The Paleo Diet vs. Multiple Sclerosis

It seems like the two independent variables are gluten and lectins, along with epidermal growth factor. Either way, the causal factor is a neolithic diet …

EXACTLY
Robb

This lecture is also available at http://www.direct-ms.org/presentations.html , which is Dr. Ashton Embry’sm website, whose son was diagnosed with MS years go, being symptom free for years, thanks to a Paleo type diet (he uses Loren Cordain’s template), along with supplements. What amazes me is the fact that this gentleman is a geologist, who already has published scientific papers on MS.

MC

Hi Robb,

I just found your blog; nice work. It also gets on my nerves when people assume being sick all the time is just part of the human condition.

This is a bit of tangent, but you seem to be clued in to Weston Price’s work. Have you heard they figured out what activator X is? It’s vitamin K2, isoform MK-4. It’s every bit as important and interesting as what WAP described. There’s a very convincing article on the WAP website by Chris Masterjohn; you can find it by searching their site for ‘activator X’. If you haven’t checked it out already, I highly recommend it. I’ll be putting up a post about it once I collect my (numerous) thoughts.

Stephan-
Some folks mentioned the activator x article a few months ago. GREAT stuff. Let me know when you have your post ready!
Robb

Robb,
I have been following CrossFit since early February of this year and it has got me into the paleo diet and reading your blog along with several others. I definitely love the diet and feel great on it. The one thing that has been tough to give up is milk because I just really like the taste and using them for protein shakes, again cuz I like the taste and they’re quick. So I know milk gives a much higher insulin response than it’s GI would indicate but I recently read an article on PubMed where the result indicated whey as the main proponent of this rise in insulin. Do you know anything about this? My next step was going to be eliminating milk from the protein fruit smoothies and be done with dairy, grains, and legumes altogether, but if it is the whey causing the problem then I guess that just leaves the fruit smoothie…

Thanks for any response you give, I know you are real busy and I love your reading your stuff.

p.s. the article is called

Glycemia and insulinemia in healthy subjects after lactose-equivalent meals of milk and other food proteins: the role of plasma amino acids and incretins. Thanks again!

Hey Kyle-
Pedro Bastos is a research associate of Loren Cordain and he is working on a review paper for dairy, similar to the one Cordain did for grains. It will cover EVERY element of this topic but like you indicated, whey appears to be the largest player in this process. If you think about it, the growth inducing potential of dairy makes sense in the context of a growing mammal…then when growth is finished, milk consumption halts. I think you can tackle this stuff by eliminating the dairy for a time, then re-introduce it and just see how you feel, look perform etc. Nothing beats that personal experience. I have noticed that shakes tend to do one thing: make people chubby. The refinement of the food is tough with regards to insulin release…this is perhaps exacerbated with dairy in the mix.

Let me know if this makes sense and thank you for the kind words!
Robb

I watched this on youtube, it was very interesting. I have one question to ask: In one the videos, Cordain says you need inflammation to have cancer. What is meant by this? I know carbs have a proinflammatory effect and I know alot of chronic degenative diseases out there: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc. have a chronic low level of inflammation present. Does the inflammation turn on genes in susceptible individuals that will give one cancer, another heart disease, another autoimmune disorder, and etc…? At the age of 32 I developed carpal tunnel, the previous 2 years before I would say glycemic control was slipping, I don’t have an actual blood test but would not be surprised if I had IGT. The actual week that my carpal tunnel really got worse,I purely by coincidence went on the Atkins diet (I went on to lose 40 pounds in the next 5 months). I noticed that it improved over time but went ahead with carpal tunnel release surgery. I did not know at the time that the carpal tunnel was the result of the high blood sugar excursions damaging my nerves. We have rheumatoid arthritis in my family and I am well aware of the fact now that carpal tunnel out of the blue is an herald for RA. I know this is just speculation, but if I avoid inflammation in general, a high glycemic carb diet, to what extent will that decrease the chances of developing RA? My family’s health history includes heart disease, breast cancer, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, overweight not really obese, and few diabetics and as you probably suspect a low carb diet makes a huge difference in my health. I can already guess, that you would probably say to me, considering my family’s background, that a gluten-free, low carb diet for the rest of my life would be the best option.

Mary-
I’m going to tackle this on the front page.