Patrick's Paleolithic Principle

Disclaimer: the fundamentals of Patricks Paleolithic Principle are not original or new ideas at all, and my intention is not to stand of the shoulders of giants and call myself tall. The credits lie with those more knowledgeable than I, my intention is to merely have a well-packaged framework with a recallable name for ease of reference.

 

The masculine urge to run off to the woods

Now our natural innate default is where we, as humans, are healthiest and happiest. This is why subconsciously we crave this anthropological default. If you’ve ever deadlifted, you may have noticed that sometimes the second rep of your set is far quicker and efficient than your first. This is because when you lower the weight following your first rep, your mind subconsciously shifts your body into the perfect starting position that’s most optimal for extreme power, something that on the first rep even elite powerlifters struggle to do consciously.

Millions of years of evolution have provided your subconscious with a rock-solid foundation consisting of a plethora of knowledge, which in turn results in your mind deep down knowing what is best for itself.

This, I believe, is why when you’re gazing out of the car window deep in thought, you crave a more primitive life. “Just run off to the woods away from the mental and physical toxins of the modern day”, you fantasise. This is why every man secretly dreams of a self-sufficient, nature-bonded life. Your subconscious mind yearns for the brutal simplicity of the wilderness in an attempt to reset you to where you’re best and most powerful, not dissimilar to the second rep in the aforementioned set of deadlifts.

 

Denying nature comes with reprocussions

Now that's a nice theory Patrick, but where’s your evidence?

What if I told you that Hunter-Gatherers were healthier than we are today. Thus, a fundamental element of Patricks Palaeolithic Principle is to use our pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer ancestors as a health standard, to consider them our innate default, our most powerful deadlift starting position. This is because we spent at least 2 million years as hunter-gatherers. Comparatively, agriculture only began some 12,000 years ago, and the scientific revolution began 481 years ago as of 2024. These figures are hard to imagine, so allow me to visually demonstrate them for you:

Millions of years of adaption have evolutionarily sculpted our bodies to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, and it is only in the recent sliver of existence that our lifestyles have been drastically altered, which is insufficient time to engender major biological change. Thus, we are still intrinsically hunter/gatherers.

This is demonstrated by the drastic health implications that westernised lifestyles inflict upon our bodies, which are so ubiquitous that we consider them normal, but they aren’t. By looking back to our biological defaults (hunter/gatherers), we can see which health implications are naturally occurring in an environment absent from man-made toxins, and thus conclude which issues are caused by a modern toxin of some format.

 

Patrick's Paleolithic Principle

Patrick's Paleolithic Principle (PPP) entails that to look forward we must first look back. We must utilise our hunter-gatherer ancestors as a benchmark for health, and from this adjudicate whether a health issue is just natural, or it is caused by western lifestyle and modern toxins. Allow me to exemplify:

Acne is an issue that plagues western civilisation, with it affecting 85% of 12–15-year-olds in the modern day (Rao, 2021). However, Shannon (2020) noted that acne was absent from hunter-gatherer tribes. Thus, in accordance with PPP, acne must be caused by some toxin in the modern day.

A similar trend is noted with obesity, with only 2% of adults in the Hadza hunter-gatherer population classifying as obese (Pontzer et al, 2018), conversely, obesity is over 13 times more prevalent in the UK at 26.2% (and that’s ignoring the elephant in the room, or more accurately: the Americans on the globe). Thus, this immense exacerbation of obesity must be a result of some form of man-made toxin (yes – hyper processed foods count as toxins).

To further substantiate this trend, hunter-gatherers also had better teeth and oral microbiomes than us until dental health drastically dropped off with the rise of agriculture 12,000 years ago (Adler et al, 2013). Therefore, our decremented oral health (no UK jokes allowed) must be due to a modern toxin (again, refined sugar is most definitely a toxin).

 

Gayvemen

Now before I wade into controversial waters, I do want to state that same-sex preference is in fact natural, and has been documented thousands of years ago, however, the recent exponential surge in the LGBTQ community simply cannot be accounted for naturally. Back to it.

Now, the PPP framework can also be applied to social groups, such as my personal favourite: the LGBTQ community. Now I don’t need a study to prove that hunter-gathering men didn’t spontaneously decide to wear dresses and put lipstick on, because they obviously did (see image below for proof). However there is some extremely homophobic literature on the prevalence of homosexuality in ancestral times, and I’d personally recommend you read the paper ‘Male Homosexual Preference: Where, When, Why?’. I enjoyed the section where they essentially analysed ancient cave paintings and tried to discern whether what they depicted was gay or not, my favourite counter argument was ‘they could’ve been brothers’. Regardless, I intend to write a whole article on this topic so I’m just going to skim the surface:

Barthes et al (2015) noted that the anthropological data gathered here shows that MHP (Male Homosexual Preference) is likely absent from some [definitely homophobic] societies, especially those that display low levels of stratification, such as hunter-gatherers.

However, in rare cases when resources were particularly abundant, you do see increased stratification and sedentary lifestyles in hunter-gatherer populations (Singh et al, 2022), I just want to clarify these are not the hunter-gatherer populations I’m referring to in this article.

