Customer Reviews

The Paleo Answer: 7 Days to Lose Weight, Feel Great, Stay Young

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When I was in engineering school there were some professors who were very, very smart but they were lousy teachers. There were also professors who did an excellent job of teaching and they made teaching look easy. Loren Cordain is an excellent teacher. I've read two of his books, now. His books have significantly more technical detail than any other book I've read on nutrition (I've read dozens) and yet it's all VERY easy to understand. It seems that every popular book on nutrition contains some testimonials and I'd like to share my own testimonial.

I read Loren Cordain's first book, "The Paleo Diet" in 2004. I started following the diet right away and lost weight. Then I got lazy and went back to eating the standard American diet (SAD). In 2007 I had blood work done and my doctor alerted me to the fact that my liver enzymes were elevated. They did an ultrasound test and found nothing seriously wrong with my liver. I was relieved but still concerned about the health of my liver. I'm no doctor but surely the liver is a vital organ. Don't ask me why but I still kept eating the SAD diet. My doctor drew my blood every six months for the next two-and-one-half years. Each and every time my liver enzymes were elevated. Last year I decided to follow a strict paleo diet. After 10 weeks I had lost thirty pounds and my liver enzymes were in the normal range. As a side benefit the acne on my back, which I had for decades, had completely disappeared. I hate to use hyperbole but the paleo diet is damn-near miraculous.

If you are new to the paleo diet concept you should keep something in mind. The paleo diet is not an "invention" but actually a discovery of what humans ate for millions of years. The paleo diet mimics the diet "designed" for us by the evolutionary process. Because this "diet" has been a way of life for millions of years it's ironic that some people call paleo a "fad" diet.

I've given Loren Cordain five stars for this book but I have one minor nit-pick. He could have included a paragraph or two about the significant health benefits of pasture-raised (grass-fed) meat. His first book did a very good job of this and that's where I learned about eatwild.com. This website has very good information about the health benefits of pasture-raised meat, poultry and eggs. Feed lot beef, poultry and eggs are crap and I try to avoid it. At the time of my first reading of Cordain's first book it was difficult to find pasture-raised meat and eggs. In the last few years it has become much easier to find. Pasture-raised beef can be found at every Whole Foods Market.

For many years prior to 2004, I bought into conventional wisdom regarding diet and nutrition and ate lots of whole grains, as did many of my acquaintances who were striving for good health. The results were disastrous across the board: weight gains, gastrointestinal problems, skin problems, atherosclerosis, insulin resistance, autoimmunity and more, a cascade of unaccountable chronic issues. We could not understand how we could be eating such "healthy whole grain goodness" and yet become so sick and fat. Dr. Cordain's original pioneering Paleo Diet book led many of us, including me, to greatly improved health. The science that has been unfolding since has essentially all been pointing in one direction, supporting Dr. Cordain's theories. The scientific support is so strong that you see little of the back and forth, the contradictory study results, that usually accompany unfolding science in peer reviewed journal articles. Yet as always seems to be the case, few of those practicing medicine or nutrition in the trenches seem to have recognized the truths and effectiveness of the principles.

The Paleo Answer is a much welcome update to The Paleo Diet and The Paleo Diet for Athletes. Several years ago, I'd suggested such an update and was told it was in the works. The original book, The Paleo Diet, good as it was, contained some understandable errors of the time that needed revision, such as the suggestion to use flaxseed oil for cooking, when flaxseed oil is far too fragile for that purpose.

Dr. Cordain tends to be a relative purist when it comes to paleo diet principles, and many readers will be daunted when they read the new book and find that so many of their favorite foods are seriously deleterious. Yet there is sound science backing up Dr. Cordain's assertions, and it all makes great sense when you consider that the foods that science documents as deleterious are those that would have had no place in human diet during the eons over which the human race developed. Other authors and proponents of primal diets tend to compromise more in terms of accommodation for popular conventional foods such as dairy, nightshades, and legumes. I've endeavored to follow the science as reported in journals preceding Dr. Cordain's new book and so far as I can see, he gets the science right, and more important, it works in practice, in real life application.

Following Cordain's relatively strict paleo diet principles, I lost 35 excess pounds in about six months and have not gained any of it back in the 6 years that have since passed. I eat as much in terms of food quantity as I feel like and I never have a problem feeling excessively hungry, so the weight loss and maintenance have been relatively effortless so long as I limit my food selections to those that fit the Paleo profile. GI problems disappeared, skin rashes cleared, obstructive sleep apnea resolved, cardiac arrhythmias normalized, and a recent electron beam coronary artery scan showed a calcium score of zero in my coronary arteries, no measurable arterial plaque. Yet years prior, even conventional CT scans showed mild arterial calcium buildup.

