Today marks my appearance on the Dr. Oz Show, which was, let’s just say, an interesting experience and leave it at that. It was the show, though, that (finally) prompted me to address an issue I’ve wanted to address for quite some time.
The Dr. Oz Show is one part health advice and discussion and quite a few parts entertainment, as Oz’s producers kept telling me in the days before we taped the episode. To make for what they consider good television they played me up as the second coming of Atkins – a persona that my wife likes to refer to as “meat boy” — while Oz got to play the role of the harvest king, extolling the healing virtues of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. This made it more difficult than I would have liked to get across the important messages from my books, but television is television and I certainly knew what they had in store for me.
My message and the message of Why We Get Fat was not that we should all be eating nothing but animal products – and certainly not the unappetizing meat and eggs that Oz’s crew prepared as props — but that carbohydrate-rich foods are inherently fattening, some more so than others, and that those of us predisposed to put on fat do so because of the carbs in the diet. That’s why I called the book Why We Get Fat rather than some variation on The Miracle 24-Hour (or 14-Day or Three Week or Three month) Diet Cure, which is more the norm for lay books in the nutrition genre.
The idea despite all the controversy is pretty simple. I’m arguing, as others have before me, that the same thing that makes our fat cells fat is what makes us fat — a fat person, after all, is a person with a lot of overstuffed fat cells — and what makes our fat cells fat is fundamentally the hormone insulin. Raise insulin levels and we accumulate more fat in our fat cells. Lower insulin and fat is released from the fat cells and the cells of our lean tissue can burn it for fuel.
There’s nothing particularly controversial about the science involved. If you doubt insulin regulates fat accumulation in fat cells, you can literally look it up in any good biochemistry or endocrinology (the study of hormones and related disorders) textbook – the latest editions, say, of Lehningers Principles of Biochemistry or Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, which are the authoritative texts in their respective fields. Look up the word adipocyte (the technical term for fat cell) and this is what you’ll find:
First Williams (and I’ll translate the technical terminology immediately after):
The activity of LPL within individual tissues is a key factor in partitioning triglycerides among different body tissues. Insulin influences this partitioning through its stimulation of LPL activity in adipose tissue. Insulin also promotes triglyceride storage in adipocytes through other mechanisms, including inhibition of lipolysis, stimulation of adipocyte differentiation and escalation of glucose uptake.
To understand what this means you have to know that LPL is the enzyme (in less technical language, the thing) that works to pull fat from the circulation into whatever cell it happens to be sitting on. If that cell is a muscle cell, the fat is used for fuel. If it’s a fat cell, the fat is stored. Triglycerides are the form that fat is stored in fat cells and transported through the blood stream in lipoproteins. Adipose tissue is fat tissue and adipocyte is the fat cell.
So what Williams says is that fat is stored in different tissues (partitioned) depending on how this enzyme LPL is distributed on the cells of those tissues, and its insulin that to a large extent determines this. Then it adds that insulin promotes fat storage through other mechanisms as well — it creates new fat cells (stimulation of adipocyte differentiation), and it inhibits the escape of fat from the fat cell and its use for fuel (lipolysis), and it also increases the uptake of blood sugar (glucose) into the fat cell, which might not be relevant but the authors of the textbook don’t apparently know this, and neither did I when I wrote Good Calories, Bad Calories.
Now here’s Lehningers Principles of Biochemistry:
High blood glucose elicits the release of insulin, which speeds the uptake of glucose by tissues and favors the storage of fuels as glycogen and triaglycerols, while inhibiting fatty acid mobilization in adipose tissue.
Lehningers uses the other spelling of triglyceride – triaglycerol – to denote the fat in the blood and in our fat cells, and we get high blood glucose by consuming carbohydrate rich foods, which end up as glucose (a carbohydrate) in our blood stream. We also tend to have high blood glucose when we have a condition called insulin resistance, which is the underlying defect in obesity, diabetes and heart disease. When Lehningers says insulin inhibits fatty acid mobilization that’s pretty much the equivalent of what Williams is saying about insulin inhibiting lipolysis.
The point of both is simple. Insulin puts fat in fat cells. That’s what it does. And our insulin levels, for the most part, are determined by the carb-content of our diet — the quantity and quality of the carbohydrates consumed. (Or if Jenny Brand Miller and her colleagues are right, also by our fat content — the lower the fat in the diet, the higher the insulin and vice verse.) The way to get fat out of fat cells and burn it, which is what we want to do with it, is to lower insulin. This has been known since the early 1960s.
One point I make in Why We Get Fat is that we all respond to this carbohydrate/insulin effect differently. Some of us can eat carbohydrate-rich meals and burn them off effortlessly. We’re the ones (like Oz) who partition the carbs we consume into energy. (This is the fuel gauge metaphor that I use in WWGF and that Oz’s producers reproduced wonderfully on the show.) And some of us partition the carbs we consume into fat for storage, and that partitioning depends on a lot of different enzymatic and hormonal factors — mostly relating to insulin and LPL as Williams Textbook of Endocrinology said).
There are a few obvious dietary means to reduce the amount of insulin we secrete and ultimately the level of insulin in our circulation day in and day out. One is to eat fewer carbohydrates; one is to improve the quality of the carbs we do eat, which means eating carbs that are less refined (their glycemic index is low or at least lower) and carbs that come with a lot of fiber attached (green leafy vegetables), and then eating less sugars, by which I mean both sucrose and high fructose corn syrup.
And this brings us to the point of controversy on the show – where Oz and I disagree. (Okay, one of the many points on which we disagree, but the one that needs clarification sooner rather than later). This is also the point that public health authorities, physicians and nutritionists almost religiously refuse to accept or even understand, because one implication of what I’m saying is that the good Dr. Atkins was right all along, and they just can’t get it through their head, as Oz can’t, that a diet of the kind Atkins recommended might be not only healthy but the medically appropriate treatment for the condition – in this case, obesity.
There are a couple of helpful ways to think about the role of carbohydrates in obesity and chronic disease, and one of them (the other I’ll discuss at the end of this post) is that some of us are more tolerant to the refined and easily digestible carbs and sugars in our diet than others. The more we can tolerate them the less we have to avoid them. Hence, the dose of carb-restriction that’s necessary to be lean and (probably) healthy is a small one. Again here’s how I put this issue of individual variation in WWGF:
…Multiple hormones and enzymes affect our fat accumulation, and insulin happens to be the one hormone that we can consciously control through our dietary choices. Minimizing the carbohydrates we consume and eliminating the sugars will lower our insulin levels as low as is safe, but it won’t necessarily undo the effects of other hormones—the restraining effect of estrogen that’s lost as women pass through menopause, for instance, or of testosterone as men age—and it might not ultimately reverse all the damage done by a lifetime of eating carbohydrate- and sugar-rich foods.
This means that there’s no one-size-fits-all prescription for the quantity of carbohydrates we can eat and still lose fat or remain lean. For some, staying lean or getting back to being lean might be a matter of merely avoiding sugars and eating the other carbohydrates in the diet, even the fattening ones, in moderation: pasta dinners once a week, say, instead of every other day. For others, moderation in carbohydrate consumption might not be sufficient, and far stricter adherence is necessary. And for some, weight will be lost only on a diet of virtually zero carbohydrates, and even this may not be sufficient to eliminate all our accumulated fat, or even most of it.
Oz and physicians like him think that there’s so much to be gained by eating whole grains and fruits (we agree on the green vegetables, although I do so less because of any compelling scientific evidence than because my mother insisted they were good for me) that they think this should be recommended to anyone and everyone and a diet that restricts them can’t possibly be healthful.
Oz implies on the show that everyone can benefit sufficiently by improving the quality of the carbs they eat and getting rid of the sugars, that any more significant restriction isn’t necessary. And he thinks any significant amount of carb restriction will cause problems because a) people won’t stay on such a restricted diet; b) they’ll replace these foods in their diet with high fat, high saturated fat meats and eggs and so increase their risk of heart disease (a point I discuss at length in both my books and is obviously critical), and c) they’ll develop diseases like cancer that Oz believes can be prevented by eating fruits and vegetables and maybe even whole grains.
As I point out on the show (or at least I did when the segment was taped, but it may or may not make it to the air as our taping session ran long), there’s precious little clinical trial evidence to support this last contention, but Oz and authorities like him believe in the healing power of fruits and vegetables, and they’re not all that bothered by the lack of clinical trials to support it.
This is the same take on the problem used by physicians and nutritionists who recommend low glycemic index diets instead of carbohydrate-restricted diets. They think this is enough to improve the quality of the carbs we consume, and the implicit assumption is that if we cut back on the quantity of carbs to any great extent we’ll either eat too much fat (or too much meat, period) or we won’t stick to the diet and any benefits will be lost.
What I’m arguing is that for many of us who run to fat, cutting down on the refined carbs and starchy carbs (potatoes, for instance) and on the added sugars will help, but it probably won’t help enough. The dose of carb-restriction won’t be sufficient to deal with the problem. We may stay fat. We may even get fatter. A blanket recommendation to eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains, as Oz prescribes and now Weight Watchers and the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, ignores this aspect of human variability completely. It assumes that people who are predisposed to fatten can tolerate the same foods and benefit from the same very mild dose of carb-restriction that the naturally lean can.
I don’t think that’s true. It’s that simple. I think that if we’re so predisposed to fatten that we’re already obese, we’re probably among those who have to restrict carbs far more severely – have a much greater dose of the intervention – to get even relatively lean, which means relatively healthy. So for some of us and maybe most of us, even fruit, the nutritionist’s darling of the early 21st century, can be fattening , and if it’s fattening, it means it’s probably causing far more problems than whatever antioxidants or phtyochemicals it contains may be preventing. (As even Wikipedia says, as of March 6th 2011 anyway, “While there is abundant scientific and government support for recommending diets rich in fruits and vegetables, there is only limited evidence that health benefits are due to specific phytochemicals.”)
The way I see it, Oz, who’s naturally skinny, can eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains to his hearts content and remain lean. For him, they can be the bulk of his diet and he can tolerate them and burn them off. They give him energy. They don’t make him fat. But most of his audience is not naturally lean, and they probably can’t. I’d argue that many of them have probably been living on diets very similar to the diet Oz is prescribing and it hasn’t helped them or certainly not to any significant degree. I get e-mails all the time now from people who tell me they were getting fatter and fatter on just those “heart healthy” diets.
Assuredly some proportion of the population and so Oz’s audience will lose a little weight eating as Oz recommends and getting rid of the refined grains and sugars in their diet, and they’ll be a little healthier for the effort. Getting rid of the sugars alone might make a significant difference on both counts. But it’s an insufficient dose of the intervention for a serious medical issue that typically requires far more. For those who are obese and want to be anything close to lean and stay that way, they’re likely to be better off getting rid of all the grains and much or most of the fruit, and then eating more of whatever foods they happen to eat or like that provide protein and fat – pulses, for instance, and tofu (a more complicated issue than I have time for here) for the vegetarians and vegans and animal products (meat, fish, fowl and eggs) for the rest.
This also speaks to a question I’ve been asked numerous times in e-mails from readers. Simply put, what about nuts and what about fruit? And here’s my answer: Nuts are not only Oz’s snack of choice, but the snack of choice of many low-carbers. And nuts and fruit are fine if your body can tolerate them. If you’re still heavier than you’d like, maybe it can’t. It’s a trade-off. If I eat fruit, other than maybe a handful of blueberries a day, I start to gain weight, so I don’t eat it. If I was fatter than I wanted to be — which I’m not — I’d consider giving up both the blueberries and the almonds I eat and see what happens. If it didn’t make any difference, I’d go back to them. If it did, I could decide how much I missed them and whether the trade-off of weight vs. fruits and nuts was worth it. You can look at any number of the nutrition websites to see which nuts have the lowest carb content and which fruits have the lowest sugar content and glycemic index and use that as a guide. But there’s no website or diet book that will tell you what your body can tolerate.
Finally, here’s the other way to look at carbohydrate-restricted diets, and it speaks to Oz’s belief that saturated fats are the cause of heart disease. As I explain in WWGF and did so on the Oz show, it’s almost assuredly the case that the same foods that make us fat are the same foods that cause heart disease and diabetes and cancer, etc. — the diseases that associate with obesity. These are the foods that were absent from human diets during the 2.5 million years of evolution leading up to the agricultural era, and so we’re still poorly adapted to dealing with these foods — easily digestible starches, refined carbs and sugars. When we remove these foods from our diets, we get healthier. Insulin levels come down and with them a host of metabolic disturbances normalize.
It was an email from my friend Bob Kaplan a few days before I taped the Oz show that reminded me of how best to phrase this argument. So I’m going to end with Bob’s e-mail because he said it as well or better than I ever could.
I was just thinking about the “beneficial effects” of a low-carb diet and how it’s essentially a misnomer.
When we eat low-carbohydrate diets, our “good” HDL tends to go up, our LDL becomes larger and fluffier (less atherogenic), our blood pressure goes down, and our triglycerides plummet. Does this mean a low-carbohydrate diet is beneficial to health?
Yes and no. While it appears “beneficial,” for me, it’s more of an indicator of our serum lipids “correcting” to levels that we are supposed to find in a healthy individual. In other words, if we look at a population of people who are chronically over-consuming sugar and refined carbohydrates, their serum lipids are going to be abnormal. When they go on a low-carbohydrate diet, they’re correcting the abnormality and the associated lipids will become more “favorable” (while I would argue that they’re just trending toward a normal, healthy human being) depending on which MD or researcher you ask.
So it is with weight “loss,” water “loss,” lipid and metabolic “benefits” of a low-carbohydrate diet. There is nothing magical about restricting carbohydrates, rather it’s closer to the kind of diet that we’ve been eating and are presumably genetically adapted to eat, and any loss of weight and water, any beneficial effects on serum lipids are just a correction rather than an improvement in health.
Benefits v. Correction:
A restricted-carbohydrate diet doesn’t make you lose weight; it corrects your weight.
A restricted-carbohydrate diet doesn’t make you lose water weight; it corrects your water weight.
A restricted-carbohydrate diet doesn’t improve serum lipids; it corrects serum lipids.
A restricted-carbohydrate diet doesn’t improve health; it corrects unhealthiness.
I think we low-carbers should reclaim the savory fruits (by scientific definition, fruits contain seeds, not sugar) and proudly proclaim that our diets are filled with fruits that are widely considered vegetables — peppers, squashes, cucumbers, okra, tomatoes, etc.
unfortunately tomatoes help you stay fat, bbrs have known that for years
I haven’t eat fruit for around 3 years, and my vegetable intake has drastically reduced too, and I feel better, lighter and less bloated for it! Great post, Gary.
when your muscles wither away and you get scurvy from a drastically reduced vitamin c intake you’ll kick yourself for being so ignorant. try listening to someone with a medical degree!!
It is premature to worry about Leestoker getting scurvy . According to the experience of Vihljalmur Stefansson eating meat-only diet for years didn’t make him sick .
On the Primal Wisdom blog http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/search/label/tooth%20decay I found the reference to his article http://www.harpers.org/archive/1935/11/0019032In in the November 1935 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine.
I case you don’t know, usually the low carb diet includes 2-3 cups of leafy and low-starch vegetables daily.
I don’t eat carbohydrates hardly at all. I don’t have scurvy either. If you knew anything, you would know that carbohydrates inhibit the uptake of vitamin C into your cells. Without carbohydrates, you are not vitamin deficient. If this were so, the Inuit would all have died. They thrived eating primarily polar bear meat and some fish.
Well said. I should have read a little further before posting my comment! Sorry.
As an Inuk, I’ve never eaten polar bear meat, tried it once when I was very young, didn’t like it, consistancy and taste is like pork and I don’t eat pork to this day, only because I don’t like it. Throughout my life (not some fish), lots of fish; char, trout, cod and white fish. I also ate lot of caribou meat. seal meat and ducks and their eggs. We ate berries during the summer months, lots of leaves which there is none of that kind in the south, roots of plants and some flowers of an arctic plant. We also ate lot of oatmeal put into cup of tea, lots of bannock. We ate what was edible on the caribou, seals and fish, not just the meat part. Hardly nothing goes to waste of any animals that were caught and what was caught was what was needed. It’ so different today.
Tracker, The Inuit also eat the internal organs of these animals which do contain vitamin C. Nothing goes to waste.
I’m pretty sure this is the “amber” who showed up frequently on MarksDailyApple. He/she loves caps. Don’t feed trolls.
Well, it’s 12 years later and about 90 lbs down in the first two years, from 235 to 148. Wonderful health, lots of Vitamin C via broccoli, bell peppers, tomatoes, etc. 12 years and counting of low carbing…oh, and wonderful cholesterol numbers.
You sound like the dietician who used to chase me around work telling me I was “killing myself” and “it’s just water weight anyway, everyone knows that!” (I’m an RN.) Oh yeah, 90 pounds of water weight. Uh huh…
So, I’m delighted, Amber to report that at age 57, with 12+ years of low carbing, I have no medical conditions, take no medications and am certainly not “withered” or suffering from scurvy, lol!
Oh and I also have a BP that would be the envy of millions…
Btw, if you look on the American Dietetics Association website, you’ll notice that their corporate sponsors include Coca Cola, Kellogs, and Hershey. Might shed some light on their recommendations.
Amber,
Take a look at the diet of the native Inuit. Read some of Stefansson’s work. And no one who advocates low carb is saying you can’t eat strawberries or oranges. You clearly don’t know anything about the subject.
Amber,
Go tell that to my doctor (who does have a medical degree, btw), who advised me to eat this way. In the 10 years I’ve been on a low-carb plan I haven’t had scurvy yet, or withered muscles. I’m in the best health of my life and no longer need a myriad of medications I was on before trying a low-carb plan. I probably don’t eat as many fruits and veggies as you’d like, but my health and blood work shows I’m doing just fine. Instead of taking advice from someone with a medical degree and a public image to upkeep, I’ve chosen to listen to someone who has no vested interest in keeping me sick. My choices are paying off very well. We aren’t the ones who’ll be kicking ourselves, but sadly there will be many who pay with their health and lives because they won’t listen to us.
I haven’t eaten any(!) fruit or significant vegetables in over 20years (I”m 40), and I’m thriving.
What say you Amber?
-Al
2 questions for you:
1. Why would leestoker’s muscles wither away because he doesn’t eat vegetables or fruit? Hint: muscles are made of protein.
2. How is it that populations that don’t eat fruits or vegetables (because they can’t get them–Inuits, for example) don’t lack muscle power or get scurvy? Hint: The answer is in Gary Taube’s books.
I’ve heard many people with medical degrees who don’t make nearly as much sense as GT. Having a medical degree does not make a person an expert in the science of nutrition, since the professors in most medical schools tend to lean toward the same conventional “wisdom” that they were fed. We need a change in paradigm, and GT is leading the way. Bravo.
“The way to get insulin out of fat cells and burn it” –> this is probably a typo, meant to be “the way to get fat out of fat cells”.
Ditto , most definitely a typo.
I think you meant “triacylglycerol” instead of triglyceride. I look forward to your appearance on the show, though I expect to cringe quite often. Oz often advises what looks like a low carb diet (veggies and meat – when he’s not pushing oatmeal). I thought it was funny a few months back when Oz had Andrew Weil on who advised eating whole grains, but eating them literally whole- i.e., so less of the carbohydrate is assessible and absorbed. What more do they need to see to recognize their own cognitive dissonance?
Loved your book GCBC. It changed our lives for the better. Thanks!
Cynthia
Hats off to you for even going on the Dr. Oz show and suggesting that different people may need different diets. That’s radical.
Sadly, I seem to be one of the people who can’t eat alot of carbs. And feel much better eating relatively little to no carbs (with carbs coming from green veggies).
I wonder how many studies have been done on saturated fat / heart disease on people eating a ketogenic diet?
2 points: First, I think GT is not saying that “different people may need different diets” so much as different people tolerate different amounts of carbohydrates and process them differently. If a person is overweight/wishes to lose fat, there is only one “diet” that will actually work long term: one that is low in carbohydrates, particularly the refined and easily absorbed ones that come from grains, fruits and starchy vegetables. Secondly, re the studies you asked about regarding saturated fat/heart disease and eating a ketogenic diet: I believe numerous studies have been done. Uffe Ravnskov’s books cover this topic, as do Atkins’. GT also discusses some of these studies in his books.
