Anthropologist speaks out on Paleo

[Cole Dano]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/10/27/141666659/the-paleo-diet-not-the-way-to-a-healthy-future?sc=fb&cc=fp

I'm all for finding out what works, and honestly thanks to many of the Paleo based arguments i found here i totally changed my diet and feel better for it. Nevertheless i can't help but feel the basic premise is on shaky ground, there was more variation in diet throughout history than Paleo proponents let on.

This seems to back that up.

[John Sapinoso]

So how exactly is Paleo not the way to a healthy future? It's not as though I drink the Kool-Aid or anything (even if it's paleo), but the author made that statement and offered no evidence to prove it. I'd be an ass if I pulled the anti pro-vegetarian agenda card on her, well...oops. All she said was that there was some variation in Paleolithic diet, which is a given. If she really thinks that Paleo diet will redirect grain from poor country's to rich ones and doom animals to death in factorys, she's kind of missing the point about food quality that Paleo puts at it's center.

And usnews.com is her source on nutrition information? Woman, give us a break. “by shunning dairy and grains, you’re at risk of missing out on a lot of nutrients. “ Name one, please.

Grain needs to be fortified, or it gives us diseases.

Dairy allergy anyone?

It will take a lot more than a scientifically weightless paper to convince me off of lean meat and veggies and back to a standard american diet.

[Cole Dano]

That certainly wan't my suggestion, she clearly has her agenda, one with which i don't agree either.

The thing is even though many concepts from the diet work for me as well, i question the reasoning. If there is evidence that we didn't eat much meat until two million years ago, that alone throws a spanner in the works.

I'm just trying to remain rational, objective and stimulate thought.

[Rafael David]

As I said before: plant based diet + supplements will be the diet of the future. 8)

[Aaron Griffin]

Nevertheless i can't help but feel the basic premise is on shaky ground, there was more variation in diet throughout history than Paleo proponents let on.

It depends, really, on how literal you take the premise. "Eat like our ancestors" is quite the shitty premise, as we barely even know what paleolithic people LOOKED like, let alone ate. However "eat natural, whole and unprocessed foods" could also be seen as the primary paleo premise. This is actually an extraordinarily good way to formulate a diet. In fact, I'd say it's the most important part.

Everything else is near useless. Low fat, high fat, low carb, high protein, etc. It doesn't matter if all your eat is real, whole, unprocessed foods. It works itself out.

So go ahead and eat bread. But not from the grocery store isle. That's processed crap. Get it from a bakery. Go ahead and drink milk, but try to get raw or minimally pasteurized whole milk.

[Cole Dano]

However "eat natural, whole and unprocessed foods" could also be seen as the primary paleo premise. This is actually an extraordinarily good way to formulate a diet. In fact, I'd say it's the most important part.

See now that's simple common sense, all the rest is the sales pitch.

A 'common sense' diet is something even i can get behind.

[RatioFitness]

That certainly wan't my suggestion, she clearly has her agenda, one with which i don't agree either.

The thing is even though many concepts from the diet work for me as well, i question the reasoning. If there is evidence that we didn't eat much meat until two million years ago, that alone throws a spanner in the works.

I'm just trying to remain rational, objective and stimulate thought.

I think there is criticism to be had for the paleo diet, but 2,000,000 years ago is a lot of time for adaptation to take place until the introduction of homo sapiens.

[Aaron Griffin]

I think there is criticism to be had for the paleo diet, but 2,000,000 years ago is a lot of time for adaptation to take place until the introduction of homo sapiens.

Modern humans are only 200,000 years old. That is an order of magnitude difference there

[RatioFitness]

"Eat like our ancestors" is quite the shitty premise, as we barely even know what paleolithic people LOOKED like, let alone ate.

They looked like us. Except dirty and they didn't shave. Plus, paleo proponents seem to think they know a lot about what our ancestors ate. At least they act like they do.

However "eat natural, whole and unprocessed foods" could also be seen as the primary paleo premise.

I have to disagree. "Paleo dieting" has become a very specific hypothesis which makes predictions about the impact of dairy, grains, and legumes on human health. Claims which have yet to be empirically verified.

[Aaron Griffin]

I have to disagree. "Paleo dieting" has become a very specific hypothesis which makes predictions about the impact of dairy, grains, and legumes on human health. Claims which have yet to be empirically verified.

