Without doubt, a primary benefit of the paleo diet is the elimination of grains (which contain inflammatory protein--gluten--and plant-defense toxins called lectins).

The high (good) fat aspect of the paleo diet also plays a big role in increasing HDL and lowering triglycerides. These good fats including animal fats, saturated fats (mistaken painted as bad-guy fats), omega-3's, omega-9's (like olive oil and avocado oil), while greatly reducing the inflammatory processed omega-6 oils (corn and soy oil, among numerous others).

The paleo diet also rules out any processed form of fructose:
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/10/4/294.pdf

i have eliminated wheat and all grains as you have suggested and my lipid profile from recent NMR has improved: HDL jumped from 40to 54; LDLC of 94 up from 93, and Trg dropped to 20 from 37 and large HDL-P increased from 3.3 to 14.8, particle number dropped from1795 to 1305, but they still remain all small particles.  LDL particle size unchanged at 19.7. So some good things from elimination of wheat and grains, but no change in particle size.  At 5'6" male and 145lbs, hard to lose weight.  Any suggestions on how to change particle size and lower number of particles further? diet is meat fish eggs poultry, whey powder, hard cheese, greek 2% yogurt and fruit and veggies, some red wine and dark(85%+ chocolate)  Vitamin D3 measures at 38(25oh). with family history, doc wants 20 mg Lipitor.  Excellent post in both cases. Perhpas Paleo not work for all, although Eades would say i should add more sat fat to diet

I love reading in more and more places that saturated fats are not evil!

The word is getting out, and one of these days, dietary researchers won't have to apologize about their results or come up with elaborate strategies to make sure that they can't be perceived as saying that saturated fat might be (gasp!) good for you.

Remember the Okinawans.  Previous generations of Okinawans are among the longest lived people on the planet.  Pork, fish, non-starchy vegetables (cooked in lard), and a little bit of rice make up almost all of their diet.

Dr. Davis, it wasn't that long ago that you were very cautious about fats and saturated fats, but I've seen a substantial shift in your comments over the past several months.  I salute your resolve to really understand what is good for our hearts and then going beyond that by doing your best to communicate what you've learned back to everyone who will listen/read.

This is the first time I have seen someone call out Gluten as the component of wheat that causes inflammation response.  Good to know as it is often a primary source of protein for vegetarians.

I don't see the fructose argument though.  This is a simple sugar that is broken down to glucose in the digestive tract like any other sugar eaten; according to high-school human biology......

Dr Davis,

Do low carb eaters need to be concerned about the aging effects of oxoaldehydes such as methylglyoxal?

I read recently that the concentration of such compounds increases during ketosis and that they are much more reactive than glucose, readily forming protein cross links which age the body.

-- Tom

Some people may be wondering how it was that eating wheat and other high fibre grains caused humans to become weaker, shorter and fatter.

This paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6299329 Reduced plasma half-life of radio-labelled 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 in subjects receiving a high-fibre diet.
unearthed by Stephan at Whole Health Source, provides one possible explanation as it shows a high-fibre diet reduces the half-life of 25(OH)D3 thus speeding up vitamin d deficiency.

Yes!  I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Eades commentary on that study.  Although I do wish that study authors wouldn't obsess so much over saturated fat.

Steven from http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ also did a bang up review.  His blog is also quite fantastic.  He did a series on Tokelau Island migrant studies that was very interesting.  They are a people that eat quite a lot of saturated fat, from coconut, and yet had virtually no heart disease.

I cut out wheat a long time ago but haven't had blood work recently.  If cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease, why worry about it?  Why eliminate saturated fats if they're not contributing to atherosclerosis?

kevin

The wheat connection is interesting, it's far and away the worst grain for spiking my glucose levels, even wheat bran will do it.

My athlete cousin is already showing signs of the familial insulin resistance in her thirties and while she stuffs her body with far more carbs than I do she has noticed a marked improvement from avoiding wheat.

The horrible irony is that a diabetic colleague diagnosed my diabetes over twenty years ago and a friend who knew my diet suggested I might be wheat intolerant. My doctor wrote that I had "fanciful notions" and hypochondria. Now here I am. Meanwhile the GP died "unexpectedly" which was ironic

I wonder if wheat has always been this (comparatively) toxic or if it's the modern strains specifically. Originally it was a transgenic cross, kind of natural GM, with far more chromosomes than is good for it, but has been majorly tweaked over the years to provide current yields

It's odd to me how often folks state that there's no proof that saturated fat intake causes heart disease. I know the standard arguments, I've read Good Calories, Bad Calories and many of the websites dedicated to disproving the lipid hypothetesis.

But the fact is, there are quite a few studies that demonstrate that saturated fat intake IS associated with higher incidence of heart disease (not just cholesterol profiles).

A few examples:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/337/21/1491

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/337/21/1491

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/6/1001

The majority of the studies I've seen on low carbohydrate, high fat diets have all been pretty short-term and didn't actually measure heart disease. They just measured cholesterol and, occasionally, inflammation.

To Anonymous's question about fructose.  It's very important that you understand the metabolic pathway for fructose.

Fructose is carried by the blood from your gut directly to your liver.  Once detected, your liver stops everything else and converts fructose to triglycerides.  It does this because fructose is a highly reactive sugar and is treated as a dangerous substance by your body.  Triglycerides aren't nearly as bad (but if you've been reading this blog, you know that they're pretty bad, too).  

Most of the triglycerides are released into the blood (where they represent the wrong side of the HDL/triglycerides heart health ratio), while some small fraction remain trapped in the liver tissues.  If you keep hitting your liver with triglycerides (via fructose), and live long enough, those triglycerides get stored in the liver and you'll end up with fatty liver disease.