When is this supposed to air? Hopefully not today as I am at work and can’t get home to program the Tivo. Read most of GCBC and am reading WWGF currently. View the previous discussion with Dr. Oz and company on you-tube. I don’t think the purveyors of the low fat/high carb CW are ready to admit defeat. I don’t think the public is ready to buy the “most fat isn’t bad for you” message yet since what they now “know” makes so much sense and they have been programmed that fat(EWWWW!) is gross.
You can watch it on Dr. Oz’s website.
“Not benefit, correction.” Thanks for that. I’ll be (ab)using that little nugget from now on.
The term correction is so much more apt. I often am confronted with a misconception that a low carb diet will cause inappropriate weight loss. People will say things to me like, “You/I shouldn’t stay on that diet, I/you don’t want to lose too much weight.”, and I have a hard time persuading them that it simply doesn’t work that way. In addition to the ongoing healthfulness in other measures, restricting carbohydrates can help normalize the underweight or the overweight.
What you say is true based on my personal experience.
In 1997 I was put on a low fat diet (by my doctor). I got fatter–gained 50 pounds– and my cholesterol levels rose from low 200′s to 297.
Then, in 2002 I was put on a diet (again by my doctor but under the direction of a clinical nutritionist) and told to restrict my carbs to 165 grams per day (I’d been eating at least 400 grams carbs per day), with fat at 20%–any kind of fat, including saturated, and protein unlimited, total calories unlimited.
In 6 weeks time I lost 13 pounds, but more importantly to me–at the time–was that my cholesterol went down to 213. I thought it was because I’d lost weight. At that point in time I switched to Weight Watchers, went back to a high carb (albeit low calorie) diet. Continued to lose weight (mind you I was hungry all the time too), a total of 50 pounds, but alas–my cholesterol–which was the whole point of dieting, i.e. to improve it–went right back to the 300 level.
At that point I was told I must have a genetic tendency to high cholesterol and needed to be on medication. I resisted Lipitor for 5 years, finally succumbed to taking it after being pressured and scared to death of heart disease by my doctor. And–voila–my number went down–in 2 months on 10mg per day of Lipitor I went from 297 to 167.
But 5 years later with the realization that I’d have to be on it for life (at least 25+ years) I took myself off. My doctor didn’t like it, but too bad.
I designed my own diet, with plenty of what I call good fat, including saturated fat, plenty of protein and fiber, and limited carbs. I have lost 30 pounds and my cholesterol profile is improving. To date my triglycerides have come way down–to 170, and my HDL increased while my LDL decreased.
Now, I understand, that MY body needs carb restriction to have a what is considered a good cholesterol profile. It took me a while to figure this out–a few years.
The common thread–the connection–to me ‘correcting’ my cholesterol profile is to reduce carb intake–not lose weight, not restrict fat, not restrict protein, not restrict calories to a very low level. (I’ve been eating between 1350-1500 calories daily–I never feel/go hungry, and yet I continue to lose weight. Methinks it is due to insulin correction.)
I was given bad information back in 1997 (eat low fat) and I think it caused my body harm. So I am glad and very thankful there are people like you making a case for reducing carb intake. And making the point that each of us have a different body and that no one size fits all situations. AND…that science is science and trumps mistaken notions and beliefs.
I encourage you to keep on getting your message out there. Poor Dr. Atkins did not get a fair shake, but I believe the worm is turning. When I heard Dr. Oz say on his program not long ago that “sugar causes high cholesterol and not fat” I thought ‘finally, the truth is beginning to come out’.
Dr. Oz has had Dr. Mercola on his show, Dr. Andrew Weil, and now you. I’d love to see Dr. Walter Willet on as well.
Kudos to you, Gary. I think Dr. Oz made a great point by appreciating your perspective. Sadly, most people who have his same (false) understandings about nutrition aren’t so open-minded (even if it was just to look like the good guy on his show).
Most of the audience probably believes what Dr. Oz has been telling them all the more, but there’s a decent chance one or two will go home, buy one of your books or just read the plethora of openly available information on the web, then make some positive changes in their lives.
Even if you can’t convince someone like Dr. Oz, it’s a huge step forward in this rebellion against health and nutrition stupidity in the word.
Love, love, love your comment about the foods that make us fat are the foods that make us sick. That said, I am looking forward to see if your views on carb consumption change based on the work you’re doing on fructose. Could it be that the benefits of a low-carb diet are largely due to the reduction of sugar, particularly fructose? If so, interventions that focus the amount of those in the diet may prove to be useful.
I’m struggling with the fructose issue at the moment. For years we believed that fructose was the preferred natural sweetener, suitable even for diabetics because it did not require insulin to be metabolised.
This idea was seemingly confirmed with the introduction of the Glycemic Index which measured fructose as GI=20 compared to glucose GI=100. Since sugar (sucrose) is 50% glucose and 50% fructose the GI of sugar is 60. This is about the same GI as many so-called “good” complex carbs (starches) like cereals, rice, etc, which are quite erroneously labelled low GI. [0 to 30 is low], but [55 to 65 definately is not]. Nevertheless this is yet another example of the nonsense being spread to promote carbs.
Because of this similarity in GI between sugar and “healthy” carbs, the anti-fat proponents believed they were vindicated re their claims that it wasn’t sugar and starch that made us fat at all, but the “evil” high-calorie fats, which by the way, have virtually zero carbs, negligible GI and negligible GL.
A totally contradictory notion given they were saying sugar is not as fattening as thought because it has a lowish GI. And then saying fat was the culprit even though it had almost zero GI. Yes they were quick to embrace the GI but they didn’t really want to understand it. Nor did they appreciate the purpose of GI was to measure glucose and therefore insulin impacts which are far more important in weight gain/loss considerations. The newer GL measures have made things look even worse for “good” carbs eg 1 cup of rice has nearly 3 times the GL of 1 slice of white bread.
Back to fructose. Research is now showing that fructose is not the benign desirable sweetener we once thought. Shows you we should always be vigilant. It appears that it acts like a Trojan horse bypassing insulin and enters directly into the liver where it exacerbates insulin resistance. It also raises triglyceride levels. I deduce from this that maybe fructose containing foods like sugar are demonstrating artificially low GI/GL values, or if these are technically correct, maybe we haven’t quite gone far enough and need another measure which takes fructose’s negative activity into account. Maybe we could call it GE for Glycemic Effect.
From the above I would suggest that the benefits of a low-carb diet are not just due to the reduction of sugar/fructose, although that is certainly a big reason. But just as important is the reduction of so-called “good” complex carbs (starches) which have very high carb, GI, and GL values. I’m sure they would be high in my proposed GE value as well.
Great post … I love the use of “correction” for the benefits of carb restriction.
And to your point that different people tolerate carbs differently, as you state in WWGF, why is this so surprising? Different people have different reactions to gluten, with some outright intolerant and others able to tolerate it. We all know people with different food allergies.
One of the things I noticed in most diet studies is that you get “outliers” in each study. A low fat group will average X pounds of weight loss, but some members of the group gain weight and some lose much more. The same happens with low carb diet groups. The tolerance for carbs may be the core issue for both groups (as you have pointed out earlier, even low fat diet plans restrict carbs quite a bit from the standard American diet).
At least one study looked at “outliers” in the A-Z diet study, tested them for genetic markers, then re-assigned the participants to new groups based on the markers. The result was a group with far fewer outliers. My blog post on it is at http://lowcarbage.com/blog/2010/04/10/genetic-testing-and-weight-loss/ and a brief description of the study is at http://goo.gl/tBKIw
You can find Gary’s segment on Dr. Oz entitled “THE MAN WHO THINKS EVERYTHING DR. OZ SAYS IS WRONG”, here: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/man-who-thinks-everything-dr-oz-says-wrong-pt-1
I’m watching this over 5 fried eggs and salami.
Also, note the 15-second weight watchers pre-roll video ad.
I don’t watch Dr. Oz, because I’ve always thought he was pushing the wrong ideas, but would have liked to see this segment as I am a fan of Gary Taubes. Unfortunately, I missed it. I went to http://www.doctoroz.com/videos, but only caught a 5 minute or so video. Is that all it was or is a bunch missing from the clip? Thanks for at least that much!
Look for the links under the video box. I found them there; parts 1, 2, 3 and an exercise bit.
Thanks. I will.
Thanks. Found them. Watched them. Not impressed with Dr. Oz.
I am so glad you told your story on Dr. Oz. You have the science behind you. Your science is my testimony as I have dropped 60 pounds since April, 2009. Root carbohydrates has sugar and can make you fat. Any carb that raises your insulin, will pose health risks to you and knock you off target. Gary, you are right on target. I applaud what you are doing!!!!!!!!!
I have been studying nutrition for 20 years now and I disagree with what Gary is putting out there. We didn’t have processed foods like cheese, bacon and sausage in our hunter gatherer days. Maybe a lot of grubs and bugs. Try reading The China Study by Colin Campbell or Eat For Health by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Also the website healthpromoting.com. These men have done a lot of research and are doing a lot of good. Everyone wants to hear good news about their bad habits and I’m sorry to see a scientist doing so much potential harm.
Dr. Campbell is a vegan propagandist that will string together any number of flimsy correlations to support his cause. Basically the Campbells cooked the data by carefully picking the variables they were going to control for, notably not controlling for wheat, which turns out to be the variable most strongly associated with heart attacks in the study. Poor Campbell. This study is a vegan’s nightmare.
Campbell’s extrapolation of his casein research to all forms of animal protein—as well as the assumption that casein behaves the same way in whole-food form as when isolated—is supported by neither clinical evidence nor logic. The lesson here: don’t eat a diet primarily composed of isolated casein.
We also didn’t have wheat, corn and other agricultural grains in any form during our hunter gatherer days. At least bacon and sausage are forms of what we did have: meat! Talk about scientists doing potential harm, T. Colin Campbell et al, with their vegan propaganda, are going to do a lot more harm advocating a diet that is truly not natural, requires supplementation (with B12, which is essential to our health and does not occur in plants) and not followed by any traditional peoples anywhere, nor was it ever. The China Study has been soundly debunked by numerous people who looked at the actual data and found it did not match up to the conclusions the Campbells put forth in their book. I actually started reading The China Study years ago when a friend asked me what I though about it, but stopped part way through after seeing a number of discrepancies, including a graph that showed the opposite of what the caption under it and the discussion claimed it showed. Apparently I was right not to waste my time. The science in Gary Taubes’ numerous works is infinitely more sound.
I am so glad you told your story on Dr. Oz. You have the science behind you. Your science is my testimony as I have dropped 60 pounds since April, 2009. Root carbohydrates has sugar and can make you fat. Any carb that raises your insulin, will pose health risks to you and knock you off target. Gary, you are right on target. I applaud what you are doing!!!!!!!!!
Yeesh, just watched the clips. After Dr. Oz gave the HCG diet essentially a pass recently, I wasn’t expecting too much. But how embarrassing for him that he 1) didn’t apparently consider the amount of refined carbs & sugar his “I’m elbow deep in their chests” patients were eating with their saturated fats; 2) that walnuts would have been a fine snack on his low-carb day — tho he wouldn’t need so many snacks if he wasn’t eating so many carbs; and 3) that he expected to eat no carbs without a period of adjustment.
Ah well, aside from the horrible framing (it’s not really like your positions are so opposed, as you tried to point out multiple times), it is exposure. Hopefully “all publicity is good publicity” holds true!
I guess the HCG diet doesn’t threaten his corporate sponsors.
Oz is a salesman.
Gary,
Did you ever answer the Science Based Medicine entry about your new book?
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9841
They accuse you of prematurely promoting LC without enough evidence just as you say low-fat was prematurely promoted without enough evidence. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9841
“Yet he criticizes the low-fat diet campaign for doing just that: we went beyond the evidence and instituted society-wide changes based on inadequate data, with what Taubes considers to be disastrous results. How can he be so certain we should go beyond the evidence this time?”
I’m a huge fan of GCBC. Not happy to see Taubes lumped together with homepaths and other quacks by Science-Based Medicine.
Of COURSE Dr. Oz can’t admit that low carb is healthy! He has to push ‘healthy complex carbs’ because his sponsor is Post Cereal (Grape Nuts, Shredded Wheat, and Raisin Bran) and Weight Watchers.
The man can’t have his show if he loses his sponsors.
Of COURSE Dr. Oz can’t agree that low carb is healthy! His sponsors are Post Cereal (Grape Nuts, Shredded Wheat, and Raisin Bran) and Weight Watchers. He has to promote ‘healthy complex carbs’ or die. The man won’t have a show if he loses his sponsors. He won’t be dissing ‘healthy complex carbs’ any time soon.
“He won’t be dissing ‘healthy complex carbs’ any time soon.”
Of course not, he still needs to do heart surgery, it’s a great way to create more patients.
okay, now THAT’s a little.
not disagreeing, just sayin’
Stephanie_o27, you realize that your comment, if taken seriously, implies that Dr. Oz is not only dishonest, but he’s knowingly harming other human beings. If you intended your comment as a joke, unfortunately it’s so easily misconstrued that I think it makes easy fodder for the opposition. Given the importance of the ideas being debated, I don’t think there’s anything light-hearted or humorous in that.
dgpmjp,
Bull-shitty-da!
Opinions like his have messed up more folks than I can count, including myself. I don’t believe any one person is guilty of conspiracy, but my faith is wavering. Do I think he purposefully advises people to eat crap so he get them onto the OR table and earn a living – no. Do I think that since his body can deal with his diet, he wrongfully, and uninteligently advises others of the same – yup.
Don’t come here trying to espouse bullshit to people that have been ass-fucked their whole life by the typical govt and medical authorities.
Too much swearing? Too bad.
-Al
I think it’s hilarious!
There may something to what you say but this is the only country where illness is big business. I don’t think the medical, insurance and pharm community sit around plotting dishonesty and purposely harming human beings, however, I do think they are in a state of denial. Human beings, of which Dr. Oz is one, tend to think that whatever works best for them is the right thing.
If the fact that someone seeks to make a profit by creating goods or services makes them automatically suspect–whether dishonest or just rationalizing–then I’m afraid none of us can participate in this discussion, at least not with integrity. We all make a living; we all produce goods and services and trade them with each other every day. Money is a physical form of trade. I disagree it has some kind of psychological voodoo ability such that it can cause intellectual evasion.
Money itself may not cause intellectual evasion but lust for it does. Many individuals and organizations produce goods and services that are very harmful to users. Sometimes they are aware what they are doing is wrong, such as meth labs, and sometimes they think they are right. Money does have a voodoo ability and I think that even the most moral, honest person would be tempted by a large sum of money. I have seen inside insurance companies and my opinions have formed my from many of years of observation. As to Big Pharm, have you noticed that many doctors have a separate waiting room for drug reps. most of them young, very attractive females. I have waited 45 mins. past my appointment time while several reps were called in to meet with the physician. I have a close friend who worked for Phizer for 30 years and he quit over this very issue.
I have been accused of being the “eternal optimist” and I tend to look for the best in everyone, but I think you are in a philosophical bubbble.
I think maybe we’re going on a tangent (which I initiated), so I will just bring it back to this: I think the broader point I made earlier about accusations would still stand: you have to actually cite specific evidence for claiming that some particular person–let alone an entire industry or field–is dishonest, immoral, or evading–and *heaps* of evidence to go so far as to state their psychological motive for so doing. (Such evidence is extremely difficult to come by, because we can only infer the mental states of others, even in the best of circumstances.) Merely having the philosophical view that “lust for money is the root of all evil” is not evidence that someone who lusts for money is therefore evil or evasive. Making a blanket statement that the “medical, insurance and pharm community” are intellectually evasive is extremely unjust to a lot of people for whom there is no specific evidence against them. And on the contrary, many of these individuals are extremely good people making a living doing good things.
“And on the contrary, many of these individuals are extremely good people making a living doing good things.”
I’m sure you are absolutely right. But as with lawyers, It’s the 99% who fit the stereotype who keep ruining it for everyone else.
Thousands of ordinary people, just like me, work in these businesses. I hope you understand that I did not intend to indict these people. I am talking about the ultra-rich who are pretty much disconnected from the masses from whom they derive their vast wealth. I am talking about those for whom this is a game of numbers; they get their first billion and start on the next one without concern for their methods. Sure, on down the line we are following their directives and doing the dirty work, but I feel there is a difference between an employee just trying to make a living and someone just adding to their numbers. Maybe you think that this is completely off the Dr. Oz subject but I think he is a small but highly visible symptom of this disease.
And you are welcome to think it, but your view is unfounded so long as you do not cite specific evidence to indict him–or any such rich person. Again, the mere fact that they are wealthy does not in any way impeach their character.
I am a special education teacher and also a grassfed beef farmer. I can tell you that from the farming world, there are two different folks. The ones paid by big AG to say what they want them to say and the ones who are small family and organic and do it all on their own. I believe Dr. Oz has become an advocate of the government and big AG. When you do something that is actually for the good of the people you do not need those advertisers behind you. You do it the way Gary Taubes has and another of my favorites, Sean Croxton. There is no use in citing facts or instances or studies. After years of fighting the giants that want to put crap on your table, I still fight the fight and deal with the idiots that can’t understand it. If you see it on TV, trust me it is made by the people who want to bioengineer your foods and make a ton of money, they care nothing about your health.
I am a special education teacher and also a grassfed beef farmer. I can tell you that from the farming world, there are two different folks. The ones paid by big AG to say what they want them to say and the ones who are small family and organic and do it all on their own. I believe Dr. Oz has become an advocate of the government and big AG. When you do something that is actually for the good of the people you do not need those advertisers behind you. You do it the way Gary Taubes has and another of my favorites, Sean Croxton. There is no use in citing facts or instances or studies. After years of fighting the giants that want to put crap on your table, I still fight the fight and deal with the idiots that can’t understand it. If you see it on TV, trust me it is made by the people who want to bioengineer your foods and make a ton of money, they care nothing about your health.
I think that if the health care industry isn’t purposely trying to create patients, they ARE hiding evidence of the weakness of their patent medicines, just like the snake oil sales man did, with less knowledge than they have at their disposal. they also actively try to discredit possible cures that won’t bring them more money, so while they’re not trying to make people sick, they’re trying not to let them learn to get better especially if it won’t like their pockets.
Beezer3446, you are psychologizing Dr. Oz. One can validly argue, as Lawrence did, that Dr. Oz made fallacious arguments. But unless you have actual evidence, your own personal cynicism is not valid grounds for claiming that Dr. Oz merely espouses the ideas he does for financial gain. Who are you to say he doesn’t actually hold to these ideas sincerely? Furthermore, I think it can be argued that our conventional wisdom on health, and the quality of our intellectuals, inform the products we make and buy, not the other way around.
Clearly, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Keep those rose colored glasses on, dgpmjp. The world will look so much betther through them. Don’t worry about a thing. Believe whatever you want to believe. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, Dorothy.
Those who are construing me as defending Dr. Oz do not understand the point I am actually making.
Just to reiterate, my point in this was that so far no one here has provided any evidence which warrants the accusation that Dr. Oz is consciously harming other people, espouses his ideas for financial gain, or even that he is dishonest (as opposed to merely ignorant or honestly mistaken–though I grant that there can be a fuzzy line between evasion and stupidity. If someone wants to call him ‘intellectually dishonest’, I think that accusation might be more warranted.)
He can be accused of a lot of other things, I think. I think he’s dead wrong on most of his dietary conclusions, and I think his conduct on the show demonstrates that he does not actually value the scientific method–perhaps he does not understand it. But these other things he’s been accused of here, are improper accusations, or at least not without actual evidence, none of which I have seen yet. One should not take lightly the impeaching of the moral character of man.
If the distinction between this point versus someone actually defending Dr. Oz’s ideas and approach is not clear to you, then you should read more carefully what I am saying, and think about it.
If Mr. Taubes has taught us any lesson, it should be that we need to be more scientific in how we treat these issues, and less swayed by emotions and authority.
I’d be interested to see what happens to Oz the moment he goes on his show and declares that Grape Nuts are unhealthy and should not be eaten. My guess would be this:
http://www.goodlifetimes.com/did-you-know/2009/the-monsanto-story
dgpmjp,
You’re correct, and I apologize. I initially misconstrued your meaning. However, although I remove the aiming of my aggressive posture of my post at you, the content remains.
