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Author Topic:   Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes
Joe T
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 41
From: Virginia
Joined: 01-10-2002


Message 226 of 451 (471406)
06-16-2008 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 224 by Percy
06-16-2008 8:20 AM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
quote:
But I'm not endorsing a carbohydrate-free diet. No one is. I was simply noting that when it comes to the three sources of calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates, only protein and fat are essential.
Really? The only things I thought I had sure about this thread are that you take criticisms of Taubes very personally and that you think that it is perfectly OK to eat as much fat (including saturated fat) as you want and that you shouldn’t eat carbs. I must work on my reading comprehension.
Joe T.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 224 by Percy, posted 06-16-2008 8:20 AM Percy has replied

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 Message 227 by Percy, posted 06-16-2008 6:50 PM Joe T has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 227 of 451 (471420)
06-16-2008 6:50 PM
Reply to: Message 226 by Joe T
06-16-2008 4:25 PM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
Joe T writes:
Really? The only things I thought I had sure about this thread are that you take criticisms of Taubes very personally and that you think that it is perfectly OK to eat as much fat (including saturated fat) as you want and that you shouldn’t eat carbs. I must work on my reading comprehension.
Sorry if you've picked up the wrong impression. In the passage from me that you quoted I say, "But I'm not endorsing a carbohydrate-free diet," and I'm not. I don't know anyone who advocates cutting out all carbohydrates. Since you've read through the thread you should be aware that I've set personal goals of less than 100 grams/day of carbohydrates, and preferably 70, though I find that rather difficult to achieve. Taubes' book makes no dietary recommendations at all - it isn't a diet book.
Concerning saturated fat specifically, this is discussed in Taubes book more in the context of heart disease than obesity. Taubes and Dr. Ron Krauss were interviewed together on Talk of the Nation last November (see Message 109 for a link and more discussion). Dr. Krauss is featured prominently in Taubes book. At one point Dr. Krauss speaks about LDLs, of which their are two primary types, large, fluffy LDLs, and small dense LDLs.
Krauss and Taubes disagree about the risks of large fluffy LDLs. Certainly large, fluffy LDLs are essential for delivering fatty acids in the form of triglycerides throughout the body. You woudl die without them. But perhaps Krauss was referring to elevated levels of large, fluffy LDLs. In any case, he wasn't specific about the hazards in the interview.
But he was very specific about small, dense LDLs. See the previously referenced information for a more complete quote, but about small, dense LDL's he says, "...it's just a matter that the major impact, we feel, comes from pathways that result in the smaller LDL particles, and that's where carbohydrates and not saturated fat play a role."
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 226 by Joe T, posted 06-16-2008 4:25 PM Joe T has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 228 of 451 (471456)
06-16-2008 11:27 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by PaulK
06-16-2008 1:58 PM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
PaulK writes:
quote:
1. The obesity epidemic has coincided with increased intake of carbohydrates.
This would be significant (although far from conclusive) if calorie intake had remained the same, with fats replaced by carbohydrates. However, Marantz et al point out that calorie intake increased, with fat consumption remaining about the same in absolute terms.
(It may also be notable that obesity in women seems to have increased more steeply, and women are eating more fat, not less).
This is one of the possibilities that Marantz mentions in his paper, but a simple overconsumption of calories is not the only possibility, and Marantz takes note of this. For example, he quotes from the 2000 Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee where they say about the dietary fat recommendations, "This belief could engender an overconsumption of total calories in the form of carbohydrates, resulting in the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets."
Marantz is appropriately tentative when he expresses his own opinion on the matter, saying at one point that it "...provides a biologically plausible rationale that the recommendation to choose lower-fat foods could have led to increased energy consumption." This tentative expression is in keeping with his status as an epidemiologist studying disease at the population level, one that wouldn't lend him any particular expertise in forming judgements about underlying metabolic causes.
But I agree that the "too many calories" possibility is plausible. Other possibilities are also plausible, such as the "adverse metabolic consequences" that Marantz mentions in his quote from the guidelines committee, and upon which Taubes focuses so much attention. I've attempted to describe the relevant and significant metabolic processes in this thread.
"A calorie is a calorie" is not about individual differences. The most you can hope to argue there is that individuals react differently to different sources of calories. But that would undermine Taubes' claims about carbohydrates, too.
