Tag Archives: gluten

Dear Dr. Cordain and Dr. Fontes Villalba,

I read with great interest your paper entitled: “Carrera-Bastos, P., Fontes-Villalba, M., O’Keefe, J. H., Lindeberg, S. and Cordain, L. (2011). The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization. Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology 2011: 15-35.”

The demonstration is quite logical, but I would like to get your opinion on the following issue:

*If the paleolithic diet suits well human genetics and does not lead to chronic diseases – which is true -, and if grain products are not so good for human health, the world has changed with at least 1 billion people living in huge towns worldwide: they cannot realistically have a paleolithic diet going outside to hunt and collect berries! There is a compromise to find between the best and reality of our modern world. In that way, grain cereals and legumes appear as promising foods being cheap, easy to store, with a huge health potential, satiating, etc. Maybe humans before 10,000 years consume grains, but to a lesser extent?*

So, what do you think is the best diet today, in a world with more than 7 billions people and huge cities?

I will be very happy to have your opinion about this issue,

Yours sincerely,

Available I remain,

Anthony FARDET, Ph.D.
Chargé de Recherches (Research scientist)
Human Nutrition Research Center, Auvergne
Clermont-Ferrand/Theix Research Center
France

Maelán Fontes Villalba’s Response:

Hello Dr. FARDET,

Today almost all health authorities and nutritionists believe that cereal grains are healthy for so-called diseases of civilization. This information is derived from epidemiological studies that can not establish cause-effect. Consistently, epidemiological studies show an inverse association between the consumption of cereal grains and western disease, which is not demonstrated by randomized controlled trials. In the women’s health initiative (+48,000 postmenopausal women) those women allocated to the intervention group (eat more than 6 servings/day of wholegrain cereals, 5 servings of fruit/vegetable and <20%en from fat) of whom had a CV event at baseline significantly increased their risk of CV event by 26%. In the DART trial, those men allocated to increase the intake of fiber from wholegrain cereals, increased the risk of death compared to the group who wasn’t advised to increase the intake of fiber.

Some systematic reviews make it clear that we don’t have enough evidence to recommend the intake of cereal grains for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease (Kelly, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2007), obesity, (FESNAD-SEEDO, Revista Española De Obesidad, 2011) or diabetes (Priebe, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2008). Therefore, I don’t agree with you in that “they have a huge health potential.”

The short-term clinical trials published by my group (Lindeberg, Diabtologia, 2007; Jönsson, Cardiovascular Diabetology, 2009) have shown that a Paleolithic Diet is superior to the Mediterranean and American Diabetes Association diets, respectively.

From an evolutionary standpoint it is very unlikely that we have completed adapted to cereal grains in just 10,000 years (even knowing that human evolution has accelerated since the adoption of agriculture and living in huge cities, probably by pathogens rather than foods). So, there is no body of evidence that demonstrates we have adapted. This information is necessary before performing human experiments showing we are feeding individuals with a food meant for granivorous animals (birds, rodents, etc). And, while “everybody” may think we are adapted, it is very unlikely. The proof simply isn’t there. If we eat the kind of foods we ate during human evolution (>99.9% of our evolution), is there any obvious risk? Not that we are aware of. Are there potential health risk of consuming cereal grains? Yes there are. So, I would stay in the safe side.

Regarding you question about sustainability, I think you can adapt the Standard American Diet to one more suitable for our genetic legacy and improve health. Furthermore, if the world population would eat a diet in accordance with our physiology then the expense in health would be dramatically cut. I am not an expert in this field but I think that famine in the third world is more so a political problem than a problem with food choice itself.

You are right, however, regarding the DART study, the increased risk (18%) was non-significant, but in a Eur J Clin Nutr 2002 Ness, and after statistical adjustment, there was a significant increase of mortality in the first two years, but not the following years.

Many studies are conducted in ill people with high risk of CVD. If an intervention reduces the risk to that of “normal” westerners, then we could say there was a positive effect, but who wants to be normal? Not me! (see European Heart Journal 2005 Lindeberg). I prefer to have a low risk of western disease.