-Al
A few weeks ago I speculated, as an aside, that Oz may not even understand the scientific method. It seems I was correct: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/01/news/la-heb-dr-oz-andrew-wakefield-james-randi-awards-20110401
Perhaps Dr. Oz is espousing the ideas he does for financial gain or perhaps not–perhaps he holds those ideas sincerely. Either way, he is doing irreparable damage to a lot of people–as are the majority of mainstream health professionals–by continuing to espouse them despite the lack of evidence (and in the face of vast evidence to the contrary) by urging people to follow dietetic principals that are contributing to their diseases rather than making them better. But nonetheless, I thank him for having Gary Taubes on his show and hope that the exposure to his thesis does, regardless, get a lot of people thinking and reading!
I wonder Oz he feels the same way as Gary backstage, that is, you think amongst themselves, Oz understand that Taubes has to be right on this issue but can’t admit it publicly..?
All 8 grams of whole grains!
Great appearance on Dr. Oz, Gary. It’s a shame Oz cannot open his mind more about saturated fats. You explained your points well. Dr. Udo Erasmus shares your views on carbohydrates I believe. There is something inherently fatting about them. Dates and bananas make me look smooth and I gain fat.
My blog has links to your appearance and also has links to the Amazon 5 star comments on your book. I want to get the word out.
The caloric “bank account” hypothesis of obesity has been a 50 year failure. I am glad you got a platform to expose the anti – saturated fat propaganda and the caloric hypothesis at the same time.
Take care,
Raz
CRACK POT!!!! GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL, GET A DEGREE AND DO SOME ACTUAL RESEARCH!!!!! MAYBE THEN YOU’LL HAVE SOME CREDIBILITY YOU FOOL!!!!
“Do some actual research”? I take it you haven’t read Gary’s book “Good Calories Bad Calories”. If you did, you would see that Gary has done far more research into the history and biochemistry of nutrition than most who come out of medical school, and he has more than adequately demonstrated his advanced knowledge on the topic. This is not just my personal opinion but the opinion of MANY other MD’s and PhD’s who have read and agree with Gary’s very thorough work. Please do some research of your own before trying to discredit someone’s credentials. Besides, discrediting an individual doesn’t discredit their argument. (Also, please refrain from using all caps.)
And somehow he still can’t adequately explain how a single hormone is so dominant over a complex system, nor can he adequately explain the causation of this alleged scenario
well, except to fanboys with no physiology background
lol
confirmation bias, what’s that?
Read his books, Amber.
LOL, Taubes has a PhD. What do you have? Probably not even a high school diploma judging from your use of caps.
PhD?? his own biography section on this site says “studied applied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978). After receiving a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, ”
no phd in that lot
Dr. Taubes PhD
Amber :
Minnesota Coronary Survey
Women’s Health Initiative
National Diet Heart Study
That ought to hold you a while.
Most people tend to have this reaction when told the entire anti cholesterol dogma is a scam. However, take out your vitriol on those who imposed this on you. Namely, the medical “scientists” from the 1950′s and 60′s, and the current doctors who spew this.
It’s about time society stopped regarding doctors as all-knowing gods. Most doctors I have been to have wanted to send me off to dietitions or nutritionists for advice on weight-loss/diabetes2 control. If they had so much knowledge about diet why not give the advice themselves.
Medicine is too broad and complex for a single doctor to know all there is to know. That’s why there are so many specialists. eg an Orthopedic Surgeon would know little about nutrition.
Oh I know Oz is a cardiologist and it is his business to know about nutrition, but as 2 other famous cardiologists Dr Atkins and Dr Thompson had the honesty and humility to reveal in their books, all they learned about nutrition during their studies was condensed into a few lectures. There were too many other important things to cover. They go on to say that what was taught didn’t even work in practice and they had to look elsewhere for the truth. This was not always in the hands of other doctors.
I have the highest respect for doctors who save lives on a daily basis, but they are human. They definitely are no more intelligent than say, Engineers or Scientists or Architects. Much of their theoretical studies involve rote learning. Many don’t even go on to do surgery, preferring to sit in a consultation room and hand out drug prescriptions or referrals to specialists.
Oh and most definitely don’t do some of your “actual research”, they are too busy being doctors not researchers. It’s true that many doctors are involved in research, that is their specialty. But I doubt Dr Oz is one.
Therefore who is the expert on nutrition? An experienced professional researcher like Taubes who isn’t bound to establishment nutritional dogma, and who has the capacity to produce widely acclaimed books on nutrition, following some of the most thorough investigations I have seen, or an establishment man who hasn’t the time or incentive to enhance his nutrition knowledge, and pushes the prevailing nutrition propaganda. A propaganda, by the way, which has resulted in/or at least failed to retard, unprecedented escalations of obesity and diabetes.
Possible Oz reaction to Gary Taubes lab results:
Dr. Oz: Look Rozien, Taubes’ results came back and they’re considered optimum, I need you to write something that discredits Taubes.
Dr. Rozieen: Ok, I’ll say something like white flour and white sugar are bad, but the rest of his theories are nonsense. You owe me for this though Oz, let’s say at least two guest appearances.
Dr. Oz: Done. Man, I had to eat some major crow on that one… I’ll never have that guy on my show again…
Good thing the insulin-induced dysfunction of fat tissue explains the neurological changes in the limbic system with the obese.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20348917
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12387683
To think, insulin’s even messing up dopamine regulatory networks in the brain through some unknown mechanism. A far more likely sequence than the reverse causation, which would require abandoning a useful franchise :V
Hi Gary, just caught your interview….well done!
Doug Varrieur, author FAT TO SKINNY series
Hi Gary, just caught your interview….well done!
Doug Varrieur, author FAT TO SKINNY series
Thank you Gary. After 2 years of doing the right things, including weekly exercise, I read your readers digest article, kicked out the carbs and have lost 12 pounds in the last 2 weeks. I don’t get hungry at nights anymore, my reflux has gone away, and my allergies have been behaving too.
Now I’m reading GCBC. I was looking for an answer to the question: what carbs can I add back? The above post answered it for me: proceed, with caution.
So Oz eats salad greens, pork rinds and cheese for 24 hours, and claims that low carb made him feel bad?
Such absolute dishonesty.
so true!! I feel Dr Oz grossly misrepresented a “typical 24 hours” on a low carb diet. He really took exaggerating to the max! unbelievable.
It annoyed me that they focused on cheese, processed meats instead on organic stuff, clean eating, good fats, veggies and fruits. They kept on trying to make it ” ridiculous”. 1 day try-out? ha he should have done it for at least 2 weeks.
As for his ” I am a cardiologist” card… he didn’t present any science… all he did was repeat the good old mantra told by the food pyramid people.
But hey, at least someone out there might be curious enough to go and check it out for themselves. HEck, people are keen on trying the twinkie diet for crying out loud!
Oz took the tact that processed meats were bad for you due to their fat content. In another interview, he proclaimed that the unhealthy culprits in processed meats was nitrates, nitrites and other sodiums. Which is it Doc?
I think that with processed meats you have to be careful that they don’t have nitrates & nitrates, or sugar, which some of them do. Otherwise, no problem. The more fat the better!
It annoyed me that they focused on cheese, processed meats instead on organic stuff, clean eating, good fats, veggies and fruits. They kept on trying to make it ” ridiculous”. 1 day try-out? ha he should have done it for at least 2 weeks.
As for his ” I am a cardiologist” card… he didn’t present any science… all he did was repeat the good old mantra told by the food pyramid people.
But hey, at least someone out there might be curious enough to go and check it out for themselves. HEck, people are keen on trying the twinkie diet for crying out loud!
And Oz’s normal diet had ONE serving of grains for the whole day, some rice with dinner. His ‘what would have been’ diet for the day was hardly the thing that is causing all the issues today (except that it was way lacking in fats in my opinion…Oz will be at risk of a stroke someday, mark my words). Breakfast was a green drink and plain yogurt with blueberries, his snack was an orange and a cup of walnuts soaked in water, lunch was a salad of some kind with white meat chicken, I think the next snack was almonds and some dark chocolate squares (probably 80-85% cocoa since Oz avoids sugar), and finally dinner was salmon with spinach and brown rice. Not a single meal there will spike his insulin, except perhaps the rice, but not much probably since he is also an exercise lover. There is no way most folks would get overweight, let alone obese, on that diet (but they will have to deal with the AGEs). Meals like Oz’s are hardly the type Taubes has been indicting. It’s the cereals with skim milk, and bagels, and breads, and low-fat (high sugar) yogurts that are the most insidious because people think they are healthy and promote weight loss and are totally the opposite of course. I don’t think Oz understands that when he gives whole grains the thumbs-up, that doesn’t mean most folks have one serving of brown rice with dinner. I know I wasn’t in the past because I thought whole grains were healthful and of course that meant cereal for breakfast, a sandwich on whole grain bread for lunch, and often whole grain pasta for dinner. That is how it was for me and I am guessing millions of other Americans as well…(who now are mystified why they are still fat and diseased despite cutting out refined carbs, but then they join a gym next of course and continue to achieve little or no success rather than break free of this disproven carbohydrate paradigm).
I completely agree. Friggin pork rinds? Come on…. I know they are low to no carbs, but geezus choose something else that has flavor.
I completely agree. Friggin pork rinds? Come on…. I know they are low to no carbs, but geezus choose something else that has flavor.
I completely agree. Friggin pork rinds? Come on…. I know they are low to no carbs, but geezus choose something else that has flavor.
I thought it was Oz’s producers trying to amp up the contrast, but the pork rinds were taken right out of the appendix of WWGF in the section on the Duke suggested diet.
I thought it was Oz’s producers trying to amp up the contrast, but the pork rinds were taken right out of the appendix of WWGF in the section on the Duke suggested diet.
Pork rinds with a dash of hot sauce and lime squeezed on them are very good!
I also use them instead of chips with a low carb dip. Yum
I completely agree. Friggin pork rinds? Come on…. I know they are low to no carbs, but geezus choose something else that has flavor.
Like Gandhi said – ““First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
You’ve reached Stage 3 – Congrats!!!
New study – Increased ratio of dietary carbohydrate to protein shifts the focus of metabolic
signaling from skeletal muscle to adipose – http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-8-13.pdf
Love it!
Consider everything, Dr. Oz gave a pretty fair presentation to GT. After Dr.Agatson was presented as a whole grain activist during one of shows, I didn’t have much hope about GT appearance. To expect more would be unrealistic.
I like it! What are your thoughts on eating Paleo? I’ve adapted this eating habit last year and have never felt better! Very similar to your findings.
Check out: http://www.whole9life.com.
One unexpected thing I’ve noticed since I’ve cut out the carbs is that my allergies have vanished. Yes – it’s anecdotal but, there it is.
Great show though. I had to laugh at the ‘smack down’ tone of it.
Let’s hope this keeps the conversation going.
I think Gary, you tried your best to convince Dr; Oz. The only thing I was disappointed in was that he showed you would NOT take a blood test showing the good the bad and the lipids. I fully intend to do this myself in a few months or so because before I started low carbing my levels were great [they were not always so as a matter of fact because I spent most of my life going up and down in weight and trying this and that supposedly healthy diet]. I know that my body is insulin resistant and tends to hypoglycemia so low carbing seems to be the best for me. I hope that in the future you will reconsider getting your cholesterol levels tested; if anything, it will back up your research and show that your triglycerides and good cholesterol levels are where they ought to be for your body.
I am living proof that your argument is correct. I got fat around age ten. And I struggled to follow low fat/high carb diets for most of my adult life. I lost a few pounds – but did so only by being painfully hungry 24/7 – and ultimately could simply not maintain that level of deprivation to get anywhere near a normal weight. I began the Atkins diet in 2009, now routinely eat low-carb and fit into my size 6 jeans (a size I never wore in my youth). I am stronger, and healthier in innumerable ways.
Thank you for telling the truth! I spent my entire adult life doing what the experts said was best and they failed me completely.
I am living proof that your argument is correct. I got fat around age ten. And I struggled to follow low fat/high carb diets for most of my adult life. I lost a few pounds – but did so only by being painfully hungry 24/7 – and ultimately could simply not maintain that level of deprivation to get anywhere near a normal weight. I began the Atkins diet in 2009, now routinely eat low-carb and fit into my size 6 jeans (a size I never wore in my youth). I am stronger, and healthier in innumerable ways.
Thank you for telling the truth! I spent my entire adult life doing what the experts said was best and they failed me completely.
Hey Gary,
I saw the Oz segment. I really wish you had defended saturated fat more directly, and maybe gone directly at his attack of saturated fat citing clinical trials. Also, if you had bulked together all hydrogenated plant oils, including, but not limited to, trans fats, that would have been more in line with the literature.
Geoff
So then we agree that a person’s carbohydrate tolerance depends upon their insulin sensitivity. But here’s the deal: insulin sensitivity doesn’t necessarily depend upon carbohydrates so there is a huge section of the puzzle. Sure flour and sugar cause insulin resistance, but sweet potatoes do not. See the Kitavans. It is well known in the paleo community that a disequilibrium of tissue polyunsaturated fats, damage to the gut from grains, nutrient deficiencies, and a whole host of other things. See here I made a post on Mark Sisson’s forum about how to reverse insulin resistance with diet (hint hint, high fat is better) http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread25174-2.html#post364212
So it isn’t necessarily the carbohydrate because you need that catalyst to see overly undesirable effects from carbs, and a low carb diet tends to be good for weight loss, but it may not be the case that a fat person needs to go on a low carb diet when they could just become insulin sensitive with the right carbs and lifestyle factors.
Granted, carbs will cause higher triglycerides and worse blood lipids overall no matter how insulin sensitive you are compared. Fats raise adiponectin and a bunch of other things make lower carb diets superior, but the point is that insulin sensitivity is as important as amount of carbs.
So is leptin. We have fat insulin sensitive people who have leptin resistance in their hypothalamus and can’t lose weight because their brain doesn’t know that they have any fat to begin with. There are also people with an inadequate thyroid. All are pieces of the puzzle.
You are a smart guy and I would love to see you go into an in-depth epidemiological, biochemical, and philosophical defense of animal products in general. That would be beautiful. But I think you should look to paleo blogs and authors for guidance to really make the refutation systematic.
I remember being confused by the same data too, until is was brought to my attention that daily dose of proteins for most people something around 60 gram. Shouldn’t cause an insulin spike worth to worry about. Imagine 2 eggs omelet + bacon breakfast in comparison with something traditional and differences in the secreted insulin.
So then we agree that a person’s carbohydrate tolerance depends upon their insulin sensitivity. But here’s the deal: insulin sensitivity doesn’t necessarily depend upon carbohydrates so there is a huge section of the puzzle. Sure flour and sugar cause insulin resistance, but sweet potatoes do not. See the Kitavans. It is well known in the paleo community that a disequilibrium of tissue polyunsaturated fats, damage to the gut from grains, nutrient deficiencies, and a whole host of other things. See here I made a post on Mark Sisson’s forum about how to reverse insulin resistance with diet (hint hint, high fat is better) http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread25174-2.html#post364212
So it isn’t necessarily the carbohydrate because you need that catalyst to see overly undesirable effects from carbs, and a low carb diet tends to be good for weight loss, but it may not be the case that a fat person needs to go on a low carb diet when they could just become insulin sensitive with the right carbs and lifestyle factors.
Granted, carbs will cause higher triglycerides and worse blood lipids overall no matter how insulin sensitive you are compared. Fats raise adiponectin and a bunch of other things make lower carb diets superior, but the point is that insulin sensitivity is as important as amount of carbs.
So is leptin. We have fat insulin sensitive people who have leptin resistance in their hypothalamus and can’t lose weight because their brain doesn’t know that they have any fat to begin with. There are also people with an inadequate thyroid. All are pieces of the puzzle.
You are a smart guy and I would love to see you go into an in-depth epidemiological, biochemical, and philosophical defense of animal products in general. That would be beautiful. But I think you should look to paleo blogs and authors for guidance to really make the refutation systematic.
Starch does not cause IR. Sugar causes transient IR at very high doses, but so does a large fat meal.
Unfortunately, Gary, maybe The Dr. Oz show may not be the most suitable venue for a topic such as this, especaially if it takes being described as “The man who disagrees with everything Dr. Oz says.” Really?
For the sake of playing devil’s advocate, Oz does bring up some good points. One, what is the practical palatability of a low-carb diet in Western societies, much less in a nation where we’re constantly bombarded by ads for Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Olive Garden, etc.?
Second, does following a low-carb diet lead to an inevitable, and potentially detrimental trade-off? While one may lose the weight and be able to keep it off following a low-carb diet, is one also in danger of depriving oneself of the countless phytonutrients and antioxidants found in foods such as blueberries, strawberries, and the like?
Just food for thought.
Everyone has a choice. They can choose to eat what the corporations advertise to them. Or they can choose another way. But that can only happen if they’re given accurate information in the first place, and not lied to.
I like eating low-carb and I don’t miss any of the high carb stuff. I eat eggs and sausage and bacon and steak and butter and all kinds of other yummy-delicious things every day and never get tired of it. Carbohydrates, especially sugar, are an addiction, and it can take a while to break that addiction. Without eating carbohydrates, you have less need for vitamins, like vitamin C for example. Insulin interferes with the uptake and usage of vitamin C, which is why if you’re not eating low carb, you need a lot of it. Read about Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his sojourn with the Inuit.
I just have to say that I’ve been living a low-carb lifestyle for 10 years. I don’t feel deprived at all and could care less what “society” suggests I should eat. I’m happier and healthier than most of the people around me. Low-carb is sustainable if you want it to be and care about your health above all else. We can eat berries and melons without breaking the “diet”, among many other low glycemic foods Dr. Oz didn’t mention because it would make low-carb living look even better, so the argument that we are depriving ourselves of essential nutrients is pointless. As far as antioxidants go, refined carbohydrates cause oxidization. Without those in our system, antioxidants aren’t quite so “essential” anymore.
Oz missed Taubes whole point! The book was written to educate about WHY we get fat, NOT practictical palatability. That’s a seperate and subjective topic and doesn’t really have a place in the scientific and medical discussion of why we get fat. Book was written for fat people who don’t want to be fat anymore. Oz couldn’t stay connected to the main point..Insulin puts fat in your fat cells, for the most part, this is determined by the carb-content of our diet. Simple! Taubes encourages us to think scientifically not subjectively. I’m an average girl with an average IQ, and I get it…geesh!
100 % agreed. Dr. Oz is a dogmatist like many in the medical profession. The conventional advice has failed us all.
It is a HUGE development that Gary Taube is now blogging to expose this.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/02/polyphenols-hormesis-and-disease-part-i.html
Here’s a thought. Perhaps people who eat low carb don’t NEED all those phytonutrients and antioxidants! Just as they don’t need as much vitamin C (also an antioxidant.) Just a thought.
Margaret
I’m new to this forum and I love all your comments. Like me, you’re a true believer.
Your point re fruit and phytonutrients, antioxidants and vitamin C. I am struggling with this issue at the moment. One conclusion is as you propose above, but I’m considering others (the jury is still out).
It should be remembered that the green non-starchy (10% carb) vegetables with low GI/GL values also contain vitamin C, phytonutrients etc; even meat contains some vitamin C. I have personally found that the aforementioned vegetables do not interfere greatly with what we are trying to achieve ie glucose/insulin control.
Now back to fruit. I have been wary of fruit since the Dr Atkins days when he bravely advised against their use in a low-carb climate because they contained significant glucose and therefore could spoil the diet.
Some have argued that since fruits contain a significant proportion of fructose which has a low GI and evokes little insulin, and contain fibre, then they are OK.
But recent research is painting fructose as a “Trojan horse” which bypasses insulin and sneaks into the liver and exacerbates insulin resistance.
This now has me concerned about some of the GI values relating to fruit and surprisingly sucrose. ie are they artificially low because of the fructose content? Sure the number is lowish, but is this the way the Trojan horse bluffs its way in?
I had just about made up my mind that fruits are indeed a no-no for more reasons than even Dr Atkins thought, when I recently read a GL (not GI) diet book by Dr Rob Thompson MD. He argues that since an average piece of fruit, a peach say (GL=47), is relatively small compared to say an average serve of starch, 1 cup of brown rice say (GL=222), then fruit is not nearly as bad as starches, and therefore could be included in a low GL diet, even by diabetics. Again, since GL is related to GI, this ignores the Trojan horse fructose issue. It would be nice to get an expert opinion.
