Paleo Science and the Paleo Diet

There seems to be a wave of insecurity and fear sweeping through the paleo community.  This is, no doubt, due to the fact that "Paleo" has received a bit of mainstream attention of late -- and it hasn't been positive. 

First there's Marlene Zuk's Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live.  From Amazon:

An exposé of pseudoscientific myths about our evolutionary past and how we should live today.
We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence.
...From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.
From ScienceBlogs (in partnership with National Geographic) we have:  Paleo and woo: Bad company until the day they die.  (or on Science Based Medicine blog here)
There are many fallacies that undergird alternative medicine, which evolved into “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), and for which the preferred term among its advocates is now “integrative medicine,” meant to imply the “best of both worlds.” If I had to pick one fallacy that rules above all among proponents of CAM/IM, it would have to be either the naturalistic fallacy (i.e., that if it’s natural—whatever that means—it must be better) or the fallacy of antiquity (i.e., that if it’s really old, it must be better). Of course, the two fallacies are not unrelated. In the minds of CAM proponents, old is more likely to have been based on nature, and the naturalistic fallacy often correlates with the fallacy of antiquity. Basically, it’s a rejection of modernity, and from it flow the interest in herbalism, various religious practices rebranded as treatments (thousands of years ago, medicine was religion and religion was medicine—the two were more or less one and physicians were often priests as well), and the all-consuming fear of “toxins,” in which it is thought that the products of modernity are poisoning us.
Yes, there is a definite belief underlying much of CAM that technology and pharmaceuticals are automatically bad and that “natural” must be better. Flowing from that belief is the belief that people were happier and much healthier in the preindustrial, preagricultural past, that cardiovascular disease was rare or nonexistent, and that cancer was seldom heard of. .....
This TEDx talk by Christina Warriner on YouTube is making the rounds:  Debunking the Paleo Diet 


This all gets a bit circular, but Zuk's book spawned other articles that are referenced by others, etc.  It seems a bit of circle-jerking, to be fair, and yet circle-jerking is a primal paleo activity.  Why even Dr. Oz is getting in on the act -- I presume the community is going to remain true to their derision of Oz and recognize that his featuring paleo as a fad diet is not a positive development.  (Nah ... several linked to the call for testimonials on FB and on their blogs).  And so, there was a piece in Salon:  “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions
Four years ago, biology professor Marlene Zuk was attending a conference on evolution and diseases of modern environments. She sat in on a presentation by Loren Cordain, author of “The Paleo Diet” and a leading guru of the current craze for emulating the lifestyles of our Stone-Age ancestors. Cordain pronounced several foods (bread, rice, potatoes) to be the cause of a fatal condition in people carrying certain genes. Intrigued, Zuk stood up and asked Cordain why this genetic inability to digest so many common foods had persisted. “Surely it would have been selected out of the population,” she suggested.
Cordain, who has a Ph.D in exercise physiology, assured Zuk that human beings had not had time to adapt to foods that only became staples with the advent of agriculture. “It’s only been ten thousand years,” he explained. Zuk’s response: “Plenty of time.” He looked at her blankly, and she repeated: “Plenty of time.” Zuk goes on to write, “we never resolved our disagreement.” ...
And a piece in Slate:  Paleo Diet Is Nonsense Science.  This one is short but hits the jugular with its closing words:

the paleo concept is a marketing gimmick 
that doesn't have much basis

Yep!  This is what people outside the diet cult can see clear as day, and this is what bothers those in the business of selling paleo books and products.  There have been myriad reactions to this seeming onslaught of largely bad publicity.  Many of the commenters are cheering paleo on!  Hey!  They're talking about us, we've "arrived"!!  Paul Jaminet put an optimistic twist on things:
The Ancestral Health Society is forming a new scholarly journal, The Journal of Evolution and Health, to complement its annual Symposium.
It is coming at a good time: when scholars have begun to appreciate the significance of the Paleo/Primal/PHD/Ancestral movement, yet remain unfamiliar with its recent scientific and intellectual developments.
Yes, the scientific hypotheses on which “Paleo” began were flawed (though insightful and scientifically productive); but a newer and better scientific foundation has been developed.
The Ancestral health movement has become popular because it works: it truly does heal and prevent disease, and millions have experienced its benefits. So it is no fad diet, and will not fade away.
I hope that scholars like Zuk and Warinner will continue their engagement with the ancestral health movement, and help us refine the science still more.
I don't think Zuk and Warinner were engaging the paleo marketing klatch, and the problem I see (do please tell me if I'm wrong) is that the science upon which paleo was built was sketchy to begin with.  The various diet books put slightly different spins on the same themes but the fact remains that the "original" paleo diet of no grains, legumes or dairy is too restrictive for mass appeal so, as I'm repeatedly reminded by others, we have templates and frameworks.  This is not an evolution or refinement of the scientific knowledge underpinning the diet.  The paleo diet community does not take into account new information from the scientific community regarding the diet, life and health of our paleolithic ancestors.  They just don't.