I agree that the Mediterranean Diet (for example) is better than the Standard American Diet, but is there a better diet? What if we reduce cereal grains in a Mediterranean Diet and increase fruits, tubers and vegetables? Do you improve a diet based on vegetables, fruits, tubers, lean meat, fish, eggs and nut if you include grains?

Dr. Cordain has explained in many lectures that cereals grains are not edible unless you process them. But there are many other reasons (bioactive compounds like exorphins, lectins, saponins, binding to endocrine receptors; antinutrients; protease and amylase inhibitors, etc), why cereal grains can be a problem for most people, besides non-celiac gluten sensitivity (and potential same effect of thousands of proteins in grains).

I am unfamiliar with any study where it has been shown that cereal grains, per se, are protective. As I previously mentioned, there are some studies (with numerous limitations like the PREDIMED study where the control group received much less support and followed a diet similar to that in WHI, where the risk of CVD was reduced, but you cannot say it was because of the intake of cereal grains. On the other hand, the studies comparing healthy diets with and without cereal grains have shown very interesting results. Should we look to the other side, or focus on those interesting data? Well, many people just turn their head to the other way, while we are interested in exploring what happened in those studies (Lindeberg, 2007; Jönsson, 20009; Mellberg, 2014).

The statement that our ancestor lived only until the age of 30 is false. See Kaplan, 2007–>modal age at death is >70 years old in hunter-gatherers. Of course, they are not people from the Paleolithic era but there is no reason to think that it was different then. See also Eaton, 2002 where Dr. Cordain is a co-author (Evolutionary Health Promotion: A Consideration of Common Counterarguments: Preventive Medicine 2002 Eaton).

Regarding meat, it is not true that Paleolithic Diets must necessarily be high in meat. Some hunter-gatherers consume high amounts plants, with carbohydrate being almost 70%en (see the Kitava study).

Best wishes,

Maelán Fontes Villalba, M.S.
www.maelanfontes.com
@maelanfontes

Dr. Cordain’s Response:

Dear Dr. FARDET,

Many thanks for your inquiry. Maelán Fontes has done a good job of summarizing potential health issues with cereal grains in his reply to you. In my paper, “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double Edged Sword,” I delve into greater detail on the topic with 55 pages of dialogue and 342 references.

Further, in our paper, “Origins and Evolution of the Western Diet: Health Implications for the 21st Century,” we show how humans have no nutritional requirement for whole grain cereals. In fact, when whole grains are added to the diet they significantly reduce the 13 nutrients most lacking in the US diet.

Further, in our paper “The Nutritional Characteristics of a Contemporary Diet Based upon Paleolithic Food Groups,” you can see how a modern Paleo diet based upon lean meats, fish, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts (and devoid of whole grain cereals, dairy products and processed foods) are much more nutrient dense than either the current USDA recommended My Plate diet, or the Mediterrean Diet. The reason for this phenomenon is that the aforementioned foods are more trace nutrient dense than whole grains, dairy products or processed foods for the 13 nutrients most lacking in western diets.

Cheers, I hope these papers provide new learning to further educating yourself on the topic.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

Wheat | The Paleo Diet

Dr. David Perlmutter, author of The New York Times bestselling Grain Brain, article in The Daily Beast is spot on: “Wheat Threatens All Humans.” Nevertheless, wheat germ agglutinin or WGA has not yet been shown to appear in human blood following its ingestion. Our research group actually performed the only experiment that has ever been conducted in humans with WGA consumption, published in the FASEB Journal and our poster presentation in 2010 at Experimental Biology, and we came up empty handed. We collaborated with Franz Gabor’s group from Austria who had previously developed an ELISA for WGA, and we sent our frozen plasma samples to them for analysis. We drew venous blood in 14 subjects over a 24 hr period following ingestion of 50 g of wheat germ (the highest natural dietary concentration of WGA) and found no WGA in plasma.

