14 replies to this topic

[Skötkonung]

“Even short-term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves BP and glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans.”


Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....1920918...tract


Hmm, seems I got the Title wrong and I can't edit it :( (Fixed! -mod)

Edited by niner, 13 February 2009 - 04:31 AM.

[stephen_b]

Wow, that's an unambiguous result.

Since the definition of what goes into the diet can vary, it would be nice if someone with access to the article can describe the diet used in the study.

StephenB

[kai73]

Wow, that's an unambiguous result.

Since the definition of what goes into the diet can vary, it would be nice if someone with access to the article can describe the diet used in the study.

StephenB

unfortunately the study doesn't say what was the "normal" diet the patients were eating before. If those people were eating candies, fastfood, sugar drinks and so on...no doubt they got better in paleo diet.

What would be better is to compare paleo to mediterranean diet or keto diet and so on. cause otherwise, any diet where junk food is forbidden will show good result in comparison to normal western diet full of coke, fastfood food, candies and so on.

[Skötkonung]

Wow, that's an unambiguous result.

Since the definition of what goes into the diet can vary, it would be nice if someone with access to the article can describe the diet used in the study.

StephenB

According to the study, the diet was:

We performed an outpatient, metabolically controlled study, in nine nonobese sedentary healthy volunteers, ensuring no weight loss by daily weight. We compared the findings when the participants consumed their usual diet with those when they consumed a paleolithic type diet. The participants consumed their usual diet for 3 days, three ramp-up diets of increasing potassium and fiber for 7 days, then a paleolithic type diet comprising lean meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts, and excluding nonpaleolithic type foods, such as cereal grains, dairy or legumes, for 10 days.

If you subscribe to Nature:
http://www.nature.co...ejcn20094a.html

Only nine subjects in the study. The numbers (especially on the lipid panel) are fairly impressive but the low number of subjects really erodes the statistical significance of the results. Also no controls (not that controls would be useful on such a small sample).

There’s actually a far amount of sugar in the diet. Honey and juice is a listed ingredient in a number of places. Quote the dietary info: “The usual diet had a calculated K/Na intake ratio of 0.6plusminus0.3 and averaged 18% of calories from protein, 44% from carbohydrates and 38% from fats. An analyzed paleolithic diet composite had a K/Na intake ratio of 4.3 (P<0.0001) and contained 30% of calories from proteins, 32% from fat (mainly unsaturated) and 38% from carbohydrates.”

Fasting insulin was the greatest change that I saw, from 69 +/- 63 pmol/litre to 21 +/- 7 pmol/litre. Notice that not only did it drop way off but the subjects were much more uniform in their insulin levels, which indicates the study successfully dropped all participants insulin levels.

Fasting glucose didn’t change at all so these people weren’t insulin resistant going in.

Since macronutrient ratios changed only a little (increased protein) in this study the conclusion would seem to be to avoid grains, legumes, and dairy products. The author’s say this was a preliminary study and they plan to follow-up with a larger study of type-2 diabetes patients.

[stephen_b]

Since macronutrient ratios changed only a little (increased protein) in this study the conclusion would seem to be to avoid grains, legumes, and dairy products.

The conclusion might be elimination of all of these, but this study doesn't rule out that eliminating some other combination of these could be equally effective. I'd hate to give up legumes and their low methionine protein, unless it can be shown to be bad for me.

[ajnast4r]

Wow, that's an unambiguous result.

Since the definition of what goes into the diet can vary, it would be nice if someone with access to the article can describe the diet used in the study.

StephenB

unfortunately the study doesn't say what was the "normal" diet the patients were eating before. If those people were eating candies, fastfood, sugar drinks and so on...no doubt they got better in paleo diet.

What would be better is to compare paleo to mediterranean diet or keto diet and so on. cause otherwise, any diet where junk food is forbidden will show good result in comparison to normal western diet full of coke, fastfood food, candies and so on.

pay this man

[stephen_b]

pay this man

You are probably right. Better commentary on the study can be found here.

[JLL]

"This is an interesting point. Investigators had to increase the participants' calorie intake by an average of 329 calories a day just to get them to maintain their weight on the paleo diet."

Well, this is what I've been saying for a long time. A calorie is not always a calorie.

