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from the wait-a-few-years,-it-will-change-again dept.
The Paleo, or 'caveman' diet, consists of meat, vegetables, nuts, and limited fruit. It excludes grains, legumes, dairy, salt, and refined sugars and oils. Unfortunately in a recent study researchers also found it leads to reduced beneficial gut bacteria and twice the level of trimethylamin-n-oxide (TMAO), which is linked closely with increased risk of heart disease.
[Lead researcher Dr Angela Genoni] said the reason TMAO was so elevated in people on the Paleo diet appeared to be the lack of whole grains in their diet.
"We found the lack of whole grains were associated with TMAO levels, which may provide a link between the reduced risks of cardiovascular disease we see in populations with high intakes of whole grains," she said.
TMAO is produced in the gut, and gut bacteria change based on diet composition. In this case, the removal of whole grains, with "resistant starch and many other fermentable fibres that are vital to the health of your gut microbiome"
"Additionally, the Paleo diet includes greater servings per day of red meat, which provides the precursor compounds to produce TMAO, and Paleo followers consumed twice the recommended level of saturated fats, which is cause for concern.
The article conludes that "A variety of fiber components, including whole grain sources may be required to maintain gut and cardiovascular health."
Modified Paleo anyone?
Journal Reference
Genoni, A., Christophersen, C.T., Lo, J. et al. Eur J Nutr (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02036-y
(Score: 5, Insightful) by istartedi on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:05AM (25 children)
Humans who lived prior to agriculture and cities only needed to live long enough to reproduce, and to be able to compete with other hunter-gatherers under similar conditions. Evolution doesn't always favor longevity. We aren't certain how long these humans lived, but there's a good chance most of them died of other things before they got old enough for heart disease.
In other words, paleo diet doesn't need modification. It needs to be tossed in the bin with other fad diets.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:31AM (13 children)
We have an upper limit, though. Max 969 years [wikipedia.org]
True.
False. While it may need (as a possible solution), it doesn't follow that it must be. Other possible solutions can exist.
For instance: keep your diet and accept a death 14-20 years after the procreation age - i.e. just enough to bring your offspring to their procreation age. If you accepted IVF and cryopreservation, you can reduce this even further for non-breeding members (i.e. for paleodiet incels)
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @07:40AM (6 children)
The funny thing here is that the Bible states that before the Flood, people were supposed to be vegetarian:
This all changed after the Flood:
Since Methuselah lived before the Flood, he most likely had been a follower of the vegetarian proscription of Genesis 1:29.
Of course, this all assumes you're a good Fundamentalist who believes that the universe was created six thousand years ago and everything in the Bible is literally true...
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:33AM
which god [skepticsannotatedbible.com] said that?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 23 2019, @01:37PM (3 children)
The Bible also says that we need to watch more cat videos:
And that's not even getting to the kinky shit in the Book of Stagliano.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:10PM
You reminded me of the lolcat bible project. I just looked it up, it's still on the wayback machine but it seems to have shut down about 10 years ago. I now feel both old and sad. kthxbai
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:39PM (1 child)
Indeed. I've often thought we need some Bible updates for modern tech. For instance, take one of my favorite Bible verses, Proverbs 26:11 [biblehub.com]:
I mean, that's still true. Dogs are pretty stupid in that way. But we could easily update it:
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:12PM
A single minute?
Damn you're generous.
(watches two teens walking down the road texting (to each other?), one walks into a signpost, the other, well he just keeps on a walking......)
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:46PM
*except for all the parts you don't like.
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:34
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @08:34AM (5 children)
Since they probably counted "years" in terms of revolutions of the Moon (easier to count moon years without going blind), that would then be,
969 moon years * 27.333 (days/moon year) / 365.25 (days/solar year) = 72.5 solar years
which kind of makes sense, no?