However, like Columbus sailing to the new world, we had absolutely no prior direction in our experiment. We now believe our experiment was fatally flawed. Notice in the poster that we presented the major proteins in plasma, and none of them bind WGA. In fact of the more than 60 proteins found in plasma, only one binds WGA and that protein represents <0.1 % of all plasma proteins.

Accordingly, we were almost certainly looking in the wrong place for WGA. When we spun down whole venous blood and threw out the formed elements (erthrocytes, WBCs and platelets), we threw out the baby with the bath water. In all likelihood WGA breeches the gut barrier by first binding to the gut glycocalyx (which causes it to be shed) and subsequently WGA now has access to the gut epithelial cells, dendritic cells and M cells.

At this point, it is unclear whether WGA takes a transcellular, paracellular (or both) journey allowing it to gain entry into lymph and then into venous blood, where it binds RBCs, WBCs, platelets and other formed elements and thereby gains access to virtually every cell in the body. Arpad Pustzai group’s earlier work in animal models supports this concept, however they employed concentrations of WGA that could never be achieved via consumption of naturally occuring WGA in whole wheat bread or even wheat germ.

So, tantalizingly, the article still cannot be substantiated by any human experiments. We would like to perform our experiment once again and analyze WGA in the blood formed elements — but unfortunately have no funding to do this experiment. One of the most important nutritional/ health experiments for all of humanity has yet to be conducted.

On another note, not only does wheat contain gliadin, which upregulates zonulin, which increases intestinal permeability, it also contains an obscure compound (thaumatin like proteins) which also increase intestinal permeability. Hence wheat represents a triple time bomb (gliadin, WGA and thaumatin like proteins) which maintain physical and physiological characteristics that almost certainly impair gut function, interact with our immune systems to produce low level inflammation, and impair vitamin D metabolism (not a vitamin at all, but a hormone having receptors in virtually every cell in the body).

In vitro studies show that WGA binds the nuclear pore and prevents vitamin D from causing its normal gene transcription — not a good thing as proper vitamin D metabolism is protective against osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease and all cause mortality. Hence, as Dr. Perlmutter has suggested, it is likely that wheat consumption will eventually be recognized as a potent health risk for us all, similar to cigarette smoking which was first identified at the population level in the Surgeon General’s recommendations of the early 1960s.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

Hi Loren,

I was hoping I could induce you to correct a statement made about your work in a recent post in The Atlantic. It’s by a senior editor, a medical doctor, James Hamblin, who’s doing a take-down of Perlmutter’s Grain Brain couched as a piece of journalism. In it he quotes David Katz of Yale, commenting about the paleolithic diet and your work.

I thought perhaps you could take a little time to set both Hamblin and maybe even Katz right. The key section:

“Of course,” Katz added, “Everything about the Paleolithic Era is subject to debate. Most of us don’t know what we had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what people were doing 100,000 years ago. Yeah, I’ve read the same thing that the average life expectancy was between 20 and 40 and, consequently, the diseases of old age didn’t happen because old age didn’t happen. There’s nothing about their diet that we know to be protective against things like Alzheimer’s. That’s just silly.”

Perlmutter has estimated that the Stone Age diet was 75 percent fat, a claim Katz finds “wildly preposterous.” Anthropological research, he pointed out the work of Loren Cordain, suggests that in the age before cooking oil, humans ate mostly plants with a scattering of seeds and nuts. “Virtually nothing in the natural world is that concentrated of a fat source, except maybe for the brain. Maybe if they just ate the brains of animals? They didn’t have oil. They only started adding oil to the diet after the Dawn of Agriculture. What the hell could they possibly have eaten that would be that fatty?'”

This kind of journalism is bad enough when they get the facts vaguely right and just spin them to fit their biases. When they butcher the facts, too, it deserves correcting.

All the best,

Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes is the author of Why We Get Fat (2011), Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), which is titled The Diet Delusion in the UK. He has won the Science in Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times and was awarded an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship. Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978). Taubes has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.

