Here are the hunter-gatherer health stats I have been able to accumulate
from Cordain and others:
- Systolic pressure: 100-117
- Diastolic pressure: 64-72
- BMI: 19-24
- LDL: 30-70 mg/dl
- Triglycerides--Greenland Eskimo average level of 54

Yes, HDL, triglycerides and body fat% are better figures than LDL and BMI,
but I don't have HDL or body fat figures, so this is what we have to go on
for now. If anyone has more, I hope they will share it.

Individual health stats that differ dramatically from these indicate that
individual probably has not been eating a biologically appropriate diet
and/or is sedentary. Even if elevated LDL is not unhealthy on its own, it is
a signal that something is out of sync.

Todd:
> As I recall, HG diets are not generally  high in calories, in relation
> to their energy expenditure.  ... I believe the Masai diet was, on 
> average, about 1400 calories/day (unless I'm misremembering).

That's sounds too low. The skinny little !Kung San supposedly eat 2,100+
calories a day. You would probably term them "underweight." The Masai are
also thin, but look taller than the !Kung, so my guess is that the Masai
probably consume more calories.

Todd:
> More conjecture, if that's okay.... As I see it, the relation between 
> calories in and calories out is non-linear, and that's what a calorie 
> is not "just a calorie."  There is, I believe, a caloric "window" for 
> each of us, within which we neither gain nor lose weight.  Depending 
> on whether we are at the high or low end of that window, and depending 
> on what we eat, our bodies go into different states in response
> to food.  

This is getting too complicated for me. I would just suggest eating HG foods
and exercising. If one's health stats don't change to HG-type levels, then
it's time to examine what one has been eating and doing for exercise and see
where it differs significantly from HG's (and supplementing where
necessary).

Using your case, as I understand it, your LDL spiked up, you gained a little
weight and you think you over-ate on a high-fat NeanderThin diet, in part
due to severe caloric restriction before NeanderThin while on Zone. Since
protein is more satiating than fat, accoring to Cordain's references, the
logical approach would seem to be to increase protein and reduce fat (and
also examine the fat profile to see if it comes close to that of HG's) and
examine exercise levels. Intermittent fasting might also be tried, but I
would have saved that for last, since I haven't seen much data on IF
practices by HG's. However, if your current experiment ends up working for
you and has no noticeable side effects, I can't knock success. 

Todd:
> Mattson's work on IF, though not yet tested very well in humans 
> (except for Ramadan studies, mainly) ...

That's one reason I would try closer adherence to HG principles before
trying IF, since we have much more data on HG diets than on IF.

Todd:
> suggests that IF may do the same. I'm coming round to the idea that 
> the amount of food eaten, and the 
> frequency of eating, may be as important as things like macronutrient 
> and fatty acid ratios.

I think macronutrient and fatty acid ratios are mainly important in that
they can identify and explain differences between HG diets and modern diets.
While they are good checks to see if we are approximating a HG diet, I focus
less on trying to duplicate those ratios and more on trying to duplicate the
types of foods eaten by HG's, because one might be able to approximate those
ratios by consuming non-Paleo foods. 

Todd:
> Looking at centenarian studies, we find very little in common, in 
> terms of diet, exercise, total cholesterol and LDL. Centenarians 
> tend to have low FBG, low TG, (especially HDL/TG ratio) and low 
> insulin levels (Source: I believe it was Sears's anti-aging book). 
> I'm betting that HGs do too.

Those are pretty important things to have in common. Here we have healthy
stats that match HG tendencies. I see this as confirming the Paleolithic
nutrition hypothesis. Again, my focus is not on LDL stats in isolation, but
on the overall HG vs. modern picture. I'm not saying that we should get LDL
low because high LDL is proven to be harmful, I'm saying we should eat like
HG's do because those are the foods we evolved to eat, and most people can
tell when they are eating like HG's because their health stats move in the
direction of the HG's. So a dropping LDL can signal that one is eating more
like a HG, but it doesn't in itself guarantee good health. Also, I'm not
prepared to guarantee that high LDL is not a problem because, as I said
before, there are studies on BOTH sides of that issue (and we could argue
over them forever) and no HG people has been found to have an LDL level
higher than 70.

