Today we Typically Eat Less Nucleotide Rich Foods, and Nucleotide supplementation is a good idea.
Because nucleotides are so essential to fundamental biological processes like cell division, protein synthesis and cell signalling, many of the cells in our bodies have the ability to synthesise them. However, in many circumstances, like periods of high growth, intense physical exercise, recovery from injury, or an infection challenge to the immune system, the rate of synthesis doesn’t meet the body’s need for nucleotides. To aid with obtaining sufficient amounts of nucleotides our bodies evolved to obtain them from dietary sources. The pancreas produces different nuclease enzymes, ribonucleases, which digest RNA and deoxyribonucleases, which digest DNA.
However, our bodies didn’t evolve to cope with our modern lifestyles and diets, a fact that partially explains the prevalence of ‘diseases of civilisation’, such as inflammatory disease, or auto-immune disease, in developed countries. Our bodies are really suited to life in the Paleolithic era, about 20 thousand years ago, and the types of food our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate then. Our current diet is very different from what it was when humans hunted wild animals for food. The modern diet does not contain all the nutrients which our bodies are designed to obtain from food. Although eating unprocessed food is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, dietary supplements, such as NucleoCharged™, ensures that we obtain the nucleotides necessary for our bodies to function optimally, especially when put under stress, such as intense physical exercise.
The body obtains nucleotides from the diet by digesting long nucleic acid chains such as DNA and RNA. Since these chains are found in the nuclei and cytoplasm of cells, respectively, foods rich in intact cells are the best sources of nucleotides. Processed foods, which now form a major component of the modern diet, do not contain many cells, since they are made up in the most part of purified carbohydrates (sugar, flour, high fructose corn syrup), fats, and artificial chemicals. These foods have had their nucleic acids removed. Dairy products are also largely cell free and, although a rich source of calcium and many minerals, they will not fulfill your nucleotide needs.
Nucleotide Rich Foods are Missing from the Modern Diet
Rich sources of nucleotides include yeast extract, meat, and especially offal, since the major site of nucleotide synthesis in the body are organs such as the liver. Many people have made an effort to reduce the amount of meat in their diets, for health or ideological reason. Offal is rarely eaten nowadays, in general, when people consume meat they are likely to buy steaks or chicken breasts rather than liver, heart, or kidneys. Some plant based foods have theoretically high levels of nucleotides, but many fruits and vegetables are primarily used for energy storage, with much space taken by cell free starch in potatoes, for example. In addition, the cells of plants are protected by a cellulose cell wall, which we cannot digest, as well as a plasma membrane. Although this makes plant based foods rich in fibre, which we absolutely need for a healthy digestive and cardiovascular system, it prevents us from obtaining many of the nutrients inside the plant cells, including nucleotides.
How Modern Diet Differs from the Diet we Evolved to Benefit From
The modern diet differs hugely from the diet of our hunter gatherer ancestors. During the Paleolithic era, when Homo sapiens first evolved, meat was a major source of food, supplemented with roots, seeds and berries. Grains, where not eaten, in fact at that time there were no edible cereals, only their ancestor plants, wild grasses, whose seeds were not large enough to provide nourishment. In fact most fruits and vegetables that we eat today, did not exist in the wild, they are the result of selective cultivation when our hunter-gatherer ancestors finally developed farming. The wild vegetables did not store huge energy reserves in starch, as today’s potatoes and grains do, hence the caveman did not have access to energy rich, food which does not contain many cells. Although hunting and fishing was uncertain and often dangerous, it was one of the best sources of macronutrients. And given how hard it was to obtain meat, you can be sure that our hunter-gatherer ancestors practiced ‘head to tail’ eating, offal was definitely on the menu. Any form of processed food, like cell-free sugar, or flour was obviously unknown.
Although we are talking about our ancestors living thousands of years ago, our genes to a large extent have not caught up with these changes. As far as our DNA is concerned, we are still hunter gatherers, and our bodies are programmed to work optimally if we eat the foods that were available to cavemen. Although evolutionary pressure and selection of the fittest results in individuals who are best adapted to their environments, evolution works extremely slowly. Our genes have simply not noticed that our circumstances have changed drastically from what they in the Paleolithic period. The present obesity crisis and many of the modern diseases, are the result of our genetic programming no longer adapting us to our present diet and lifestyle.
However, attempting to eat a diet dominated with food and offal might not be the best solution for your health. Although such a diet would be rich in nucleotides, modern mass farming methods have created meat that can be quite harmful when consumed in large quantities. Farmed cattle are also living a very different life from their wild ancestors. They are raised on a large amount of antibiotics and other chemicals. They also have a far higher fat to lean muscle ratio than they did in the past. It is estimated that chicken, or farmed salmon, have many more calories than generally believed because their meat is far more fatty than it used to be in the past. Offal can be particularly harmful, since many contaminants are stored in the liver and and other organs. Of course
Taking a nucleotide supplement like NucleoCharged™, containing ingredients from yeast extract, ensures that you obtain the nucleotides your body requires without having to learn to cook intestines or brains, and without consuming more red meat than is optimal for your health.
Further Reading:
A review of the hunter gatherer diet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11965522
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787021/
Image attribution:
The image of liver is by FotoosVanRobin, and is used here under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.0 licence. You are free to use and adapt this image provided you credit the photographer, and you share any derivative work under the same, or similar, licence.
Image of donuts is by Sam Howzit. It is used here under the Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 licence. Your are free to use and adapt this image provided you credit the photographer.