Dr. Cordain’s Response:

Hi Gary,

Good to hear from you. Thanks for forwarding me the article from The Atlantic by James Hamblin, MD. on Perlmutter’s Grain Brain. I came away with a number of impressions:

1. Both Katz and Perlmutter acknowledge the underlying, evolutionary basis for human nutrition.

2. Scientists involved in gluten research and Paleo Diets (including myself) were not directly interviewed in this article. This omission likely fuels Hamblin’s perspective and does not provide equal input for both sides of the argument.

3. I was not interviewed for this article and the quote you cite below is not mine, but rather appears to be David Katz’s interpretation of our work. The quote is erroneous as well as being just flat out wrong. Our group has repeatedly analyzed the composition and macronutrient content of historically studied hunter gatherer diets.^1-7Animal fat has been an integral part of hominid diets since the origins of our genus Homo. To correct whomever wrote the erroneous quote below, regardless of whether fat comes from either plant or animal food sources, it contains identical caloric densities (9 kcal/g). In the typical hunter gatherer diet, animal fat would have generally exceeded plant fat on an average daily basis.

Brain contains virtually no fat, but rather is comprised primarily of fatty acids bound to the phospholipid fraction. A fat (triglyceride) is also technically called an acylglycerol (a glycerol molecule bound to a fatty acid [acyl group] via an ester bond). Brain contains little or no acylglycerol, but rather structural fatty acids found not in the triglyceride fraction, but in the phospholipids fraction. There is no doubt that brain, marrow and other fatty (and fatty acid) portions of wild animal carcasses would have been preferred by our hunter gatherer ancestors over lean meats.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor

REFERENCES

1. Cordain L, Brand Miller J, Eaton SB, Mann N, Holt SHA, Speth JD. Plant to animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000, 71:682-92.

2. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Brand Miller J, Mann N, Hill K. The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets: Meat based, yet non-atherogenic. Eur J Clin Nutr 2002;56 (suppl 1):S42-S52.

3. Cordain L, The nutritional characteristics of a contemporary diet based upon Paleolithic food groups. J Am Neutraceut Assoc 2002; 5:15-24.

4. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O’Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J. Origins and evolution of the western diet: Health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81:341-54.

5. Cordain L. Saturated fat consumption in ancestral human diets: implications for contemporary intakes. In: Phytochemicals, Nutrient-Gene Interactions, Meskin MS, Bidlack WR, Randolph RK (Eds.), CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group), 2006, pp. 115-126.

6. Ramsden CE, Faurot KR, Carrera-Bastos P, Sperling LS, de Lorgeril M, Cordain L. Dietary fat quality and coronary heart disease prevention: a unified theory based on evolutionary, historical, global and modern perspectives. Curr Treat Options Cardiovasc Med; 2009;11:289-301.

7. Kuipers RS, Luxwolda MF, Janneke Dijck-Brouwer DA, Eaton SB, Crawford MA, Cordain L, Muskiet FA. Estimated macronutrient and fatty acid intakes from an East African Paleolithic diet. Brit J Nutr , 2010 Dec;104(11):1666-87.

Hello Dr. Cordain,

I hope this finds you in good health. Prior to 2009 I lost 100lbs and began my career as a fitness professional teaching cycling classes and helping others reach their weight loss goals. 2009 I was diagnosed with Lupus and went into total kidney failure. I spent 8 weeks living a Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC and some how made a miraculous recovery.

Of course I was put on lots of medication and had to go through a sort of chemo for about a year afterwards. Now I find myself struggling to lose the weight I gained back after being on prednisone for years. Now I’m battling moments of depression and exhaustion despite still teaching my cycling classes and trying to eat “healthy.” Also, I’m still taking prednisone but my dose is only 5mg now.

I’ve finally been cleared by my kidney doctor to start taking in more protein and I immediately thought of Paleo. Can you give me a little more insight as to how Paleo may help me? Nobody around me eats this way, including the people I live with, so I would be doing this all alone. But, in my gut, I believe it might be the answer I’ve been looking for. Hope to hear from you soon. Take care.

