Diet based on cereals and dairy versus carnivores (paleo)

 


Diets based on cereals (whole grains) and dairy are noticeably healthier than diets high in meat


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Whole grain diets show greater health benefits than diets high in meat. 

(Translated with Google translator)


The inhabitants of Sardinia, in Italy, consume a lot of cereals (especially barley), and a lot of dairy products. 73% of the diet of the inhabitants of Sardinia is made up of cereals (47%) and dairy products (26%). These dairy products would be based mainly on sheep and goat milk (like all dairy products, they also have lactose).

If we include fruits and vegetables, people in Sardinia would reach, together with cereals and dairy products, 90% of their total diet. But of the total 100% of the diet, only 1% would represent fruits, 12% would be vegetables and 4% legumes. 

Meats in the diet of these people would only represent 5%.

However, the interesting thing here is that Sardinia has the largest number of oldest men on the planet today. 

This is not an isolated case, since we also have the inhabitants of Ikaria, in Greece, who follow a Mediterranean-style diet (rich in whole grains and many dairy products) and are also among the men who reach the oldest ages and who biological health they enjoy.

Or how about a place in the United States, like Loma Linda, where residents with grain-based diets can be up to 10 years healthier than the rest of the United States. 

Although their extreme longevity has been questioned , the inhabitants of the Hunza Valley in Pakistan, of whom it is said there is no evidence that they reached the ages attributed to them, notably exceeding 100 years (even 130 years); It does not seem that it can be categorically denied that they do live many years enjoying relatively healthy bodies with diets based on whole grains.

Some will mention why countries like Australia, with high meat consumption, are among those with the highest longevity rates . The explanation for this could lie more in the health system than in people's diets. Australia in a recent ranking has been classified as the third country with the best health system globally, surpassed by South Korea and Japan and followed by France and Germany.

In the case of Australia, for example, cardiovascular diseases have been among the leading causes of death in recent years. Another cause of death that is mentioned is diabetes, which points to a condition of chronic (cardiometabolic) diseases typical of metabolic syndrome, related to poor diet, but which can be treated and controlled with medication, thus extending the patient's years. 

The Inuit, for example, with a less efficient health system and high meat consumption, have lower expectations of biological survival, between about 71 years. And average Americans are now getting older, but living sick and under medication from increasingly younger ages . 

This is population evidence, but it can also be developed on what the studies say.

What do the studies say about this? (Meat, or whole grain cereal and milk)

Studies seem to suggest that diets such as the keto diet , paleo diets, and other diets rich in fats and meats, but poor in plant-based foods, are more harmful than beneficial. 

The keto diet, for example, although it could help lose weight (through poisoning, at least in part, it perishes) and have positive effects on some diseases such as diabetes, epilepsy, and even cancer, it is a diet that It would increase the risk of various diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases.

Diets low in foods of plant origin (especially fiber) could affect the intestinal microbiota , and even the heart. Diets such as keto would affect mitochondrial biogenesis, which could lead to cardiac fibrosis. 

Furthermore, although the main drawback of keto-style diets is fat , consuming high amounts of animal protein may be more harmful than healthy in the long term.

On the contrary, consuming whole grains, such as whole wheat bread and brown rice , is more related to lower health risks. In fact, there are studies that suggest that consuming whole foods would reduce the risk of practically all known types of cancer, except prostate cancer (and, of course, they do not increase the risk of prostate cancer). 

Also, whole grains would reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases considerably. This is apparently due to the fiber that would help reduce total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.

Conversely, high consumption of meat, especially red meat (pork and beef) and sausages, has been significantly (although slightly) associated with increased risk of cancer, and also considerably associated with increased cardiovascular risk when it comes to beef. and sausages. 

Regarding milk , if it is a natural source (free of hormones and chemicals), in addition to a moderate consumption of foods of animal origin and calories in general, it should not make you gain weight and could be healthy. Milk could be one of the best isotonic drinks currently, that is, one of the best options to replace electrolytes that are lost when sweating after exercising or when it is hot. In addition, it is one of the main sources of natural calcium.

Meats are related to a greater number of diseases, however, although some are related to a lower cardiovascular risk (such as those that have polyunsaturated fats that include omega 3, omega 6 and omega 9), they are also associated with an increased risk of suffering from cancer .

Regarding gluten and lactose. Gluten is a protein found in some cereals, but it does not affect many people, only a small group called celiacs. While lactose is a sugar found in milk and dairy products, although it would affect many people (lactose intolerance), the intolerance is usually somewhat mild for most. 

Anthropology and human genetics (Paleo diet)

The paleo diet is a current myth about what humans ate in the past. This myth indicates that humans of the past were all hunters and therefore consumers of meat.