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:52PM (4 children)
While that's one theory of how to interpret the ages, it doesn't quite square with how the ages gradually lessen [wikipedia.org] over the course of the early books of the Bible. Yes, you have quite a few in the 700-900 year-old range early in Genesis, but then the generations after Methuselah tend to mostly have ages in the 400-500 range, then after Noah (who was an exception) they decrease for several generations to the 200-300 year range, then you get Abraham (175), Isaac (180), Jacob (147), Joseph (110). Then later Moses (120) and Joshua (110). Finally when you get to folks like King David, the age is a more realistic 70 years.
The "moon year" theory doesn't really make sense with that pattern.
I think you're looking for the wrong book to "make sense" out of. There's a LOT of other weird stuff that needs explaining in the book of Genesis aside from a few aberrant age numbers.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday July 24 2019, @03:22AM (3 children)
Why assume that how calendars were reckoned didn't change across the several thousand years of the Old Testament??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 30 2019, @04:24AM
Sure, calendar changes could have happened. But a simple shift from a lunar to solar reckoning (which would be maybe a reasonable historical idea) doesn't explain the inconsistent trends in the Bible. That's all I'm saying.
AND, if you look at the chronology I linked, you'll see a number of bizarre and weird overlaps that would have to span separate "reckoning" eras. It"s all a mess that's not easily explained by a couple different calendars.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 30 2019, @04:53AM (1 child)
Also, for the record, most of these proposals result in ridiculous inconsistencies with even the most cursory examination. For example, if Methuselah's age is measured in lunar months, then his father Enoch would have fathered him (using the same conversion) when Enoch was roughly 5 years old. Seem likely?
Also, you have to explain away simultaneous other reckonings, for example where Noah in his 601st year during the flood starts enumerating months during that "year" each of which appears to have 30 days.
The more reasonable conclusion is that the trend for extreme ages gradually decreases, and this trend was either made up (by an author looking to emphasize the greatness of ancestors through exaggerated age, something seen in other chronicles in the near East during that time) or actually happened (if you are a true believer, who assumed the gradual pollution of lineage after Adam decreased longevity).
Trying to come up with half-ass lunar/solar explanations is just not helpful nor reasonable. It's the worst kind of biblical apologetics, because it generally comes out of ignorance -- I mean, did you even take two minutes to think about the post you were supporting and whether it made ANY sense with the data from Genesis?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 30 2019, @07:09AM
Not a believer myself, but it's an interesting exercise. I very much doubt that lifespans changed significantly. I think it's most likely a mix of lunar years, solar years, copying errors, bad translations, and occasional poetic hyperbole -- which would account for the galloping inconsistencies. Who knows what the originals said, or how much material got added or inadvertently mixed in by the obsessive copying that went on as soon as officialdom discovered writing (so there are copies of copies of copies of piles and piles of whatever anyone previously recorded, relevant or not.)
There's an interesting example in... I think I was randomly perusing the book of Daniel ... where it's going along talking about some king did this or that, and suddenly there's an inventory of some peon's livestock, and how much tax they paid... and then it goes back to the history of whomever. Pretty obviously the peon's tax records got mixed into the stack, and through generations of copying became canon.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:53AM (9 children)
"Evolution doesn't always favor longevity."
I would argue that evolution almost never favors longevity. Longevity gets in the way of adaptability through evolutionary change.
Larger animals tend to live longer, because of the sheer investment in building their bodies. It takes longer to grow an elephant than a mouse. Beyond that, evolution is simple: Get that body to reproductive age, let it live long enough to raise a few offspring, and then evolution is all done with it.
We want to live longer, and the necessary machinery is largely even present in our bodies. I've read of breeding experiments on insects that - in very few generations - tripled the average lifespan. The problem is: we can't do selective breeding on humans (or, anyway, it doesn't help us) - so we want to find a more direct way to trigger that "repair and maintenance" machinery in our bodies.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:25PM (5 children)
The Vorlons will not be pleased.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:31PM (4 children)
I worry more about the Vril's reaction.
Link to the absolutely factual documentary preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoWLUmaZUHw [youtube.com]
They live a lot closer.....
