Paleo Diet

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Paleo Diet

Post Number:#1  Post by NiacinVC » Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:58 pm

Does anyone on the site do the paleo diet? A lot of what the diet says makes sense. Paleo diet follows a simple rule: do not eat anything that our ancestors did not evolve to eat/evolve eating. The theory of evolution contends that species evolve by compounding traits contributing to survival. In short: our bodies are adapted to eat certain foods over time based on the diet we followed for hundreds of thousands of years.

The agricultural revolution brought about a change in both the diet and lifestyle of humans. Instead of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (constantly on the move, running, jumping, carrying, pulling, climbing, foraging, hunting, etc.) we began to process grains (wheat, rice, others) develop tools and travel less.

The problem is that the human body has not evolved over the short period of time since the agricultural revolution to evolve to this change in diet. Paleo dietitians contend that eating bread, dairy, grains, and sugar, has led humans to develop diseases less commonly found in previous generations. Among these are higher incidents of cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc.

Met a guy hiking over the weekend who is 45 years old and has been on the paleo diet for 2.5 years. The guy looked mid 30s and attributed it all to the diet. Has more energy now than he did in his 30s and says he has not been sick beginning what he called the paleo lifestyle.

"We call this diet the paleo diet because it includes the food that was available to us for most of our evolution during the paleolithic era, starting about 2.5 millions of years ago. The idea is that our genes and physiology evolved through the process of natural selection and are most adapted to be nourished with the food that we evolved around. That includes the whole spectrum of animal food (beef, fish, shellfish, poultry, pork, lamb, bison, …) including their fat and organs as well as eggs, vegetables and limited amounts of fruits and nuts.

On the opposite side, some of the foods that we started eating in large quantity since the beginning of the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago are completely alien to our genes and metabolism and wreak havoc in our body, often causing what we call the metabolic syndrome or diseases of civilization. That includes obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, auto-immune diseases, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s and a host of other conditions that were unknown to our ancestors while plaguing us today.

Some of the worst offenders in today’s diet are what’s actually recommended by governments and nutritionists because bad science and economic agendas have demonized things like saturated fat, cholesterol and red meat over the last decades. What we should really be eliminating in our diet are grain products, excess sugar, vegetable oils, legumes and dairy, some of which are at the very basis of the US food pyramid."


http://paleodietlifestyle.com/


Going to try paleo diet for 30 days after Easter
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#2  Post by majkinetor » Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:03 pm

I do. Sort of. Pure paleo diet sucks as its highly speculative. For instance, there is no good evidence that milk wasn't consumed in paleo times or at least very very long. Fruit/sugar was rare treat for sure, but most paleo diets ephasize fruit in diet, and so on. There is also no good evidence that evolution is that slow as claimed - the field of epigenetics shows us that modulation of gene expressions are possible and highly likely within single generation and are passed to children depending on cirmustances. So we could adapt to recent food inventions like wheat.

Most paleo dieters don't recognize vitamin deficiency (apart from vitamin D for some reason), although scientific papers showed from x2 - x100 higher input of micronutrients in paleolithic time. Even Cordian doesn't recommend vitamins.

Paleo diet is more like a template then specific set of rules.

In short, you need to minimize industrial food for success, but before everything to minimize or totally exclude all forms of sugar, minimize wheat/grains, and maximize zoonutrients and vegtables.

You need to watch for selenium deficiency as it can backfire as heart disease in combination. You need to watch C deficiency (just sayin) as more bile is needed for fat digestion as animal fats are staple of the diet. You also need to support your fat burrning system (beta oxidation) by providing choline, grape seed extract, CoQ10, and perhaps carnitine. You need to add B6 to as suggested by Elly, to prevent homocystenemia from excessive protein intake.