Dairy gives me gas and makes my skin break out - so I don't consume it. Legumes give me even worse gas. For these two reasons, those food groups are eschewed for me personally.

If you'd like me to eat a few meals of dairy and beans, and you and I hang out together in a closed room, so that we can verify that they are bad, I'm more than willing.

[Cole Dano]

If you'd like me to eat a few meals of dairy and beans, and you and I hang out together in a closed room, so that we can verify that they are bad, I'm more than willing.

That is certainly true for you, you did the experiment and found out. If i don't have dairy i'm miserable, it's a tonic for me.

There doesn't seem to be any universal truth to many things involved with diet, I can't eat fish or fresh strawberries, my wife thrives on them.

I personally think this is a big part of the confusion. We want a simple answer that we can label as X-diet and then get behind it a preach it. On this i'll stick with that common sense thing that says if bean make you blow up, don't eat them, if they make some one else feel vibrant than that's also good.

Scientifically this makes things very difficult to pin down though, it's going to take a long time yet and allot more confusion.

[Razz]

Please guys, the anthropologist in question has no experience with the paleo diet at all it seems. Just like Dr. Oz "Shit the bed" -Robb Wolf, the other day. Read this http://www.dansplan.com/blog/914-thoughts-about-a-healthy-future

EDIT: also you cannot argue with the results from a paleo type diet anymore

[RatioFitness]

EDIT: also you cannot argue with the results from a paleo type diet anymore

Why? Has a good study finally come out on it?

[Cole Dano]

Razz the article you reference doesn't make any more or less compelling of an argument than the other anthro.

Agreed the original article didn't make much of a case either, seemed to end before it started, but the Anthropology bit was interesting.

Me i'm keep one eye on movements that become doctrines that become dogma that is symbolized by a catch word. One has to keep an open mind, on both sides with this. Again i just have to keep repeating, common sense.

The core diet has worked for me, but my questions are, is Paleo the best word to describe it? Is there really such a thing as one diet to rule them all?

Mostly i'm just playing the devil's advocate here.

[Philip Chubb]

EDIT: also you cannot argue with the results from a paleo type diet anymore

Why? Has a good study finally come out on it?

Is a good study what you wait for before you will believe something?

I think you can call the diet whatever you want. Even the ho-ho and twinky diet if you would like. The point is what you are doing with it. I just followed Ido's advice and removed grain,sugar, and potatoes along with soy. That is also what I tend to tell people when they ask about it.

[Joshua Naterman]

I have to disagree. "Paleo dieting" has become a very specific hypothesis which makes predictions about the impact of dairy, grains, and legumes on human health. Claims which have yet to be empirically verified.

The whole foods themselves can not be directly implicated, because it is unethical to force someone to eat something that you think is bad for them. If the hypothesis involves a negative outcome on health the study will never pass the review board for approval.

What we CAN say is that gluten is a known health hazard. It causes powerful cellular inflammation that can be and has been consistently measured. It is also a well understood fact that excess inflammation is responsible for or a notable contributing factor in an astonishingly wide array of medical conditions, from arthritis to irritable bowel syndrome to eczema. You can get on PubMed and get comfortable with those two statements if you like, the information is out there.

We can also say, with 100% certainty, that fructose is a health hazard and that removing fructose-containing sugars and food products from the diet is a reasonable protective measure. Fructose is used to give laboratory animals metabolic syndrome and then diabetes in one month. This can't be done with glucose in anywhere remotely close to the same timeline and to do it at all requires an extraordinary amount, which is why fructose is used. It's an efficient way to make the animals sick. We use the animals, in this case rats, because their endocrine and digestive systems are so similar to ours.

Dairy... depends on the source and on one's individual allergies. Most milk in the US isn't really milk, as any European can tell you as soon as they try some. It is responsible for something like 75% of the average American's consumed estrogen because most of the cows are given estrogen to make them grow faster and because the dairy cows are always pregnant. There are plenty of studies confirming the increase in estrogen in pregnant cow's milk, which increases further as the cows get closer to full term. We should all be acutely aware of the negative health effects associated with EXCESS estrogen, which in men's case is all estrogen other than the trace amounts our bodies aromatize naturally.

Grass fed milk is a lot safer because the cows are not given hormones, as most dairy cows these days are not, but they ARE usually still pregnant. The key is to have lots of fiber with the milk so that most of the estrogens are bound and not absorbed. Milk is a powerful anabolic agent, but in my book if it isn't cultured it isn't anywhere near as useful as it should be.