Oh, okay, I see how you're looking at this. The "a calorie is a calorie" argument is one that metabolic differences don't matter, that individual differences don't matter. Taubes is making the opposite argument, that these metabolic differences between individuals and the different ways they respond to food nutrients argues that how a calorie is experienced is a very personal matter. For some individuals excess caloric intake is harmless, for others it means weight gain.
This means that diet is definitely *not* irrelevant, because food isn't just something that provides energy and does nothing else. The food we eat has a significant impact on body metabolism. As Taubes argues and as Marantz mentions, elevated carbohydrate intake can have adverse metabolic effects, the most significant being elevated insulin levels.
These also seem to undermine Taubes' claims about carbohydrates since they deny a link to diet.
Here you're addressing the observation that tissue metabolism can have a significantly greater influence on obesity than diet, and this is just more evidence for the same argument about the significance of metabolic effects. Belly tissue transplanted to the back of the hand will grow as fat with age as the belly tissue that remained on the belly. What are the metabolic tissue differences that cause this? We don't know. Some individuals are emaciated, in effect starving, in one part of their body, while another part is obese. What are the metabolic causes? We don't know.
But clearly body metabolism is at work. Hormones and other chemicals can make you fat whether you're eating too much or not. Try taking an antipsychotic like Zyprexa for a while and just try to keep the weight off. Can't be done, illustrating that the simple rule of "a calorie is a calorie" is just far too simple a way to think about body metabolism.
So any diet which throws body metabolism out of whack in a certain way can cause adipose tissue to accumulate fat no matter what you do, just like the person whose hand with the transplanted tissue grew fat, and just like the people who can both starve and overfeed the same body on a single diet.
I don't know enough to discuss these points in detail. However they appear too simple to be relied on. If we don't know enough about metabolism to judge then we don't know enough to judge those.
While you can perhaps argue that I oversimplified, the processes I briefly described in points 5 and 6 are not simple. Concerning point 5 about insulin causing the uptake of fat by adipose tissue, this is not in dispute. Concerning point 6 about the progression from normal to metabolic syndrome to type II diabetes, this is much debated, but as the Wikipedia article on metabolic syndrome points out, "The most obvious method of prevention is undoubtedly to reduce the amount of carbohydrates, specifically fast digesting starches and sugars." It isn't fat or protein that puts a strain on the pancreas's production of insulin, it's carbohydrates.
In case you didn't notice, Percy I just mirrored your argument. You didn't refer to studies or take lifestyle into account (or even the details of the traditional Inuit diet).
I used the example of the Eskimos because they're usually a sufficiently familiar example, but we can discuss the Eskimos in more detail if you like.
PaulK writes:
That isn't how I read this statement from Message 220. I'd say that it is quite clearly stating that the best diet has no carbohydrates:
The very complex carbohydrates in starchy foods are preferable to the very simple carbohydrates in sugar. No carbohydrates are even better.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I still had in mind the context where we were discussing which of the three nutrients, protein, fat or carbohydrates, was inessential.
I've got no quarrels with the first point. But the second seems to be very questionable.
My second point is that Taubes presents a lot of evidence that the carbohydrate hypothesis is a better fit. I suppose you could take issue with whether his evidence is really a better fit, but he does present a lot of evidence.
Aside from the biochemistry arguments (which Molbiogirl disputed - and she likely knows better than either of us) the arguments seem to be very poor, and even inconsistent.
Yes, I can see now why you thought it was inconsistent, hopefully I've made some progress resolving this for you. Regarding Molbiogirl's arguments and research, you might try using them yourself before rendering an opinion.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by PaulK, posted 06-16-2008 1:58 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 229 by PaulK, posted 06-17-2008 2:01 AM Percy has replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 229 of 451 (471470)
06-17-2008 2:01 AM
Reply to: Message 228 by Percy
06-16-2008 11:27 PM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
quote:
For example, he quotes from the 2000 Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee where they say about the dietary fat recommendations, "This belief could engender an overconsumption of total calories in the form of carbohydrates, resulting in the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets."
The key point here seems to be "overconsumption of calories". Nothing in it implies that Marantz feels that the actual guidelines constituted overconsumption. But that is what Taubes is claiming.,
quote:
Marantz is appropriately tentative when he expresses his own opinion on the matter, saying at one point that it "...provides a biologically plausible rationale that the recommendation to choose lower-fat foods could have led to increased energy consumption."
Which obviously refers to an increase in total calories. The rationale, which you do not quote is :
the previous priority given to a “low-fat intake” may lead people to believe that, as long as fat intake is low, the diet will be entirely healthful
So this is an attempt to explain an increase in consumption which does not appeal to any supposed effects of carbohydrates. And I would describe the explanation as "psychological" rather than "biological".
