Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes

But Taubes didn't say that high carbohydrate intake increases VLDL production. He didn't say it increases cholesterol plasma levels. He didn't say increases in VLDL half-life was its only effect.There was a lot of other detail in your post, and it would be interesting to visit this information in greater detail, but it's just too difficult to do this because you continually dirty the water with a great deal of nonsense. This discussion has been one of you making erroneous claims and accusations and me correcting them, and it's becoming an unending exercise. Nothing productive can emerge until you start saying things that are actually true. If Taubes is wrong he can only be wrong about things he actually says, not things you falsely accuse him of saying.If you want to embark upon an honest, open and objective examination of Taubes' claims then I'm with you, and we'll let the evidence tell the story. But if you can only continue as you are then I'm really not interested.--Percy

Yes, he does.P. 177. That's wrong.From message 103. That's not true, Percy.Page 170-3. Your favorite 6 sentences. He is explicit in his (erroneous) interpretation of the metabolic pathway.Your argument that an increased VLDL half-life is what Taubes is referring to is suspect. Nowhere in the book does Taubes mention the half-life of VLDL particles.He does, however, spend 3 pages describing a fictional metabolic process for the production of VLDL particles.Second. Even if I were to concede for the sake of argument that Taubes may have been referring to the VLDL half-life, of what use it that?The VLDL particles are NOT converted into LDL particles. The LDL levels fell! Cholesterol levels fell! Nothing happens while the VLDL particles are in the blood.Half-life simply means the VLDL particles are in the blood for 25 minutes instead of 12.And finally. Re: your point that Taubes doesn't mention insulin.Taubes harps on insulin and carbs ad nauseum. From your favorite 6 sentences, page 173. From page 394. There's a darn good reason why Taubes neglected to mention insulin in his fictional account of the metabolic pathway re: carbs and VLDLs (p. 170-3).The research contradicts his hypothesis.Krauss and Taubes discuss Taubes' ideas on NPR here:Not All Calories Are Created Equal, Author Says : NPRAt 7:44, Krauss scolds Taubes to "not oversimplify the science" regarding carbs and body weight regulation.Krauss goes on to say "There's an awful lot of regulation ... that determines obesity, involving organs like the brain, the intestines, the liver and muscle and involve integrated circuits and are not simply responding to insulin." "Regulation is much more complex than just insulin or no insulin."Krauss does not agree with Taubes re: carbs/insulin and weight.Krauss also mentions his research re: sdLDLs and specifically points out that it is those who are already overweight and those that have metabolic syndrome that have elevated levels of sdLDLs. Krauss paper.He immediately goes on to dispute Taubes' simplistic notions re: sdLDLs and carbs.From the Krauss paper you cited (immediately following what you quoted): Multiple genetic determinants. Multiple environmental (one of which is dietary intake) determinants.Immediately preceding your quote: And the final sentence of that paragraph and the following paragraph: Metabolic syndrome, hyperlipidemia, hyperapobetalipoproteinemia and hypoalphalipoproteinemia. Not normal folks. Those that suffer from metabolic syndrome, hyperlipidemia, hyperapobetalipoproteinemia and hypoalphalipoproteinemia.Krauss does not agree with Taubes re: carbs/insulin and weight nor does he agree re: carbs and sdLDLs. He makes that abundantly clear in the interview. He repeatedly chastises Taubes for oversimplifying the science.

Other than this mention, I couldn't find any reference to an interview in your message. Did you forget to include a link? If you're referring to information in an earlier message you'll have to tell me which one.If you're going to continue to take an adversarial approach then you're on your own. I'm not going on a voyage of discovery with someone who clams up about her own many errors while clubbing me about the head and shoulders for my own and a large number of errors she made up herself. If you want a fight you're coming to the wrong person, and if you want a productive discussion then you're going about it the wrong way.--Percy

This thread has recently passed the 100 message point, so this is a good time to repeat the main points of Taubes' book. They are:

1. Increased carbohydrate intake increases levels of small dense LDLs in the bloodstream, which evidence indicates are a significant contributing factor to heart disease.
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2. Increased carbohydrate intake increases insulin levels in the bloodstream, causing fat tissues to emphasize intake of fatty acids. In other words, carbohydrates make you fat, particularly the refined carbohydrates in bread, pasta, candy and soda.

