(22-02-10) Estimation of the diet-dependent net acid load in 229 worldwide historically studied hunter-gatherer societies1,2

Alexander Str?hle, Andreas Hahn and Anthony Sebastian

1 From the Nutrition PhysiologyHuman Nutrition Unit Institute of Food Science Centre of Applied Chemistry Leibniz University of Hannover Hannover Germany (A Str?leAH)the Department of Medicine Division of Nephrologythe ClinicalTranslational Science Institute University of California San Francisco San Francisco California (A Sebastian).
2 Address correspondence to A Sebastian, 40 Crags Court, San Francisco, CA 94131. E-mail: [email protected] .
Background: Nutrition scientists are showing growing interest in the diet patterns of preagricultural (hunter-gatherer) humans. Retrojected preagricultural diets are reportedly predominantly net base producing in contrast to the net acid-producing modern Western diets.
Objective: We examined the dietary net acid load [net endogenous acid production (NEAP)] for 229 worldwide historically studied hunter-gatherer societies to determine how differences in plant-to-animal (P:A) dietary subsistence patterns and differences in the percentage of body fat in prey animals affect the NEAP.
Design: With the use of 1) ethnographic data of dietary P:A ratios of hunter-gatherer populations, 2) established computational methods, and 3) knowledge that fat densities of animal foods consumed by hunter-gatherers varied between 3% and 20%, we computed the NEAP for the diets of 229 populations in 4 different models of animal fat densities (model A, 3%; model B, 10%; model C, 15%; model D, 20%).
Results: As P:A ratios decreased from 85:15 to 5:95, the NEAP increased from ?178 to +181 mEq/d (model A) and from ?185 to +120 mEq/d (models B and C). Approximately 50% of the diets consumed by the 229 worldwide hunter-gatherer populations were net acid producing (models B and C). In model D, 40% of the diets were net acid producing.
Conclusions: Our data confirm that the NEAP of hunter-gatherer diets becomes progressively more positive as P:A ratios decline. The high reliance on animal-based foods of a worldwide sample of historically studied hunter-gatherer populations renders their diets net acid producing in 40?60% of subgroups of P:A ratios. Only further investigations can show the implications of these findings in determining the NEAP of human ancestral diets.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28637
Vol. 91, No. 2, 406-412, February 2010

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