quote:
But I agree that the "too many calories" possibility is plausible. Other possibilities are also plausible, such as the "adverse metabolic consequences" that Marantz mentions in his quote from the guidelines committee, and upon which Taubes focuses so much attention.
I interpret Marantz' reference to refer more to absolute consumption relative to physical activity rather than proportion of diet.
quote:
Oh, okay, I see how you're looking at this. The "a calorie is a calorie" argument is one that metabolic differences don't matter, that individual differences don't matter.
I don't agree. "A calorie is a calorie" can easily be interpreted on an individual level. And if it is the question comes down to whether for that individual there are significant differences in the way calories from different sources are utilised (or perhaps more significantly, not utilised),
quote:
Here you're addressing the observation that tissue metabolism can have a significantly greater influence on obesity than diet, and this is just more evidence for the same argument about the significance of metabolic effects.
Of course it only matters to this debate if diet IS relevant. You can't put forward an argument that diet is irrelevant to support the idea that diet IS relevant (but a different component is to blame for ill effects).
quote:
While you can perhaps argue that I oversimplified, the processes I briefly described in points 5 and 6 are not simple.
I never said that the processes were simple. However the relationship drawn is too simple. for me to trust it as being entirely accurate.
quote:
as the Wikipedia article on metabolic syndrome points out, "The most obvious method of prevention is undoubtedly to reduce the amount of carbohydrates, specifically fast digesting starches and sugars."
And nobody disagrees with the idea that these carbohydrates are potentially harmful, and that slower digesting carbohydrates are better. It doesn't suggest that those should be ruled out.
quote:
I used the example of the Eskimos because they're usually a sufficiently familiar example, but we can discuss the Eskimos in more detail if you like.
The point is not that I demand more detail. THe point is that you demand details that you do not require from our own arguments.
quote:
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I still had in mind the context where we were discussing which of the three nutrients, protein, fat or carbohydrates, was inessential.
That doesn't fit with the idea that "no carbohydrates" is better than slow-digesting complex carbohydrates.
quote:
My second point is that Taubes presents a lot of evidence that the carbohydrate hypothesis is a better fit. I suppose you could take issue with whether his evidence is really a better fit, but he does present a lot of evidence.
On your list of six points, the only ones that can't be rejected are the two I don't feel competent to fully discuss. The first point had already been dealt with (confirming my opinion that Taubes was jumping to conclusions in that case) and the other three aren't even arguments that carbohydrates play any special role at all. If half your "evidence" doesn't address the point that it is supposed to support something's very wrong.
I don't know if this mistake is on your part or Taubes' but it indicates that your claimed mass of evidence is something of an exaggeration.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by Percy, posted 06-16-2008 11:27 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 230 by Percy, posted 06-17-2008 9:00 AM PaulK has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 230 of 451 (471499)
06-17-2008 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 229 by PaulK
06-17-2008 2:01 AM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
PaulK writes:
Of course it only matters to this debate if diet IS relevant. You can't put forward an argument that diet is irrelevant to support the idea that diet IS relevant (but a different component is to blame for ill effects).
Well, it looks like I may not be explaining this very well, let me try again.
Consider the case of women who are emaciated in the upper body and obese in the lower body. Some not yet understood metabolic quality of the lower body fat tissue is causing it to suck up nutritional resources at the expense of the upper body and of overall available energy. The carbohydrate hypothesis is that the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets can cause adipose fat tissue in otherwise normal people to do the same thing, that is, to suck up nutritional resources at the expense of the rest of the body and of overall available energy.
PaulK writes:
The point is that you demand details that you do not require from our own arguments.
We can discuss this at whatever level of detail you like, but I need something more specific than this to start the ball rolling.
Something in your approach to this discussion leads me to believe that you think stronger claims are being made than is actually the case. Perhaps this Taubes quote will help:
Taubes writes:
I referred to this proposition repeatedly as the "alternative hypothesis", using the word "hypothesis" to imply strongly that it is not a fact but a supposition that should be rigorously tested. (Taubes article in reasononline)
Robustly arguing in favor of a preferred hypothesis should not be interpreted as claiming the currently available evidence is conclusive.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by PaulK, posted 06-17-2008 2:01 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 231 by PaulK, posted 06-17-2008 2:39 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 231 of 451 (471603)
06-17-2008 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 230 by Percy
06-17-2008 9:00 AM


