Does The Paleo Diet Work? New Study Says No

If you've been abstaining from legumes, potatoes, dairy, and bread (moment of silence for all the [...]

If you've been abstaining from legumes, potatoes, dairy, and bread (moment of silence for all the uneaten bread) as a follower of the Paleo diet, we've got some unfortunate news: Scientists at the University of Melbourne are suggesting that going Paleo could actually make you put on pounds. Women's Health has the scoop below.

paleo diet meat

For the study, researchers fed overweight, pre-diabetic mice either a low-carb, high-fat diet (similar to the Paleo diet) or standard mouse fare. After nine weeks, the mice eating Paleo gained 15 percent of their body weight and their insulin levels rose, which is a precursor to diabetes. The mice that ate their regular grub didn't experience the same changes.

While this news might drive you to eat all the pasta and cheese, we have to point out that the study has some pretty serious limitations. For starters, it was done on rodents, not humans. And we don't know exactly what the mice were fed (but we're guessing it wasn't grilled chicken and roasted veggies.)

>> Read more: Cut 1400 Calories With This Food Hack

In a blog post responding to the study, Paleo founder Loren Cordain, Ph.D., wrote, "The study totally lacks the criteria and objectivity by which most of the scientific nutritional community uses to establish cause and effect between diet and disease." She added: "To even suggest that a single mouse study can be extrapolated to show causality in humans is just bad science."

>> To read the rest of the article, click here to see it on Women's Health.

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