Paleo diet Archives

EndoMune pills on a cutting board, surrounded by various fresh vegetables

Protect Your Gut on the Paleo Diet

You’ve probably heard of the Paleo Diet, one of the more popular diet strategies people use to lose weight.

Designed to imitate what scientists believe cavemen/cavewomen ate, this diet focuses on a narrower number of foods (lean meats, fresh fruits, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, nuts, seeds, plant-based oils and fish).

Although the tradeoffs — avoiding grains, dairy products and processed foods — can be a deal-breaker for some, growing research points to the Paleo Diet aiding in safe weight loss, improved cardiovascular health and lower BMIs.

As you make drastic alterations in your diet, however, the balance of bacteria in your gut changes too and not always for the better, particularly for your heart.

The heart-gut link

Foods rich in choline like liver and red meats that are part of a Paleo Diet plan may also increase the production of TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), which has been linked to an increased risk of blood clots that cause stroke and heart attacks, in the gut.

An Australian research team examined the effect of following a Paleo Diet by comparing the health of 44 patients on the meatier diet with a control group following more balanced diets.

A series of examinations determined that Paleo Diet patients had double the level of TMAO compared to the control group.

So, how did that happen?

Paleo Diet patients had some serious imbalances in their gut bacteria, including elevated levels of gut microbes like Hungatella. These kinds of microbes produce greater amounts of TMAO and lower levels of beneficial gut bugs that ferment dietary fiber like Bifidobacterium.

“Many Paleo diet proponents claim the diet is beneficial to gut health, but this research suggests that when it comes to the production of TMAO in the gut, the Paleo Diet could be having an adverse impact in terms of heart health,” says lead researcher Dr. Angela Genoni from Australia’s Edith Cowan University.

A probiotic solution

At first look, a simple solution for this looming heart-harming problem — increasing your intake of dietary fiber by eating whole grains — may work, but there goes your weight loss plan.

But, if you’re doing well on a Paleo Diet, a safer, smarter and healthy solution for treating this imbalance of gut bacteria is just as easy.

Taking a probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic with 10 strains of beneficial bacteria from the Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus families may make a world of difference, not only for your gut health, but your heart health too.

If weight loss and improved heart health are part of your dietary goals, you should consult with your physician and consider adding EndoMune Metabolic Rescue to your regimen too.

EndoMune Metabolic Rescue’s unique formula of Bifidobacterium lactis and the prebiotic XOS improves metabolic efficiency and boosts weight loss by stimulating the release of hormones that decrease your appetite and promote a greater sense of fullness.

When taken with EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, EndoMune Metabolic Rescue work together to support healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Gut health and weight loss are very doable when you have the right tools like probiotics!

References

European Journal of Nutrition

Edith Cowan University

The Mayo Clinic

Harvard Medical School

National Institutes of Health

Gut Microbiota For Health

Protect Your Gut on the Paleo Diet Read More »

Is the Paleo diet good for your gut and losing weight?

Think about that bad morning when you got ready for work and nothing in your closet fit. You had been losing the battle of the bulge for so long that you were willing to consider extreme dieting fads just to fit into those old but favorite clothes.

Perhaps, that desperation has led you to consider the Paleolithic diet, better known as the Paleo diet, based on what scientists speculated cavemen/women ate during that era, ending some 10,000 years ago.

Some experts (Loren Cordain, Ph.D. and Robb Wolf) assume that shunning the many unhealthy staples of the Western diet—dairy products, processed foods filled with extra salt and sugars, carbs, starches, and grains—for a more basic diet made up of lean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables and “good” fats can be a healthier way to lose weight.

Unfortunately, the Paleo diet isn’t open to everyone. Vegans aren’t allowed in the party due to their specific dietary restrictions (no eggs, seafood or meat), plus Paleo dieters aren’t allowed to eat veggie sources of protein (beans and other legumes).

So, despite its limitations, does the Paleo diet really work? A study published by the American Society of Microbiology earlier this year that compared the gut microbes of humans and animals questioned the Paleo diet’s ability to suppress hunger.

A scientist at Imperial College London compared fecal bacteria samples taken from human vegans to those from gelada baboons, the only modern primate that mostly eats grass.

Then, researchers fed the samples one of two diets—a predigested grassy, high-fiber diet or a predigested potato, high-starch diet—then tracked the changes in bacteria.

Interestingly, human cultures fed the potato diet by scientists produced the best results: High levels of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), chemicals associated with triggering appetite-suppressing gut hormone peptides.

What’s more, baboon cultures fed the potato diet produced more SCFAs than those given grass. When some of these potato cultures were added to the colon cells of mice, the animal cells produced appetite-suppressing, gut hormone peptide YY (PYY).

Simply put, these results demonstrate the belief among many dietary experts that the appetite suppression connected with following a Paleo diet may not be entirely accurate, or that plant-based, high-fiber diets may not increase the presence of SCFAs or inhibit appetites after all.

If you want to overcome obesity and improve your health, eating like Fred and Wilma Flintstone may not help you very much.

Along with eating the right foods and starting an exercise plan, taking a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic will increase the diversity of bacteria in your gut that will assist you in beating obesity and improving your health for the long term by helping to produce the SCFAs that decrease your appetite.