Dr. Michael Elstein, a Fellow of the Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, believes that the Paleo diet speeds up the skin’s aging process because it promotes eating a lot of meat.
Doctor says paleo diet speeds up ageing and increases CANCER risk
Max Margan
April 19, 2017
An anti-ageing doctor claims the controversial paleo diet speeds up the ageing process and increases the risk of cancer and diabetes.
Dr Michael Elstein, who runs the Eternal Health Medical Centre in Sydney's Bondi Junction, described the fad diet as 'risky'.
He claims excessive eating of animal meats, encouraged by paleo promoters, leads to vulnerability to disease and premature ageing.
'When you have a lot of animal protein, it switches on a chemical in the body called mTOR which interferes with insulin function,' Dr Elstein told Daily Mail Australia.
'When we undermine the function of insulin, it contributes to the speeding up of the ageing process and increases the risk of diseases like diabetes and cancers.'
Dr Elstein says the popularity of the paleo diet has grown because eating high levels of protein is filling and can suppress appetite, resulting in weight loss.
'That's fine for weight loss but over a long period of time having more animal protein is risky,' he said.
'People are very attracted to the paleo diet because it's been promoted by certain members of reality TV shows and it's attractive because of weight loss.
'What hasn't been talked about is the connection between the paleo diet and premature ageing, cancer and diabetes.
'Paleo promoters are going not going to talk about that.'
Dr Elstein said people should be eating less animal protein and turning to vegetable protein found in beans, nuts and seeds.
It's not the first time the Sydney doctor has advised against eating what he argues are potentially harmful foods.
Over the Easter break, Dr Elstein suggested people should ditch hot cross buns because the gluten they contain is 'setting us up for dementia'.