Other then that, my experience so far is great, and from people I know. Problems are rare and body adapts soon to low carb plan.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#3  Post by NiacinVC » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:10 pm

Interesting, I have just begun to learn about the paleo diet and didn't know Dr Cordain doesn't advocate supplementing with vitamins. The only thing that worries me about the paleo diet(obviously I am not going to stop my vitamin protocol suggested by Pauling) is ketosis. For the brain to function properly, it needs a minimum of 130 carbohydrates a day and the brain prefers glucose, or carbohydrates, for fuel. Plus I don't think the fatty acids can cross the blood brain barrier efficiently? Maj, what has your experience being semi paleo with ketosis? Has it negatively effected your cognitive functioning?
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#4  Post by majkinetor » Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:47 am

For the brain to function properly, it needs a minimum of 130 carbohydrates a day and the brain prefers glucose, or carbohydrates, for fuel. Plus I don't think the fatty acids can cross the blood brain barrier efficiently? Maj, what has your experience being semi paleo with ketosis? Has it negatively effected your cognitive functioning?

Its quite the opposite - brain prefers ketones, contrary to everything you heard about it. I can send you references later if you want, but here is one or this case study, quick from the head. See thisbook for latest info. The brain needs adaptation tho - it can live on very low amounts of glucose per day and drive most of its functions with ketone bodies (between 65-80% after adaptation). This adaptation is achieved over several weeks, 2 weeks being the norm (hence the reason why Atkins had initialization protocol). Muscles need more time, like 1-2 months, until physiological insulin resistance is achieved to spare glucose for the brain, then results in sport activities are better then on sugar. To boost ketogenic status of your body and prevent low carb blues you can ingest big amounts of pure, organic, cold pressed coconut oil. (15-30g per day in divided doses), the only substantial natural source of medium chain trygliceride (MCT) which absorb as quickly as sugar and give you fast energy (now they are used in sport drinks to recover energy).

Sugar actually gives quick boost to brain, probably by providing enhanced tryptophan absorption via blood brain barrier and hence serotonin biosynthesis, but its short fix, with postprandial hypoglicemia beeing the well known risk. Since Alzhamier is now more and more being classified as diabetes type 3, it makes sence to adopt low carb, ketogenic diet (high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet).

Other fatty acids can or can't cross BBB but this domain is not yet understood well - for instance, BBB can synthetisize DHA or maybe even EPA (fish oils) from its precursor, essential fatty acid ALA (flax oil). In any way, the only two fuels are glucose and ketone bodies and on fasting treatment for obesity you basically live on ketones for weeks or months, without any side effects. Keep in mind that diabetic ketoacidosis is not the same as this, natural ketosis.

So, all in all, with ketogenic diet your brain should flourish, work much better, you will delay aging phenomena like dementia, you will be more protected from infections, and the best of all, your vitamin C will work many times better since there is no glucose surges to block GLUT receptors.

One important additional benefit of low carb diet is that it eliminates dental disease almost 100%, which is very important because moth can be big source of focal infections which can then influence various parts of the body, most notably cardiovascular system and heart.

You may be genetically uncompatible with ketogenic diet - if your liver is in bad status and hence can't supply enough of glucose for cells that don't have mitochondria (some WBC, RBC and some for brain), you will get hypoglicemia (easily checkable with finger sugar meter or via sympthoms) or if you pancreas alpha cells that secrete glucagon are damaged and your adrenal is damaged at the same time (hence no cortisol to boost gluconeogenesis in context of missing glucagon, the primary mechanism). You can have damaged beta oxidation pathways of mitochondria (low amount of CPTI enzyme, or carnitine [probably not cuz of C]) in which case longer fatty acids (more then 12 carbons) will not be able to enter mitochondria, but MCT will still work. You may have selenium deficiency which can be detrimental.

So, don't worry, check it out, make sure you eat brazil nuts, buy some good coconut oil and keep carbs low (20-50g daily) - basically all animal products and all vegtables and nuts - no fruit, no grains, no rice, potatoes, good w-6/w-3 ratio ( 1-4 : 1 ) but low amounts of PUFA in general. You can eat very black chocolate 85% ++ cocoa all you want.

In my case, I completely eleminated postrapndial sleepeness that troubled me for years before it, flatulence, hemorrhoids, meteorism, I sleep better. On negative side, skin didn't change and I have some new eczmea patches, nothing serious so far. I didn't notice any cognitive effects apart from missing brain fog which I regularly had after wake up for few hours almost every day for decades.

