Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that today Bryan Appleyard published his long-awaited interview with Art De Vany in The Sunday Times Magazine.
For new subscribers to this blog, Professor De Vany is a long-term advocate of a lifestyle that mimics that of our paleolithic ancestors, at least in terms of diet and exercise. The Knackered Hack has been echoing this approach, with increasing strictness, for well over a year now. Appleyard, who has himself adopted the diet and shed about a stone, noted how vigorous the professor was for a 71-year-old in various domains, about one of which I am myself still gathering data 
. If the professor’s nocturnal experience can be replicated, then this will probably be the clincher for a lot of people as they realise the value of the paleo diet in helping them with more than just weight-loss.
More seriously, you can’t help but feel pleased that De Vany’s devotion to the study, practice and dissemination of a more natural way of health is getting the recognition that it surely deserves. This is perhaps an important landmark when you consider that it was Nassim Taleb who told me in the same context that press coverage overstates the risk to society of terrorism and understates the risk of insulin insensitivity, so that we wander around with the wrong probabilistic map. Gary Taubes‘ The Diet Delusion gets a mention in the piece too.
One objection that could be raised is that economic pressures might now be pushing people towards a more refined-carb diet because it might appear cheaper. But in my own experience of stress — and there has been no shortage this year with a double bereavement and other tricky family matters to attend to — the cognitive benefits of the paleo lifestyle can also provide a necessary fresh energy and focus to tackle these new challenges. My basic advice would be to avoid “comfort” food at all costs.
I’m reading James Le Fanu’s book on The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine at the moment (a tip also from Art’s early blogposts which I’m also in the process of re-reading). Like Taubes, Le Fanu debunks various post-war social and dietary theories of health, particularly with regard to cancer and heart disease. Cancer, Le Fanu says, is best understood as a disease of ageing rather than lifestyle. And yet, in contrast, it’s evident that De Vany (as Appleyard makes clear) is no quack, but someone who has applied the sciences of complexity to a rigorous examination of what we “modern lab-rats” really should be doing to forestall that process of terminal illness. Weight-loss is clearly such a central issue that a diet capable of returning you to your weight when you were 21 must be taken very seriously indeed.
Well, on my desk for a number of weeks (apart from many august tomes that I should have been reading and absorbing) one has stood out. It’s a 1936 children’s book, entitled Uncle Ray’s Story of the Stone-Age People. It looks like it came out just before De Vany was born. It belonged to my father-in-law: himself a sometime professor of mathematics, WHO health statistician, and poet. Alas, it certainly did not encourage him to follow anything like a paleo lifestyle. The one seemingly useful piece of science that the book contains is the suggestion that our ancestors broke the bones of their prey in order to consume the marrow.
Of course, while our diet may have changed a lot in the past 100,000 years (and arguably for the worse), this humble volume would indicate that casual male efforts to combine DIY and childcare have been alarming womankind for millennia with remarkable consistency. A more up-to-date orange-coloured book of Stone Age advice will soon be available here.
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Kino’s Viktor Tsoi
Great post, the article yesterday in the TImes was great I found appleyards writing concise and appealing to several different types of reader. I don’t know if you have checked out the article on the Times Online website the comment below is pretty interesting and well worth a browse through.
Greatly enjoy your blog, Keep it up and I hope to get hold of the book ASAP
Hi Chris
Thanks.
Yes, I’m sure the Appleyard coverage will have very broad appeal. That said, I did read the early comments on the website, some of which were less than helpful, if that is what you mean. I guess that goes with the territory. Will take another look later.
Tim
Really good to see an article like this appearing. One thing that bugs me is how the word diet appears prominently alongside a photo of a tape measure. To me this damages the message, as I briefly explain in this post about the article:
Food Truth Leaks into Mainstream Media
Methuselah, to be self-referential again, NNT said that if you are using visuals you are probably messing up the world. My visuals err toward the fractal, so I hope I am, for the most part, excused.
Tim
Tim,
I agree the posts are less than helpful the amount of ignorant posts up questioning things like the difference between olive oil and vegetable oil is insane. The comparison’s to the atkins diet are also ludicrous and obviously being made by the uninformed who do not have a grasp on the ideology.
Any chance of knowing when the book is going to be released for us in the UK?
