PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

[Polish_Silver]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Looking at diet as the culprit for modern society's epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, etc, without looking at exercise is only half the picture. Ancient people ate lots of meat in some parts of the world, lots of fish in other parts of the world, foraged for plants, berries, seeds in still other parts of the world..

I think that is exactly it . George Mann came to similar conclusions after studying indigenous groups including the Inuit, Masai, and some other tribe.

However, no ancient people were eating candy bars and soda pop.

[shiny!]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Looking at diet as the culprit for modern society's epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, etc, without looking at exercise is only half the picture. Ancient people ate lots of meat in some parts of the world, lots of fish in other parts of the world, foraged for plants, berries, seeds in still other parts of the world... Some people developed the ability to digest dairy products, others didn't. But what people had in common was that they were not sedentary. They moved around a LOT. They walked a LOT.

A person who eats refined foods but burns it off doing hard manual labor every day might be healthier than a person who eats a "perfect" diet by someone's reckoning but sits at a desk all day, has their food delivered, has a maid clean their house and drives a mile to work to avoid walking.

[Polish_Silver]

dietary evolution

Paleo Diet Debates Evolve Into Something Bigger

Signs of adaptation

After that, however, the pace of evolution research accelerated rapidly, especially with the ability to sequence the entire human genome. It allowed researchers, for example, to compare the DNA of populations with different diets — new and old — and look for signs of adaptation.

Stone and her colleagues, for instance, were interested in the varying abilities of people to handle diets loaded with starch. After the transition to agriculture, which brought steady supplies of wheat, corn, rice, barley and other crops, the ability to digest starches probably became more useful. Did human bodies adapt?
To answer that question, the researchers compared the DNA of peoples with high-starch diets and with the DNA of remote peoples who had low-starch diets.

The high-starch groups included European Americans, Japanese and Tanzania’s Hadza people, hunter-gatherers who rely on starch-rich roots. The low-starch groups were African pygmies, some African cattle farmers and a Russian ethnic group known as the Yakut.

DNA analysis showed that individuals from the high-starch groups were roughly twice as likely as the others to have inherited many extra copies of the AMY1 gene. The saliva of people with more copies of this gene tends to have more amylase, an enzyme that allows them to better digest starch.

More recently, another advance gave scientists a direct way of comparing contemporary humans to our Paleolithic ancestors by recovering DNA from ancient bones.

In a paper that appeared in December in the journal Nature, scientists looked at DNA recovered from the bones of more than 200 ancient Eurasian humans. The samples ranged from about 2,000 to 8,000 years old, a span that covers hunter-gatherers as well as early farmers.

The scientists noted thousands of distinct places in the DNA where there were changes that didn’t seem random but that instead appeared to be adaptation to environment.

From those thousands of places, the scientists highlighted 12 places where the signs of selection were clustered. One of those clusters related to the digestion of milk — a DNA change that confirmed previous findings. Another related to how humans digest fatty acids. Two others may have a link to celiac disease. Others were related to skin color, which got lighter as humans moved northward from Africa, and disease resistance.

“Europeans of 4,000 years ago were different in important respects from Europeans today, despite having overall similar ancestry,” the authors concluded.
Those findings, like the others, challenge the Paleo idea that humans have not changed. What remains unanswered, though, is how much change there has been.
“My overall opinion of this is that we don’t really know,” said Iain Mathieson, a Harvard University Medical School researcher and a co-author of the Nature paper. “We do know there are some specific changes in humans. But they are relatively small in number. To me, it’s an open question. It’s a hypothesis.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...76b_story.html

The article is good.

1) Racial differences are adaptations to local environment.

2) We have some adaptation to agricultural food, including starch and milk.

3) No one is sure how complete the adaptations are.

What the article did not discuss, was how rapidly the diet and lifestyle has changed in the last 100 years:

a) much less exercise, do to cars, telephones, etc.

b) foods with highly concentrated calories (sugar, oils, ), and salt to make people crave them.

[vt]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Paleo Diet Debates Evolve Into Something Bigger


By Peter Whoriskey March 7

The article kicked off not just a diet but also a movement. Appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 1985, “Paleolithic Nutrition: A Consideration of Its Nature and Current Implications” argued that the human body is “genetically programmed” to run not on a modern diet but on the foods consumed by our Stone Age ancestors.

“The human genetic constitution has changed relatively little since the appearance of truly modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, about 40,000 years ago,” S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner wrote.

