Paleolithic Diet Symposium List

Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 16:00:19 -0400
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Topics of the day:

1. Enig & Fallon Reply to Dr. Cordain

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Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 09:26:30 -0400
From: SAFallon@AOL.COM
Subject: Enig & Fallon Reply to Dr. Cordain

To: Dr. Cordain and members of the Paleodiet Group
Re: Answers to questions of May 26, 1997

First, many apologies for taking so long to respond to your excellent
questions and comments of May 26. Our replies follow:

1. You now have the reference for Voegtlin's book. As you point out, Voegtlin errs in asserting that plant foods are needed to prevent scurvy.
Uncooked or minimally cooked flesh of organs of animals contain either vitamin C or a vitamin-C-like substance that prevents scurvy. Dr. Weston Price made this discovery when studying the Indians of Northern Canada. (1) When they killed an animal, the Indians immediately divided up the adrenal glands and gave a piece--raw--to every member of the tribe, and they understood that this would prevent scurvy. Dr. Voegtlin is also wrong about vitamin K, which is found in butter and animal fats. So it can be said that all the known vitamins, minerals and needed macronutrients can be obtained from animal foods. However, we should not rule out the possibility that the various phyto-chemicals, alkaloids, etc. found in plant foods, while not classified as vitamins, are necessary for optimal health, at least to some individuals.

2. We have consistently argued that the current high levels of CHD have nothing to do with the consumption of saturated fat from animal sources, (2,3,4) but rather are due to foods relatively new to the human diet--particularly excess polyunsaturates, hydrogenated oils and refined carbohydrates. The anti-cholesterol, anti-animal-fat campaign is a phoney issue invented and promulgated by the vegetable oil and fabricated food industries during the 50s and 60s in order to get the upper hand in marketing their products. It amounts to propaganda designed to denigrate nutritious traditional foods so that the consumer will buy highly refined and processed food items instead. The amount of saturated fat in the American diet remained the same between 1935 and 1974--the period of greatest increase in heart disease.

3. The LDL/HDL issue is also phoney and does not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. LDL is necessary to carry cholesterol from the liver to the cells, particularly to the brain cells, which unlike other cells in the human body, do not manufacture cholesterol. However, it is true that oxidized LDL is a problem, and does initiate foam cells in the arteries. Oxidized cholesterol is found in products that have been heated to very high temperatures in the presence of oxygen, such as powdered eggs and milk. Powdered eggs are added to many processed foods and powdered milk is added to 1% and 2% milk to give it body. People drinking reduced fat milk in order to avoid heart disease are actually taking in large quantities of oxidized cholesterol which is a causative factor. You are also right in pointing out that high levels of commercial polyunsaturated oils (virtually all of which have a high N6 to N3 ratio) increase LDL oxidizability. It is the excess of polyunsaturated oils that cause the problem--not the saturated fats, whether in the modern diet or in traditional cuisines. In fact, SFAs have been shown to lower Lp(a) which, unlike total serum cholesterol, HDL or LDL, is a very good marker for increased risk of CHD. (5)

4. We believe that the amount of protein in the diet as related to CHD is another phony issue. One can point to populations with relatively high protein consumption (30-40%) with little or no CHD, and to populations with relatively low protein consumption (15-20%) with little or no CHD. In any event, we have no way of knowing the exact ratios of macronutrients in the Paleolithic diet, and in fact, there probably was a lot of variation depending on season, locality and tribal custom. The danger lies, as we pointed out in our article, in diets high in animal protein but low in fat. This seems to have been generally recognized by the hunter-gatherer.

5. We would like to know what kind of fat combined with carbohydrates exacerbate the postprandial lipemic excursions. We can well believe that excess polyunsaturated or trans fats would do this. We know that fats taken with carbohydrates, especially traditional fats such as butter or any of the tropical oils, lower the glycemic index, thereby preventing blood sugar swings. We are not aware of any studies showing carbohydrates were eaten separately in pre-industrial societies. American Indians made pemmican from meat or fish, fat, maple syrup and cranberries; succatash was made from meat, fat, beans and corn. Orthodox dieticians/nutritionists contend that high carbohydrate diets improve blood lipid profiles. All this emphasis on protein and carbohydrate content is, we believe, misplaced. The real issue is the kind and quality of the macronutrients--how they are produced, processed and prepared.

6. We look forward to seeing your research and intriguing findings about the varying lengths of SFAs in wild and domesticated animals. Stearic acid (18:0) has been shown to raise cholesterol in some studies--and in any event, the whole cholesterol issue is bogus. There may be differences in the N6/N3 ratios in wild and domesticated ruminant adipose tissue, but in both overall total PUFA is low. The real imbalances come with modern farming methods (for eggs, fish, vegetables, etc.) and with the introduction of high N6 oils into the diet. Excess N6/N3 ratios result in profound imbalances at the cellular level that can lead to MI, cancer and many other diseases. (6, 7) We certainly do agree that high levels of N6 in the diet are a problem, but the source of excess N6 is not domesticated beef and lamb.

