Four reasons why the paleo diet improves health for many people

The paleo diet is based on the premise that humans evolved as hunter gatherers during the last 2 million years. Around 10,000 years ago we become agriculturalists, settling, collecting seeds and growing cereal grains, domesticating animals and drinking their milk. The theory proposed by Professor Loren Cordain and others is that this is a short time from an evolutionary perspective, and we have not adapted to digest and deactivate some of the proteins and anti-nutrients in these foods. As well, grains are high in starch leading to excessive amounts of carbohydrates in our diet. We have become sicker as a species with a growing list of health issues such as gut inflammation, obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The evolutionary discordance has increased even further in the last 100 years as we have added increasingly larger amounts of highly processed foods, sugar, synthetic additives, and chemically extracted vegetable oils, which relegate natural whole hunter-gatherer type foods to a smaller and smaller percentage of our diet. (Picture: UK diet source)

A number of excellent papers have been written on the subject. (1, 2, 3,  4, 5 )

Added to this, some researchers have studied modern-day hunter-gatherers, or people whose diets are devoid in cereal grains, processed food, and chemically extracted vegetable oils, and found them to be healthy and virtually free of modern disease. (6, 7, 8 )

A modern paleo diet is one which uses the principles from evolutionary biology and designs a diet by asking the question – what is the healthiest diet for humans from an evolutionary perspective using modern foods? How can we mimic the hunter-gatherer diet, using foods available from our own environment? Modern nutrition science is not neglected and we use that to further modify the diet to reach one that is as healthy as possible.

There are many who criticise the paleo diet trend

There was no one paleo diet (no-one disagrees with this). We no longer have the food available that we had in cave man times (of course, agreed again). We have evolved in the last 10,000 years to handle these foods; the main argument here is lactase persistance after weaning, then using this reasoning to apply it to other foods. However as Dr Alessio Fasano points out, and science backs up – no-one is yet able to properly digest gluten. (For Critiques see Christine Wariner, TED talk, and Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy, and counters to these critiques Robb Wolf, Mark Sissons, Paul Jaminet, Angelo Coppola)

Critics say leaving out entire food groups is unhealthy and dangerous. However, Cordain’s research points out that a Paleo diet using modern available foods is highly nutritious.

Paleo diet criticisms miss the point

We are not trying to copy some imagined diet that our ancestors ate, we are trying to find the healthiest diet for humans using readily available local food, using knowledge gained from both evolutionary biology and current nutrition science.

Many people (including paleo advocates) misinterpret the paleo diet

A paleo diet is not necessarily meat based, nor it is high fat, or very low carbohydrate, it is a diet based on eating a certain quality of food, that which is as unprocessed as possible, food that is freshly gathered from the land. By default, however, cutting out highly processed grains and sugars, will reduce carbohydrates to moderate, rather than the current excessive levels.

How I define paleo

The paleo diet is a whole food based approach to eating: preferably locally grown quality protein from poultry, meat, fish and seafood, fruit and vegetable carbohydrates, and whole food fats, like nuts, freshly pressed oils and avocado. Your diet should give you adequate, but not excess, carbohydrates and fats sufficient for your fuel needs, and protein to maintain lean body mass. Your paleo diet should be varied and supply all essential vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids, antioxidants, polyphenols and fibre. (This slide below is from my paleo seminar)

Food that does not work for you as an individual is not eaten, for example those with auto-immune conditions may not tolerate nightshade plant foods. Likewise, and this may be contentious for paleo purists, I don’t believe everyone needs to completely avoid non paleo foods. Well prepared legumes for example provide certain types of gut healthy fibre for those who tolerate them.

Which brings me to a bugbear:

The trend to make paleo replacements of grain based foods and treats misrepresents the spirit of a paleo diet

The popularity of the paleo diet has given rise to a huge entrepreneurial trend for ‘paleo’ processed foods, where an ingredient that is acceptable to eat on the paleo diet is refined and used in vast quantities to reproduce the very foods we are trying to avoid, such as bread, cakes and cookies. These ingredients are turned into another highly processed, energy dense food. I have nothing against these foods, and treats are a part of food enjoyment, (and I am not one for deprivation!) but a paleo diet in essence is not based on processed food even if made from paleo compatible ingredients.

