> > Todd:
> ... as a result of Barry Sears's comments that the Zone was
> paleo-inspired.
I'm puzzled by Sears, the Eades and Artemis Simopoulos citing paleolithic
nutrition as the justification for their diets and then going ahead and
recommending some non-Paleo foods as a regular part of the diet anyway. I
read the first couple chapters of Simopoulos' _The Omega Diet_ and skimmed
the rest. It was bizarre to read her agreeing completely with Eaton and
Cordain in the first chapter and then in the following chapters recommending
the very foods she had so convincingly weighed against. How she reconciles
bagels with Paleolithic nutrition I cannot imagine.
> ... I'm guessing it was mid or late
> March when
> I switched to a Neanderthin diet. I regained some weight but
> felt a lot
> better.
OK, if I've understand correctly now, you started NeanderThin after the most
recent test results you shared, so those stats are irrelevant to your
experience on the NeanderThin diet, correct, and the problems you
experienced (such as huge increase in LDL after about 6 months) can be
attributed to Zone rather than NeanderThin? If so, why did you stop doing
NeanderThin?
Started
Started
Jan. 1997 Zone ? June, 1997 ~March 98
NeanderThin
Weight 252 <200 217 ?
Total
cholesterol 226 302 250
HDL 32 35 48
LDL 120 246 ~180?
Triglycerides 160 97 <97
> First of all, it's far from clear that LDL in itself is a concern at
> all, although LDL particle size probably is.
The studies are stronger on small-dense-LDL, that's for sure, but I think
the starting point is opposite of where it should be. Instead of scientists
starting with what they rather arbitrarily think is a "normal" range for LDL
based on data from Americans on the SAD and then demanding evidence of why
HG LDL should be deemed optimal (while gradually lowering the top of the
range from 130 to 120 to 100 as studies demonstrate benefits from lower
levels of LDL), they should start with the H-G data showing LDL 30-70 as the
"optimal" range and require evidence that higher levels of LDL are
healthier. I think the burden of proof lies with those who think LDL above
70 is OK. My own LDL is dropping closer to that 30-70 level with each test,
falling from 127 before going Paleo (it had been as high as 162, and I was
not tested while at my peak weight range), to 85 at the last test. Knowing
the H-G data I can predict with reasonable confidence that it will soon fall
below 70. Of course, individuals differ (I know one person who eats most of
the modern foods except dairy and has an LDL of 72 and HDL of 104).
> I think that
> increased SFA
> intake causes a temporary LDL increase in many people,
> although in those
> who are also losing weight at a good clip it may not be so.
> Fortunately, we now have (but didn't in 1997) some excellent
> controlled
> studies of VLC (very low carb) diets that are high in SFA, and the
> evidence from those studies is reassuring. See for example
> http://www.obesityresearch.org/cgi/content/full/12/suppl_2/115S
Interesting, though the studies showed a return to baseline LDL after 6-8
weeks in subjects with minimal weight loss and a small drop in LDL for most
subjects with weight loss, whereas you experienced a huge increase in LDL
after over 20 weeks. Since you were apparently on a Zone diet (30% carbs)
instead of a VLCKD (6-10% carbs), this may account for your LDL increase.
It's interesting that the subjects in two of their studies found it
difficult to maintain their "normal" body weight on a very low carb
ketogenic diet, with the weight loss being a little more on the low-SFA
diet: "We have found it very difficult to counsel subjects to eat enough
calories to maintain body weight, presumably because of the inhibitory
effects of ketones on appetite." This indicates that many people find it
hard to maintain or gain weight on a VLCKD diet, despite eating as much as
they can manage. So the "eat until you're full" dictum appears to apply in
these studies of "normal" weight subjects, but not necessarily for people
who are overweight.
> > OK, so your hypothesis for Westerners is that most of us
> must combine
> > a Paleo or near-Paleo diet with intermittent fasting to achieve
> > hunter-gatherer-like stats such as LDL 30-70, BMI 19-24, BP around
> > 110/70, FBS around 70-85, etc.?
> >
>
> I'm not in a position to generalize. I'd love to achieve those stats
> but I'm 53 years old, insulin resistant for decades--in short, I'm
> metabolically damaged goods. Although I'd like to believe that LCIF
> could undo that metabolic damage, and I'm definitely giving it my best
> try, I may not get those stats.
What I mean is, since you said that few people can lose dramatic amounts of
weight on a Paleo diet while following the "eat until you're full" rule,
then few Westerners are going to experience dramatic weight loss and blood
sugar improvements without doing IF or caloric restriction, right?
