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The Cavemen Diet is Legit

Many of today's health maladies, particularly heart disease and diabetes, can be significantly reduced by switching to a diet centered on pr

While working out at Club Sport San Ramon on Sunday, I watched a nice segment on CBS local about the Paleolithic Diet and “Modern Ancestral” movement.

It caught my attention because I, too, try to follow the dietary and movement patterns of ancient man for the purpose of staying healthy. I also read the book, Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson, an advocate of the movement and author of a popular blog, marksdailyapple.com. Sisson was featured in the news segment, stating that he “never met a saturated fat he didn’t like.”

As a health care practitioner, this is the diet that I recommend to most of my patients. In my chiropractic office, I see patients who complain of various forms of pain, and in most cases, there is no recent injury to blame. What I do see are excess pounds placing pressure on feet, knees, hips, and lower back; weak bones and tendons that don’t regenerate well, and deconditioned postural muscles that don’t do a good job of protecting the spine.

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Oftentimes there are related problems like high blood pressure and borderline diabetes. In these cases, I encourage them to switch to a diet centered on protein, good fats, including saturated fats, and plants, which is essentially the “caveman” diet we hear about.

Now I know this will ruffle the feathers of some vegans and vegetarians. I have Indian friends who find eating meat abhorrent. But, my philosophy is to research, learn, try, and if it makes sense and works, commit to it! No offense to those who disagree; life is all about making choices. Whenever I stick to animals and plants only, I feel like I have the most energy. And, I don’t get that afternoon sluggish feeling that I get when I eat a high carbohydrate meal.

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The ancestral movement is based on the belief that our genes are hard-coded from 85+ million years of ancestral human behavior. Genes are what makes the body what it is, and how it functions on the cellular level (i.e., what foods the body prefers). For millons of years, early man subsisted on meat, roots, and plants. They hunted the plains for wooly mammoths and small game; insects, eggs, and tried local vegetation. The discovery of grain and how it could be ground into flour to make bread (agriculture) didn’t come on the scene until about 10,000 years ago, thanks to the Sumatrans and Eygptians. But by this time, the human genetic code was already set and designed for protein and plant digestion.

The CBS local segment concluded that saturated fat (meat, fat, butter, cream, nuts) can actually be good for you. A study done at UCSF showed that those on a paleolithic-centered diet improved their cholesterol and triglyceride scores, blood sugar and insulin levels, and lowered their blood pressure, and not just a little, but dramatically. I know it sounds counter to what we’ve been told for so many generations -- that red meat is bad for you -- but our history as a country is full of examples of this kind of misinformation. And, we were smart to correct it each time.

Dan Perez, DC

(925) 735-8508

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