Paleo Diet Review Question/Clarification

Savitri Devi · **Joined:** Sat Jun 30, 2012 2:50 pm **Posts:** 1

Don't get me wrong in any way, I am not a proponent of the Paleo diet, and have been a vegan for many years. However, I was reading your latest Newsletter, and it states the following:

Quote:

By nature, the Paleo Diet is based on artery-clogging saturated fats and cholesterol, and bone-damaging, acidic proteins from animal foods. Respected researchers find that those modern-day hunter-gather populations who base their diets on meat, such as the Inuits (Eskimos), suffer from heart disease and other forms of atherosclerosis, and those modern-day hunter-gathers who base their diets on plant foods (starches) are free of these diseases. Osteoporosis, from their high animal food-based diets, is also epidemic among meat and fish consuming hunter-gathers, specifically the Inuits.

There is a link to a study titled "The atherogenic potential of dietary carbohydrate." It cites this as a justification of the claim made above. However, upon reading what I can of the study (which is not the entire study and maybe that is where clarification is needed), it actually says,

Quote:

CONCLUSION: High-carbohydrate diets, particularly in the form of high-glycemic index carbohydrate, have the ability to directly induce atherosclerosis. Based on anthropologic facts, the reason for these dietary-induced, insulin-mediated, atherogenic metabolic perturbations are suggested to be an insufficient adaptation to starch and sugars during human evolution. Restriction of insulinogenic food (starch and sugars) may help to prevent the development of atherosclerosis, one of the most common and costliest human diseases.

*Emphasis added by me.

Can anyone please clarify why this study was used as a defence of a starch based diet being healthy? Was it an error in the link? Can you provide the correct on if this is the case. I am very confused.

Thank you.

John McDougall · **Joined:** Sun Jul 30, 2006 9:08 pm **Posts:** 331

This is the article linked to:

Prev Med. 2007 Jan;44(1):82-4; author reply 84-5. Epub 2006 Sep 25.
Carbohydrates and the diet-atherosclerosis connection--more between earth and heaven. Comment on the article "The atherogenic potential of dietary carbohydrate".
Ströhle A, Wolters M, Hahn A.
Comment on
The atherogenic potential of dietary carbohydrate. [Prev Med. 2006]
PMID: 16997359 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Publication Types, MeSH Terms, Substances

The article is well worth reading (for copyright reasons I cannot provide it).

Here is how the article begins:
To round off the carbohydrate–disease connection, recently Kopp (2006) has put atherosclerosis on it, a hypothesis far from being new (Cleave, 1956; Yudkin, 1972). There are some anthropological and evolutionary aspects in the article of Kopp (2006) which should be discussed.

Here is the concluding statement:

Taking all the empirical and theoretical issues presented above together, Kopp's approach to the question of carbohydrate consumption being associated with health risks based on evolutionary reasoning and ethnographic data seems not to be well founded.

didi · **Joined:** Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:35 pm **Posts:** 2307

I am not satisfied with any report that says that carbs cause diabetes unless it specifies exactly what carbs. Some would include donuts and twinkies and red licorice whips in with the list of carbs. If a study showed that those on a whole food diet that included whole starches and around 10 per cent fat (and this includes the fat in meat) and no refined grains or junk food were prone to diabetes I would sit up and take notice.

Is the researcher counting French Fries as a starch or a fat? If the macaroni in macaroni and cheese is counted as a starch does the researcher take into account that lots of fat is included in the meal? If all carbs lead to diabetes then billions of Asians should be dropping like flies. I can't forget that legislative fiat has decreed that pizza is a vegetable.

Didi

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