Michael Scubert wrote:
>... compounds that would protect [humans] from illness via their
>diet ... are
>the main/active constituents of the products that herbalists prescribe
>today.

Prescribing herbs is in most cases pharmacy rather than nutritional advice.
Nobody knows if they shorten or lengthen your life. Herbal drugs are a
common cause of pathologically increased liver enzymes in Sweden.

There are at least 30 nutrients which are suspected by at least 10
authorities to protect from at least one common western disorder and which
were eaten in larger than present amounts by our remote ancestors. There
are at least another 50 substances that can find some kind of scientific
support as being protective.

Epidemiology shows relationships but many variables are interrelated which
may explain why giving carotene to Finish smokers increased their mortality
despite beneficial relations in earlier surveys. Biochemical studies in
laboratories can never take account of all the thousands of variables
involved, many of which are not yet discovered. Intervention trials on
*total* mortality, not just incidence rates of the disease under
investigation, would solve the case. But they are very expensive and not
often promoted by those who have the money, and when they cannot be
performed as double-blind placebo-controlled trials you would in the end
not be sure that you had not changed some other factor than the one you
were studying.

These are just a few reasons why "ancient" foods are safer than drugs and
why Michaels nutrition lecturer friend should listen to him when he tells
her about paleodiet. If he would ask her about the best diet for a
chimpanzee she would probably not suggest the foods they get in the zoo but
the ones that were available during chimpanzee evolution. But I suppose the
main reason she considers paleodiet strange is that nobody gave lectures on
it during her training.

Anyway I think we have reason to be optimistic. Nutrition authorities I
encounter in Europe are obviously highly influenced by the concept of a
"paleolithic diet standard" (for many of them it started with the paper
Paleolithic Nutrition by Eaton and Konner in N Engl J Med in 1985),
although they seldom state it in public. So keep swinging.

Regards, 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
-------------------------------------------------------------------