: athero...
The nutritional elements appropriate for contemporary humans reflect genetically determined biochemical and physiological factors, which have evolved over hundreds of millions of years. Stone Age humans, however, derived nearly all of their nutrients from just two of the four major food groups we select from today.
Phleboliths, and especially diverticular disease and hiatus hernia, are rarer in developing countries than in economically more developed communities, but all three conditions were as common in Black as in White Americans. This finding suggests that they are due to environmental rather than to genetic causes. A deficient intake of dietary fibre may...
The author offers insight into the two papers presented.
Double contrast knee arthrography is most useful for preoperative evaluation of patients with suspected meniscal tears. In our series of 287 tears, 93% were detected by arthrography. A positive arthrographic diagnosis of meniscal injury was correct in 96% of all instances. Double contrast arthrography was of little value for identification of anter...
Hypotonic duodenography has become a well accepted procedure for diagnosing pancreaticoduodenal cancer. In order to provide further data about the accuracy of this examination, 170 patients were reviewed who were suspected of having this disease and whose duodenogram diagnosis was later confirmed or disproved by surgery, autopsy, or clinical follow...
Twenty-eight patients with trauma involving the thoracic lumbar spine were examined by both conventional roentgenography and hypocycloidal tomography. The latter technique demonstrated 12 neural arch fractures of which only two were identified on the initial interpretation of the conventional roentgenograms. When these were reexamined, the fracture...
This article has no abstract; the first 100 words appear below.
LESS than a decade ago the pancreas was considered a hidden organ. Available roentgenographic methods often gave negative or misleading results, and surgeons frequently embarked upon exploratory surgery for suspected pancreatic disease with an uncertain preoperative diagnosis. Within r...
Roentgenologically demonstrable pancreatic lithiasis may occur in a number of conditions. In this country about 90 per cent of the patients in whom such calcification is shown will have alcoholic pancreatitis. A history of longstanding alcoholism with frequent episodes of severe abdominal pain can usually be obtained from such patients.Hereditary p...
This article has no abstract; the first 100 words appear below.
RECENTLY, at this institution, a patient with choledocholithiasis experienced an episode of acute biliary colic while being studied by intravenous cholangiography. The resulting radiologic phenomena form the basis for this communication. Case Report A 21-year-old woman was referred for...
Three hundred normal upper gastrointestinal examinations as well as 50 studies demonstrating duodenal diverticula were analyzed to better characterize the aspects of normal duodenal anatomy pertinent to diagnosis of pancreatic disease.
The results are applied to distorted duodenal diverticula, depression of the duodenojejunal junction, duodenal ind...
Six cases of villous adenoma of the duodenum are described and compared to the 6 previously reported in the literature. The overall incidence of malignant degeneration is 46%, which is comparable to the incidence reported for villous tumors arising in the stomach (58%) and colon (34-79%). Duodenal villous adenomas are morphologically similar to the...
Four cases of retrograde prolapse of the gastric mucosa into the esophagus are reported, and the literature briefly reviewed.
Whether this entity represents a clinical and roentgenographic disorder or fits into the spectrum of hiatus hernia is debatable.
The clinical symptoms are those of hiatus hernia and gastroesophageal reflux. Of importance is...
This report describes a patient with well-documented chronic pancreatitis whose preoperative Se75 selenomethionine pancreatic scintigram failed to demonstrate the pancreas. Six months after sphincterotomy and sphincteroplasty, pancreatic function testing and the pancreatic scintigram became normal.The value of pancreatic imaging in providing an obj...
The importance of pulmonary embolic disease needs no emphasis. Its frequency and potential seriousness are well known [2, 9, 12]. Most of the medical literature on this topic concerned with the problem of large pulmonary emboli [8, 11]. This paper is devoted to certain manifestations of pulmonary microembolism. The research of Smith, Dammin and oth...
Several new observations of the appearance of the inner margin of the duodenal loop are presented and distinguished from pathological alterations. These consist of a triad of features referred to as the promontory, the straight segment, and the longitudinal fold. Recognition of these normal contours is important so that they are not misinterpreted...
Post-tracheostomy complications of granuloma formation and stenosis at the stomal site may result from a combination of trauma, infection, and inadequate humidification of the tracheal mucosa. Radiological evaluation usually reveals the nature and extent of these lesions. Lateral neck films made with the soft tissue radiographic technique are the m...
Tracheal stenoses as a result of pressure necrosis from the inflatable balloon of cuffed tracheostomy tubes occur approximatelty 1.5-3 cm. distal to the stomal site. These lesions are best evaluated roentgenologically by a combination of air tracheograms with or without laminagraphy and fluoroscopy.
Stenoses appear as narrowed areas in the tracheal...
Hypotonic duodenography is performed by intubating the duodenum, administering a parenteral anticholingeric, and obtaining barium-filled and air contrast roentgenograms of the distended duodenum. Serious complications of the procedure have not been reported. "Spiculation," straightening with fold effacement along the inner duodenal border, thickene...
During the past thirty years, health promotion advice, especially that involving nu-trition, has been based primarily on epidemiological research findings. While not a paradigm in the Kuhnian sense (Kuhn, 1996), epidemiology has been by far the dominant force in the field of disease prevention. Grant funding, academic publica-tions, official recomm...
Isotope radiography has established itself as a sim pie, safe and reliable method for showing pulmonary perfusion abnormalities, particularly those associated with pulmonary embolism. The “characteristic†scm tigraphic pattern of this pathology is a discrete, io calized area of decreased radioactivity. In some instances the isotopic pattern com...
A case in which entry of the common bile duct into a duodenal diverticulum was demonstrated preoperatively by conventional upper gastrointestinal examination and hypotonic duodenography is described.Confirmation by intra- and postoperative cholangiography was obtained.The condition predisposes to biliary and/or pancreatic inflammatory disease and i...
A two fold scintigraphic pattern consisting of (1) decreased radioactivity along the interlobar fissure and (2) apparent diminution in the size of involved lobes is presented. The findings appear to result from multiple pulmonary microembolism—a disease entity which occurs commonly and which can produce a circumferential zone of pulmonary hypoperfu...
Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a systemic disorder characterized by xanthoma-like skin lesions, angioid streaks in the optic fundus, and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. This disorder is transmitted by an autosomal recessive gene and may represent a basic defect of calcium metabolism resulting in primary calcification of elastic tissue. The most com...
To assess prospective accuracy and clarify indications for diagnostic study, 45 patients suspected clinically of having pancreatic disease were studied by conventional barium examination of the upper gastrointestinal tract, hypotonic duodenography, selective angiography and selenomethionine isotope scanning. Duodenography achieved 78 per cent, isot...
“Liver overlap”—inability to distinguish between hepatic and pancreatic radioactivity—frequently impairs 75Se selenomethionine pancreatic photoscans. This paper describes a technical innovation which successfully eliminates the problem. Se1enomethionine, an amino acid analogue, is rapidly accumulated in protein synthesizing tissues (1, 2). Pancreat...
Since the introduction of 75Se selenomethionine as an agent for pancreatic scanning (1), numerous protocols designed to increase pancreatic uptake of this amino acid analogue have been proposed (1–4). For the most part, these methods have not been substantiated by animal investigation, and, where they have been tested experimentally, no significant...