> I just don't know. I suspect that by not becoming IR in the first
> place they [HG's] have an advantage. By not becoming IR their
> appetites are likely
> to be more in synch with their actual energy requirements.
I agree that damage done by modern foods makes it more difficult to match HG
health characteristics and some types of damage cannot be undone completely.
Another example that supports what you're saying is that some HG tribes
appear to be able to gorge on honey while it's in season without any
apparent IR problems and honey has been found to be generally benign--even
healthy--in some studies, whereas someone who already has IR or diabetes
would probably not be able to consume honey without spiking their BS badly
and likely doing some damage.
> Not being
> surrounded by an abundance of weird processed foods must also help in
> this respect. Cordain's research suggests that HG meal frequency is
> more likely to be 1-2 per day.
1-2 meals per day does seem close to your intermittent fasting experiment,
though HG's don't do the calorie restriction that you're doing (I found the
following, which indicates that shortage of food was not generally a problem
for H-G's, and matches the observations of the !Kung San in the harsh
Kalahari desert: Cordain L, Miller J, Mann N. Scant evidence of periodic
starvation among hunter-gatherers. Diabetologia 1999; 42:383-84.)
> > Is the success of
> > intermittent fasting just due to low overall calories or
> does it have
> > some other or additional effect?
> Ah, that's the interesting part. Mattson's animal studies suggest
> that the fasting effect is independent of caloric deficit
> (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/10/6216).
That is interesting.
> I think exercise is a key factor in overcoming IR, but perhaps less so
> for people who do not become IR in the first place. But
> that's just my
> conjecture, with exactly nothing to support it.
Interesting hypothesis. My own experience doesn't support it, since I had
multiple symptoms of IR but did lose weight without an increase in exercise,
but I could be an outlier, like you said.
> ... You just can't say "eat all you want" of these foods and you'll
> lose weight, because you just don't know how much they'll want to eat.
Well, I did and luckily there wasn't a problem. One guy rapidly lost weight
and showed me how big his pants were on him without his belt--it was like
one of those diet success photos in the magazines you see. However, I
wouldn't have said it to a severely obese person. An overstretched stomach
alone probably makes the H-G dictum of "eat until you're full" inadvisable.
> ... it doesn't follow that calories are utterly irrelevant to body
> weight.
Yeah, and I would never claim that calories are irrelevant.
> ... For example, rich cheeses such as brie are pretty low in
> protein, and I could consume quite a bit of that sort of thing.
Indeed, I could consume quite a lot of milk, cheese and ice cream, with the
latter being the easiest to consume a large amount of calories on.
> In ten years of this forum, I've probably held every position on every
> issue, and written more crapola than any other person.
:-) Actually, I find your writings to be some of the best and most objective
and honest, since you don't seem to have an axe to grind.
> Not
> only that,
> my experience of food changes over time. If my current experiment
> doesn't yield satisfactory results, maybe I'll try Cordain.
And I should note that I didn't follow either Cordain or Audette's approach
precisely, because they disagreed on some things and I was skeptical of some
of the minor points made by both (though I think they've come the closest to
optimal dietary advice of anyone I've seen). I figure no one can be right
about everything, so after I read NeanderThin and then The Paleo Diet I took
what I thought was best from each and customized it a bit to match my
knowledge from other sources and my personal experience. In the beginning I
tended to err on the side of caution, eliminating most of the foods that
either one said was questionable, except for some things like bacon and
honey, then gradually easing up a bit as I became less sensitive, though
still adhering to a fairly strict Paleo diet. Because I'm not fond of most
fatty meats and still a little skeptical of the safety of saturated fats, I
probably eat closer to the Cordain way than the NeanderThin way, but my
approach lies in-between those two approaches.
I agree with Audette that saturated fat doesn't appear to be as bad as it's
usually portrayed, but it also doesn't make sense that eating farmed cattle
meat that has been bred for centuries to be fatter and that is fed a diet
that makes it still fatter while kept penned up in a feed lot and requires
giving it antibiotics to keep it from getting very sick would be just as
healthy as eating bison meat from a free-range animal that has not been bred
to be fatter, has been fed less or no grain, and doesn't require antibiotics
to survive. It seems to me that the flesh of a sick animal on drugs would
not be as healthy as the flesh of a healthy animal. Even if the saturated
fat warnings turn out to be completely bogus, wild and pasture-fed animal
flesh has a healthier profile in other respects as well--such as higher
levels of omega 3 FA's. Ray Audette's claims that fattening animals makes
sense because it gives them the higher levels of fatty tissue that ice-age
large game had doesn't address the issue of the drop in omega 3's and other
changes in the health profile of these farmed animals.
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