The authors reasoned that human bodies have been shaped more by our prolonged time as hunter-gatherers than by the brief span since the advent of farming. Meat, probably lots of it, as well as fruits and vegetables were in. The staples of agriculture — breads, cereals, milks and cheeses — were not.

Three decades later, that academic ripple is now a popular tidal wave. We have not just Paleo diets — the subject of multiple bestsellers — but also Paleo exercise, Paleo sleeping and Paleo toilets. They’re all based on the premise that our bodies are more suited for Paleo-era habits.

But even as the “cave man” diet rose to become the most-Googled diet in 2013 and 2014, evolutionary biologists, with much less fanfare, were using advanced DNA techniques, sometimes on ancient bones, to suggest that Eaton and Konner’s premise may be off the mark: In fact, it seems, we have evolved.

Over the past year alone, prominent scientific journals have published evidence of genetic shifts in humans over the past 10,000 years — apparently in response to mankind’s transition to agriculture.
Two relatively recent gene variants help humans survive with deficiencies characteristic of agricultural diets; another genetic shift appears to help fight the dental cavities that arose with farm-based staples; another changes the way humans digest fats; dozens of others help fight the diseases that came with living at higher densities.

Those new findings add to previously known adaptations to mankind’s changing diet. After the domestication of milking animals, many humans evolved to digest milk. Humans also appear to have developed better ways to digest the starches characteristic of agricultural diets.

“It drives me crazy when Paleo-diet people say that we’ve stopped evolving — we haven’t,” said Anne C. Stone, a professor of human evolution at Arizona State University who has shown that genes related to starch digestion appear to have changed in number, apparently in response to farming. “Our diets have changed radically in the last 10,000 years, and, in response, we have changed, too.”

Although all this new evidence challenges the Paleo-diet argument, it doesn’t necessarily disprove it. And Eaton and Konner, for their part, maintain that their central hypothesis — that there is a mismatch between our bodies and our diets — remains sound.

Pace of research picks up

Yes, Konner said in an interview, there is more research that humans have evolved recently.
“There’s evidence that there’s been a lot more selection and genetic change in the last five to 10 thousand years than previously thought,” he said. “This is a challenge to the Paleo-diet claims — including mine and Boyd Eaton’s over the years.”

“But,” he said, “I don’t think it’s much of one.”
For one thing, he and Eaton say, the newly discovered genetic differences between Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and modern humans are not very numerous. Although there may be some ways in which humans have adapted to agricultural diets, those are far outnumbered by the ways in which human bodies remain suited for the Paleo era.

And even if one concedes that there has been significant genetic change over the past 10,000 years, Konner said, those changes would only catch us up to human diets from 10,000 years ago. But our diets have changed radically over the last 300 years alone — we consume less fiber, more refined grains, etc. — and evolutionary forces cannot have altered our bodies so quickly over that time.

“The bulk of the chronic degenerative disease in our population is due to dietary changes in the last few centuries; they’re not necessarily related to the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculture,” Konner said. “The biggest culprit with the current epidemic of diabetes, a looming problem worldwide, is refined carbohydrates. There’s no way humans could have adapted to that because they haven’t been around long enough.”

The outcome of the debate rests for now on the ongoing research, which has accelerated markedly in recent years.

When Eaton and Konner wrote their article, the human genome had not been fully sequenced, and it was far more difficult to detect evidence of recent human evolution.

Take, for example, the discovery that humans gained the ability to digest milk — lactose tolerance — as they began to domesticate milking animals.
First, scientists had to discover that lactose tolerance is an inherited trait. This came about after scientists noticed similarities within families. Once that was established, scientists were forced to look for clues from geography and anthropology. What they found is that in populations where cattle had been long domesticated, most people could digest milk easily; in populations without domesticated milking animals, most could not.

“This trait seems to be common or extremely common only in populations which have established the custom of having milk regularly in their diet after weaning,” Stanford University geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza wrote in 1972. “It is rare or absent in others.”

Eaton and Konner acknowledged this dietary adaptation in their 1985 paper but said that “very few other examples are known.”

Signs of adaptation

After that, however, the pace of evolution research accelerated rapidly, especially with the ability to sequence the entire human genome. It allowed researchers, for example, to compare the DNA of populations with different diets — new and old — and look for signs of adaptation.

Stone and her colleagues, for instance, were interested in the varying abilities of people to handle diets loaded with starch. After the transition to agriculture, which brought steady supplies of wheat, corn, rice, barley and other crops, the ability to digest starches probably became more useful. Did human bodies adapt?
To answer that question, the researchers compared the DNA of peoples with high-starch diets and with the DNA of remote peoples who had low-starch diets.