I'm assuming you are too intelligent for me to have to get into soy.

What we know: Having lots of plant organs is extraordinarily good for your health. Gluten is known to be powerfully inflammatory. Inflammation is a known causal and/or contributing factor for many, many diseases. Not having fructose in any significant quantity (a total of 20g or less per day) is what historical diets all the way until the industrial food age, which is not even 100 years yet, consisted of. As fructose consumption has risen so has chronic disease rate. Excessive fructose consumption is a known cause (though not the only one) of metabolic syndrome, which in turn is a known cause (and as far as we know a necessary step along the way) of diabetes mellitus. People with diabetes have risk factors for other chronic diseases that are multiples of the general population, regardless of their overall health status aside from diabetes. Knowing all that is research fact, go ahead and tell me that we are retards to suggest that a diet that is gluten free, extremely low fructose or 'fructose free', and contains large quantities of plant organs.

Go ahead and tell me that the research does NOT, in fact support this very core diet. If you do say that, you don't know how to read and are incapable of using the vast body of available research to form intelligent thoughts regarding practical application of dietary knowledge.

Notice I haven't mentioned the dairy or meat here, that gets more complicated and neither are technically required for health or longevity. Right now I am dealing with simple realities regarding the core aspects of health through nutrition. There is no one on the planet who knows how to read english and has taken the time to review the current body of research, AS WELL AS the enormous body of anecdotal and evidence-based accounts regarding the people who have made these changes, who will suggest that this is no the ideal starting point for any diet.

Will people follow the ideal? Not most of them, no. That's not my problem. My problem is when someone seems to be unwittingly missing the main point. I then take the time to put something like this out there, and if you then refuse to do your own reading to confirm what I am suggesting or if you for whatever reason just decide to stick to your noncommittal guns then that's YOUR problem and not mine.

If you want to wait for unethical research to be approved and used and referenced, do so in silence. We have to go with the best of what we've got.

As for everyone else: Don't speak in absolutes. Everything I am saying here is based on the best available information from a wide variety of sources, which all happens to coincide and be the same. A rare perfect storm, and even now I am saying "to the best of our knowledge" and "these facts SUGGEST" because we don't have true causal information and we never will. Try and keep that in mind and in your posts. Whether we are true fitness or medical professionals, avid health nuts, or something in-between we owe it to ourselves and our readerships to use the appropriate terms and conditional statements. There's a big difference between saying "this is how it is" and "this is what we've seen so far, so unless you have an equal body of evidence or some kind of new, replicated research that directly contradicts the results I am getting and somehow suggests that what I am doing is harmful I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing."

Yea, it's a few more words, but it's honest and true to your beliefs without turning dogmatic.

[Cole Dano]

Excellent synopsis and editorial Slizz.

[Joshua Naterman]

Thanks Cole Feel free to tell me if I'm out of line!

[Josh Schmitter]

Excellent synopsis and editorial Slizz.

+1 indeed. One of the few people I always hope will leave a crazy long post .

Might I also suggest a serious reading through http://www.archevore.com/archevore/ if you want some good, stone-solid information.

[Joshua Naterman]

If you want some REALLY interesting reading, check out the "Old Friends" theory. Search for that on google...

It turns out one of the most protective things the human race has ever possessed is no longer in many of us: parasites.

[Cole Dano]

Hookworm therapy that's a new one on me.

I have to say the Hygienic Theory makes sense but also raises a major question of risk benefit. Is it better having more allergies or more people dying from the major childhood diseases? Well as a parent its a no brainer, but in the long run the ethics aren't so clear.

[Joshua Naterman]

Well, we have such good acute medicine at this point that there is little danger of anyone dying of infectious disease anymore unless they don't get treatment. No one's saying you should try and tough out the measles or malaria or anything, it's just very interesting to me that there is such a complex set of interactions between nature and our health.

Apparently some parasites exhibit an unequaled anti-inflammatory effect, to the point where they completely halt the progress of multiple sclerosis and appear to completely suppress unnecessary inflammation. Phase 2 efficacy trials are now taking place. *head spins*

[Cole Dano]

I totally agree. I remember way way back when in my college philosophy class the professor predicted that after this period of trying to isolate ourselves from nature we would begin to find a way to bring nature ind technology (this includes medical science) together.

