Biological anthropologist, professor of psychology, and brain health researcher Dr. Aaron Blaisdell is our interview guest today in Episode 878 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show.”

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When Gary Taubes released his seminal nutritional health book Good Calories Bad Calories in 2007, no doubt he couldn't have imagined at the time just how many people from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds would be influenced by his work. One such person who was influenced by Taubes is an associate professor of psychology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and a participating member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute named Dr. Aaron Blaisdell. You may recognize his name as one of the two co-founders (with Brent Pottenger) of the annual Ancestral Health Symposium Paleo conference and he's been conducting some pretty fascinating research with lab rats in recent years, including this fascinating April 2014 study published in Physiology & Behavior looking at the role a low-fat, junk food diet plays on obesity and cognitive function. In fact, Dr. Blaisdell gave a lecture about his research at the 2014 Ancestral Health Symposium (#AHS14) entitled Functional Frivolity: Human Brain Evolution and Play (watch the lecture below).

Listen in as Jimmy and Dr. Blaisdell share about how Taubes was a major influence on his interest in nutrition and health, his research using lab mice to examine the mental and brain health impact that diet plays, why he thinks "ancestral" is a more complete term to use to describe the healthy lifestyle currently promoted as "Paleo," where he see the ancestral health message going in the coming years, full details on the results of his latest rat experiments, the development of a new website dedicated to crowd sourcing n=1 experiments all in one place, and so much more! It's a fabulous conversation between two of the leading voices in the ancestral health community.

LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 878
- SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR: Get Dr. David Perlmutter's FREE newsletter, videos, and high-quality supplements
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- Dr. Aaron Blaisdell's Comparative Cognition Laboratory
- Ancestral Health Society
- April 2014 study published in Physiology & Behavior: Food quality and motivation: A refined low-fat diet induces obesity and impairs performance on a progressive ratio schedule of instrumental lever pressing in rats
- VIDEO: #AHS14 LECTURE:
Functional Frivolity: Human Brain Evolution and Play
- COMING SOON: HealthCrowds.com
- RELATED PODCAST: The LLVLC Show #830: Brent Pottenger And Karen Phelps Give The Lowdown On AHS14 At Berkeley