The diet and lifestyle can be especially beneficial for those tending toward autoimmune disorders, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's, scleroderma, autoimmune hepatitis, autoimmune thyroid disease, and others. The few autoimmune patients that I know of who have been willing to institute Cordain's Paleo principles strictly have had exceptional improvements and sometimes complete resolution of all symptoms and signs. Without question, a considerable amount of diligence, study, effort, and expense are involved in maintaining a strict paleo diet and lifestyle. Most restaurant fare and most quickly prepared processed foods are off limits. For many of us, myself included, great efforts must be made to avoid consuming even the tiniest amount of wheat gluten at the risk of provoking a return of symptoms that can last a couple of weeks.

In the big picture of things, we can look at the history of medical science and see that in the period between 1900 and 1960, many acute and infectious diseases were conquered. But since then, in terms of real results, there have been few breakthroughs that treat patients truly effectively for chronic diseases such as heart disease, autoimmune disorders, diabetes or asthma. Incidence of many of those disorders is actually increasing. Something has been missing in the focus of all the admirable science that has been directed at those disorders, possibly because so much has been focused on developing profitable patentable "pills" to provide relief. Dr. Cordain is leading the way to what are and will be a new series of breakthroughs in avoiding and treating disabling chronic diseases. Relief will not be as simple as popping a pill, and only a relative few will be willing to make the considerable effort and to sustain it indefinitely. But the rewards for them will be well worthwhile.

I'ma huge fan of Paleo and have read all the books that have been circulating mainstream for awhile. Even though a lot of things have already been said before this book provides me with that much needed research element that justifies the nutrtition! Great for people new to paleo, I believe it is comprehensive and enoyable to read. Paleo is not a diet it is a lifestyle and Dr. Cordain helps you to undestand why.

Among the crop of paleo/primal/ancestral health books, this one earns a place on my top five ranking. It has useful and up-to-date discussions of specific disease conditions and their relationships to nutrition. Since the Paleo Answer is brand-new, it also has the advantage of being able to cite new research since Good Calories, Bad Calories (GCBC) came out.

The book is almost entirely about nutrition. It mentions other lifestyle issues, but only in short treatments, so do not expect the kind of wide-spectrum discussion of lifestyle at the depth available in the Primal Blueprint. I thought the sub-title was misleading. This is not a play-by-play gimmicky diet program. It is a useful applied science book (and sure, if you stop eating nasty toxins, of course you'll feel better in a few days!).

The chapter on vegetarianism/veganism is notably solid and might be useful to recommend to vegetarians and vegans. Moral issues are touched on, but what Cordain really wants to make fully clear in this chapter, and I think he slam-dunks it, is that seeking better health is not one of the reasons to be a vegetarian/vegan [Steve Jobs, RIP].

It is nice to see an author who openly changes his mind and Cordain is quite clear on points on which new evidence or understandings have led him to do so in the past few years. The discussion of vitamin supplements is important. Cordain argues that the most recent studies are trending to indicate that most supplements are somewhere between useless and harmful, but D and fish oil appear to remain positive. I thought his personal stories fit with the content and add to the book (rather than being mere ego digressions), I particularly liked the story related to obtaining clean water.

The chapter on dairy showed some logical weakness. All of the evidence it cites is from studies of cow milk drinking, but the author generalizes those conclusions to all dairy products. I have had very negative experiences with milk drinking and stopped years ago, but no (noticeable) negatives with cheeses and heavy cream. Clearly there is a major difference created with the separation into cream/butter and the bio-processing involved in cheesemaking. I'm not saying those products are thereby cleared of suspicion, just that they are clearly different in their effects from milk itself and need to be addressed as such. I thought it was a black mark on the logic of the book that this distinction was not addressed at all in the dairy chapter and that conclusions based on milk studies alone were generalized to all dairy products.

Another weakness is the repeated reference to "lean" meats as being recommended. I'm not sure what this is about, but I guess it might be a kind of subconscious artifact leftover from the habit of bowing to anti-fat hysteria. Fat is the primary target of predators and ranks above lean meat in priority of consumption. Traditional societies eat the whole animal and your fellow hunters would certainly be horrified if you started tossing out the fat components of the kill in favor of boring old chunks of dry muscle! Treatments of fat in the Primal Blueprint and GCBC seem to be superior.