For you see, the Earth is hollow....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 24 2019, @12:55PM (3 children)
... and I have touched the sky ?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday July 24 2019, @04:53PM (2 children)
I so loved that episode! However I was quoting the Moon Führer. Describing the Vril city Agartha at the center of the Earth.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 24 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
I did look at your YouTube link. But I couldn't resist.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday July 24 2019, @08:11PM
Nor should you of....(:
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:08PM
I agree with you for the most part. But for social animals, there can be further selective pressure. Humans, like many primates, are assumed to come from groups that organized into small clans. In such groups, there may be advantages to having somewhat older and more experienced individuals around. For example, it's generally been assumed that the "hunter" was the dominant source of nutrition in hunter-gatherer societies. But some recent studies of still-extant hunter-gatherer groups show that in many cases the gathering of vegetable food sources by mothers and aunts and grandmothers is even a more significant source of consistent food than the male dominant hunters. So far from being a hindrance or an "extra mouth to feed," an older experienced individual in a early hominid social group might have been essential to the survival of the group by bringing in more resources (e.g., to raise children and increase survival).
And then we have other theories about the utility of having folks beyond child-bearing age who can help raise and supervise kids (making them less likely to succumb to disease or accident while parents are out gathering food, etc.), as well as the actual passing down of knowledge and skills that can't just come as effectively from having, say, older siblings fill such a role. Again, there have been recent studies suggesting potential links in less-advanced societies where having a grandparent (usually a grandmother) around tends to lower child mortality and also allow child-bearing age to be lower (thus increasing potential offspring).
Much of this research is still in the early speculative stages, but it's certainly possible for social benefits to accrue and thus create an evolutionary benefit when a group has older productive members.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:15PM
Longevity is advantageous for species practicing cooperative rearing of offspring. Regardless of body size: see eq. parrots, corvids, mole-rats.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 30 2019, @07:20AM
Actually, we have done the breeding experiment. Per various DNA research, genes for higher intelligence also produce improved health, thus fewer runts and greater average longevity. DNA studies of medieval peasants vs nobility noted that the differences in stature and health weren't just environmental -- they were mostly genetic. And until modern times, the higher-ranked (ie. more successful) the parents, the more offspring, and v.v.. Basically, natural selection was doing its job, improving the net genetic worth of the human species.
Of course now we do it the other way around, so the low IQ types breed like rats, while the high-IQ types take themselves out of the gene pool.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:05PM
Present-day hunter-gatherers live, on average, rather LONGER than regular village peasants do around there. Which is absolutely not a secret.
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/life-expectancy-hunter-gatherer/ [marksdailyapple.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:36AM (2 children)
What? Grass and 'shrooms ain't good on their own now? What are they smokin'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:45AM (1 child)
well.. as wild rice [goodhousekeeping.com] is technically a grass...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:29PM
According to Londo Mollari [youtube.com] rice cannot be very good. Otherwise humans would not throw it at one another.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @06:32AM (3 children)
Typing my ass off?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @06:40AM (1 child)
Defined in TFS
TFS = ???
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:31PM
Terrible File System.
The one everyone should be using.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @06:48AM
FTFS*:
(emphasis added)
* What this stands for is LAAEFTR.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @09:41AM
Look at table 1. The people on the diet started out older and fatter than the controls.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Tuesday July 23 2019, @10:42AM (2 children)
1. TMAO comes from carnitine.
2. Paleo diet has a lot of carnitine leading to higher levels of TMAO.
3. Processed food has a lot of carnitine leading to higher levels of TMAO..
4. TMAO is statistically correlated to heart problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylamine_N-oxide#Health_issues [wikipedia.org]