Now here’s the surprise. For about a week, I tried adding some fruit and avoiding all starches as Dr Thompson recommends, and to my amazement my blood sugar levels did not go up. I even lost a little weight, though I’m not getting carried away with that aspect. Is this a new approach which means we can include some fruit as long as we avoid starches (we do this anyway) as Dr Thompson suggests? or am I falling for the Trojan horse bluff?
I think this issue is of vital importance. We as low-carbers need to at least have the right answers even if it’s to preserve our credibility. Could this revolutionise our diets? I have a gut feeling that the concept is too good to be true but we should investigate. I’d be interested in some thoughts.
Regards
Thanks for your complement. And your comment raises some good points. My comment about fruits/vegetables was in reply to the statement that by avoiding them, lo carbers “risk” being deficient in the nutrients they provide. Populations such as Inuits do not ingest any carbs, fruit or otherwise and are exceedingly healthy. There is evidence from studies of such populations that the fewer carbs, particularly simple and refined carbs, we ingest, the lower our need for the antioxidants and such that fruits and vegetables provide and I wanted to point that out. I wasn’t suggesting that fruits are necessarily off limits on a low carb diet. Here’s my take. As GT points out, we all have different genetically programmed abilities to manage the carbs we ingest. If you are genetically able to handle some carbs, then fruit carbs may be okay in moderation, particularly berries and such that have a low carb count and low GL. Some people may even be able to handle some higher GL fruits. Certainly they are better than sugar, flour, and other carbs derived from grains. But someone who is trying to lose a significant amount of fat and/or perhaps has or is approaching insulin resistance might be better off avoiding fruits all together or have very small portions of very low GL fruits and I don’t believe their health will be jeopardized by the lack of vitamin C and antioxidants (which they can get from leafy greens anyway.) And yes, I am a true believer–from everything I’ve read, it just makes sense. But I think the GL approach has merit, too, particularly as a preventive measure for not getting into trouble in the first place. One might wonder (and I am often asked when I discuss this with people) how it is that the French, or the Italians, or Greeks, just for example, don’t seem to have the same issues we have, even though carbs–even “bad” carbs–are part of their traditional diet. It think it’s because they traditionally eat low GL. They’ve never been taught to be afraid of fats, so they slather butter on their bread or dip it in olive oil, (something I’m about to do with my home made Italian bread which I allow myself once in a while) which not only lowers the GL, but satisfies them sooner so that they are less likely to over eat. Our government and health “science” induced fear of fats has caused us as a population to overload on carbs, and now we need to undo that damage. Gary Taubes and others like him are providing us with the tools to do so. It’s up to us to take advantage.
Are most Americans fat today because they eat too many blueberries and strawberries? C’mon, get real.
i think its very palatable. i mean, i dont know what everyone else values in food, but when i think of pizza, olive garden, im thinking of cheese, sauces, meat. that is what i like the most about those foods, not the bread they are put on, or the pasta theyre mixed in with. that is where all the flavor is, and you can keep eating it while eating low carb. as far as detrimental trade off, gary spoke to this by saying most of the diseases people think to combat with antioxidants n such are caused by eating all the carbs to begin with. btw, blueberries n strawberries are relatively low carb fruits–actually, staple fruits for low carb dieters.
i think its very palatable. i mean, i dont know what everyone else values in food, but when i think of pizza, olive garden, im thinking of cheese, sauces, meat. that is what i like the most about those foods, not the bread they are put on, or the pasta theyre mixed in with. that is where all the flavor is, and you can keep eating it while eating low carb. as far as detrimental trade off, gary spoke to this by saying most of the diseases people think to combat with antioxidants n such are caused by eating all the carbs to begin with. btw, blueberries n strawberries are relatively low carb fruits–actually, staple fruits for low carb dieters.
Dear Gary,
You did what you had to do. Tell the truth. In front of someone you knew was not going to agree with you. But the world is in danger not because of ignorant people. The world is in danger because of people who know better, but are afraid of acting. And so I am proud of you. Ludwig Johnson MD. http://www.ludwigjohnson.com
The best argument you could have used is that Dr. Oz has been diagnosed with early stage colon cancer. His response to the diagnosis was, “see, that shows that it can happen to anybody, even WHEN THEY ARE DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT!” Obviously his diet does not protect his own health.
See this is just sad. What they’re advocating is killing people, this low-fat-high-carb crap diet.
Eades over at Protein Power blog had an article about how fiber may contribute to colon cancer, as it irritates the lining of the bowel causing high cell turnover (meaning your cells replicate more, leading to an increased risk in cell malformation/mutation, which leads to cancer).
This is something paleolithic diet researchers will also point out. Agriculture is quite new to the human species and we simply do not have an intestinal system built for grains. Agriculture didn’t begin until humans learned how to ‘refine’ grains, which makes them both more palatable and easier to digest. But then that of course creates large amounts of concentrated glucose that we also did not evolve to handle. Humans immediately shrank nearly a foot once grains came on the scene (with a plethora of new ailments as well probably). The argument is this simple and can’t really be refuted as far as I can tell. Take a cat and feed it stuff it didn’t evolve on, like grains, and it will get diseased. This can be repeated and confirmed with any animal. Humans are no different. Why can’t Oz and other grain lovers understand this? The only carbs humans evolved on were probably wild fruit (picture goji berries here, not grapefruit or other fruits literally dripping fructose), some seeds, perhaps some palatable leaves and grasses, and some roots (with nothing even remotely as glucose dense as a potato). Try getting 2500 calories out of that each day (including the 9 essential amino acids). The idea just doesn’t hold up. Meat was king then and it still is now. While humans are omnivores, I have little doubt we tilt toward the carnivore side (and this of course varies by person, which is why people like Oz can eat grains and stay thin but others will get obese on the exact same diet).
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-3a.shtml
My mother fed her dog Bruno white rice along with leftover pork meals (she’s Asian) ever since Bruno was a pup. The dog is still alive and kicking, with no major canine diseases to speak of at all. Anecdotal, you say? Perhaps. I guess my point is we should consider how different organism adapt, and have different degrees of success in general. To conclude that one mammal’s health degrades because it is on some dubious diet akin to that of a human’s is a stretch for me.
See also Barry Groves at his second-opinions website for views on fiber/fibre and a lot more besides. He backs everything up with published research.
I must say that you were overly kind to Dr. Oz. I wouldn’t have been so magnanimous. I’d like to see Dr. Uffe on his show (who is an MD). I have a feeling it would be like celebrity death match. Good for ratings at any rate.
The thing is, people like Dr. Oz are killing people by disseminating false information. That’s not hyperbole. These doctors are still telling diabetics to eat fruit. If only they could step back for a second and reconsider their “belief” in what they’ve been told, millions might be saved from dying of diabetic complications. But this is like a religion to them. They can’t let their “belief” go, even if it means people die because of it.
http://ofLabRatsAndMen.blogspot.com
I, too, would like to see Ravnskov vs. Oz. I just finished his latest book (Ignore the Awkward!), and although the last chapter or two degenerates into a bit of a rabble on personal discourse, the rest of the book is as solid as anything else Ravnskov has produced.
I agree. People need to hear his message, too. It would reinforce what GT is saying about bad science. Way too many people are afraid of saturated fats and cholesterol, two natural and necessary substances for life!
If you think about it, the “science” of nutrition has been hurting us for a long time by propagating many deadly dietary ideas that have turned out to have no basis in fact. They had us switch to low fat, high carb diets and made us trade natural fats like butter, tropical oils, and lard for oxidant laden, artery clogging trans fats and polyunsaturated vegetable oils, all to our detriment. Perhaps they had their hearts in the right place, but in doing so have damaged ours. What’s unforgivable is that they continue to do so despite an abundance of evidence that they’ve got it all wrong.
I read the book and I believed ,,,,,,,,,,, however ,,,,,,when you REFUSED TO HAVE YOUR CHOLESTEROL CHECKED you lost all credibility. What a shame.
I hope you can address this on your blog with better reasons than 1) you don’t believe in the test !!!!
2) you’re tired and 3) you have 2 kids.
Or did I just miss something here entirely?
Sandwaves:
What significance is a cholesterol test result? Perhaps you still believe in the lipid hypothesis.
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/cholesterol-and-disease.html
Indeed. Gary Taubes said that if you have your cholesterol tested and it is “high” the doctor will want to put you on medication. So true. My husband got his tested. As soon as the results were in, the doctor immediately said Lipitor is probably in his future and recommended a low fat (high carb!) diet. My husband no longer goes to that doctor, because he, too, clearly still believes in the Lipid Hypothesis. I consider it dead. Incidentally, the doctor claimed my husband’s blood sugar is pre-diabetic (it’s not) and recommended the low fat diet for that, too. Yeah, right. That makes sense. Not.
I sympathize. My dad was put on a statin – atorvastatin.
His memory now is absolutely horrible. He repeats things he just said literally 10 minutes back, and like he never said it.
I am trying to convince him to confront his doctor.
Watch for heart problems, too, especially if he isn’t supplementing with CoQ10. (Statins block the production of this very important coenzyme. ) My friend, too, was put on Lipitor years ago because her cholesterol was “high” (I don’t think it was even 230!) despite the fact that she had NO other symptoms of heart disease–no blockage, no pain, nothing. A couple of years ago she needed (unrelated) surgery and a routine exam revealed that she had very low ejection volume (EVF?) in her left ventricle. Like your Dad, she tells me the same stuff over and over again, forgetting that she already mentioned it, and had to take drugs to correct her EVF or whatever. I’d bet my retirement income that she wouldn’t have either of those problems now if she had refused to take Lipitor and other statins (I think she takes Vitorin now) all these years. My friend does take CoQ10 now, but still refuses to accept that the Statins she is taking might be doing more her more harm than good. I recently recommended she watch Tom Naughton’s “Fat Head” and check out “Big Fat Fiasco”. We’ll see.
Cholesterol tests are a complete waste of time. Gary knows this from digging through the literature. There are 18 clinical dietary intervention studies to date. None of them can attribute saturated fat restriction or cholesterol lowering to any reduction in coronary artery disease mortality.
The Kitivans have a low HDL( the supposed “good” lipoprotein) and virtually no CAD at all. The Tokeluans have a total cholesterol in the 200 – 240 range and have no CAD.
The enitire lipid hypothesis is wrong. That is why Gary does not know his number. No one needs to know their cholesterol numbers. It’s not the CAUSE of coronary artery disease.
See those tiny veins you have – they never become atherosclerotic. They have just as much cholesterol in them as do arteries. Atherosclerosis happens in “patches”, not uniform. Cholesterol in the blood is uniform.
The arteries become atherosclertotic – never super tiny veins. That observation alone should tell you all you need to know about the validity of the cholesterol NONSENSE.
Statin drugs work through their 11 pleotropic actions . Cholesterol reduction is not how they have had mild success- ( and only in younger MALE patients WITH CAD) The small subset of the population who takes these meds still take great risk. If anything statin drugs strongly contradict the lipid hypothesis.
I have researched this for 4 years. Trust me, do some research on this. Cholesterol is NOT the cause of CAD, and until the medical establishment looks elsewhere – we will never make progress in lessening the incidence of that disease.
Cholesterol tests are nothing more than money makers for doctors and labs. The entire thing is a complete SHAM.
Thank you for this! I thought this was the reason for not taking the test as well. If Gary had said as much (given this is his reasoning, we might have witnessed some pretty scary hysterics from oz.
What caught my ear was why did Taubes specify that LDL was the “bad cholesterol” ?
Insulin resistance seems to be the underlying problem. In as much as lipid profiles give us a window into our metabolic functioning/balance, they remain a useful assessment of our health.
I suspect he used the term “bad cholesterol” because that is what people think it is, not because that is what he thinks. In his books he calls it “supposedly bad cholesterol.”
I totally agree with you. I haven’t read the book but watched the show and I thought it was good UNTIL …… REFUSED TO HAVE HIS CHOLESTEROL CHECKED! oohhh man! those excuses ruined everything.
Yo Razwell!!!, I see you did your 4 year research on Cholesterol, right? The ONLY partially correct sentence you have in the whole post is missing “ONLY”. Ok, let me show you which one……”Cholesterol is NOT THE ONLY cause of CAD”…….and then you continue saying….
“and until the medical establishment looks elsewhere – we will never make progress in lessening the incidence of that disease”.
I’m just going to say that with all the info you posted in here you let me know you know nothing about Coronary Artery Disease(CAD) nor Cholesterol much less of the significance of a Lipid profile. How dare you say,
“The arteries become atherosclertotic – never super tiny veins. That observation alone should tell you all you need to know about the validity of the cholesterol NONSENSE”
ha! I recommend you to read a pathophysiology book before posting a NONSENSE sentence like this. What do you think an atherosclerotic plaque is partially made of?
Yeah, the excuses were a problem. Perhaps he hasn’t been so good with his eating the past few months (which goes to sustainability of the diet). Otherwise, if he has been, isn’t the point that low carb is supposed to keep us healthy through the stressful times?
He should have been better prepared for this because the “set up” was not one at all because they both indicated this had been discussed prior.
Thus, using your “logic,” we should take drugs to reduce our macrophage count, since macrophages are part of atherosclerotic plaques. Sorry, but your argument is not very compelling, and neither is Carbsane’s.
First of all, I don’t believe that taking a drug is the solution. Second, macrophages eat the BAD OXIDIZE LDL CHOLESTEROL………. which make the plaques!! If there is no BAD OXIDIZE LDL CHOLESTEROL there is no reason for macrophages to eat that and then plug!
You need to read “The Great Cholesterol Con” by Dr. Malcom Kendrick – perhaps it will open your eyes (but probably not). You still have to account for fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells, and about eight other ingredients in arterial plaque. When researchers actually discover the root cause of CAD, they will win the Nobel Prize. But we cannot have people running around believing that the cause is high levels of LDL, which are caused by dietary saturated fat intake. That is complete nonsense. Try to find one research article that directly links dietary saturated fat to any disease of any kind – they do not exist.
If you are implying that because atherosclerotic plaques contain cholesterol, the cholesterol is the cause of the plaque, then there are sources you have not read on this subject. Yes, atherosclerotic plaques do contain cholesterol, among other things. I haven’t read pathophysiology books, but I’ve read enough other books to know this is true. However I also know that cholesterol is involved in repairing damaged arteries–and membranes in general–so it makes sense that there would be cholesterol in plaques. Doesn’t mean it caused the damage or the resulting CAD.
so you are telling me that oxidize LDL cholesterol is not the main reason plaques are form?!?!?!
From what I understand, cholesterol becomes oxidized when it tries to repair damage that has occurred from other causes, but is not the cause of the damage. It may be incorporated into the plaque, but for cause, you have to look elsewhere–inflammation? infection? Much is still not known, but no, I don’t believe oxidized LDL cholesterol is the main reason plaques form. Read Dr. Uffe Ravnskov and others who have put out books on this subject.
You desperately need an education on this topic. To start, I suggest you dig upp the full text of the following studies:
Lyon Diet Heart Study
Anti- Coronary Club
Minnesota Coronary Survey
National Diet Heart Study
Women’s Health Initative
*Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol do NOTHING at all to prevent coronary artery disease. Complete failures.
Cholesterol levels, LDL or otherwise, are HORRIBLE predictors of coronary artery disease risk. People with normal to low LDL become just as atherosclerotic as
those with elevated LDL.
Take the focus OFF of cholesterol levels. Focus on blood pressure, stress, blood sugar, blood omega 3 levels, activity , great sleep and nutrient dense diet. Floss your teeth well. Avoid toxins , bacteria.
Look into the great Dr. Uffe Ravnskov. A TRUE expert. .
hahahhahahaha so you are saying that all these years of research have been a waste of time?!?!?! That all the lives that have been saved because they lower their LDL’s levels have been futile?!?!?!!!! Well, like I said……. why don’t you live with a high LDL cholesterol level and tell me what happens with your life and we’ll talk. I give you that all factors that you mention (high blood pressure, blood sugar……. whatever) contribute to coronary artery disease, but telling me that a high LDL level is not link to coronary artery disease?!?!?! come one man!!!!!
That is EXACTLY what I am saying. And that is EXACTLY the reason the cholesterol MYTH won’t die.
Had you properly researched thisa topic, you’d already know that.
MONEY, POLITICS, REPUTATION……..
http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm is a GREAT place to start.
There some pieces to read that contradict your point about lowering cholesterol saves lives:
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search/label/Cholesterol%20and%20heart%20attack%20survival
http://www.coconut-info.com/diet_and_disease.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/559885/posts
Cholesterol is there to save your life.
DAMAGE and INFLAMMATION to the endothelium is the culprit. The
It probably will die off, but you can be sure there will be some former proponents who will claim never to have held that view or “that’s not what I meant” or some such weaselling. Don’t forget it’s not so long ago that we were being assured that “too many” eggs were bad for us. This has been demonstrated as false quite some time ago, but fairly quietly. You might imagine that no one in the “healthy eating” community had ever said anything against eggs.
I read your book and I believed ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, however,,,,,,,, after
YOUR REFUSAL TO HAVE A CHOLESTEROL TEST you’ve lost your credibility. What a shame!
I hope you’ll address this in your blog with better reasons than 1) you don’t believe in the test!!!
2) you’re tired and 3) you have two kids.
Why should he have a cholesterol test? Unless Oz springs for a VAP test and then devotes an entire show into explaining the predictive nature of every value, the audience isn’t going to gain anything from it.
Dr. Oz did offer for cholesterol testing “any way he wanted”. It was disappointing that he declined that. He missed a huge opportunity and came off as having something to hide to all but his most ardent followers.
So what do you think of the results of GTs blood work which he has now posted? Are you disappointed or pleased?
Isn’t “triacylglycerol” the other term for “triglyceride”?
I believe the answer to your question is in the above blog.
You reached all the people who have been struggling with “conventional wisdom”. All those people for whom the Dr. Oz way has not been working. All those people who are told or think they must be stupid, or lazy, or just not trying hard enough. Your message, offering an alternative to what hasn’t been working for years, did get across to the masses who needed to hear it.
Your message was loud and clear.
There is another way! Thank you for doing the research Gary Taubes!
We just finished watching it and my husband said Dr. Oz looks like a nervous little squirrel and well, Gary’s just cool.
Great debate and Dr. Oz lost.
Gary, again, you knocked the ball out of the park. Just one question–if a person chooses to eat a few carbs that are low on the glycemic index, aren’t they sometimes risking ingesting dangerous fructose, or do most low glycemic carbs just happen to contain very little fructose?? In other words, could they be trading insulin for an increase in triglycerides via fructose?
Gary, you, once again, hit the ball out of the park. Just one question–If one chooses to eat a few low glycemic carbs, don’t they run the risk of ingesting dangerous fructose, which is not part of the G.I? Then, they’re simply trading insulin for, ultimately, triglycerides ??
If one chooses to eat a few low glycemic index carbs, aren’t they risking consuming dangerous fructose, so that they’re just trading insulin for triglycerides, ultimately? Thanks, Gary, for, again, hitting the ball out of the park!
We need to get Oprah on such a regimen!
Of course he felt like cranky and irritable, take away a crack from an addict for 24hrs and see what happens (hey I watch Intervention). The other issue for me is why he would eat 3 meals and 2 snacks, one of the great things of going low carb is not feeling hungry every 3 hours as your not dealing with the inevitable insulin crashes that tend to occur on the standard 6x per day meal plan that still seems to be the norm.
As someone who shifted from the 6 meal per day, low fat eating mentality to a 2-3 x per day low carb/paleo diet, Ive been sick once in two years and no longer have any signs of being asthmatic (diagnosed when I was 6, I’m now 38) and I no longer get the shakes if I don’t eat for long periods of time.
It’s to bad Dr. Oz couldn’t be more open minded. Keep up the great work Gary.
Dear Mr. Taubes,
It would be a great way to celebrate reaching 1000 members! If you want to talk to us, just make an account at reddit, head over to reddit.com/r/keto, and write a post like “I am Gary Taubes, Grandest Visionary and author of Good Calories Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat, AMA.”