[CobaltThoriumG]

"This is an interesting point. Investigators had to increase the participants' calorie intake by an average of 329 calories a day just to get them to maintain their weight on the paleo diet."

Well, this is what I've been saying for a long time. A calorie is not always a calorie.

My diet is not paleo but shares many similarities. I eat oats and some dairy but it is low in carbs and high in fat. I maintain my daily caloric intake to around 2600 scrupulously. That is what I had found it takes to maintain my body weight. But when I reduced carbs significantly a couple months ago, I kept calories constant and noticed that I began losing weight. I'm probably close to leveling off now, around five pounds lighter at the same caloric intake.

[Shepard]

My diet is not paleo but shares many similarities. I eat oats and some dairy but it is low in carbs and high in fat. I maintain my daily caloric intake to around 2600 scrupulously. That is what I had found it takes to maintain my body weight. But when I reduced carbs significantly a couple months ago, I kept calories constant and noticed that I began losing weight. I'm probably close to leveling off now, around five pounds lighter at the same caloric intake.

Lowered carb intake -> Lowered glycogen content in liver and skeletal muscle -> Weight Loss (but not adipose)

[Shepard]

"This is an interesting point. Investigators had to increase the participants' calorie intake by an average of 329 calories a day just to get them to maintain their weight on the paleo diet."

Well, this is what I've been saying for a long time. A calorie is not always a calorie.

Unless activity levels (expenditure) and differences in protein intake were accounted for, it doesn't mean anything.

[DukeNukem]

Stephen at http://wholehealthso...rials-part.html has a good post on this study. A few snippets:

There are a couple of twists to this study that make it more interesting. One is that the diets were completely controlled. The only food participants ate came from the experimental kitchen, so investigators knew the exact calorie intake and nutrient composition of what everyone was eating.

The other twist is that the investigators wanted to take weight loss out of the picture. They wanted to know if a paleolithic-style diet is capable of improving health independent of weight loss. So they adjusted participants' calorie intake to make sure they didn't lose weight. This is an interesting point. Investigators had to increase the participants' calorie intake by an average of 329 calories a day just to get them to maintain their weight on the paleo diet. Their bodies naturally wanted to shed fat on the new diet, so they had to be overfed to maintain weight.

This part (above) supports the viewpoint Taubes takes, that the body self-regulates itself to an extent, when fats are over-consumed. I firmly believe this be to true. I've gone a week trying to over-consume coconut oil and I cannot add weight. But, I notice my body burns hotter -- I need to turn the fan on me while at work, for example. So many others have reported this effect.

[T]he investigators graphed baseline insulin resistance vs. the change in insulin resistance during the course of the study for each participant. Participants who started with the most insulin resistance saw the largest improvements, while those with little insulin resistance to begin with changed less. There was a linear relationship between baseline IR and the change in IR, with a correlation of R=0.98, p less than 0.0001. In other words, to a highly significant degree, participants who needed the most improvement, saw the most improvement. Every participant with insulin resistance at the beginning of the study ended up with basically normal insulin sensitivity after 10 days. At the end of the study, all participants had a similar degree of insulin sensitivity. This is best illustrated by the standard deviation of the fasting insulin measurement, which decreased 9-fold over the course of the experiment.

Go to his website to get his thoughts on the above. Insulin control and overall low insulin are both highly correlated to longer lifespans. A high-fat, no-grain paleo diet seems like the best diet for insulin management.

[Shepard]

I've gone a week trying to over-consume coconut oil and I cannot add weight. But, I notice my body burns hotter -- I need to turn the fan on me while at work, for example. So many others have reported this effect.

What amount of coconut oil have you been consuming?

[stephen_b]

Dr. Michael R. Eades also blogged about this study.

StephenB

[JLL]

My diet is not paleo but shares many similarities. I eat oats and some dairy but it is low in carbs and high in fat. I maintain my daily caloric intake to around 2600 scrupulously. That is what I had found it takes to maintain my body weight. But when I reduced carbs significantly a couple months ago, I kept calories constant and noticed that I began losing weight. I'm probably close to leveling off now, around five pounds lighter at the same caloric intake.

Lowered carb intake -> Lowered glycogen content in liver and skeletal muscle -> Weight Loss (but not adipose)

When I lowered my carb intake and replaced it with fat, I noticed a drop in my body fat percentage.