Now Robb Wolf took a different tact with his first salvo which seems largely in response to the Zuk and Slate pieces.   Wolf switches the discussion over to that of the scientific testing of "The Paleo Diet" (TM?) and how implementing the diet stacks up against modern commonly accepted dietary interventions for obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.  It's clever, really, to shift the focus away from the scientific points being made by, well, real scientists who study ancient humans not named Grok.  Anyone checking out the social media visuals coming from PaleoFX 13 last week would think that paleo man ate ribs and sausage and chocolate covered bacon and oh my the cooking demos!!   As I've discussed here several times, the small number of clinical trials involving a "paleo" diet have not used anything remotely resembling the high fat low carb version marketed by the big guns.  The best known intervention, Lindeberg, was low cal, low fat and nothing like the various menus and meals I see about the internet.  To be fair, this is the diet Robb outlines (lean meats, fruits, veggies, nuts -- no grains, legumes, dairy) but he doesn't seem too keen on advertising it in the larger almost anything goes paleo community.   Indeed it was like pulling teeth to get Robb to answer the most basic question regarding the diet the Reno FR are following.  Mind you, I didn't harass or pester him.  I asked him once on Twitter and he responded curtly: go ask Specialty Health.  When Charles Grashow asked him, Robb had a little hissy fit about how a second person had asked what nobody before had bothered to!
Evelyn is the only person who have ever asked a similar question, and is the only one to have “stalked” her way through all the material to ask originally “what was the EXACT “paleo diet” used.
Gee.  I actually read the article he links to regarding his great altruistic works with Reno911 and thought to ask what the diet was?  Why not just answer?  Firstly, now we use "stalking" to equal reading links.  Great Robb!  (especially since in his latest he admonishes his readers for not expending enough skull-sweat before offering up an opinion on something ...) .  Secondly, I did not ask for the EXACT diet.  The response was that I wouldn't like it because it's LC ... which has relevance how?  But then I got that the guidelines were general and he's trying to get it more towards Lindeberg-style.  But speaking of helping people, how about maybe there's a guy out there following the paleo diet and not getting miraculous results who might just benefit from knowing that the diet these police and fire fighters are following is not the bacon, ribeye and butter diet they are led to believe it is.  This is about helping people, right?  But I digress ... (sorry, I can't get over his defensiveness on providing simple details on the diet).

If we are talking the "science" of the here and now, then let's discuss that.  The new science of the paleo diet is not going to be found with Paul's wandering further and further into woo woo land with the Paleocene diet notions he apparently discussed at FX and rolled out in his post I linked to earlier.  But more importantly, nobody appears to be testing the high-to-uber-high fat versions of paleo that seem more the norm.  The PHD promotes 60% or higher fat diet, Mark Sisson's fat burning beast is at least that these days, though his recommendations are such a tangled mess of contradictions it is difficult to know what he actually believes anymore.  In the world of Nora Gedgaudas, there's seemingly no reason whatsoever to allow a disaccharide or starch molecule to ever pass your lips, while Paul includes white rice -- clearly a non-paleolithic food, a grain and not a whole one at that -- on his list of safe starches.  Is it any wonder that real scientists are basically ignoring paleo?  The "big tent" philosophy has led to a bizarre cohesion in the paleo community, but Mark Sisson need not be so surprised that Marlene Zuk might get some misguided notions about the diet?  Ummm, Grok on!
To her credit, Zuk doesn’t throw out the idea of evolutionary mismatch altogether (although you could have fooled me). She just rails against “denouncing modern living as unsuitable to our Stone Age genes,” calling for research into “just what parts of that life send us too far out of our evolutionary zone of tolerance,” as if she’s stumbled upon some revolutionary concept. Really, though, we areexploring and identifying the specific aspects of modern life that trigger a mismatch. We are gathering data. Academics and scientists and bloggers and lay individuals are figuring out, in fits and starts and lurches and self-experiments and clinical trials and study analyses, just what works about modern life and what does not work. We’re not resting on our laurels, on our assumptions.
Sorry, gotta chuckle that he's using "mismatches" ... maybe he always has, I don't really recall, but whenever I hear that term I think of Jack Kruse eating a banana on the North Pole in his grassfed coconut shell hut.  with black shades over the windows.   Umm ... and railing against the notion of dishonoring our Stone Age genes?  Puh leeze Mark!  Here is the Primal Blueprint description on Amazon:
The Primal Blueprint is a simple, flexible plan to help you look and feel your best without struggling or suffering, by adapting the simple lifestyle practices of our hunter-gatherer ancestors into modern life. Sisson presents the compelling premise that you can reprogram your genes in the direction of weight loss, health, and longevity by following 10 immutable Primal Blueprint lifestyle laws validated by two million years of human evolution. Weight loss is largely about insulin; moderate your production by eliminating sugar and grains, and you will lose the excess body fat you desire even while eating delicious, satisfying foods. Plus you will improve your energy level, reduce inflammation, and eliminate disease risk. Eating meat, eggs, and a generally high-fat diet not only is healthy but is the key to effortless weight loss, a healthy immune system, and boundless energy.Slowing down your typical cardiovascular workouts, and incorporating brief, intense strength sessions and occasional all-out sprints can produce fitness benefits far superior to workouts that are longer and more grueling-and can eliminate the risk of burnout.
Then go read Mark's article and see if Zuk is really misunderstanding the downtrodden guru.  The gurus are not interested in the science.  Sorry, but they are not.  When I have called them on scientific inaccuracies in their books, they attack me personally rather than debate the science (e.g. stick up for what they have written and show me wrong) or set the record straight for their followers based on new information.  They can't do that because pretty much the science isn't there to justify the gimmickry.  