Have you heard of reddit.com? It’s a great social website, for anything and everything, from humor to meaningful discussions. I’d love to invite you to a ‘sub-reddit’ that I moderate, http://www.reddit.com/r/keto. Around 9 months ago, I created the sub-reddit so that people could talk about ketosis, low-carb and everything you discuss. It didn’t catch on too quickly, and for a while it seemed stuck at around 30 members, which is pretty low considering reddit now gets a billion views per month. In the past few months, however, r/keto has increased rapidly, and in the past week hit over 1000 members!
At reddit, sometimes people start AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussions, and in the past we’ve featured a wide span of individuals; think members of Congress, Stephen Colbert, former cosmonauts, and thousands of others. It would mean the world to us at the keto sub-reddit if you could do one for us
Thanks for reading, and keep up the great work with your blog!
- jarly
As an r/keto subscriber, I’d just like to say that that would be awesome.
“Good Calories, Bad Calories” changed my life. I lost 16 Kg over the last 12 months by reducing carb intake, increasing fats and proteins and embarking on moderate exercise (light weights twice weekly). I’m still finding that I need to fine tune the level of carb intake to keep my weight steady. BTW here’s some more research linking high carb diets to Type 2 diabetes: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-link-carbs-diabetes.html
@Sandwaves maybe you need to re-read GCBC. When you eat low carb as Gary does, your cholesterol test score would be invalid and would not prove anything. LDL, the supposed Bad Cholesterol is only calculated from your Total Cholesterol, HDL and Triglycerides. I am sure Gary’s LDL would be slightly elevated but the actual test would not show what kind of LDL. Dr. OZ would most assuredly take advantage of this to paint low carb with a bad brush. There is also new research showing LDL to be beneficial, not harmful.
@Sandwaves maybe you need to re-read GCBC. When you eat low carb as Gary does, your cholesterol test score would be invalid and would not prove anything. LDL, the supposed Bad Cholesterol is only calculated from your Total Cholesterol, HDL and Triglycerides. I am sure Gary’s LDL would be slightly elevated but the actual test would not show what kind of LDL. Dr. OZ would most assuredly take advantage of this to paint low carb with a bad brush. There is also new research showing LDL to be beneficial, not harmful.
Here are a couple of important things to remember: Sugar in Nature is good for us. Sugar Extracted from nature is bad. Let me explain briefly. Sugar molecules extracted from Corn, Cane or Sugar beets are still alive and when they enter the human body from Candy, Pop, Cereal and a million other products they need to survive and what they do is rob the body of vital nutrients we need thus throwing our system out of wack. (Dr Joel Wallach- “Dead Doctor’s Don’t Lie”) There is no Processed Sugar or “Natural” Sugar that’s good for us unless it’s in the fruit or veg or whatever natural growing living thing that contains sugar.
Second Beezer3446 said it best and not to mention There are things That Doctors’ know but to admit them they would lose their license.
BTW GMO’s have been in the market place for about 5 or more years and the FDA won’t allow labeling so we know what is Genetically Modified. Remember Milk back about 10 or more years ago and the uproar? Well Monsanto won’t let that happen again. Guess where FDA officials come from?
T.M.I.? arrest me.
Randy : aranma2@aol.com
Sorry. Sugar molecules are never alive–in or out of the fruit or whatever they come from, in or out of our bodies. They are molecules, not living entities. They do come from living things, but once that corn stalk, cane stalk, or sugar beet is cut or removed from the ground, its no longer alive–at least not for long. Whether or not we consume the sugar in the whole food or extracted, it will elicit an insulin response. The only question is how soon and how much, and that is where the sugar in the whole food has a bit (just a bit) of an advantage over the extracted version.
I am a frequent Redditor and an avid fan of the Keto boards. The knowledge I’ve gained there the last few months has literally turned my life around, and had an amazing effect on my health, mental well being and overall sense of wellness. I am sure we would all benefit greatly from an AMA with you. Please consider joining our little community, which is dedicated to embracing the wisdom you so eloquently share with the world.
Dear Gary
I just by chance happened to see you on Dr Oz as I was surfing through the chanels and stayed watching to see how the duel turned out. I’ve been a fan of yours ever since hearing you on the CBC radio show Q with Jian Ghomeshi. I thought you did really well tonight on the OZ show, sticking to your guns when pressured by OZ, especially the very last comment you made in reference to his last qustion…NO! that was awesome.
I just wanted to say that I believe everything you’ve said about carbs and why it makes us fat, if you look at the facts it’s a no brainer really, just very hard to convince people who are stuck in their ways. I originally read Dr Atkins’ book some 9 years ago (his 1973 version) and the light in my head just came on straight away, it was like he was telling me the secret of life. That might seem like an over reaction but as you know, after all the misinformation we’ve been given all our lives through school and from people who are suppose to be professionals…it’s not.
Now I’m one of those lean people you talk about often. 6′ 2″ about 180 lbs. I’m not fat at all infact some people call me skinny. I take offense to that somtimes as I’m more of an athlete but my point is I’m a carb junky and I know it. For me, rather than seeing the results of indulging in carbs on the scale (I’m very active) i feel it more so in my well being. After your interview on Q I went on a low Carb diet for 5 weeks and from the very first day I could sense my thoughts were so much clearer. I felt more lively and yes I missed the carbs but I would just eat and eat and it took about 2 weeks for the cravings to stop and in the process I would get headaches, feel irritable but it was all worth it for the extra burst of energy I felt and the clearer mind set to boot, which for me was the most important factor.
I have a few posts on my blog about this topic I’d like to share and hear people’s opinions on including depression and carbsferniemtbr thanks for reading.
I agree with what Bob Kaplan said in his email below your post too.
Great job on the Dr. Oz show Gary. I especially liked your closing statements in the exercise segment of the program. It really got the message across. I loved WWGF and recommend it to everyone. Keep up the great work!
In addition to Dr. Oz’s profit motive, there’s this:
Part 2, 1:48 (“THE MAN WHO THINKS EVERYTHING DR. OZ SAYS IS WRONG,” The Dr. Oz Show, http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/man-who-thinks-everything-dr-oz-says-wrong-pt-2): “But see when I look at this [display of carby foods--grain foods and fruits], Gary, I see foods that are fundamentally sacred to who we are and how healthy we are.” –Dr. Oz
Part 3, 4:00: “I also think that you ought to focus first on the sacredness of food.” –Dr. Oz
“This bestselling author and renowned heart surgeon found inspiration for his family life and medical practice through the ideas of the Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, and Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.” (Mehmet Oz Finds His Teacher, Spirituality and Health Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2007, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7430/is_2007_Nov-Dec/ai_n32107233/)
“Swedenborg was practically a vegetarian. Shearsmith said he sometimes ate a few eels, and his servant informs us that he once had some pigeon pie; but his usual diet was bread and butter, milk and coffee, almonds and raisins, vegetables, biscuits, cakes and gingerbread.” (William M. White, Life of Emanuel Swedenborg: Together with a brief synopsis of his writings, p. 258)
Good points! “Sacredness” of food. Yeah. That’s scientific! He bases his ideas on those of some spiritual leader? Where is the science? Uh, non-existent.
But did this “superman” have underlying glucose metabolism problems? I doubt it, since judging by his almost junkfood diet – for God’s sake – biscuits, cakes and gingerbread, he would have had rampant diabetes.
Dr Oz likely does not suffer underlying glucose metabolism problems either. That’s why he can eat some of the stuff that is like poison in these conditions. And that’s why his dietary advice is irrelevant to these conditions.
Like the majority of people, these two were lucky not to be pre-disposed to the metabolic syndrome and therefore they have “genetic immunity” to the ill effects of some of the foods they promote.
If Oz is basing his approach on the ideas of a teacher who advises eating biscuits, cakes and gingerbread, instead of all the scientific studies which decry these foods, (even the high-carb lobby doesn’t like them), then that explains why he made such an ass of himself on his encounter with Taubes.
Did you see that he (Dr. Oz) got the Pigasus Award from James Randi’s Educational Foundation for all that pseudoscience stuff? http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-dr-oz-andrew-wakefield-james-randi-awards-20110401,0,3573991.story Fitting! Doubt he’s bragging about that award, though. I found out through Tom Naughton’s blog at http://www.fathead.com (Want to give credit where credit is due.) Also a great blog site, if you haven’t discovered it yet. Though if you follow this one, you probably know about it already as I found out about him through a comment here.
Hi Gary –
Bob said:
“A restricted-carbohydrate diet doesn’t improve health; it corrects unhealthiness.”
I really don’t see the difference. If you adopt a diet that is unhealthful, your health will suffer. By switching to a healthful diet, your health will improve from an unhealthy state thus improving your health.
Oz is a conman. Be careful. Don’t let him take the reins. Get your points across. Take him to task. When he says “eat whole grains” you should counter with “Why? Dr. Oz did you know that grains contain many antinutrients that are known to lead to autoimmune disorders?” Nail him. Set HIM on the defensive. If he ever says to you again “You’re not a doctor…” say in response “And you’re a cardiologist, not a professor of nutrition.” Don’t let him take the floor. Make it your show if there is a next time.
My 4 cents.
Hi Fred,
I think the distinction between it corrects unhealthiness and it improves health, is that improves health opens the door to all those super food/super supplement/super dosage claims to super health beyond what is achievable. So I think the distinction is useful.
I think what he meant by “doesn’t improve health; it corrects unhealthiness” is that all the carbs turn many people into unhealthy people. Once they drop the carbs, they return to normalcy-a normal healthy person. I’ve come to see the “normal” American diet as actually very “abnormal.”
Thank you for going on Dr. Oz and taking his abuse.
Hope it sells many, many books for you as all the
people who could not lose weight and get healthy on
the Oz plan wake up “hungry” and seek your truth!!
I think people like Dr. Oz are so stuck in the calories in / calories out paradigm that they simply cannot perceive anything outside it. I think you should more directly address this paradigm with such people and you should make it sound simpler. The law of conservation of energy (ie. the first law of thermodynamics) states that energy cannot be created from nothing and it cannot be destroyed into nothing. It cannot be interpreted to mean that your fat tissue grows unless you consciously match your caloric intake to your expenditure. It does not explain why fat tissue grows. However, it explains why people whose fat tissue grows may be more likely to overeat or be sedentary. Their energy cannot escape their fat tissue, so they don’t have the energy to move around. And you should just simply say that saturated fat and cholesterol don’t cause heart disease. You can use Ron Krauss’ meta analysis on the saturated fat issue. However, I don’t know how much of what you said was cut out. I think overall, it was a good performance. If I was a clueless person tired of unsuccessful attempts at weight loss, I would have bought your book after that show.
Somehow my comment didn’t make it on, so I’ll try again!
Thank you for going on Oz yesterday and taking the abuse.
Hope you sell many, many books as a result as people wake
up “hungry” and seek your truth! Dr. Oz really made himself
look foolish yesterday!
Gary,
Your appearance on Dr. Oz reaffirms how the medical system is ignorant to scientific truth. Physicians, along with other health care practitioners have gotten comfortable in their ideas of the truth. Most no longer seek to understand how the world truly is. At the same time, the medical practitioners do not want to push their patients outside of the “comfort zone”. In turn, they will not agree with your low carb diet because people in today’s society do not have the determination and will power to adhere to a diet. Physicians like Dr. Oz do not want to be wrong. But, he is truly doing his society a disservice attempting to knock down strong and foundational ideas. Good luck with your battle.
Amy
Great great great, and I love the simplicity of Bob Kaplan’s words, and i agree..
I have one question, I’ve read both books, wow, and on page 54 of WWGF you mention: If you replace five pounds of fat with five pounds of muscle, you’ll burn only around 20 extra calories a day.
I’ve looked in the reference and on the internet but couldn’t find the science behind it. Could you or anyone point me to the science behind this????
Also do you know of a book or author that does the same thing to nutrition that GCBC/Taubes does, but to the world of exercises??? The real science behind muscle and metabolism and cardio and weight/resistance training??
Thanks a million Guy
I was completely disappointed in Dr. Oz as a scientist and doctor. I was hoping to see a more open platform that both you and Dr. Oz were able to discuss your scientific findings and the work previously done by Dr. Atkins. The only wonderful part was that at least you looked relaxed and comfortable while Dr. Oz looked extremely stressed! Hopefully, people in the audience will go and read the book and make a decision based on what is good for them and not as the medical profession tells them. I am one of those people who cannot tolerate even a small amount of low glyemic carbs without gaining weight. Sadly, people need to understand that we are all different and that one diet does not fit all. This is strictly common sense that our medical society has seemed to forget.
As someone who has read GCBC twice, as many on this forum probably (or perhaps hopefully) have, it is difficult to take Dr. Oz seriously when he discusses his opinions on that segment. The argument given in GCBC is significantly more compelling than the one Dr. Oz and other practitioners put forth. It almost makes you feel like good science is much more difficult to accept for many people than what sounds or seems correct. Fat and saturated fat sounds really bad. But thinking that consuming fat or fat and protein in the absence of carbs will put fat on the body is as asinine as thinking that consuming fruit will make fruit grow out of your ears.
I finally watched the program all the way through – wading through the ads for cereals, weight watchers, and health insurance or some such (eyes glazing over for the most part) – and was entirely offended by Oz’s total set-up and attempt at sandbagging Gary by videoing his “eating low carb for a day. I mean really (others have mentioned this too) three meals and two snacks? And one of those had to be pork rinds? But his worst bit of malarky and the one I found most worthy of condemnation was his showing and then pushing aside his purported “healthy” dinner, which consisted of piece of salmon and spinach (and brown rice), as if that spinach and salmon weren’t a low-carb meal. Entirely duplicitous. A showman, a conman, and, dare I say it, a bit of a drama queen. So he opts instead for a giant piece of steak and green beans (which I think are probably higher in carbs than the spinach, no?). That and his display of a single strawberry on top of Gary’s food with the comment that this one thing would wreck an entire diet. It played strictly to visual power, which is much more effective than mere words (people have to THINK about them). He simply played to audience and viewer expectation, and structured his gimmicks to appeal to the primal brain and our emotions rather than anything scientific or intelligent. No surprise there.
I wish Dr. Oz could have seen my breakfast this morning. Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and chicken wrapped in bacon and grilled. His food he ate was a joke. I wouldn’t eat like that. There are thousands of low carb recipes that go way beyond a piece of chicken and some leafy greens.
I wish Dr. Oz could have seen my breakfast this morning. Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and chicken wrapped in bacon and grilled. His food he ate was a joke. I wouldn’t eat like that. There are thousands of low carb recipes that go way beyond a piece of chicken and some leafy greens.
I wish Dr. Oz could have seen my breakfast this morning. Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and chicken wrapped in bacon and grilled. His food he ate was a joke. I wouldn’t eat like that. There are thousands of low carb recipes that go way beyond a piece of chicken and some leafy greens.
I wish Dr. Oz could have seen my breakfast this morning. Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and chicken wrapped in bacon and grilled. His food he ate was a joke. I wouldn’t eat like that. There are thousands of low carb recipes that go way beyond a piece of chicken and some leafy greens.
It always surprises me you don’t tell people to test their own after-meal blood sugars to see which of their
everyday foods raise their blood sugar and which don’t. That would be more convincing to me than either Oz saying “trust me, I’m a doctor”, or you saying “trust me, I’ve read the research.” I know from testing that whole grains raise my blood sugar severely, and that I can keep my blood sugar low all the time by avoiding them, but if I hadn’t tested them I would just have to decide who seems trustworthy, which is not that reliable a guide.
It always surprises me you don’t tell people to test their aftermeal blood sugars to see which of their everyday foods raise their blood sugar and which don’t. Telling people “trust me, I’ve read the research” is no more convincing than Oz saying trust me, I’m a surgeon.” When I saw for myself how much whole grains affect my blood sugar, I changed my diet.
I didn’t have to puncture my blood vessels even one time to know he was right. Instead, having seen the evidence(GCBC), I cut way down on grains and sugar, and took four inches off my waist.
Advising people to pierce themselves again and again has nothing to do with health.
I can’t work out what you’re saying. How did whole grains affect your blood sugar? Did it go up or down relative to what you were eating before? What were you eating before?
More importantly, if you are advocating whole grains are good for blood glucose control, do you actually suffer from any symptoms of syndrome X, eg insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes 2 etc.?
Because if you haven’t got any of these problems, you’re proposition is irrelevant. Taubes is aiming his advice at people with glucose metabolism problems like syndrome X, not necessarily those with normal metabolism.
I do have these metabolic issues and I do test my aftermeal blood sugars. When I saw for myself how much whole grains affect my blood sugar ie cause it to skyrocket, I severely restricted them in my diet.
Peter
Apologies. I read your other post below and see that we are in agreement. Keep up the good work.
It has GOT to be tough to compete with someone like Oz (touched by Oprah – need we say more?) on his own turf while he waves his M.D. in the air as though it’s proof enough (or my favorite “I was just elbows deep in a patients chest cavity” so that means he’s right, or something).
The foods I eat on a Paleo based, low-carb diet in 24 hours look vastly different that what Oz ate on the show. But hey, “that’s entertainment, folks!”
Dr. Oz’s interview is replete with so many problems that I could fill pages underscoring all the fallacious logic that he employed to mischaracterize Gary’s thesis, and how much of his own perspective on diet is flawed. But I will be mercifully terse. Despite how much Dr. Oz tried to make Taubes look like some radical who was out of touch with reality, Mr. Taubes’ message now has more exposure than ever before. As the old saying goes : “There is no such thing as bad publicity”. Most non-fiction books, however well researched, seldom get read that widely without first being talked about on network television. So next to going on Oprah, Dr. Oz’s show, despite being adversarial towards Gary, was high exposure advertisement. If even a fraction of Oz’s massive audience is adventurous and independent enough to read either of Gary’s books, it could have long term repercussions on the dietary community.
What I find particularly odd about Dr. Oz is that when he interviewed Gary on his radio show, a few weeks before the TV interview, he was surprisingly open to Gary’s perspective on carbohydrates and the innocuous role of saturated fat in our diet. Though it would be a distortion to say that Oz was in complete agreement with Gary on the radio interview, he didn’t seem to show the level of skepticism that he did in his TV interview with him, nor did he seem as hell bent on trying to trip Gary up. I can only attribute this difference in behavior to the fact that many food corporations, which make a lot of money selling high carbohydrate foods and processed foods, would be hurt by Taubes’ anti-carb message, and since many food corporations advertise on Oz’s time slot, Oz had to do the bidding of his task masters. I don’t know how else to account for Dr. Oz’s duplicitous behavior.
You could tell there were going to be problems with the interview from the get go, when a preview of the interview had Dr. Oz ask Gary the question (paraphrase):”Why should we believe you? You are not a doctor.” Anyone having taken an entry level philosophy or logic class knows that this is a logical fallacy of arguing from authority. A man of Dr. Oz’s erudition and education should know better than to resort to this. An argument must be judged on its own merits, based on the evidence and reasons given to support it, and not on the credentials of the person giving the testimony.
Secondly, just because Dr. Oz has a “Dr.” in front of his name does not qualify him to talk about nutrition any more than Mr. Taubes. In fact Taubes (having studied engineering, physics and journalism at Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia) is probably more qualified because he has spent most of his career investigating what constitutes good science and what are the indicators of bad science, while Dr. Oz merely parrots the research of other people, without having the time or expertise to determine whether such research was conducted using appropriate methodology. One, after all, can be well versed in something completely false, and still sound to the layperson like you know what you are talking about – especially in a 20 minute segment where issues are only covered superficially and with sound bites.
Also Gary didn’t make up his thesis out of whole cloth. His thesis is based on researching the work of highly credentialed men and women who rival Dr. Oz in education, if not exceed his level of education, especially with respect to nutritional research.
So if you still place a lot of stock in the credentials of an individual, it should also be noted that there are many medical doctors and PhD level researchers that agree with Taubes, either entirely or for the most part, and more and more of them are coming over to Taubes’ side as more research accumulates.
These include people like Dr. Stephen Phinney, Dr. Eric Westman, Dr. Loren Cordain, Dr. Matt Lalonde, Dr. Jeff S. Volek, Dr. Jonny Bowden, Dr. Rob Thompson, Dr. Robert Lustig, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, Drs. Mary and Michael Eades, Dr. Kurt Harris, Dr. Richard Bernstein, Dr. Ann Childers, Dr Malcolm Kendrick, and the list can go on and on.
