Ancestral Health Symposium, Part 3

Today, I'm concluding my observations from the 2011 Ancestral Health Symposium. At this point, many of the talks are now up on the Web, and the slide presentations as well. If both are available, definitely have two windows open and watch the slides while listening to the talk. And be prepared for serious science!

Two of the speakers gave excellent presentations related to mental health issues. Psychiatrist Emily Deans writes the Evolutionary Psychology Column in Psychology Today, and author and neurofeedback practitioner Nora Gedgaudas (Primal Body, Primal Mind).

Deans says that mental illness is growing more prevalent and more severe, and can be related to a number of nutritional and stress issues. In fact, there is evidence that some of the genes which contribute to mental illness are related to nerve pathways involved in stress responses.

Gedgoudas says "we see through the lens of our blood sugar, our hormones, and our neurotransmitters" and we interpret the world through that lens. She says that blood sugar surges are "enormously destabilizing", and that over time a high-carb diet can lead to chronic mental illness such as Alzheimer's disease. She says that as far as diet is concerned, "nothing is more stabilizing than natural dietary fat". She also says that her clinical experience is that vegans can have damaged nervous systems, which may not be reversible. She said a whole lot of other stuff, which I look forward to reviewing on the Web, as she went very quickly!

I attended a couple of talks related to the ecosystems in our guts. Tim Gerstmar began his talk with a slide stating, "All Hail Our Bacterial Overlords" -- since of all the cells we walk around with, only about 10% are human. He said that city dwellers have a narrower variety of bacteria in their guts than people who live in the country. He also pointed to several lines of research showing the positive impact of friendly bacteria including that reported in Discover Magazine in the article "Is Dirt the New Prozac?". He talked about the many conditions associated with gut permeability ("leaky gut"), from fibromyalgia to hypothyroidism to rosacea. He said the treatment is a low-carb diet, while avoiding gut irritants such as dairy, soy, legumes, and alcohol. He encourages coconut and fermented foods, as well as certain herbs, probiotics, and prebiotics.

I did attend Andreas Eenfelt's presentation, even though I'd heard him on the Low-Carb Cruise. The presentation was similar, but I liked how he referred to the Food Pyramid as an "uncontrolled, perhaps unethical, experiment". He pointed out that 100 years ago, grains and starchy foods were listed under "foods strictly forbidden" for diabetics, long before the USDA decided we should eat more of them than anything else.

Chris Masterjohn gave a very interesting talk about the science around cholesterol, including information I'd never heard before.

Denise Minger gave a talk called "How to Win an Argument with a Vegetarian" -- she was only talking about vegetarians who want to argue -- some of them are very ready to argue because they think we are killing ourselves and the planet. She talked about several documentaries which have been made to help them out. She pointed out that usually studies which compare health in vegetarians and meat-eaters are not comparing apples to apples -- that there are many confounding variables - for example, vegetarians are less likely to be smokers, more likely to exercise, less likely to eat sugar and processed foods. "Apples to apples" comparisons, such one done with Buddhist vegetarians in Taiwan where lifestyle factors and diet other than meat were similar, do not show the same positive results - in fact, the Buddhists vegetarians were in some ways less healthy. (I'm happy to say that Denise is coming on the Low-Carb Cruise next year!)

Although I heard lots of other great talks - Michael Eades and Robert Lustig among them and missed some great ones, including Loren Cordain and Stephan Guyenet, I'm afraid that's all I'm going to be able to blog about. I encourage you to check them out on the Web, and if you like what you see, think about attending next year's Ancestral Health Symposium!

Image Courtesy of Ancestral Health Society

Related Resources:

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• How Much Protein Do you Need?
  
  
• How to Cook a Steak from Grass-Fed Beef

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