I've been meaning to share my reasons for submitting a talk proposal for AHS13, and the reasons for my topic selection.  I'll share more of the former at some point, let's see how things go for a while here.  But as to the topic, it is because of the Pima.  The Pima are the unwitting bearers of the torch of all that is wrong with the IHC. That designation, BTW, is not a poke at any organization or individual per se.  It is a fitting description of the circle-jerking, cultish community that uncritically promotes anyone who comes along to use #paleo, #primal and ... have you noticed? ... #ancestral is being embraced more and more in their schtick.   The thing is, if the Pima went paleo, they would likely not thrive.  As I've discussed here many times, probably summarized best here (you can skip the corn - grin), the traditional Pima diet was very close to 80-10-10, and though they were clearly not vegan, that 80 was for carbs, not some low carb NuttyK fantasy.  From this 1991 -- pre-Taubes hackery , mainstream NYT Jane Brody -- piece:  

GOING back to one's roots could soon take on a more literal meaning for the Indians of the American Southwest, as well as for peoples elsewhere in the world who are poorly adapted to rich, refined foods.
For the sake of their health, as well as their cultural heritage, the Pima and Tohono O'odham tribes of Arizona are being urged to rediscover the desert foods their people traditionally consumed until as recently as the 1940's.
Studies strongly indicate that people who evolved in these arid lands are metabolically best suited to the feast-and-famine cycles of their forebears who survived on the desert's unpredictable bounty, both wild and cultivated. ...
... On the Arizona desert, the desirable food ingredients are found in edible parts of such indigenous plants as the mesquite (mes-KEET) tree, cholla (CHOY-a) and prickly pear cactus, as well as in tepary (TEP-a-ree) beans, chia (CHEE-a) seeds and acorns from live oaks. Tribal elders speak fondly of these one-time favorites, which in recent decades have been all but forgotten as hamburgers, fries, soft drinks and other fatty, sugary, overly refined fast and packaged foods gained favor.
Even those Indians who still rely heavily on beans and corn are today consuming varieties that have little or none of the nutritive advantages found in the staples of their historic diet. ...
Posole:  tepary beans and wheat berries
The bolding in the excerpts is mine.  Because long before the great thinkers of the IHC got in the game, real scientists and nutritionists and botanists were looking at the modern problems of the Pima and looking to their ancestral roots for the answers.  While Warinner's critics laugh at her discussion of modern broccoli (and Zuk's references to brussel sprouts) and comment about her looks and wonder over the state of her abs, real botanists have been taking this sort of thing seriously in the case of the Pima.  We don't need to speculate over what paleolithic humans ate to look back less than a century for far more certain solutions.  And yet, the "no legume, starch-is-bad" brigade would outreach to the Pima -- arguably one of the sickest populations on the planet, ravaged by obesity and diabetes -- with their supposedly evolutionary based medicine and dietary prescriptions and proscriptions.   What utter malarkey!   Wheat is murder and legumes are toxic, and yet there's Pima Posole.   There are, especially desert dwelling, traditional cultures around the world for whom legumes are a large part, not just some minor isolated HG tribe that ate "some beans…and a whole bunch of other stuff".   (Wolf's response to the Warinner video).  

Oh but we don't have Pima Success Story Saturdays on any paleo blog, but it's not because they don't exist:
When Earl Ray, a Pima Indian who lives near Phoenix, switched to a more traditional native diet of mesquite meal, tepary beans, cholla buds and chaparral tea, he dropped from 239 pounds to less than 150 and brought his severe diabetes under control without medication. In a federally financed study of 11 Indian volunteers predisposed to diabetes, a diet of native foods rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates kept blood sugar levels on an even keel and increased the effectiveness of insulin. When switched back to a low-fiber "convenience-market diet" containing the same number of calories, the volunteers' blood sugar skyrocketed and their sensitivity to insulin declined.
And Ray's diabetes was actually "cured" because his body is processing carbs well, rather than becoming increasingly intolerant towards them.  I wonder what the "metabolic derangement" Master Mind panel would think of that and it's just too bad he's not in law enforcement in Reno, right?  Because we all know:
The Paleo diet is the healthiest way you can eat because it is the ONLY nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energetic!    ~Robb Wolf
Just don't ask him exactly what that diet is when put into practice (along with neolithic statins and metformin) because such a question is pestering and stalking.  It is clear that "Paleo" is not a science-based approach, at least not more than a quarter inch beneath the surface.  It is neither rooted in the findings of academic anthropology/archeology, nor does it "evolve" when new information comes forth from that scientific community.  And it is not rooted in sound nutritional science/biochemistry/physiology nor does it "evolve" when "new" information comes forth in that realm either.  I put new in quotes in that last statement because much of the changing paradigm in the IHC, such as it is, is not the result of new scientific discoveries and understandings.  Most of the changes, if any, have come about because folks like myself have debunked the "novel theories" of Taubes and others with quality peer review literature predating most of the books in which these theories are contained.    

So, I'll leave you with this.  Severely diabetic -- aka metabolically deranged -- Pima Earl Ray adopts the ancestral diet of his culture and defeats his diabetes.   Meanwhile at PaleoFX the MasterMind panel on "Metabolic Derangement", pictured at right, was convened.  Left to right:
1.  Jimmy Moore:  A man who has been eating a decidedly non-paleo diet to lose 75 lbs on an 80-85%  fat diet for some 10 months now.  A man who went from only mild metabolic derangement at 410 lbs to near normalcy in 2005 to a "nightmarish"  LDL-P of  almost 3500 (paging Robb?).  Victory Belt will publish a book by him despite becoming metabolically demolished being his only qualification. 

2.  Dr. Cate Shanahan:  At least she's got a medical background, but peddles woo woo and thinks sugar is sticky to the touch because it is glycating proteins in your skin.  Books and website unfortunately littered with woo woo about birth order using celebrity sisters and whatnot.

