Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes

There are no personal attacks in Message 187. You have still not seriously addressed the points raised in it.Those are the facts, Percy.

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Because you hadn't read the paper, I didn't address the points at all.

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I won't comment further on what you did do.

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The merit of the comparison of the Marantz position with the Surgeon General's report on smoking seems very much a side issue, so I won't address that.

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There's no such comparison. There is, in fact, a valid issue there, on what extent the Government should provide health advice, but it plays a minor role in the original paper so perhaps it is best ignored.

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This is a bit difficult to parse, and the paragraph ends with an incomplete sentence, so perhaps I'm not catching your meaning, but it seems possible that you're rebutting a position that wasn't anything I claimed, though I can't be sure. I won't comment since I'm not sure what you're saying.

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Here's a completed version: The argument referred to is in Message 172 (which I directly referred to in my original message).

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Because you were drawing your information from a rebuttal rather than the original paper, you drew incorrect conclusions about the paper's position on dietary fat. On page 6 the Marantz paper says quite clearly that they understand the health risks from dietary fat

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None of the points raised, however, rely on such an assumption and they all remain true. And I did not get that assumption from the rebuttal - I got it from your assertion that the original paper supports Taubes.(And I am suurprised that you would use a quote dealing only with trans fats, rather than: )

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This conclusion doesn't follow from what you presented, especially given the lack of clarity in that one paragraph and the error in the next.

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You mean that you claim that it doesn't follow even though you failed to understand a significant portion of the text. As if that were not enough, the "error" is irrelevant, since it does not materially affect the understanding of either of the documents.

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The congruency between Marantz's and Taubes' views that I was noting was the possibility (not the conclusion) that dietary fat guidelines caused the obesity epidemic by increasing the intake of carbohydrates

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Taubes seems to be focussing on the replacement of fats with carbohydrates as a source of energy. Marantz et al argue that fat consumption has stayed about the same (less for men, more for women) and in fact more calories are being eaten. If this accounts for the increase in diabetes and obesity there seems little reason to assume that carbohydrates are "bad" calories on these grounds.

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Taubes column from the journal Science, The Soft Science of Dietary Fat, *is* cited in the Marantz paper near the end of page 2, it is reference 13. If Marantz is citing a source incongruent with his own position he seems unaware of it.

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The only way to evaluate a citation is to look at it in context.: It seems that they cite Taubes only to support their preferred explanation of the increase in diabetes and obesity. Which does not require characterising carbohydrates as "bad calories".

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You see, Paul, once the slurs begin there's no way to get in the last word. On a discussion board it just becomes an endless back and forth with the two sides taking turns trading insults.

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If you insist on making an issue of it, you need to accept your responsibility when you are the one who starts the mudslinging. I would also suggest that you could use a rather thicker skin when it comes to criticisms of arguments, rather than people.To continue.

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Then that would be a misimpression. Taubes doesn't think there are no health risks associated with dietary fat. He talks about the risks of increasing levels of dietary fat for heart disease, but he also talks about how decreasing levels correlate with increased risk of colon cancer. There are risks in either direction.

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But Taubes does believe that the risks of dietary fat are far outweighed by those from carbohydrates, and that the attribution of the chronic diseases of western civilization to dietary fat is not supported by the research.

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Let us note that Taubes DOES claim that carbohydrates are the more significant threat. Studies which show low fat diets having a beneficial effect, without corresponding harm are evidence against this thesis.

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Well, I guess we won't agree that your error is irrelevant.

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How could it be relevant ? It doesn't affect any of the points I raised.

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And actually, I still don't understand that passage. Perhaps you could express it in simpler terms?

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The argument I cited tries to argue from the existence of the recommendations to the conclusion that carbohydrates are more harmful than fats. i.e. it points to the historical connection and not only assumes that the guidelines were a cause of the increase in obesity and diabetes, but that that result was almost entirely due to substituting carbohydrates for fat.Marantz et al only argue for a causal link between the recommendations and the increased health problems. And they admit that the evidence is only as strong as the evidence that the recommendations were based on on the first place.So, even the conclusion that the guidelines caused the health problems is only supported to the degree that Marantz and Taubes reject as inadequate. Taubes' explanation of the link is on weaker ground still, especially as Marantz et. al. provide alternative explanations that would need to be ruled out.If you still don't understand then please try to raise specific points.

