The Paleo diet, otherwise known as the Paleolithic diet, has gone in and out of fashion over the last few years and has generated quite a bit of controversy along the way, not to mention criticism. The concept seems scientifically sound to some while appearing to be completely ridiculous to others.
However, the results of a new study are starting to suggest that those who have been snickering might want to give it a bit of a second look. What the U.S. News and World Report once called the worst among nutritional regimens is now being taken considerably more seriously. The diet doesn’t have a single goal in mind. It can be applied to several different purposes.
But the Paleo diet has broken with a great deal of convention in terms of diet programs. For example, people who want to lose weight typically break down the whole process into a simple calories in versus calories out formula. However, this program suggests that there’s more to it than this, and that nutrition plays a considerably greater role.
The recent study was conducted by researchers in Sweden and the report was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study involved the participation of 70 women who were both post-menopausal and overweight. They were randomly assigned a diet that was either low fat or high fiber based on the nutrition recommendations that Nordic countries recommend versus the regulations from the Paleo diet. The latter is greatly based on eggs, meat, veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds. That said, it excludes all dairy, beans and grains, in addition to processed foods and added sugars.
Each of the study’s participants each met up with dieticians on an individual basis as well as in group sessions at set intervals at various points throughout the length of the study. The research ran for a length of two years. It took measurements of an individual’s overall health status throughout that time at the six month marks and the two year mark. The health measurements included cholesterol, weight, and blood sugar.
What it determined was that when it came to waistline and weight, it was the group on the Paleo diet that fared the best. They lost considerably more weight (at an average of just over 14 pounds in six months) than the group on the Nordic diet (the control group) which lost an average of just over 5 and a half pounds in six months.