Re: Insufficiently Supported Dietary Recommendations
quote:
Consider the case of women who are emaciated in the upper body and obese in the lower body. Some not yet understood metabolic quality of the lower body fat tissue is causing it to suck up nutritional resources at the expense of the upper body and of overall available energy. The carbohydrate hypothesis is that the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets can cause adipose fat tissue in otherwise normal people to do the same thing, that is, to suck up nutritional resources at the expense of the rest of the body and of overall available energy
Still nothing that could be considered a real argument for the carbohydrate hypothesis.
quote:
We can discuss this at whatever level of detail you like, but I need something more specific than this to start the ball rolling.
Then I guess that you don't understand the point. It's not what I want to discuss. It's what you NEED to discuss to be consistent. I don't mind if you stick with an argument that is inadequate by your own standards. You just need to elevate your own argument to the standards you expect of opposing arguments.
quote:
Robustly arguing in favor of a preferred hypothesis should not be interpreted as claiming the currently available evidence is conclusive.
No, it doesn't change a thing. Taubes' arguments (or maybe your renditions of them) are still bad. If Taubes wants to seriously argue that his preferred explanation better fits the facts then his arguments have to show that. And in the 4 cases - out of 6 - that I feel competent to examine, he fails to show anything of significance.

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 Message 230 by Percy, posted 06-17-2008 9:00 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 232 of 451 (471805)
06-18-2008 11:00 AM


The Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is low in carbohydrates and high in fat. It has been known since the 1920s that such a diet can significantly reduce the incidence rate of epileptic seizures in children.
This came to my attention recently when a friend who works with severely disabled children mentioned a recent Johns Hopkins study showing that a ketogenic diet appears to have long term benefits that persist long after a normal diet is resumed. The article he sent me does not appear to be on-line, so I've uploaded a copy: Ketogenic Diet Reduces Seizures In Many Children, Hopkins Researchers Find
The Wikipedia article on Ketogenic Diet says that the mechanisms by which such a diet reduces seizure events remains a mystery. The Hopkins article echos this, but also says, "a 'flurry of activity' is now under way to reveal the biochemical reasons for the treatment's
success."
This information invites speculation. Is a ketogenic diet generally beneficial with subtle brain effects in normal people not yet noticed? Or does it only benefit epileptic children? Concerning mechanisms, is it that ketone driven brain metabolism is itself beneficial? Or does glucose (carbohydrate) driven brain metabolism carry with it some adverse consequences? Or is it some mix? Or something else altogether?
It's interesting to note that carbohydrate intake is also a key issue with ADHD children. It is widely suspected that the recent ADHD epidemic here in the states is one of over-diagnosis rather than any actual epidemiological change in the American population, but is it possible that high-carbohydrate diets, particularly where refined carbohydrates are a significant component, cause brain chemistry to encourage ADHD-type behaviors, or perhaps even lead to structural changes in the brain that encourage the development of ADHD? The Hopkins data is certainly consistent with the latter possibility.
We likely won't have any answers to such questions for a number of years, but it is interesting that once again carbohydrates are a possible culprit for yet another medical condition.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 233 by randman, posted 06-19-2008 9:46 PM Percy has replied
 Message 254 by molbiogirl, posted 07-04-2008 12:13 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 233 of 451 (471990)
06-19-2008 9:46 PM
Reply to: Message 232 by Percy
06-18-2008 11:00 AM


Re: The Ketogenic Diet
I think you are on the right path here though taken to an extreme (and the diet for epilepsy may be an extreme) this can harm the liver, but it will probably be years before science confirms it. What will likely occur is the public will figure this out first and change their diet (occuring now in the beginning phase) and then science will be a johnny-come-lately and confirm, by golly, this is actually right.
Reason for this comment is some fields, science is better than others. In terms of mainstream scientific opinion on nutrition, it has failed badly at times.
Reducing carbs significantly, imo, helps.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 232 by Percy, posted 06-18-2008 11:00 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by Percy, posted 06-20-2008 7:28 AM randman has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 234 of 451 (472062)
06-20-2008 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 233 by randman
06-19-2008 9:46 PM


Re: The Ketogenic Diet
Hi Randman,
Thanks for the attaboy.
It has been a surprising discovery to find that the diet/health research community is in some ways similar to pseudoscientific communities, such as those surrounding UFOs, Bigfoot or ESP. Apparently, because actual real-world relationships between diet and health are so difficult to tease out using traditional research methods, because the existing body of research does not at present point conclusively in any particular direction, this scientific community is far more likely than others to latch onto views that have some kind of appeal unrelated to the quality of the supporting scientific evidence.
Hence you'll find myths being perpetuated that have no scientific support, such as your example that low-carbohydrate diets can cause liver damage. There is no body of research indicating such a risk, not even for no-carbohydrate diets. In cases where there is already significant liver damage, perhaps due to alcoholism, a low-carbohydrate diet might not be recommended because the damaged liver couldn't handle the higher protein load, but lack of carbohydrates seems a very unlikely cause of liver damage.
But I unexpectedly find that I must agree with your comment that "in some fields, science is better than others." In this case it has created irrational fears that low-carbohydrate diets are not only equivalent to quackery, but dangerous. Certainly until recently I, too, believed this to be the case, and it wasn't until I read Taubes book that the science (as well as what I've experienced personally as I grow older regarding diet and weight loss) began to make sense.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 233 by randman, posted 06-19-2008 9:46 PM randman has replied

