This Monday, October 24, 2022, my new paper dealing with the necessity for carbohydrates in the Neanderthal diet was published by the American Journal of Biological Anthropology . The paper was motivated by a preceding paper from Hardy et al. in which the authors claimed that Neanderthals had to consume at least 50% of their calories from plant carbohydrates. Hardy et al. mainly relied on modern dietary guidelines and a putative need for high carbohydrate intake in pregnant/breastfeeding women and athletes to support their claim, which, as I argue in my paper, are highly questionable arguments. Instead, I make the point that Neanderthals might well have been hypercarnivores (deriving >70% energy from animals) with a metabolism adapted towards low carbohydrate intake and ketosis. In my paper, I also present data of a male rugby player who went on an exclusively carnivore diet for four months without detrimental effects on his athletic performance. The paper is available free of charge here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24643

Just one day later, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. appeared which further confirmed my arguments by analyzing various isotope ratios in tooth enamel from a Neanderthal individual found in Spain. In particular, these authors for the first time used the zinc isotope ratio (⁶⁶Zn/⁶⁴Zn = δ⁶⁶Zn) in a Neanderthal individual and found that it was consistent with this individual having been a hypercarnivore on top of the food chain. The paper is also freely available here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2109315119

Another day later, Dr. Shawn Baker announced the initiation of a study that examines how the carnivore diet has helped people come off medications and heal from chronic diseases. The study aims to track the health conditions before and after implementing the carnivore diet based on the real world medical claims and medications. To participate in the study, you could click here. https://revero.questionpro.com/a/TakeSurvey?tt=i3%2BmA1FC7AwECHrPeIW9eQ%3D%3D

Finally, on the next day, another new paper was indexed in Pubmed describing the long-term therapeutic management of Candida vulvovaginitis and vulvar hidradenitis suppurativa in a woman during a 47 months meat-only diet. Vulvovaginal candidiasis is typically a result of a disturbance in the patient's microbial ecosystem, which manifests itself by intense pruritus, erythema, swelling, and thick white vaginal discharge, and the symptoms ceased already after 43 days on the diet. This paper is also freely available and you can access it here:  https://www.cureus.com/articles/119195-consuming-an-all-meat-ketogenic-diet-for-the-long-term-management-of-candida-vulvovaginitis-and-vaginal-hidradenitis-suppurativa-a-47-month-follow-up-case-report

These publications and the new carnivore study are good steps in the right direction, since we urgently need a better understanding about the evolutionary roots of human carnivory and its health benefits.