On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, Ben Balzer wrote:

> Paleo can help in 2 ways- firstly by prevention as you say. Secondly, it can
> restore normal regulation and "security routines" to the T-cell master
> controllers, and this is a plausible way to lead to downgrading and
> disappearance of the autoimmune response, much as Ray describes his
> rheumatoid arthritis being cured in NeanderThin.

This is the part that I don't understand.  Why should paleo cause
the autoimmune response, once learned by the immune system, to
disappear?  That is, do we have an actual experimental model for
this restoration of normal security routines?

> Autoimmune diseases may
> disappear as mysteriously as they appear, so it would be hard to prove this,
> but I think Paleo is the answer IMHO.

It would make more sense to try to disprove it and see what
happens.  If there are autoimmune diseases that fail to disappear
when paleo is followed for a sufficient length of time (whatever
that is) then this would imply that either removing the offending
proteins does not halt the autoimmune process or that the paleo
diet continues to contain the offending proteins.

One reason why I am curious about this is that Barry Sears makes
an interesting case for the claim that autoimmune diseases are
the result of eicosanoid imbalance (see ETZ, pp. 184-188), with
specific comments about arthritis.  If he is right, one would
expect the paleo diet to help, since it is typically
"Zone-favorable."  But it is readily possible to have a
Zone-favorable diet that is *not* paleo, and this possibility
would make for a useful experiment.

Todd Moody
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