Tag: Paleolithic diet

What do we do about politicians and physicians who promote antivaccine misinformation?

There are politicians and physicians out there promoting antivaccine misinformation. None of us expect politicians to be scientists or physicians, but we do expect them to listen to them. Worse are physicians who betray their profession to promote antivaccine pseudoscience. What can be done about these very public figures who endanger public health?

/ February 9, 2015

Diet Cults vs. Science-Based Healthy Eating

This will be shorter than my usual book reviews and is something of an afterthought. I just finished writing a long article on “Food Myths” that Michael Shermer had asked me to write as a cover article for an upcoming issue of Skeptic magazine, and while researching the subject I read a book that someone had suggested to me (I’ve forgotten who...

/ August 26, 2014

What Can We Learn from the Kitavans?

A Swedish researcher, Staffan Lindeberg, has been studying the inhabitants of Kitava, one of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea. He claims that sudden cardiac death, stroke, and exertion-related chest pain never occur in Kitava; and he attributes this to their eating a Paleolithic diet. 2,250 people live on Kitava. They are traditional farmers. Their dietary staples are tubers (yam, sweet...

/ September 10, 2013

It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

There are many fallacies that undergird alternative medicine, which evolved into “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), and for which the preferred term among its advocates is now “integrative medicine,” meant to imply the “best of both worlds.” If I had to pick one fallacy that rules above all among proponents of CAM/IM, it would have to be either the naturalistic fallacy (i.e.,...

/ March 18, 2013

Steven Fowkes (Part 2 of 2): Nutrients for Better Mental Performance

Last week, in part 1, I covered Steven Fowkes’ “cures” for Alzheimer’s and herpes. In part 2, I will cover a video where he goes further afield. It is titled “Nutrients for Better Mental Performance,” but he also discusses sleep, depression, hangovers, and a lot of other topics. Some of what he says are simple truisms: mental performance is affected by everything...

/ November 1, 2011

Another Kind of Evolutionary Medicine

Last month I wrote about a book on evolutionary medicine that I could not recommend. Now I’ve found one I can recommend. Marlene Zuk, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Riverside, has written a delightful book entitled Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are. She describes how our parasites and diseases...

/ May 26, 2009