3.  Paul Jaminet:  An astrophysicist who has now crossed the line into full fledged weight loss and health guru.  He promotes a reasonable diet (especially for someone like myself, not so much for anyone consuming over 2000 calories IMO) in terms of the foods.  However he is venturing further and further into woo woo land and the basic tenets of PHD are speculations that largely do not stand up to scientific scrutiny.  PHD with it's low fruit and relatively high starch (and white rice) content differs most widely from the paleo diet used in the few studies out there .

4.  Dr. Lauren Noel:  If you want to hone your paranoia over toxins, read this webpage.  Don't know much else about her so I'll leave it at that.

5.  Dr. Lane Sebring:  Don't know anything about him but this quote was tweeted out:  "Metabolic derangement is living in contempt of our genes instead of living in harmony with them."  I so hate my genes ;-)
I wonder if any of the above, or any of the myriad other diet gurus, nutritionists, really believe as they purport, in evolutionary or science-based health/medicine/etc.  When it comes to "paleo", an inability to even come to a somewhat cohesive definition of what that even is just makes it seem not.   From a roundup of #PFX13 tweets:  
Wolf:   We (paleo) are being held to standard that current medicine itself is not being held to. #PFX13 @PaleoPhysicians
No, you are not holding yourselves to anywhere near the standard that current medicine holds itself to.  Not even close. 


Blogstress Note 1:  I am unsure of if or how my underlying frustration, and at times downright disgust, with this community is coming across here anymore.  If folks read my email exchanges with Robb and still feel the crap flung at me as a result of a single WTF tweet is warranted, I can't change those minds and won't waste time trying.  However, I see it as more important now than ever to keep doing what I do here.  There is a  mostly-hidden epidemic seemingly sweeping through the community, one that has popped a brave head out of hiding from time to time, that is only paid passing lip service if addressed at all.  Paleo doesn't help everyone.  Paleo can worsen the health of many in the long run.  Yes, many get healthier on paleo, they also get healthier on other diets.  For many that improvement is temporary.  Others don't even get better before they start getting worse.  There are too many eating disordered (mostly) women both in this community, even leading it that are neither giving nor getting proper care or advice.  There are books to sell, a movement to protect.  I'm pondering how to approach this on the blog, because no matter how I do, it will be met with disfavor and no doubt vitriol from some corners.  But I think it needs to be addressed.  


Blogstress Note 2:  I am trying out Discus comments on the Blogger blog.  I started this early yesterday, and unfortunately all existing blog comments have temporarily disappeared.  Discus is apparently experiencing some technical difficulties/backlog so it may not be until tomorrow or even Monday that the old comments are imported properly.  Meanwhile, however, I have successfully synced new Discus comments with Blogger so those who have been following my comment feed can continue to do so, though apparently the links will only go to the blog post and not the comment in question.  There is a Discus feed for comments.   If this experiment doesn't work out, I can revert to Blogger comments and all goes back to the way it was, including any new Discus comments so no information should be lost.   If you posted something in the past few days that isn't showing, feel free to repost (or something similar) rather than waiting for the import to be complete.  I think we can handle a few duplicates when all is said and done so no worries .... or I may well migrate to WP.  I'm a creature of habit and even with the shortcomings, Blogger is more comfortable for me at the moment.  We'll see when my schedule frees up.    My hope is that I can have a mostly unmoderated blog with a system that allows for selective moderation that Blogger itself does not.  There are also sharing and voting options that I think may be helpful/fun/different, and the nesting is pretty cool.  Anyway, let's give it a chance and hope for the best!



Comments

Janie said…
Bravo!
Charles Grashow said…
It's very interesting what Mark Sisson says in e-mails and what he says on his blog. In a recent e-mail he told me

"Charles,


One benefit of paleo/Primal eating is the eventual self-regulating of not only appetite but of macronutrient choices. I eat far less meat than most would think. A few bites at a meal (a meal that has any meat at all) is enough for me. I wouldn't say it makes me queasy because I still love a good fatty lamb or ribeye, but the "lust" has gone. I think that's a good thing. I believe the body, once healed, gets to a point where it intuitively knows (craves?) what's best. You may have found that sweet spot yourself.

Cheers,

Mark

SO - EXACTLY how much fat does he really eat??

As to Robb - I would still like to know why he hasn't posted the details of the diet used in regard to the Reno NV police/fire fighters AND the fact that at least two of them used statins and/metformin. According to the article 80 were involved in the study but only 2 were mentioned - what were the results of the remaining 78?? As someone with a science background one would think Robb would think that this info would be useful/helpful.



As to JM - Is there ONE doctor in the community (besides Dayspring) who will say that a LDL-P that high is NOT GOOD!! And if it is not a problem please tell us why.
carbsane said…
I'm frankly astonished that Dr. Eric Westman is co-authoring Jimmy's book. A Foreward or somesuch would be bad enough, but CO-writing?? [shakes head]
Sam Knox said…
@ Charles Grashow

You'd better hope Evelyn never comes to a sudden stop, or you're going to need a proctologist to get your nose out of her ass.
Mirtika Schultz said…
I think if the Paleo folks want to have more authenticity about the history of diet one is adapted to, then it's going to be individualistic, has to be. What diet were MY folks eating for a thousand plus years. Or the last hundred. If one's parents aren't from a homogeneous background, that's gonna be rather tough, but if one kows one's parents, grandparents, greatgrands, etc, all came from X region with Y cuisine and Z activity level, then I'm guessing that if those ancestors stayed lean and lived relatively well (disease-wise), then THAT is the diet to try for better health/weight loss. That one first, before any other book-promoted diet. If adaptation is the key.

