Ran across this and a couple of other articles on the Atkins Center
(www.atkinscenter.com) site while doing a paleo dieting websearch.
Hunter-Gatherer Diets: Meat-Based and Heart Healthy.  I was surprised to see
words like Hunter/Gatherer and Evolutionary Aspects on his website,
especially with the amount of chemicals that go into his products!  But
thought the articles were interesting.

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Cordain, L., Eaton, S.B., Miller, J.B., et al., "The Paradoxical Nature of
Hunter-Gatherer Diets: Meat-Based, Yet Non-Atherogenic." European Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, 56 (Supplement 1), 2002, pages S42-52. The following
information is available at <A HREF="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/">Pub Med</A> and was not written by Atkins
professionals.

OBJECTIVE: Field studies of twentieth century hunter-gathers (HG) showed them
to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease
(CVD). Consequently, the characterization of HG diets may have important
implications in designing therapeutic diets that reduce the risk for CVD in
Westernized societies. Based upon limited ethnographic data (n=58 HG
societies) and a single quantitative dietary study, it has been commonly
inferred that gathered plant foods provided the dominant energy source in HG
diets.

METHOD AND RESULTS: In this review we have analyzed the 13 known quantitative
dietary studies of HG and demonstrate that animal food actually provided the
dominant (65%) energy source, while gathered plant foods comprised the
remainder (35%). This data is consistent with a more recent, comprehensive
review of the entire ethnographic data (n=229 HG societies) that showed the
mean subsistence dependence upon gathered plant foods was 32%, whereas it was
68% for animal foods. Other evidence, including isotopic analyses of
Paleolithic hominid collagen tissue, reductions in hominid gut size, low
activity levels of certain enzymes, and optimal foraging data all point
toward a long history of meat-based diets in our species. Because increasing
meat consumption in Western diets is frequently associated with increased
risk for CVD mortality, it is seemingly paradoxical that HG societies, who
consume the majority of their energy from animal food, have been shown to be
relatively free of the signs and symptoms of CVD.

CONCLUSION: The high reliance upon animal-based foods would not have
necessarily elicited unfavorable blood lipid profiles because of the
hypolipidemic effects of high dietary protein (19-35% energy) and the
relatively low level of dietary carbohydrate (22-40% energy). Although fat
intake (28-58% energy) would have been similar to or higher than that found
in Western diets, it is likely that important qualitative differences in fat
intake, including relatively high levels of MUFA and PUFA and a lower
omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio, would have served to inhibit the
development of CVD. Other dietary characteristics including high intakes of
antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and phytochemicals along with a low salt intake
may have operated synergistically with lifestyle characteristics (more
exercise, less stress and no smoking) to further deter the development of
CVD.