Yes. And it has been used to cure some things you wouldn't believe. Here is the shortlist of the more serious illness that the PaleoMedicina group in Hungary have shown to effectively treat using their low-carb PKD protocol
I also think the medical aspect of the ketogenic diet is somewhat promising, but I'm very sceptical of the work put out by the PaleoMedicina group.
Mainly for 3 reasons:
1. They have a vested interest in presenting their therapy in an overly positive manner, as they sell it for hundreds of dollars per day at their clinic.
2. I've read a study published by them which contained some hyperbole that I can only attribute to either incompetence or deception [1]. In short, they described a newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patient which did not need insulin when not consuming carbohydrates (completely normal during the honeymoon phase of T1D) and had an increase of C-peptide shortly after diagnosis (also a common occurrence for many during the honeymoon [2]). From this (and nothing else) they draw the completely unfounded conclusion that "the paleolithic ketogenic diet may halt or reverse autoimmune processes destructing pancreatic beta cell function in T1DM."
3. Their website contains language and phrasing that I would only except from charlatans, and not from serious medial practitioners offering an unproven and unconventional treatment. Such as "Get rid of the inconvenience of visiting doctors: We cure you." and "A final cure for your disease" (above references to cancer on the same page, no less).
While I'm on almost exactly the same diet they're promoting, I have to agree.
I considered going to them, when I was first starting this diet, but their prices are absurd: three times what I'm paying for consultation to an already very expensive private doctor.
It's very sad that there doesn't seem to be a player in this field (nutrition) who's impartial and not motivated by monetary gain, that you can trust.
Zerocarb has healed by IBS and dramatically improved my mental health (with counseling of course). I was never overweight, but lost a lot of weight anyways, have a much more fit look.
I too have healed "incurable" conditions with an (almost) all-meat diet.
I hope the message spreads quickly, and I'm sure it will, there are probably hundreds of thousands of similar cases by now (judging only by the popularity of some subreddits).
Why? Paleolithic area humans may have had a life expectancy of 30-35 but it had nothing to do with diet, it has to do with so many dying as children (obviously not diet related), but once you passed the age of 5 you were generally going to live to your 60’s.
You are making some pretty black and white statements without any evidence to support it but giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming all that is true, that does not mean that if you eat like them you will live long.
If you really cared to learn about life expectancy of Paleolithic area it’s pretty simple to google, and Where did I claim if you eat like them you will live long like them?
Possibly. On the other hand, it does makes sense to feed animals a diet to which they are evolutionarily adapted. Visit a zoo sometime and ask what each animal eats. They are all feed something intended to be nutritionally similar to their natural diet. Because that’s what works.
I tend to agree that, in many cases, more "natural" is more "healthy" but my main caveats would be:
1. "natural" does not automatically mean better. Depends on the context and many other factors.
2. Determining what is "natural" is also contextual based on what timeline you are talking about and what geographic location. To say "paleolithic ways of eating are healthier" is meaningless unless you think that we a. know exactly what they ate back then and b. every human had access to the same foods regardless of where they lives on the planet
Unfortunately almost no human nutrition studies meet evidence-based medicine standards. And in fairness to the scientists, the constraints imposed by funding and ethics make it impossible to do really meaningful research. All we get are observational studies which show some correlation, often mixed up with multiple uncontrolled confounding factors.
So if you want to try a different diet like extreme low carb or whatever then go ahead. Maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't. In the worst case it probably won't kill you.
> Conclusions: The KD is a safe and efficacious therapy for intractable childhood epilepsy in Chinese children. The influence of age on efficacy is worth further investigation.
> Heck all I want in Nutrition is some objective data. Someone be that scientist.
This makes me very-very sad, but unfortunately that doesn't exists. Not only are studies are mostly observation, where you have to answer questions about what you eat (I can barely recall what I ate 3 days ago, not 3 months), and are usually funded by a corporation.
You can basically find a study for everything and it's complete opposite.
Nutrition studies come in two forms: these results apply to those confined to a hospital bed (or prison cell) and probably do not generalize to the normal population ; and despite our best efforts we were unable to get the subjects to adhere to their assigned diet.
Things aren't quite that bad, but it is close.
It doesn't help that many people have a bias and look for ways to bias their study. Studies that don't control for smoking find vegetarian diets are a lot healthier than those that do.
Mainly for 3 reasons:
1. They have a vested interest in presenting their therapy in an overly positive manner, as they sell it for hundreds of dollars per day at their clinic.
2. I've read a study published by them which contained some hyperbole that I can only attribute to either incompetence or deception [1]. In short, they described a newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patient which did not need insulin when not consuming carbohydrates (completely normal during the honeymoon phase of T1D) and had an increase of C-peptide shortly after diagnosis (also a common occurrence for many during the honeymoon [2]). From this (and nothing else) they draw the completely unfounded conclusion that "the paleolithic ketogenic diet may halt or reverse autoimmune processes destructing pancreatic beta cell function in T1DM."
3. Their website contains language and phrasing that I would only except from charlatans, and not from serious medial practitioners offering an unproven and unconventional treatment. Such as "Get rid of the inconvenience of visiting doctors: We cure you." and "A final cure for your disease" (above references to cancer on the same page, no less).
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267810000_Type_1_di...
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21219422/