On Wed, 9 Sep 1998, Michael Audette wrote:

>     Todd,
>   I got one for you. If some primates gain and lose fat, as in the
> oranatangs, due to the high, then low carb diet they eat, how does a greater
> consumption of meat, in humans, change the equation?

I'm not sure what you're asking here.  My hypothesis is that a
continuous diet of meat--thus a ketogenic diet--makes specific
demands on the body that are different from the demands of a
seasonally cycling diet.  One of those demands is that the liver
engage in efficient gluconeogenesis, continuously.  My hypothesis
is that there are genetic differences among people in their
ability to do this, because for most of them it would not be a
significant part of their evolutionary history.

It's only a hypothesis, of course.  As suggestive evidence I
offer the fact that some people do not adapt to ketosis well, and
have great difficulty tolerating it, while others do it
effortlessly.  The other view, that *all* humans are likely to
thrive on an all-meat diet, is also only a hypothesis.  As far
as I can tell, it is based mainly on the premise that some
populations, such as the Inuit and Tutsi, thrive on such a diet.
My suspicion is that these examples are being overworked.

> Also, I don't know that
> many Inuits, or extreme meat eaters for that matter, to compare my needs
> with. I think, with my ancestral back ground, I'll stick with the one-third
> average. In other words, how doe's eating a paleo diet of one-third meat,
> alter the effects of seasonal carb intake?

This is approximately the diet recommended by Barry Sears and
called the Zone.  It appears to be a ratio that many people do
well on.  If you look at the Zone support lists, you'll find that
some seem to need more carbs to feel good (i.e., "in the Zone"),
while some need less.  Even Sears has had to retreat from his
original "one size fits all" approach, and now acknowledges that
only personal experimentation can be trusted to find what works.

The starting point of this discussion was the question of whether
an all-meat diet is nutritionally adequate.  Apart from the
matter of vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, there is
also the question of one's ability to tolerate the diet, to feel
well on it.  My position is that this is relevant to its
adequacy, and I would expect considerable variation among people
in their tolerance for it.  Your approach, being more in the
middle of the paleolithic spectrum, would probably work for more
people.  We won't know until somebody actually studies the
matter.

Todd Moody
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