5. Conclusion: Paleo will rot your heart and eat your children.
Extra credit: Carnitine supplementation has been explored but aside from a couple of unrelated conditions, it shows now major positive or negative effects on heart health: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnitine#Physiological_effects [wikipedia.org]
In other news, Paleo is tied to bear attacks, cholera and ingrown toenails.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:11PM (1 child)
That's the problem isn't it, diet alone is insufficient. It is the lifestyle, you can have diet X be the best in the world, but if you still hide in the basement doing finger exercises 24/7 you can bet they'll be all sorts of negative markers when they probe your carcass at the morgue.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday July 24 2019, @10:25AM
But why assume those "negative markers" are actually meaningful? Atkins was practiced as a low-carbs high-fats high-protein Ketogenic diet that are proven to reduce body weight while increasing blood cholesterol. But we now know obesity is the real cause of heart problems rather than the cholesterol indicator. Paleo might not officially be a low-carbs diet, but lets be honest here: 90% of the people doing it are practicing a Ketogenic diet. And we can safely assume all of them will have all sorts of weird blood markers that mean absolutely nothing as long as they maintain low body fat. Which they will. Because not eating grains and processed food makes gaining body weight REALLY difficult.
Overall, the only issues that matter when dealing with obesity are micro-nutrients and total carbs. Sure, processed foods have trans-fats that can screw your arteries over time... But lets face it, if your body fat is low it won't be an issue. So Paleo or whatnot, in the end, if you're losing body fat, it's good.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:46AM (8 children)
We've lived with grain for a long, long time. It makes perfect sense that our digestive systems have adapted. I'm all for low-carb diets - but not no-carb. Vegetarians and vegans should consider the same thing: low-meat rather than no-meat.
tl;dr: Eating a varied diet is important to your health, who knew?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @12:36PM
Paleo diet isn't no carb so I don't know why you commented this.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 23 2019, @01:41PM
There's also outliers. I live off carbs, on the one meal a day I have, if I can be bothered eating at all. Meat makes me feel queasy. OK, I'm a bit more extreme than most, but there's certainly no one-size-fits-all in diets.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @04:02PM (4 children)
No.
Vegetarians and vegans have a significantly lower incidence of cancer.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/vegetarians-get-less-cancer/ [www.nhs.uk]
Vegetarians and vegan diets are credited with *reversing* heart disease:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/ask-the-expert/plant-based-diets [bhf.org.uk]
Your body does not _need_ meat, at any stage of life:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19562864/ [nih.gov]
I think the origin of the stories about folks who's, "bodies needed meat," originate from meat eaters with qualms of conscious trying to rationalize their unethical (to them) choices of consuming animal flesh.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
I am by no means a strong advocate for meat-eating, and I've spent quite a few years of my adult life consuming pretty small quantities of meat (just a small portion a couple meals per week, some weeks none at all). And there are certainly good ethical arguments against meat consumption.
But it does no good to overstate your case. For every study showing superior outcomes for a vegetarian or vegan diet, there are other studies showing similar outcomes for those with low meat consumption.
And there IS a significant difference between vegetarian and vegan. Your body may not "need meat," but there are certain nutrients that are much more difficult to get without consuming any animal products at all. B12 is the most notable one (and essential), but there are other non-essential nutrients that can basically only be found in animal sources which can be difficult to replace or where "plant-based equivalent" nutrients are less effective.
So yeah, I agree with you that humans do not need to eat meat, but it is a nutrient-dense material. And I disagree with your implicit argument that vegan diets are just as good as vegetarian diets -- without any animal sources it is significantly more difficult to get a good nutritional balance. Modern supplements and concentrated elements from plants can help, but -- relating to TFA -- these would not be available from a historical "paleo" perspective. (Not that the "paleo" diet has much to do with historical food anyway, given that the types of meats and vegetables available today are grossly different from what an early human would have eaten.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25 2019, @05:14PM
You are arguing something different.
I responded to someone who said that vegetarians should eat meat. Their implicit argument is that meat is necessary. My examples were to show that meat is not necessary, in even the smallest amounts. Whether or not meat in very small amounts will or will not cause health harms is irrelevant for my comment.
B-12 is produced, by microbes, in soil and in the gut of animals, including humans, (usually too far down the GI tract to allow for absorption by the host animal). Meat eaters, who eat wild animals, are still getting B-12 that was sourced from poop, just indirectly. Meat eaters who are eating farmed animals, like chickens, are getting B-12 through supplements-- again, just indirectly; these factory farmed animals must be given B-12 supplements. If you grow your own food, so it does not need to be washed, you can get adequate B-12 without any supplementation. B-12 is not an argument against veganism / for meat eating-- B-12 is easily sourced without consuming animals or supplements.
https://freefromharm.org/health-nutrition/b12-magic-pill-veganisms-achilles-heel/ [freefromharm.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @06:03PM
Humans are omnivores there's no _need_ for eating animals BUT there's no _need_ for eating plants either. Humans can survive long enough to breed on crappy diets.
