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Danny Roddy article

Ok, I haven't heard of this guy before, though from what I see, he did paleo for a while and then decided it wasn't working. The interesting thing about the article is the claims that low blood sugar/fat metabolism is stressful to the body, causes aging and inhibits the thyroid. He references Ray Peat and Chris Masterjohn.

So generally seems kinda counter to paleo (aside from him blatantly stating so), but it seems to be working for him. As people are often quick to point out when disproving the lipid hypothesis, counterexamples need to be explainable or you have to rethink your current model. So how are his results explainable under paleo and/or how is paleo incomplete?

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1 
 n=1 rarely explains anything, don't forget that. It's simply a way of figuring out what works for yourself. However, observational bias can make it difficult to determine why it worked. – David Csonka Feb 28 2012 at 0:03
He should have a hard-coded "Step Right Up, Folks!" preface to each post. – Travis Culp♦ Feb 28 2012 at 0:56
@Travis Culp, you slay me. @Dave, I don't support anything I write in that article with personal anecdotes. – dannyroddy Feb 28 2012 at 2:05
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 What is to explain? Just take someone else's opinion and figure out what it means to you, if anything. Are people really under the impression that every single person should be on a paleo diet for the rest of their life? As for how he is saying Paleo is incomplete, why don't you read some more of his articles elaborating on his opinion? – Dylan Feb 28 2012 at 2:55
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 "Are people really under the impression that every single person should be on a paleo diet for the rest of their life...." Uh, yeah. That is more or less the gist of it. – JayJay Feb 28 2012 at 19:43
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7 Answers

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I list several mechanisms in that article, but don't feel compelled to address any of them.

I didn't ditch a high-starch paleo because I was having a "hard time," I actually felt quite well compared to my experience with ZC/pemmican/vegetarianism/veganism/LC paleo.

I ditched it because Peat's ideas are more dialed in and explain gigantic holes in paleosphere's never-ending-go-no-where-war-with-stress.

I have "coached" with several dozen people since December, mostly males, and I had them all get extensive Peat-oriented lab work.

Not only is Peat spot on about there issues corresponding with different hormones, but his approach is based on actual physiology and not some wild guess on what made our ancestors or an isolated group of people healthy.

I have a strong feeling that most people are not sure what Peat is suggesting and are extremely confused on why he's suggesting it.

One such example is Travis, who is quick to outright make fun of me for how I make a living, but in a thread a few days ago was asking Cliff to clear up what people who follow Peat actually eat.

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 @dannyroddy -- I actually think that you and Travis Culp are a lot closer than actually apart. – Patrik♦ Feb 28 2012 at 2:34
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It's simple.

There is a natural spectrum from insulin resistance to insulin sensitivity, and each of us are at one extreme or somewhere in between.

The people writers like Taubes are writing to are the more insulin resistant. This group has problems even walking past a cookie!

People who are insulin sensitive can live off bottled cokes and wonder what the fuss is all about, until they get older and feel the damage.

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And sometimes they get really, really old and never seem to feel or experience any measurable signs of damage, even with lots of things like booze and smoking thrown into the mix. (Unless aging itself is such a sign, but anti-aging science doesn't seem well-developed yet.) – Christopher Gagnon Feb 28 2012 at 0:46
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 It seems often humans (at least "Western" ones) seem ill-equipped to think of things in terms of spectra, or continua. We don't seem to find transitions comforting, but prefer certain points, certain answers: yes/no, black/white, on/off, in/out. Or at least I should say that I attribute most of my own troubles in life to this tendency. – Christopher Gagnon Feb 28 2012 at 1:06
Good points, and western medicine is horrible for the same reason, bad thinking! Medicine doesn't pay much attention to what is going on inside until they have a disease to work from. Same thing, too little thought given to the fact that there are processes at work inside and they can and should be managed well before you throw the switch and it's a "disease." I bought some big fancy medical reference app and it's megabytes of lists of diseases, symptoms, and drugs. No useful info! – DFH Feb 28 2012 at 1:26
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He lived on pemmican only. He developed vitamin deficiencies. Now he feasts on sugar. I think he went from one extreme to another while the healthy spot lies somewhere inbetween.

His hair protocol is about hormonal control. Hormones are the key to how much sugar is ok. Unfortunately, he mentions nowhere that high carb intake can also mess up hormones, as any diabetic can attest to. Chronically high blood sugar can do a lot of damage and it's known that high carb intake can lead to reactive hypoglycemia, the "thin man's diabetes".

There's nothing magical about sugar. It's all about blood sugar levels. Oral glucose tolerance tests show that for many, the sweet spot lies around 70g glucose/d. Since starch is just slowly absorbed glucose, what you get from sugar and fruit is just a sharper blood sugar spike. How well can you stash it away? Seeing as blood sugar can tell us where we stand, I wouldn't go higher than 70g carbs from all sources without testing my own glucose tolerance.

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Why do controlled studies consistently show low fat high carb diets are the best diets for diabetics? High fat diets being the worst. – cliff Feb 28 2012 at 0:06
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 Found these 2 studies pretty easily- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2547860, ajcn.org/content/80/3/668.short. If they used fruit based carbs instead of starch it would probably have even better results due to the nutrients in fruit and fructose doesn't need insulin to be metabolized. – cliff Feb 28 2012 at 0:16
Cliff - really? Cites? I'm diabetic, have researched this for year, and can find no definitive conclusions... Other than my n=1 which shows me paleo seems to work best. – sara z. Feb 28 2012 at 0:20
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 Second study is only about weight loss and dietary fat, not about carbs. The higher fat diet didn't negatively impact any health indicators, ppl jus lost more weight on the low fat. As for first study, yeah, I've seen a number like this as well as a number that indicate the opposite. Hanging out on diabetes forums and hearing experiences of hundreds of others, ppl generally seem to do better managing blood glucose and other indicators lowering carbs. I know I do. A1c from 10 to 5.8 on lower carb, higher fat. BP & chol down, too. Not to mention 50 lbs. I'm autoimmune/LADA btw not type 2. – sara z. Feb 28 2012 at 0:33
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 No one ever said you couldn't get apparent health benefits on whatever diet your doing? Dean said high carb intake leads to diabetes which has never been proven to be true and in fact the opposite seems to be true. Controlled studies consistently show high fat diets tend to deteoriate glucose metabolism, which is most likely due to the effects of PUFA. You can avoid most of these effects eating fats that contain lower amounts of PUFA. – cliff Feb 28 2012 at 1:02
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I'm interested in this question as well. My body seems to handle moderate (<100g/day) amounts of sugar without incident. My trigs were low to very low even on bad SAD, so I have no reason to think they are elevated, and that amount of sugar does not prompt the inflammation I find with O6 polys. It also doesn't trigger cravings in me. I'm young-ish, have been primal for years, am more active than average and have a higher muscle mass than average. I consistently do heavy progressive barbell training. I initially had success with VLC, then hit a wall ~1 yr later. Added back in starches with excellent results. After adding in starches, I noticed when I did consume sugar, it had no effect.

Is it possible that some people may be able to handle such an amount of sugar without damage? It initially appears to be the case for me.

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i dont get why people need reason for the extremes....if your vlc and having problems, this does not mean vlc doesnt work, or that you are going to die, just MAYBE you should eat a damned piece of fruit, not go figure out how to juice gallons of orange juice with jello jigglers, whizzed up egg shells sprinkled on 3 bottles of skim milk and oysters. taking insulin to either extreme will prolly make you resistant

instead of looking to justify drinking oj all day why dont you just add some fruit and see what happens

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Mal, before the Peat Fest Danny added tubers to his ZC Diet. He slowly transitioned to Peat afaik. The Healthy Hair Diet was his former plan. – Paul Mar 10 2012 at 17:43
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We all know people who consume huge amounts of sugar, fast food, and other processed junk, for years, without apparent ill effect. This is clearly within the normal range of modern human metabolism.

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 According to 2001 statistics the average american only eats ~165 calories from sugar crystalsugar.com/coopprofile/sfacts.aspx. So the average American is on a low sugar diet. The majority of calories in the SAD come from starch and fat. – cliff Feb 28 2012 at 0:58
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 Scandinavians actually eat an impressive amount of sugar and manage to beat Americans on most health markers (possibly due to the fact that the rest of their diet is mostly better and they are more active)...until they get in their 40s, when their markers rapidly decline. – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Feb 28 2012 at 1:14
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 ROTFLMAO at Cliff's source for his sugar info!!!!!!!! – Atkins-witha-loincloth Feb 28 2012 at 7:42
2009 American daily caloric sugar intake: 355 calories msnbc.msn.com/id/32543288/ns/… – Atkins-witha-loincloth Feb 28 2012 at 7:46
2 
 usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf Scroll to page 20 for an accurate reporting of actual sugar intake by Americans. – Atkins-witha-loincloth Feb 28 2012 at 8:00
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I think if one is not metabolically derranged, then it could work well. Variation/balance, I believe, are key. You don't want to overwork the pancreas, or liver, but you also don't want to under utilize the thyroid, other organs, etc.

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