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• Although most believe a life style of moderate physical activity and avoidance of smoke is important in preventing atherosclerosis, there remains no consistent answer to which diet is most protective in preventing early aging of blood vessels.
• For years we thought it was a no-egg, low fat, and more vegetarian diet, but in recent years experts have started endorsing more meat. It began when a fad, low-carbohydrate, weight-loss diet became clearly more successful than the standard more vegetarian diet. Reported in the medical journals, researchers found that those eating less bread, potatoes, and sweets lost more weight and felt better than those eating less meats and fats. Alas, after a year both groups were equally unsuccessful in keeping the weight off, but we learned from it.
• Add to this what we've known for years about the medical conditions of food intolerance. There is intolerance to lactose, which is the natural sugar of milk, and celiac disease, which is intolerance to gluten, a protein in many cereals especially wheat. Anthropologists tell us these problems did not occur in hunter-gather societies until about 10,000 years ago when farming developed and humanity became exposed to animal milk and wheat.
• It is also intriguing that studies of twentieth century hunter-gatherers, whose diets (Continued on page 7)
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