So let's talk about thriving... There's plenty of scientific evidence that humans do better with some fish in their diets.
https://www.nature.com/articles/tp2017206 [nature.com]
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/fish-as-brain-food/ [nytimes.com]
Fish oil supplements on the other hand are problematic since there are lots of _rancid_/oxidized fish oil out there. Rotten fish oil still counts as fish oil even in many scientific studies. You probably wouldn't get as many health benefits from eating rotten fish so go figure why the fish oil studies are mixed ;) ...
Going vegetarian is definitely better than plenty of crappy "modern" diets. But is it really better than a mostly vegetarian diet with some fish every week?
Maybe one day there will be enough scientific evidence one day that flaxseed is better than fish. But for now: https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/why-not-flaxseed-oil [harvard.edu]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:36PM
but I do not see merit in lack of one. Which is what vegetarianism is apt to give you.
http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2012/06/youre-vegetarian-have-you-lost-your.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:27PM
as could be discovered with a simple search.
For one example, let me introduce you to the existence of this interesting molecule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docosahexaenoic_acid [wikipedia.org]
OK I guess for a medieval peasant toiling in a field, having a functioning brain is a liability not an asset, but in technological society, at least some workers do need be capable of thought.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 23 2019, @01:14PM (3 children)
Several interesting issues:
1) People love religion and officially decoupling legacy religions from the state results in insanity where people violently hate each other for not following the same "religious" dietary laws and purity rules. Its just instead of crazy bronze age shit ideas for diet and purity, we have crazy consumerism unregulated capitalism shit ideas for diet and purity. I wouldn't read much into the hate that'll be seen; they would have been burning people at a stake for other nutty fanaticism at an earlier date and its no more or less scientific.
2) Likewise there's real lifestyles and then there's "I'm more pure than you because I'm more ascetic and I don't eat salt". Like what BS. Recent dietary changes in the American diet since 1960 or so have resulted in staggeringly high refined carb consumption resulting in high rates of diabetes death and heart disease death, and there's a lot of people utterly furious at the idea of rolling back those bad changes a couple decades, it makes their blood absolutely boil. Why? The vitrol against those who advise against a diet consisting entirely of Twinkies(tm) is stunning. Its the confusion of religion and diet. Yes you're a bad Jew if you break kosher rules and there are Jews who are better Jews than other Jews and worse Jews than other Jews because they tricked God into letting them eat turkey bacon to break kosher or some nonsense. "You know that shit food that kills people, well eat less of it" "Every time you're given the choice of eating a twinkie or a carrot, eat the carrot; every time you're given the choice of corn syrup cola or water, drink water" is very paleo philosophy and seems very unlikely to have any medical downsides and seems possible to be followed lifelong. Nobody should live by an abstracted Jewish philosophy of "God told us in the new heretical Torah not to touch refined sugar on the sabbath and the holiest of us no longer consume salt and that paleo diet will make you a better Jew than all the other goyim who still eat of the forbidden fruit of the twinkie". Crazy people gonna crazy. And crazy people always have bad outcomes. People all "I'm holier than thou because I don't touch salt" are not really paleo and are going to be pretty F-ed up, so using them to bully paleo-ists is kinda weak argument.
3) People like binary arguments so its fun to try some on and see how they feel. Anti-paleo means you eat junk food constantly like fat Americans and die of diabetes complications when they're 450 pounds at age 35. Paleo people are all gonna die of "preventable" (LOL) heart attacks at age 60. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, nobody can explain why if my genealogy research indicates the diet of my ancestors killed them around 70-80 that if I eat their diet I'm gonna die of a heart attack for sure in the next five years. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'd rather die after 60 skinny healthy years than 35 fat as hell diabetic years. Yeah given that binary choice I'll gladly "ruin my heart" LOL.