Dr. Ron Krauss features prominently in Taubes' book, and in a November 2, 2007, Talk of the Nation program on NPR they were both interviewed by Ira Flatow, here's the link: Not All Calories Are Created Equal, Author SaysDuring the interview Krauss often tries to moderate what he feels are oversimplifications that Taubes makes, but the two are largely in agreement, which makes sense since a significant portion of Taubes' book is based upon Krauss' research. On the subject of heart disease, at approximately 16:00 in the interview, after describing their initial suspicions about fat and LDL cholesterol, Ron Krauss says: Dr. Krauss reinforces this again around 18:50: So the lesson of Taubes' book is that to reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity, lower your carbohydrate intake.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

According to anecdotal reports I've read on the web, people regain the weight they've lost as frequently on low carbohydrate diets as on low fat diets. One of the reasons I wanted to try a low carbohydrate diet was to try to understand why this is so, and now I think I have an inkling.First a status report: after about 7 weeks I'm down 10-1/2 pounds. I'd been on a plateau for a couple weeks before losing another pound in the last few days.It would be nice to lose weight faster, but I have to be careful. If I lose weight too fast, my experience in the past has been that I lose stamina. On the tennis court this translates into having to quit before being done, which frustrates partners no end.Anyway, the low carbohydrate diet continues to be one where there is no hunger, especially not of the raw, gnawing kind that overcomes all willpower. Taubes calls low fat/low calorie diets near-starvation diets (usually 1600 calories/day or less), but I call them willpower diets. You can maintain a willpower diet for as long as your willpower exceeds your hunger. Hunger always wins eventually. It works on your mind causing you to daydream about food in the middle of the day, and it wakes you from a sound sleep. Eventually your mind loses all rational control and you don't care about the diet anymore and you eat. And eat and eat.So if low carbohydrate diets do not cause hunger, why do people go off them? I think I'm beginning to figure out why.First, a low carbohydrate diet is monotonous. There just aren't a whole lot of foods that are very low in carbohydrates. Unprocessed meat is the only food source I can think of that has zero carbohydrates. Anything made with refined flour is off limits. Anything made with sugar is off limits. Starchy foods are off limits. High fructose fruits like grapes are off-limits. Even all-bran cereals have high levels of carbohydrates. There just aren't a whole lot of food choices.But while I think this contributes to the difficulty of adhering to low carb diets, I think the primary reason is that food urges don't go away. They're not as strong as hunger, but they've become a presence in the past couple weeks, and I'm finding it harder and harder to pass up pastry, candy and ice cream, even though I'm not hungry. I'm beginning to yearn for something sweet.I've been able to hold off this yearning by eating South Beach Diet Snack Bars once a day (about 15 grams of carbohydrates), and by drinking zero calorie/carbohydrate diet soda, but I'm beginning to suspect that they don't work as well as they should. I've read that there's an anticipatory insulin response to glucose intake, one that begins before digestion can actually begin to add any glucose to the bloodstream to cause the pancreatic insulin response. If this response is caused by the taste of sweetness, then these diet foods are counter-productive.--Percy

The NPR link is in the message, Percy.
Always has been.Krauss was polite but stern with Taubes.
And he made the same points I have been making (repeatedly) in this thread.The metabolic pathways are extraordinarily complex and interlinked (he calls them integrated circuits).The metabolic pathways are very tightly regulated.The metabolic pathways do not have a single trigger, like carbs or glucose or insulin.And finally, Taubes is oversimplifying the science and doing a disservice both to the science and the public.btw.Weight loss plateau = all the water weight gone.
2 weeks = 1 pound lost = ~1500 calories/day is the appropriate caloric restriction level. Not 1200.