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 Message 247 by randman, posted 06-24-2008 6:46 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 235 of 451 (472240)
06-21-2008 11:20 AM


Call for a Critical Appraisal
Here's a link to an interesting and easy to understand "statement of position" paper calling for greater emphasis on carbohydrate restriction in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome:
The conventional medical wisdom regarding diabetes and dietary fat is difficult to fathom. The American Diabetic Association continues to recommend a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fat. But fat has no direct influence on insulin levels and little indirect influence, and diabetes is a disruption of the body's ability to produce insulin. When considering available mechanisms, it's hard to see a signicant role for dietary fat in diabetes. Eat a cup of grease fat and your insulin levels will barely budge, but eat a candy bar and just watch them soar. Insulin production by the pancreas is extremely sensitive to the presence of glucose, and glucose comes from carbohydrates, not fat.
There is a body of research showing correlations (not causation) between dietary fat intake and insulin resistance (a precursor of type 2 diabetes), but as this article points out, the research is not unambiguous, for as is generally acknowledged, obesity clouds the issue. Whether a person becomes fat by overconsumption of carbohydrate, fat or some combination, obesity carries with it clear risks of diabetes and definitely elevates the indicators of those risks. Concerning this issue the article says:
In our view, inconsistencies in the experimental results with dietary saturated fat arise from a failure to distinguish between replacement by unsaturated fat or by carbohydrate. In the former case, there is usually improvement in CVD risk or outcome (although it is not excluded that this is due to the effect of the unsaturated fat rather than reduction in the risk from the saturated fat). Replacement of saturated fat with carbohydrate, however, is almost always deleterious. Again, the idea that carbohydrate is a control element determining the fate of ingested lipid is overriding.
In other words, a key defect in much dietary research into the causes of diabetes is the extent to which the dietary fat hypothesis is assumed true. The result is insufficient controls on carbohydrate consumption, with the result that the extent of carbohydrate influence is unknown or ambiguous.
This is starting to change. For example, the January, 2008, study, Comparison of low fat and low carbohydrate diets on circulating fatty acid composition and markers of inflammation, concludes:
In summary, a very low carbohydrate diet resulted in profound alterations in fatty acid composition and reduced inflammation compared to a low fat diet.
Those who are old enough probably remember the cholesterol scare of the 80's and early 90's when it was believed that heart disease was influenced by dietary cholesterol. The legacy of this scare is that cholesterol content is still featured prominently on nutritional labels, even though we now understand that dietary cholesterol has only the most indirect of effects upon cholesterol levels in the bloodstream (serum cholesterol), and that serum cholesterol levels are not a significant indicator for heart disease anyway.
The same is true of dietary fat. The levels of various forms of dietary fat (saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and there must be others) do roughly translate into blood serum levels, but the effects of these different kinds of fat are multifarious and nowhere near as well understood as mainstream dietary recommendations would have you believe. For example, it is an extremely strong part of conventional dietary wisdom that saturated fat is bad for you, but the research on this is equivocal at best. Teasing out the effect of any particular chemical on the body is complex in the extreme, and the diet/health establishment is performing a serious disservice when it makes dietary recommendations on the basis of ambiguous science.
Here's a rather clear example of the confusion in diet/health research concerning fat. If you search the technical literature about dietary fat and insulin resistance, you'll find many papers that reach the conclusion that dietary fat increases insulin resistance. Yet if you read those papers you'll find that they don't usually control for carbohydrate intake. This muddies the water a great deal, because fat intake just doesn't influence insulin levels very much. Here's a graph of insulin levels plotted against time for both fat and glucose tolerance tests:
What actually may be the case is that carbohydrates act as an amplifier. Dietary fat in the presence of no carbohydrates is relatively harmless, but increasing carbohydrate levels amplify the effects of any dietary fat. This is something that I've been saying all along, that high carbohydrates and high dietary fat are the worst possible combination, and my example is usually Chinese pork fried rice.
So it isn't that dietary fat is harmless. It's that dietary fat is by far the more minor player in this diet/health game. Carbohydrates play a much more significant role, and this makes sense in light of our evolutionary history, where carbohydrates were not a significant contributor to diet until the advent of agriculture.
Here's an interesting fact. When research scientists want to increase the levels of fatty acids in the bloodstream of laboratory rats, you know how they do it? You're probably thinking that they feed them fat, right? And they could do it that way, but that's the hard way. They usually do it by overfeeding them carbohydrates in the form of sucrose (50% glucose and 50% fructose), causing the liver to overproduce fatty acids. In other words, refined carbohydrates are a far more effective way than dietary fats of increasing fatty acid levels in the bloodstream. See, for example, Role of Fatty Acid Composition in the Development of Metabolic Disorders in Sucrose-Induced Obese Rats.
Sitting like a big gorilla in the middle of all this dietary research is the simple fact that over the past 30 years during which the dietary fat hypothesis has held sway, western populations have become more obese, more diabetic, and remained just as prone to heart disease as ever.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