I will add that I remember seeing a show on PBS ages ago about the Pima, the diabetes/weight issues, diet, and suggesting a return to the old diet. But I do not recall if they talked about returning to an activity level closer to the ancestors, which I would guess would be VERY active, indeed, compared to modern times.

While I think eating lean meats, fruits, veggies, nuts is gonna be healthful for just about anyone, really, I don't recall that being the simple advice when I was first reading the Pale/Primal books in 2010 and shortly after. Lots of emphasis on not fearing fat, eating more fat, lowering carbs, watching even tropical fruits (and since I'm from the tropics, maybe my ancestors adapted to papaya and mango and such, hah). But as you say, did hunter-gatherers have bacon wrapped dates and dark chocolate-almond flour muffins and coconut-oil-drenched anything? Hm.

I wish I understood fully why Robb won't simply lay out the diet plan those workers were using. Seems to me if it worked wonders for them, and it fits his paleo template, there is no reason to simply chart or list it out on a web page and say, "Try it." I created it and approve it and it will help you. Unless he wants to sell the plan, and it differs from his book's in some way, and that's why he refuses to give details. That's not really something to get defensive about, unless he plans to market and sell it in a new venture, but doesn't want to say so. Just say, "It's proprietary at the moment." Or give whatever reason. But getting heated up? Makes no sense. I don't think it's a stalkerish question. I'd wonder about it myself if I saw a group of folks having amazing progress on a plan. I'd ask, "Specifically, what were your meals like?" I get asked that from when I was in major losing phase. People just are curious about WHAT one eats to lose weight and/or change lab markers. Period.
Mir/P.D.
Mirtika Schultz said…
So, he's eating light amounts of meat. I'm guessing lots of veggies and some nuts. Occasional goodies (beer and choco). So, um, what's with the emphasis on great hunks of beef and bacon I see on Paleo/primal updates I see on Facebook? Cause two bites of meat is not the norm of a serving of any meal pic I've seen posted. And that little implication that some meals have no meat at all: which is, what, a vegetarian meal? A seafood meal? And the implication is that "craving what's best" is not eating a lot of meat. That's what I got out of that comment of Mark's.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
newbies and strangers to a field claiming the educated in the field are out to lunch ... been there, done that. Lord Kelvin, Linus Pauling, Conan Doyle (expert in writing, telling Houdini that Houdini was absolutely mistaken) ...

It's good that people actually engaged in current research on Paleo related issues have finally stepped forward though.

and on a much lower level, of course, Taubes, Lloyd Pye (everything you know is wrong), Neil Addams (he of the expanding earth theory)

I'm feeling quite charitable about paleo, probably temporarily, because a friend recently tried to get me to do the low stress diet.

At one point the author cites a study where purified DNA was exposed to "coherent good feeling" or some such, and the testers found significant changes in the DNA, proving emotions change DNA.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
> I believe the body, once healed, gets to a point where it intuitively knows (craves?)


ummm ... healed of what, specifically?



Maybe of that special brand of "damage" that Jimmy alluded to many times?


Jimmy never mentioned that it was contagious (and he should know, since he invented it)
Sanjeev Sharma said…
no problems posting, even the cross-permission to google seemed to go fine.
Mirtika Schultz said…
Same. I went via Google (Mir)
carbsane said…
Even back with his sample menu (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-sample-menu/#axzz2PgmUOKt3) he mentioned repeatedly how he didn't always eat the whole thing. Then at the Paleo Summit (Croxton's video from a year ago) he said he only drank coffee with cream in the morning and eats two meals mostly. They made spartan fish tacos on that video. But 6 oz salmon for lunch and 8 oz ribeye for dinner is not all that much compared to some of what I see. If he isn't even coming close to eating that, I think that should be shared, no? Ahh well.
carbsane said…
Very Strange Sam Knox -- Your comment went into my Blogger cue! I approved it but it doesn't show. Things that make you go hmmmm. Feel free to repost.
Charles Grashow said…
Evelyn

BTW - This is what Mark said about you in that e-mail

" I have been asked (in fact, also publicly blackmailed in a similar sense) by Ev to unlink and disassociate with Jimmy Moore over the Duke fiasco, my friend Robb Wolf over the (well-deserved) FU-tweet, and to denounce RN over just about everything he’s ever said. Where does that end? My buddy Doug McGuff because of DD? Or do I unfriend Jimmy because he believes in Creationism? That I gave Kruse a platform to launch his site is an artifact of having an open forum where people could share ideas. There are 5,000 people on it now as I write this. I could have taken the forum down when I discovered how “bent” Jack really was (just my opinion), but I had promised too many people to provide the forum. And up until the MRSA/cruise fiasco, Jack had provided some struggling people some fairly decent info there. I don’t agree with much of it, but I defend his right to say it and I just leave him alone as I do everyone else."

" I find it more than ironic that a person who would continuously try to take me down, criticize my business, question my ethics and motives and generally use my site and my products as fodder to build her own traffic would then beg me to disassociate with and publicly denounce others to whom she does the exact same thing. On that principle alone I wouldn’t be seen supporting her (Ev) in any way."