The high-starch groups included European Americans, Japanese and Tanzania’s Hadza people, hunter-gatherers who rely on starch-rich roots. The low-starch groups were African pygmies, some African cattle farmers and a Russian ethnic group known as the Yakut.

DNA analysis showed that individuals from the high-starch groups were roughly twice as likely as the others to have inherited many extra copies of the AMY1 gene. The saliva of people with more copies of this gene tends to have more amylase, an enzyme that allows them to better digest starch.

More recently, another advance gave scientists a direct way of comparing contemporary humans to our Paleolithic ancestors by recovering DNA from ancient bones.

In a paper that appeared in December in the journal Nature, scientists looked at DNA recovered from the bones of more than 200 ancient Eurasian humans. The samples ranged from about 2,000 to 8,000 years old, a span that covers hunter-gatherers as well as early farmers.

The scientists noted thousands of distinct places in the DNA where there were changes that didn’t seem random but that instead appeared to be adaptation to environment.

From those thousands of places, the scientists highlighted 12 places where the signs of selection were clustered. One of those clusters related to the digestion of milk — a DNA change that confirmed previous findings. Another related to how humans digest fatty acids. Two others may have a link to celiac disease. Others were related to skin color, which got lighter as humans moved northward from Africa, and disease resistance.

“Europeans of 4,000 years ago were different in important respects from Europeans today, despite having overall similar ancestry,” the authors concluded.
Those findings, like the others, challenge the Paleo idea that humans have not changed. What remains unanswered, though, is how much change there has been.
“My overall opinion of this is that we don’t really know,” said Iain Mathieson, a Harvard University Medical School researcher and a co-author of the Nature paper. “We do know there are some specific changes in humans. But they are relatively small in number. To me, it’s an open question. It’s a hypothesis.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...76b_story.html

[Polish_Silver]

flinestone longevity

[QUOTE=vt;302468]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...t-paleo-diets/

"Several lines of reasoning suggest that obesity must have been exceedingly rare, if it existed at all, during prehistoric times," Eric Colman, a doctor at the FDA, wrote.
But the prevalence of obesity is largely a matter of speculation and Colman allowed, that we "cannot discount the existence of a singular case of obesity" due to disease.

When British settlers arrived in Australia, they criticized the natives for being lazy, and chubby!

It is not clear that people tens of thousands of years ago were malnourished or that life was "harsh". There was fare more land available than there were people.

People could have chosen the spots with abundant food. When Columbus landed in North America, there were about 20 buffalo for every human, not to mention a great many deer, beaver, and other animals. The humans had fire, bow and arrow and other advantages .

The frozen man recovered in Switzerland was 45 years old, and killed by an arrow. (He did have Lyme disease, though).

How common obesity was, is a very interesting question. Obese people would not be much good at persistence hunting, but sedentary societies were more common than previously thought.

[vt]

Re: What's wrong with mice ?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...t-paleo-diets/


This Paleolithic limestone carving recovered in Willendorf, Austria is so life-like that some have wondered whether it was based on real life - and whether at least a few Paleo individuals were obese. (By Ziko van Dijk via Wikimedia Commons)
The fat billows and pools around the belly button. The flesh spills over the hip bones. The thighs are fused.

Long celebrated as one of the oldest known works of art, the "Venus of Willendorf," provokes a sense of wonder: How did the Stone Age sculptor render obesity that was so life-like?
While other ancient artifacts are mere stick figures or stylized images, the Venus of Willendorf, believed to be more than 28,000 years old, gives people the sense that it was drawn from real life. So, too, do other figurines of obese women recovered from Paleolithic sites.

"She has a quite unformalized vitality," the archaeologist and historian Nancy Sandars wrote in her book, Prehistoric Art in Europe of the Venus of Willendorf. "She does not impress us as an abstraction, an idea, or ideal of the female and the fecund; rather one feels in spite of facelessness and gross exaggeration, that this is actual woman."

(By Oke via Wikimedia Commons)

In an era when countless advocates of a "Paleo" diet argue that the Paleolithic way of life was optimized for human health, it's worth wondering what these figurines are telling us: Could some of the "cavemen" have been fat?