Replies to this message:
 Message 236 by bluegenes, posted 06-21-2008 6:48 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 236 of 451 (472332)
06-21-2008 6:48 PM
Reply to: Message 235 by Percy
06-21-2008 11:20 AM


Re: Call for a Critical Appraisal
Percy writes:
Sitting like a big gorilla in the middle of all this dietary research is the simple fact that over the past 30 years during which the dietary fat hypothesis has held sway, western populations have become more obese, more diabetic, and remained just as prone to heart disease as ever.
--Percy
Maybees theys jest settin' on their'alls immobille butts, selling each other books about "how to intellectualize being a lazy motherfucker?" That's a "big Gorilla"?
The British ate considerably more in the 1970s than they do now. Now "we" are fatter. Everytime I see someone who has "obesity problems" psychology shouts out. Is there a stupidity/obesity connection? Let's be honest. Selling books to lazy diet obsessed morons is good business. You don't make money telling hillbillies to get off their stupid fat arses and start thinking, do you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by Percy, posted 06-21-2008 11:20 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 237 of 451 (472342)
06-21-2008 8:17 PM


Carbohydrates and the Obesity/Diabetes Epidemic
Few would argue that the western world is experiencing an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, but the breadth and depth of the epidemic is often not well understood. This is from the conclusions of Diabetes Trends in the U.S.: 1990-1998:
From 1990 to 1998, the prevalence of diabetes increased by about one-third in the 43 participating states. This increase was observed across all age-groups, races, educational levels, levels of smoking status, weight levels, and nearly all states.
In other words, the increases in diabetes affected everyone everywhere. Whatever the cause, it is prevalent everywhere, it affects everyone, and it obviously can not be anything subtle. The paper The Continuing Increase of Diabetes in the U.S. reports that the rate of diabetes in the U.S. rose from 4.9% in 1999 to 6.6% in 1999. I'm sure more recent data would confirm that the trend continues today. Obesity and diabetes go hand in hand, but just for completeness, here's a paper on the obesity portion of the epidemic:
The Spread of the Obesity Epidemic in the United States, 1991-1998.
Just to be clear, I offer this information not to convince that there's an obesity/diabetes epidemic, for of that there can be little doubt. My purpose is to make clear the huge scale at which this epidemic is taking place.
More and more research is being conducted into the possibility that refined carbohydrates play a significant role, and I today came across this 2004 paper that appeared in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Increased consumption of refined carbohydrates and the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the United States: an ecologic assessment. Its conclusions states:
Increasing intakes of refined carbohydrate (corn syrup) concomitant with decreasing intakes of fiber paralleled the upward trend in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes observed in the United States during the 20th century.
What's extremely interesting about this study is that although only carbohydrates appear in the title, they also looked at dietary fat. Their results showed:
  • That carbohydrates were positively associated with type 2 diabetes (i.e., higher carbohydrate intake, higher risk of diabetes).
  • That dietary fiber was negatively associated with type 2 diabetes (i.e., higher dietary fiber intake, lower risk of diabetes).
  • Protein and fat were not associated positively or negatively with type 2 diabetes (i.e., higher or lower intake of protein or fat, no impact on risk of diabetes).
This is a killer finding. Naturally, like all science, it requires review and replication by the appropriate peer community, and we'll just have to follow developments to see if it becomes accepted.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 238 by bluegenes, posted 06-21-2008 10:33 PM Percy has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 238 of 451 (472361)
06-21-2008 10:33 PM
Reply to: Message 237 by Percy
06-21-2008 8:17 PM


