Research: Is The Paleo Diet Beneficial In Healthy Weight Loss?

Obesity has become one of the greatest concerns of people all over the world. As the number of obese people is increasing at a rate of knots, more people are turning to a healthy lifestyle for a better tomorrow. Day by day more diet plans, supplements, exercise routines, etc are getting implemented and this brought more people into a healthy path. 

Does The Paleo Diet Promote Healthy Weight Loss?

At the initial stage of obesity, people never gave much importance and care about being overweight but when they got more aware of the adverse effects it could bring to their life, people started becoming more careful about their lifestyle and had made several changes.

As mentioned earlier, many diet plans have been introduced. Some of them were high-fat, low carb diets like the keto diet, low-carb diets like the Atkins diet, high-carb diets like zone diets, etc. Another most popular diet called the paleo diet has become a major discussion topic among researchers. But what actually is a paleo diet? Is it really helpful in weight loss? Does it provide any other health benefits? 

A paleo diet is a recreation of the eating habits that were followed by the prehistoric hunter-gatherers. As the diet plan was followed by the people of the paleolithic period, this diet plan is also known as the stone-age diet or the hunter-gatherer diet. During this prehistoric age approximately 10,000 years ago people used to consume foods that were collected from the forest by hunting and gathering and along with their active life, they were more resistant to diseases and also had a perfectly fit body. These people consumed whole unprocessed foods available from natural resources and only after the introduction of agriculture and farming did people turn more into consuming more grains, dairy products, etc. 

People who followed a paleo lifestyle consumed more unprocessed food that is animal and plant-based. These included meat, poultry products, seafood, fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, etc, and excluded processed foods, dairy products, grains, sugar, etc. as the people of the paleolithic period were mostly hunters they used to have enough exercise in their life, thus regular exercise also plays a major role in the paleo diet. 

From several studies carried out by researchers by comparing the paleo diet with other diet plans, it is proved that those who followed the paleo diet had a significant decrease in body weight than the others. Not only does it reduce body weight but it also has a considerable improvement in glucose tolerance. Also, they had a huge reduction in waist circumference. The study also verified that this diet plan helps in maintaining a stable blood sugar level, reducing calorie intake, and also improving many cardiovascular risk factors. This diet even increased the HDL(good cholesterol) levels, reduced inflammation, and oxidative stress, and improved focus and quality of sleep in the participants. 

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition has proven that those who followed the paleo diet had a lower risk of mortality that can be caused by cardiovascular issues and cancer. 

Even though the paleo diet is beneficial for healthy weight loss there is no significant evidence that it could help in improving overall health since it cut-outs certain food groups from your diet. This could lead to a nutrient deficiency which may cause some health issues in the future. For example, this kind of diet plan excludes dairy products like milk that are rich sources of calcium which are essential for bone health. This deficiency could increase the risk of bone-related issues like osteoporosis.

And based on the research and findings, even if the paleo diet is helpful in healthy weight loss when compared with other diets, there are no known health benefits from this other than improved cardiovascular health.