I was glad to see Staffan's comments about dental caries in agriculturists.  A
large majority of dietitians think sugar is still the only cause of dental
caries and recommend high starch diet on these grounds.

A question about high protien diets:

Have any of you any experience of putting people on high protein diets with
little CHO?

I have read that most subjects (who were probably insulin sensitive Caucasians)
find this sort of diet nauseating and that experiments are usually terminated
early.

One experiment succeeded because the investigators added very large amounts of
salt to the high protein diet.  They did this becuase they noticed very high
sodium excretion of unsalted high protein diets.

(Ref: Phinney SD, Bistrian BR, Wolfe RR, Blackburn GL (1983) The human metabolic
response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: physical and
biochemical adaptation. Metabolism 32: 757-768.)

I find this fascinating because it might explain the historical and current
preoccupation with adding salt to food.

I wonder whether the ability to 'tolerate' high protein diets is determined by
the degree of genetically determined insulin resistance.

Best wishes  Jennie


havIn message <[log in to unmask]> Paleolithic Diet
Symposium List writes:
> There are 2 messages totalling 94 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
>   1. Starch and dental caries
>   2. Dietary Macronutrient Content and Hyperinsulinemia
>
> End of Topics (which are also called e-mail "Subject Lines")
>
> ------------=-=-=-=-=-=-=- IMPORTANT NOTICE -=-=-=-=-=-=--------------
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>    ** Make sure you have a subject line that reflects your topic **
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>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date:    Mon, 5 May 1997 01:00:03 +0100
> From:    Staffan Lindeberg <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Starch and dental caries
>
> In due time I hope that we will have some scholars of dental paleopathology
> in the group.
> In the meantime I, who know very little on the subject, refer to
> Lukacs JR. Dental paleopathology: Methods for reconstructing dietary
> patterns. In: Is=E7an MY, Kennedy KAR. Reconstruction of life from the
> skeleton. New York, Wiley-Liss 1989
> who states that caries rates were low in prehistoric hunter-gatherers,
> intermediate in early farmers and highest in full-blown agriculturalists. A
> later paper that I came across also supports a role of cereal starch in
> caries:
> Littleton, J. Frohlich, B. Fish-eaters and farmers: dental pathology in the
> Arabian Gulf. Am J Phys Anthropol 1993; 92: 427-47.
> Abstract: Twelve skeletal samples, previously published, from the Arabian
> Gulf have been used to trace differences in diet and subsistence patterns
> through an analysis of dental pathology. The skeletons date from 3,000 BC
> to AD 1,500 and cover a variety of geographical locations: off-shore
> islands, Eastern Arabia, and Oman. The dental conditions analyzed are
> attrition, caries, calculus, abscessing, and antemortem tooth loss (AMTL).
> Results indicate four basic patterns of dental disease which, while not
> mutually exclusive, correspond to four basic subsistence patterns. Marine
> dependency, represented by the Ras el-Hamra population, is indicated by
> severe attrition, low caries rates, wear-caused abscessing, and a lack of
> AMTL. The second group of dental diseases--moderate attrition and calculus,
> low rates of caries, wear-caused abscessing, and low-moderate rates of
> AMTL--affects populations subsisting on a mixture of pastoralism or fishing
> and agriculture (Failaka, Umm an-Nar, Bronze Age Maysar, Bronze Age Shimal,
> and Iron Age Galilah). Mixed farming populations (Iron Age Maysar and
> Islamic Bahrain) experienced low-moderate attrition, high rates of caries
> and calculus, abscessing due to caries, and severe AMTL. The final group of
> dental diseases affects populations practicing intensive gardening (Bronze
> and Iron Age Bahrain, and Sites 3 and 5, Ras al-Khaimah). These groups
> experienced slight attrition, high rates of caries, low rates of calculus
> deposition, and severe AMTL.
>
> Sorry if I overemphasized what may already have been clear to you.
>
> Staffan
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Staffan Lindeberg M.D. Ph.D. Dept of Community Health Sciences, Lund
> University, Mailing address: Dr Staffan Lindeberg, Primary Health Care
> Centre, Sjobo, S-22738 Sweden, +46 416 28140, Fax +46 416 18395
> http://www.panix.com/~donwiss/paleodiet/sl1.shtml
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date:    Mon, 5 May 1997 09:47:00 -0600
> From:    Loren Cordain <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Dietary Macronutrient Content and Hyperinsulinemia
>
> In a previous digest, Jenny wrote: "The Keys equation does not consider
> the effect of amount and type of CHOs on insulin secretion.
> Hyperinsulinaemia is turning out to be one of the biggest independent
> risk factors for CHD.  High protein diets and low glycaemic index diets
> both lower insulinaemia.
>
> Best wishes  Jennie"
>
>
>         This was exactly my point.   Ancestral, pre-agricultural diets were
> quite high in animal protein and the carbohydrate that was consumed was
> generally of a low glycemic index.   These populations also selcetively
> consumed the fatty portions of the killed animal (brain, marrow, depot
> fat, perinephral fat, mesenteric fat, tongue, organs etc).    However,
> available evidence from living hunter gatherers show that these
> surrogates of our stone age ancestors maintain low risk factors for CHD
> (blood lipid profiles, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, body
> composition etc).   All of this on a diet which contains 50-65% or more
> of its total calories derived from animal foods.    Clearly, the Key's
> equation breaks down when either the macronutrient content (extremely
> high protein and low CHO) or the fatty acid composition of the diet (or
> both) varies beyond the range of conditions in which Keys originally
> derived his regression.    Although there is much circumstantial
> evidence to indicate that the Key's equation is erroneous under these
> conditions, there is no empirical data that I am aware of which has
> confirmed this concept.
>
>                                 Best wishes,
>
>                                 Loren
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of PALEODIET Digest - 1 May 1997 to 5 May 1997


Assoc. Professor Jennie Brand Miller
Human Nutrition Unit, Dept. of Biochemistry G08
University of Sydney, 2006, Australia
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FAX: 61.2.9351.6022
Ph: 61.2.9351.3759