Original Human 'Stone Age' Diet Is Good For People With Diabetes

[Dodger]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627225459.htm

Foods of the kind that were consumed during human evolution may be the best choice to control diabetes type 2. A study from Lund University, Sweden, found markedly improved capacity to handle carbohydrate after eating such foods for three months.

During 2.5 million years of human evolution, before the advent of agriculture, our ancestors were consuming fruit, vegetables, nuts, lean meat and fish. In contrast, cereals, dairy products, refined fat and sugar, which now provide most of the calories for modern humans, have been staple foods for a relatively short time.

Staffan Lindeberg at the Department of Medicine, Lund University, has been studying health effects of the original human diet for many years. In earlier studies his research team have noted a remarkable absence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes among the traditional population of Kitava, Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, where modern agrarian-based food is unavailable.

In a clinical study in Sweden, the research group has now compared 14 patients who were advised to consume an ‘ancient’ (Paleolithic, ‘Old stone Age’) diet for three months with 15 patients who were recommended to follow a Mediterranean-like prudent diet with whole-grain cereals, low-fat dairy products, fruit, vegetables and refined fats generally considered healthy. All patients had increased blood sugar after carbohydrate intake (glucose intolerance), and most of them had overt diabetes type 2. In addition, all had been diagnosed with coronary heart disease. Patients in the Paleolithic group were recommended to eat lean meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, root vegetables and nuts, and to avoid grains, dairy foods and salt.

The main result was that the blood sugar rise in response to carbohydrate intake was markedly lower after 12 weeks in the Paleolithic group (–26%), while it barely changed in the Mediterranean group (–7%). At the end of the study, all patients in the Paleolithic group had normal blood glucose.

The improved glucose tolerance in the Paleolithic group was unrelated to changes in weight or waist circumference, although waist decreased slightly more in that group. Hence, the research group concludes that something more than caloric intake and weight loss was responsible for the improved handling of dietary carbohydrate. The main difference between the groups was a much lower intake of grains and dairy products and a higher fruit intake in the Paleolithic group. Substances in grains and dairy products have been shown to interfere with the metabolism of carbohydrates and fat in various studies.

"If you want to prevent or treat diabetes type 2, it may be more efficient to avoid some of our modern foods than to count calories or carbohydrate," says Staffan Lindeberg.

This is the first controlled study of a Paleolithic diet in humans.

[HairOnFire]

Finally! That was a very small study, but hopefully it will provide further incentive to keep going in this direction.

Very interesting article - thanks for posting.

[LilithD]

Lies, lies, lies. Paleo hunters needed, loved and ate as much fat as they could get their hands on. Aboriginals have been observed hunting kangaroo for the fat only, and leaving the lean meat.

[Legeon]

During 2.5 million years of human evolution, before the advent of agriculture, our ancestors were consuming fruit, vegetables, nuts, lean meat and fish.

They always forget the bugs, brains, and guts.

[eryalen]

Lies, lies, lies. Paleo hunters needed, loved and ate as much fat as they could get their hands on. Aboriginals have been observed hunting kangaroo for the fat only, and leaving the lean meat.
That may be because wild game does tend to be lean, not like our modern force fed livestock which is very fatty. To the hunter, the fat part is the most prized.

[ceberezin]

This study belongs in the category of having a stranglehold on the obvious. The tragic part is that they couldn't see the obvious right in front of them. The framing of the study is very curious. They were interersted in how to improve glucose tolerance in diabetics. Why . . . so diabetics could continue to eat carbohydrates; so they could continue to believe that a high carbohydrate diet is a "normal" diet?

Their conclusion that "Substances in grains and dairy products . . . interfere with the metabolism of carbohydrates . . ." is very odd. They're barking up the wrong tree. Some of us already know what that substance is. It's the carbohydrates themselves that lead to insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. Had they framed their study to look at insulin levels rather than how to improve glucose tolerance, they wouldn't have come to such odd conclusions.

They're also off on what constituted the paleolithic diet, as many have just noted. I remember reading recently about Indian pemmican, that the plains Indians used to get through the winter. They pounded dried bison meat into airy fibers; then they rendered a large amount of bison fat and added the dried meat fibers to it, sealed it in a skin bag, and buried it to take advantage of natural refrigeration. During winter, they would dig up the bags and eat the pemmican as ther primary food. The mixture was about 80% fat to 20% protein. It is also known that predators eat the offal and fat of their kills, sometimes leaving the lean muscle protein for the scavengers. The idea that the paleolithic diet was low fat is an example bias masqueraing as objectivity.

[mike_d]

Eskimos often ate the fat and gave the lean to their dogs. Also I think modern fruit as almost as unhealthy as processed carbs due to their high sugar content-- Stone Age fruits no longer exist.

http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/fruit.htm

[ruthla]

And just look at the results they got by ditching the grains and dairy- even without including adequate quantities of natural fats or restricting unnaturally sweet fruits!

[LondonIan]

Lies, lies, lies. Paleo hunters needed, loved and ate as much fat as they could get their hands on.It only mentions refined fat.

