A diet free of fake, processed food is the healthiest diet for EVERYONE. It's up to the individual to determine which foods cause them problems (dairy, red meat, nuts, nightshades, etc.) but the Paleo Diet consists of absolutely the healthiest foods on Earth. Some people say Paleo doesn't work for them because it makes them feel rotten and they feel better when they eat Neolithic foods again. What they mean to say is "Low Carb" Paleo doesn't work for them so they feel better when they indulge in high carb processed foods. Paleo does NOT equal "Low Carb." You eat as many carbs as you need to fuel your activity.

In regards to people feeling OK/fine on a SAD diet, that does NOT mean they are healthy. Millions of people are running around with large amounts of visceral fat, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and type 2 diabetes yet say they feel "fine" but would you say that their diet is "working" for them? Notsomuch.

It doesn't work well for making you popular with your local bakery.

Sure.......vegetarians and people who enjoy illness like munchhausen's patients and hypochondriacs.

This Guy:

Pfizer and Merck?

To clarify, what is your criteria for something "working" or not? Is it how they look? How they feel? How they perform? Markers of health and disease?

Crack works if you want to feel better. Plastic surgery works if you want to look better (temporarily). Amphetamines will certainly work if you want to perform better.

But will either of these things do all three while actually improving your health?

The Paleo Diet can.

No. Paleo isn't low carb. You can tailor the paleo diet to any persons needs.

My question would be how could it not work for someone? Unless they were a serious food addict.

Depends how you define paleo. As a skinny person I don't feel well in ketosis, or eating tons and tons of protein (though I often get about 100g per day, which is nearly a gram per pound of my body weight). I struggle with hypoglycemia so I simply can't get a lot of my calories from carbs without repercussions.

So I still eat mostly 'paleo' but I also eat limited non-toxic starches and not a lot of meat.

no, there is no one that will be harmed by avoiding grains, beans, dairy and PUFAs.

Paleo as typically recommended heavily suggests going low carb. This is because Paleo is billed as diet. The typical person who starts going paleo is looking to lose weight. The heavy low carb-ing is best for the stereotypical metabolically deranged and thus is the blanket recommendation (and recommended in strong language, often, inorder to get buy in). Low carb can cause all sorts of problems for certain people as has been mentioned. I aslo question the heavy condemnation of all fructose. Upping my fructose intake has been beneficial for me (at least in the short term on a low PUFA diet).

It depends on what you mean by Paleo. I tried to "do Paleo" by following Mark Sisson.

It doesn't work for me.

The low carb makes me dizzy, unable to pay attention and to concentrate and prone to car accidents (unable to pay attention while driving). This is the "low carb flu".

For me, "low carb flu" is a permanent state when I'm doing Paleo. It doesn't go away with time, like Mark Sisson says.

Also, when in "low carb flu", I lose weight initially for about 2 weeks, and then I simply don't lose anymore. It just doesn't happen, the scale shows the same number every day.

Also, when doing paleo I have problems due to high uric acid. .

What I found that works for me better than Paleo, is the "Eat to Live" diet of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, which is mostly vegetarian. But this is no magic solution either.

Right now I'm trying the Life Extension Mix (it's a multivitamin and fitonutrient mix) + PQQ + Coenzyme Q10 + Resveratrol. It is clear that it boosts my metabolism, but unfortunately it also boost my appetite which I try to calm by taking lysine.