" In my opinion, Ev is a sad sociopath who spends her days trying to prove scientifically why her sloth and lack of diet discipline are not the cause of her weight-loss failures. I honestly have a measure of empathy for her. It must suck to have so much information and then to have to beat oneself up daily for failing to use that info. Since she can’t prove this “fact” scientifically, her fallback position is to try to tear down the work of others. I seem to be one of her favorites, and yet I don’t recall ever having said a bad word about her on the internet, despite her repeated slurs and innuendo. Including that ridiculous recent tweet where she mocked me with a suggestion of designing a memory supplement. Diplomacy is not her strength (and, again, neither is RN's. So now we are just arguing over who's the worse diplomat). The sad thing is, she might be one of the smarter people in this space, who could have built a nice business for herself helping others. Instead, she deals in vitriol, mockery and hatred…and then cries wolf when someone else (in the most objective sense) simply ups the ante."""
carbsane said…
This doesn't sound like the Mark I spoke with for over an hour and a half. But nothing surprises me any more.


That "business" line rings true. These folks don't see anything past their business. Not everyone needs to make a living scamming people.
carbsane said…
I have emailed this to Mark to see if he'll own or disown this. I think this is important as I do not wish to respond much further until such time. However so people know, I never bothered to contact him about Jimmy and for the record he broke his own promises vis a vis Nikoley.
Sue Staltari said…
Waiting with interest.
Sue Staltari said…
Re Rochard Lovatt, is he interviewing you?
carbsane said…
Should be happening. Need to get with him to work out details.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
When will someone just change the freakin' name? Paleo is too easily ridiculed by calling it Faileo, plus all of the issues above.

See "Paleo Diet" vs "Real Food". ;-D
Anonymous said…
Thanks for finally writing about > "Paleo Science and the Paleo Diet" < Loved it!

Look at my web site ... Chemietoilette
River Rance said…
Good blog post about Sisson's character and what drives him from Oct 15-2010 when he was dodging bullets about plagiarism and primal fuel …
"But this time, even many ardent followers of Sisson have piled on with negative reactions to the introduction of Primal Fuel. (See their comments here.)" and this excerpt as well…."And I have to say -- despite my appreciation for what Sisson's had to say about nutrition and fitness -- the evidence of skeeviness is mounting."

http://goo.gl/tezNi
carbsane said…
WOW. Fitbomb is married, if I'm not mistaken, to Nom Nom Paleo. That is a pretty scathing post. Plagiarism is serious stuff too ... I'm surprised I had not heard of that. What's with the nested URL there?
carbsane said…
Oh ... I see now ... the original post has been deleted. Heh ... every now and then the rip-off sites can be useful I suppose. Someone got to Fitbomb :(
River Rance said…
Nested? Here is the long URL

http://topfitnessblog.com/blogs/www.fitbomb.com?entry=/~r/FitbombAP90xReviewWorkoutJournal/~3/L0UFl3b8_VA/sissons-pricey-primal-fuel-is-it-real.html
carbsane said…
It appears topfitnessblog is a "framing" rip-off. If you click on "post" you get a Page Not Found error, ditto if you C&P just the fitbomb part of the URL. Someone silenced the Fitbomb.
carbsane said…
Too many people baileo-ing on the faileo paleo too :P
River Rance said…
Imagine that! LOL
John Smith said…
I can't see him either owning or disowning that. If he starts responding to everything somebody claims he said in a private email then where does it end?

I don't think there is the slightest possibility that he wrote that email. MDA doesn't roll in the muck and it is unfailingly positive in tone. So all of a sudden after all these years the "real Mark" is supposedly exposed in an email to ... who? A lifelong friend? A relative? A business partner?

Nope just some guy on the internet.


I would bet $10 to $1 that he didn't write that.
carbsane said…
I don't care what you bet, John -never-commented-here-before Smith. I emailed that to Sisson's email address from our email exchanges. I have an email from him stating that he monitors my blog and its comments. So this "slander" if it were such should warrant at least an email response. Silence thusfar.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Whatever proteins there are in produce, someone with a properly-functioning gut can digest and absorb them. The problem is that 10% of the population may not have properly-functioning guts. From Ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, and anti-gliadin antibody. Guilt by association? "However, anti-gliadin antibodies lack disease specificity being found in 10% of healthy blood donors."
10% of healthy blood donors have gut walls permeable enough to let fragments of gliadin through.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
agreed 100%, but that wasn't my point. Aside from the swipe @ Dr. Davis I was questioning the (false?) dichotomy between processed and whole.

The factory product is obviously MORE processed than the bananas Dr. W talks about but both are highly processed compared to the "current wild" banana.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
I nominate "the squat diet". As in "paleo gurus[0] know squat".

[0] and many other gurus and their biased, cherry picking, deficient-for-the-advice "science".
Nigel Kinbrum said…
"Processing" isn't a problem. It's "refining" that's the problem. In my opinion, grains that have been ground into dust are no longer "whole grains", even if every part of the grain is present in the dust. See The problem with "Whole Grain" cereals etc.

Produce are fine, no matter how cross-bred or genetically-modified they are (provided the gut is properly-functioning). Refined products are not fine.
carbsane said…
Agree completely Nigel. If you eat corn on the cob or even whole cut corn vs. corn flakes it is totally different.
carbsane said…
He wrote it. :-(
LWC said…
What I don't get is why any of the pointed criticism comes as a surprise. Mat Lalonde (known for some reason as "the Kracken") has been saying for awhile that the paleo "community" (in which he does not claim membership) needed to be much more precise when using terminology and research results or the scientific community would not take their arguments seriously.

Despite (so far as I can tell) universal praise of "the Kracken" throughout the paleosphere, they have not heeded his words. And they are being mocked, just as he predicted they would be.

