A Paleolithic Diet

Agriculture has made it so food is extremely easy to retain. Current human diets and metabolism are extremely different from that of our ancestors. Sheau Yu Hsu, PhD, stated “These studies are fascinating

Thirteen healthy undergraduate students at the University of Brighton (8 males, 5 females; mean ± SD, age: 19.2 ± 1.5 years; body mass: 67.4 ± 16.1 kg; height: 177 ± 28.2m) were briefed with the study procedure. Their anthropometric data was collected, along with a medical questionnaire and their consent to participate in the study. All of the participants were familiar with the laboratory testing procedures.

In “Escape from the Western Diet”, the writer Michael Pollan is making points as to why we should avoid the Western Diet. Understanding the problems of the Western Diet and solutions to escape from it is the main idea of this article. He reminds us of many different scientific theories that demonstrations how the Western Diet is behind the large number of diseases that follow to those who eat it. Those theories were the “lipid hypothesis”, the “carbohydrate hypothesis” and the “neolipid hypothesis”. Michael Pollan believed that all the theories and scientific explanations were not going to prevent the chronic diseases from the Western diet. And the only solution

·  What conclusions did the study reach? Are the conclusions appropriate? Why or why not?

The purpose of this lab was to see if following the HHS (Health and Human Services) (Morgan P.11) suggested diet would be healthier or a person which follows their own diet. This was measured by the Fitness index. The results in average of the Fitness Index in Table 1.3 (P. 15) showed that the Athletic got a fitness index of 72.3 and the Sedentary got a Fitness Index of 70.6. In Table 1.1 (p.13) it shows that a high average is around 65 FI to 79 FI. The average are fairly close to each other which is shown in Table 1.6 (p.19) this is a bar graph of the averages. These results came from the different groups doing the following the same procedure. Some trends that were noted in the average was that many people got a higher index in sedentary

The prevalence of diseases in the Western world that are affected by our diet have caused us to re-examine what we eat. The discordance hypothesis proposed by Eaton and Konner explains simply that what we are adapted to eat is in discordance with our modern diet. (Eaton & Konner 1985). Comparative studies have been done on primate and human diets to better elucidate the origins of our diet and how modern deviations affect us. In this paper I will examine what we have learned about the evolutionary history of our diet based on studying primates and how this effects our understanding of disease processes caused by our modern, Western diet.

may vary by population, sex, and age. In general, the sources imply that, in industrialized

Aphramor, L. (2010, July). Validity of claims made in weight management research: a narrative review of dietetic articles. Nutrition Journal, 9().

To begin with, a one-size-fits-all diet approach is unlikely to work for everyone (Berardi, 2014). More specifically, there may be no need to completely cut out things like dairy, cereal grains, and legumes. It is true that as a species we have not totally evolved to drink milk-but evolution did not stop millions of years ago. Some populations, particularly European Caucasians, are able to process lactose (Millar, Mann, & Cordain). Cereal grains, when processed, can and do cause health problems. However, whole grains, instead of refined, have many health benefits that the Paleo Diet ignores. Whole grains contain fiber, fatty acids, B vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients. They can also reduce risk of heart disease, control blood sugar, and promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. Whole grains do contain some anti-nutrients that may negatively affect the action of the nutrients, but correct preparation of the grains and recipes can counteract this (Jonnalagadda et al. 2011). While many people are allergic or sensitive to gluten (Millar, Mann, & Cordain, 38), if you are not and are careful about eating the right kind of whole grain, there is no need to completely cut cereal grains out of your diet. Legumes, likewise, do have costs and benefits to being a part of the modern human's diet. Studies have suggested, however, that these benefits outweigh the costs (Couchenak & Lamri-Senhadji,

Worldwide over the last twenty years there have been many research studies into the causes of obesity. While many correlational links have been found, it is safe to say that obesity is a complex multi-faceted problem. Researchers have found a relationship between fetal malnutrition and later in life obesity, as well as a relationship between the thrifty genotype and inability to lose weight. Both of these correlations to obesity are thing that an individual has no real control of so they will not be examined in this essay. Relationships have also been found between increased caloric intake, decreased physical activity, and sleep deprivation with obesity, which are all things we can control so they will be discussed in this essay.

-The Paleo diet is a derivative from the word "Paleolithic", which was a certain time frame about 2.5 million years ago, but ended about 10,000 years ago. It is sometimes called the "ancestor diet", due in fact that the foods used in the recipes for Paleo foods were actually eaten during the paleolithic period long ago. Our ancestors were healthy as an ox and strong as a bear. At the same time they were incredibly lean. This is all, because of the diet they were on, because of their surroundings.

With over 22.5% of the current U.S. population considered to be clinically obese, compared to only 14.5% in 1980, there does not seem to be a cessation of this epidemic in sight (Hill & Peters, 1998). Goran and Weisners' (2000) proposal that "... the inherently lower resting metabolic rate in women versus men is responsible for the higher adiposity rates in women..." is wanting, especially since the potentially modifiable factors of; less physical strength, less daily free-living physical activity, and lower total energy expenditure are more likely the cause of the differences in observed adiposity between men and women. Since our genetic makeup has not appreciably changed in the last twenty years, we cannot strictly attribute the explosion of obesity to genetics. As these biological causes of obesity are disproved, a focus on the environment as a reason for obesity is taking centre-stage.

The first reason the average Modern diet is better than the Paleolithic diet is that it reduces diseases and other disorders. The average modern diet reduces the chance of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis,

The man behind the current Paleo Diet craze is Dr. Loren Cordain. He has his Ph.D. in Health from the University of Utah in 1981. He also served as a professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University from 1982-2013. Dr. Cordain became interested in healthy eating from a very young age. He was also interested in reading about Stone Age people and how they lived off the land. While in college in the 60’s and 70’s he was involved in sports and became interested in improving his performance and began reading on vegetarian diets. Then while doing research during his time as a professor at Colorado State University he read “Paleolithic Nutrition” by Dr. Boyd Eaton and became increasingly interested. He contacted Dr. Eaton and the two ”hit if off” and began sharing ideas. From there Dr. Cordain began the road we know with his many published works. Dr. Cordain is an accomplished scientist with may awards and recognitions, the most recent being, “The American College for Advancement in Medicine’s annual “Denham Harmon Lecture,” May 2004. This lecture is awarded to a scientist whose research was judged to have the greatest national impact upon complementary medical care by the American College for Advancement in Medicine.” Dr. Cordain has also written and published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Although the investigation was able to provide more knowledge and understanding regarding the relationships between energy, activity levels and carbohydrate intake in order to contribute towards a solution to the problem of obesity, there were many limitations to this experiment that needed to be considered. For the personal data, the dietary observations collected over the two experimental days were not substantial to represent their lifestyle as a whole. Studies led by Burke et al., (2001) demonstrated that individuals can make inaccurate reports in various ways such as altering their dietary intake during period of recording, omitting or underestimating their intake and quantification errors of their consumption. As the group data was a collation of individual’s two-day dietary records, variability and inaccuracy increased considering the wide range of influences each individual may have been subjected to. There were 359 females and 195 males involved in the