Four reasons why the paleo diet benefits health for many

Why won’t the paleo diet go away? Many people when they switch to a paleo diet get extraordinary results; if your health dramatically improved or excess body fat fell off effortlessly, wouldn’t you be excited? Paleo eating will not go away – people will not stop being enthusiastic when their life changes for the better. Paleo eating is now being promoted by a growing number of health practitioners, and there are a number of research studies confirming its effectiveness for type 2 diabetes, markers of heart disease, blood pressure reductions, weight loss, appetite control and multiple sclerosis.

There are many aspects of paleo eating that contribute to people getting these life changing results. Here I outline the main ones.

1. The paleo diet gives relief to those with undiagnosed celiac disease, wheat and gluten intolerance or sensitivities.

It is estimated that up to 80% of those with celiac disease in Western countries have not been diagnosed. (9, 10, 11, 12 ) Many of these people have silent celiac disease where they have no typical gut symptoms. The list of symptoms and health problems caused by celiac disease is staggering, and many people suffer health problems that neither they nor their doctor have picked up as celiac or gluten sensitivity as being a cause. It is estimated that for every person suffering celiac disease there are another 6 that suffer non celiac gluten sensitivity. (13 ) A recent study in Australia showed that 58% of the population carries genes that predispose them to celiac disease, so potentially many more people could be affected. When gluten is removed from their diet, life can change dramatically for the better. Here are just a few problems that people suffer from with undiagnosed celiac disease or gluten sensitivity:

• Underachievement in education and working life
• Unexplained Infertility, miscarriage, adverse pregnancy outcomes
• Iron or folate deficiency
• Auto-immune disorders
• Fibromyalgia
• Dental enamel defects, mouth ulcers and Atrophic Glossitis
• Multiple Neurological problems
• Also, but not limited to hyposplenism, reduction in bone mineral density, liver function abnormalities, neuropathy, psychological disturbances, fatigue, myalgias, arthralgias, asthma, weight loss, bloating, abdominal pain, bowel changes, alopecia, headaches, menstrual irregularities. (14, )
• Non celiac gluten sensitivity has also been linked with numerous health problems including abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhoea, bloating and wind, eczema, headaches, joint pain, chronic tiredness, numbness in hands or feet, muscle cramps, depression, hyperactivity, attention disturbances, and painful mouth ulcers. (15 )

The list could go on… on a final note – if you do think your health issues might be gluten related – I recommend you test for celiac disease before trying out a paleo or gluten free diet.

2. Some with celiac disease do not get complete gut healing without cutting out additional foods – which the paleo diet does

Up to 30% of people with celiac disease do not go into remission on a gluten free diet, that is they continue to show anti bodies to gliadin and transglutaminase, and / or have on-going gut inflammation. One study showed after a gluten free diet for 6 months only 8% of individuals showed complete normalisation of villous architecture (the gut cells, and all the folds).

A subset of those with celiac disease continues to suffer severe gut inflammation and on-going deterioration of the villous architecture. This is called refractory celiac disease, type 1 (mild), and type 2 (severe)

In this previous post I outlined how people with celiac disease can react to a number of other proteins in other foods, which sets off an antibody reaction in much the same way gluten does. A paleo type diet reversed refractory celiac disease in one study. Read the full post:

4. The paleo diet reduces the risk of diseases linked with the excess intake of free sugars

In 2005 New Zealanders ate 138 grams of added sugar per day – that is 32 teaspoons per day (16). Sugar (and in the USA high fructose corn syrup) is a di-saccharide (2 – sugars) with a glucose and fructose linked. More than half this sugar is added in the form of sugar sweetened drinks (liquid sugar) (Image: sugarstacks.com)

Free sugars have no nutritional value, unlike fruit which comes in a package with fibre, vitamins and polyphenols.

Free sugars cause numerous health problems, and when removed many of these reverse:

• Non alcoholic fatty liver disease (17)
• Type 2 diabetes (18)
• Teeth caries and decay (19 )

• Heart disease (20)
• Contributes to metabolic syndrome; high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, insulin resistance and central obesity (internal abdominal fat) (21)
• Fructose increases gout (22)
• Increased risk of obesity (23)

The paleo diet does not contain any free sugars, so in this respect is extremely healthy.