Paleolithic Diet Question

EmmaLA16
EmmaLA16 Posts: 94 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi everyone,

I have recently been reading up on the Paleolithic diet as so many different people have either mentioned it/are doing it/posted about it on here. It comes across as a very healthy diet and seems at the outset to make sense, but I have a question that I would like to ask.

The doctor who has devised this diet has been researching Paleolithic man for the last ten years. Apparently, during this era there was no such thing as cancer, diabeties, heart disease, to name but a few. I wondered, how would he know this? There are no written records from this period and even fossilised skeletons would not always be able to give cause of death.

Many diets that are now out there claim that such illnesses weren't around before the agricultural revolution approx 10000 years ago, but how do they know this?

I am not posting this to cause any animosity between members, I am genuinely interested in peoples opinions.

I would especially like to hear from anyone doing this diet and how it has affected them healthwise (positives and negatives).

So..........discuss!

Replies

  • LilMissDB
    LilMissDB Posts: 133
    I totally get where you are coming from. 'Not around' and 'not diagnosed' are 2 entirely different things.
  • EmmaLA16
    EmmaLA16 Posts: 94 Member
    Well I thought that this post would open up a nice lively debate, but I was obviously wrong. Never mind, I'll just have to keep wondering....
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,266 Member
    Maybe look at Societies today that still live pretty much an isolated existence. The Kitivans for example.

    http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/TheKitavaStudy.html
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Well I thought that this post would open up a nice lively debate, but I was obviously wrong. Never mind, I'll just have to keep wondering....

    good question, I'm not sure Diabetes was fully understood until the last century and measurement methods for any of these things - even the microscope - haven't been around that long.

    Perhaps they look for skeletal or teeth effects of disease ?
  • EmmaLA16
    EmmaLA16 Posts: 94 Member
    Maybe look at Societies today that still live pretty much an isolated existence. The Kitivans for example.

    http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/TheKitavaStudy.html


    Thank you, that was very interesting.
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
    They don't know that. It's an unquestioned assumption that more and more researchers are trying to investigate, but it's very difficult because of small sample sizes and lack of evidence. Cancer is also present in other species, not just humans.


    There is a lot of variation in disease rates in different populations living a "modern" lifestyle, and we have some hypotheses but no good theories as to why. The kitava study and others like it don't amount to a consensus on this premise, and studies like the Horus study seem to indicate that there is no real reason to make the assumption your ancestors didn't have chronic diseases. For one thing, there is a pretty strong correlation between exposure to smoke and all kinds of disease. Not too many Paleolithic groups had modern ovens.


    Paleo diets tend to be high quality foods, so it's not a bad way to feed yourself if you can afford it.
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    The Chronicle of Higher Education had a column by evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk on this subject recently: "Misguided Nostalgia for our Paleo Pasts." It's available online, I think to non-subscribers as well:

    http://chronicle.com/article/Misguided-Nostalgia-for-Our/137285/

    Her main points are (1) that the Paleo craze presumes there was some point in the past where our diet was somehow optimally suited to our physiology, but that's not how evolution works, and (2) that Paleo proponents presume that human evolution stopped at that point, despite evidence to the contrary (blue eyes, for instance, are quite recent, as is lactose tolerance, the ability of some Europeans and North Africans to digest milk in adulthood).

    The Paleo diet might be good, but if it is, it's not because it's somehow uniquely suited to human biology.
  • dawnna76
    dawnna76 Posts: 987 Member
    http://www.salon.com/2013/06/09/paleo_diet_is_founded_more_on_privilege_than_logic_partner/
  • SteveJWatson
    SteveJWatson Posts: 1,225 Member
    Paleo diet might be healthy for any number of reasons, but if you think it had anything to do with what "Paleolithic man" (Paleolithic man *where*, for example) ate, you are absolutley kidding yourself.


    Reason that nobody had cancer etc the is that they were dead by the time most age-onset diseases would kick in.
  • shannashannabobana
    shannashannabobana Posts: 625 Member
    Apparently, during this era there was no such thing as cancer, diabeties, heart disease, to name but a few. I wondered, how would he know this? There are no written records from this period and even fossilised skeletons would not always be able to give cause of death.

    I dont' think they were looking at cause of death per se (unless it was obvious like spear to the head which would show up in the fossil record. The studies I've read were looking 1. at the differences between man before the agricultural age and after (people got shorter, their teeth got worse, stuff like that), 2. looking at more modern hunter gatherer societies. They can also look at age from the fossil record. there may be other ways to tell about cancer and heart diseas, I don't know. (I've never heard that there is no cancer, etc., just that some of the diseases of civilization are not as prevalent in HG societies. You can also look at existing socieities and the addition of different types of food and see how their health has changed, like the pima indians mentioned in GCBC - although that's not specifically about paleo).
    Reason that nobody had cancer etc the is that they were dead by the time most age-onset diseases would kick in.

    There were many who died as children or killed by blunt instrument, but it's not really useful to look at those. It appears that if you got past all the trauma and viruses you were likely to live a decent length of life.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    At one point looking at paleo articles on pubmed, I found an article that stated paleolithic humans actually were eating more grains than previously thought. I find the restriction against some types of food not worth it. Eating a ton of veggies, lean protein, some fruits, and limiting "processed" food, that' I can get behind. I'm not going to eliminate any food from my diet (even if highly processed), but I can make the majority of my food from fresh, whole foods and feel good about what I'm eating.

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