Search

The aim of this systematic review was to examine the characteristics of Paleolithic diet (PD) interventions designed for adult patients with autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) in order to determine if diet elements have the potential to successfully reduce thyroid antibodies (Ab) such as thyroglobulin (Tg), thyroid peroxidase (TPO), and thyroid stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR), and improve thyroid hormones (thyroxine (T4), triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)) or resolve AITD pathogenesis. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with an adult population of 18 years and older, diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) or Graves' disease (GD) (Basedow's), who were placed on a diet of Paleolithic or ancestral nature, and achieved reduction of AITD Abs, improvement of thyroid hormones, and, or resolution of AITD were searched. Various electronic databases were used. Bias was assessed using critical appraisal tools from the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Studies were excluded according to exclusion criteria and results analyzed. One randomized controlled trial (RCT), a pilot study, and six case studies were found. In total, eight AITD studies focusing on Paleolithic or ancestral interventions were located. In highlight, females were the predominant gender. Case studies solely focused on AITD with protocols ranging from 8–60 weeks. All studies showed clinical improvements, one had significant improvement, two showed AITD resolution. After structured evaluation of nutritional interventions utilizing the PD on the effects of AITD, it was concluded foods of ancestral nature along with the addition of specific supplements, food components, exercise and mindfulness meditation, and exclusion of modern day foods have a considerable impact on thyroid Ab and hormones. The relevant studies suggest while this dietary protocol can be useful in clinical practice, larger-scale studies need to be conducted. There are currently no dietary interventions recommended for the treatment of autoimmune thyroid disease. The Paleo diet has been documented to improve AITD antibodies and thyroid hormones in both Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease. The Paleo diet can provide a natural source of nutrients similar to supplemental nutrients that have shown positive results on AITD. The paleo diet provides specific macronutrient percentages that may be beneficial in reducing AITD antibodies, while improving thyroid hormones. Methylation supplementation may be useful in AITD cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dietary regimes are frequently likened to religious movements on account of the fervor of advocates' adherence, and their enthusiastic proselytizing. Yet, beyond this somewhat pejorative use of the metaphor, analysis of the quasi-religious nature of diets can provide a valuable window into the subjective experiences of individuals undertaking stringent dietary regimes. Among Australian Paleo dieters, the increase in chronic illness and obesity prevalence is perceived as indicative of societal disorder, with the breakdown of the body reflecting broader economic, political and social malaise. The Paleo diet's embedded moralism provides an explanatory apparatus that makes sense of the world through notions of good and evil, in this way satisfying dieters' desires for cosmological meaning within their experiences of suffering. This moral symbolism filters into constructions of food as either pure or polluting, with "clean" eating and Paleo lifestyle transformations serving as quotidian expressions of agency, and a means of resistance to societal ills. The Paleo diet consequently exemplifies how the functions of traditional religion can be fulfilled by dietary practices within secular communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most women in the United States do not meet the recommendations for healthful nutrition and weight before and during pregnancy. Women and providers often ask what a healthy diet for a pregnant woman should look like. The message should be "eat better, not more." This can be achieved by basing diet on a variety of nutrient-dense, whole foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, healthy fats with omega-3 fatty acids that include nuts and seeds, and fish, in place of poorer quality highly processed foods. Such a diet embodies nutritional density and is less likely to be accompanied by excessive energy intake than the standard American diet consisting of increased intakes of processed foods, fatty red meat, and sweetened foods and beverages. Women who report "prudent" or "health-conscious" eating patterns before and/or during pregnancy may have fewer pregnancy complications and adverse child health outcomes. Comprehensive nutritional supplementation (multiple micronutrients plus balanced protein energy) among women with inadequate nutrition has been associated with improved birth outcomes, including decreased rates of low birthweight. A diet that severely restricts any macronutrient class should be avoided, specifically the ketogenic diet that lacks carbohydrates, the Paleo diet because of dairy restriction, and any diet characterized by excess saturated fats. User-friendly tools to facilitate a quick evaluation of dietary patterns with clear guidance on how to address dietary inadequacies and embedded support from trained healthcare providers are urgently needed. Recent evidence has shown that although excessive gestational weight gain predicts adverse perinatal outcomes among women with normal weight, the degree of prepregnancy obesity predicts adverse perinatal outcomes to a greater degree than gestational weight gain among women with obesity. Furthermore, low body mass index and insufficient gestational weight gain are associated with poor perinatal outcomes. Observational data have shown that first-trimester gain is the strongest predictor of adverse outcomes. Interventions beginning in early pregnancy or preconception are needed to prevent downstream complications for mothers and their children. For neonates, human milk provides personalized nutrition and is associated with short- and long-term health benefits for infants and mothers. Eating a healthy diet is a way for lactating mothers to support optimal health for themselves and their infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paleolithic diet, characterized by an emphasis on hunter-gatherer type foods accompanied by an exclusion of grains, dairy products, and highly processed food items, is often promoted for weight loss and a reduction in cardiometabolic disease risk factors. Specific adipokines, such as adiponectin, omentin, nesfatin, and vaspin are reported to be dysregulated with obesity and may respond favorably to diet-induced fat loss. We aimed to evaluate the effects of an eight-week Paleolithic dietary intervention on circulating adiponectin, omentin, nesfatin, and vaspin in a cohort of physically inactive, but otherwise healthy adults. Methods: Seven inactive adults