To be sure, no one knows why these images were carved. Were they related to fertility gods or beliefs, as some have suggested? A hope for plentiful food? Or are they, as some have proposed, a form of Paleo porn? The answers so far seem to be a matter of speculation. But whatever the purpose of the figurines, their anatomical correctness indicates that the sculptors must have seen fat people, some experts say, meaning that obesity was not unknown to the Paleolithic peoples, however harsh their lives may have been in general.
The Venus of Willendorf "tells us that obesity has been a human issue for a very long time," said George Bray, a professor emeritus at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University, an expert who haswritten on the topic.

"The figurines are certainly based on real life body morphology. They are anatomically accurate, and bear no resemblance to pregnant women," said David Haslam, a British physician and chair of the National Obesity Forum, a professional organization. He has written about the artifacts. "Similar figurines exist in Malta, Israel and all over Europe, proving that obesity existed in antiquity."

Other doctors have argued that it was highly unlikely that Paleolithic people could get fat - food was too scarce, life too demanding and besides, most did not live long enough to get the middle age spread.

CONTENT FROM SAMSUNGTechnology and health intersect for better careA nation that combines innovation with responsive care and sound policy succeeds, and thrives.

"Several lines of reasoning suggest that obesity must have been exceedingly rare, if it existed at all, during prehistoric times," Eric Colman, a doctor at the FDA, wrote.
But the prevalence of obesity is largely a matter of speculation and Colman allowed, that we "cannot discount the existence of a singular case of obesity" due to disease.
Haslam, likewise, suggests that Paleo obesity was "rare," especially in contrast to the U.S. and United Kingdom today, where "it is present in epidemic proportions."

What does seem clear, however, is that Stone Age sculptors quite often turned to depicting overweight people. A 2011 paper by a Hungarian pathologist Laszlo Jozsa looked at 97 female idols from the Upper Paleolithic and found that 24 were skinny - and mainly young and 15 were normal weight. The majority - 51 - were overweight or very obese females, however.

"The Venus of Willendorf was not unique - they've been found from western Europe and into Russia - it was a far-reaching phenomenon," Bray said. "How prevalent obesity was - we have no idea. But it was there."

[What actual ‘caveman’ DNA says about the Paleo movement]


A 40,000-year-old figurine, carved from a mammoth tusk, recovered from a site in Germany. (Courtesy of the Museum of Prehistory in Blaubeuren)

[Polish_Silver]

What's wrong with mice ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-devotees.html

The idea of a "Paleo" diet is the diet that humans ate before the agricultural revolution, ie the diet we adapted to for 1-2 million years of hunter gathering.

It is not an optimum diet for mice because mice are not hunter gatherers. It is not clear that a "paleo diet" would be high fat, since wild animals are relatively lean, with some exceptions such as moose in the fall or the heads of salmon.

The article did not say what sort of fat the mice were eating. There is some evidence that the fat in "free range grass fed" animal is more healthy for you than the fat in a "factory farm grain fed" animal.

A paleo diet would probably include fruit, berries, some seeds, so it would not necessarily be "low carb".

Since when were mice cooking food before eating it, which is what humans have been doing for at least 1 million years?

Is the study really claiming that the food of the last 100 years (sugar, flour, etc) is more healthy than what humans were eating in the previous 1 million years?

[vt]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-devotees.html

[Slimprofits]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Along those lines, peanuts and treenuts have been found to reduce heart disease. I don't know what kind of fat they have, but it is not trans fat. Bring on the whole milk!

No it is not, naturally occurring trans fats are found in small amounts in cattle and sheep. The real problem, not surprisingly, is with non-naturally occurring trans fats.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...udy-finds.html The last sentence should be the headline - should be the lead story on every news broadcast, IMO. In an ideal world, perhaps the only headline reported by any news entity for the entire day.

Along those lines, peanuts and treenuts have been found to reduce heart disease. I don't know what kind of fat they have, but it is not trans fat. Bring on the whole milk!

[Slimprofits]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...udy-finds.html

The analysis of 72 previous studies showed insufficient support for nutritional recommendations by groups such as the American Heart Association that advocate high consumption of polyunsaturated fats like omega-3 and omega-6, which is found in corn and sunflower oils, as well as some nuts and seeds.

Researchers in yesterday’s report analyzed 72 studies that looked at more than 600,000 patients from 18 countries. Of those, 40 involved initially healthy people, 10 recruited people with elevated cardiovascular risk factors and 22 recruited people with cardiovascular disease.

In 17 studies of more than 75,000 patients, they found no evidence that supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids can reduce heart disease risk, Chowdhury said.

The analysis supported current guidelines restricting consumption of foods high in trans fats. The study didn’t find evidence that saturated fats pose a heart risk, Chowdhury said.

