Paleo Diet Paper Example

What is Paleo Diet?

Paleo diet also referred to as the caveman or the stone age diet is a type of dieting that puts special emphasis on eating more of wholesome and unprocessed natural foods. The meals that make up this type of diet are mostly foods that can be hunted such as fish, red meat, fruits, vegetable, and nuts. Created about five decades ago, the diet is based wholly on the idea that human metabolism has never changed for almost 10,000 years now. It explains that the intake of processed foods and refined sugar products is the culprit responsible for coronary diseases and lifetime health conditions and complications such as obesity and diabetes.

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What are the benefits of the Paleo Diet?

According to research published by the Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics:

• Paleo diet lowers the chances of contracting lifestyle conditions such as diabetes and obesity. This can be attributed to the fact that the diet advocated the intake of fewer fats and no refined foods. Diabetic patients have been shown to respond more to the treatment when they are placed under a paleo diet (Cunningham,2012).
• Excessive intake of processed foods causes about 90% of chronic and life-threatening illnesses in the US. The foods contain high slat and fats and are responsible for the high rates of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. Paleo diet can be very instrumental in illuminating such illnesses.
• Obese patients are more likely to reduce their wait sizes by adopting a Paleo diet

There are also some negative implications of adopting a Paleo diet. Paleo diet was ranked 36 out of 38 in a lit of risky diet by the US News & World Report in 2017.

• The consumption of certain fats in the paleo diet increase chances of contracting certain types of cancers and life-threatening health complications. This is due to the high consumption of red meat and high-fat content (Olmsted et al.,2017).
• Low to moderate carbohydrate intake results in this diet due to the exclusion of cereals leads to Ketosis, a condition that results due to excessive use of body fat carbohydrates.

The research about Paleo made me want not want to change my diet at all. Paleo diet, despite having numerous benefits especially for those people ailing from lifestyle conditions, it has certain serious drawbacks. For example, the diet advocates too the consumption of too many saturated fats. Consumption of saturated fats has been proven to be detrimental to health. Another factor is that this diet advocated the consumption of red meat. Read meat, consumed in low to very moderate amounts can be beneficial. However, when it is taken on a regular basis, red meat has been shown to result in cancer( Stroehl et al., 2016).

One other fact I did not like about the diet is that it discourages the intake of cereals. Grains normally provide carbohydrates. I am a football player and this means I use up a lot of energy while playing. If I were to take up this diet, my body would experience difficulty trying to the energy requirements of the football sports.

Discussions questions

• Despite the proven health benefits of the Paleo diet, why has Paleo diet considered to be a risky diet?
• How do people who live on paleo diet meet their bodies energy requirements?
• Why do some people contract cancer even when practicing safe dieting habits?

References

Cunningham, E. (2012). Are diets from paleolithic times relevant today?. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 112(8), 1296.

Olmsted, M., Geisen, E., Murphy, J., Bell, D., Morley, M., Stanley, M., & Powell, R. (2017). Methodology: US News & World Report 2017-18 Best Hospitals: Specialty rankings.

Stroehle, A., Behrendt, I., Behrendt, P., & Hahn, A. (2016). Alternative Diets Part 2: The Paleo Diet-Natural History Meets Modern Metabolic Research. AKTUELLE ERNAHRUNGSMEDIZIN, 41(2), 120-138.