Macro partitioning
The modern western diet's high sodium-to-potassium ratio contributes to hypertension, stroke, and other chronic diseases.
Check your sodium-to-potassium ratio. The typical western diet has too much sodium (from processed foods and added salt) and too little potassium (from fruits and vegetables). To support healthy blood pressure, increase your intake of potassium-rich whole foods like leafy greens, fruits, and tubers, and reduce processed foods high in added salt.
The average potassium content (2620 mg/d) of the typical US diet is substantially lower than its sodium content (3271 mg/d)... This inversion of potassium and sodium concentrations is a recent event in human evolutionary history. It is believed to contribute to hypertension, stroke, kidney stones, osteoporosis, gastrointestinal tract cancers, asthma, exercise-induced asthma, insomnia, air sickness, high-altitude sickness, and Meniere’s syndrome.
Why this rating
Based on observational data and evolutionary theory, not direct intervention trials in the text.
Source
The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization
Pedro Carrera‐Bastos et al. · Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology · 2011
DOI 10.2147/rrcc.s16919
More from this paper
- Adopting a hunter-gatherer-style diet and lifestyle (Paleolithic diet and lifestyle) reduces the risk of chronic degenerative diseases of civilization, including coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune diseases.Moderate
- A net acid-yielding western diet (high in meat, dairy, grains, salt) compared to a net base-yielding hunter-gatherer diet (high in fruits, vegetables, tubers) contributes to osteoporosis and sarcopenia through chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis.Moderate
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