Paleo, anyone?

Tell that to my diabetic husband to tried Weight Watchers and grew sicker and sicker. When he finally joined me on Atkins he started to control his blood glucose. The kinds of carbs do matter. He can eat veggies and most fruits without any spikes but if he eats rice (white or brown!) he has outrageously high BG numbers. He has become a believer. I always was one.

Ingestion of protein causes an insulin response, just not a significant one.

Obviously, an individual exhibiting signs of metabolic syndrome should regulate their carb intake, but that seems to be irrelevant to the discussion, which is whether or not weight loss is related to insulin response (which it isn't).

Don't get me wrong... any plan based on clean, natural foods meats and cruciferous veggies and the elimination of starchy carbs is a very good idea... but the weight loss that occurs is due to a reduction in calories, not because of any perceived improvement in your insulin levels. The Paleo diet is an awesome plan for many people, but please...enough with the insulin control nonsense.

I know that my blood sugar issues became nonexistent when I stopped eating the healthy whole wheat in the manner that my registered dietician recommended. My rheumatologist is the person that set me on this path after spending MOST of my life having joint pain, gut problems, breathing/respiratory issues, and problems with insulin resistance.

I can't vouch for anyone else's results. I can only tell you that my results are amazing, and my 11 year old son's results are amazing. It's a healthy lifestyle that has benefited my family tremendously in more ways that just weight loss. We followed an exceptionally healthy diet before with lots of whole grains and hardly any chips or candies---but we all struggled with energy and weight ON TOP of the other health problems.

Congratulations!! I mean that sincerely!

The average "healthy" Western diet has far too much starchy carbs/grains/etc. When I worked out the macronutrient breakdown of the so-called healthy meals I used to consume, the carb amount was staggeringly high. The amount of carbs in a typical healthy, main-stream, 4-food groups diet plan would not be optimal for the average person who isn't at an ideal weight. Most overweight folks are too carb sensitive to handle that kind of carb intake...and I was certainly too carb sensitive to handle the amount of carbs I was eating. I'm really glad to hear that you and your family have found an eating plan that works!

Honestly speaking, your testimony does not contradict the point I was trying to make. Controlling your blood sugar level IS an important tenet of being fit and living a healthy life. As for insulin, the issue becomes a lot more complicated and it isn't nearly as simplistic as some of the low carb talibans make it out to be.

You do understand that poison doesn’t necessarily mean you will die five seconds after eating them,,,,, don’t you? You do understand that not everybody has the same reaction to every poison,,,, don’t you? You do understand that just because you are not showing overt symptoms now, that means you will never have problems in the future,,,,, don’t you? I’m sure we all know, smokers, drunks, overweight people, that live will into their 80’s with no discernable problems, where they not taking poison into their bodies?

1) Are you implying grains/dairy/legumes are poisonous? Provide research to back up the claim, please.
2) How come people like the Okinawans and Sardinians can eat lots of non-paleo foods and still both be in the top 5 populations for longest living humans without disability?
3) If you believe strongly that legumes/grains/dairy are a poison, do you believe parents should be allowed to feed their children those foods? As smoking under 18 is illegal, should we treat grains the same as they are, according to paleo, a serious cause for chronic illness?

Not going do it, wouldn’t be prudent.

Grains, spike insulin, look it up yourself, insulin spiking can and will lead to insulin resistance, insulin resistance can a will lead to diabetes. Grains also bind vital nutrients and make them less bio-available, look it up yourself.
Dairy, if I remember is not considered a poison, but something more to take caution with. Many people have lactose intolerance, look it up yourself, for those people Dairy can act as a poison.
Legumes, I will have to get back to you on, I don’t recall the reasoning behind that one, and don’t have the time right now to go back and refresh my memory.
Okinawans and Sardinians, really eats lots of non Paleo foods, like,,,,,,,,,, what? Lots of processed wheat and or other gluten grains?
I don’t believe the government should be raising our children. I do think the government should get out of the way of real nutrition research, and stop promoting big agribusiness at the expense of our health.

