My latest book The True You Diet posits that the best diet for us is essentially one based on the foods that we¹ve been eating the longest in terms of our evolution—after all, these are the foods we are going to be best adapted to. A "primal" diet is one that is devoid of grain and dairy products, as well as nutritional newcomers such as refined sugar and refined vegetable oils. What's left is, basically, fruit, vegetables, root vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, and nuts.
It is my experience that such a diet tends to work very well for enhancing wellbeing and optimizing weight. However, while elements of this diet (e.g. its lower-carbohydrate nature) have been studied, the diet itself has not been subjected to much formal research.
So, I was interested to read this week of a study in which the primal diet, also known as the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age diet, was pitted against a diet which was more Mediterranean in nature (this diet included grains, low-fat dairy products, and margarine) in a group of individuals suffering from heart disease and either type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance (a precursor of type 2 diabetes). Each diet lasted for 12 weeks.
One of the measurements assessed in this study was blood sugar (glucose) levels. In the group eating the primal diet, glucose levels were found to drop by 26 percent—a statistically significant result. In contrast, those eating the Mediterranean diet did not see any significant drop in blood sugar levels. The group eating the primal diet also saw a shrinking in average weight circumference of 5.6 cm, which was significantly greater than the reduction seen in the other group (average reduction 3.3 cm).
Experience and scientific evidence show that for optimal health and wellbeing, a degree of dietary individualization is important: physiological studies show that we have differing abilities to handle foodstuffs such as fat and carbohydrate that dictate our "ideal diet" (see http://www.thetrueyoudiet.com for more details).
What this very recent study clearly shows is that there can be real health benefits for individuals who adopt a more primal way of eating. This study provides some scientific evidence, which supports what I regard as common sense: The best diet for us is one based on the foods which we have been eating the longest and are therefore best adapted to.
References:
Lindeberg S, et al. A Paleolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease.
Diabetologia. 2007 Jun 22 [Epub ahead of print]
Dr. John Briffa is a London-based doctor, author, and health writer with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine.
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