participated in eight weeks of adherence to the Paleolithic Diet. Fasting blood samples, anthropometric, and body composition data were collected from each participant pre-and post-intervention. Serum adiponectin, omentin, nesfatin, and vaspin were measured. Results: After eight weeks of following the Paleolithic diet, there were reductions (p<0.05) in relative body fat (-4.4%), waist circumference (- 5.9 cm), and sum of skinfolds (-36.8 mm). No changes were observed in waist to hip ratio (WHR), or in adiponectin, omentin, and nesfatin (p>0.05), while serum vaspin levels for all participants were undetectable. Conclusions: It is possible that although eight weeks resulted in modest body composition changes, short-term fat loss will not induce changes in adiponectin, omentin, and nesfatin in apparently healthy adults. Larger, long-term intervention studies that examine Paleolithic diet-induced changes across sex, body composition, and in populations with metabolic dysregulation are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of environmental anxiety, "re-wilding" has emerged as an ecological health and resiliency strategy across scales in the Anthropocene, from the human body to the planet. At the scale of the body, this has meant a reevaluation of dietary, consumption, and lifestyle behaviors among concerned consumers seeking to create healthy, resilient bodily ecosystems. Recent health trends including the Paleo Diet and Ancestral Health movements call upon an evolutionary perspective for insight as to how to re-wild one's bodily ecosystem in the face of ecological crisis across scales, using the Paleolithic era as a benchmark for dietary and behavioral re-wilding. This paper draws upon interviews with individuals adhering to a Paleo Diet to better understand whether and how the evolutionary discourse of Paleo influences their beliefs about healthy diet and lifestyles, and how they grapple with re-wilding in an urban context. This paper elucidates the paradoxical "ancestral futurism" of the Paleo movement, where re-wilding bodies and lifestyles in the name of health and sustainability is predicated upon the same technologies, spaces, political-economic structure, and human agency that created the messy ecological uncertainty of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins Diet were especially popular in English-speaking developed countries in the 1990s and 2000s. The popular low-carbohydrate literature displays a strong discourse of "nutritionalprimitivism": that is, pursuit of supposedly simpler, more natural and authentic ways of eating, as part of a quest for health. Nutritional primitivism includes evolutionary explanations for obesity and type 2 diabetes and arguments based on nutritional anthropology. This paper explores low-carbohydrate dieters' responses to nutritional primitivism, based on an interview study late in the low-carbohydrate trend. Although some interviewees accepted nutritional primitivism unproblematically, most approached such ideas critically and skeptically--cause for cautious celebration given the problems of logic, evidence and (on occasion) racism in the primitivist discourse of the low-carbohydrate literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paleolithic diet is a modern nutritional diet developed on the basis of human and primate evolution. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting the Paleolithic diet may have beneficial effects on risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. Some authors claim the modern model of Paleolithic diet has an ergogenic potential (i.e. it may enhance physical performance), especially with regard to its high content of branched-chain amino acids, alkalizing properties as well as limited amount of antinutrients, and the appropriate omega-6/ omega-3 fatty acids ratio. Gaining the benefits regarded as unique for the Paleolithic diet may not always be associated with complete exclusion of cereals, milk, dairy products and legumes. The diet is particularly recommended for endurance athletes and athletes for whom maintaining low adiposity is priority. Moreover, periodical adherence to the Paleolithic diet may enhance the flexibility of utilization of energy substrates in endurance sports. More extensive research on physically active individuals may provide more solid evidence on the ergogenic potential of the Paleolithic diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paleolithic (Paleo) diet is one modeled after the perceived food consumption of early human ancestors of the Paleolithic Era, consisting of mainly meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, eggs, and nuts. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a Paleo diet on blood lipids, including high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), non-HDL cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and the ratio between TC and HDL (TC/HDL) in a healthy population. Healthy subjects of both genders (24 males, 20 females) were asked to eat an ad libitum Paleo diet for 10 weeks. Prior to the intervention, body weight, body fat percentage (BF%), maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max), TC, TG, HDL, and LDL were measured. These measurements were repeated following 10 weeks of a Paleo diet. As a whole, there was a significant increase in non-HDL (107.1±6.0 mg/dL to 120.2±6.5 mg/dL; P<0.01), LDL (93.1±5.4 mg/dL to 105.6±6.1 mg/dL; P<0.01), TC/HDL (3.0±0.2 to 3.3±0.2; P<0.05), and TC (168.8±5.4 mg/dL to 178.9±6.6 mg/dL; P<0.05) in healthy subjects following a Paleo diet. When stratified into groups based on initial blood lipid levels, deleterious changes were found in those with optimal HDL (82.1±3.2 mg/dL to 68.6±4.8 mg/dL; P<0.05), non-HDL (86.6±3.9 mg/dL to 101.4±4.8 mg/dL; P<0.01), TC (157.2±0.7 to 168.2±0.9 mg/dL; P<0.05), TC/HDL (2.5±0.1 to 2.7±0.1; P<0.05), and LDL (69.1±3.1 mg/dL to 83.5±4.1 mg/dL; P<0.01), whereas those within sub-optimal stratifications showed no significant changes. Subjects also decreased body weight (80.7±2.6 kg to 77.5±2.4 kg; P<0.001) and BF% (24.3±1.2% to 20.7±1.2%; P < 0.05). Our results demonstrate that an ad libitum unrestricted Paleo diet intervention is associated with deleterious changes to blood lipids in healthy subjects, despite concurrent improvements in body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness. Future research should focus on determining recommendations that embrace the positive aspects of the Paleo diet, while minimizing any deleterious impact on blood lipids in a healthy population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on wellness industry a target for the spreading of white nationalist ideas. It mentions Paleo diet positions foods that are not organic as impure, and holds a preference for positive messaging and spread ability of memes in relation to white nationalist symbolism. It also mentions a television series "My Kitchen Rules," a show that ran from 2010-2020, hosted by Pete Evans is a famous Australian TV Chef.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "A Healthy Business" in the February 2015 issue.