I think in that regard the Paleo concept is fantastic, and the idea of finding friendly microbes and parasites is extremely intriguing.

[RatioFitness]

I have to disagree. "Paleo dieting" has become a very specific hypothesis which makes predictions about the impact of dairy, grains, and legumes on human health. Claims which have yet to be empirically verified.

The whole foods themselves can not be directly implicated, because it is unethical to force someone to eat something that you think is bad for them. If the hypothesis involves a negative outcome on health the study will never pass the review board for approval.

The study I would propose is a RCT in which macronutrient % and calories are controlled equal, with one diet being paleo and the other including grains, dairy, and legumes. That study would get approved.

What we CAN say is that gluten is a known health hazard. It causes powerful cellular inflammation that can be and has been consistently measured. It is also a well understood fact that excess inflammation is responsible for or a notable contributing factor in an astonishingly wide array of medical conditions, from arthritis to irritable bowel syndrome to eczema. You can get on PubMed and get comfortable with those two statements if you like, the information is out there.

Much of what you are saying comes from either (1) in vitro studies or (2) studies of people with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity - of which only a minority of the population has. Studies that are not done on this specific sub-population show neutral-to-positive effects of whole grains on inflammation. Paleo proponents claiming that all people will see improvements in health by eliminating gluten from their diets are making unsubstantiated claims, IMO.

We can also say, with 100% certainty, that fructose is a health hazard and that removing fructose-containing sugars and food products from the diet is a reasonable protective measure. Fructose is used to give laboratory animals metabolic syndrome and then diabetes in one month. This can't be done with glucose in anywhere remotely close to the same timeline and to do it at all requires an extraordinary amount, which is why fructose is used. It's an efficient way to make the animals sick. We use the animals, in this case rats, because their endocrine and digestive systems are so similar to ours.

You know something in science with 100 certainty? You should back down from such a lofty claim - which is patently untrue. No one knows anything with 100% certainty in science.

It's true that fructose can start to have adverse metabolic effects if consumed in large quantities, but in moderation it is nothing to be feared.

Fructose alarmism mostly comes from rat studies in which they feed the rats levels of fructose that are completely impractical for a person to consume in equivalent human terms. Furthermore, you have to take into the account the context of the fructose consumption. In the rat studies you refer to, exercise and hypocaloric conditions have been shown to substantially mitigate the adverse effects of even large, impractical doses of fructose.

I'm assuming you are too intelligent for me to have to get into soy

Never assume, I'm much less intelligent than you could ever imagine.

Soy-villainy is another over-hyped phenomena, I would argue. Sure, there are certain sub-populations who should avoid soy (those with soy allergies, hypothyroidism, pre-term infants), but otherwise if you eat some soy in the context of an overall balanced diet then nothing bad is going to happen to you.

One thing that people often bring up is that soy consumption will cause you to turn into a girly man, but I don't think the totality of the evidence shows that soy lowers testosterone.

Not having fructose in any significant quantity (a total of 20g or less per day) is what historical diets all the way until the industrial food age, which is not even 100 years yet, consisted of.

Even if that figure is correct, it doesn't necessarily follow that amounts greater than 20g/day will cause adverse effects. Do you have any evidence from human clinical trials to support this? Again, I also think that fructose in large amounts (especially with a lack of exercise and in hypercaloric conditions) should be avoided, but what is "large" is probably more in the range of 50-100g/day.

Knowing all that is research fact, go ahead and tell me that we are retards to suggest that a diet that is gluten free, extremely low fructose or 'fructose free', and contains large quantities of plant organs.

Go ahead and tell me that the research does NOT, in fact support this very core diet. If you do say that, you don't know how to read and are incapable of using the vast body of available research to form intelligent thoughts regarding practical application of dietary knowledge.

Oh, I see. So if I disagree with you on some points then that means I am just an idiot who doesn't know how to read, and I have an inability to form intelligent opinions?

Let it be acknowledged by everyone reading this that slizzardman was the first to hurl insults.

If it makes your blood-pressure and the bulging veins in your head subside any, I don't think anyone who eats your diet will have bad health, or even health that is not-quite-as-good as one that also has a little more fructose, or soy, or a few servings of grains per day. I would guess that as evidence continues to accumulate that they will be mostly equal (unless you have some of the aforementioned allergies/sensitivities).

