Many different diets promise health and a better life. From reversing diabetes, lowering inflammation and improving heart health, diets make great health claims. The Paleo diet is one that has become very popular lately and claims to be good for your heart.
What is the Paleo diet?
The popular Paleo diet is based on eating foods that are thought to be available to our ancestors during the Paleolithic era, before the arrival of dairy or processed grains. The idea is that you only eat food that our people ate before the modern agriculture and domestication of animals.
Is the Paleo -diet Hart healthy?
Very few studies have investigated the Paleo diet with seemingly healthy participants, despite the prevalence of this food practice in health and fitness enthusiasts, said study author Chad Dolan, a graduated student researcher at the Laboratory of the University of Houston Laboratory of Integrative Physiology. Findings from a small study suggest that people who followed the Paleo diet for only eight weeks had positive effects on the health of the heart.
The researchers asked eight healthy people who normally consumed a traditional Western diet with a highly processed food to switch to the Paleo diet (which consists of minimally processed foods) for eight weeks. The participants received a Monster Paleo diet menu and recipe guide, as well as the first counseling about how to record the Paleo diet in their daily lives. They were told that they had to eat as much food as they wanted to follow the diet.
The researchers discovered that the participants in the study experienced an increase of 35 percent in levels of Interlukin-10 (IL-10), a signal molecule that was excreted by immune cells. A low IL-10 value can predict an increased risk of heart attack in people who also have a high degree of inflammation. Scientists think that high IL-10 levels can prevent inflammation, which offers a protective effect for blood vessels.
Although the researchers have not yet analyzed inflammatory levels in the study participants, the increase in IL-10 can suggest a lower risk of cardiovascular disease after following the Paleo diet. The researchers also saw changes in other inflammatory biomarkers, but further research is needed to understand whether these changes indicate increased inflammation or a protective mechanism at work.
Other health benefits of the Paleo diet
Although the study was not designed to promote weight loss, the participants dropped a few kilos during the eight -week test. Compared to what they regularly ate before the study, the participants reported to consume about 22 percent fewer calories and 44 percent less grams of carbohydrates on the Paleo diet.
This provisional feasibility study did not include a control group of people who do not follow the diet, making it difficult to determine whether the changes observed with inflammatory biomarkers were the result of specific food choices, reduced calories, fewer carbohydrates or weight loss.
The findings of this study contribute to the possibility that short-term changes in the diet of a traditional Western food pattern to food that is promoted in the Paleo diet can improve health or at least have no negative consequences for health in terms of the parameters we have studied. If research continues to show that the Paleo diet causes detectable changes in healthy persons, this will support this claims of those who support this diet in recent decades and provisionally provide evidence for another therapeutic strategy for cardiovascular disease and prevention of cranse arguments.
The researchers warn that the current findings are both for the time being and incomplete in this group of participants. They are planning to conduct a study with a larger number of people who follow the diet for a longer period to analyze how it influences different risk factors for cardiovascular and coronary arteries, cellular immune function and metabolic health.
The study was a contribution effort between Human Performance Laboratory at Chatham University in Pittsburgh and the Laboratory of the University of Houston Laboratory of Integrative Physiology.
Source American Physiological Society (APS)