Anonymous

Dr. Cordain’s Response:

First, let me say that my heart goes out to you for the health problems you have been experiencing associated with your diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). I am not a clinical practitioner, but rather a University Researcher studying diet and autoimmunity. Accordingly, I suggest that you consult a variety of health care professionals who are familiar with SLE, autoimmunity and The Paleo Diet. Competent health care personnel can work with you individually and over time to regularly monitor your signs and symptoms of SLE, your blood chemistry and your overall health if you decide to adopt The Paleo Diet.

The Paleo Diet may help to reduce or even cause remission of autoimmune disease symptoms in certain autoimmune conditions. Our international research group believes that contemporary Paleo diets may be therapeutic for some autoimmune disease patients for a number of reasons. First, this nutritional program eliminates a number of foods which may increase intestinal permeability. Evidence from our laboratory (1) as well as more recent data (2, 3) suggests a “leaky gut” may represent an important environmental/dietary factor which triggers autoimmune disease in genetically susceptible patients.

As with The Paleo Diet for all people, I suggest autoimmune subjects reduce or eliminate cereal grains, particularly gluten containing grains (wheat, rye and barley). Cereal grains contain a number of compounds which may increase intestinal permeability including gliadin (a storage protein found in gluten containing grains), lectins (particularly a lectin called wheat germ agglutinin [WGA] found in wheat, and thaumatin like proteins, as well as other compounds.

Over the past two decades, SLE has frequently been reported to present simultaneously with celiac disease (4-6), an autoimmune intestinal disease caused in genetically predisposed patients by consumption of gluten containing grains. Both SLE and celiac patients share the genetic markers (HLA B8 and DR3) which increase disease susceptibility. Further a recent study indicated that 7 of 24 SLE patients exhibited anti-gliadin antibodies, the same antibodies to gluten containing grains found in celiac patients. A number of case reports have shown that gluten free diets had beneficial and favorable effects in SLE patients (6, 7). Accordingly, the preliminary evidence suggest that SLE patients should adopt gluten free diets.

Check out my former graduate student, good friend and colleague, Robb Wolf’s website and read about an SLE patient who beat the disease with Paleo. There is absolutely no risk to gluten free diets like The Paleo Diet, and the potential for improved health is high (8-15).

Other foods which are not on The Paleo Diet menu are dairy products, legumes, processed foods, refined sugars and vegetable oils. All of these items may adversely affect intestinal function or interact with the immune system in a manner that may promote allergy or autoimmunity. For details about these and other dietary elements that compromise intestinal function see my latest book, The Paleo Answer.

Finally, autoimmune patients may also want to read Egg Whites and Autoimmune Disease which suggests eggs and nightshades sometimes interact with the immune system to promote or aggravate allergy and autoimmunity.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor

References

1. Cordain L, Toohey L, Smith MJ, Hickey MS. Modulation of immune function by dietary lectins in rheumatoid arthritis. British Journal of Nutrition, 2000, 83:207-217.

2. Fasano A. Leaky gut and autoimmune diseases. Clin Rev Allergy Immunol. 2012 Feb;42(1):71-8.

3. Fasano A. Zonulin and its regulation of intestinal barrier function: the biological door to inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer. Physiol Rev. 2011 Jan;91(1):151-75

4. Mirza N, Bonilla E, Phillips PE. Celiac disease in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus: a case report and review of literature. Clin Rheumatol. 2007 May;26(5):827-8

5. Freeman HJ. Adult celiac disease followed by onset of systemic lupus erythematosus. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2008 Mar;42(3):252-5

6. Hrycek A, Siekiera U. Coeliac disease in systemic lupus erythematosus: a case report.
Rheumatol Int. 2008 Mar;28(5):491-3.

7. Zitouni M, Daoud W, Kallel M, Makni S. Systemic lupus erythematosus with celiac disease: a report of five cases. Joint Bone Spine. 2004 Jul;71(4):344-6

8. Frassetto LA, Schloetter M, Mietus-Synder M, Morris RC, Jr., Sebastian A: Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. Eur J Clin Nutr 2009.