If committing a logical fallacy of arguing from authority weren’t bad enough, Dr. Oz actually showed how he tried the low carbohydrate lifestyle for a WHOPPING DAY, and he had the audacity to call it an “experiment” and he complained about how bad he felt, and how he was constipated. Anyone who has passed middle school should be able to tell this is not an experiment in any scientific sense. What Dr. Oz did was actually anecdotal nonsense at its worst. Anyone who has transitioned to any diet, away from their previous eating habits, can tell you that they feel weird to downright bad the first few days because it takes time for a person’s body to adjust as well as for the mind to adapt to new habits. This will occur whether you changing to a restricted low calorie/low fat diet that the medical establishment and Dr. Oz advocates, or whether you are changing to low carbohydrate/moderate protein/high fat diet. I can just as easily do a one day experiment with Dr. Oz’s mostly carbohydrate rich, low calorie diet and feel bad for that one day. In fact I have done it before for much longer and I felt constantly hungry and lethargic. Would my one day of feeling bad be sufficient evidence for Dr. Oz that his dietary advice is bad? If the answer is no, then he is being intellectually dishonest for applying this same standard to Taubes’ concept of diet.
I hope Dr. Oz’s audience is astute enough to see that what he was doing with his little experiment, was not scientifically rigorous at all, and that even as comedy it did a poor job. Such condescending caricaturing of Taubes’ very well researched thesis is not something you would expect from one of America’s most respected and high profile doctors, but this is what happens when a man tries to cater to the commercialism that catapulted him to fame in the first place. Dr. Oz, please leave the comedy to the sitcoms.
Now since we are basically dealing with a puppet for conventional medicine, it is no wonder that Dr. Oz would eventually bring up the connection between saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease. Of course, anyone who has read Taubes’ book, as well as the research and books of the illustrious figures that I mentioned earlier, could tell you that the work to show a connection between saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease is dubious and no clear causal link can be drawn from the evidence we have. Unfortunately a paltry 20 minutes doesn’t allow a man like Taubes to show the mountains of evidence demonstrating that no causal link exists between fat, cholesterol and heart disease. After all, even the most adept orator couldn’t take Taubes’ meticulously researched book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, which is over 500 pages long, and condense it down into a sound bite effective enough to dispel this myth in the 5 minutes Oz allotted to this subject.
It should be noted that there are plenty of people on a low fat diet who have high cholesterol. And there plenty of people on a low fat diet who have low cholesterol. The same holds true for people on low carbohydrate diets. The country of India has one of the largest populations of vegetarians in the world, and they also have high rates of heart disease and diabetes. Conversely the French intake high volumes of fat (yes even saturated fat), and the Inuit of Arctic regions and the Massai of Africa get most of their caloric intake from animal protein and fat, and yet they all have low rates of heart disease and diabetes. How would Dr. Oz explain that? He doesn’t. He just ignores contrary evidence. Granted I am no doctor, but that doesn’t sound very scientific.
And all of this doesn’t even begin to take into account a big confounding variable which really throws in a wrench in the endeavor of drawing connections between dietary fat, cholesterol and heart disease. What is this big variable? It is genetics. Genes determine how your body interacts with food, and that is why certain people can eat certain foods without deleterious side effects, and others can eat the same food and get catastrophic results.
And finally, with respect to cholesterol, the overall number for cholesterol is absolutely meaningless, as Gary pointed out, when it comes to predicting heart disease. That is why you have people who suffer cardiac events who run the gamut from having low cholesterol to high cholesterol, and why you have many who don’t suffer cardiac events that equally run the gamut from low to high. My father had low cholesterol and suffered blockages, but my mother, who has high cholesterol has no heart disease.
So given all of this, why did Dr. Oz insist on asking Gary to have his cholesterol measured for the show? Because he knew that it would make look Gary look evasive when Gary pointed out the truth about the triviality of cholesterol and how LDL doesn’t tell the entire picture. Dr. Oz knew that his audience was already predisposed to associating an overall high level of cholesterol as a bad thing, and that they wouldn’t know that LDL measurements must take into account particle size to be at all informative concerning heart disease risk. So even supposing Gary’s overall cholesterol was high and his overall LDL was high, what does that tell us about low carbohydrate diets? NOTHING! After all, Gary’s numbers could have been high before he started low carb, because of genetic factors. No real connection could be drawn. It would be the equivalent of me associating Dr. Oz’s recent scare with a precancerous growth, inside his intestine (which was big news in September of 2010) with his whole grain/high carbohydrate/low fat diet. Using Dr. Oz’s specious logic of saying, because Gary Taubes has high cholesterol because he eats high fat, can’t I make the equally fallacious correlation between Dr. Oz semi-vegan lifestyle and his cancer? After all, if he is going to use disingenuous tactics to discredit the opposition, he cannot preclude the opposition from doing the same.
All in all, the interview Dr. Oz did on his television program was appalling, and I think it affirms what Upton Sinclair said that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” In any case, despite Oz’s effort to discredit Taubes, the exposure Taubes received will reach curious viewers and in essence Dr. Oz’s stunt will backfire on Oz and on the medical establishment he represents.
Well said. I couldn’t agree more, now that I’ve had a chance to see the segment.
Beautifully summarised! and wonderfully constructed and accurate. Congratulations. I only wish Oz and his cronies get to read it. The credibility of Oz and his show has dropped considerably following this stunt.
Very well put and in response to Mickch, I don’t think it will matter whether Oz and his cronies read this — I believe they KNOW this (but that’s a whole other topic). Case in point: his more open-minded stance on his radio show. I have listened to his radio show and it’s night and day from his TV show. I believe the difference is intentional — his producers know their target audiences, and I would imagine his radio audience is more well-informed (with longer attention spans). On the other hand, I find his television show condescending and disturbing, and it makes me cringe when I think how many people (including my mother) take what they view there as gospel.
Kudos and congrats, Gary for taking the Oz machine on — the word is getting out.
Mercifully terse? I’d hate to see it when you feel the urge to wax prolix…
What’s that about attention span?
Incredibly well written Lawrence.
“Why should we believe you? You are not a doctor.”
====
I didn’t watch the program in question, but a question like that could be used as a “Devil’s advocate” rhetorical device to help establish Taubes credentials.
In other words, even though arguing from authority is a logical fallacy, its still a common one. Many individuals are predisposed to accepting health-related advice only from physicians, and probably for good reason. Its probable that a good portion of Taubes audience would not take him seriously without the credential of a medical doctorate.
So by asking this question explicitly, Oz gave Taubes an opportunity to try and establish his credibility.
You could tell there were going to be problems with the interview from
the get go, when a preview of the interview had Dr. Oz ask Gary the
question (paraphrase):”Why should we believe you? You are not a doctor.”
Remember half the Dr.s out there finished in the bottom half of their class.
After more reading, a question: are there any studies that you know of, planned or ongoing, that are designed specifically to falsify any of the misconceptions discussed in your book?
Probably! It happens all the time in medicine! But I personally doubt it. I would say that there could be researchers doing some studies to prove that their point of view is stronger than Gary’s.
After more reading, a question: are there any studies that you know of, planned or ongoing, that are designed specifically to falsify any of the misconceptions discussed in your book?
Thank you for trying to get Oz and others to understand… you were fantastic and very calm( I know I woulodn’t have been able to do it).I truely believe that Oz had no idea on how insuline works or how to control it… he is the doc that shoves pills at diabetics after they tell him to eat toast,juice and cereal for beakfast.
Gary
On my blog today, I suggested that:
You ask Dr. Oz for a follow-up show
2 months prior to the show, you both take a complete set of (agreed upon) diagnostic tests
After completing the blood tests, Dr. Oz goes on a 4 week low-carb diet designed by you, while
you go on a 4 week low-fat diet designed by Dr. Oz
They run the tests again
You both go back on your own diets for another 4 weeks, and
Repeat the tests a third time
Present the results live on Dr. Oz’s show.
Of course, we know that the tests won’t work out in favor of Dr. Oz, so it is going to take some social pressure to get him to agree to a test like this.
I posted my suggestion on Dr. Oz’s FB page. Perhaps if your fans were to unleash a social media storm, Dr. Oz could be convinced to do this follow up show
link to the article – http://www.healthhabits.ca/2011/03/08/diet-war-dr-oz-gary-taubes/
How do we get Dr. Oz to actually comply with the diet? It’d be very easy for him to sabotage what you are proposing.
In addtion to vlog-ing every meal with a smartphone (time,date,gps), we would have to trust that he didn’t chow down on seitan in between low carb meals.
He would also have to trust Gary
Oz is quite a showman. Credit to him for letting you present the ideas you uncovered. Some folks will see that and make better choices for themselves. Don’t get too frustrated with the fluff. Oz still knows who pays his bills.
Dr. Taubes,
I watched the show, and must say, I was stunned by Oz’s lack of scientific rebuttle to your arguments. It was too painful to watch. I’ve eaten nothing but meat and fat and very few vegtables the last 2 years and have lost about 50 lbs with relative ease. I agree with you that exercise is next to worthless for shedding fat and strength train about 10 minutes a week. I’m 52 years old and have never felt better or been in better shape. I eat maybe twice a day. Fruit is nothing more than candy on a tree. People like Oz refuse to see what the issues are really about. It hormones that control the body and wishing or willing fruit and whole grains to be the panecea for everything doesn’t work. Also you can’t out exercise a bad diet
Greg
Dr. Taubes,
I watched the show, and must say, I was stunned by Oz’s lack of scientific rebuttle to your arguments. It was too painful to watch. I’ve eaten nothing but meat and fat and very few vegtables the last 2 years and have lost about 50 lbs with relative ease. I agree with you that exercise is next to worthless for shedding fat and strength train about 10 minutes a week. I’m 52 years old and have never felt better or been in better shape. I eat maybe twice a day. Fruit is nothing more than candy on a tree. People like Oz refuse to see what the issues are really about. It hormones that control the body and wishing or willing fruit and whole grains to be the panecea for everything doesn’t work. Also you can’t out exercise a bad diet
Greg
Why did you let Oz get away with this? Ive watched your lectures and debates online so I know you can be forceful.
When Oz positions himself as an expert on the subject by explaining that he’s performed emergency operations on obese patients…this begs for a retort.
When they visually juxtapose two eating plans and unfairly choose the most unappetizing foods to represent low carb meal options…this begs for a hard retort.
When he fails to argue on the scientific merits but instead simply spews the party line…you should have slapped him.
Oz is all noise and no signal pretending to know more than he does.
Gary – you are my hero. Do not stop pushing your message. I have dabbled with low carb for years and kept my weight within 10 lbs because of it. Since I read WWGF, I started with a clean induction and am working to lose about 65 lbs.
I have been a faithful Dr. Oz fan for years. I have not been happy with the marketing science and entertainment twists the show has taken. After what he did to you, his show is no longer on my DVR list to record and I will never watch him again. He is not a real doctor – he is now an entertainer spouting malarky. He wants to keep his head in the sand and not even look at the data.
You deserve an apology. There is absolutely NO excuse for the way he treated you. Yes you got your message across and maybe more people will look into it. As for OZ and the people pulling his strings, I am so done with the show and listening to him.
You have the restraint of a saint – not to just walk off the show. At least you came off as the sane one, in the crosshairs of a bully. Thank you for doing the show and thank you for doing what you do. You may just be the reason people at the top wake up and realize WHY people are obese.
Definition of insanity – You keep on doing what you have always done, expecting a different result.
Thank you suncountry2 – you expressed my feelings exactly, including every idea! I finished reading GCBC a couple of months ago (not easy, but worth every minute!) and I just finished WWGF today. I watched Gary’s appearance on Oz online last weekend – totally appalled by Oz’s behavior. I’m sure many here noticed, as I did, how many overweight women were in Oz’s audience. How sad that Oz had, and blew off, the opportunity to really work with Gary to get this information to his audience. The show could have gone in a completely different and truly helpful, direction, but as someone here noted, one of Oz’s sponsors is Post cereal!! No need to say more! I’ve been carrying about 20 lbs of excess fat since going through menopause 9 years ago and while reading GCBC, it made so much sense to me that I applied the ideas and dropped 12 lbs effortlessly within a month, had more energy and felt great! Thank you Gary for GCBC and WWGF and for doing what you are doing, blogging, TV and radio appearances, etc. This is important information.
I was so disappointed in Dr Oz and how he tried to bias everything towards his way of eating but hopefully this interview will spark peoples interest and they will read the book and understand more in depth how this concept of eating works. After 40+ years of being fat I finally have concurred my weight issues by eating this way and have never been healthier or happier. (I am celebrating a year of a 65lb weight loss with never feeling starved of deprived) Thank-you for giving people a way to correct their weight issues.
I was so disappointed in Dr Oz and how he tried to bias everything towards his way of eating but hopefully this interview will spark peoples interest and they will read the book and understand more in depth how this concept of eating works. After 40+ years of being fat I finally have concurred my weight issues by eating this way and have never been healthier or happier. (I am celebrating a year of a 65lb weight loss with never feeling starved of deprived) Thank-you for giving people a way to correct their weight issues.
Dr. Oz ending the exercise segment with “proven correlation”
That’s all he’s got? That’s his strongest argument?
Had Dr. Oz read the same literature Dr. Linda Bacon and Gary Taubes did, he would not come to his conclusion that it is a fat loss panacea.
I know that’s what Oz believes . LOL !
What bothers me is that the focus on weight takes away from the most powerful research that Taubes found when preparing GCBC in the first place. This position on carbohydrates is far too soft. Saying that carbohydrates may be good for people who don’t get fat on them is very misplaced and irresponsible considering what he knows about the subject. The research in GCBC and elsewhere indicates the carbohydrates are the direct cause of metabolic syndrome. With that being the case, obesity is just one of the many symptoms of the disorder. Cancer occurs to 1 in 2 and Diabetes hits 1 in 5 at last glance at the statistics.
I realize that WWGF was a condensed version of GCBC and it tries to distill the science down to that essential for weight regulation but it misses the most important thing. Carbohydrates cause metabolic syndrome in most everyone, lean or fat. Fat people are not the only ones who get chronic disease. Most running events that I participate in are raising money for a charity established in the name of a lean person who suddenly contracted one of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome.
Go to http://www.breastcancer.org and take a look at the survivors, and even the founder of the site who is very famous. These women are all lean, they are not fat. Many are vegetarians yet they still have breast cancer. I didn’t watch the show but I’m sure Gary did not call Dr. Oz on the fact that the polyps showed up on his colon last year. Why didn’t his healthy diet protect him from that? Surely all the fiber should have saved him. The Inuit or the Natives of the Plains did not have colon cancer, nor did any population that did not eat carbohydrates. The fact that some populations did eat low glycemic carbohydrates and avoided metabolic syndrome does not detract from the fact that those who do not eat carbohydrates simply do not get metabolic syndrome.
So the idea that weight loss should be the only marker we use in order to determine whether or not one should eat carbohydrates is irresponsible on its face, especially when Taubes has done the research that he has.
Interesting point, Charles. BTW I’ve tried to comment on your blog and couldn’t figure out how. If you have interpreted the lack of comments as lack of interest, that might not be the case.
I think the reason Gary did not bring up the polyps in Dr. Oz’s colon (if he even knew about it) is he would have been guilty of the same thing Dr. Oz was with his ridiculous farce of an ‘experiment’ (more like a bad SNL skit) of going on a ‘low carb’ diet for one day. It’s unscientific and irrelevant to draw a conclusion from a sample of n=1.
The entire show just made me mad, especially when compared to the radio show which was a much more civil discussion with a fair bit of common ground discussed.
I agree to some extent Charles. I was initially disappointed by the title of WWGF, since it would be immediately categorised as a “diet book”. GCBC/TDD was much more than a “diet book”, and I always tell people (whether they want to listen or not) that it is much more about health than about “diet”.
To be fair though, the health message is also there in WWGF, but it is done subtly. “What makes us fat also makes us sick”, for example. Let people draw their own conclusions.
I am guessing that one of the problems that Gary faced was what he could get published, and what he could get a mass market to read. Something with “fat” in the title was presumably more likely to appeal to a mass audience than something with “health”. And the same probably applies to the associated media events, such as the Oz programme.
Regards,
Mike Ellwood, Oxfordshire, England
It’s really too bad you didn’t use the opportunity to “shine” on your strong point: Cholesterol.
In addition to the fat-producing potential of insulin caused by even whole grains and fruit, and other good points Gary made to Oz, those who are insulin resistant are very aware of the ADDICTIVE nature of those supposedly healthy whole grains and [excessive] fruits. So sometimes having a “moderate” amount can trigger a raging desire for an immoderate amount!
In addition to the fat-producing potential of insulin caused by even whole grains and fruit, and other good points Gary made to Oz, those who are insulin resistant are very aware of the ADDICTIVE nature of those supposedly healthy whole grains and [excessive] fruits. So sometimes having a “moderate” amount can trigger a raging desire for an immoderate amount!
I am SURE that the producers sat Dr. Oz down well before the show and made it crystal clear that he couldn’t come out against ‘healthy complex carbs’ or else they would risk losing big sponsors. Look at Dr. Oz’s website — Post Cereal and Weight Watchers ads keep flashing up.
He knows which side his ‘healthy complex carb’ bread is low-fat buttered on! LOL!
It’s so funny to read a lot of your comments. First of all, I’m not an advocate of either Dr. Oz or Mr. Gary, however I do have my thoughts.
1) I don’t know Dr. Oz diet plan but I highly doubt it is as many of you mention in here as A HIGH COMPLEX CARBS Diet (correct me if I’m wrong).
2) There are numerous studies(by good and bad researchers with whatever methodology you think is the most appropriate or not ) that prove that LDL-CH is linked to Cardiovascular diseases, regardless if you are skinny or obese; and that Whole Grain HAS a potential benefit in reducing the development of chronic conditions such as Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes and the mortality related to these conditions. I mean if you are fine with living with a high LDL-CH knowing it could be the cause of an undesirable consequence like a Myocardial Infarction be my guest. I will try to avoided.
3) LAWRENCE, I’m going to quote you here, ok!:”Dr. Oz merely parrots the research of other people, without having the time or expertise to determine whether such research was conducted using appropriate methodology” ………… do you truly believe this??? with that comment I just know that you don’t know how the medical system run. Ask Gary if Dr. Oz or any other respectable Doctor parrots research, just like that! Do you also think that Dr. Oz researched poorly credentialed men and women?
4) I applaud Mr. Gary for maintaining his composure throughout the show (Dr. Oz wasn’t definitively the best host) but I didn’t expect less. He’s a professional plus he knew what he was getting into. The only BIG disappointment I had with Mr. Gary was that he refused to get a Cholesterol profile because he had kids to feed or something like that. That tells me that is all about the MONEY!!!. A true believer of whatever it is he is recommending wouldn’t have had a problem exposing himself to whatever he’s ask to do, give or present.
5) I promised I wouldn’t write this but I just have to………….When Mr Gary or Dr Oz transform thousands of people physically, mentally, emotionally and even cure diseases like Bill Phillips has done with his program Body-for-Life (I’m a testimony), then you can go out and brag about how your info and research have the most updated and best proven way (through diet, exercises or both) to get healthy and lose weight at the same time (cause it is not the same)
p.s To all of you that do not believe that EXERCISE helps you shed some of that ugly fat, besides all the other good things like rising your HDL-CH and energy levels, reducing your Blood Pressure, etc. I encourage you to visit Bill Phillips website body-for-life, or go to the library and get his book and look at the pictures and read the stories. NOW THAT’S THE RESEARCH I NEEDED!! and thank God I’m a living proof! Now, do yo have any argument about exercise?
Before you criticize Gary Taubes and his research and his choice of not taking a cholestrol test, read the book. Otherwise, you come across as ignorant to those of us who have read his book. Oh and I have also read Oz’s book…and Eat to Live…and they are not as scientifically compelling as GCBC and WWGF. So do yourself a favor and read the book. Then you can make your arguments and they will be more meaningful.
As someone who exercises regularly and has for over twenty years, yea I have an argument about exercise. I’ve worked out like a demon and gotten fat doing it and I’ve been injured (car accident) and done low carb and seen the fat just melt off with activity levels that can only be described as minimal, if not nonexistent. So I agree with Gary, there are health benefits to exercise, but fat loss isn’t one of them.