Epidemic? Sure, but is it universal?
Percy writes:
In other words, the increases in diabetes affected everyone everywhere.
No. That's very loose usage of the words "everyone" and "everywhere", (not to mention "affect")
The increase in diabetes effects the "average" person in sedentary cultures, certainly. Those boots are made for walking, Percy. Remember the good old days?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OU7Nezg7Ls
Well, maybe, come to think of it, if that's what we used to dance like, there's something to be said for sitting in arm chairs, diabetes notwithstanding.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 237 by Percy, posted 06-21-2008 8:17 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 239 by Percy, posted 06-22-2008 7:09 AM bluegenes has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 239 of 451 (472411)
06-22-2008 7:09 AM
Reply to: Message 238 by bluegenes
06-21-2008 10:33 PM


Re: Epidemic? Sure, but is it universal?
bluegenes writes:
Percy writes:
In other words, the increases in diabetes affected everyone everywhere.
No. That's very loose usage of the words "everyone" and "everywhere", (not to mention "affect")
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't intend to say that everyone everywhere is obese and diabetic. But because the obesity/diabetes epidemic acknowledges no boundaries of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, educational level, etc., everyone everywhere in countries with western-style lifestyles is at risk.
Those trying to eat healthy in western-style countries face severe problems because truly healthy food sources are just not available. According to the paper I cited earlier, Increased consumption of refined carbohydrates and the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the United States: an ecologic assessment:
For example, processing whole grains into white flour actually increases the caloric density by > 10%, reduces the amount of dietary fiber by 80%, and reduces the amount of dietary protein by almost 30%.
So the solution would seem to be to make sure the grain products you eat are made with unrefined grain, but unless you grow and mill the grain yourself you're just not going to find such products in western-style countries. I suspect this is a competitive issue, with suppliers of whole-grain products competing to produce the most palatable whole-grain products possible, with the result that whole-grain products are whole-grain in name only. While I don't have hard evidence, I have strong circumstantial evidence that the whole-grain products sold in western-style countries are quite nearly as refined as refined-grain products, and it takes the form of the information on nutritional labels.
Pepperidge Farm 9 Grain Whole Grain Bread, presumably made with unrefined grain, has 20 grams of carbohydrates per slice, 3 grams of which is fiber, and 3 grams of which are sugar. Fiber is indigestible and makes no nutritional contribution, so the net is 17 grams of carbohydrates, of which 3 is sugar, which is usually a 50/50 mix of glucose/fructose.
Pepperidge Farm Hearty White Bread, presumably made with refined grain, has 22 grams of carbohydrates per slice, of which 1 gram is fiber and 4 grams are sugar. The net is 21 grams of carbohydrates, of which 4 is sugar.
So if you eat whole wheat bread instead of white, you'll consume 17 grams of carbohydrates instead of 21 , a rather modest difference. And you'll consume 3 grams of sugar instead of 4, another very modest difference.
If refining grain to white flour actually removes 80% of dietary fiber, as the paper cited above states, then it should be possible to find whole wheat bread with five times the dietary fiber of white bread. You also want no sugar, but no one's interested in making bread that doesn't sell.
There's a lot of built-in confusion in nutritional information about carbohydrates. The fiber portion of carbohydrates is fairly unambiguous. Fiber is carbohydrates that are indigestible and do not contribute to nutrition, but they do moderate the rate of digestion of other food material, such as digestible carbohydrates.
But there's a lot of confusion about what constitutes refined carbohydrates versus complex carbohydrates. The diet/health industry recommends food products high in complex carbohydrates and low in refined carbohydrates, but are refined carbohydrates sugar? Or do refined carbohydrates include bread, pasta and pastry made with refined grains? Is white rice a refined carbohydrate? As near as I can tell, it depends upon context. Sometimes references to refined carbohydrates seem to be focused on sugar, sometimes they're focused on both sugar and refined grain products.
The glycemic index can be very helpful in comparing the quality of carbohydrates in food products that have no sugar or have very low levels of sugar. The reason it can't be used to compare products with sugar is that sugar is only 50% glucose, which is all the glycemic index measures, how rapidly and abundantly the carbohydrate in a food product is broken down into glucose and absorbed by the bloodstream. The other 50% of sugar is fructose, which is metabolized by the liver into fat.
The carbohydrates in non-sugar foods with a low glycemic index are digested and absorbed at a slower rate than those with a higher glycemic index, which is good because blood glucose spikes flood the body with insulin, which is bad for both diabetes and obesity risks.
The increase in diabetes effects the "average" person in sedentary cultures, certainly.
