READER BOOK PLUG. Reader Paul Jaminet writes to request a plug for Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat. He writes:

I’m a long-time reader and fan. I’ve noticed that in the past you’ve linked to Paleo or low-carb sites including Stephan Guyenet and Gary Taubes; that leads me to think you would enjoy the book my wife and I have written. (Stephan, a friend, actually reviewed the manuscript for us.)

Our book is a refinement of Paleo/ancestral diets, based largely on our reading of the scientific evidence on what will optimize health. The logic is mainly drawn from evolutionary biology and cellular/nutritional biology, but it turns out the healthiest diet is also the most delicious, and closely resembles many traditional gourmet cuisines.

My wife and I both had chronic health problems and our refined ancestral diet helped us cure them. Since we first began blogging, hundreds of our readers have cured chronic diseases they lived with for decades; see here for examples. Some of the conditions cured were neurological conditions that psychiatrists have told me almost never resolve, like borderline personality disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder; and heart disease seems to be one of the conditions that improves or is cured most readily; so the book may be of special interest to your wife.

Thanks — though the Insta-Wife doesn’t have coronary artery disease; her heart attack came from a blood clot that was most likely the result of birth control pills.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Chalk me and my family up as big fans and beneficiaries of the PHD. It’s been life-altering, literally, for myself and my two daughters.

Given the success of the PHD and other similar diets (like the Paleo Diet and the Primal Blueprint), it’s very likely that most of our chronic health issues in the United States are the result of malnutrition: following the USDA’s dietary guidelines seem to reliably lead to human malnutrition.

Malthus may have been right, although not in the way he thought.

Heh.