carnivroar

For every study you can find another study "proving" the opposite.

Dr. Oz and Perlmutter: Low carb, high fat diets prevent Alzheimer's and obesity - National diets | Examiner.com

There is, however, one thing that is a fact: evolution. And if you look at human history, we have always eaten LCHF. Therefore, it follows that our body is adapted to thrive on LCHF; were that not the case, it would be a contradiction.

GeorgeBMac

And, even for evolution 'proving that we ate a LCHF diet', it depends on which expert you listen to ...
... Geez! There are some who claim that evolution is a myth...

And, since all of the "experts" use "Science" and "Evidence" to back up their claims, it is up to each of us to determine which expert bases his opinion on HIGH QUALITY science -- including studies that have been replicated by others to verify that it was in fact "high quality science" rather than the result of some defect in the study, or a defect in the analysis that followed it, or a simple fluke.

Too often the 'science' behind the fad diets is based on a single so called "fact" that is extrapolated out to include ramifications are simply untrue...

Edit to add:
I've read some of Perlmutter's stuff. I stopped reading when I saw him completely distort and misrepresent the recent study comparing 2 variations of the Mediterranean diet and a (supposedly) low fat diet. He twisted the results of that study in a way that not only benefitted his theories -- but that virtually no reputable scientist or researcher would agree with. He proved to me that he manipulates his facts to fit his theory...

GeorgeBMac

Yeh, good point...

And that is the same reason why many physicians give so little credence to lifestyle changes to prevent or control chronic diseases and instead prescribe medications: They provide a 5 minute lecture on the necessary lifestyle changes and the patient too often either ignores the advice or follows it half heartedly for a short while before returning to their old ways or following some internet quack...

I went to see a new PCP for the first time a couple weeks ago... He was totally perplexed on what to do for somebody who was living a healthy lifestyle.

carnivroar

Exactly. You, unfortunately, have chosen to listen to the wrong experts.

You know what's a "fad"? The whole low-fat craze.

Paleo LCHF is about following the traditional diet of our ancestors. By definition that's not a fad.

lenA

Well Machka you turned a simple diet and nutrition inquiry into another HFLC bashing and character attack.


Satisfied now?

Originally Posted by Machka
Food pyramid??

That's an old-fashioned American thing ... I've never followed a "food pyramid".



OK this

Healthy Well-Balanced Diets

must be a different Machka...sorry

Spld cyclist

Certainly humanity has had 8,000 - 10,000 years of evolution to adapt to higher carbohydrate diets. That's enough time.

Carbonfiberboy 

Well . . . That's a humorous comment. We got people who believe evolution never happened, and then we got people who believe it only happened thousands of years ago. Evolution is happening right now, and it can happen a lot faster than many people understand. It usually happens in short blips, followed by a stasis period as the new adaptation flourishes. Humans used to not be able to digest milk after infancy. They lost the enzyme for that. Since we've domesticated milk-producing animals, we've evolved and most of us no longer lose that enzyme. Same with carbohydrates. It's true that our diet was LCHF 50,000 years ago, but since then agriculture has flourished and we've evolved to be able to handle HC diets just fine. We are still evolving. A recent study found that slightly overweight people live longer than slimmer, fitter people. That's pretty amazing and awful darn fast.

The other totally hilarious thing is that people are quoting Examiner articles on science! Did you know Obama has confiscated helicopters from all 50 states! And the Human Barbie Doll story is revealed here:
Human Barbie Doll subject of new documentary - Atlanta Holistic Health | Examiner.com
That's how you get rid of that last belly fat! The secret is finally revealed.

carnivroar

Unless you're an expert in evolution specializing in the digestive system, you don't have the credibility to make that statement.

Well the great thing about science is that it doesn't matter if you believe in it or not. Evolution is a fact.

Evolving to consume grains as the primary source of food is NOT comparable to evolve to digest milk after infancy. The latter is clearly a much simpler mechanism.

We are still evolving indeed, but probably for the worst. Never before have the "diseases of civilization" been so common. Hint: it's not the meat and fat, which have been there all along.

It's simple logic:

• Modern humans ate primarily meat and fat for at least 90% of their existence (100k years vs 10k years).*
• If such diet was bad for humans, natural selection would have either wiped them all out or forced them to adapt.
• We have obviously not been wiped out and we're by far the the dominant species on earth - therefore we have adapted to such diet.

*and that's being very, very conservative. Our earliest ancestor from 2 million years ago, H0mo habilis, were omnivore. (Had to type "0" instead of "o" to avoid being censored, lol.)

As for the article I linked, I didn't even read it. The point was that you can almost always find a study showing the opposite. Also, your argument against the article is an Ad hominem logical fallacy. Besides, Examiner is not even the source of the study, he is: https://www.drperlmutter.com/ Great reviews here: https://www.amazon.com/David-Perlmutt...7674808&sr=1-7

squirtdad

The basis for paleo is not a fact. Nor have humans always eaten LCHF. Humans have always eaten what is available in their environment. And evolution is an ongoing process, that is measured in hundreds of years not tens of thousands of years.