The strongest controlling factors for diabetes risk appear to be obesity and carbohydrate intake. The amount of exercise is also a factor, but it is strongly influenced by whether there is any accompanying weight loss. In other words, if presented with the choice of exercising while maintaining weight versus no exercise but losing weight, the latter choice is much more likely to reduce diabetes risk.
One of the reasons why nutritional advice is so suspect is because when its advice doesn't work the recourse is to blame the victim. If someone gains weight or fails to lose weight while following nutritional advice, then it's the fault of the patient for not properly following the advice. The possibility that the advice is incorrect is rarely considered.
I have lived the reality of both sides of the weight issue. At age 18 I was 5' 10" and 105 pounds. It didn't matter how much I ate, I could not gain weight, and I tried really, really hard in college to gain weight, since I could eat as much as I wanted in the dining hall, plus we usually went out for a late night snack of subs, cheesesteaks or pizza. Participating in varsity and intramural athletics, I was also very active. At the end of 4 years of college I weighed 115, and I believed that anyone who was fat must be incredibly lazy and gluttonous. When I saw fat people I could not understand how they could have allowed it to happen to them.
I gradually put on weight during my 20's and 30's and was gratified to finally take on a more normal appearance. During this period I ate as much as I wanted whenever I wanted, and I apparently put on about two pounds per year. Much of it was muscle, for during this period I was still playing competitive tennis, and for a while I dabbled with running.
My activity level really picked up in my mid-40's when my kids were both finally in school, making available more free time. I began playing tennis at an intense level for at least an hour a day, six or seven days a week. Even in the winter. I was serious about it and eventually became good enough (I was already very good) to be seeded one or two in most tournaments I entered. It was a rare tournament where I wasn't playing on Sunday. During this period my weight reached 180, and it wasn't mostly muscle anymore.
So I went on a diet of about 1600 calories/day and was able to lose about 30 pounds.
Four years later I was back up to 180 pounds, so I went on another diet, but this time discovered I had to drop to 1400 calories/day to lose weight. I again lost about 30 pounds.
Three years later I was up to 190 pounds, so I went on yet another diet, but this time even on 1200/calories day I could not lose weight, and I couldn't go lower because I couldn't stand the hunger. I brought this up with my doctor who told me I must not be keeping track properly. He knew better than to suggest I wasn't exercising enough.
I am still pretty much the same person I was at 20 who could not gain weight no matter what, but now I can't lose weight no matter what. What changed? Am I now lazy and slothful and gluttonous? Is it my fault that I weigh too much? The diet/health establishment would answer yes to these questions. They would say that however little I'm eating, it's still too much, and that however much I'm exercising, it's still too little.
The truth is that it's all a bunch of bull. Thirty years ago I couldn't gain weight on a diet of 3000 calories/day, and now I can't lose weight on a diet of 1400 calories/day, and the reason for the difference is metabolic changes. Metabolic differences also explain why some people are fat and some people are skinny. We still don't know precisely what these changes and differences are, but we're gaining a better understanding with time, especially now that the dietary fat hypothesis is weakening its stranglehold on research.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 238 by bluegenes, posted 06-21-2008 10:33 PM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by bluegenes, posted 06-24-2008 2:14 AM Percy has replied
 Message 243 by Joe T, posted 06-24-2008 2:12 PM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22394
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 240 of 451 (472553)
06-23-2008 9:07 AM


Diet Soda Makes You Fat!
I first heard about this research early this year in the mainstream media, but they didn't explain it very well. Now I've come across the original research paper, and the message, unfortunately, is that diet soda likely makes you fat.
The paper itself (A Role for Sweet Taste: Calorie Predictive Relations in Energy Regulation by Rats) is clear but expressed in technical terms, but here's a well written and short article that explains it pretty well: Do Artificial Sweeteners in Diet Soda Cause Obesity?. Quoting from the article:
We know that just the thought or smell of food triggers a whole set of hormonal and physiologic responses that prepare the body for food.
This pre-digestive response is the key problem. If just the taste of diet soda triggers the release of various hormones, insulin in particular, then all is lost. The increased insulin levels will cause the hormonal balance to shift in the direction of greater production of fat from fatty acids in the bloodstream.
Most diet soda tastes funny to me, but I love orange soda, and I've found this wonderful Sunkist diet orange soda that is indistinguishable from regular orange soda. It has 0 calories and I love it. Unfortunately, my diet experience has led me to suspect that it is somehow just not helping, and this research would tend to confirm this suspicion.
So once again my diet changes: no more diet soda! Ugh, dieting is getting hard.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.
Edited by Percy, : 'Nother typo.

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