4) Side effects matter: Obviously a slight side effect of a paleo diet and lifestyle is having a healthy low weight and a significant cause of horrible quality of life and early death is being fat as fuck, so in a sense it doesn't matter if in a laboratory controlled setting, eating junk food (why not simply be fit and healthy AND take some kind of weird grain supplement pill?) results in slightly better blood chemistry. If you don't paleo it doesn't matter if your heart is theoretically riskier because you'd already be fat and dead. Its like bitching about the risks of death of heart transplants, sometimes people die after heart transplants so we should feel better about ourselves if we ban them; which makes sense if you ignore the death rate of people needing a heart transplant being about 100% if they don't get one.
5) Causation matters: Heart disease is too wide of a problem to be one thing. Typically, one thing causes, say, cyanide poisoning, that being cyanide ions getting into your innards. Heart disease maybe a little more complicated. As such its trivial to google papers with titles like "Association of moderately elevated trimethylamine N-oxide with cardiovascular risk: is TMAO serving as a marker for hepatic insulin resistance". So this is chicken and egg time. Fat fucks who eat twinkies every meal end up with ruined pancreas and ruined heart and high TMAO levels; its not settled exactly what is causing what. It seems quite plausible via the other paper that shit diet leads to shit insulin resistance issues leads to high heart disease death rates. Possibly high TMAO levels have nothing to do with causing heart disease, but are a symptom of insulin issues which F up the heart, so yeah for a population of people with a generally shitty diet, the higher the TMAO level the closer they are to their diet killing them.
6) Capitalism to the rescue: If their research was a mistake it'll be forgotten. If its real, my daily multivitamin pill will have another supplement in it, probably some kind of genetically engineered probiotic or something, in a couple years, that'll give me god-like TMAO levels; Then I don't have to die fat OR of heart disease.
7) Most of these researchers were full of shit and no explanation why we should believe them today: Most recent dietary advice has been proven to be awful for everyone except politically connected suppliers; no one can explain why that business model isn't in operation today. If you're dealing with crooks who've killed millions by historically awful dietary advice, at least try to see some kind of change in their business model before being gullible. We're dealing with an area of "research" that's about as scientific as astrology but at least astrologists care about not killing their adherents. Authoritarian enforcement of the dogma of low fat high carb has certainly killed a lot of people with no remorse. Are these researchers of a stronger moral fiber than those old timers or is it more of the same, best ignored or do the opposite?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday July 23 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)
While several of your points are good, your whole post would be better if you didn't succumb to the same argumentation strategies you criticize. In particular, you complain about "binary arguments," but then make assertions like:
There are quite a few people who "don't paleo" and aren't "fat and dead."
On the other hand,
That's one possible "side effect." There are many people who do various types of low-carb diets including "paleo" of different varieties and still do not manage to maintain a "healthy low weight." There are many people who do the "cavemen diet" and act like it's a license to eat all sorts of the worst sort of meats, don't consume veggies (thus failing to get some nutrients), and then end up fat on top of it. Not saying this happens all the time, and while I've seen some studies indicating a slightly higher success rate at high protein-low carb diets than others, it's not like it's well-established science that those who "do paleo" must end up healthy.
Just a query, but do you do as much physical exercise as your ancestors? More importantly, do most people who make such an argument do as much exercise their ancestors? Unless their ancestors were aristocrats, I'd bet one significant difference is that modern people have all sorts of "labor-saving" conveniences that take away small to large amounts of exertion on a daily basis. Those little conveniences add up over the years, both in terms of calorie burning and in terms of general fitness. And 30 minutes at the gym a couple days/week is probably no where near the same as the amount of general exertion people had to make on a regular basis in just living normal life and doing common tasks prior to the past few generations. Diet isn't everything.
I don't disagree with that statement at all. But TFA is in no place arguing in favor of "high refined carb consumption," only that the addition of SOME carb sources (like whole grains) may be beneficial rather than trying to eliminate them completely.