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That would be another misimpression. Taubes didn't write a diet book, and the book doesn't contain any dietary recommendations, though naturally any reader who accepts his evidence and arguments will draw the conclusion that reducing carbohydrate intake levels is advisable. Taubes believes that it is increased carbohydrate intake at the expense of dietary fat that has contributed to the obesity epidemic.

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This paragraph is inconsistent since the last sentence makes the very point that the first sentence calls a "misimpression".

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Yes, this would be true. There is nothing in the Marantz paper that argues for any health risks specifically related to carbohydrates.

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What you do not note is this part of my point:

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Marantz et al argue that fat consumption has stayed about the same (less for men, more for women) and in fact more calories are being eaten.

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Marantz et. al. assert that there has been no significant "increase in carbohydrate at the expense of dietary fat". What they see is more an increase in carbohydrate consumption without an corresponding decrease in fat consumption.

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Yes, this would be true, too, and I made no other claim. Reread my Message 186 where I first mentioned the Marantz paper. Right above where I say "This is the same premise as Taubes" book there is this quote from the paper:

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If the major premise of Taube' book is that the dietary guidelines were mistaken and somehow caused the increase in obesity and diabetes it isn't apparent in your posts.In the OP you write: Perhaps instead of saying that Marantz et al agreed with "the premise" of Taubes book you should have said "a premise".Your quote does not event contradict the interpretation that you meant the major premise as described in the quote above, since it finishes with: In short, your introduction was misleading and implied - perhaps unintentionally - that Marantz et al agreed with Taubes view on the harmful nature of carbohydrates compared with relatively benign fat.

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All great advice! I'll be sure to keep these hypotheticals in mind.

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Readers should look at this subthread which starts with Message 186 and work out just who starts the mudslinging in it.

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Studies of the effects of low fat diets on heart disease show a beneficial effect, while those focusing on other factors show a deleterious effect. For example, low cholesterol levels correlate with an increased risk of stroke. And the Framingham study found a correlation between low cholesterol and premature mortality for men under 50, and in fact found that those whose cholesterol levels declined during the study were more likely to die prematurely, including of heart disease.

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Is cholesterol level a valid proxy for fat consumption ?

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...you said at one point that you don't have our nutrition labeling requirements in the UK,

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I certainly don't remember saying any such things.The closest I can remember is this in Message 187: There is a difference between "Smoking causes fatal diseases" and recommended daily allowances.

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What was "the argument you cited"?

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That would be the argument that I described in the text, and linked to in the original version. I assumed that you would already have worked that one out, since all you had to do is follow the link.

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When you wrote the original paragraph you hadn't even read the original paper, so I can't imagine what you're talking about when you said, "where Marantz et. al. raise points damaging to the argument seen in this thread."

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Message 187 is about two documents. Woolf and Nestle's rebuttal to the original paper and the response to that rebuttal written by Marantz and his collaborators. That should be quite clear from the text. WIth that information it's hardly difficult to work out which document every reference to "Marantz et al" refers to.SInce you know that Marantz et al wrote a response to the rebuttal and since you know I read that response and since I discussed the contents of that response in the previous paragraph why would it be "difficult to imagine" that I'm still talking about the same document ?

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Where you claim, "Marantz et al assert that even the weaker conclusion is only as well supported as the original recommendations," where is it that you interpret him doing this

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In url=http://www.ajpm-online.net/...rnals/amepre/AMEPRE2101.pdfThe Authors Respond[/url]. they quote from the original paper: Seems pretty clear to me. The evidence is similar and only indicates "a realistic possibility".

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Okay, sure, but it's the major premise.

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Then it's the OP that's misleading for completely failing to mention the major premise, and instead focus on the supposed harm caused by carbohydrates.Marantz et al. don't even argue that the advice was incorrect as such (other than being too generalised). They propose that the alleged consequences are produced by more indirect means than simply people following the advice..

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Honestly, to me both my opening post and my first post about the Marantz paper still say what I intended them to say.

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I suppose you also meant to say that sugar was the worst carbohydrate (Message 1) and that all carbohydrates are as bad as sugar (Message 173)Edited by PaulK, : Corrected link from msg 186 to 187 as intended
(The context should have made it obvious, but apparently it wasn't)

Percy I have correct the erroneous link in my message, since you did not spot the mistake. You may wish to correct your post on that basis. There is also at least one ill-considered remark that you might wish to retract. I'll give you the opportunity to do so.

With the correction your point about Message 186 is no longer relevant since [masg] is the one under discussion.And unless you really wish to imply that Rule 10 does not apply to you then I seriously suggest that you rethink what you are saying.