If you want to eat LCHF by all means do....... but don't give a pseudo scientific base that is not proven.

The paleo theory is highly disputed in the scientific community....the theory is pretty thoroughly beaten up on by an evolutionary biologist using current research in PaleoFantasy Amazon.com: Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live eBook: Marlene Zuk: Kindle Store



How to Really Eat Like a Hunter-Gatherer: Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked [Interactive & Infographic] - Scientific American

some quotes

"Proponents of the Paleo diet follow a nutritional plan based on the eating habits of our ancestors in the Paleolithic period, between 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago. Before agriculture and industry, humans presumably lived as hunter–gatherers: picking berry after berry off of bushes; digging up tumescent tubers; chasing mammals to the point of exhaustion; scavenging meat, fat and organs from animals that larger predators had killed; and eventually learning to fish with lines and hooks and hunt with spears, nets, bows and arrows.

Most Paleo dieters of today do none of this, with the exception of occasional hunting trips or a little urban foraging. Instead, their diet is largely defined by what they do not do: most do not eat dairy or processed grains of any kind, because humans did not invent such foods until after the Paleolithic; peanuts, lentils, beans, peas and other legumes are off the menu, but nuts are okay; meat is consumed in large quantities, often cooked in animal fat of some kind; Paleo dieters sometimes eat fruit and often devour vegetables; and processed sugars are prohibited, but a little honey now and then is fine."

note: honey is almost identical chemically to high fructose corn syrup

"On his website, Sisson writes that "while the world has changed in innumerable ways in the last 10,000 years (for better and worse), the human genome has changed very little and thus only thrives under similar conditions." This is simply not true. In fact, this reasoning misconstrues how evolution works. If humans and other organisms could only thrive in circumstances similar to the ones their predecessors lived in, life would not have lasted very long.

Several examples of recent and relatively speedy human evolution underscore that our anatomy and genetics have not been set in stone since the stone age. Within a span of 7,000 years, for instance, people adapted to eating dairy by developing lactose tolerance. Usually, the gene encoding an enzyme named lactase—which breaks down lactose sugars in milk—shuts down after infancy; when dairy became prevalent, many people evolved a mutation that kept the gene turned on throughout life. Likewise, the genetic mutation responsible for blue eyes likely arose between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. And in regions where malaria is common, natural selection has modified people's immune systems and red blood cells in ways that help them resist the mosquito-borne disease; some of these genetic mutations appeared within the last 10,000 or even 5,000 years. The organisms with which we share our bodies have evolved even faster, particularly the billions of bacteria living in our intestines. Our gut bacteria interact with our food in many ways, helping us break down tough plant fibers, but also competing for calories. We do not have direct evidence of which bacterial species thrived in Paleolithic intestines, but we can be sure that their microbial communities do not exactly match our own."
"
some quotes from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/paleofantasy

"Proponents of the paleo diet believe the mismatch between today’s Western lifestyle and that of early humans is making us fat and sick. Our bodies haven’t had time to adapt to our new ways of life, the thinking goes, so eating like our ancestors is the ticket to good health.

This notion that our lives are out of sync with the way humans were meant to be is a fallacy, or a “paleofantasy,” claims Zuk, an evolutionary biologist. With piles of evidence from recent genetic and anthropological research, she offers a dose of paleoreality.

**** sapiens emerged about 200,000 years ago, but humans haven’t stopped evolving. “No organism gets to a point of perfect adaptation, heaves a sigh of genetic relief, and stops,” Zuk writes. In the last few thousand years, for example, Tibetans in the Himalayas have adapted to living at high elevations. And as animal herding and agriculture spread, groups developed adaptations that allow people to digest milk as adults and starch from grains and tubers.

Since humans have always been evolving and migrating to new places, you can’t pinpoint a single ancestral environment where H. sapiens grew up, Zuk explains. Contemporary hunter-gatherers vary in many ways, including diet, food procurement, sexual division of labor and child rearing. None of these societies is a model of an ideal human ancestor, because each one has changed over time.

Zuk doesn’t deny that sedentary lifestyles cause health problems. But living like a caveman — whatever that means — isn’t the answer. Her advice is sensible: Just put down the bag of chips and get off the couch."

carnivroar

You call this science???

Just look at the reviews for that book.

Her argument seems to be that "evolution is an ongoing process" - well, that doesn't even mean much. It may support the argument that eating grains and high carb is okay, sure, I'll give her that; BUT it certainly does not prove that Paleo (i.e. LCHF) is wrong.

Ursa Minor

Please guys don't turn this into a drama fest.

Charlie

Spld cyclist

You're right. I was just being silly. I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it.

Actually, that's just insulting. Are you an expert? If so, please fill us in.

Here's a test. Do you know the meaning of "punctuated equilibrium" without looking it up?