Keep liver healthy by using milk thistle, NAC, vitamin C and other good products. You probably need less vitamins with it then otherwise if organs like liver and heart are part of the diet.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#5  Post by VanCanada » Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:17 am

majkinetor wrote:So, don't worry, check it out, make sure you eat brazil nuts, buy some good coconut oil and keep carbs low (20-50g daily) - basically all animal products and all vegtables and nuts - no fruit, no grains, no rice, potatoes, good w-6/w-3 ratio ( 1-4 : 1 ) but low amounts of PUFA in general.

Where do tomatoes fit into this template - fruit or vegetable?

Where do yams and sweet potatoes fit in? Beer, wine or spirits? Honey? Stevia? Nutritional yeast?

Thanks.

Oh, and you seem to have spelled wrong one of the words in that sentence. It's not important but as a friendly reminder why not find and use a spell checker; this message board seems to have one and it works for me. Perhaps you have it turned off in your settings or something like that. Cheers.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#6  Post by NiacinVC » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:40 am

VanCanada wrote:
majkinetor wrote:So, don't worry, check it out, make sure you eat brazil nuts, buy some good coconut oil and keep carbs low (20-50g daily) - basically all animal products and all vegtables and nuts - no fruit, no grains, no rice, potatoes, good w-6/w-3 ratio ( 1-4 : 1 ) but low amounts of PUFA in general.

Where do tomatoes fit into this template - fruit or vegetable?

Where do yams and sweet potatoes fit in? Beer, wine or spirits? Honey? Stevia? Nutritional yeast?

Thanks.

Oh, and you seem to have spelled wrong one of the words in that sentence. It's not important but as a friendly reminder why not find and use a spell checker; this message board seems to have one and it works for me. Perhaps you have it turned off in your settings or something like that. Cheers.


Well seeing as we are talking about a paleo diet, yams and sweet potatoes wouldn't fit in nor would honey or nutritional yeast. I would think stevia would be fine. There is a forum much like this for people doing the paleo diet that I just found and most say moderate alcohol consumption, coffee and dark chocolate consumption is fine. Although if your truly going to commit to a paleo lifestyle there is no place for for alcohol, dark chocolate or coffee in my opinion. Thank you maj for taking the time to answer me with not only scientific knowledge but personal experience, the spelling diddddntt bother me (:
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#7  Post by davea0511 » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:27 am

The assumption with Paleo of course is that 10,000 years is not long enough for our bodies to adapt to our agrarian society.

I don't believe it. Anthropology tells us that all "indigenous" societies have been the result of migration since the neolithic period ... many are in fact only 1000 years old (such as some American native societies) and yet they are still best adapted to the foods native to their indigenous region.

Still ... our ancestors lived on a paleolithic diet much longer than they have an agrarian diet, so there's probably a happy medium, and some will be better suited to a paleolithic diet, while others more suited to a neolithic diet unique to the regions of their most recent ancestors.

Personally, I think we live in an exciting time where we have the opportunity to fine-tune each person's diet based on their own unique regional origins, body type, activity level, etc. Some will be more Paleo than others ... but saying no to supplements is idiotic, and I'd think twice about heeding anyone who discourages supplements as a rule.

As you age you will calcify, your tissues will crosslink and harden, you will experienced diminished ETC functioning. There is nothing you can do about it ... it will happen to everyone and it's an avalanche effect, and the best you can do it to increase nutrient density through supplementation. I supplement mainly for longevity and I'm only 45, and I'll live much older than I would if I were on a strict paleo diet that disregards the last 10,000 years and ignores the human condition.
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#8  Post by majkinetor » Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:50 am

Where do tomatoes fit into this template - fruit or vegetable?

Vegetable. Unlimited, unless you are allergic to night shades.

Where do yams and sweet potatoes fit in? Beer, wine or spirits? Honey? Stevia? Nutritional yeast?

Yams and potatoes are high in starch so, they fit in 'no' group, but you could eat small amounts after exercise or with lots of fat that will slow down absorption. Unless you want to stay in ketosis, in which case, its strong 'no'. On the positive side, starch doesn't diminish immunity 50% for next 5 hours like sugars do. I believe potato is way better then rice and wheat because its not industrialized.

