The Paleolithic diet, a dieting craze which has gone mainstream, may be helping overweight and obese older women lose weight and improve cardiovascular health.
This is according to a study headed by Caroline Blomquist, a doctoral student in the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umeå University in Umeå, Sweden. This is so due to the diet improving the body's circulatory fatty acid profile and by lowering their risk of heart disease and diabetes.
Eating a Paleolithic-type diet without calorie restriction significantly improved the fatty acid profile associated with insulin sensitivity, and it reduced abdominal adiposity and body weight in obese postmenopausal women," she said in a statement. "A Paleolithic-type diet, high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, may have long-term beneficial effects on obesity-related disorders, including reduced risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease."
The diet, which is loosely based from what people ate in the past, is mainly utilized lean meat, fish, eggs, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. It avoids cereals, dairy products, salt, and sugar.
Blomquist and her associates conducted the study in a two-year period, subjecting 70 obese postmenopausal women. They were then randomly assigned into one of two groups, one the Paleo diet, and the other on the control diet group.
After the experimental 24-month period, women who were part of the Paleolithic group said that their intake of saturated fatty acids was reduced by 19 percent, monounsaturated fatty acids increased by 47 percent while polyunsaturated fatty acids increased by 71 percent. The women in the controlled diet group reported no such change. However, both diets caused the women to significantly lose a lot of weight and had less abdominal obesity.
Although the study only covers older women with obesity, this may also work on younger women facing the same problem. Apparently, at least, eight percent of women in the United States are currently obese.