9. Jönsson T, Granfeldt Y, Ahrén B, Branell UC, Pålsson G, Hansson A, Söderström M, Lindeberg S. Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2009;8:35

10. Jonsson T, Ahren B, Pacini G, Sundler F, Wierup N, Steen S, Sjoberg T, Ugander M, Frostegard J, Goransson Lindeberg S: A Paleolithic diet confers higher insulin sensitivity, lower C-reactive protein and lower blood pressure than a cereal-based diet in domestic pigs. Nutr Metab (Lond) 2006, 3:39.

11. Jonsson T, Granfeldt Y, Erlanson-Albertsson C, Ahren B, Lindeberg S. A Paleolithic diet is more satiating per calorie than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2010 Nov 30;7(1):85

12. Lindeberg S, Jonsson T, Granfeldt Y, Borgstrand E, Soffman J, Sjostrom K, Ahren B: A Palaeolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischaemic heart disease. Diabetologia 2007, 50(9):1795-1807.

13. O’Dea K: Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle. Diabetes 1984, 33(6):596-603.

14. Osterdahl M, Kocturk T, Koochek A, Wandell PE: Effects of a short-term intervention with a paleolithic diet in healthy volunteers. Eur J Clin Nutr 2008, 62(5):682-685.

15. Ryberg M, Sandberg S, Mellberg C, Stegle O, Lindahl B, Larsson C, Hauksson J, Olsson T. A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women. J Intern Med. 2013 Jul;274(1):67-76.

Dear Dr. Cordain,

The reason for writing to you is I read an interesting article by you about pre historical diet and grains “The Evolutionary Discordance of Grains and Legumes in the Human Diet.”

Background: I am not an academic. Until 3 years ago I lived in Asia and had a BMI of 24. On returning to the UK I have increased my body weight by about a kilo a month for 20 months. I am now doing something about it by changing my diet. My observation about my previous diet in Asia was that it contained only about 1 cup of rice per day, and no other grains; and no other processed foods with hidden grains or sugars.

It is my view based on common sense and a little reading, that grains are not natural to us. Yet, professional nutritionist friends insist that on the food pyramid we should be eating about 1/3 of our calorie intake through grains. I have contacted several academic nutritionists, and while in their academic articles they accept the pre-historical evidence that we did not eat grains, they all want to insist on the paradigm that we should be eating large amounts of grains.

Firstly, would you agree that grains are not natural in any more than marginal quantities, and have you any idea why nutritionists think we should be eating them in industrial quantities?

Thanks for your time,

Best Regards

Russell

Dr. Cordain’s Response:

Hi Russell,

Good to hear from you, and I wish you success as you adopt the Paleo diet to help weight. Indeed our Stone Age ancestors did not consume cereal grains, except infrequently as starvation foods. As a species, human have no cereal grain requirement for proper nutrition, as we can obtain all required nutrients from meats, fish, seafood, poultry, fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts. In fact consumption of cereal grains actually reduces the overall vitamin and mineral content of the diet because cereal grains on average are less nutrient dense for the 13 vitamins and minerals most lacking in the US diet when compared to fish, seafood, lean meat, fresh vegetables and fruits. I have pointed this fact out in a paper I published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2005.¹ Further, cereal grains contain a variety of “antinutrients” which actually adversely affect health. I have described these effects in a paper I wrote called “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double Edged Sword.”² You can download and read both of these papers at the links I have provided below:

1. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O’Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J. Origins and evolution of the western diet: Health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81:341-54.

2. Cordain L, (1999). Cereal grains: humanity’s double edged sword. World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics, 84: 19-73.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

Hi Loren,
I recently started the paleo diet for a few reasons: health, weight loss, and an answer as to whether or not I have celiac disease.

