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She is said to be followed by Matthew McConaughey, Uma Thurman and Miley Cyrus. And some restaurants in the West are already serving special “caveman dishes.” The idea behind the new fad diet is to eat only foods that were available to our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors during the Paleolithic era. What do scientists think about this?
The main argument of the proponents of the Paleo diet, in short, is this. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors ate what they could get through hunting and gathering. The emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry greatly enriched the human diet. But genetically, his body remained the same as it was in the Stone Age, and over the next 10 thousand years it could not adapt to new products. We pay the price of malnutrition with stress, obesity and disease, primarily such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. This means that we need to return to our roots, to the healthy lifestyle of our forefathers-hunters. For example, go to bed at sunset and get up at sunrise, practice walking barefoot, and so on. Well, this is already a maximum program, and a minimum is a revision of your diet.
Bonuses
What is allowed on the paleo diet? Lean meats, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, some types of nuts, seeds. Dairy products, all grains and legumes, refined sugar, other industrial products, all kinds of artificial additives are prohibited.
Adherents of the diet promise truly wonderful bonuses – increased energy, increased brain function, physical strength and, in general, improved health. Skeptics point out that such nutrition is very expensive, sticking to it is not so easy, and balance is in question.
Harmful or helpful?
US scientists have compared the Paleo diet to the traditional American diet and found some of its benefits. Indeed, it helps to lose weight much faster, improve the figure, and besides, lower blood pressure and normalize blood sugar levels, according to a report from the University of California at San Francisco.
Swedish scientists conducted a long-term study and also found the benefits of the Paleo diet compared to the traditional high-carbohydrate Scandinavian diet. In particular, it contributes to a rapid decrease in blood levels of triglycerides – lipids, the high content of which poses a threat of cardiovascular disease.
However, Swedish scientists do not see any miracles here. One of the authors of the study Caroline Mellberg (Caroline Mellberg) from the University of Umeå says that the results did not surprise them, because the Paleo diet eliminates almost all of the most unhealthy foods, including “junk food” (high-calorie food with low biological value). “Follow any diet that bans this ‘junk’ and you’ll get the same positive results,” she says.
Some nutritionists say there is no scientific basis for avoiding dairy products, legumes and grains. It remains to be seen what health consequences this may lead to. “These foods contain important nutrients that have been proven many times over,” says Stephanie Maxson, lead clinical nutritionist at the Cancer Center. Anderson in Houston, Texas.
She doesn’t rule out that the Paleo diet may well offer healthy eating. However, like many other experts, he believes that the restrictions that this diet imposes are unnecessary: “It is too difficult to follow. When your grocery list is so narrow, it’s very tempting to break down and snap.”
* Sourced from time.com