On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Ray Audette wrote:

> Brian Glass wrote:
> >but resorted to picking on beef.
> > I have been unable to find any research that proves this to be wrong.
> > Does anyone else know of any studies that do?
> >  See Am. Heart Journal, April '62 for an article "Cardiovascular Studies
> in the Samburu Tribe of Northern Kenya".  This tribe eats almost nothing
> but meat and milk of cows.  Their average fat consumption was 60% of
> calories!
> It was found that they had very low cholesterol that it actually went
> down with age. No heart disease was found.
> Other later studies confirmed these results of an all beef diet in other
> Tutsi tribes.

This is not an all-beef diet.  It is a beef and *dairy* diet.
Since dairy is rejected on the Neanderthin program because it
promotes heart disease (Loren Cordain has posted research on
Paleodiet indicating that dairy consumption is the best predictor
of CHD rates worldwide), we have a dilemma here.  Either milk,
which the Samburu make extensive use of, is not so bad, or the
Samburu represent a local adaptation.  If the latter, then their
experience with milk *and* beef cannot be generalized to the rest
of us.

There is another variable that would be useful to control:
calories.  It may be that the caloric intake of the Samburu is
low enough to correct problems that would appear if it were
higher (Just as fruit consumption can lead to elevated
triglycerides, but only in the context of certain patterns of
caloric intake and output).  As Gary Ditta pointed out recently,
the success of Okinawans with their pork-dominated diet may be
due to the fact that their caloric intake is only 80% that of
mainland Japanese.  The studies that tend to show that beef
causes health risks are conducted against the background of an
American diet relatively high in calories.  Neanderthin is also a
high-calorie diet.  It might make a difference.

A further thought on this: Ray recently posted a message pointing
out that Boyd Eaton, in his estimates of carb consumption of
paleolithic peoples, neglected to subtract the fiber grams, so
the effective carb count would actually be much lower than
Eaton's numbers indicate.  This would also affect his estimates
of calories consumed, since fiber is not used as fuel.  Did he
allow for this?

Todd Moody
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