Caveman diet 'combats diabetes'

Published on Monday 2 July 2007 00:15

THE diet of a tribe who still follow a Stone Age lifestyle could provide a vital key to combat diabetes, according to a new study.

Inspired by the low incidence of heart disease and diabetes among the Kitava tribe of Papua New Guinea, scientists set out to discover if there was something in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that helped combat the disease.

The findings of the Swedish research show a "paleolithic" diet is considerably more effective than a healthy Mediterranean diet in reducing fluctuations in blood sugar levels.

The main difference between the diets was a much lower consumption of grain and dairy products, and a higher consumption of fruit in the Stone Age group.

Scientists found that patients with poor glucose control greatly improved their ability to handle sugar after switching to prehistoric eating habits.

The paleolithic diet given to the volunteers was similar to what early modern humans were eating when they first walked out of Africa 70,000 years ago.

At that time, before the advent of farming, humans were hunter-gatherers feeding off the land. Diets then consisted of lean meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, root vegetables and nuts.

Cereals, dairy products, refined fat and sugar - which provide most of the calories of the modern diet - only became staple foods with the start of agriculture about 9,000 years ago.

For the study, 14 glucose-intolerant heart patients were asked to copy the diet of their ancient ancestors for 12 weeks.

They were compared with a similar group of 15 patients who adopted a supposedly healthy Mediterranean diet featuring whole-grain cereals, low-fat dairy products, fruit, vegetables and unsaturated fats.

All those taking part suffered from boosted blood sugar after consuming carbohydrates, and most had symptoms of type 2 diabetes.

After 12 weeks, the carbohydrate-linked blood sugar rises had fallen by 26 per cent in the Stone Age diet group, the Swedish researchers found. In contrast, it barely changed for those on the Mediterranean diet, falling by only 7 per cent. At the end of the study, all the patients in the paleolithic group had normal blood glucose.

The main difference between the participants was a much lower intake of dairy products and grain foods, and higher fruit consumption in the paleolithic group.

Something more than calorific reduction and weight loss was responsible for the difference in the results, said Dr Staffan Lindeberg, from Lund University, whose results were released by the Swedish Research Council: "If you want to prevent or treat diabetes type 2, it may be more efficient to avoid some modern foods than to count calories or carbohydrates."