7. We do not know when milk product consumption became general, but it is fair to assume that the adoption of a nomadic/herder life-style--and therefore the domestication of animals--preceded agriculture. We cannot understand how dairy products per se can be blamed for the CHD epidemic. Counter examples include France (low CHD, high consumption of butter and cheese); Soviet Georgia (famed for longevity, high consumption of whole milk products); the Masai (high consumption of whole milk products, no CHD); Switzerland and Austria (life span almost as long as Japan, diet rich in butterfat and whole milk products) and America at the turn of the century (diet loaded with butterfat and whole milk products, very little CHD.)
If CHD is associated with milk consumption within individual countries, the finger must be pointed at modern production methods (inappropriate feed for the cows, cows bred to have a low butterfat content) processing (pasteurization, homogenization) and additives (powdered skim milk containing oxidized cholesterol and synthetic vitamin D2 or D3. Synthetic D2 has been very conclusively shown to cause calcification of the soft tissues including the arteries, and large amounts of synthetic D3, which has largely replaced D2 as an additive to milk, have been implicated as a causative factor in the initiation of pathogenic lesion development in the arteries. (8)
The N6-N3 ratio of the small amounts of PUFAs in bovine milk fat is excellent--about 2/1--whereas total N6/N3 in the modern diet exceeds 20/1. So once again, while we agree that high levels of N6 in the diet are a problem, the source of excess N6 is not butterfat. Dietary saturated fats contribute to improved assimilation of EFAs. (9)
In other words, we need less of the EFAs when there are enough SFAs in the diet. Magnesium does seem to protect against CHD. The fault lies not with high levels of calcium from milk products, but with the deficiency of magnesium in modern diets. Weston Price found that the diets of healthy "primitives" contained ten times the amount of calcium as the American diet of his day. (1)
Sources of magnesium include nuts, meat and grains such as buckwheat.

8. As we stated earlier, modern man is not consuming high levels of SFAs compared to pre-agricultural man. The blame for inactivity should be placed on the lower nutrient content of the total diet, composed as it is of high levels of refined and devitalized foods. When the diet supplies all the needed factors, humans need no incentives to exercise.

9. Finally, on the question of salt, a distinction must be made between processed salt, which contains many problematic chemicals including aluminium, and from which the magnesium salts and all the valuable trace minerals have been removed. Modern salt comes attached to modern food products, which are invariably refined, rancid and laced with additives; and it is difficult to separate salt from these other variables in dietary research surveys. Some studies have shown that with low salt diets, hypertension becomes worse. In the 1930s, researcher McCance demonstrated that when dietary salt is lowered, all manner of inappropriate physiological responses ensue--including cramps, weakness, lassitude, loss of taste sensation and severe cardiorespiratory distress on exertion. (10)
The recent contribution to this debate, describing various American Indian methods for using salty blood in the preparation of their meat, supports our contention that Paleolithic diets contained sodium chloride. Salty animal blood and urine form an important part of the diet in salt-poor Africa. The concentration of population, and the rise and fall of civilizations throughout the world, can be positively correlated with the availability of salt. (11)

To summarize, the hypothesis that modern chronic diseases like CHD and cancer are due to consumption of saturated fats, red meat, milk products and salt does not stand up to careful scrutiny. These have been in the diets of healthy population groups for millennia. Media denigration of such traditional foods is a distraction that diverts the attention of both the public and the scientific community from the real culprits--modern farming techniques, inappropriate processing, refined carbohydrates, commercial vegetable oils, food additives and rancid & altered fats.

P.S. The rest of citation #2 is Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense, George V Mann, ed, Janus Publishing, 1993, available from the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (619) 574-7763. Mann's involvement with the Framingham Study, and his studies of the Masai, whose diet is high in saturated fat but who do not suffer from CHD, led him to the following conclusion: "The diet-heart hypothesis has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons or pride, profit and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprises= , food companies and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century." Confirmation of Mann's statement comes from none other than William Castelli, Director of the =46ramingham Study, who stated, "In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower peoples serum cholesterol. . . we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the lease and were the most physically active." (Archives of Internal Medicine, 1992)

1. Price, Weston A DDS, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 1945 Keats Publishing, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (619) 574-7763

2. Fallon, Sally with Mary G Enig, PhD and Pat Connolly, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, 1996 ProMotion Publishing (800) 231-1776

3. Fallon, Sally and Mary G Enig, PhD, "Diet and Heart Disease: Not What You Think", Consumers Research Magazine, July 1996 (615) 337-3322

4. Fallon, Sally and Mary G Enig, PhD, "Our Friend Cholesterol", Health =46reedom News, April-May 1996, National Health Federation (818) 303-0642

5. Pramod Khosla, PhD and K C Hayes, DVM, PhD "Dietary Trans-Monounsaturated =46atty Acids Negatively Impact Plasma Lipids in Humans: Critical Review of the Evidence" Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol 15, No 4 3250-339 (1996)

6. Horrobin, David F, PhD, "The regulation of prostaglandin biosynthesis by manipulation of essential fatty acid metabolism," Reviews in Pure and Applied Pharmacological Sciences, Vol 4, 339-383, Freund Publishing House, 1983

7. Fallon, Sally and Mary G Enig PhD, "Tripping Lightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways", Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Health Journal, Vol 20, No 3 Fall 1996 25-29.

8. Huang, William Y, Akinori Kamio, S-J C Yeh and Fred A Kummerow, "The Influence of Vitamin D on Plasma and Tissue Lipids and Atherosclerosis in Swine", Artery 3(5):439-455 (1977)

9. Garg, M L et al, FASEB Journal 2:4:A852 (1988)

10. McCance, R A, "Experimental Sodium Chloride Deficiency in Man", Nutrition Reviews, Vol 48, 145-147 (Mar 1990)

11. Bloch, M R, "The Social Influence of Salt", Scientific American 121-129 (July 1963)

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