Thanks to CFB and Squirtdad for posting rebuttals. I'll just say this. If the paleo theory was true, how can people like me exist? I've eaten high carb all my life. I have no trouble maintaining a healthy weight. I'll put my blood test results up against anyone's. I'm active but no athlete. I'm 44, which is plenty of time for my terrible diet to have taken its toll. I should be fat and riddled with heart disease and diabetes at the least. Yet I know a lot of people who eat what is basically just an old-fashioned balanced diet (dare I even say, a diet that would do USDA proud?) who have been perfectly healthy even to advanced ages, maintained reasonable weights, and generally avoided heart disease and diabetes. We just shouldn't exist, according to paleo theory, because we keep stuffing ourselves full of toxic carbohydrates. Based on people I personally know, the overweight and unhealthy ones clearly don't get enough exercise (sometimes none at all) and they eat too much junk food (either high-sugar or high-fat or both). This is consistent with most everything I have read about nutrition and physiology. I'm aware that there have been some studies supportive of a paleo diet. I'm withholding judgement on that for now. It may work fine for some people, but I don't see anything there that disproves what I've come to believe on higher-carb diets.

Did you ever think that the untold millions of people like me might argue for the position that humans have evolved the ability to survive and even thrive on carbs?

lenA

A friend of mine back in the 70s had a "punctuated equilibrium" and he got out of the draft.

Rowan

The LCHF/paleo guys are like stand-up comedians when they get involved in their discussions about diet. One laugh after another!!

lenA

That's what happens when you feel good.

wolfchild

Lots of exercise and physical activity is the most important thing for maintaining a healthy bodyweight. Sedentary lifestyle is the No.1 cause of obesity... If you are extremely active then your body will use everything you eat for energy and your body won't even have a chance to store enough fat to make you obese. Splitting hairs and debating about what the proper macronutrient percentages are, is BS. As for paleo, there is enough evidence that starch was part of human diet long before humans settled down and became farmers. So yes, eating starchy roots is very paleo.

GeorgeBMac

Possibly for maintaining a healthy bodyweight -- but not necessarily for maintaining a healthy body.

From a previous thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeBMac

Being fit didn't stop Dave McGillivray from getting heart disease...

"“I’m from that ‘Leave It to Beaver’ era,” he said. “You know, meat and potatoes. I was hard-core. That’s what I ate, what I lived on. I always felt like if the furnace was hot enough, it would burn everything. And I never really gained any weight, so I wasn’t showing signs that what I was eating was hurting me."

From the Boston Herald:

Dave McGillivray fights heart disease
Running out of trouble

A couple of days ago, I asked a friend if he knows who Dave McGillivray is.

“Of course,” said my friend. “He’s the guy who runs.”

That’s Dave McGillivray, all right. He’s the guy who runs.

As in he once ran across the United States to raise money for the Jimmy Fund. As in he’s completed hundreds of marathons. And numerous Ironman competitions.

Buckley: Dave McGillivray fights heart disease | Boston Herald

wolfchild

What then ?? ..are people healthy only because of good genetics...Look at it this way, Ultimate Warrior died of heart attack at the age of 54 and that guy was all solid muscle. Then there is Jack Lalanne who was also all solid muscle and he lived till 96.

BigAura

Ultimate Warrior

• High protein diet
• low rep heavy weight lifting
• steriods
• obese BMI

Jack LaLanne

• Mostly plant based Mediterranean diet
• high rep light weight exercise
• no drugs or alcohol
• normal BMI

carnivroar

If they weren't right, then whole civilizations like the Inuit wouldn't exist either. They are essentially carnivores.

I'm not even arguing against high carb exactly. I'm simply defending LCHF.

BigAura

Although Inuit civilizations did evolve and adapt to thrive in extreme conditions, modern Inuit peoples are not models of good health.

carnivroar

They only become sick from the "diseases of civilization" when exposed to a high carb western diet. This is well documented by Weston A. Price.

Spld cyclist

The existence of the Inuit demonstrate that different populations of humans have moved into extremely different environments and evolved to adapt to the food that was available there. It doesn't support the position that the "paleo diet" is the best for everyone because humans ate a certain way for 100,000 years. And that is the position that many paleo advocates are stating - that there is no place in the human diet for carbs (or anything more than a tiny amount) regardless of who one's ancestors were.

There's the example of southwestern Native Americans. They are a population that apparently really can't tolerate the typical American diet, leading to rates of obesity and diabetes far greater than the American population in general. But that isn't equally true of all Native American populations and it isn't true of people of Caucasian descent like me (as I explained in an earlier post) or of people in Asia, where the people who came to North America 10,000 - 30,000 years ago originated. These differences then must have appeared in a far shorter time scale than Paleo advocates believe is possible.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes, the problem with isolated populations like southwestern American Indians is that they had hunter/gatherer diets until only about 1,000 years ago when they began to practice agriculture. They've not had enough time to evolve to handle the modern diet.

No one today eats a paleo diet:
Ancient Poop Gives Clues to Modern Diabetes Epidemic | Ancient Diets | LiveScience
Wasn't a high fat diet, either.

lenA

I hope paleo does not become the generic term for the high saturated fat, low carb, moderate protein, way of eating.

I think its trendiness and some of the premises put people off... including me