Steve Meyers, of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory questioned the degree of
constipation experienced by HG's that do not ingest copious quantities of
soluble fiber.

Please excuse a certain lack of daintiness in what follows.  There are
probably more clinical terms to describe the phenomena below, but they
escape me....

In my experience, a diet consisting largely of animal-derived protein and
fat causes the body to give up water, so that the stool is quite loose and,
judging by the amount of "floaters", highly hydrated.  Bowel transit time
is very short - about 8 hours.  This is consistent with the descriptions of
the digestive process in "Protein Power" by Eades, and "Neanderthin", by
Audette.  Neither of
those books purports to be very scientific, but there is a wealth of
practical knowledge in them.

It is my understanding that soluble fiber functions largely by absorbing
water from the gut -- That being the case, and if my experience is typical,
there is essentially no difference (vis-a-vis bowel function) between the
HG that eats soluble fiber and the one that eats only animal meat.

I would like to add a data point to the general paleo-diet discussion:
Since eliminating milk and grain products from my diet in January 1997, the
following has happened --

        -Weight down from 210 to 165 lb. (still losing, but slowly).
        -BP down from 165/110 to 125/75 (no more debilitating medication!)
        -Total cholesterol down from 200+ to 180
        -Ratio of HDL to Total Cholesterol down from 7.9 to 3.9
        -Triglycerides down significantly

The experiment continues.

Robert Beck
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"...it is almost certain that someday they will
collect our skulls and call us Early Man."
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