No. They are not. He contradicts Taubes on every point Taubes tries to make. Taubes brushes him off by saying "Ron's in the public health business".At 7:35. Krauss does not agree with Taubes. Nor does he support the way Taubes butchers the science. Metabolic syndrome. Again, allow me to remind our readers that this is not applicable to normal folks.Once you have metabolic syndrome, yes, carbs play into that. But if you do not have the disease condition, carbs do not have that effect.These metabolic pathways -- fat metabolism, carb metabolism, etc. -- are very tightly regulated. Very precise. Very functional.If a disease condition interrupts or disturbs or redirects these processes, then of course things go haywire. "Substitute carbs for fat". Let's unpack that.Dr. Krauss mentions (earlier in the interview) the cheap, highly caloric carb snacks that folks gobble up when they go on a low fat diet. Those are the carbs Dr. Krauss is referring to.He is suggesting that folks cut out the substituting stuff. He also suggest veggies and whole grains.He does not support the wholesale reduction of carbs and he makes that point repeatedly throughout the interview.At 19:35. At 24:04. And Dr. Krauss' sdLDL reference is regarding those who suffer from metabolic syndrome. From here.In folks with metabolic syndrome!Taubes' insistence that this happens in normal folks is akin to my suggesting that all smokers will develop lung cancer.

Mobiogirl's opposition to Taubes has never been rational nor accurate, as her tone and many errors throughout this thread indicate. I'll take the time to point out her more serious errors, but I won't engage in a dialogue because experience to this point indicates that it would be neither productive nor informative, especially given her tendency to jump to conclusions and her many citations of inapplicable research results, not to mention the continual ad hominem.Contradicting her characterization of Dr. Krauss in the NPR interview, this is from my quote of Dr. Krauss in Message 109 about carbohydrates' role in heart disease, and it is very supportive of Taubes: I'll respond to this comment from Molbiogirl about low carbohydrate diets: I'm not sure what precise point Mobiogirl is trying to make, but she has been consistent in this thread in criticizing low carbohydrate diets. The specifics of her criticisms contradict the view of nutritional researchers, who tend to characterize low carbohydrate diets as effective but nutritionally risky, or as a low calorie diet in disguise because of the restrictive food choices.As I described in earlier messages, the older I get, the less effective low calorie diets have become. I've tried to lose weight on three occasions in my life. About 10 years ago I was able to lose weight on 1600 calories/day. About 5 years ago I found I had to go to 1400 calories/day. And starting about a year ago I found that even at 1200 calories/day that I could not lose weight at all.So about 7 weeks ago I switched to a low carbohydrate diet, and though I don't really track the calories, I'd estimate they're around 1600 calories/day. In that period I've lost 10-1/2 pounds, and I'm never hungry.Molbiogirl is claiming it's water loss, as if weight loss will now cease until I cut calories further. We will see, but she certainly seems to have no reluctance to climb out on limbs.Weight loss is not a matter of a simple calorie equation. Losing weight is not just a matter of reducing calorie intake because hormones have far more control. Reduced calorie intake will cause reduced energy expenditure. Increased energy expenditure will cause increased calorie intake. And levels of various hormones have the most control over fat storage. It is probably something related to hormones that makes weight loss more and more difficult as one grows older.--Percy

Just correcting a few things from Molbiogirl's Message 112...I can't pretend to understand why she is doing this, but in this message Molbiogirl, as she has done throughout this thread, misinterprets what she is reading, or in this case, hearing. Anyone who listens to the interview (Not All Calories Are Created Equal, Author Says) can see that while Krauss believes Taubes oversimplifies the science, he agrees that carbohydrates plays a far more significant role in obesity, diabetes and heart disease than previously believed.I quote Dr. Krauss's key statement on this once again: Concerning metabolic syndrome, we're coming to understand that while some people are more genetically predisposed than others, there is a progression from normal to metabolic syndrome to type 2 diabetes in which carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate intake, plays a significant role.Taubes' important contribution is in calling to our attention to the fact that during the precise period when nutritional experts where telling us to reduce fat intake (which means increasing carbohydrate intake, since we have to eat something), the nation got dramatically fatter and more diabetic and atherosclerotic. Obviously something is very wrong with the dietary advice we've been getting.The past half century corresponds to a dramatic increase in carbohydrate intake, and while the metabolic pathways involved are indeed intricate and complex, anything that affects such a broad swathe of the population across almost all regions and ethnicities cannot be subtle. Increased intake of refined carbohydrates from fast food restaurants and supermarkets is the incredibly obvious common denominator, yet our supermarkets continue to be filled with aisle after aisle of low-fat high-carbohydrate food.Michael Pollan's advice is pretty much on the mark (Michael Pollan is author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food). He echos much of what Taubes says, including how immature the research is into the relationship between health and diet, but he focuses less on the science and more on the general outline of things. He says that if you eat what your great grandmother ate then you should do pretty well. I'd go back further than that and say that if you eat what cave men ate you'll do even better. Our eyes are in the front of heads. We're omnivores with a carnivorous evolutionary background, not glucose processing machines.--Percy

