Metabolic and Physiologic Improvements from Consuming a Paleolithic Diet.

[Darryl Shaw]

Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet.

ABSTRACT

Background: The contemporary American diet figures centrally in the pathogenesis of numerous chronic diseases—'diseases of civilization'. We investigated in humans whether a diet similar to that consumed by our preagricultural hunter-gatherer ancestors (that is, a paleolithic type diet) confers health benefits.

Methods: We performed an outpatient, metabolically controlled study, in nine nonobese sedentary healthy volunteers, ensuring no weight loss by daily weight. We compared the findings when the participants consumed their usual diet with those when they consumed a paleolithic type diet. The participants consumed their usual diet for 3 days, three ramp-up diets of increasing potassium and fiber for 7 days, then a paleolithic type diet comprising lean meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts, and excluding nonpaleolithic type foods, such as cereal grains, dairy or legumes, for 10 days. Outcomes included arterial blood pressure (BP); 24-h urine sodium and potassium excretion; plasma glucose and insulin areas under the curve (AUC) during a 2 h oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT); insulin sensitivity; plasma lipid concentrations; and brachial artery reactivity in response to ischemia.

Results: Compared with the baseline (usual) diet, we observed (a) significant reductions in BP associated with improved arterial distensibility (-3.12.9, P=0.01 and +0.190.23, P=0.05);(b) significant reduction in plasma insulin vs time AUC, during the OGTT (P=0.006); and (c) large significant reductions in total cholesterol, low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and triglycerides (-0.80.6 (P=0.007), -0.70.5 (P=0.003) and -0.30.3 (P=0.01) mmol/l respectively). In all these measured variables, either eight or all nine participants had identical directional responses when switched to paleolithic type diet, that is, near consistently improved status of circulatory, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism/physiology.

Conclusions: Even short-term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves BP and glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans.

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v...jcn20094a.html

[Paul Epstein]

thanks Darryl.

having not read the full article, is there any clue as to what their diets consisted of exactly?

total meat and animal fat consumption?

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Paul Epstein

thanks Darryl.

having not read the full article, is there any clue as to what their diets consisted of exactly?

total meat and animal fat consumption?

I've been unable to access the full text but according to Drbriffa.com "the paleoloithic diet that the subjects ate for 10 days was made up of meat (chicken, pork, turkey), vegetables (e.g. lettuce, spinach, broccoli, salad, parsnips), fruit (pineapple, melon), honey and nuts (almonds). The diet emphasised lean meat (while the true paleolithic diet was unlikely to be particularly lean) also included foods that you can’t imagine our early ancestors eating (tomato soup, guacamole, carrot juice, mayonnaise), but the basic make-up of the diet was, overall, reflective of the foods we ate prior to the agricultural age." It states here that the macros were "30%, 32%, and 38% of calories were obtained from protein, fat, and carbohydrates, respectively."

Judging from the lack of any starchy root vegetables in the diet and the inclusion of canola oil I assume that the food selection was based on Cordains Paleo Diet book rather than an actual African hunter-gatherer diet but without having read the full text (where I suspect Cordains work will be cited) I can't be certain.

[Matthias Becker]

What exactly is a real paleolithic diet? It's a period of over 2 million years and varying places. And from the different things I've read nutrition was very different depending on the exact place and time during the paleolithic period, varying from mostly plant based in warmer regions to mostly meat based in cold regions. You even find several texts that suggest lots of very starchy tubers as part of the diet in some regions and time periods in the paleolithic era.

[Steven Low]

Originally Posted by Matthias Becker

What exactly is a real paleolithic diet? It's a period of over 2 million years and varying places. And from the different things I've read nutrition was very different depending on the exact place and time during the paleolithic period, varying from mostly plant based in warmer regions to mostly meat based in cold regions. You even find several texts that suggest lots of very starchy tubers as part of the diet in some regions and time periods in the paleolithic era.

May be a good idea try out a diet similar to where your ancestors were from, wherever that was. That's probably a good place to start.

[Paul Epstein]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

May be a good idea try out a diet similar to where your ancestors were from, wherever that was. That's probably a good place to start.

awesome if you have mixed heritage.

[Paul Epstein]

id be interested to see a study comparing cordains paleo espousing mainly lean meats with a paleo diet which includes more animal fats, albeit grass fed.