It might be true if the so-called paleo diets resembled actual old diets. But they don’t. Even in paleolithic times human diets varied by region. And many of the crops included in paleo diets didn’t exist in the cultivars and forms they exist in now. See for example this talk.
It’s not a binary thing. Eating a diet consisting mostly of grass-fed meat, seafood, and vegetables is a lot closer to what our ancestors ate than the standard American diet is.
As James_Miller said, it’s not a binary thing. Paleo-style diets are closer—not identical—to actual paleolithic diets (compared, say, to SAD).
The point of paleo isn’t really to pretend to be a caveman though reading some promotional materials will give you that idea. The point is to get rid of food which the humans have encountered only recently in evolutionary terms.
Paleo certainly doesn’t go all the way (for one thing you’d have to exclude pretty much all cultivated fruits to start with), but makes a step, and it’s debatable how big of a step, in that direction.
I can’t back up any of this with solid citations but: If our ancestors have been eating a food for a very long time that’s Bayesian evidence that the food is safe. We have been eating meat for so long that it seems likely parts of us are dependent on stuff we can get only from meat. Cancer, heart disease, and strokes seem to be mostly diseases of civilization that were relatively rare among hunter-gatherers who ate their traditional diets. Things go really badly for hunter-gatherers who switch from their traditional diets to modern diets. Wheat is cheap to grow so even if it is unhealthy it’s understandable that it would be widely consumed. It’s also understandable that sugar, being a superstimulus would be widely consumed even if it is unhealthy. Lots of people who try paleo succeed in loosing weight. The modern obesity epidemic shows something is very wrong with SAD (Standard American Diet) and paleo offers a tried and true safe harbor.
Cancer and heart disease are diseases of longevity. Why expect paleo to help with them when there’s every reason to believe longevity wasn’t a part of that environment?
Cancer and heart disease are diseases of longevity.
I don’t have data at hand, but I think that’s true only partially. Yes, the prevalence of cancer and CVD is a function of the age of the population, but as far as I remember, even after you control for age, they still show up as diseases of civilization with the “primitive” societies having considerably lesser age-adjusted rates.
At least one causal pathway for that is visible: diabetes and the metabolic syndrome in general are clearly diseases of civilization and they are strong risk factors for CVD (I don’t know about cancer).
Interesting—I’ve modeled all cancer in my mind as vaguely similar to testicular cancer—one is likely to get it, but unlikely to die of it unless you survive many other potential causes of death.
In other words, I’m not sure if the data we care about is prevalence-of-cancer or prevalence-of-cancer-deaths.
On reflection, I think the assertion under question is essentially “Paleo diet creates more QUALYs.” Which should be answered in part by how much prevalence of cancer effects quality of life even if the cancer was not a causal factor in death.
I’ve modeled all cancer in my mind as vaguely similar to testicular cancer—one is likely to get it, but unlikely to die
Cancer is really cancers—it’s a class of diseases which are pretty diverse. Some are slow and rarely actually kill people (e.g. prostate cancer), some are fast and highly lethal.
I’m not sure if the data we care about is prevalence-of-cancer or prevalence-of-cancer-deaths.
I think we care about prevalence of cancer (morbidity) because the prevalence of cancer deaths (mortality) heavily depends on the progress in medicine and availability of medical services.
how much prevalence of cancer effects quality of life
While I don’t have the stats, I think that 50,000 years ago if you lived to 30, you had a reasonable chance of living to 70, and cancer and heart disease kill lots of people under 70.
Is this because there’s no reason to think that it should be better or because there are contrasting data?
Because of the limits of nutritional science where they can’t run long randomized experiments on people. The theoretical case for paleo is excellent.
It might be true if the so-called paleo diets resembled actual old diets. But they don’t. Even in paleolithic times human diets varied by region. And many of the crops included in paleo diets didn’t exist in the cultivars and forms they exist in now. See for example this talk.
It’s not a binary thing. Eating a diet consisting mostly of grass-fed meat, seafood, and vegetables is a lot closer to what our ancestors ate than the standard American diet is.
As James_Miller said, it’s not a binary thing. Paleo-style diets are closer—not identical—to actual paleolithic diets (compared, say, to SAD).
The point of paleo isn’t really to pretend to be a caveman though reading some promotional materials will give you that idea. The point is to get rid of food which the humans have encountered only recently in evolutionary terms.
Paleo certainly doesn’t go all the way (for one thing you’d have to exclude pretty much all cultivated fruits to start with), but makes a step, and it’s debatable how big of a step, in that direction.
Could you provide some solid evidence? I’ve never found something that didn’t crumble at the first investigation.
I can’t back up any of this with solid citations but: If our ancestors have been eating a food for a very long time that’s Bayesian evidence that the food is safe. We have been eating meat for so long that it seems likely parts of us are dependent on stuff we can get only from meat. Cancer, heart disease, and strokes seem to be mostly diseases of civilization that were relatively rare among hunter-gatherers who ate their traditional diets. Things go really badly for hunter-gatherers who switch from their traditional diets to modern diets. Wheat is cheap to grow so even if it is unhealthy it’s understandable that it would be widely consumed. It’s also understandable that sugar, being a superstimulus would be widely consumed even if it is unhealthy. Lots of people who try paleo succeed in loosing weight. The modern obesity epidemic shows something is very wrong with SAD (Standard American Diet) and paleo offers a tried and true safe harbor.
Cancer and heart disease are diseases of longevity. Why expect paleo to help with them when there’s every reason to believe longevity wasn’t a part of that environment?
I don’t have data at hand, but I think that’s true only partially. Yes, the prevalence of cancer and CVD is a function of the age of the population, but as far as I remember, even after you control for age, they still show up as diseases of civilization with the “primitive” societies having considerably lesser age-adjusted rates.
At least one causal pathway for that is visible: diabetes and the metabolic syndrome in general are clearly diseases of civilization and they are strong risk factors for CVD (I don’t know about cancer).
Interesting—I’ve modeled all cancer in my mind as vaguely similar to testicular cancer—one is likely to get it, but unlikely to die of it unless you survive many other potential causes of death.
In other words, I’m not sure if the data we care about is prevalence-of-cancer or prevalence-of-cancer-deaths.
On reflection, I think the assertion under question is essentially “Paleo diet creates more QUALYs.” Which should be answered in part by how much prevalence of cancer effects quality of life even if the cancer was not a causal factor in death.
Cancer is really cancers—it’s a class of diseases which are pretty diverse. Some are slow and rarely actually kill people (e.g. prostate cancer), some are fast and highly lethal.
I think we care about prevalence of cancer (morbidity) because the prevalence of cancer deaths (mortality) heavily depends on the progress in medicine and availability of medical services.
My impression is that the answer is “a lot”.
While I don’t have the stats, I think that 50,000 years ago if you lived to 30, you had a reasonable chance of living to 70, and cancer and heart disease kill lots of people under 70.
“Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination”, Gurven & Kaplan 2007; might be helpful.
Good article. Quotes: