Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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On this show they do experiments, most are not formal scientific studies, involving food myths. They had 6 vegetarians and had 3 of them eat meat for 2 months. One person had an 18% improvement in fitness, the others had 2 or 3%. They said results inconclusive. Another one involved giving up caffeine.

The one I have a question about involves carbohydrates. They had 3 teams of sugarcane cutters in Jamaica, or some Caribbean island. Every 15 minutes thy stopped for a drink. Team one had water, team 2 had water with unflavored carbohydrate in it and team 3 had water with carbohydrate but were not allowed to swallow it. The result, the team who spit the water out won. The explanation is that there are receptors on the tongue that register carbs. After a while the body starts to react as if the carbs were consumed. Does this mean that they are burning stored fat? If this is so, could you lose more weight by chewing up a piece of bread and spitting it out?

edited Apr 10 2011 at 18:28

familygrokumentarian
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asked Apr 25 2010 at 15:36

eakthekat
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Fearsclave · Answer 1 · 2010-04-25 16:06:01Z UTC

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I'm inclined to regard anyone or anything promoted by Oprah with deep, deep misgiving and suspicion, especially where nutrition and diet are concerned.

answered Apr 25 2010 at 16:06

Fearsclave
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speno · Answer 2 · 2010-04-25 15:54:45Z UTC

Reminds me of the work of David Jones and the study in which they showed that cyclists improved their performance by swishing a sugary tasting drink in their mouths. You can hear about it on a recent radiolab segment on the Limits of the Body

Just goes to show you that hormones exert control over our body's metabolism.

I think you should try a n=1 study on yourself and report back to the group. :-)

queen of the stone age · Answer 3 · 2011-04-10 18:53:49Z UTC

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Don't forget the spotlight effect - people tend to 'improve' when they take part in studies because they know someone is watching them. It's the attention that has the effect not whatever weird activity they doing.

answered Apr 10 2011 at 18:53

queen of the stone age
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daniel · Answer 4 · 2011-06-17 07:22:43Z UTC

i know this is a year late, but i saw that episode wherein im trying to cite that exact episode for an anrgument im having about caffeine...

but as far as the sugar cane goes.. there are three groups the water drinkers, the carb drinkers and the carb spitters. and the carb spitters produced more work than the 2 other groups. explanation was about the receptors in the tounge.

the brain thinks it is about to receive extra carbs, so it secretes a signal for the body to produce some energy since it will about to be replenished by the "intake" carbs.

and so they raised the questions you just asked how will this affect fitness in general?

i know it's a farfetched question, but you wouldn't happen to know what season and episode this was?

“The Truth About Food” hosted by Oz

4 Answers