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Especially obvious will be who's living in denial.

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Yes, when it is discovered that the slurs start in Message 188.

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I wouldn't call it a proxy, but there's a correlation between low fat consumption and low cholesterol levels.

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Then that limits the evidential value.

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Here in the states, "low fat" is a major promotional tool, and has been for quite some time. You can get skim milk, 1% milk, 2% milk, low fat cheese, low fat cream cheese, no fat cream cheese (tastes like cardboard), extra lean meat, low fat sausage, etc.

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Most of that is easily available, now. As I stated, though that was not the case in the '70s (although I've only seen the 1% and 2% milk recently despite shopping in four different stores quite regularly).
It's been a gradual development, though. You'd have found a lot less in the '80s. And then there are all the misleading promotions where the fat content hasn't changed.

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The statistics do indicate that fat consumption has not declined but has actually increased slightly overall here in the states, which I of course accept, but it's hard to make sense of given all the low fat food in supermarkets, which wouldn't dominate shelf space if they weren't selling. I wonder what the explanation is.

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Marantz et. al. point out that people are eating more which is one factor. Another may be a move towards eating more processed food - ready meals, especially.

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Well, I guess I just wasn't able to work it out. Without links or quotes or something else to go on, the references to things said elsewhere were too difficult to figure out and track down. Perhaps you could state your point all in one place?

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Percy, it seems that you weren't able to figure it out with the link, which I certainly didn't expect. Why would it be different if I tried again ?

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Anyway, the part of your argument I don't understand is how the Marantz paper is damaging rather than supportive of Taubes' premise that dietary guidelines related to fat have contributed to the obesity epidemic.

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Perhaps the fact that I say that the argument I am objecting to goes beyond that claim has something to do with that. (In fact I do point out that Marantz et al state that the evidence for even that is weak, and insufficent to conclude that it is true).

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The OP says that Taubes believes that the elevated levels of what are traditionally called the diseases of western civilization, namely heart disease, diabetes and obesity, are due to carbohydrates, not dietary fat. The Marantz paper, while touching only on obesity, is supportive of this premise.

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Not really. There is no way to conclude, for instance, that it was not simply the increase in calories consumed. There are any number of other possibilities to be considered. The paper simply doesn't have the data that would let us reach that conclusion.

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Well, I guess I can see what you're getting at, but I think expressing it this way makes misinterpretation too likely

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I'd say that it makes the contradiction more obvious.If your comparison is one calorie in the form of glucose against another calorie in the form of glucose you wouldn't find a difference.
But reducing it to that level isn't valid.In Message 173 you starkly state: But there are differences. The presence of large amounts of fructose in sugar is a difference. The rate at which the glucose moves into the bloodstream is another which you recognise as being relevant in Message 8: So there are at least two differences, which you consider (or have considered) significant - and completely leave out.

I'm sorry but I don't think that your Message 173 can be saved by those means.The message that all carbohydrates are as bad as sugar (let alone that they ARE sugar) is simply wrong."All carbohydrates are as bad as sugar if you ignore the reasons why sugar is worse" doesn't seem to be even worth saying."Excess glucose is bad, no matter what it's dietary source" also hardly seems worth saying. It is a better description of your argument, providing a valid reason to look at glucose alone and leaving out the emotive and misleading comparison with sugar. But it's hardly controversial - even the "dietary fat mafia" would agree with that.

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Okay, you're welcome to your opinion. I like the provocative title, and I make clear in paragraph three the difference between glucose and fructose...

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You say that there's a difference, but nowhere do you hint that the fructose is even possibly more harmful. But it's interesting that you don't consider it important that the title isn't true.

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But I don't think the dietary fat mafia would agree about what constitutes excess glucose. The daily value for carbohydrates in the US is 300 grams, which is the equivalent amount of glucose as a half cup of sugar. A common recommendation is for carbohydrate sources to comprise 60-70% of total diet. A more reasonable level would be in the neighborhood of about 25%.

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The question of what is excess is open to question. But does that really matter. Your body needs glucose, and it seems to be better to get that from starchy foods than sugar.

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Sure it's true.

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You've already agreed that not only is it not literally true, there arwe important factors that make sugar the worst form of carbohydrates.
So, no it isn't true that "all carbohydrates are sugar".

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It's true that the body needs glucose, but it does not require dietary carbohydrates.

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It's just as well that I didn't state that dietary carbohydrates are necessary then. Only that starchy foods are in general better than sugar. And we already know that you agree with that.

