It’s #ResearchSunday time! https://youtube/watch?v=kT3w7IWgODE Today we’re going to have a look at a couple of recent articles in relation to coffee and at the progressing awareness of and adoption of the paleo diet. Perhaps it’s not this hard to convince people to eat a banana in place of processed junk ;) Let’s start of, as many of us do everyday, with coffee. (tinyurl/kjmsstk) The study looked at coffee consumption and colorectal adenoma development which is a precursor for (ie. can develop into) bowel cancer. Coffee has a few compounds which are cancer fighting but whether they actually translate into reduced cancer risk has not been tested before. “This study provides support for the protective effect of coffee drinking on colon adenomas.” The interesting thing was that green tea intake didn’t seem to have the same benefits. “Green tea intake was not found to be associated with colorectal adenoma risk” So yet another reason to keep that morning cup of coffee in the mix but, as is almost always the case in this chaotic world of ours, there are exceptions. Pregnancy may be a good example. (tinyurl/k7hzkso) Maternal caffeine intake in this study had a linear relationship with the likelihood of the child being obese. “We observed an association of in-utero exposure to caffeine with increased risk of childhood obesity.” “We also observed a linear relationship: every one unit increase (log10 scale) in the amount of maternal caffeine intake was associated with 23% increased risk of obesity in offspring. The dose-response relationship appears stronger for persistent obesity than for transitory obesity (occasional high BMI), and for girls than for boys.” In other words, the more caffeine the mother consumed during pregnancy the more likely her child was to be overweight. This was more true in children that were consistently overweight, not just overweight for a short period which they later grew out of, and was also more true in girls than boys. Speaking of obesity, the paleo diet has continued to gain traction over the last few years. I mentioned in previous posts a few celebrity Vegans who had converted to Paleo (namely Anne Hathaway and Bill Clinton (tinyurl/pxzwjog)) and now we have Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper doing the same (tinyurl/oe8rcqn). There will always be the need for customisation and personalisation when it comes to the way we eat. This is how even athletes who don’t necessarily need to loose weight are turning to Paleo (with a little modification), looking for that extra advantage over the competition. In fact the entire Melbourne Demons Footy team is trying a Paleo approach (tinyurl/kwcdpbl). They stray from the typical Paleo approach with the addition of Milk and Rice in order to ensure they fuel their high athletic pursuits. Who are you and what do you do? Customise accordingly. And for those who are fans of My Kitchen Rules you can go and check out Pete Evans’ The Paleo Way TV series. Watch the first 6 episodes online (tinyurl/owmdqls) but be quick as the episodes start to expire from the 18th. While I certainly don’t agree with everything that the various proponents of the Paleo Diet recommend at least there’s some rhyme and reason. The evolutionary biology theory the paleo diet is based on can certainly be a great place to start looking at where there may be some disconnect between our genetics and our modern environment. This is not to say that every aspect of our modern lives is harmful and needs to be abandoned. It should instead be a used as a tool to formulate theories and dictate some direction in where we look for solutions. And so I end today’s post with a quote from Theodosius Dobzhansky, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:00:57 +0000
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