Abstract
The “Carnivore Connection” hypothesizes that, during human evolution, a scarcity of dietary carbohydrate in diets with low plant : animal subsistence ratios led to insulin resistance providing a survival and reproductive advantage with selection of genes for insulin resistance. The selection pressure was relaxed at the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution when large quantities of cereals first entered human diets. The “Carnivore Connection” explains the high prevalence of intrinsic insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in populations that transition rapidly from traditional diets with a low-glycemic load, to high-carbohydrate, high-glycemic index diets that characterize modern diets. Selection pressure has been relaxed longest in European populations, explaining a lower prevalence of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, despite recent exposure to famine and food scarcity. Increasing obesity and habitual consumption of high-glycemic-load diets worsens insulin resistance and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes in all populations.
Highlights
Two decades ago, Brand-Miller and Colagiuri published the Carnivore Connection hypothesis [1], proposing that dietary carbohydrate, both quantity and quality, played a critical role in the natural history of type 2 diabetes
We proposed that low glucose intake associated with a lowcarbohydrate, high-protein carnivorous diet during the Ice Ages which dominated the last two million years of human evolution led to insulin resistance becoming a survival and reproductive advantage
We propose that the selection pressure for insulin resistance was relaxed first in Europeans when dietary carbohydrate increased 12,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture [15]
Summary
Brand-Miller and Colagiuri published the Carnivore Connection hypothesis [1], proposing that dietary carbohydrate, both quantity and quality, played a critical role in the natural history of type 2 diabetes. We proposed that low glucose intake associated with a lowcarbohydrate, high-protein carnivorous diet during the Ice Ages which dominated the last two million years of human evolution led to insulin resistance becoming a survival and reproductive advantage. The highest prevalence of type 2 diabetes is seen in recent hunter-gatherer populations who have rapidly westernized, including Pima Indians, Nauruans, and Australian Aboriginals [2,3,4]. Europeans and their descendants appear to be the only group with a relatively low predisposition to type 2 diabetes, even in the midst of the current epidemic of obesity [5]. (5) Habitual consumption of a high-glycemic-load diet worsens insulin resistance and contributes to the obesity and type 2 diabetes in all populations
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