Taubes offers up no scientific evidence to back his claims on exercise. Only the whole “working up an appetite” thing and assuming everyone is stopping off for ice cream on the way home from the gym and lying around the house the rest of the day.
If only someone had done a rigorously controlled study to look at this!
Oh wait! They have: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/04/effects-of-aerobic-exercise-and-dietary.html
The exercisers in this study even got to eat a little more to account for the calories burned during the exercise itself. Results? Independent of diet (LC vs. LF), the exercisers lost more FAT mass because their TDEE remained high. Why? They moved around more during the rest of the day!
Just one of tens if not hundreds of studies that contradict Taubes’ theories.
lonely blog needs attention!
Hahaha So true. Carbinsane blog is unable to gain traction beyond attempts to bait Gary Taubes and people who want to read about his work.
Carbsane, Your point has been made. Go away.
OK. There are reasons to exercise, but fat loss isn’t one of them. As far as the study goes, I don’t do aerobics – I’ve done aerobics – waste of time – from a return on investment stand point I find that any needed health benefits can be found in the weight room and maybe some sprinting.
I’ve tried fat loss with exercise alone, diet (various) alone, diet and exercise. Did not see any significant improvements for fat loss diet and exercise over diet alone. There are many health benefits to exercise. I don’t do it for fat loss, but to maintain muscle while losing fat. I think that the conventional advise for exercise to lose fat simply sets people up for false expectations and disappointment. Therefore, I emphasize all the other benefits and the importance of maintaining muscle while losing fat when people ask me for advise.
So, because it doesn’t work for you, exercise is “useless for weight loss” despite the fact that a well designed and controlled scientific study clearly demonstrated the opposite. How scientific!
Like the results in that study were all that impressive. It was 12 weeks and circa 2 kilograms. We can’t do linear extrapolation regarding what the effects would be over a greater period of time, involving someone who had a great amount of weight, say 100ls to lose.
Aerobics is not just worthless for fat loss, its worthless period. As I said, there are health reasons to exercise, but, yes, Gary’s point about hormones controlling fat loss and trumping exercise makes more sense than the conventional wisdom.
I see people all the time disappointed with their exercise fat loss results and quiting because the other reasons to exercise are not emphasized enough and exercise’s affect on weight loss is over-sold.
Laboratory conditions don’t always mimic real life.
Doesn’t matter impressive or not. Long term weight loss averages in Shai were hardly that impressive for 2 years regardless of the diet. The lab conditions don’t mimic real life because in real life people don’t tend to adhere to programs strictly. I would note the exercisers ate a little more. Had they not done so they would have lost even more weight.
Aerobic exercise is hardly worthless, but if you say so …
Yet another small scale, short-term study of diet, exercise, and weight loss. I’d be interested in seeing an update on these women one month after the study, or six months after. My guess is that they gained the weight back – except for the low carb group, perhaps. Sorry, but your “tens if not hundreds of studies” argument is not very compelling..
Yeah, right. As we all know low carbers are famous for maintaining their losses while everyone else gains weight back. Dana Carpender, Amy Dungan, Jimmy Moore, Laura Dolson, the lowcarbconfidential person, me (the first 2X), Jimmy’s 20 year clear artery veteran low carber, both Drs. Eades, the Shai study low carbers, just about every longer term study low carbers, and so so many many more.
The non-exercisers probably regained more after study’s end if anyone because their TDEE’s were most depressed. Therefore if they ate more they would gain.
But that wasn’t the point. These studies show that exercise IS beneficial for weight loss if there’s compliance. It doesn’t work alone for many people because of inattention to diet and lack of compliance. If you make an effort NOT to eat more, you will lose weight exercising. I hate anecdotal evidence, but my husband gained a lot of weight when he was out of work and lost a lot – like 100 pounds, not just piddly weight – when he started a new job. He eats a tad bit healthier these days but not during that weight loss he didn’t. There were evenings when I asked him what he ate that day and I got “a bag of gummy worms” in response. He just ate less of the junk but was moving a whole lot more. No, I’m not holding him out as an example of a healthy way to lose weight, but activity is a part of it.
The other studies show that Taubes is just up to his usual cherry picking in citing unnamed animal studies for his compensation claim. Both Hockey’s and my studies show no decrease and/or increased non-exercise activity.
Cherry picking.
What that means is that the person leveling that accusation can’t find anything wrong with the studies/methods/conclusions so they fall back on the cherry picking idea as a last final futile attempt to convince us their theory is the correct one.
No, this person has found where Taubes’ own references state the opposite of his claims! You can’t get much more damning than that. It’s one thing to highlight just those studies that support your hypothesis, it’s quite another to cite just one quote out of context to say the opposite of what is said in the rest of a paragraph.
And I have 30-40 extended family members that went low-carb ten years ago, lost a lot of weight, and have kept it off – but I won’t drop their names on the internet (it would not add any meaning to the discussion). Some of them exercise, and some of them don’t. And the few that gained the weight back admitted that they didn’t follow the diet as closely as they should have (in other words, they went back to the carbs).
But my point was that short term studies are not very meaningful. To date, there has been no long term, well-controlled study of diet, exercise, and weight loss – it would be too expensive. So what we’re left with is anecdotal evidence if we’re talking about time frames of a decade or more. I lost 60 pounds eleven years ago doing low carb. My wife lost a lot of weight two years ago (she won’t tell me how much, nor what she weighs now). We both strength train twice per week, and we continue to eat low carb, and we don’t walk around hungry all day.
Back in the early 90’s I ran 5 miles per day for 18 months – and I didn’t lose a pound. So I agree with Walter _R above about aerobic exercise – I found it useless.
And you accuse Taubes of cherry-picking, but you do the same thing. The whole “de-novo lipogenesis” thing over on your website, and in your Jimmy Moore interview, is a total cherry-pick. If you actually read the entire reference (in “Biochemistry” by Stryer, Tymoczko, and Berg), it says that de-novo lipogenesis is not an important pathway in humans, as long as your energy intake does not exceed energy expenditure. In other words, it’s not an important pathway, as long as you don’t overeat. And we’re right back to Gary’s first blog post..
And you’re also wrong in your analysis of the whole glycerol 3 phosphate issue. I’ll be happy to correct you on that one if you like. But I’ve got better things to do on my vacation than debate you on biochemistry issues. But if there are others in the low-carb community that would like to hear my argument, I’ll be happy to indulge them.
In case you missed it, Taubes has taken this back too. In this very post. Read closely. Of course he blames the textbook he references, and he’ll blame his readers for the fact that there’s so much “excess sugar is turned to fat” mythology around the internet and cited by primal authors amongst others. When, had he read his own Frayn reference he would have known that DNL is not a significant pathway for body weight gain in humans. Do you have studies I’ve ignored or mischaracterized demonstrating that conversion of excess carbs to fat is a significant contributor to obesity? Taubes likes to take metabolic activity and biochemistry out of context. Yes, insulin’s action is to suppress HSL, but it doesn’t act in a vacuum to do that 24/7.
I would encourage all those here who long term low carbed and have kept it off to join the NWCR. What’s stopping you? What I see of MOST prominent advocates of LC is that they either never were heavy (Sisson is a former professional athlete for crying out loud), or they are continually cycling weight, sometimes in a dramatic fashion. Some going off LC, some not. Most are heavier than they should be (and I am still as well). That goes to Oz’s sustainability argument which must be considered because weight swings are worse for you than just being weight stable obese. The Carb Smart guy is HUGE. About.com’s LC advocate Laura Dolson is HUGE.
There are many studies demonstrating that exercise is beneficial to prevent regain and gaining in the first place.
And I have 30-40 extended family members that went low-carb ten years ago, lost a lot of weight, and have kept it off – but I won’t drop their names on the internet (it would not add any meaning to the discussion). Some of them exercise, and some of them don’t. And the few that gained the weight back admitted that they didn’t follow the diet as closely as they should have (in other words, they went back to the carbs).
But my point was that short term studies are not very meaningful. To date, there has been no long term, well-controlled study of diet, exercise, and weight loss – it would be too expensive. So what we’re left with is anecdotal evidence if we’re talking about time frames of a decade or more. I lost 60 pounds eleven years ago doing low carb. My wife lost a lot of weight two years ago (she won’t tell me how much, nor what she weighs now). We both strength train twice per week, and we continue to eat low carb, and we don’t walk around hungry all day.
Back in the early 90’s I ran 5 miles per day for 18 months – and I didn’t lose a pound. So I agree with Walter _R above about aerobic exercise – I found it useless.
And you accuse Taubes of cherry-picking, but you do the same thing. The whole “de-novo lipogenesis” thing over on your website, and in your Jimmy Moore interview, is a total cherry-pick. If you actually read the entire reference (in “Biochemistry” by Stryer, Tymoczko, and Berg), it says that de-novo lipogenesis is not an important pathway in humans, as long as your energy intake does not exceed energy expenditure. In other words, it’s not an important pathway, as long as you don’t overeat. And we’re right back to Gary’s first blog post..
And you’re also wrong in your analysis of the whole glycerol 3 phosphate issue. I’ll be happy to correct you on that one if you like. But I’ve got better things to do on my vacation than debate you on biochemistry issues. But if there are others in the low-carb community that would like to hear my argument, I’ll be happy to indulge them.
Sorry for the re-post earlier. Here’s my response:
Gary has backed off because of the glyceroneogenesis pathway, but it’s most likely that he doesn’t want to delve deeply into the biochemistry. Atkins knew that low-carb worked for his patients, but he didn’t know exactly why. Gary at least made the attempt to explain the observations. But, you need to examine the glyceroneogenesis pathway and do a little critical thinking. PEPCK is the enzyme involved in the rate limiting step in the glyceroneogenesis pathway. If adipocytes make a lot of glycerol 3 phosphate, then re-esterification can proceed and fatty acids remain in the cell. The substrate for PEPCK is oxaloacetate. So where did this substrate come from? It came from malate that leaves the mitochondria. So how was the malate made? It has to be produced from the citric acid cycle, which is fueled by acetyl CoA. So where did this come from? It comes from three sources: glucose (via glycolysis and pyruvate decarboxylation), fatty acids (via beta oxidation) or amino acids (via deamination and further modifications). So now you need to ask yourself a question: How is glycerol 3 phosphate produced again? Gary suggested it was glucose via glycolysis, but he has backed off. But my point is that even if the G3P is coming from glyceroneogenesis, the fuel that is driving that pathway could STILL be glucose that is fueling the citric acid cycle.
And I joined the NWCR a long time ago. And my “story” was used in Atkins’ book back in 2002. And I was not lean when I began advocating low-carb (far from it).
And I thought I already made my point about short-term studies and their lack of meaning. What I do know is my own experience with starchy foods. As soon as I eat them, I start putting on fat. So where is all this triglyceride coming from? I’m not consuming the triglycerides directly, so how can they magically appear in my adipose tissue? It has to be DNL. And I don’t care if the studies haven’t been done to back up my claim.
We cannot make progress in the battle of obesity if people continue to shout that it’s all about overeating and sedentary behavior (and therefore we need to eat less and move more). Have the proper studies been done? No. And they probably won’t be until proponents of the lipid hypothesis are no longer living.
Gman, it seems like glyceroneogenesis might be a red herring in terms of weight loss (the rate of re-esterification is always lower than the rate of “de-esterification,” so fat burning is always occuring). So, it would appear, so far as my reading of the literature would suggest, that it’s a reactive (secondary) pathway, not an active (primary) one in terms of weight loss. As in, it seems to be a “fine tuning” mechanism that evolved to control free fatty acid concentration in the bloodstream (when talking about WAT) in order to protect the body from the FFAs unmitigated effects, rather than the subject at hand. Just a thought, though.
Sounds like a good thought, Hockey Guru. My understanding is that glyceroneogenesis is a back-up pathway to allow re-esterification in WAT. The gene for glycerol kinase is inactive in WAT, so PEPCK’s function may have evolved to compensate. PEPCK’s other function is for gluconeogenesis in liver and skeletal muscle. So you are right about the weight loss issue – it may not be important. But if we’re trying to limit re-esterification as much as possible, it would seem prudent to limit glucose uptake into WAT – which means limiting starch in the diet.
Looks like it does NOT work for the overwhelming MAJORITY CarbSane. That THIS IS scientific
http://razwell.blogspot.com/2010/10/exercise-lose-pound-myth-of-exercise-as.html
OOOOOOPS huh ?
CarbSane says;
So, because it doesn’t work for you, exercise is “useless for weight loss” despite the fact that a well designed and controlled scientific study clearly demonstrated the opposite. How scientific!
Then CarbSane says minutes later:
…….but my husband gained a lot of weight when he was out of work and lost a lot – like 100 pounds, not just piddly weight – when he started a new job. He eats a tad bit healthier these days but not during that weight loss he didn’t……
Cherry picking lines from scientific studies.
Using anecdotal evidence.
Exactly what she accuses GT of doing.
What exactly is this CarbSane person trying to accomplish? An anonymous writer who runs a blog that is dependant on baseless attempts to smear Gary Tubes – what exactly is her (his?) point?
Attention to her own writing is the goal.
Untill a week ago fully four of her top five posts were about GT and her facile arguements attempting to refute his mountains of research. She (he) and her blog are dependant on her making loud, wild and thin accusations about GT. (He is a liar, profiteer, using bad science, a fraud, etc, etc)
She (he) is proof of an internet truth. Scream loud and often and the openess of the internet platform will allow you a level of noteriety that has no bearing on the veracity of your claims.
She is little more than a gussied up troll.
Hi Alan
yeah, she is obviously just trolling for attention–directing it to her blog. maybe her husband is out of work again and she needs some money? cant make much money with blogs unless you have stuff people want to read though…
perhaps she should get a 2nd job rather than waste peoples time with spam.
Once, or more then once, Carbsane was criticized for putting a dollar sign after GT’s name, implying all his books and lectures were inspired only by the need to make money. Kicking the man into his balls was rightly considered an unethical behavior . I think it should go both ways, or let everybody turn loose. Lets treat one another with respect and behave like adults.
BTW, I don’t think that Dr. Oz is a heartless jerk who cares only about pleasing his sponsors. Looks like he doesn’t think his advice may harm anyone. I don’t agree with him, but I understand how difficult it may be to change own point of view. I am ashamed when I remember how I fed my family a Smart Balance, trying to replace “unhealthy” saturated fats. Now it is a grass-fed batter, coconut oil, olive oil.
dr oz was putting on a show for the cameras, he is pushing the same thing, only not to the same degree. he pushes complex carbs for the same reason gary pushes nearly none. and he knows this. i will give credit to dr oz for at least giving gary a platform. i think oz really appreciates what gary is doing.
LOL ! Exactly, Alan.
James Krieger, CarbSane, Colpo. They all are trying to smear Gary Taubes out of jealousy.
Alan and other fellow low-carbers. I note you have encountered the ubiquitous Carb(in)Sane. I feel I need to report that I also have been involved in a running verbal battle with her on another site (diet-blog.com). I have to agree with your impressions. She rants a lot but doesn’t bring much value to the discussions. From what I can decipher in all her vitriolic gibberish, she is in the grip of the following:
1) She is “a post menopausal (early onset
) woman who has yo-yo’d in weight for decades” (her words)
2) She is hypocritical in that she endorses low-carb diets (she is on one) and says “I advocate low carb all the time when folks ask me about my weight loss”, while simultaneously denouncing virtually every principle they are based on.
3) She believes calories are the indisputable bottom line when it comes to weight loss/gain yet she does low-carb.
4) She doesn’t seem to understand GI/GL concepts and dismisses the validity of the insulin factor in weight loss/gain.
5) She doesn’t like the idea of high fat consumption, especially saturated fat, but says she doesn’t avoid fats in general to support her claim that she rarely eats more than [100g,75g, 20g carbs/day]. She adds that she eats 1600 cals/day on average. She then proudly proclaims (in defence of complex carbs in the Japanese diet) that she shops at her Asian market “There are stacks upon stacks of bags of white rices and aisles upon aisles of noodles and sweets. I’m sure someone buys them besides me”
“I find it hilarious that the way I eat now fits well within the original Atkins maintenance (I probably average 75g carb/day) plan”
6) She doesn’t believe low-carb diets should get below 30% calories from carbs, yet by her own numbers above, I figure she does 25%,19%,on her 100g,75g,1600 cals/day diet and 7% on 1200 cals/day when she does 20g/day. Her reply to this (which was unusually and mercifully short and sweet) was “There is nothing hypocritical about eating low carb and not believing the fairy tales circulated in the low carb community”.
7) She cites an endless list of studies which supposedly support her claims but ignores the fact that Gary Taubes revealed in his book “The Diet Delusion” that many such studies were commissioned and funded by anti low-carb interests, and many of the peer reviews were carried out by colleagues of the author.
She seems to have a vendetta against Gary Taubes, or any other low-carb/higher fat proponent.
On the positive side she has to watch her weight and uses much the same diet as many of us (even if for the wrong reasons) and therefore she merits a little sympathy. But I would suggest she needs to re-set her thinking and attitude.
How pathetic that it wasn’t enough for you to mischaracterize my posts on that other blog, you must quote out of context here.
I’ll answer to your points here:
1. So? My point is that my mainenance levels are quite low due to years of yo yo dieting (in the past now) and the usual slowdown that occurs going through menopause. I maintain on 1500-1700/day, most days I estimate eating closer to 1500. It’s quite possible even that is overestimated. The last time I logged my foods I came in around 1000 some days w/o trying to limit intake, so who knows. I’m not trying to mislead anyone with my statements, it’s a good faith estimate of what I can eat these days. Don’t know why you have such a hard on for “gotcha!”
2. What is hypocritical of sharing how I lost weight using low carb without believing fairy tales? This is nonsense. If anyone wants to know why I eat low carb it’s up on my blog now. For most where weight loss is concerned it’s the easiest way to reduce intake. This is counter to what Taubes is claiming in his flawed analysis of Shai for example.
3. Yes, so? Metabolic ward studies back this up.
4. I understand it. I don’t buy it. The insulin hypothesis doesn’t hold up.
5. Who says I don’t like the idea of high fat consumption? Define high I guess. I think the notion of upping fat content either by % or by absolute amounts is counter to weight loss on low carb. I probably ate under 1000 cal/day (without trying or going hungry) many of my VLC days during weight loss. How I eat in maintenance differs from when I was losing. For whatever reason I no longer achieve quite the spontaneous decrease with VLC these days. Perhaps after this respite of higher carb intake it shall return? One can hope. Wish me luck! I question VLC/VHF for reasons that it is a diet that promotes insulin resistance in maintenance. That’s where the scientific literature from Taubes’ experts like Keith Frayn points.
I didn’t defend the Japanese eating complex carbs, that’s another one of Taubes’ fairy tales he made up. I stated that the Japanese are buying the white rice, noodles of all varieties *except* for the shiritaki noodles (that *I* buy but have yet to see an Asian person buy in that store) and sweets. You are now deliberately quoting me out of context for what, the third time? Here is what I actually said, (http://www.diet-blog.com/11/poll_do_you_agree_with_dr_oz_or_gary_taubes.php?page=2#comments)
There are stacks upon stacks of bags of white rices and aisles upon aisles of noodles and sweets. I’m sure someone buys them besides me, but I’ve never seen a Japanese lady buy shiritaki noodles at the market I frequent!
and how I set you straight.
Mick, you attached the beginning of sentence 2 to the end of sentence 1, and left off what came after the comma in the second sentence.
Now you even leave out the comma. So much for your credibility. You claim I’m eating all that stuff to the tune of 200+g carbs a day and when I called you on that you call me paranoid. Get a grip man. Learn to read and debate honestly.
Mick, I should clarify something else as well. I’ve been thinking in net carbs for so long that I don’t – as Paul Jaminet advises – count veggie carbs at all. So when I say 75g on average, I’m talking 75g of predominantly starch carbs (some fruit and very little sugar in chocolate or the occasional cookie/pastry/etc.). Do the math on that what you will do. I average over 100g protein/day as well, of this I am certain because getting my protein in each day is my only “driving” objective. So there’s 800 cals or so. OK, you caught me. I guess I eat less than I’m claiming in maintenance because I can’t see that I eat more than around 70g fat/day most days. Even my prime rib can’t put me much over that since I don’t dip it in melted butter. I’ll be sure not to mislead anyone in the future!