Above this on my current nutrition/health rankings are only three volumes: The Primal Blueprint, GCBC, and The Paleo Solution. In sum, that leaves a lot of other volumes in this genre that I am ranking below this one (I've gotten good specific insights from a lot of other books, but the quality and reliability of the advice is much more spotty). I would definitely include The Paleo Answer in a top-five reading program in this area.

I highly recommend this book. About the only criticism I give of it is for what it omits which I'll mention shortly. I was introduced to Paleodiet by Ray Audette's fascinating "Neanderthin" which completely changed my diet from that point onward. This was reinforced after reading Dr. Cordain's original version of "The Paleo Diet" and recently the updated version. I wholeheartedly subscribe to the paleo principles (except for a couple of cheats, namely a hot cocoa in the morning and a 100 calorie dark chocolate snack bar from TJ's :).

Through reading both versions I noticed that Dr.Cordain has modified his stance on several food items such as canola oil and saturated fat. Also, potatoes (which I didn't realize were a nightshade) are no longer grouped categorically as a typical tuber - like sweet potatoes or yams now paleo approved by him. Some might say he is inconsistent, but I admire this is open-mindedness for changing ideas because evaluations should change in light of new scientific findings.

The Paleo Answer appears to pick up on assorted issues that Dr. Cordain did not expound upon in "The Paleo Diet". This includes the dangers of vegetarianism (esp. veganism), the not so cute milk mustache idea, trouble with beans and grains, and potato/tomato no-no's. He breaks ground in his paleodiet discussion of the AGEs theory - which some consider as important as anti-oxidant theory. His last two chapters are devoted to women and children but are worth reading by anyone.

As I mentioned above, I was only disappointed on several topics not discussed. A basic paleo premise criticizes the antinutrients of the Standard American Diet (SAD). but Dr. Cordain is all but silent on the notable amount of phytates found in nuts? It won't do to argue ad ignorantiam that we don't know much about the phytates (or lectins for that matter) of nuts so maybe they're okay? And where is the line between nuts and seeds and grains? Although considered a grain, sorghum is a seed, and alleged to be without lectins. And speaking of seeds, omega 3 rich milled flaxseed is another topic absent from discussion in "The Paleo Answer". I also wondered about his take on the finding that fossilized food including barley which was found stuck in paleolithic people's teeth? Are we to just brush it aside with an ad hoc explanation that it was isolated, or do we change the temporal paleo template? Hopefully Dr. Cordain will tackle these topics in another book. Perhaps he could top off a trilogy of books with his next volume dedicated to solely to FAQs such as I have asked.

I was also disappointed by his treatment of supplements. Elsewhere Dr. Cordain is very open minded to other's ideas on nutrition unless it leads to poor health involving lectins and the like. However, in this chapter he seems to wear blinders on the topic of supplements since our ancestors didn't use them. He also doesn't approve of them because some people use dosages too high - but surely someone using an optimal level is right on target? The "paleo template" (paleo theory or model) seems hinder his acceptance of supplements - which can enhance one's nutrition. In "The Paleodiet" he deftly combines a meal containing adequate amounts of all nutrients. But is it practical to do this for meals everyday? I don't think so. As just one example, how will you will get your DRI of 550mg of choline, a nutrient recognized as essential by the Institute of Medicine ever since research showed enough of it isn't produced by the body? We could get it with liver and/or several eggs every day to attain it, but does that sound practical?

Since Dr. Cordain uses the potential danger of folic acid as a showcase to criticize supplements, I'd like to point out that recent research (2011) from Stevens and others published in Gastroenterology concluded that "Intake of high levels of total folate reduces risk of colorectal cancer; there is no evidence that dietary fortification or supplementation with this vitamin increases colorectal cancer risk." I should add that Dr. Cordain does distinguish between folic acid and folate and appears to correctly identify folic acid's apparently harmful effects. The reader may be aware that folate like folic acid, is also readily available as a supplement.

This book is an overdue update to Dr. Cordain's classic previous work "The Paleo Diet" which greatly accelerated the concept of applying the sciences of evolutionary biology and anthropology to contemporary nutrition.

In short, Dr. Cordain provides a scientific guiding principle that humans ate, exercised and slept in specific patterns for well over a million years. Then, a comparatively recently 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution dramatically altered these patterns. These patterns have been dramatically altered, again, in the past 50 years with the addition of man made preservatives, colorings, favor enhancers, processing and storage techniques. Consequently, the diet that we consider "normal" bares little resemblance to what our bodies are engineered to function upon. Dr. Cordain goes on to assert this is the primary underlying cause for the "first world diseases" of cancer, heart disease, obesity, etc.

