Wally,
I'm on an Australian professional nutrition e-group. When I try to talk
paleo, they say " there's no point eating paleo as cave men only had a life
expectancy of 30 or 35 years". Some sports science people have a similar
view. These views have been based on a scientific paper by someone. I
disagree vehemently, and personally think that the paleo diet offers the
best life expectancy of any diet. I wrote a rebuttal and have pasted it
below.

> Is anyone familiar with any research papers that
> attempt to refute the paleo theories

References:
A.)Eaton SB, Eaton SB III, Konner MJ Paleolithic Nutrition Revisited: A 12
Year Retrospective on its Nature and Implications. European J. Clinical
Nutrition (1997)61,207-216.      The best scientific overview I've found.
B.)The Paleolithic Diet page http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/ has many
useful links and I've only explored a few of them.  The better links include
C.)http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/lindeberg/ "On the Benefits of Ancient
Diets" Staffan Lindeburg's good overview of the area and an overview of his
Kitava study.
AND D.) http://pages.hotbot.com/health/tbk3/index.html Tamir's Paleolithic
Nutrition & Exercise Page

Incidentally, a good reference for the USA rural diet in the 1800's is at
the Old Timer Page http://waltonfeed.com/old/default.htm

Firstly it is hard to show ANY diet affecting longevity (the same goes
for most medications). There is plenty of reason to infer that paleolithic
diets are ideal for longevity. Life (or death) is a series of hurdles (ie
death from gastroenteritis, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, pneumonia,
urinary tract infection, war etc), most of which have been overcome, now
leaving most of us with a death from vascular disease, cancer or dementia
(may as well be dead in many cases). Paleolithic diets seem to address
vascular disease and cancer risk quite well (in addition to dental caries
and possibly osteoarthritis (apparently archeologists only find these in
remains under 10-15000 years old- ie post-agricultural)) as outlined in the
references given above (A,C,D).

The paleolithic diet is based on the premise that "natural is best" and that
natural is what you can do without technology, and since farming is
technology this excludes cereals, grains including bread and pasta and dairy
products from the diet. In exchange for these, one must increase intake of
fruit and vegetables, and should probably increase intake of root vegetables
. This leads to an immediate increase in intake of vitamins, and
antioxidants and the root veges are high in phytosterols (ref USDA Nutrient
Lab ( http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl)  ( If anyone has
any data on root vegetable antioxidant levels please let me know) . As 1A
point out, there are hundreds of studies showing that fruit and vegetables
protect against vascular disease and cancer, but little for grains. (Many
paleo-pundits also recommend against beans and lentils for a number of
reasons).

Incidentally, The Calcium aspect is covered 2 ways- firstly ref 1A
calculates a high Calcium intake of 1900mg/day. Secondly the diet is low in
Sodium, high in Potassium and therefore Calcium-sparing. (ref "A Salty Tale"
http://www.monash.edu.au/ANF/newsletter/Feb-98/3.htm)