There was a recent clash of personalities in the paleo blogosphere. You can read perspectives from the participants here: Richard Nikoley, Melissa McEwen, Evelyn Kocur. This conflict sparked my interest in replacing the paleo diet with something better. It helped me realize that a rigorous focus on scientific evidence over personality is needed when it comes to nutrition. I disagree with the libertarian arguments and tough love found in many areas of the paleosphere. Obtaining wealth and health is entirely due to luck.
This does not mean I automatically endorse other political groups. Instead, I believe it is important to extend human lifespan by any means necessary via whatever optimal strategy this may take, even if this goes against outdated moral beliefs or illusions about what freedom represents. Since no one knows for sure what comes after death, it is rational to base life around the fear of death. This does not mean government gets a free pass, which I discuss further in The Death Triangle. I don’t hate paleo people and nutrition bloggers. In fact, I am grateful to them for making me take a closer look at dietary techniques that have the potential to surpass the paleo lifestyle.
As far as paleo goes, I’ve read almost all the major paleo books and posted notes from many of them on my blog. These posts are listed in The Archives. I personally think the best interpretation of paleo for weight loss and fitness comes from Anthony Colpo. His book The Fat Loss Bible cites hundreds of scientific studies to help people develop a personalized plan to meet their fitness goals. The book goes into much more detail about each of these major points:
1. eating paleo foods
2. having a higher protein intake along with sufficient fat
3. adjusting calorie/carb intake based on weight loss goals and athletic requirements
4. engaging in resistance training and cardio exercise (including high intensity training)
5. taking selected supplements (magnesium, fish oil, BCAA, etc) to eliminate nutrient deficiencies and enhance weight loss
Dr. Paul Jaminet and Dr. Shou-Ching Jaminet of Perfect Health Diet fame also have a very useful take on ancestral health that focuses on the health benefits of traditional Pacific Islander nutrition. Their research also led to an increased usage of starches in paleo diets. This book and its mention of supercentenarians made me realize that whether a food meets some strict definition of paleo is less important than finding if that food contributes to longevity.
Like Max More and Michael Rose, I was interested in longevity research long before I became interested in the paleo diet. Being the hottest caveman or cavewoman on the block is fundamentally unimportant when people are just animals whose lives are ultimately pointless if they eventually die, as described in the post Humans Are Animals But Can Be So Much More. The paleo diet is a useful framework and much better than standard industrial food diets. There still has to be more. For people who are obsessed with longevity and who worry about death every day, let me present a new approach.
That approach might involve the following:
1. Using PubMed searches like aging[mh] AND diet[title/abstract] or longevity[mh] AND diet[title/abstract] to identify dietary patterns associated with longevity
2. Searching PubMed or Google Scholar to identify all the health effects associated with a certain food before eating that food regularly
3. Mapping the effects of foods on cells and enzymes to create a portfolio of foods that enhance biological health without creating deficiencies or creating an excess of potentially harmful activity
4. Using nutrigenomic approaches to identify whether certain diets and foods have beneficial effects on gene expression and DNA repair
5. Adjusting the intake of certain foods to account for the effects of medications that enhance longevity (such as metformin) and techniques like gene therapy or SENS approaches.
The paleo diet is good for beginners, but much more is required to become superhuman.
