Quote from: ayami on June 09, 2011, 01:12:55 PM

How does this not feeling sick but being sick thing work? Why are paleo-ers not able to feel sick? But once we eat bad food we start feeling sick? Very interesting.

Hm, this is kind of complicated.  I'll see if I can make it understandable.

The first thing to know is that most of the symptoms people get when they are sick are not from the actual infection itself.  Rather, they are from the body's immune response to the infection.  Antibodies and one type of white blood cell kills off infected cells, another type of white blood cell - macrophages - engulf and consume the dead cells.  Extra mucus is generated to prevent any new germs from reaching and infecting live cells, and to carry detritus out of the body, leading to congestion and runny noses.  Coughs are an attempt by the body to expel bacteria from the air passages before they can become too much of a problem.

The body has been highly optimized to deal with infections.  As a result, on the diet the body is designed for - a paleo diet - the symptoms are mild.  The immune system works efficiently, and it doesn't take a lot of mucus, coughing, and sneezing to stay healthy.  From the standpoint of a paleolithic human, this makes sense - one needs to fight off the cold, but one also needs to stay fit enough to face down other predators if needed, even when one has a cold.  At most it might be beneficial to feel a bit tired or sleepy so as to know to take it easy for a few days.

Unfortunately, neolithic foods interfere with this optimization.  For example, glucose interferes with the efficiency of macrophages, by displacing the vitamin C that macrophages need to function properly.  For reasons such as that, eating a lot of carbohydrates, which are in part broken down into glucose in the digestive tract, seems to interfere with immune system efficiency.  With a less efficient immune system, infections make it farther before they are stopped, and the body then needs to step up the immune response beyond what it would need to be on a paleo diet.  The result is the stronger and more debilitating symptoms that the general population has when they get sick.

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Is it safe to say 1g of protein per 2 lbs of my ideal goal weight?

Yes, that would be a good amount of protein.

Do you work in the field or are you just straight up a geek when it comes to this stuff?? (no offense geeks are cool!)

Thank you for this, it made my day! I’m going to quote you in my blog if you don’t mind lol.