what things can the paleo diet NOT cure that are caused by diet? just wondering over here... Paleo Phil <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Philip: > >Unfortunately, Paleo diets aren't cure-alls. > Susan: > >The Paleodiet cured all my maladies Well, it cured all your maladies except bunions and RLS, of course. I hope it eventually cures those in the future for you, but I can't guarantee that. Given that your bunion symptoms first became noticeable after 9 years on a Paleo diet, it sounds like you may be stuck with those bunions, unfortunately (unless you undergo surgery--but I wouldn't do that myself unless they became real bad). > so I'd like to think they are > >cure-alls if everything is done right. (Isn't that why we are on the > >diet?) I'm on the diet because it resulted in many health improvements and because it makes sense, not because I expect a cure-all (though some people may experience this). If we expect a cure-all then we are setting ourselves up for possible disappointment, which might make sticking to the diet more difficult. I think that Ray Audette unfortunately went a little overboard in NeanderThin and gave the impression that the diet is a cure-all for most people. I think it does amazing things that doctors thought were impossible (such as total remission of Grave's disease), but no diet or supplement or drug is a cure-all. > >Did you have flat feet or a very high arch before 1998? > > flat feet Your flat feet may have contributed to your bunion formation (along with other factors), so the underlying process was there before you went Paleo. From what I've researched, I suspect that flat feet have a dietary component and that it is rare among H-G's. Since you already had flat feet and other modern food disorders before you went Paleo, and since flat feet can be an early part of the process of bunion formation, I don't think your Paleo diet is to blame for your bunions. I also don't think that wearing boots created your bunions. The boots likely just impinged on the bunions, causing pain, which then apparently caused you to notice the bunions. If you did not notice the bunions until after wearing boots, it sounds like they are not that severe. If you do a Google image search on bunions you'll see what severe cases look like, including cases with the overlapping toes I was talking about (some of my toes overlapped, though not as severely as in the Google images, and then gradually straightened on a Paleo diet). Perhaps you will be lucky and not have the bunions progress much further--and appropriate diet and nutrition might help here. > The only answer, I suppose, is to cut down on the meat for a while to > see if the uric acid Ron Hoggan mentioned is the culprit. You could try that. If you were not actually diagnosed with bunions, then you should ask your doctor or podiatrist whether they are bunions or some other inflammatory disorder like gout or arthritis. In the meantime you can check out the symptoms of gout to see if they match yours: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec05/ch070/ch070b.html. > I am > addicted to pemmican. Hmm, food addiction is one indicator of food sensitivity, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions too quickly. Many people try an elimination/rotation diet to try to pin down whether any foods are affecting them. Sometimes the relation of a food to symptoms can be coincidental. It's difficult to pinpoint because people tend to eat a lot of different foods and ingredients in the course of a few days. Caveat: none of us here are medical doctors and any suggestions we make should be taken with a grain of salt. The best suggestion I can make is probably to try to get a firm diagnosis and then educate yourself about your health issues. > I guess I will have to have a pemmican > intervention... How much is too much meat to eat? That probably depends on the individual. > Is getting a > bunion the only way to know? No > How much meat did Native Americans eat? Plains Indians ate quite a bit. The bison hunting tribes reportedly ate little else beyond bison meat and organs and some roots, greens and berries. The less nomadic Indian tribes ate more plant foods. In contrast to the Plains Indians or Greenland Inuit, some groups of !Kung San of the Kalahari desert in Africa were observed to eat around 2/3 plant foods by calories. So there is quite a range among hunter-gatherer peoples. You can read about all this stuff in various articles on the Net and in Cordain and Audette's books. Anthropology books are also a useful resource. Richard Leakey wrote some very readable ones, though he quoted inaccurate data on plant food consumption ratios. --------------------------------- Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.