LDL is more like one of several indicators that can help us determine if we
are eating like HG's than a stat to be argued over in isolation. If someone
has every other health stat in HG ranges except for LDL and no signs of the
diseases of civilization, then I would say they the high LDL may be OK
(although I wouldn't be able to explain why it differed substantially from
HG numbers and this would be worthy of investigation). However, in your case
and in most people's cases, LDL is not the only stat that's out of whack. It
seems to me that the studies that find no problems with high LDL are cited
by people not to say that high LDL could be a normal health stat for people
living a HG way of life, but to justify their continuing to eat some of
their favorite foods. The sort of thing I see people saying is, "I can eat
all the saturated fat I want and even some [or a lot of] dairy products
because high LDL is not a problem," rather than "Scientists just found a
hunter-gatherer tribe that has high LDL without any apparent negative health
effects," or "A study of 100 Americans eating a Paleolithic diet found that
those whose LDL levels remained high after 12 months still matched
hunter-gatherer stats in all other respects and showed no negative effects
from the high LDL." Pointing to some studies that find no problems with high
LDL still does not answer the key question: why are hunter-gatherer LDL and
VLDL levels so much lower than those of modern people?

Todd:
> I don't know if you've ever been fat,

For my body type, yes. For example, people were starting to say "Oh my!"
when they saw my belly protruding over my belt and they were starting to ask
if I had the mumps or hypothyroid because my neck had fattened so much.

> or had the experience of caloric restriction.

Yes; it was less difficult for me than it seems to be for most people, but I
only lost 14 lbs following caloric restriction along with conventional (and
alternative) dietary and exercise advice (though I was satisfied with that
weight level, but not cholesterol and other levels), whereas I lost 43
additional lbs. on a low-to-moderate-SFA Paleo diet with less exercise
(though I wasn't trying to lose that much--and had to work hard to get my
weight back up 8 lbs). Plus my LDL only dropped from 162 to 127 with
conventional advice, whereas it dropped to 85 on Paleo and has been dropping
at every test, and there were other improvements.

> It is psychologically not easy, because even though simple "hunger" 
> goes away, you always have the
> feeling of eating less than you'd like--often considerably less.

That's why I think that CR alone will never work for the majority of the
people. Maybe IF alone could, but I suspect that if it could a lot of people
would be doing it already. I think the key is to find what Paleo foods
satiate you best (and protein is supposed to be best at this) and exercise
at levels that bring insulin metabolism into normal functioning. Of course,
not everyone can be cured of everything through diet and exercise, but your
case of weight, cholesterol and BS issues doesn't sound extreme enough to be
hopeless.

> Do that for a few months (or years) and then have someone tell you 
> "Hey you can chow down all you
> want as long as you stick to *these foods*, and not only won't you 
> gain weight, you'll lose some!"

Unfortunately, I think that is the wrong message to focus on in the context
of a high-fat and high-SFA NeanderThin-type diet based on grain-fed animal
meats (and particularly if it includes some dairy). Some people use this
principle, along with other comments by Ray Audette, Stefansson and Weston
Price regarding the Inuit, pemmican and the like to justify eating stuff
like lots of commercial bacon, sausage or dairy foods. When some of these
same people see their LDL spike or their weight not go down (or go up) they
panic (despite improvements in triglycerides and HDL) and give up on Paleo
diets either partly or entirely. The Inuit didn't eat commercial bacon,
sausage and cheese (they did eat whole carcasses of wild animals, but that's
not the same thing, despite what Fallon and Enig say). My response would be
"Maybe I'd better try to reduce or eliminate some of these foods that HG's
never eat but I thought were OK because Ray Audette said in one place that
eating saturated fat from grain-fed animals is good and high LDL is OK
(although he said in another place that high LDL is bad)."

Instead of "Chow down all you want of bacon and sausage," as Audette seems
to say, I would say "Eat until you're full and if you're still gaining
weight, examine where your diet and lifestyle differs most from HG's." My
approach would not be to move further away from the Paleo diet and try IF,
as you apparently have, nor to try the Ornish diet, as another person did.
But that's just my take and I could be wrong.

Philip:
> Isn't it at least possible that the changes humans have made in the
> genetics, diets and
> lifestyle of the animals we eat has made them less healthy to eat?
Todd:
> Sure it's possible.  But I personally doubt that the fat content of 
> the meat has much to do with it.

Whatever the reason for it, given that the tissues of less healthy animals
are less healthy to eat, and given an ability to obtain and pay for wild and
pasture-fed meats, we should eat the healthier animals. If we do so we will
end up eating less fat and eating different fat ratios. Not because we set
out to eat less fat, but because it is a secondary effect of eating more
like a landlocked HG, such as the traditional Plains Indians or Yanomamo (if
seal and whale were available to us, we could eat like the Greenland
Eskimos). If we want more fat and still want to eat like a HG, we can eat
more of things like wild salmon and grass-fed hamburger and pemmican (though
retail pemmican is rather expensive). I consider large quantities of stuff
like commercial bacon, sausage or cheese to be stretching the concept of the
Paleo diet too far. Some people can handle this, but apparently not all.