Beer is out, forever.
Honey is generally out, although its high quality carb, so if you need something to fill your ~50g CHO per day you could use some. Candida probably likes it tho.

Stevia & Yeast by choice. I didn't hear anybody raised blood sugar with yeast.

Black wine is OK if you are not obese type, few glasses, but since fuels are prioritisized ( spell check me if you want ) in the body alcohol will be used first, and you don't want that, you want fat to be used. Also it brings appetite.

Oh, and you seem to have spelled wrong one of the words in that sentence. It's not important but as a friendly reminder why not find and use a spell checker;

I have spell checker in Chrome. I just don't care about it, or can't care because most of the time I type in the middle of the work and have no time for that.


Now I have my library with me, so here is the homework:

Rho, Jong M., and Carl E. Stafstrom 2012 The Ketogenic Diet As A Treatment Paradigm For Diverse Neurological Disorders. Frontiers in Neuropharmacology 3: 59. http://www.frontiersin.org/Neuropharmac ... 9/abstract
[click on provisional PDF for full paper]


Igase, M., T. Mizoguchi, Y. Ogushi, T. Miki, and A. Ueki 2010Brain Aging and Nutrition. Anti-aging Medicine 7(14): 167–173.
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jaam/7/14/167/_pdf
[See 2. Improved brain function and nutrition]

The 2nd one is particularly good as it references orthomolecular stuff.
Check out the figure Fig. 3. 5-hour glucose tolerance testing 35-year-old female to see what precisely needs to be avoided and the purpose of above diet.

And finally , epic one:


Cheraskin, E. 1985The Normal (“average”) Versus Normal (“physiologic”) Diurnal Blood Glucose Pattern. Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 14(4). http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/j ... 4-p231.pdf.

The assumption with Paleo of course is that 10,000 years is not long enough for our bodies to adapt to our agrarian society.

Of course, me neither, thats why I prefer low carb instead paleo diet. Paleo is fad. Low carb paradigm is based on human physiology, not some speculations about what humans ate before based on suspicious anthropological data.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#9  Post by NiacinVC » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:15 am

majkinetor wrote:
The assumption with Paleo of course is that 10,000 years is not long enough for our bodies to adapt to our agrarian society.

Of course, me neither, thats why I prefer low carb instead paleo diet. Paleo is fad. Low carb paradigm is based on human physiology, not some speculations about what humans ate before based on suspicious anthropological data.



If your going to say paleo is a fad than being vegan would have to be considered a fad and I dont believe either one is. In fact the more I learn about people who are paleo I notice a lot are involved in crossfit. The people who are paleo and in crossfit almost come across cult like. I really think just removing all processed crap from your diet will make a huge difference in quality of life and preventing certain diseases.
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#10  Post by bbtri » Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:06 pm

Don't think diet, think lifestyle. If you're going to go paleo, include the lifestyle factors like huge bursts of energy (as in hunting or escaping from animals), long slow distances (as in persistence hunting or migrating), and periods of starvation and gorging when food is available. By definition a paleo diet could not include any supplements (C included). Sorry, I like to make fun of the paleo diet, because it seems the only way to truly follow it is to drop out of society and live off the land. One aspect of the paleo diet I've been trying to follow is avoidance of refined foods. When I do that I don't have to worry about carbs, fat or protein. When I do well at staying away from refined foods I never have indigestion, don't get sick, have plenty of energy and stay lean. I find I can eat grains, beans, tubers, etc, as long as they're not refined and they don't affect me. I've kept spreadsheets of BP, heart rate, swim times, run times, maximal strength, etc after eliminating various things and it seems it's the processed food that makes the difference for me. YMMV.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#11  Post by majkinetor » Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:39 pm

If your going to say paleo is a fad than being vegan would have to be considered a fad and I dont believe either one is.

Both paleo and vegan are cultish, but vegan diet is almost always unhealthy, particularly without supplements that are absent in plants (like carnitine, B12, retynol etc...). On the other hand low carb diet doesn't say to you what are you going to eat, it teaches you principle and you can get and eat whatever that follows it.