The last sentence should be the headline - should be the lead story on every news broadcast, IMO. In an ideal world, perhaps the only headline reported by any news entity for the entire day.

[swgprop]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

Someone posted to this thread a couple of days ago referencing Peter Attia:

Visiting his site led me to NuSI.

Founded by Attia and Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories, Bad Calories) it seems that NuSI has the potential to be a great source of nutritional/dietary information.

From their website:

The Problem:

Americans have been working harder than ever to eat well and be healthy, but it’s not working. We keep getting fatter and diabetes rates are skyrocketing. One possible explanation is that we’re getting the wrong advice. Official dietary guidelines are not based on rigorous science. They may be contributing to the problem and doing far more harm than good.

Why NuSI

NuSI is unencumbered by bureaucracy or by an obligation to do anything other than find the truth. We can move quickly and efficiently to execute a novel plan: harness the talents of the best scientists in the field and channel their skills into one concerted effort to generate reliable knowledge, once and for all, on the nature of a healthy diet. The time is now.

The Strategy:

NuSI is changing the rules of the game. We build teams of multidisciplinary researchers from independent universities and institutions, and we make it possible for them to do targeted, cutting-edge experiments that will directly address the key questions of obesity and health. We then communicate the results to all audiences. Everyone deserves the truth.

[doom&gloom]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

So I sorta went Paleo over the last few months. Commenst in color below...

I was hoping to start this new thread later on, with a more fleshed-out version of my thesis, but due to the interest in the topic, I'll get it started with a reader's digest version so those unfamiliar know what we are talking about.

I enthusiastically welcome serious commentary, questions and criticism.

Those who are vegetarians for ethical or religious reasons, or who believe in a "macrobiotic" diet as a political plank, will probably not be persuaded.

PaNu - A modified paleolithic diet that can improve your health by duplicating the evolutionary metabolic milieu.

How do you do it?

I have patients that that don't care about the details, they just want to to cut to the chase about what to do. Here is the heirarchical list I give them. I tell them to go as far down the list as they can in whatever time frame they can manage. I tell them the further along the list they stop, the healthier they will be. There is no counting, measuring, or weighing. They are not required to purchase anything specific from me or anyone else. There are no special supplements, drugs or testing required. I have yet to charge anyone a penny for this advice. I already make a good living as a practicing radiologist and private investor, so I have zero financial incentive in this.

1 Eliminate sugar (including fruit juices and sports drinks) and all flour

CHECK! Except I have yet to eliminate Diet Coke. We all have our weaknesses...

2 Start eating proper fats - animal fats and monounsaturated fats like olive oil - substituting fat calories for carb calories. Drink whole milk or half and half instead of skim.

Check! -- except eliminated almost all dairy (occasional cheese)

3 Eliminate grains

Double Check! Don't miss any of them. And heck, I ama grain farmer no less!

4 Eliminate grain and seed derived oils (cooking oils) Cook with butter, coconut oil, olive oil or animal fats.

Check!

5 Get daily midday sun or take 1-2000 iu vit D daily

Hard to do in the PacNW, but will up my D. Heard 5000 is a better level.

6 Intermittent fasting and infrequent meals (2 meals a day is best)

Eat three meals a day, snack in between. Large (around 10-12hour) gap between last food and breakfast.

7 Fruit is just a snickers bar from a tree. Stick with berries and avoid watermelon which is pure fructose. Eat in moderation.

Pretty much check. Occasional pear or banana. Love berries so no need to convince me to eat them, and they are low cal as well!

8 Eliminate legumes

Double check!

9 Adjust your 6s and 3s. Grass fed beef or bison avoids excess O-6 fatty acids and are better than supplementing with 0-3 supplements.

Fail. I eat whatever quality cut meat is on sale at the grocery, be it beef, chicken, pork (love pork loin), whatever...

10 Proper exercise - emphasizing cross-fit or interval training over long aerobic sessions

I row (on a C2 rower) 7-10k meters a night roughly 5 nights a week. I walk an hour EVERY night with the neighbors and the dogs. On the C2, I have broken into the 5000m) 51st percentile in my age group after only three semi-serious months of rowing and no serious training plan. Most sessions are long aerobic (5k = 24 mins). My body is too beat up to do cross fit, but the rower is by far the finest machine ever invented to work your body in one place.

11 Eliminate milk (if you are sensitive to it, move this up the list)

Check! It was hard, but I did it.