Anyways to compare, a recent survey found that 28% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, a huge increase which I think is completely natural and is just a result of lessened oppression. Conversely, PPP would argue that this must be caused by a modern toxin of some kind due to far less prevalence of homosexuality in our biological default, how foolish. However, I’m going to hold my tongue on that front, as to reiterate I intend to write an entire article on how wrong it is to to link estrogenics with the the LGBTQ community, because it's extremely incorrect, and wrong, and also false.

 

Cause of death conundrum

Moving on, the most impactful case study is chronic, non-communicable diseases (such as cancer, heart disease, metabolic disease), which are by far the biggest modern day killers, with non-communicable diseases accounting for 74.8% of deaths in 2019. You’d expect something similar with hunter-gatherers, right? Right?

Well, the percentage of deaths from chronic, non-communicable diseases is very low in hunter-gatherer populations, accounting for less than 10% of deaths (Gurven et al, 2007). You might say: “that’s simply because they don’t live long enough to develop these diseases”, however the death rate for individuals over 60 years old in hunter gatherer communities was still under 10%. Therefore, non-communicable diseases must also be caused by exposure to a modern toxin of some format. It’s crazy what you find when you venture deep into a rabbit hole.

On the other hand, you may further your criticism by stating: “although they may have been healthy for the short while they were alive, they must’ve barely made it to 30, their lifespans surely were minute”.

Granted, due largely to high infant mortality from infectious disease, the expected lifespan at birth for hunter-gatherers is lower, however, this does not mean that hunter gatherers do not reach old ages, as the modal range of death for hunter gatherer populations was actually 72 years (far from minute), which isn’t very far off the US’ modal range of death of 85 years (Gurven et al, 2007). Given the huge advances in healthcare and technology, and the elevated risks of living tens of thousands of years ago, the proximity of this data is extremely surprising.

To further substantiate, when modern day hunter gatherer populations move towards western lifestyles, the same health decrements that plague us manifest just the same in them (Pontzer et al, 2018), the common denominator is indisputable.

However, to wade into more controversial waters, one might ask: In accordance with PPP, what is considered a ‘natural’ death? Well, there still ongoing debates on causes of death for hunter gatherers, however Gurven et al (2007) found that the leading cause of death is acute infection at 70% (mostly infectious and gastrointestinal disease), followed by trauma at 20% - including accidents and violence.

This is fascinating as in modern times, death rates from infectious diseases and respiratory diseases have declined over time with the rise of antibiotics, vaccines, and public healthcare (Armstrong, 1999). Additionally, trauma deaths account for around 7.65% of all deaths in the modern day, a huge decrease from the hunter gatherer 20%.

Now, I’m admittedly treading out of my depth here, but if the two predominant ‘natural’ causes of death (acute infections and trauma) for hunter gatherers (our biological default) are drastically mitigated in the modern day, that begs the question: What should actually be killing us?

The inner optimist in me can’t help but imagine a future where the advancements of modern-day healthcare break bread with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, just imagine the health of the populace - a man can only dream. Something tells me they don’t want that to happen. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that front.

 

Conclusion

To summarise, Patricks Paleolithic Principle (PPP) is a framework that consists of you discerning whether something is natural, or a consequence of unnatural toxins and modern-day lifestyles by simply scanning for its presence in hunter gatherer tribes (our toxin-free, most optimal default). From this foundation, one may cultivate a resolution or strategy of mitigation.

Conclusively, to be healthy in the modern day we must look back to go forward, but I hope one day, when we redefine and replace the ancient bench marker of health that is the hunter-gatherer with a superior modern successor, one must only need to look forward.

Thank you for reading, feel free to leave a comment down below (criticism is welcome), and if you're interested in seeing me attempting to put PPP into action, check out this video.

 

 

Bibliography

Shannon J. F. (2020). Why do humans get acne? A hypothesis. Medical hypotheses, 134, 109412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.109412

Rao, A., Douglas, S. C., & Hall, J. M. (2021). Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Hormone Receptors, and Acne Vulgaris: A Connecting Hypothesis. Cells, 10(6), 1439. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10061439

Pontzer, H., Wood, B. M., and Raichlen, D. A. (2018) Hunter-gatherers as models in public health. Obesity Reviews, 19: 24–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12785.

Adler, C., Dobney, K., Weyrich, L. et al. (2013) Sequencing ancient calcified dental plaque shows changes in oral microbiota with dietary shifts of the Neolithic and Industrial revolutions. Nat Genet 45, 450–455. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2536

Barthes, J., Crochet, P. A., & Raymond, M. (2015). Male Homosexual Preference: Where, When, Why?. PloS one, 10(8), e0134817. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134817

Singh, M. & Glowacki, L.(forthcoming) Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model. Evolution and Human Behavior

Gurven M, Kaplan H. (2007) Longevity among hunter-gatherers: a cross-cultural examination. Pop Dem Rev ; 33: 321–365.

Armstrong GL, Conn LA, Pinner RW. (1999) Trends in Infectious Disease Mortality in the United States During the 20th Century. JAMA. 1999;281(1):61–66. doi:10.1001/jama.281.1.61