BTW, though this is my first post here, I've been reading your blog for awhile and greatly appreciate your efforts. The recently begun (and hopefully to be continued) series on diabetes completely changed my understanding of the disease.
First Last said…
What is the deal with Charles? Wasn't he badmouthing Evelyn on that stupid stalker site? Nothing good seems to come from his presence.
carbsane said…
Yeah, I've got other things to deal with than try to figure this out. So, for now, as long as he's civil here I'm not going to bother much. It is a shame as he comes up with some interesting research/articles etc. but I don't get the internet trolling and behind the back bashing. I think most are aware of this by now and can choose to engage/disengage as they see fit.
carbsane said…
Thanks and welcome LWC! I tend to think if he wasn't friends with Robb and came from the inside, there might be a different response. Heck I didn't even criticize, I just asked what the diet was! Can't have it both ways, claim the science is there for the paleo diet and yet refuse to define it or confirm that your diet is akin to those being studied.


Thanks for reading the science stuff here! I think you'll find the second review paper I'm going to get to soon (it is long, has like a zillion references, etc. so it might be a while as I want to publish that when I have time to react and discuss with readers. In the meantime I'll be filling in a few holes and hopefully discussing parts of the chicken and egg paper in greater detail.
Jane Karlsson said…
Evelyn, Nigel is not correct. Whole grains ground into 'dust' still have the minerals. If whole grain breakfast cereals are not good it's because they've been subjected to extremes of heat and pressure which damage vitamins and PUFA.
carbsane said…
I think we can ALL agree that humans didn't evolve to eat highly processed foods. Clearly we've been "grinding" grains and such for eons now, but there's just a difference between whole grain bread and pasta and the whole grains themselves.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
I never said that grain dust lacked minerals. Foods made from grain dust stick to teeth causing plaque & decay. Also, blood glucose levels are increasingly disturbed the finer the grains are ground e.g. American flour.
Brian said…
I just love the Paleo diet. It gives me exactly what I need to lose
weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The high protein and fat keeps
me full and really for the workouts while the low carb helps me not gain
weight. It’s perfect for my not-so-active lifestyle.

http://cooklikeacaveman.com/paleo-cookbook-review/
Jane Karlsson said…
Hi Nigel
Yes soft sticky food is bad for the teeth. Bread should be eaten stale, according to Cleave. But he would never call wholemeal flour 'refined' just because it's finely ground.

It looks to me like you still have a weakness for Colpo's ideas about refined grains being better than whole ones. I expect you remember the email conversation you and I had a while ago. After it ended I contacted the company that makes the bread you eat, and they confirmed it's made with white flour. I never told you, because it was clear you were going to go on eating it even it it was.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
I don't care about Cleave's opinion. I call wholemeal flour refined because it is refined.

What do you mean "It looks to me like you still have a weakness for Colpo's ideas about refined grains being better than whole ones."? White rice looks like a grain, unlike white flour. I don't "have a weakness" for anyone's ideas.


I eat 2 slices of Burgen soya & linseed bread a day, on average. The white flour in it causes some dental plaque. I have a toothbrush, so it's not a problem. I don't worry about what's in the foods I eat, unlike some people!
Jane Karlsson said…
Nigel, you just posted a very interesting paper about diet and health in mid-Victorian Britain. I am mystified that after reading it you still think it's OK to eat white bread. British health declined very fast after that time, coinciding with the introduction of roller mills which made it possible to eliminate all the bran and germ so flour could be very white and almost micronutrient free.
It's just two slices, Jane. Not to mention, right in this very thread, Nigel's stated that 'refining' is a problem, but given that it's just two slices of bread, I don't think it's all that substantial if he were to swap them out for whole grain in the context of an adult's daily nutritional requirements. 80-20 and all.

Outside of that, we're just arguing semantics.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Calling Burgen S & L "white bread" because it contains some white flour shows that you should have gone to SpecSavers.
Also, what Kade said.
Jane Karlsson said…
I am only trying to get you to think about why your endocrine system doesn't work properly. Is your pituitary being attacked by your immune system as Galina suggested? The immune system is very sensitive to copper deficiency. The copper content of veggies in the UK has fallen since 1940 by 76%, according to government figures. The copper content of dairy products is now so low it can't be measured. Nobody thinks this matters, because most people get the recommended amount anyway. But this amount has been found by Klevay to give volunteers symptoms of heart disease. Charles Grashow takes thyroid hormones and testosterone when low levels of both can be produced in animals by making them copper deficient.
Well, I mean anyone's form of 80-20. I doubt that side indulgences are the game maker of his diet, which takes us back to the point about two slices of bread--white or brown--not making any appreciable difference in the context of an adult's overall diet.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
My pituitary gland began to dysfunction in September 2001, after having been told in July 2001 that I was going to be made redundant and knowing that my redundancy payment wouldn't cover the outstanding mortgage. Therefore, the most likely explanation for my pituitary dysfunction is extreme stress. I didn't eat Burgen bread in those days, as I was on a very low carb diet.

By the way, here's a scanned image of a slice of Burgen S & L bread, with an ingredients list. Note:
1) It's not white.
2) There are no colourings in the ingredients list.
3) It's full of lumpy bits.
4) It smells & tastes delicious, unlike white bread.
So, why did you describe Burgen bread as "white bread"? You're supposed to be an expert on grains. As far as you're concerned, all maladies are caused by either a copper and/or manganese deficiency, when it's actually Vitamin D3, EPA & DHA and Magnesium! ;-)
Jane Karlsson said…
Well I'm not sure. In today's polluted world we need all the micronutrients we can get, because they're needed for detoxification. Also for stress resistance. Supplements sometimes don't work. It was reported very recently that manganese treatment prevents diabetes in mice on a high fat diet, but it had to be injected because Mn in the drinking water didn't work. The authors think it was excreted.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23372018
Mn undergoes enterohepatic circulation, meaning it gets excreted even if it's needed, and re-absorbed. The saturated fat in the high fat diet might have prevented re-absorption.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11697763
Jane Karlsson said…
The company told me the flour in this bread is white. Perhaps they've stopped using white flour now?