The reality is that there is evidence that since those times, humans consumed cereals. Perhaps the evidence, because it is recent, is unknown to them and they continue to spread the palea diet based on a myth.

Furthermore, hunting people today are not simply hunters, but are hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of Tanzania in Africa, who are mainly vegetarians. 

One of the hunter-gatherer peoples that consume the most meat are the Aché of Paraguay , and it is estimated that 50% of them can reach 60 and 70 years of biological life in the jungle. Although these people also develop diseases that are common in Western civilizations, such as cancer, this disease usually appears late and is practically unknown in non-elderly subjects. 

However, the Aches seem to have premature aging if we consider that it is mentioned that their physical abilities begin to fail long before the age of 60, with the first signs of mortality related to aging beginning shortly after the age of 30. 

The Aches are active people, especially the men, who spend much of the day hunting and searching for honey.

For their part, the Hadza of Tanzania have a low survival expectancy. However, this lower survival, or greater number of deaths at early ages, among the Hadza, would be related more to deaths during the first years of life than to high early mortality in adults. 

But, where the Hadza and the Ache of Paraguay agree, it would be the perception of aging. The Hadza seem to consider themselves old rather than more civilized populations, such as the Polish. The perception of aging among Hadzas would be approximately after 30 years. (This is a bit like the perception in sports, 35 years and up, give or take).

A summary explanation of this example with hunter-gatherers would be that although the high amount of physical activity they perform and their coexistence with nature act as a reducer of cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, it is not enough to stop aging when faced with a diet rich in meat. So that symptoms related to aging could be seen first among these groups than in people from other places.

Among the hunter-gatherers, those with the highest mortality would be the hiwi, from Venezuela. But, the cause of death among this and other groups would be more associated with hunting and violence between humans than with old age. This would not be surprising considering that few live to be over 60 years old. 

Another thing these groups seem to have in common is that most of the protein in their diets is meat-based, in contrast to Sardinia and other places where people tend to live many longer and disease-free while consuming little meat. 

Furthermore, these groups of hunter-gatherers show ancestral tribal behavior more akin to competitive sports than survival. The evidence seems to indicate that the hunters carried out these practices more than to survive, as a way of showing power to their group, which is currently viewed as a kind of competition between young men.

For example, the Hadza seem to prefer hunting large prey, including giraffes, which give them greater social status, than more convenient and less risky prey such as birds (they hunt birds, but whoever hunts a giraffe would contribute more to the group). 

For this and other reasons, such as reproduction , practices such as hunting do not seem to be the most convenient for the proliferation of the human species. Well, in addition to the short life expectancy they have, hunting towns usually have younger men with reproductive capacity, compared to pastoral and farming towns. Turkana shepherds, according to a study, are those with the highest level of reproduction in old age. Although the study also mentions that this could be associated with the polygamous practices of this town.

Let us also consider that the physical wear and tear that hunters undergo throughout their biological life is tremendous, which could explain the signs of premature aging that hunting peoples present and could also be associated with their low reproductive rate. Although these activities could also be associated with lower cardiometabolic and cancer risk.

Today's hunting peoples are numerically small, and reflect how difficult it is for humans to proliferate under these conditions. The same thing could have happened in the past, but the reality is that humanity was increasing in number rapidly because long ago it began to consume cereals and use domestic animals, from which it obtained meat and milk in a more humane way (biologically speaking). ). 

Finally, the pastoral peoples with higher meat consumption do not have a great state of health either. For example, one study suggests that the consumption of high amounts of meat due to grazing could have caused mutations in humans that later led to the emergence of autoimmune diseases, since this dietary practice affected the intestinal microbiota.

Conclusion (Meat or cerelaes)

Paleo or carnivore diets seem to be geared toward people seeking short, but perhaps intense, biological lives. As is the case with current hunter-gatherers.

Those who follow paleo diets may only seek momentary benefits, without paying attention to the long-term risk of premature aging and premature death.

On the other hand, those who follow diets based on whole grains, with a low intake of meat, seem to age later and remain for more years without signs of aging. 

However, a direct association between the consumption of meat and whole grains, respectively, and aging cannot be objectively made. Let us remember that hunter-gatherers lead physically demanding lifestyles, which could have to do with this reported premature aging.

Those who follow diets high in proteins of animal origin, specifically meat (but not dairy), seem to get sicker and have lower biological survival. We can see this in populations of countries and towns, where the trend is that in countries and towns where meat is consumed the most, the cardiometabolic risk is greater than in those where it is consumed less.

In conclusion, the paleo lifestyle seems detrimental to those seeking to reach older ages in a healthy way.