'Gorgeous girls eat meat': New diet book says the secret to staying slim is replacing bread with beef jerky

A paleo diet does seem to work for some

A new diet book claims that the secret to staying slim is eating like a cave woman by sticking to foods that our ancestors could 'catch, pluck, or dig up'.

In Cavewomen Don't Get Fat: Ancient Secrets to Rapid Weight Loss, author Esther Blum introduces  a paleo-based eating plan with a twist - which she calls  'Paleo Chic' - and it's not exactly vegetarian-friendly.

'Gorgeous girls eat meat,' she said on The Today Show, explaining that carnivorous snacks are key to 'raising dopamine and seratonin levels in the brain' and 'getting a lean, healthy body.'

However, she cautions that 'it has to be meat raised on grass because it contains Omega 3 fatty acids.' In Ms Blum's food plan, all calories are not created equal.

'Here’s a simple fact: unprocessed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and fish always—and I mean always—contain fewer calories than processed foods,' she wrote.

For example, on the show she paired organic beef with low-sugar, antioxidant rich raspberries, almonds and avocados.

Lunch was a bread-free sandwich that the author made with a salmon cake between two pieces of lettuce, and for dinner she substituted zucchini for regular pasta to get a carbohydrate fix for dinner.

Co-anchor Kathie Lee Gifford looked unimpressed after sniffing the beef jerky, saying 'this is what I feed my dogs in the afternoon.'

But both Ms Gifford and Hoda Kolb were fans of the turkey and avocado combination that Ms Blum recommended to fight the afternoon crash.

The author explains that she went back to the ways of our ancient ancestors after finding that the 'modern' approach was making people unwell.

'Sixty pounds of grain and thirty pounds of sugar—as the typical American does each year—is making us fat, sick, and tired', she writes.

She adds that, since diet is responsible for 80 percent of weight loss - with exercise accounting for 20 percent - it is crucial to get control of this element.

'Every time one of my clients says, "I eat a healthy diet, but I am not losing weight. Why not?" I know that she is eating the wrong kinds of healthy foods.'

She advises that dieters adapt a plan of 'clean eating' - which means ditching the empty calories found in processed food, and filling up on nutritionally dense, natural foods instead.

Ms Blum promises that eating healthier food means that dieters can actually eat more.   'You’ll be eating in order to ignite your metabolism, not to ramp it down,' she says.

Ms Blum writes that 'our bodies are designed to run on fewer carbohydrates than most of us are accustomed to eating.'

So she advises ditching high-gluten foods - which includes all types of grains including wheat, rye, oats, spelt and others.

Dieters should also avoid 'neocarbs' including enriched flour products, sugar-infused drinks and foods, genetically beefed-up grains and animal products.  'We need to step away from factory-generated food and move, instead, back into the bush,' she said.

Acceptable protein sources include pastured poultry, grass-fed beef and wild fish.  Nuts are allowed, but should be limited to the 'amount equal to what could be found in nature,' which she says is around 1/4 cup.

Instead, Dr Blum suggests choosing naturally occuring - and fiber-dense -fruits and vegetables.

Dr Blum says that this style of eating provides benefits other than weight loss: Paleo Chic eaters become more protected against harmful food additives, hormones and other chemicals.

'Mother Nature, thank our stars and garters, isn’t a major corporation that puts profits over people, so by eating Paleo Chic, we not only nip those cravings but also get to keep some cold cash in our pockets.'

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Why codeine painkillers don't work for millions - and may even harm your health

Dr Paul Debenham suffered tremendous pain while recovering from surgery for skin cancer. ‘I was given lots of codeine-based medicines but they seemed to do nothing for me,’ recalls Paul, 60, a biotech entrepreneur.

He followed his doctors’ instructions carefully, believing that if he took the painkillers for long enough they would start working. But they didn’t.

‘The pain was particularly intense in my neck where I’d had lymph nodes removed — I assumed it was because they’d sliced through nerves. It was some of the worst pain I’d ever experienced and it was constant for many weeks.’

But he felt there was little to be done. ‘It didn’t occur to me to complain to my doctors as I was on the maximum dose and I just thought it reflected how ill I was, not that the drugs weren’t working.

