Comment by robchez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robchez | Hacker News Reader

I started the paleo diet about 6 months ago. In that time I lost about 18kg of fat easier than any other diet I have ever been on. My blood lipids (I was about to start statins for cholesterol) have all improved dramatically in this time, to the point where my doctor is now incredibly interested in the topic. My psoriasis and eczema have all cleaned up dramatically. The crossfit gym I go to has seen massive improvements in lifting etc once people went paleo. And I am finally off the Prozac for anxiety. Needless to say, for the population of n=1, this experiment worked wonders. I know a lot of people won’t take this anecdotal evidence, but if you jump into any of the many paleo forums, you will hear stories like this all the time. If you want a serious easy to follow, health improvement, I highly suggest this diet.

For more resources on the topic I suggest a few books.

http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/ - Primal Body Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas – Lots of science.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson – Lot more accessible. Give it to your parents etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000... - Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – Very long, but explains where the American Dietary guidelines came from and why they are wrong. (Cliffs notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba... )

Some excellent blogs/websites:

http://www.paleonu.com/

http://freetheanimal.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/

http://www.paleoz.com/

I think it's irresponsible to recommend a diet to people that has little to no scientific support for the kinds of effects that you promise or imply: weight loss, improved physical and mental health, and longevity. In fact, some possible instantiations of the paleo diet are, I believe, currently considered unhealthy by the medical establishment, such as a diet high in saturated fats, cholesterol, and/or red meats.

I notice that none of your references have any serious qualifications to be giving nutritional advice. The most rigorously argued of your sources - "Good Calories, Bad Calories" - is written by a science journalist. The scientific establishment has spend decades and billions of dollars trying to understand nutrition, and these people think they can figure it out by thinking hard and reading some papers?

Morover, you can find equally convincing arguments, anecdotes, and "experts" for any of: vegetarianism, raw foodism, veganism, low-carb, etc. What makes the paleo diet different?

You can experiment with your own body all you want, but giving drastic dietary advice on such flimsy evidence seems pretty reckless.

I think it's irresponsible to recommend a diet to people that has little to no scientific support for the kinds of effects that you promise or imply: weight loss, improved physical and mental health, and longevity

Well, I'd say there's sufficient support for the "weight loss" bit since pretty much any non-crazy dietary restriction will lead to weight loss if it's maintained. As for other effects -- well, losing eighteen kilograms of fat ought to have a pretty positive impact on your longevity, and I can easily imagine it might decrease your anxiety too. I'm quite unconvinced about psoraisis and eczema, but... hey, he was quite clear on the fact that this was only anecdotal evidence with n=1.

As for why it's different to other possible dietary plans, I don't think it is, though it's potentially easier to get a balanced diet with a sensible caloric deficit from paleo than from veganism or raw food or Atkins.

Sorry I don't have time to find all my links as I am at work on my lunchbreak but here are a few.

Weight Loss As the Paleo diet is by nature pretty low-carbohydrate:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0708681

Longevity:

Cancer Patterns in Inuits - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18760245

This William Lands paper - http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/83/6/S1483.pdf

Medical Establishment:

Good Calories, Bad Calories goes deep into the reasons why the medical establishment considers saturdated fat, cholesterol, red meat unhealthy. Have a quick skim of the cliffs notes.

Dr Barry Groves - Cholesterol Myth - http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/cholesterol_myth_1.html

More Sources:

Stephan Guyenet - B. Bio Chemistry - http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/

Dr Michael Eades - http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/

Dr William Davis - Cardiologist - http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/

Robb Wolf - Research Biochemist - http://robbwolf.com/

Prof. Loren Cordain - http://www.thepaleodiet.com/

edit: formatting

Thanks for the effort, but seems to be a pretty rough link blast. Maybe there are some diamonds in here, but many certainly miss the point.

"Weight Loss As the Paleo diet is by nature pretty low-carbohydrate": Paleo is not necessarily low-carb. You could eat squash, root vegetables, and fruit all day for nearly all your calories. I actually don't doubt that you can lose weight on the paleo diet, though. You can lose weight on almost any vaguely healthy diet.

"Cancer Patterns in Inuits" : Cancer has many other causes than diet, and this study in no way isolates diet as the factor in disease-patterns in Inuits.

"This William Lands paper": This solely studies omega-3/6 intake and health. Not the overall health effects of the paleo diet.

"Good Calories, Bad Calories" does have an explanation of why the medical establishment has made its recommendations. Still, it is written by one non-expert. Hardly enough to make radical lifestyle changes for.

"Dr Barry Groves" OK, this looks possibly legit.

I'm not going to try to figure out the rest, given the poor quality of the preceding.

In no part of the article I see a reference to eating 100% red meat.

I think that the meat has to be split 50/50 between red meat and fish, or to be more precise, the fat from meat has to be at least 50% Omega-3, as the latest studies indicate.

100% red meat is bad. So is gluten.

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