I find this argument compelling.

In this update, Dr. Cordain demonstrates how the principles in "The Paleo Diet" have been validated in the past decade. He also makes some corrections and changes his position on a few issues where the studies have not backed his previous assertions.

The best chapters are those that deal with vegetarianism and dairy.

Dr. Cordain documents in great detail the deficiencies of vegetarianism, and demonstrates how this could not possibly be a diet upon which humans were designed to live.

I found the chapter on dairy to be similarly enlightening and disturbing. I have traditionally described myself as "soft on dairy" when it comes to my personal approach to paleo nutrition. This chapter of book has me reexamining my own approach to the role dairy plays in my diet.

Highly recommended!

First, the author is sort of a hero of mine. He is at the leading edge of a smarter way to think about nutrition. That said, the Kindle version of this book reads like a collection of individual papers instead of a book. Making the read worse is what seems to be an utter lack of editing and a multitude of errors. Hopefully this is just a problem with the first Kindle version and will be corrected going forward.

If you are a fan of Loren Cordain, this book is probably worth the purchase and time to muddle through. Fortunately, there are still some very solid insights that should lead to a much healthier life for anyone willing to question the old Food Pyramid or the new My Plate.

I've only made it through half the book as of this review date but felt strongly about warning of the half-finished feel of what is the current Kindle version.

This outstanding book is a must read for anyone interested in staying healthy or who is battling common auto-immune conditions or other common chronic diseases. Using a combination of evolutionary biology, solid scientific research, empiric science and common sense, Dr. Cordain masterfully moves us away from the toxic Food Pyramid and My Plate dietary recommendations promoted by the Federal Government and FDA. It's about time. As a Primary Care Physician with over 30 years of clinical experience, I know that appropriate dietary changes are the most potent treatment modality available to us in our battle against auto-immune and anti-inflammatory diseases and a long list of common medical problems including insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and many cancers. Despite all the major advances in technology and medications over the past 50 years, a healthy diet continues to trump all these treatments and Dr. Cordain concisely and precisely shows you the way to achieve the perfect diet.

As physicians, we are taught virtually nothing about nutrition in medical school and what we do learn is often based on flawed science. Thus most physicians are in the same boat as the general public--if they want to learn about nutrition, they are on their own. With the plethora of books available on diet and nutrition, you can read just about anything you want about what makes a healthy diet. Unfortunately most of this information is built on a house of sand with little science to back it up. Dr. Cordain has devoted his career to looking at what solid science has to say on the subject, and what he has found is nothing short of astounding. He has almost single handedly turned the world of nutritional science on its head. Forget what you know about healthy eating and read this book--you won't regret it.

For years I have had an interest in Neuroscience, especially the interface between food and brain function. There is emerging evidence that many common brain disorders such as depression, autism, ADHD, anxiety disorders, PTDS, eating disorders, fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder II, irritable bowel syndrome, restless leg syndrome and others are strongly tied to the ingestion of certain types of foods. We also believe that all these conditions are tied together in a disease process called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome (CARB syndrome). After treating thousands of patients with these conditions over the years, I am absolutely convinced that the Paleo diet outlined in this book is essentially a cure for many patients. Without proper dietary changes, medications do very little over the long term to improve the lives of patients with these common brain disorders.

"The Paleo Answer" is now the most potent treatment in my little black bag and I am thankful that an academic researcher of Dr. Cordain's stature has taken the time to share his insights with the medical profession and general public. I strongly recommend that you take advantage of this gift by reading his book.

"Most of us have been vaccinated against tuberculosis, so we really don't need to worry about it, but, as I show you in this book, sunlight and vitamin D are good medicine for all of us".

Cordain, Loren (2011-11-03). The Paleo Answer: 7 Days to Lose Weight, Feel Great, Stay Young (Kindle Locations 275-276). John Wiley and Sons. Kindle Edition.

Although many people are vaccinated with BCG throughout the world, the majority of people born in the United States have NOT been vaccinated with BCG for TB, so it is important for those who haven't been vaccinated to be aware and use precautions when necessary.

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Will change rating once finished, but this caught my attention.

If this diet is so good then why did Jesus and the Prophets eat bread? Another version of Adkins. Anyone can be unhealthy without buying this fad diet.