[LC FP]

Stone Age fruits no longer exist
What a terrible but probably true comment. I'd guess the berries I pick while out walking my dogs were around 10000+ years ago, but I wonder if any commercially available fruits could qualify as healthy in a LC sense? Have all fruits been heavily modified?

[Nancy LC]

Well, I would guess that man and other fruit eaters probably selected the sweetest fruits and then deposited their seeds, either intentionally or not.

[ceberezin]

I once visited an orange "grower" in the Central Valley here in California. What I learned is that orange trees are not grown in the conventional sense; rather, they are constructed. They plant one type of tree for its superior root stock, and then splice in whatever other kind of citrus they want. You could have a single "tree" growing oranges, tangerines, and grapefruits. The fruit is not necessarily grown for sweetness, I also learned. Thr proimary characteristic they were looking for was shelf life and how it looks on the supermarket shelf. If it looks good, people will buy it whether it's the sweetest variety or not.

I would imagine that even wild fruit trees have been affected by thousands of years of hybridization. I think the sour crabapple is probably as close as we could come the the ur-apple. Johnny Appleseed wasn't spreading the growth of crabapples.

[pbowers]

I once visited an orange "grower" in the Central Valley here in California. What I learned is that orange trees are not grown in the conventional sense; rather, they are constructed. They plant one type of tree for its superior root stock, and then splice in whatever other kind of citrus they want. You could have a single "tree" growing oranges, tangerines, and grapefruits. The fruit is not necessarily grown for sweetness, I also learned. Thr proimary characteristic they were looking for was shelf life and how it looks on the supermarket shelf. If it looks good, people will buy it whether it's the sweetest variety or not.

I would imagine that even wild fruit trees have been affected by thousands of years of hybridization. I think the sour crabapple is probably as close as we could come the the ur-apple. Johnny Appleseed wasn't spreading the growth of crabapples.yeah, that's called "grafting".

size (in addition to taste, appearence and shelf life)is another attribute that has been bred into the modern versions of fruit.

[jackie-o]

What a terrible but probably true comment. I'd guess the berries I pick while out walking my dogs were around 10000+ years ago, but I wonder if any commercially available fruits could qualify as healthy in a LC sense? Have all fruits been heavily modified?

I never have liked store-bought fruit much myself. Fruit from the store is tasteless and usually underipe and hard.

As far as fruit being genetically modified I would say it is most likely and that goes for vegetables too even most homemade ones. Sometimes your best bet for non-altered food is to buy or grow non-traditional varieties (at least non-traditional in the U.S.) such as star-fruit, Surinam cherries, qumquats, etc. For instance, you can get just as much vitamin C and a lot less sugar from a qumquat compared to an orange.

[LC FP]

Thanks ce, If I had to guess a fruit that wasn't modified I would have guessed citrus! And thanks Jackie-o, I wondered if there were heritage or non-traditional fruits that were available which might be relatively unmodified. I guess I'll go looking for qumquats!

[RobLL]

Eskimos often ate the fat and gave the lean to their dogs. Also I think modern fruit as almost as unhealthy as processed carbs due to their high sugar content-- Stone Age fruits no longer exist.

http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/fruit.htm

One fairly simple observation on this is in the Pacific Northwest where two kinds of wild blackberries thrive, and in fact overwhelm any patch not weeded, cut back constantly. We can compare that with our native wild black berry, and with cultivated modern blackberries.

A similar comparison can be made with wild huckle berries and wild blueberries versus the cultivated modern blueberry.

The sugar content of all of them are pretty close. Of course Dr. Atkins has long sung the praise of almost all the berries which compared with other fruit have much less sugar.

Even Johnny Appleseed, who was opposed to grafted apples sowed seed that had fairly high sugars. So while what you said is generally true we need to acknowledge that a number of wild and ancient fruits are noted for having a pleasant amount of sweetness to them.

[LC_Dave]

I wonder what the 'variety' consisted of as well.

Like certain tribes or races of humans would have eaten a certain type of fruit on and off.

Evolution occured over an extremely long time.
The 'small world' we have today is an extremely modern invention.

I'm sure we didn't evolve on six servings of fruit and veg a day.

[LilithD]

As for that 'Mediterranian prudent diet', I think it could be safely renamed the 'Mediterranian fantasy of some scientists diet'.

[Dodger]

Johnny Appleseed was not planting apple trees so that people could eat apples. Apple tree planted from seed do not produce fruit that is the same as the tree did that produced the seeds. In general, fruit from apple trees planted from seeds are not very tasty.

The pioneers who settled the areas where Johnny Appleseed had planted apple trees bought the trees from his nurseries so that they could make apple cider. Hard cider was the favorite drink of the settlers.

[eryalen]

Eskimos often ate the fat and gave the lean to their dogs. Also I think modern fruit as almost as unhealthy as processed carbs due to their high sugar content-- Stone Age fruits no longer exist.

http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/fruit.htm
Hi Mike
I beg to differ. To the Inuit their dogs were life itself. In chronicles of explorers who lived the native lifestyle the dogs would have been fed their share or more.