Truth is there isn’t a lot real research on strictly “paleo” diets(because it hasn’t been around that long, as a named diet), but there is plenty of research on low carb, and modified low carb, diets which closely mirror Paleo. Take those studies(which overwhelmingly show health benefits) and apply them to Paleo, a diet that follows the same basic framework of the modified low carb, removes most if not all processed foods, and you think that is not going to have beneficial outcomes? There is also plenty of anthropological evidence that humans did not have the same problems (diet related) as we modern humans do, since the advent of agriculture, and especially since the advent of processed agriculture

I understand you are a science geek, and if it’s not in some peer reviewed book it just doesn’t exist in your eyes. And that is fine, but there are many, real, facts, that come from other than peer reviewed papers, and there are many BS “facts” that come from pear reviewed papers.

Well I got to go, heading to the mountains for the weekend, so you will have to carry on without me until Monday.

Grains and legumes: Lectins

http://www.vrp.com/digestive-health/lectins-their-damaging-role-in-intestinal-health-rheumatoid-arthritis-and-weight-loss
http://www.krispin.com/lectin.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1115436/
http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com/2009/07/lectins-a-little-known-trouble-maker/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Food-Lectins-in-Health-and-Disease:-An-Introduction&id=275056

I could've kept posting but some articles were a little too scientific for the average reader.

None of these are relevant for a few reasons:

1) All except for one (the one with the ncbi in the url) are NOT scientific publications. They were websites. They are not specific scientific, peer-reviewed journals. I could go find lots of websites with articles written by people who may have some academic credentials that are spewing nonsense like the utter importance of eating every 2-3 hours to stoke the metabolic fire. It's not a proper source for the issue we are debating.

2) The one that you did post is STRICTLY based on: a) correlations and b) research that is rooted in the biomechanics. The former type of research does not build cause/effect relationships, but ONLY looks at trends. The latter looks at the impractical high level feeding of certain foods in animals, often genetically altered, to see the biochemical pathway. This is NOT a reflection of regular feeding. It would be similar to finding some dogs, giving them 3 fifths of vodka each, seeing the results, then saying humans should avoid alcohol; EVEN just a single serving of beer. That's how biomechanical research works.

Let's quote some stuff from this study:

-"Certain foods (wheat, soya) are indeed diabetogenic in genetically susceptible mice." - cool, genetically mutated mice. Not relevant to me and my 1-2 whole grain tortilla intake per day.
-"Among the effects observed in the small intestine of lectin fed rodents is stripping away of the mucous coat to expose naked mucosa and overgrowth of the mucosa by abnormal bacteria and protozoa. Lectins also cause discharge of histamine from gastric mast cells." - interesting, but still rooted in biochemical research on rodents, which have a VASTLY different digestive system from humans.
-"But if we all eat lectins, why don’t we all get insulin dependent diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, IgA nephropathy, and peptic ulcers? Partly because of biological variation in the glycoconjugates that coat our cells and partly because these are protected behind a fine screen of sialic acid molecules, attached to the glycoprotein tips. We should be safe." - self-explanatory.

If you want to prove the cause and effect of practical and realistic consumption of non-paleo foods, then you must provide a research study that has the following:

1) Large N (lots of participants).
2) Must have enough diversity, or must look at a specific population (and accept in the discussion section that the results may not apply to the general population that is the human race).
3) Divided into groups that differ ONLY in food source: macronutrients and micronutrients must be the same.
4) Must last for a long period of time - at least 6-12 months.

When you have that study, you will be able to get a glimpse at the practical implication of a paleo vs. non-paleo diet.

Not trying to prove anything - to anyone.

That's not surprising considering there's nothing to prove. Paleo stands on no practical, scientific foundation.

If you want to do it, go for it. I fully support your healthy eating habits. But the second you tell me that my diet which consists of whole grains/legumes/dairy is unhealthy, except for those with a clinical intolerance, is the second I expose the holes of the diet. And there are many, many holes.

And plenty with yours, so time to taken the broken record off the turntable.

Do you think before you type?

-When did I claim my diet is superior?
-When did I imply that my diet cures cancer and Parkinson's disease?
-When did I claim anything about my diet with nothing but correlations?

Do you even KNOW my diet?

Didn't think so.