Interesting that you were eating very low carb. VLC can in theory cause iron overload and deficiencies of manganese and copper. I suspect this is why people on VLC often find their glucose tolerance doesn't improve.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
If you mention manganese and copper one more time, I will scream! ;-)
Woodey said…
I have been super busy with classes, but I had some time today and wanted to do a little catching up. I am so glad you posted the Warriner lecture. I would love to hear more from scientists like her on ancient diets, I find the topic to be very fascinating.
Jane Karlsson said…
The point is this. Conventional thinking says deficiencies of iron and zinc are common, and deficiencies of their partners manganese and copper are rare. Evidence is coming out all the time that this is incorrect. The purpose of blogs such as Evelyn's is to discuss new science and relate it to older science. Before too long everybody will be talking about the iron-manganese ratio and the zinc-copper ratio. If you don't want to be in on the act, that's your problem.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
That's fair enough. The problem is that you bang on about copper and manganese (*aaaggghhh!*) all the freakin' time and it's become tiresome. We get it! O.K.?

Anyway, based on the information that I've provided, do you now recommend the consumption of Burgen S & L bread?
Jane Karlsson said…
For god's sake Nigel, you don't have to read what I write. Just skip over it, OK? I know very well where you get the idea that I 'bang on' about copper and manganese. You may be surprised to hear that these people know what I say is true. Their earlier idea that I was insane is very difficult to reverse, in large part because their readers (who include yourself) will not allow it.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
It's not an idea that I got from somewhere. It's a fact. If you want people to listen to your advice (instead of switching off), stop repeating the same thing over and over again at every opportunity.

So, do you now recommend the consumption of Burgen S & L bread?
Jane Karlsson said…
I do realise it sounds as if I'm endlessly repeating myself, but actually I'm not. I tailor what I'm saying to what somebody else is saying, which makes it easier for that person to assimilate it. I've found from long experience that this is the only way to do things if you want to convey something new.

But I do greatly appreciate the offer. Please go on posting things I tell you on your blog, and don't worry about giving me credit. As far as I'm concerned these conversations belong to all of us. Including Wooo, if she's reading this.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Will do. I still have your emails, so there are links to studies that I will add to that post (when I get around to it). If/when you find a new study, put a link to it in a comment on that post.
Jane Karlsson said…
Brilliant! OMG Nigel I haven't heard Don't Stop Moving for YEARS and I LOVE it. THANKS
Anonymous said…
We absolutely love your blog and find many of your post's to be just what I'm looking
for. Does one offer guest writers to write content for you?
I wouldn't mind composing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write in relation to here. Again, awesome web site!

Feel free to visit my weblog :: inhibit hair growth men
Anonymous said…
Hey there! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization?
I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing very good success.

If you know of any please share. Cheers!

Also visit my blog post - mt2.ovens.Pl
Anonymous said…
whoah this weblog is magnificent i like studying your posts.
Stay up the great work! You recognize, many
individuals are looking round for this info, you
could help them greatly.

my site ... buy pro solution gel
Anonymous said…
Spot on Kupihea. If you nail all of those, you'll become a great deal more attractive to women than guys whom don't choose on these attributes.


My web page ... online dating apps facebook
Anonymous said…
Even though I don't have a lot of experiences with females I did kind of comprehend precisely what the primary points had been about females and the reason why sometimes they can be so difficult.

Check out my web site - virtual dating games
Sanjeev Sharma said…
here

the link's text:

https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=%22low+stress+diet%22+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&redir_esc=&ei=NN2YUb-9MofWqAHt-IDYDw#client=ubuntu&hs=NRQ&hl=en&channel=fs&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22stress+free+diet%22+yates&oq=%22stress+free+diet%22+yates&gs_l=serp.3..0i22i30l2.543.2970.2.3768.6.6.0.0.0.0.171.699.3j3.6.0...0.0...1c.1.14.psy-ab.GhYK-i08eQo&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.46751780,d.aWM&fp=a0cddf46c2e428b3&biw=1095&bih=856
Anonymous said…
Great beat ! I wish to apprentice while you amend
your web site, how could i subscribe for a blog
web site? The account aided me a appropriate deal.
I have been a little bit acquainted of this
your broadcast offered bright clear concept

Feel free to visit my web-site; Make online beats
Anonymous said…
Hello, i think that i saw you visited my web site so i came to “return the favor”.
I am attempting to find things to improve my
web site!I suppose its ok to use some of your ideas!
!

my homepage; skinception demefface
Anonymous said…
Hi! I've been following your weblog for a while now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Dallas Tx! Just wanted to mention keep up the fantastic work!

Also visit my homepage; http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/btv-solo-review-propels-aspiring-music-producers-to-professional-level-latest-information-released-252223.htm (managingdirectors.in)
Anonymous said…
Thanks for finally writing about > "Paleo Science and the Paleo Diet" < Liked it!

Here is my web page ... natural lubricant
Blogger said…
Are You Having Problems STICKING with your Paleo Diet?

Want to munch on some tasty recipes as soon as TONIGHT?

Get your amazing Paleohacks Cookbook.