I thought the Appleyard’s article was quite good though I would have preferred to have some attempt at a critique. Brian seems to have taken it hook line and sinker.
I was disappointed with the focus on weight loss at the very start. Surely the emphasis of this approach is the enhanced metabolic and functional fitness, yet no where in the article (from what I could see) did we see any biochemical measurements nor any mention in shift of muscle/body fat ratio’s. As a consequence, some of the deprecating comments are therefore fair game. Interestingly, a piece in the Times around functional fitness (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4538649.ece – no Crossfit?) has only drawn one comment vs the 55 on diet!
I adopted De Vany’s approach sometime ago and have, like many others, found benefit. The converted are often the most vocal but I do yearn to test for silent data. I’d love to hear from those who have tried the approach of changing diet and exercise to an EF manner but have found it to be counter productive to their health. De Vany’s site is full of stories on conversion but the lack of silent data is quite deafening.
Iwan,
I hadn’t seen the functional fitness article. Thanks for that.
I’ve seen disagreements within De Vany’s community on the role of saturated fat, for instance, and I see there are differences between, say Loren Cordain’s book and the Rosedale approach in terms of diet. You’re right though, it begs more questions.
My own experience is that it can take time to adapt and stay on the wagon. It took me several attempts, I guess, and I am still trying to figure if I’m doing everything correctly. Finding the correct level of meat intake is the thing I struggle with most, but I think that may be just a question of modifying old cooking habits. BTW, even though my kids are pretty flexible eaters, I make big exceptions on their part, so that not a great deal has changed for them in truth…(yet).
Developing a complex exercise regime based on high intensity takes a certain level of commitment and using weights in the way I do creates a little bit of risk. So I’d say it requires more intelligence and perhaps more studiousness than popping out for a run used to. And it is easier to compare notes at the office about marathon or triathlon regimes than kurtosis in workouts.
But as Art would say, everyone has to find their own way with this, and that requires an understanding of what one’s goals are and where you are coming from. I suspect there will be a lot more attention in the future. The sports science I read does seem to be trending a little bit in this direction.
Tim
Tim
If you were around the corner, I’d buy you a beer. Much to share
I think the road to paleo is littered with peshawari nan!
Iwan
Iwan,
It is refreshing to see someone take an objective perspective in relation to EF in spite of being a convert. As a fellow convert I have spent many hours on DeVany’s site and my own experience has been transformative. Nevertheless I have always found the testimonies there and the general tone to be somewhat akin to the atmosphere in an evanglical church. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for DeVany, but from experience I know that in the months leading up to his blog becoming subscription-based, he started increasingly vetting comments in a way that compromised the objectivity of the debate. My suspicion is that his EF approach is bang on the money and that research, in time, will prove this – but I also think that its wider reputation could in the meantime might be damaged unless we have a little less of the ‘halleluiah’!
Just re-read my comment a realised it sounds as though I am saying Art was stifling the debate about EF, which I don’t believe he would ever do. It was more the debate about the community that built up around his blog. In my case it was a point I was making about the wisdom of making his blog subscription-based. It sort of felt like being a dissenter man-handled out of a political rally
Methuselah,
I think your comments re DeVany are spot on, and I enjoyed the analogy of being man-handled out of the political rally.
I love Art. I love his ideas and erudition, but I especially like it when he thinks he’s rational Enlightenment – and then displays as much emotional inconsistency as the rest of us!
Iwan
Arthur’s work, as well as the site put together by Mark Sisson, really opened my eyes in the past couple of years regarding the dissonance between what is considered ‘healthy’ with respect to conventional wisdom and what actually works for keeping this species of large-brained hairless ape functioning at peak capacity. I think that Loren Cordain also deserves a mention for the serious research he put into his book, The Paleo Diet.
I’m an endurance athlete as well, although a cyclist, and by all measures a ‘hack’ as well. But it always gives me great pleasure to know that I can enjoy my activity without partaking in the ritual ingestion of kilograms worth of refined starch traditionally required as a prerequisite to any such activity.
Cheers to that.
Jesse
You are right about Loren Cordain. I’ve enjoyed his book, and some day will look at his prescriptions for endurance athletes too. Mark is a great source of information.
Looks like you too have a new site. Good luck with that. Liked your latest lunch!
Tim
Dein Blog gef?llt mir.