Percy, this is silly. Why would your weight loss stop? Why should you cut you caloric intake further? 1 pound a week or every other week will continue and that is a perfectly acceptable weight loss. It just means it will take a year to drop that remaining 30 lbs, that's all.(btw. 1#/week is the weight loss you will see with any caloric restriction diet.) Dr. Krauss repeatedly contradicted Taubes. He even went so far as to tell Taubes "You are misinterpreting the data."Taubes response? "Huh uh."From 109: Translation: Taubes, you are misinterpreting the data again.From 109. Krauss is talking about carbs in the context of metabolic syndrome, not normal intake.Krauss isn't the only scientist whose work Taubes mangled. And he's not the only one to speak up.Scientist #1. Scientist #2. Big Fat FakeScientist #3. Australia's leading consumer advocacy group | CHOICEScientist #4. Australia's leading consumer advocacy group | CHOICEScientist #5. Australia's leading consumer advocacy group | CHOICETaubes is thoroughly dishonest. Australia's leading consumer advocacy group | CHOICEDr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Barbara Howard kicked the snot out of Taubes on Charlie Rose.Take a look.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPyme62niYMAnd who are the scientists that publicly support Taubes? Andrew Weil and Mehmet Oz. Birds of a feather!Edited by molbiogirl, : citeEdited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

Percy, how you can hear Krauss correcting Taubes over and over again and still come up with this ... interpretation ... is beyond me.Maybe you're not used to scientist-talk. Krauss was harsh in his criticism. Please don't butcher the science.It is simplistic to suggest that one is "genetically predisposed" to disease. That is true of nearly every disease.Carb intake does not play a significant role in the development of metabolic syndrome. If that were true, it would be all over pubmed.Do the pubmed search yourself, Percy. You will find nothing. Nada. Squat. Taubes ignores the uptick in caloric intake over the past 2 decades.And obesity (from increased caloric intake) leads to diabetes and heart disease.Whenever prosperous folks get their hands on lots of food, they get fat. That has been true for millennia, not just the last 2 decades here in the States.Over 150 years ago, when Britain's industrial revolution created a middle class, those folks got fat.The Chinese, South Pacific islanders, Mexicans, South Americans and some African tribes have historically prized obesity (obesity = sign of wealth) and overfed their children (and their women) to plump em up. http://tojou.wetpaint.com/...y+Trends+by+Geographic+Location I've ignored your anthro stuff so far, but this is too much.
We do not have a "carnivorous evolutionary background".
Where on god's green earth did you get this idea? Mark Teaford and Peter Ungar
Diet and the evolution of the earliest human ancestors
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 97, No. 25 (Dec. 5, 2000), pp. 13506-13511