12 Eliminate other dairy including cheese- (now you are "orthodox paleolithic")

Fail. Probably have about 3-4 oz a week. Just like the taste of it too much and have no adverse reactions to it.

If you can do step 1, that is about 50% of the benefit and alone a huge improvement on the standard american diet (SAD) By about step 6 you are at about 75% , by step 9 about 80% and at 10 you are at 99% for most people.

Here is the skeleton of the theory:

Insulin is a phylogenetically old hormone. It is a biological messenger that in excess, is metabolically saying the following to your tissue and organs: Go ahead and store energy, and go ahead and mature, reproduce and die. Excess insulin in humans is linked to diabetes, alzheimer dementia, metabolic syndrome, obesity, coronary disease and cancer.

We did not evolve under conditions of insulin excess. Food was intermittently available and not superabundant like today. Scarcity and famine were frequent everywhere until recently in evolutionary time. Preferred foods were available year round and dense in calories and nutrients. Animal products, including organs and bone marrow of mammals, fish, and invertebrates (insects) were the staples, supplemented by edible plants (not grains) until the dawn of agriculture. Fruit was seasonal and not yet bred for maximum sweetness. Food was eaten less frequently, had lower carbs than the typical american diet which is about 60%, and was supplemented by often involuntary periods of intermittent fasting and lower calories overall.

We are not adapted to chronic hyperinsulinemia.

We are also not adapted to eating grass seeds, to which we have been exposed for only about 10,000 years. They contain molecules that are specifically designed to discourage consumption, as well as other problematic chemicals.

The diet is not about eating like a caveman, or killing your own food. It is solely about duplicating what I believe are the key elements of the internal hormonal metabolic milieu that we evolved under from especially less than 1 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago. It is not about eating specific things, it is about not eating specific things.

Calorie restriction is a severe, uncomfortable way to have low insulin levels and if calorie restricted (starving) your insulin levels can be reasonable even if your carb percentage is high. However, with calorie restriciton you can get muscle wasting, fatigue and weakened immune function. In animal models, calorie restriction increases longevity substantially. Remember the metaphorical message of insulin? It says, increase your metabolic rate and then die. This message is attenuated by having low insulin levels.

Is there another way to live in a world of abundant food without being hungry all the time, yet avoiding the risk of immune dysfunction associated with eating grass seeds that cannot even be eaten without mechanical processing and cooking ?

Yes, you can work your way down the list.

Other things I have done since the end of June:

1) joined www.loseit.com (free) to track calories
2) pretty much tossed out eating starches (occasional jalapeno potato chips but rare) and rice
3) eat more veggies, though not significantly. did find they taste MUCH better when you have eliminated sugar from your diet.

End result:

Well, I weaned my way into some of your list, and slowly lost some weight prior to 'going paleo', but from my high I am down a whopping 50lbs (since around April). From when I got more serious about diet and calorie tracking, I am down 38 lbs. In fact, I am now a decade plus 'lighter' and feel a whole lot better, though I never felt horrible even at morbidly obese size. In 11 more pounds I will be in the Plain Jane "overweight" category. I will probably never leave that area as I neither like the way I look or feel when I get beyond a certain weight range.

This has NOT been hard. Occasionally I get hungry, but not significantly so. My macros have me most days eating around 90-115g of carbs, none of which are simple sugars.

"Going paleo" is the best thing I have ever done for my health I believe. I feel sorry I ever adopted the USDA guidelines about 'eat more carbs and healthy grains' and the old mantra about 'fat makes you fat'. No, grains make you fat, and fat keeps you thin. Imagine that!

A few resource I would recommend to others:

The book "It begins with food" for a Whole30 plan of eating. I di not do this, but if you don't know where to start, tis is the blueprint.
The book "Practical Paleo" as a recipe cook book and educational tome all in one.
The podcast "Underground Wellness" on iTunes or search Google for the site
The podcast "Livin' la Vida Low-carb" also on iTunes or on the net

I could list a lot more, but these are great resources to begin with...

If more of the US ate this way we would sell a lot less statins and have a lot less obesity and healthcare issues.

[Prazak]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

RogerMexico, have you looked into the claims made on behalf of the so-called Superstarch in the Generation Ucan athletic performance products -- and vigorously supported by Peter Attia?

[ER59]

Re: PaNu - The paleolithic nutrition argument clinic

"The researchers found that carnitine was not dangerous by itself. Instead, the problem arose when it was metabolized by bacteria in the intestines and ended up as TMAO in the blood."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/he...anted=all&_r=0