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Very simple carbohydrates like sucrose are approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

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Is that what you meant to write ? It's certainly not correct.

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Sure. The very complex carbohydrates in starchy foods are preferable to the very simple carbohydrates in sugar. No carbohydrates are even better.

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I'm far from certain that leaving out carbohydrates altogether would be a good idea. There are questions about the safety of long-term ketosis, so I'd be very surprised if no carbs was the healthiest option. (Not to mention the need to be very careful about your diet in other respects).

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So am I. The important issue underlying this entire thread is that the current conventional wisdom about diet and health is not supported by the available research

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And Taubes' ideas don't seem to be any better supported.

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Given that some human populations have survived generations on meat-only diets (Eskimos, for example), the more serious questions would be about diets that include elevated levels of carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates.

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Given that subsistence farmers have survived generations on high-carb diets it seems that these "more serious" questions are easily answered in exactly the same way.(The traditional Inuit diet was rather special - they had little in the way of carbs due to availability rather than choice. They ate what they could get - including the stomach contents of animals they killed. They also ate their meat mainly raw, and ate a lot of blubber - which apparently contains a high proportion of unsaturated fat).And if you want to appeal to our evolutionary history you must remember that humans are not obligate carnivores and did not evolve to eat an all-meat diet.

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You also cannot forget the list of some of the key supporting observations for the carbohydrate hypothesis that I provided in Message 215, and here it is again:

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Lets go through them

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1. The obesity epidemic has coincided with increased intake of carbohydrates.

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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).

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2. Human metabolism with respect to weight gain is nowhere near as simple as "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie," as can seen with otherwise identical people on the same diet having different weight gain experiences. Laboratory genetic experiments have duplicated this effect by producing strains of animals that are naturally fat and that get much fatter on the same diet as normal ones. There are clearly other factors at work beyond calories that are at present not well understood.

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"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.

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3. Transplantation of skin from a region of fat accumulation, such as the belly, to a region where fat accumulation is rare, such as the back of the hand, sees that tissue gain weight identically to where it came from throughout the subject's lifetime.

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4. Emaciation and obesity has been observed in the same individual simultaneously. Women emaciated above the waist and obese below is one example. Clearly something related to tissue metabolism, not diet, is the significant factor.

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These also seem to undermine Taubes' claims about carbohydrates since they deny a link to diet.

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5. Insulin regulation plays a key role in obesity because it encourages the conversion of fatty acids into triglycerides by adipose tissue (fat tissue), and insulin levels are strongly influenced by blood glucose levels, which are in turn influenced by carbohydrate intake.

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6. The progression from normal to metabolic syndrome to diabetes type II hints that elevated carbohydrate intake has a wearing effect on body metabolism for susceptible individuals, primarily the pancreas and its production of insulin. Unfortunately, susceptible individuals represent a significant proportion of most populations.

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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.So. You have one argument which we already know is based on inadequate information (as I pointed out long ago). Three which seem to count against Taubes' view as much as any other. And two which are maybes, but I don't feel competent to confidently judge. That really isn't very good out of six.

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I'm not familiar with any such studies, but subsistence usually means physically demanding and that dietary intake is just sufficient to survive. A diet meager in quantity, even if high in the proportion of carbohydrates, and combined with rigorous physical activity cannot produce obesity.

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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).

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But I'm not endorsing a carbohydrate-free diet. No one is.

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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:

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Taubes argues that the dietary fat hypothesis is not very well supported by the available evidence, and he presents a lot of evidence that the carbohydrate hypothesis is a better fit.

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I've got no quarrels with the first point. But the second seems to be very questionable. 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.

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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."

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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.,

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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."

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Which obviously refers to an increase in total calories. The rationale, which you do not quote is : 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".

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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.

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I interpret Marantz' reference to refer more to absolute consumption relative to physical activity rather than proportion of diet.

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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.

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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),

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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.

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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).

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While you can perhaps argue that I oversimplified, the processes I briefly described in points 5 and 6 are not simple.

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I never said that the processes were simple. However the relationship drawn is too simple. for me to trust it as being entirely accurate.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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That doesn't fit with the idea that "no carbohydrates" is better than slow-digesting complex carbohydrates.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Still nothing that could be considered a real argument for the carbohydrate hypothesis.

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We can discuss this at whatever level of detail you like, but I need something more specific than this to start the ball rolling.

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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.

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Robustly arguing in favor of a preferred hypothesis should not be interpreted as claiming the currently available evidence is conclusive.

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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.