One of the "diet gurus" I follow and whose work I appreciate (the Prescript-Assist Probiotic was remarkable, thanks!) is Chris Kresser, formerly known as the Healthy Skeptic. I first came across Chris when he interviewed Stephan Guyenet, in Chris's first podcast back in 2010.
Recently, Laura Schoenfeld, who works with Chris as a dietician posted an article titled "Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health?" I scanned it, tried to comment, but as commenting on Chris' site no longer seems to work for me, moved along. Then Chris posted a follow-up, "7 Things Everyone Should Know About Low-Carb Diets" because apparently, and not surprisingly, the previous post got a bit of attention.
"Last week, my staff nutritionist Laura Schoenfeld wrote a guest post for my blog called “Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health”. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has caused quite a stir."
OK. So I read on, but stopped here:
"#1: Paleo does not equal low-carb, and very low-carb/ketogenic diets are not our “default” nutritional state, as some have claimed."
I'm just going to follow up on this one point. And not get into the rest of his post, or Laura's post. I have issues with both of them, but all those issues stem from this one fundamental misconception. So I'm going to cover just one topic: was the Paleolithic Diet low-carb?
This post has been moved to Substack.This post has been moved to Substack.
I enjoyed your post and agree. I just wanted to add a little more emphasis on phytochemicals, gut flora, inflammation and vitamin D. Acorns require a little preparation to become palatable and edible, because of their tannin and phytochemical content. I would expect that subsisting on acorns might cripple the gut flora, since phytochemicals are predominantly anti-bacterial and hard on gut flora. Damaged gut flora would lead to chronic inflammation and vitamin D deficiency, even with high solar skin exposure. I would expect that caries and gum disease would be associated with vitamin D deficiency in paleo people, just as it is in modern people.
ReplyDeleteMilk seems to be okay though, or at least any caries causing substance is counterbalanced by protective substances. Several African groups have near-zero decay. Central Asian nomads also have very nice teeth. Unfortunately we don't have good modern examples of hunter groups.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the Paleolithic diet was low carb most of the year however am not sure that lack of carries proves it beyond doubt. What about Hadza and Kitavans? they seem to be eating fairly high carbs diets and I am not sure they have plenty of carries.
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DeleteSee Weston Price's book. Non-industrial agricultural societies have higher rates of caries than the Paleo folk did, but lower than we do. So it's a better diet than ours, but not optimal.
DeleteMiki, I'm not sure about the Hadza or the Kitavans, although I will observe that Prof. Lieberman has actually eaten with the Hadza, so he's well aware of them.
ReplyDeleteThe only person I'm aware of who did a reasonably modern survey of teeth and eating habits was Dr. Weston Price, and he clearly found a relationship between carbs in the diet and caries in those extant at the time he did the survey. See this comment for a good summary:
https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2009/04/22/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/#comment-211043