[Joshua Naterman]

Fructose is definitely dangerous, and it is definitely true that in small quantities at the right times it appears to be harmless, but since that is not how it presents in the average diet it is not harmless. So I SHOULD say that in the quantities commonly consumed, and in the commonly consumed manner, fructose is almost certainly a huge health hazard. However, in practical terms, it is a problem plain and simple and should be controlled by removing it completely as an added food component. This will never happen, but for the safety of the common person it should happen. Instead we are left to remove the vast excess on our own by choosing foods wisely.

Exercise mitigates the adverse effects of almost everything, but it does not eliminate it.

That would be an awesome study, I don't know if it would get approved but I would hope so. If the hypothesis has anything to do with a positive health adaptation it should be fine, but if there are negative implications it won't be approved. I hope we see something like this.

I don't think it is 100% global, but glutens are definitely an insidious disease factor for many people. Levels of individual reactance will depend on genetics, and there are probably some people who are nonreactive though I have no idea what proportion. It's such a long term effect that I don't know how we would test this outside of a volunteer study where people would opt into a gluten free diet and have blood chemistry measured monthly for 12-24 months.

The soy thing is definitely still under debate, and I think that at traditional levels of consumption (referring to indigenous Asian consumption levels of soy) it would be relatively harmless, but it has been shown that two of the phytoestrogens in soy can and do react with the estrogen receptors in humans fairly strongly, though to my knowledge not as strongly as estradiol.

That's enough to caution men, at the very least, against moderate to high levels of soy consumption. Extra estrogen doesn't do us any good at all in the male population.

I also have seen no evidence to suggest soy lowers testosterone at all, I don't know who would claim that or what the basis would be.

Back to fructose, we can't have clinical trials that test adverse effects of fructose on humans. It's unethical. Won't pass review boards.

Your disagreements are individually pretty good, I mean I can't argue that there is no true knowledge at all in the world. However, if we run with that and say that we don't actually know that sperm causes women to get pregnant or that we don't KNOW that vaccines contribute substantially to lowering mortality due to infectious disease, the evidence is strong enough to run with it as fact until something incredibly powerful comes along to show us differently.

The overall 'facts' about health, as far as we know, strongly suggest that high levels of plant organs, very low levels of fructose, and a diet containing as few known inflammatory factors or at the very least balanced out with binding or counter-acting agents, combined with adequate protein intake promotes both short term and long term wellness more than any other combination of foods.

Gluten can and does produce measurable inflammatory markers that persist for a rather long time in the blood, and its inclusion into diets does not change the current scientific opinion that based on our current knowledge of genetic adaptation to food sources VERY few of us have been exposed to glutens long enough to have fully adapted to them, and there is nothing at all to support the idea that gluten is harmless. In fact, looking at traditional breadmaking practices (sourdough fermentation), the combination of the fermentation itself and the long term exposure to water destroy a large amount of the anti-nutrients in grains. This process unwittingly protected us against the worst of it, and now for the most part this is not how the most widely consumed bread products are made. Even commercial sourdough products are typically flavored with sour milk, not a true sourdough fermentation.

I think you are wrong about the accumulation of evidence, I strongly believe that as time passes it will become more and more accepted that high intake of beneficial bacterial cultures, low to no intake of fructose and gluten, and consistently high levels of plant organs will be shown to have substantial health benefits over other diets. It's what our digestive systems are adapted for, I mean go live in the woods for a summer and see what there is to eat. I've done that every summer from the age of 11 or 12 until I was 16, and I can tell you that you better know your plants. You'll have some game, but not enough... it spoils too quickly. There's no salt to cure it with most places, which is why salt was so expensive until modern industry came into being. Best you can do is try and smoke it, which will help it to keep for a few weeks but you can only carry so much per person and there is only so much per animal, and animals are not easy to kill without guns or sighted bows. If you go live a fairly traditional life (pre-industrial) you will quickly find that you are eating mostly plants, and that nuts and grains are just too much of a pain in the butt to bother with unless you have people to tend to them exclusively, and even then you get them for 2 months out of the year. That's just how it is in the vast majority of the world's habitable zones.

I do, however, apologize for the insults. They were uncalled for. Let it be acknowledged by slizzardman first that I do occasionally get hot under the collar, but I have no pride when it comes to being called out on it. Wrong is wrong.