Summary of Robb Wolf’s Paleo Solutions Podcast #2

This is a summary of Robb Wolf’s Paleothic Solutions Podcast, Episode 2

Topics covered:

• Fish Oil
• DPA and DHA
• Large Doses Study
• 3 Bads that lead to constant inflammation
  • High omega 6 diet
  • High insulin levels
  • Gut irritants – grains, legumes and dairy
• Sweet Potatoes and Yams
• Fruit
• Nuts

The meat of the talk (pun intended):

• Cod Liver Oil –   Cordain says Vitamin A in Cod liver Oil is a competitive inhibitor of Vitamin D
• Vitamin D recommendations depending on your size – 2,000 to 5,000 IUs a day (in addition to fish oil)
• Can’t get mercury in the fish oil  because the mercury is  found in the protein.
• DPA and DHA totals should equal 1,000grams (be careful w/ soybean oil.  May be included in total omega 3 count.  They may be using alpha linolaic acid, the same as flax seed oil, for total omega 3 count).  If you have a capsule that only has half of DPA and DHA, then the rest is made up of something else you may not want.  Look for high concentrations of DPA and DHA in a capsule.  Nordic Naturals is a good choice.
• Store oils in cold dark place – keeps it from going bad.
• Study – done in rats. Looked at low and high intake of omega 3 – both extremes had neurological development problems in rats.  Problems – using fish oil AND soy bean oil AND safflower oil, etc.  Competitive inhibition of the omega 6 pathway (arachidonic acid pathway)
• Modern human diets are deficient in omega 3s and have too much omega 6s.  Corn, safflower, sunflower seeds oils are high in omega 6s.  When we grain feed animals they have much higher amounts of omega 6.  Farmed fish as well.  High levels of omega 6 (arachidonic acid).  Grass-fed is about 1 to 1 ratio.  In grain feed and processed diet it’s 1:20, 1 :30 (getting 20 to 30X too much omega 6).  We are just getting too much omega 6 in our diet.  Omega 6 is good if it is not in too high of a dose.  Omega 6s are in general related to the pro-inhibitory inflammatory pathway.  The prostaglandins, the leukotrienes that are associated with inflammation.  Remember that inflammation is a critical process of life – we need it, but not too much of it!
• Add to high levels of omega 6, high insulin levels exacerbate the pro-inflammatory pathway and then add to that gut irritants from grains, legumes and dairy
• You can get a red blood cell (erythrocyte) EPA/arachidonic acid test (gives ratio of epa to arachidonic acid).  Several labs online have testing and recommendations.
• Sweet Potatoes and Yams
• Cordain’s original book was somewhat “gutted” for mainstreaming the book.  There are some inaccurate claims in the book – like you can eat as much as you want and lose weight.  The original manuscript is much different than the end product from the publisher.  It creates a lot of confusion for folks
• If folks have a thick pad at the waist line or skewed hip to waist ratio (mid section is bigger than your butt) – it indicates insulin resistance is going on.  Quick way to right that is to drop insulin levels which involve dropping total carb intake, making people sleep and dosing w/ fish oil.    Also a dose of vitamin D is important
• You can’t eat an unlimited amount of fruit if you are insulin resistance.  It’s important not to over consume fruit.
• In Paleo diet for athletes, we are trying to replenish muscle glycogen.  We want to maximize the amount of carbohydrate that gets into muscles while minimizing liver glycogen production and repletion.  Fructose tends to fill liver glycogen.  Fruit tends to have more fructose than yams and sweet potatoes.  Different fruits have more fructose than others – apples, oranges, pears tend to be high in fructose – berries, melons, grapes tend to have lower concentrations of fructose.  Yet all have higher amounts of fructose than sweet potatoes or yams.
• Athletes tend to find they get better performance results and run leaner when replenishing muscle glycogen with squash, sweet potatoes and yams for post-workout meal carb repletion.
• Doesn’t mean don’t eat fruit.  Tends to matter where you are in the insulin resistant spectrum.
• Protein – leaner cuts of meat tend to run 20 to 25 percent fat comes from meat.  Paleo – u are eating more protein.  You naturally get a high amount of fat out of the meat.

Nuts – how much is too much?

• When starting w/ clients, they are usually cut out so much already (grains, pastas, rice, sugar, etc) we don’t worry too much about their nut consumption.  It could make it a deal breaker for them.  We are usually pretty lax in the beginning because they have changed so much.
• Down the road and looking for better body composition, you need to look for any kinds of signs of inflammation – acne still popping up, females w/ cycle irregularities, pms, etc.  We then look at shifting their nut intake more towards the consumption of coconut oil, avocados and even olive oil.
• Most nuts have a high omega 6 content (which we are trying to avoid) and also nuts can irritate the gut.  Nuts have a ton of lectins and saponins (soap like foaming) – anti nutrients that are similar to grains.  These anti nutrients exist to help keep the seed intact to keep from sprouting – and they ward off insects.   These things can be a problem for people.  But it can be a deal breaker for some folks.  Will do it if they can eat nuts.  But we do see better body competition, performance, feeling better when we shift fat source away from nuts to coconut oils, avocados and olive oil.
• Cordain says use them as condiments.  Never recommended huge does of nuts.  It’s ongoing research.  Gut answer – nuts are similar to legumes in the body.  He has a ton of integrity – reserve the right to change our minds when science shows it different. 150 peer reviewed paper on many different topics.  He puts you in the direction and stresses we need more research.