Paleomedicina Clinical Open Days

I have just returned from Zalaszentgrót, Hungary, for the Paleomedicina Clinical Open Days where I listened to many interesting case reports and lectures about the Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet (PKD). The PKD is a diet that takes the best from both the Paleo and the ketogenic diets, and in its most strict form excludes all plants.

I presented a talk there as well, “Personal experiences in long-term carnivorous eating: benefits beyond carbohydrate restriction”, in which I retold my own story, made some distinctions between the goals, benefits, and pitfalls of ketogenic diets vs carnivorous diets, and showed some data I collected from the Zero Carb style carnivorous dieters who generously filled out the survey I designed. The video will be released soon, and I will post a link and the slide set then.

I have been avidly following the research of this group since I first encountered the case report Crohn’s disease successfully treated with the paleolithic ketogenic diet by Csaba Tóth et al. a couple of years ago. They have published several such papers describing the results of their clinical experience in successfully treating a wide variety of conditions with the PKD, including cancer. Given my own first and second hand experience with the unexpectedly profound difference between a ketogenic diet including plants and one excluding it, I am as sympathetic as one could be toward their approach. Nonetheless, visiting in person and hearing more about their methods, measurements, and clinical experiences deepened my appreciation for their work, and I anticipate spending a great deal of time in the coming weeks studying intestinal permeability and autoimmune conditions. Even though I have heard a little about this topic previously, I have never studied it deeply or fully understood its potential as an explanatory mechanism in the array of conditions that I know plant free diets address.

In particular, the putative connection between intestinal permeability and microbiome cultivation biased me against delving into it further, because my short, but not insignificant forays into studying microbiome research has always led me to ideas promoting plant intake which not only did I find incoherent and untenable, but they directly contradicted my own experience and that of many others. I did not realise that the mechanisms involved are perfectly consistent with plant intake causing detriment, and so this event has completely changed my attitude toward this work, and I am eager to learn more.

I am greatly indebted to all the staff from the clinic for their work, and especially to Zsófia Clemens, Csaba Tóth, and Andrea Dabóczi for their generous hosting at this event.

I also want to mention this PKD recipe book, The Human Carnivore Recipe Collection by Mária Schimmer which I understand is being translated into English!