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It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

sciencebasedmedicine.org

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Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#81

Post by freyr »

analog wrote: post #62
edem wrote: post #28

I think that you miss the point here: If paleo diet is not the silver bullet than what diet should I have? I'm not a paleo advocate by the way. I tried it out but I'm not having a paleo diet at the moment. I'm still trying to find some alternate diet which is proven to be healthy. It seems that this may be one of the most difficult endeavor I've ever undertaken. Any suggestions?

Has anyone claimed that the Paleo diet is unhealthy ? From what I've seen the only complaints against it are that the claimed reason for it's effectiveness are not well supported. I don't have any studies but it certainly seems healthier than the high-carb, low-fat diet which was promoted by the medical establishment for so long.

For what it's worth, U.S. World & News Report annualy assembles a panel of diet and health experts (http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/experts) to judge a variety diets. In 2011 and 2012, the paleo diet ranked as the worst. The criteria were health, weight-loss, and ease of following. In terms of nutrition, safety, rating for diabetes, and rating for heart health, it scored a 2/5, 2.3/5, 2.1/5, and 2/5 respectively.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#82

Post by potatolicious »

up_and_up wrote: post #34

The problem with "Evidence Based Medicine" vs CAM are two-fold, according to my friend who is an MD in internal medicine at the local VA. 1. 'Evidenced based' medicine is not really 'Evidenced based' because (again this is according to an MD) 50% of what they practice has not been subjected to scientific study. 2. Also there is not the time nor funding to test every aspect and modality of CAM. So some CAM practice mi…

You're really going to base your entire argument around the purported statements of your doctor friend whose identity, statements, and views cannot be verified?

You'ved made multiple comments in this thread that amount to exactly "nuh-uh! my doctor friend said!"

In the spirit of yesterday's fallacy thread, this is both a (bad) appeal to authority and using anecdote as data.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#83

Post by hmsimha »

saalweachter wrote: post #19
stiff wrote: post #9

Calling the "naturalistic fallacy" a fallacy is a bit of an overstretch IMO, sure natural=better is not a rule true 100% of the time, but nevertheless until sufficient evidence has not been accumulated that some of the adjustments we make to our lifestyle are not harmful to us health-wise avoiding them is not an unreasonable heuristic to follow. One example is how it became clear in the last years in nutritional scie…

The problem with herbalism is that it's the first place science-based medicine went looking for drugs. For basically any herb and effect someone ascribes to it, there have already been twenty rigorous studies, and either no statistical effect was found or the responsible chemicals were extracted, purified, concentrated, and synthesized and are now marketed under two brand names and three generics. Going to herbs dire…

The idea that plants can always be reduced to merely one of their components is an oversimplification. Ask anyone who smokes marijuana why different 'strains' of the plant have different effects, or why Marinol (the pharmaceutical name for THC) is perhaps more dangerous and less helpful or pleasant than the complex cocktail of cannabanoids in their natural delivery[1]. It's also why I'll drink green tea over taking green tea extract any day.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinol#Marinol

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#84

Post by Nursie »

MDS100 wrote: post #77
Nursie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't. Do you know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.

Some things do work and are not yet accepted in medicine. Herbal medicine etc.pp. Often it's just hard to patent and/or isn't financially lucrative to get FDA approval. Also lifestyle in general is terribly handled in medicine. MDs know nearly nothing about what matters and what they should recommend. They are decades behind the available evidence.

Some herbal medicine may work. Without proper studies we don't know.

I agree that lifestyle stuff is important, can be handled by none MD folks, and can have a huge impact on life and health in general. What gets my goat is the CAM proponents who claim they can cure anything and everything with their woo.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#85

Post by robbiep »

darkarmani wrote: post #53
robbiep wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is well known in cardiovascular surgery circles that islander diets (which have high levels of coconut oil) have vey high levels of atherosclerosis. I have heard this comment many times in 4 years of medical school, and seen many islander patients (Australia has a deal with the French Government to perform tertiary care of New Caledonians) however have yet to come across a source for it

I think the Paleo argument is that it is the interaction of certain saturated fats and insulin response from high glycemic index foods that oxidize LDL cholesterol (?). I don't know any of the science here, so i could be paraphrasing wrong, but I'd love understand if this is as fringe as it sounds.

Ah I see your point. I have some time tomorrow (bt 12-18 hrs from now) so will see what I can find specifically regarding this if you'd care to check back here,

In the meantime here's some science of atherosclerosis -

high glycemic index foods - scrap that - glucose and fructose in general is are reactive molecules - they are often drawn as a 6-carbon circle in organic chem but are actually moving in and out of a ionically bonded circle and a linear structure which is very reactive.