"Crucial to Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was his use of carefully selected sled dogs. Amundsen's canine crew members had been superbly equipped by centuries of natural selection for survival in the Arctic. He referred to them as "our children," and revealed, "The dogs are the most important thing for us. The whole outcome of the expedition depends on them."

[LondonIan]

Oh, paleo fruits and nuts are still around. Bushmen still eat a lot of manketti nuts and grewia berries. And there are some more which are attracting attention again http://www.fadr.msu.ru/rodale/agsieve/txt/vol2/8/art2.html

But getting hold of any would be more than difficult. Any berry that manages to get by without human intevention is probably near enough.

There's an interesting little window into !Kung diet here http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/teach/P380/P380project1C.html
Two days of winter foraging with the !Kung

July is neither the best nor the worst time of year for !Kung subsistence. Winter in the Kalahari is cool and dry. The !Kung congregate in semi-permanent camps near water holes during this season. A number of plantfood staples are available during the winter months, including the important mongongo fruit/nut, and the diet is varied. The crisp, clear days are ideal for walking, visiting relatives in other camps, and tracking and snaring animals.

The camp at the Dobe waterhole had 25 people in it during the two days reported here, grouped in 4 households:

=Toma, his wife N!ai, their 4 children (ages 2, 6, 11, 16), and N!ai's grandmother
K''au and his wife N!uhka and their 2 children (6 mo, 4 years old)
/Twi and his wives //Kushe and /Tasa, their 5 children (ages 1, 5 & 3, 8, 13), /Twi's grandmother, and both of /Tasa' parents
Bo and his wife //Koka, and their first child (1 year old)
Day 1

While the men and older people stayed in camp, the women went gathering in two groups with their children. N!ai and N!uhka picked Grewia berries about an hour's walk from camp. They and the young children ate and picked berries for several hours, taking about 6 litres of berries each back to camp. Each litre (4 cups) of berries yields about 300 grams of edible fruit. On the way home N!ai dug up 11 Tan roots, and N!uhnka dug 8 Tan roots and one Xwa root. The Tan roots ranged between one and two kilos each. The Xwa root was one kilo. Meanwhile, //Koka, //Kushe, and /Tasa had also gone gathering; //Koka brought back 6 babobab fruit and 1 Xwa root, and the others returned with 1 dozen Baobab fruit (each baobab fruit weighs 100-200 grams), and 2 Xwa roots between them. =Toma and /Twi's eldest children collected 6 small bird's eggs, two lizards of 200 grams each, and 50 Ts'in bean pods (750g edible seeds) together.

Day 2

=Toma, N!ai, //Koka and their children walked 4 hours to the Mongongo grove and carried back 30 kg of whole nuts to the camp. With the help of grandmother, they roasted and cracked some of the nuts that afternoon, providing about 1500 g of nutmeats for N!ai's family and 500 g for //Koka's family. N!uhka and /Tasa and their children picked and ate Grewia berries for several hours, each bringing back a quart of berries to share with their families that evening. /Twi had gone hunting and killed a small antelope (15 kg whole carcass 6 kg meat and some marrow bones), which he brought back to camp and shared with all the families.


For some pictures and more info on these foodstuff, presented in an easily digested form :), this is pretty good. http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant476/topics/Foragers.pdf

[kebaldwin]

How Stone Age Eating May Help You Beat Diabetes

Daily Mail

07-03-07

THE diet favoured by our Stone Age ancestors could help millions avoid diabetes, it was claimed yesterday. Researchers say eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish and lean meat is the perfect way to prevent the onset of the condition. The 'Stone Age diet' is even better than the low fat Mediterranean diet favoured by doctors, the scientists say. Around two million Britons are thought to suffer from type 2 diabetes - the version which usually develops in middle age.

It occurs when the body is unable to process blood sugar properly and can lead to heart and kidney disease, blindness and nerve damage. Scientists tested a typical prehistoric diet on 14 patients suffering from symptoms of the disease. They were asked to avoid cereals, dairy products, refined fat and sugar which provide most of the calories of the modern diet. Over 12 weeks, the researchers compared the volunteers with 15 patients given a Mediterranean diet of whole grain cereals, low fat dairy products, fruit, vegetables and unsaturated fats.

At the start of the trial, both groups suffered from steep rises in blood sugar after eating carbohydrates and most had symptoms of diabetes. However, after 12 weeks, the blood sugar peaks were 26 per cent less severe in the Stone Age diet group than before, the Swedish researchers found. In contrast, the glucose surges only dropped by 7 per cent for those on the Mediterranean diet. At the end of the study, all the patients in the prehistoric group had normal blood glucose.

But because the diet has no dairy produce, there is a serious risk of calcium and vitamin D deficiency. The findings are more evidence that our bodies are badly suited to cope with the modern Western diet. Cereals, milk, refined fat and sugar only became staple foods when agriculture was developed 9,000 years ago - a blink of the eye in evolutionary terms.

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=5556&Section=NUTRITION