‘At the time I was more concerned with staying alive, as the cancer was quite advanced and had spread to lymph nodes under my arms and in my neck,’ says Paul, who lives in Newbury, Berkshire, with his wife Kathy, 60, and daughter Lara, 21.

Several weeks after the surgery Paul’s pain finally disappeared. But it was only six years later, while developing new genetic tests as part of his job, that he suddenly realised why the medication had not touched his pain.

Paul, who has a PhD in molecular biology, was working with Professor Bob Smith, an expert in drug metabolism at Imperial College, London, who had identified differences in the way our bodies respond to drugs. Professor Smith had worked out that these differences may be linked to variations in genes controlling enzyme production.

Enzymes are proteins, made in the liver, which control the speed of chemical reactions in our bodies. They help to break down drugs so the body can use them. Professor Smith found that gene variations can affect certain enzymes so that too much or too little of a chemical is produced. For example, an enzyme called CYP2D6 breaks down codeine into morphine to provide pain relief.

Codeine, which is given for mild to moderate pain, is a cheap drug for GPs to prescribe and is widely used — in 2012 there were nearly 19 million NHS prescriptions for painkillers containing codeine, including co-codamol (codeine and paracetamol), the tenth most prescribed drug in the UK. Codeine is also an effective cough suppressant, used in many non-prescription cough medicines and cold remedies.

The problem is that an estimated 7 to 10 per cent of the population have a gene variation which means they don’t make enough CYP2D6 to obtain pain relief from codeine. Up to six million Britons may be affected in this way, although most are unaware of it.

Tests confirmed that Paul’s body can’t make enough of the enzyme. He explains: ‘If you don’t make enough CYP2D6 you can take as much codeine as you like but it won’t make a blind bit of difference. It’s as simple as that.’

But that is not the only issue with this particular enzyme. There is another group of people who produce too much CYP2D6, so codeine is broken down too quickly in their bodies. This creates a fast ‘hit’ which then rapidly wears off, explains Dr Martin Johnson, a GP and pain specialist for the Royal College of General Practitioners.

‘These so-called rapid metabolisers experience a quick morphine hit when the drug is broken down. The effects of the dose then wear off too quickly, so they start clock-watching until their next dose. In some rare cases this fast-acting effect has caused respiratory depression (when breathing stops), particularly in children, and even deaths.’

This is why children recovering from surgery are now no longer given codeine-based pain relief, and why children’s cough medicines no longer contain the drug.

Dr Johnson suggests that there may be even more fast metabolisers than non-metabolisers — and that put together they could amount to about 30 per cent of the population.

‘Patients often keep taking codeine in the vain hope that it will work eventually — but all they experience are the side-effects, such as constipation (it slows down gut movement in the intestine) and none of the pain-relieving benefits,’ says Dr Johnson.

‘They might return to their GP for a higher dose and still not get any relief.

‘Then there are all the people who buy over-the-counter codeine products, who also get no pain relief.

‘There could be huge numbers of people on medication that doesn’t work for them, or works too quickly to control pain effectively.’

Yet there are alternatives, including paracetamol, ibuprofen, diclofenac and other anti-inflammatories. Exercise can help with pain too — particularly for people with arthritis.

Codeine is not the only drug metabolised by CYP2D6.  There are some 25 others including the opioid painkiller tramadol, certain antidepressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which include Prozac and Zoloft, and antipsychotic drugs used to treat mental illness.

Beta-blockers prescribed for high blood pressure and the breast cancer drug tamoxifen, taken by 13,000 women, also fall into this category.

Dr Debenham says it’s a big issue. ‘If a woman is taking tamoxifen, as a side-effect she may experience hot flushes, and sometimes SSRIs are prescribed for these.

Certain types of SSRI are also metabolised by the CYP2D6 enzyme, so the two drugs compete for the small amount of enzyme in the liver — this could mean that the cancer-suppressing action of tamoxifen doesn’t work as there is not enough CYP2D6 to metabolise the drugs.’

Jo Cumming, of the charity Arthritis Care, says patients frequently ring its helpline in tears because codeine is not working for them. ‘Many have simply not been told that it doesn’t work for everyone, so they soldier on, believing that if they keep taking it or just up their dose it will work eventually. Or they stop taking it and don’t tell their doctor.

‘We encourage them to go back to their GP so they can be switched to something else.’

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