It is relatively well understood that the 6 carbon carbohydrates are reactive enough to be capable of causing endothelial damage which can set off the inflammatory cascade that leads to atherosclerosis and high LDL levels will further exacerbate the problem.

Come to think of it, maybe this answers your question?

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#87

Post by Udo »

rdtsc wrote: post #71
Udo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really refuse to accept that women are just "wired for faith", it sounds too similar to the Victorian notion that somehow women are naturally wired for irrationality. There has to be a social reason why this spreads among women, there is a gap somewhere in science education that leaves women more vulnerable to this. And I actually watched it spread. The transmission seems to be helped by exploiting trusted relation…

Both religious and C/AM people usually have an approachable simple, clear way of presenting their (irrational) thesis to an average person. Just like salesmen, they appeal to trust, basic needs, use the right words like (clean, pure, natural) for their approach and the right words for the opposite approach (chemical, poisonous, toxic). For homeopathy, stupid little slogans for disease models work "fight fire with fir…

> I understand your reaction against GP's opinion that he noticed more women in his circles are susceptible to this.

Yeah, I am the GP though.

I cede that I'm always very skeptical about this "X are just wired for Y" stuff. Historically, this has always been used to discriminate against groups of people, and also historically these assertions have so far always turned out false. This is why I'm assuming a cultural background to this problem, not a physiological one. Just because something happens a lot doesn't mean the reasons are not cultural.

> I think there is self-fulfilling circular dependency between the idea that women are wired to be irrational and girl acting that way because the society already has that belief.

I agree absolutely.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#88

Post by ef4 »

My objection to this article is that it's posing a false dichotomy. Choosing our diet based purely on good solid science is not an option, because our scientific knowledge is still too limited. Any honest scientists will admit there's still a lot of complexity we don't fully understand. Which is precisely why there's so much exciting research going on right now (example: https://twitter.com/whsource)

Wherever we have solid evidence it absolutely needs to win out. But that's not the issue here. What we have here is a lot of fuzzy, plausible ideas that are extremely difficult to prove via experiment.

If you want to say categorically that "the paleo diet" (or almost any other) is good or bad, then you need to do a gigantic, long-term, prospective, randomized study of actual human beings. Which is not practical.

So we're left doing the best we can. We rely on heuristics to fill in the gaps. Eating the same things that your ancestors ate is not a bad start. (Granted, that's not necessarily "paleo").

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#89

Post by stiff »

klodolph wrote: post #78
stiff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you mention family planning, it's actually a great example for what I am saying. Pull out might not be the best strategy for avoiding kids, but also effectively avoiding kids isn't something too heavily promoted by evolution ;) and in a sense you wouldn't do bad to stick to it if survival is the ultimate goal. You mention how modern drugs are rigorously tested, but just recently there was a big affair abou…

Yes, you can name a drug with bad side effects. FDA isn't 100% effective, my point is that the standards for herbal remedies are comparatively worse than those for "modern" drugs. Kava has been linked to liver failure, Comfrey causes liver damage, Chaparral causes liver damage, and Pennyroyal is basically toxic. St John's Wort has so many interactions it's basically unsafe to take in conjunction with anything. On top…

Then when you talk about the pull-out method of family planning, you say it's a good technique because you'll have kids. That's some impressive double-speak. Next you'll tell me that Caffeine is a good sleep aid because evolution wants you to be more productive.

I didn't phrase it clear enough, I admit, but what I meant is only that avoiding contraceptive pills would free you from the exposure to the pretty bad side effect they turned out to have even though they were supposedly well tested. I just used it as an illustration of my point that being a bit sceptical towards the very new lifestyle approaches is not a bad rule of thumb in abscence of other considerations.

I also of course agree herbs can have serious side effects. You really seem to want to turn it into an X vs Y thing where there has to be one winner. I just want to say that despite all the bad press science seems to indicate using herbs in some particular situations in particular ways might be very beneficial.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#90

Post by jimworm »

up_and_up wrote: post #34

The problem with "Evidence Based Medicine" vs CAM are two-fold, according to my friend who is an MD in internal medicine at the local VA. 1. 'Evidenced based' medicine is not really 'Evidenced based' because (again this is according to an MD) 50% of what they practice has not been subjected to scientific study. 2. Also there is not the time nor funding to test every aspect and modality of CAM. So some CAM practice mi…

Just because current conventional medicine isn't entirely evidence-based does not excuse the claims of CAM from the requirement for evidence.

Note that when an MD gives this statement: "take these antibiotics, then get some bed rest and take plenty of fluids", 2/3rds of the advice given is likely not based on evidence, yet there is a huge difference between that and a recommendation not based on any evidence at all.

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