Lastly, a general point about the "paleo" nonsense -- and yes, it is a nonsense thing. It may or may not be a better diet for health or nutrition or weight maintenance than other diets (high-carb or low-carb or otherwise), but calling it "paleo" or pretending it has anything to do with primitive human diet is absolute idiocy. The original study link here starts out in the introduction by discussing fiber intake, which seems one of their concerns related to whole-grains. That's one serious issue with the "paleo" diet as commonly practiced.
Actual historical vegetables and fruits tended to have much higher fiber-to-nutrient ratios. The fruit we eat today is most frankenstein-like results of selective breeding compared to what the "caveman" would have eaten. Our modern fruit has a lot more sugar, and even most vegetables are significantly sweeter and more nutritious than those available tens of thousands of years ago. Similar arguments apply to many nuts.
Meanwhile, before agriculture, the type of meat that was eaten wasn't farmed, bred to grow fast and produce large quantities of "marbled meat," and fattened obviously. It was lean game with significantly different nutrient profiles.
I know some "paleo" folks tend to try to find leaner meat, but many just eat the normal modern farm-raised meat that other people do. It's next-to-impossible to find realistic examples of only "wild" fruits and vegetables, so most people are consuming things that have a lot more carbs and a lot less fiber than their "caveman" ancestors would have in these so-called "paleo" diets. (And maybe TFA is wrong to push carbs necessarily -- maybe the link they mention in the intro about fiber intake is as important or more important.)
In essence, the entire premise of the "paleo" diet is mostly BS. That doesn't mean it can't empirically work well for some people for weight maintenance or even better health outcomes. But let's not pursue it on the premise that it has a clear relationship to what humans ate before agriculture, because the products you can buy in most common supermarkets have been irrevocably altered by agriculture, even if you buy "organic" and "grass-fed" etc. For the level of ignorance about paleobotany and the influence of agriculture on our food sources alone, the "paleo" diet should be labeled as a "fad."
Maybe it's okay, though. Or maybe, just maybe -- TFA here which advocates adding a bit of whole-grains a la the traditional "Mediterranean Diet" might also have a point. Or maybe not. Nutritional studies are incredibly difficult to do -- as you rightly point out, causation is difficult to determine. And if you are "doing Paleo" and feeling healthy, more power to you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @11:44PM
and same diet has different effects in different people depending on it. Old news, really.
One can be, for example, digesting a large fraction of "indigestible" "dietary fiber", throwing all calories calculation completely out of whack.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 24 2019, @08:16PM
Yeah fair enough but its the usual problem of "quite a few individuals" vs trying to prescribe for a culture/civilization. The old "I know several people who still haven't died in a car crash so there should be no regulations requiring seatbelts" argument. As a fedgov USA wide USDA policy, low fat high carb obviously doesn't kill everybody, but the effect on national aggregate health statistics over the last couple decades are pretty awful to contemplate.
Yeah I love the analogy of diet and religion because this is the same problem as people who virtue signal in church on Sunday morning and then F up the world for the other 6.8 days per week... I think its human nature that anything good will occasionally be used by a small fraction of the population as a license to do dumb stuff. Definitely not an exclusively paleo, or exclusively religious, thing.
I don't want to get all /fit/ posting but the eternal saying of you can't outrun a fork.
The irony is regular exercise is excellent for the body in general, but it takes heroic athlete or grunt labor lifestyles to keep up with a chezburger diet. The "general public" is sorely misinformed about energy, such that they think briskly walking across the street to starbucks will eliminate a thousand calories of corn syrup in their coffee drinks and so forth.
Most people, especially fat people, just don't have the joints and tendons to handle working off a double quarter pounder with chez faster than they can digest it. Its not a matter of time to exercise or motivation, but their back and knees are literally not able to burn calories as fast as we can eat them.
Do need exercise; however just like flooring the gas and brakes on a car at the same time and one pedal will win, its just not thermodynamically possible to exercise ones way out of a bad diet. Just can't fix an ice cream problem with a treadmill.