Fructose is all sorts of bad news for your health.  Sucrose, HFCS, honey, cane solids, corn syrup solids, etc: all contain significant quantities of fructose, and over time, all pose a risk to your heart, your liver, and via insulin resistance and glycation reactions, your entire body.

I am new to trying to understand the most healthy diet and just finished reading Dr. Eades book (who does not eschew whole grains in his meal plans).  I am reminded of Michael Pollan's comments that preface his book - 'In Defense of Food' in which he claims there is much ideology with regard to diet and nutrition.  

I understand many people have strong opinions, but I am hoping someone can provide insight into this website that includes whole wheat as one of the most important foods in our diet -- http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=141.

I am not asking this to be controversial, but would genuinely like to hear some factual counterpoints.

This is great news for the paleolithic community: the British Medical Association has just recognised the importance of paleolithic diets in this recent report (see pages 5/6): http://www.bma.org.uk/health_promotion_ethics/child_health/earlylifenutrition.jsp

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I have read your article Michael Eades on the Paleolithic diet' good article The diet consists of an inflexible meal plan. The diet does not allow forsubstitutions or deviations

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This is the first time I have seen someone call out Gluten as the component of wheat that causes inflammation response. Good to know as it is often a primary source of protein for vegetarians.

Hi
I've seen many posts like this, but all of them seem a bit ambiguous about whether small LDL is related to BG spikes or an independent effect of carbohidrates.
Say, someone that eats that 180g of pasta but BG stays under 100 will still produce tons of small LDL?

Amen!

My big problem with GI or GL was fructose. It does not raise blood sugar but it does attack the liver.

If 6 measly ounces of whole wheat pasta sends your blood sugar over 120, much less to 200, you're probably seriously ill. But you talk about it like it's impossible to lower blood glucose levels to a set number of carbohydrates. That's not true at all. It's easy actually, and there's so much more complexity to this overall issue that posts like these are aggravating. I've even gotten to the point where I could eat double that glycemic load without my blood sugar spiking above 75.

Yeah, GI and GL are best for diabetics and others with strong insulin resistance. Although I agree that foods without GI values should be the basis of our diets (meats, most vegetables), if you have strong insulin sensitivity you'll probably be just fine with some roots, dairy, fruit, and nuts.

perfect one.

Several points:

Isn't there a pretty big difference between raising your blood sugar to 120 mg/dl after a meal, as opposed to 200?

The American Association of Clinical Endoctrinologists suggests an upper limit of 140 mg/dl two-hour postprandial blood glucose.  The International Diabetes Federation has the same figure.

In contrast, 200 is usually considered a symptom of full-blown diabetes.  So it would really seem to depend on which figure we are talking about.

I personally find the glycemic load a helpful piece of data.    Almost all fruits and vegetables have some kind of glycemic load.   Spinach, for example, consists of 56% carbohydrate, 14% fat, and 30% protein.  But a 10 oz. bag only has a glycemic load of 4, vs. 14 for  piece of white bread.  (Granted, you're only getting 65 calories of energy from all that spinach.)

Regarding whole wheat pasta: perhaps different websites give different glycemic load values. Nutritiondata.com gives a value of 16 for a full cup of cooked whole wheat elbow noodles, vs. the 29 you quoted.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5769/2

I find it helpful to know I can cut the glycemic load of that pasta from 16 to 8 just by eating a half-cup instead of a cup (though in fact I rarely eat pasta at all.)  The glycemic load deals with real effects of quantifiable portions of food, and as such is an interesting piece of the puzzle. But, as you have wisely pointed out many times, checking your own blood sugar is the best way to understand what is really going on...with you.

Yes it will still produce tons of small LDL.....two different issues.....carbohydrate effect LDL particle size tremendously....I can attest to this first hand......while the high BG levels have a whole host of other bad effects related to damaging cells at the core and thus disease ramifications, insulin issues, etc.

Hi Dr. Davis.

It is worth noting that there is a huge gap between glycemic loads of refined and unrefined carbohydrate-rich foods:

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/04/huge-gap-between-glycemic-loads-of.html

Very nicely said.  I mean it.  Maybe I'll use it in my practice.

Hi, Lance--

I understand your concerns. However, I am less concerned with what the "official" organizations tell us is normal or abnormal, and more concerned with levels in which glycation develops.

Glycation develops in a continuous fashion with blood glucose: The higher it is, the more glycation results . . . starting in the "normal" range fasting and postprandial.

5/15/10  6:35 p.m. PDT

Matt Stone, just went to your website and got attacked by Malware.

"I've even gotten to the point where I could eat double that glycemic load without my blood sugar spiking above 75."

There's a guy in India who claims he can live on nothing but air too.

The reasons sucrose has such a "good" GI is cause it's half fructose.  Fructose doesn't convert to glucose so doesn't raise bg.  It is cleared from the blood by the liver which converts it to triglycerides.  So it raises serum triglycerides at least for a while.  It eventually gets cleared from the blood by adipose.

Bread, potatoes, other starchy foods... starch is long chains of glucose, so it raises bg.  But if you have a normal system and can handle bg, you burn it as fuel instead of having fat floating in your blood until it gets deposited around your belly.  So for those without bg problems, the worse GI foods are better for health!  

for those who DO have bg issues, the GI and GL are useless.  You don't care what happens to some average group of people, but what happens to YOUR bg.  This is what is useful whether you have diabetes or not: http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/new.php