Question: Is it okay to take vitamins and supplements, especially if they contain gluten, some form of sugar, etc? I realize that my sleeping habits may improve, but right now I am taking easy to dissolve melatonin and ZMA to help me sleep. I have had leg cramps for 51 years and have found that C Q-10 has given me relief.

Thanks for your book and suggestions.

-Emily

Dr. Cordain’s Response:

Hi Emily,
Good to hear from you and thanks for your interest in The Paleo Diet. Indeed, this lifetime way of eating will improve your overall health and help to promote weight loss. Elimination of glutien containing grains (wheat, rye, and barley) will cause an end to symptoms you may have experienced relating to celiac disease. Further a dairy free, grain free, legume free and processed food free diet will also improve overall GI tract function, and you may also experience freedom from a variety of health issues that formerly may have afflicted you. Definitely, read all labels in supplements and try to avoid any supplements containing wheat, soy, corn, yeast or any other grain, legume or food additive.

In regards to sleep, melatonin supplements may be helpful at first, but again make sure they are free of wheat, soy and other additives that are non-Paleo. A long term strategy to improve sleep will not require melatinin supplements, as you body will naturally manufacture sufficient melatonin to elicit peaceful, long and uninterrupted sleep. Key dietary factors to promote restful sleep are theses: 1) eliminate/reduce salt from your diet in all forms 2) eliminate/reduce alcohol from your diet– particularly 3 hrs before you sleep, 3) eliminate milk/dairy/cheese from your diet, and 4) eliminate proceessed foods (refined grains, refined sugars, refined oils or combinations of these foods from your diet. Finally, hard exercise (aerobic, weight lifting or otherwise) a few hours before you retire will defnitely promote peaceful sleep.

Cordially,

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus

I happen to be Hyperthyroidic patient with plenty of Methimazole to take. My T4 is 15.5 and TSH .006 currently. I do kind of enjoy dairy foods like pot cheese/farmer’s cheese, Raisin Bran with organic milk and some shredded wheat cereal. I can give that up. It tastes like horse food hay. My mom loves the Shoprite supermarket baguette Italian bread with plenty of artificial substances in it. I am trying to eat less and less of that. I have given up chocolate and I don’t eat green tomatoes generally but the milk has vitamin D and I don’t want to overindulge in supplements. My weight has been stable at around 188. I am 6 ft 3in. I weighed 147 early in 2009. I am 38 tomorrow. Now I can’t substitute milk/vitamin D or can I? I do enjoy Soy. What else should I take or eat?

Lon

Maelán Fontes’ Response:

Dear Lon,

Hyperthyroidism could be the initial step in Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Disease. This happens to be an autoimmune disease where immune cells, namely T-Lymphocytes) attack cells of the thyroid gland, although a more comprehensive analysis is needed in order to do a diagnosis in your case. Another autoimmune disease called Celiac Disease carries an increased risk for other autoimmune diseases including HT. Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disease where the immune system mounts an attack against the epithelial cells lining the gut, triggered by gluten containing grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Hence, we believe that gluten containing grains may increase the risk for thyroiditis (remember that sometimes starts with hyperthyroidism and them moves to hypothyroidism). All grains and legumes (including soya and peanuts) contain harmful substances namely Lectins which increase intestinal permeability and this is associated to an increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases.

Regarding dairy, they have several immunogenic (activate the immune system) proteins that may pass through the intestinal barrier if intestinal permeability is increased. Therefore, dairy are not the best choice to eat calcium, but rather green vegetables, such as kale, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.

Vitamin D is a crucial substance in terms of immune regulation. We suggest to measure blood levels of vitamin D and ensure they are in the 50-70ng/ml range.

The bottom line is to eat a diet based on grass produced or free ranging meats, seafood, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, nuts and olive oil. This will also provide you with big amounts of nutrients and antioxidants which may help to your overall health.

I hope this is helpful,

Maelán Fontes, MS, Ph.D., Candidate in Medical Sciences at Lund University, Sweden; International College of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine

LOREN CORDAIN, PH.D.

Tag Archives: gluten

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