I will tentatively not disagree in that there is always an issue in (non-religious based) diets of the conceptual difference between a dominant macro nutrient, something you have on cheat day at the birthday party, a supplement, and a medicine. Certainly, grains seem useless and bad and generally result in fat people when used as a macronutrient. I enjoy a delicious slice of cake less than once a month and a mostly paleo means I can occasionally abuse my body like that, although obviously its not ideal. The problem with copes like "its my medicine" is you run into the people calling heroin, MJ, and bowls of ice cream their mental health "medicine" and abusing them daily, and in the case of bowls of ice cream they get really fat and sick.
Yeah but thats kinda the point I'm trying to make about diet as a religion being a bad idea. As a religious diet with rules from God, nothing works, not even paleo. The theoretical paleo god is really pissed at the sinners who eat genetically enhanced tomatoes, but since that god doesn't exist it doesn't mean avoiding a handful of cookies in favor of a cherry tomato is a bad idea. Yes a beef steak from the grocery store is not as natural paleo or "paleo kosher" or whatever you want to call it as a theoretical unreachable ideal slab of meat that can't exist outside of theory, but that does not mean a diet of twinkies and soda is a great idea or the idea of non-religious paleo is bad. Yes as a painful religious standin, from a paleo standpoint, we're all sinners. That doesn't mean the diet is bad, it means the outlook on life of thinking of diet as a religion is the bad process.
Also the logical fallacy of, OK, if we MUST treat diet as a religious obligation, then its unclear why if there are no true scotsman... err, paleo eaters, and if all paleo eaters are sinners, if the listener incorrectly views diet thru a religious lens, then OK, the paleo religion sucks. But nobody extends the logical argument further; if paleo-as-a-religion sucks, is anyone implying that twinkie worship or corn syrup worship is a demonstratively superior outcome religion? Kinda stuck... treating diet as religion is a bad idea, but if you make that first huge mistake, the fact that paleo-worshippers are sinners STILL doesn't change the fact that they're healthier and longer lived (frankly, happier?) than the twinkie worshippers and corn syrup worshippers, so if failed sinner adherents of paleo have a better life than the most devout corn syrup worshippers, why virtue signal at the church of corn syrup?
Again, are we talking about a sample size of one, or USDA policy for an entire nation? The existence of one apocryphal dude with an unusual metabolism that's optimized to eat nothing but pizza rolls, who, I'll admit, might actually exist, does not mean the fedgov should sentence millions on average to a young fat diabetic demise.
There's a large separation between "Maybe in a couple years your doctor might prescribe some newly invented supplement pill to your otherwise healthy mostly paleo-ish diet, or maybe one research paper turned out to be wrong happens all the time" vs "Ah ha ha you devout paleo as a religion sinners you thought your religion was healthier but where's your God now ha ha". Especially when the pre-requisite diet-as-a-shitty-modern-substitute-for-religion is very unappealing to most.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @05:32PM
... with a grain of salt?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @08:43PM
lack of whole grains? or too much damn meat? this study was brought to you by Loafy, mascot of the bread council of america!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 23 2019, @10:12PM (3 children)
The only diet fad that hasn't be repeatedly proven and disproven is: eat a balanced variety and amount of foods and minimize processed foods. Everything else is just that, a fad.
If a particular diet works for you, especially taking into account personal health, great! But trying to advertise suspiciously specific diets to the wider population is just that, a ploy to make money.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23 2019, @10:32PM (1 child)
No one has tried the maximize processed foods diet yet.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday July 24 2019, @01:44AM
No one has SURVIVED the maximize processed foods diet yet.
FTFY!
After all, you have to survive to promote it!
Remember, you can't spell diet without DIE!!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday July 24 2019, @01:41AM
Oh come now, how are you going to commercialize that? There's no buzzwords, no extremism, no fame, no money to be made and it would be the dullest commercial campaign in history.....
The lack of buzzwords alone makes it a deal-breaker...
And no one would buy deep fried butter at the fair anymore.
You Sir, propose anarchy!!
/s
'cuz you know some idiot out there will take me seriously....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.