New study says the Paleo Diet is just another fad

Like Atkins and the Zone before it, the Paleo diet is the healthy-eating craze of the moment.

It's supposedly based on a "caveman diet" – those basic, healthy foods that our ancestors survived on, because after all, who's ever seen a picture of an obese caveman?

But new research suggests that the diet has no strong scientific basis, as cavemen most likely ate a much larger variety of foods than the diet would have us believe.

The main basis of the low-carb Paleo diet is unprocessed food that could have been hunted or foraged for back in historic times – meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, seeds and leafy greens. It cuts out grains, dairy, sugar, potatoes and anything processed or high-fat.

However a study undertaken by Georgia State University says there's no one "Paleo diet." Cavemen were apparently very opportunistic eaters, who, understandably, ate whatever they could find to survive.

"Throughout the vast majority of our evolutionary history, balancing the diet was not a big issue. They were simply acquiring enough calories to survive and reproduce," said the study's author Ken Sayers.

The study also noted that it's difficult to find out whether our ancestor's diets were healthy or not, as they had such short lifespans regardless of their food intake. While it's true there are many more diet-related diseases these says, Sayers said this could simply be because we are living long enough for our diet to have a long-term effect on our health.

"Everyone would agree that ancestral diets didn’t include Twinkies, but I’m sure our ancestors would have eaten them if they grew on trees," he added.

A cake tree… now there's a caveman diet we could get on board with!