One aspect of the paleo diet I've been trying to follow is avoidance of refined foods. When I do that I don't have to worry about carbs, fat or protein

Not exactly like that here. When I add wheat of any kind, I get meteorism ASAP and start gaining weight very soon. I experimented with it few times. Recently I did it again and gained 4kg in a month. You must keep into account that there is no unprocessed food now days, unless you grow your own stuff. That is the reason why we supplement anyway, because soil and growing techniques don't provide adequate levels of many micro-nutrients any more. I agree that level of industrialization should be minimized, obviously coca cola is worst then potato but it doesn't end there for some people.

Furthermore its well known now that many plants produce high level of toxins that are detrimental for human health (wheat, soy etc... ) and that zoonutrients are probably the better way to live. Plants are living beings and want to defend, and since they are static this is the only thing that they can do. Animals can fight-or-flight. Unless you don't believe in evolution and think God created plants to be there for animals as a food :)

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#12  Post by majkinetor » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:30 pm

BTW, vitamin C megadosing and low carb diet look like win win combination.

Check out
Ottoboni, F., and A. Ottoboni. “Ascorbic Acid and the Immune System.” Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 20, no. 3 (2005): 179–183.
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2 ... 3-p179.pdf

There exists in the scientific literature a wealth of data that explains the role of ascorbic acid in immune system function and documents its requirement for greater than micronutrient quantities to fight infections. The inhibitory effect by glucose of the actions of ascorbic acid could well explain the lack of beneficial effect of ascorbic administration in many studies reported in the literature because few, if any, such studies controlled for dietary carbohydrates. In light of the current dietary sugar excesses and concomitant obesity epidemic, clinicians should be reminded of the great importance of the long recognized but largely unappreciated inhibitory action of glucose against ascorbic acid. In summary, ascorbic acid is essential for effective immune system function and, further, it can be a potent immune system stimulator when high glycemic dietary carbohydrates are restricted.


So if you want to be real megadoser, minimize about carbs. Otherwise, majority of your C doesn't enter into the cells, and its worth next to nothing.

Ely also has preached the same thing in his papers:
“Glycemic Modulation of Tumor Tolerance.” Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 11 (1996): 23–34.
http://faculty.washington.edu/ely/JOM1.html
“Unrecognized Pandemic Subclinical Diabetes of the Affluent Nations: Causes, Cost and Prevention.” Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 11 (1996): 95–99.
http://faculty.washington.edu/ely/JOM2.html

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#13  Post by sjmusic2 » Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:20 pm

I switched to a paleo-inspired life-style (Primal Blueprint) and lost 12lbs in about 2 months. I went throught the carb-flu for a few days and came out the other side fat-adapted, with super high energy levels and an all-round feeling of well-being. Now I don't follow the diet 100% and certainly don't worry about cheating now and again.

I also follow the Primal exercise plan which centers on moving slowly, eg. walking, lifting heavy things, occasional sprints and play. My body composition has changed, ie body fat has reduced and muscle size/tone has increased. There is a clear reduction in inflammatory resposes which I can monitor via my psoariasis. It has drastically reduced on this diet.

I certainly don't agree that Paleo is cultish - you could argue that there are a minority of extremists in all areas, just look at Vitamin C !!! Most of the people I know that are following the Primal program are very well informed, normal people and don't walk around carrying spears. What I do see is lots of people who are very enthusiastic about their new life and improved self-image.

What you have to remember is that one diet does not fit all, you need to tailor the lifestyle for yourself - some people need higher carbs, or can tolerate wheat etc... I think a side benefit is that you learn to understand your body better.

Regardless, I'm not here to convert anyone, but I'm certainly glad I made the change.
Last edited by sjmusic2 on Sun Apr 08, 2012 6:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#14  Post by NiacinVC » Sat Apr 07, 2012 7:14 pm

going to start atkins monday for a month and gradually work my way into a paleo lifestyle
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Re: Paleo Diet

Post Number:#15  Post by bbtri » Sun Apr 08, 2012 1:56 pm

If you want to go more primal than paleo, here's the answer:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/04/eocene-diet.html#more


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