I've read NHE and am very interested in the hormonal side of diet. Thanks for all the great information. As an athlete and student majoring in dietetics I keep finding what my body feels is best and what I'm learning in class don't coincide. Currently, I'm following a dietary regimen called the Paleo Diet which is based around the consumption of lean meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Grains and dairy are avoided due to their recent addition to the human diet on the evolutionary time scale. What made me think about this and the cyclic diet you suggest is your recent report detailing the sodium/potassium ratio. The authors of the Paleo diet highlight the fact that a natural diet contains much more potassium than sodium, in fact the data they present from an analysis of hunter gather diets around the world suggests that the ratio of sodium to potassium should be on the order of 1:5 or 1:10.

It also seems highly likely to me that the natural diet of our ancestors was cyclic in nature. During the spring, summer, and into the fall, consumption of carbohydrates would have been limited by what was ripening during the season. By nature, when a plant came into season large amounts of carbohydrate would be consumed and then a break until the next staple matured would occur. During these breaks and in the winter (assuming a population in a climate of 4 seasons), the diet would probably be almost primarily meat with some high energy staples like nuts and seeds. I was just curious if you had opinion about the premises behind the Paleo diet and how it might relate to the diet you suggest.