In Message 115 and Message 116 Molbiogirl continues her irrational vendetta against Taubes, and this time she has brought reinforcements in the form of quotes from other researchers who are also, apparently, more than willing to issue caustic comments about Taubes. I'll spare everyone a dreary rebuttal of her many points and just address the first significant one, but it is typical of what has gone before.This is from Message 115 about researcher Gerald Reaven, who appears both in Taubes' New York Times Magazine article (What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?, you need a subscription, but it's free) and in Taubes' book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, that is the subject of this thread.Molbiogirl provides two excerpts from Big Fat Fake: The Atkins diet controversy and the sorry state of science journalism by Michael Fumento that appeared in the March, 2003, edition of ReasonOnline, and I reproduce them here: And what did Taubes write concerning Reaven in his New York Times article? He's featured in a couple paragraphs in the middle of an eleven page article. Here's everything Taubes wrote about Reaven: It appears that Reaven objects not to what he is quoted as saying, which he concedes is accurate, but to being included in an article that challenges the conventional wisdom of his profession. For this supposed misdeed Reaven feels he has the right to issue harsh and unfair criticisms of Taubes. Apparently Taubes' descriptions in his book about the zeal with which some researchers defend their status quo is accurate.I have wasted far too much time already tracking many charges and accusations from Molbiogirl that turn out to be false and without foundation. Why she is so hostilely energized by Taubes position on carbohydrates is a mystery to me, but I'll spend no more time on the content of those two messages. I encourage others who may be interested to investigate their accuracy and post here, but I don't really see much point to it. At this point it has become just a case of waiting for the next diatribe instead of discussing actual science. But if anything of substance emerges at some point I'm committed to looking into it.A brief status report on the diet: huge wedding and family get together combined with the holiday weekend to thrust my diet upon the shoals and leave it in wreckage. I'm up a pound.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Pissed off scientists who have been quotemined by a popsci writer are nothing new.Pointing out that Taubes is dishonest is easy when half a dozen scientists have come forward to highlight his dishonesty. This is disingenuous, Percy.
Of course a quotemine is "accurate" is some sense of that word.
The point each of these half dozen PIs is making is that he ripped their words out of context and twisted them to fit his agenda.
Their science does not support what he says. Have you any idea how much this sounds like a creo?The zeal with which researchers defend their work against its misinterpretation is indeed a thing to behold.Researchers fight all the time. And the squabbling is part and parcel of advancing science. You know that.It is rare, tho, that they accuse a colleague of quotemining. For good reason. Were a PI to quotemine a paper that he cited in his work, he would be eviscerated by the community as a whole.Taubes isn't subject to any such community censure, however.Which is why the bookshelves groan under the weight of unbelievably bad popsci books.This reminds me of the deception that the producers of Expelled used with Dawkins and Myers.When their words were ripped out of context, the shit hit the fan. As it should. Deception, like that used by Taubes and by those that made Expelled, is reprehensible. You know, I've let this pass one too many times, because I didn't want to sidetrack the discussion.But, since you have chosen to end the discussion, I see no reason to continue to ignore this nonsense.You have not shown anything I've said to be (1) wrong (2) false (3) inaccurate or (4) erroneous.I, on the other hand, have caught you with your pants down around your ankles on several occasions.The latest of which was your wrong/false/inaccurate/erroneous insistence that Taubes did not claim that VLDL overproduction was the end result of dietary carb intake. You said you were no longer interested in discussing "the science".From 107. I can understand your frustration. You don't have access to the literature, for one thing. I do.However. It is vital to pick apart his bogus arguments using the available research.For example. I can make the argument that when one eats sugar, the liver converts the available glucose into ammonia and this lowers blood pH which then interferes with brain function.How would you go about disproving that nonsense?By referencing the literature, of course.I have shown that Taubes simply manufactures nonexistant metabolic pathways. No temporary fat storage, no TAG biosynthesis, no overproduction of VLDL particles in carb metabolism, for instance.Don't you understand that this undermines his entire argument?There is NO metabolic pathway that fits his description!I could do the same with the rest of the bogus "science" in his book. I've done quite a bit of the research already.Dr. Ornish and Dr. Howard did the same thing on Charlie Rose. Picked his arguments to pieces. Using current research.But you aren't interested.

I again invite others who may be interested to check out what Molbiogirl says in her latest post, Message 118. I've already wasted too much time checking out her false accusations and jumped-to conclusions.If anyone's interested in objectively exploring this issue, it would certainly be welcome.--Percy

Another thought.Taubes has offered the scientific community the golden key to curing -- not alleviating, but curing -- 3 of the deadliest diseases in the U.S. today ... heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.#1 - Diseases of the heart (27.2%)
#3 - Obesity (13.5%)
#5 - Diabetes mellitus (3.1%)But those goddamn scientists are just too blind, just to wedded to the status quo!Apparently, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of American scientists are just too stubborn to run with Taubes' brilliant idea and pick up a Nobel for their efforts.The nerve.