6. True
7. Gary’s says so condemnation doesn’t cut it. Show conflicts in the actual studies I cite or move on.
8. Whatever. I’m a stickler for intellectual honesty and conclusions based on scientific evidence not misrepresented evidence or making stuff up.
I’ll take your suggestions under advisement. LOL
CarbSane
We meet again. I admire your tenacity and resilience under fire. I would like to think that one day you will channel these into a more positive and productive approach to the low-carb discussion.
As you would be aware, activity on the other site has almost ground to a halt. When I arrived at this site, it didn’t take long to see you were well and truly entrenched and let’s say, having differences of opinion with even more people than before. I knew you would read anything I wrote on this site (as you have proved) so you can’t say I tried to go behind your back.
I wrote what I did re my exchanges with you, mainly in response to Alan and some of the others who were wondering, as I have been, – to quote Alan “What exactly is this CarbSane person trying to accomplish? An anonymous writer who runs a blog that is dependant on baseless attempts to smear Gary Taubes – what exactly is her (his?) point?” At the very least I was able to clarify that you were female, post-menopausal, dealing with weight issues, and doing low-carb.
I’ll respond to your comments in the above numerical order:
1) For someone who professes: “I’m a stickler for intellectual honesty and conclusions based on scientific evidence not misrepresented evidence or making stuff up”, you now refer to your own numbers as “estimated”, “possibly overestimated”, “good faith estimates”. These terms may be honest but they are hardly scientific. Once you quote figures to make a point you should expect them to be scrutinized.
If you are then “caught out”, it’s on your head nobody else’s.
Your remark “Don’t know why you have such a hard on for “gotcha!”, is hitting below the belt so to speak. I don’t know what post-menopausal woman experience in these circumstances, but whatever it is, isn’t this akin to what you are indulging in when you relentlessly pursue Gary Taubes? saying things like: “Stay tuned to my blog in the coming days. Just when I thought I was done finding errors and out right misrepresentation of his own references, I’ve just found more”. Isn’t this “gotcha”? Who’s being pathetic?
2) Well for a start you refer to most of the concepts the low-carb diet is based on as “fairy tales”. What makes you the ultimate authority? You only have your selective research to back you up, and as Gary Taubes revealed (and most people know) all research is not always bona-fide. It can be tailored to achieve a desired outcome depending on who commissions/funds it.
I know this can work both ways, but at least Gary attempts to analyse and differentiate, whereas you embrace that which supports your biased opinions and dismiss the rest as “fairy tales”. I believe the likes of Taubes, Atkins etc are far more qualified than you to determine what the truth is.
3) But as I’ve just pointed out, other metabolic ward studies don’t back it up. If interested see
http://www.lowcarbohydrate.net/httblog/archives/000066.html
In addition, Dr Atkins, Dr Pennington, and others, documented hundreds of patients who ate far more calories than prescribed by low calorie diets and still lost plenty of weight. This may not be as scientific as you would like, but all these doctors can’t be foolish or dishonest.
4) Of all your dubious tenets, THIS IS THE MOST PREPOSTEROUS!!! There wouldn’t be enough room on this site to list the research linking insulin to glucose metabolism and it’s influence on weight gain/loss. Almost every book on low-carb diets, and all the newer progressive books on Glycemic Index/Load and Metabolic Syndrome X, identify insulin as the KEY FACTOR. In addition, as Taubes reports above, “Lehningers Principles of Biochemistry or Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, which are the authoritative texts in their respective fields” confirm this.
But you say you understand it???…and you know better???
Your outrageous stance on this issue alone is sufficient to destroy your credibility.
5) But when you go on a low-carb diet you must, like it or not, increase fats. Most protein foods contain fat. So you simply can’t avoid fat, including saturated fat, because it would not be practical to concentrate on so-called good fats like oils and nuts.
You say: “I question VLC/VHF for reasons that it is a diet that promotes insulin resistance in maintenance”. This is yet another preposterous idea. Why then do all the current books on Metabolic Syndrome X, Glycemic Index/Load, Diabetes 2, identify foods high in carbs/GI/GL as the triggers? There is no suggestion that fat, saturated or otherwise, promotes insulin resistance. You surely know fats are metabolised differently to carbs. Now you rely on a single selective bit of research to try to refute all this.
Re your obsession with your Asian market anecdote. When you say “I’m sure someone buys them BESIDES me”, you are saying AS WELL AS ME, not INSTEAD of me, as you are now insisting.
So unless I’m mistaken, I think I can read, but can you write?
I Appreciate your honesty and concession re your numbers here and in (6)
7) It’s not only Gary who says so, many of us and others say so. Suffice to say this will not be resolved here.
See (1) above. On this issue you are once again placing yourself in the position of “ultimate authority”
in opposition to many who are better qualified. Or at least you tend to be selective to support your bias.
I know you could accuse me of doing the same, but then we get back to some of the earlier arguments.
Notwithstanding this, you condemn yourself with a number of absolutely ridiculous statements, particularly with regard to insulin and insulin resistance, which makes your position very tenuous.
In parting let me say. Many skeptics of Dr Atkins are now realising that he was right in many ways.
Gary Taubes and others go to great lengths to explain why. Maybe someday you too will accept this.
Mick,
You demonstrate your lack of integrity by repeating your intentional misquoting. I’ve explained this at diet blog, but since nobody was reading your crap there anymore, you decided to repeat it here. During my stricter low carb days I bought my shiritaki noodles at the Asian market. I never saw any of the slim Japanese ladies buying them, rather their baskets contained rice and noodles of all sorts. I’m sure I’m not the only person who bought those shiritaki noodles or they wouldn’t have carried them, but they are not some popular item the Japanese ladies all eat as their secret to slimness that much is obvious.
As to accuracy, I’m referring to statements of facts and science. Something sorely lacking in GCBC as I’ve blogged about. If I estimate how much I’m eating to maintain does that have any impact on anyone? I mean really man, get a grip here. Stop trying to twist my words for some purpose. I’ve never said I avoid fat or fear fat or whatever words you’re trying to put in my mouth here. I don’t count calories but I do tend to portion my starch carbs. I also choose leaner proteins more often than not, and I do still eat a low carb diet except to the extremists that feel only a ketogenic high fat diet qualifies as “authentic”. Good luck with that approach folks – you’ll turn away more than you’ll convert.
On the “gotcha” I was going about my merry way looking at something free fatty acid related (what I have a research interest in) and low and behold I find this paper on FFA’s and beta cell dysfunction bearing McGarry’s name as an author. I thought to myself that the name sounded familiar and what do I find? More misrepresentations in GCBC. I thought I had reached the end of those. Apparently GT’s mangling of the facts to fit his hypothesis went further than even this most skeptical of skeptics thought.
As to Dr. A, do you have his original book? I do (though I’ve temporarily misplaced it). It turns out he wasn’t right in many ways. He claimed we peed out enormous amounts of calories as ketones and that’s how his diet worked. He also talked of some fat mobilizing substance in the urine (not ketones). The whole CCL, ACE thing is a gimmick. It’s not mentioned in the New Atkins.
Total cholesterol and LDL are useless. Too bad Gary messed up so royally on that point on Oz.
The glycemic index based diets are not high fat diets. When you can show me the studies – carefully controlled – where isocaloric low GI diets outperform high GI ones, then you’ll make a compelling argument. Until then you did a good job of shouting nonsense over at dietblog.
Buh bye now.
CarbSane
You are one stubborn ornery broad.
By the way, nobody is reading your crap at diet blog either, because as I said, activity there is almost zero. Very few agreed with you there and even less here. If you continue spewing forth your vitriolic, biased, ill-conceived, contradictory nonsense, nobody will read your crap anywhere, including your sacred blog.
So here we go again, back to the Asian market. Your words as quoted above are:
“There are stacks upon stacks of bags of white rices and aisles upon aisles of noodles and sweets. I’m sure someone buys them BESIDES me, but I’ve never seen a Japanese lady buy shiritaki noodles at the market I frequent!”.
As I pointed out, and you conveniently ignored, this means YOU buy the “bags of white rices etc” AS WELL AS someone else, not INSTEAD of someone else as you insist. I am not misquoting you at all, your poor English is to blame.
Having been caught out in your lame attempt to demonstrate how you can do low-carb without really doing low-carb, you now dismiss the exercise as harmless. But that doesn’t stop you from re-visiting the notion by throwing revised numbers around – “I maintain on 1500-1700/day, most days I estimate eating closer to 1500. It’s quite possible even that is overestimated. The last time I logged my foods I came in around 1000 some days w/o trying to limit intake, so who knows.” “Who knows” – that’s a great scientific conclusion! Incidentally your revised figures for your “most days” indicate 27% carbs, 27% protein, and well well 46% FAT. Given that most proteins also contain fat, this is about as close to a classic low-carb/higher fat diet as it gets. So what have you proved?
You say – “I’ve never said I avoid fat or fear fat or whatever words you’re trying to put in my mouth here.” But then you say – “I think the notion of upping fat content either by % or by absolute amounts is counter to weight loss on low carb.” This is one of many instances where you state or imply that fat is undesirable. eg elsewhere you have said saturated fat exacerbates insulin resistance. GET A GRIP GIRL!! YOU ARE CONFUSED AND IN DENIAL.
You need to accept a fundamental fact. When you lower carbs, you MUST (like it or not), correspondingly increase fats. Even if you replace most of the carbs with protein, you still add more fat. In practice, as your own figures show, FAT becomes the dominant factor.
Ah yes, poor Dr Atkins, still maligning him I see. To answer your question – I do have his first book, and all his others. I also have many more progressive books dealing with metabolic syndrome X, low GI/GL, and Diabetes 2. Most point out that Atkins was correct in his approach, even if more advanced research has provided some different explanations as to why some of it worked. So where’s the problem? Thousands have benefited and continue to benefit from his advice.
You say – “The whole CCL, ACE thing is a gimmick. It’s not mentioned in the New Atkins.” MORE BS FROM YOU.
How much of the book did you read, the first page? Have another look. The index references no less than 30 pages for ACE, and 17 pages for CCL now termed CLL. It should be made clear that the book [New Atkins New You] is not written by Dr Atkins who is sadly deceased, but 3 other doctors.
You say – “The glycemic index based diets are not high fat diets” – That’s a brave statement. What are they then, high carb diets? I have often accused you of not understanding GI/GL principles and here you provide more evidence. Have a look at the tables. Most fats have GI = zero. Most carbs (except low-starch vegetables) have GI >/= 40. Many cereals and starches have GI >/= 70. Which is lower, zero or 40-70? The even more meaningful GL tables put many of the so-called “good” carbs in an even worse light. Mind you some so-called low GI diets indeed do push so-called “good” carbs in preference to fats, but they are not genuine low GI diets, simply because they ignore their own GI numbers. This is why GL diets are now flourishing.
Honestly, the more outrageous rubbish I read from you the more convinced I am that you are, how can I put it mildly, simply stupid.
“Total cholesterol and LDL are useless. Too bad Gary messed up so royally on that point on Oz.”
Too bad you messed up on this point because I didn’t say it. Once again, you are confusing me with someone else.
In parting may I also compliment you on your good job of shouting nonsense over at dietblog and may I add you are outdoing yourself here.
And you’re one obnoxious jerk.
To lose weight – e.g. being in calorie deficit – one does NOT need to “up the fat”: see http://www.annals.org/content/142/6/403.full.pdf+html
The subjects didn’t change fat and protein intake much.
If memory serves this study is cited in TNA, but if not it is cited by Westman et.al.: http://www.ajcn.org/content/86/2/276.full
I don’t have my ebook version of the New Atkins hand but the ketosis gimmick was avoided in this latest version. If I’m not mistaken (this is from memory) the only time “keto” is mentioned is in the stuff about epilepsy in order to tout the legitimacy of the diet. Atkins was wrong about how LC diets work, his claims of folks eating 5000 calories and still losing were sensational. Shai as well showed that the low carbers DID reduce intake, as did this BBC documentary: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/01/must-see-tv-for-those-suffering-from.html
Atkins spurned a whole new eating disorder whereby folks actually believed a bite of mashed potatoes could undo days of dieting. In TNA they discuss an “Atkins Edge”. Here is what I wrote when I read the book.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-atkins-ketosis-atkins-edge.html
CarbSane
We meet again. I admire your tenacity and resilience under fire. I would like to think that one day you will channel these into a more positive and productive approach to the low-carb discussion.
As you would be aware, activity on the other site has almost ground to a halt. When I arrived at this site, it didn’t take long to see you were well and truly entrenched and let’s say, having differences of opinion with even more people than before. I knew you would read anything I wrote on this site (as you have proved) so you can’t say I tried to go behind your back.
I wrote what I did re my exchanges with you, mainly in response to Alan and some of the others who were wondering, as I have been, – to quote Alan “What exactly is this CarbSane person trying to accomplish? An anonymous writer who runs a blog that is dependant on baseless attempts to smear Gary Taubes – what exactly is her (his?) point?” At the very least I was able to clarify that you were female, post-menopausal, dealing with weight issues, and doing low-carb.
I’ll respond to your comments in the above numerical order:
1) For someone who professes: “I’m a stickler for intellectual honesty and conclusions based on scientific evidence not misrepresented evidence or making stuff up”, you now refer to your own numbers as “estimated”, “possibly overestimated”, “good faith estimates”. These terms may be honest but they are hardly scientific. Once you quote figures to make a point you should expect them to be scrutinized.
If you are then “caught out”, it’s on your head nobody else’s.
Your remark “Don’t know why you have such a hard on for “gotcha!”, is hitting below the belt so to speak. I don’t know what post-menopausal woman experience in these circumstances, but whatever it is, isn’t this akin to what you are indulging in when you relentlessly pursue Gary Taubes? saying things like: “Stay tuned to my blog in the coming days. Just when I thought I was done finding errors and out right misrepresentation of his own references, I’ve just found more”. Isn’t this “gotcha”? Who’s being pathetic?
2) Well for a start you refer to most of the concepts the low-carb diet is based on as “fairy tales”. What makes you the ultimate authority? You only have your selective research to back you up, and as Gary Taubes revealed (and most people know) all research is not always bona-fide. It can be tailored to achieve a desired outcome depending on who commissions/funds it.
I know this can work both ways, but at least Gary attempts to analyse and differentiate, whereas you embrace that which supports your biased opinions and dismiss the rest as “fairy tales”. I believe the likes of Taubes, Atkins etc are far more qualified than you to determine what the truth is.
3) But as I’ve just pointed out, other metabolic ward studies don’t back it up. If interested see
http://www.lowcarbohydrate.net/httblog/archives/000066.html
In addition, Dr Atkins, Dr Pennington, and others, documented hundreds of patients who ate far more calories than prescribed by low calorie diets and still lost plenty of weight. This may not be as scientific as you would like, but all these doctors can’t be foolish or dishonest.
4) Of all your dubious tenets, THIS IS THE MOST PREPOSTEROUS!!! There wouldn’t be enough room on this site to list the research linking insulin to glucose metabolism and it’s influence on weight gain/loss. Almost every book on low-carb diets, and all the newer progressive books on Glycemic Index/Load and Metabolic Syndrome X, identify insulin as the KEY FACTOR. In addition, as Taubes reports above, “Lehningers Principles of Biochemistry or Williams Textbook of Endocrinology, which are the authoritative texts in their respective fields” confirm this.
But you say you understand it???…and you know better???
Your outrageous stance on this issue alone is sufficient to destroy your credibility.
5) But when you go on a low-carb diet you must, like it or not, increase fats. Most protein foods contain fat. So you simply can’t avoid fat, including saturated fat, because it would not be practical to concentrate on so-called good fats like oils and nuts.
You say: “I question VLC/VHF for reasons that it is a diet that promotes insulin resistance in maintenance”. This is yet another preposterous idea. Why then do all the current books on Metabolic Syndrome X, Glycemic Index/Load, Diabetes 2, identify foods high in carbs/GI/GL as the triggers? There is no suggestion that fat, saturated or otherwise, promotes insulin resistance. You surely know fats are metabolised differently to carbs. Now you rely on a single selective bit of research to try to refute all this.
Re your obsession with your Asian market anecdote. When you say “I’m sure someone buys them BESIDES me”, you are saying AS WELL AS ME, not INSTEAD of me, as you are now insisting.
So unless I’m mistaken, I think I can read, but can you write?
I Appreciate your honesty and concession re your numbers here and in (6)
7) It’s not only Gary who says so, many of us and others say so. Suffice to say this will not be resolved here.
See (1) above. On this issue you are once again placing yourself in the position of “ultimate authority”
in opposition to many who are better qualified. Or at least you tend to be selective to support your bias.
I know you could accuse me of doing the same, but then we get back to some of the earlier arguments.
Notwithstanding this, you condemn yourself with a number of absolutely ridiculous statements, particularly with regard to insulin and insulin resistance, which makes your position very tenuous.
In parting let me say. Many skeptics of Dr Atkins are now realising that he was right in many ways.
Gary Taubes and others go to great lengths to explain why. Maybe someday you too will accept this.
Yes, my post is not scientific and about my personal experience. I also know that I am not unusual or alone.There are way too many female members in my sport club attending aerobic classes religiously and looking fatter every year. There others, of course, looking like jumping jerkyes. I know it doesn’t sound scientific as well. Somehow not everybody could recreate any result of any scientific research in his or her own personal case. The famous Dr.Shai study is a good example – not about people like me. I honestly don’t know how to react on results of some study that is about people different then me. Adain, I am not so unusual as somebody who lost weight while eating Twinkies or potatoes (Peter the Hiperlipid explained the Potatoes Diet phenomenon in his blog http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com).
I know personally some people too who lost weight by exercising, all males, by the way. My point is – when it works for a weight loss,it works much worse then a diet or not at all , has very high potential for injuries, unsustenable on a long run, may interfere with a diet because many people believe that fitness virtues will cancel out dietary sins .
I am asking you not as a person who does a lot of reading of scientific materials about nutrition, but as a person who went through a roller-coaster of a dramatic weight loss, do you remember, what it is to be insanely hungry and seemingly bottomless? I do remember it. It is what I experienced on Dr. Weill’s recommended (in his books) diet. Not very different than the Mediterranean. Actually, all my life till last 4 years I was always ready to eat, had to have something in my mouth every 2 hours. Like for most low-carbers, only low-carbing cured my appetite. Who in my place would be convinced by Dr. Shai’s results that Mediterranean diet is better or equally effective then low-carbing? People are influenced by personal experiences. Dr. Oz is preaching what he practices, GT got interested in nutrition because of his weight loss on Atkins diet. May be I am wrong, but I think the fact that you can loose weight easily and not necessary by the low-carbing, makes you more skeptical when people like me claim that low-carb diet is the best. Whatever is dialing the best with that constant hunger and that preoccupation with a food. Actually, for me it is the only think that works. I am sure you don’t need any links about the satiety of the meat + fat combination. You know it as well as me.
Dr. Oz’s wife is approaching the age (or is already there) when what was working before is no longer useful. Probably, he is about to broaden his experience.
as a person who went through a roller-coaster of a draCas a person who went through a roller-coaster of a dramatic weight loss, do you remember, what it is to be insanely hungry and seemingly bottomless?
Actually not in over 20 years since my days of eating disorders, fasting and crash diets.
I’m not the one-size-fits-all person here. I don’t look to studies to explain my results with any WOE. Shai,schmai, I doubt I would have lost the weight doing Mediterranean even though on average that group lost the same as the LC group from about the 1 year mark. But, studies like that are instructive for weight loss strategies, determining the best diet for diabetics, etc.
Taubes is now stating that only carbs make us fat and that once we’re fat, only cutting carbs can make us thinner. Nonsense. And since he used Shai to argue this point in his second blog post, it is fair to call him out on his deception there because the Med group cut carbs the least. His message is now bordering on dangerous because he speaks of the “dose” of intervention. Not losing weight? Cut carbs more. And if you go to zero, that’s the best you can do. Lots of people do not do well with extreme carb restriction. Others see vast improvements early on and ignore slow deterioration in their health as time passes because they’ve convinced themselves that carbs are poison and swigging fat is healthy because the Inuit are such fine role models.
Taubes unequivocally states that exercise is useless for weight loss. Again, the science doesn’t back his claim. If exercise essentially reverses all the damage carbs do as Taubes claimed, then shouldn’t exercise with low carb not work even better for weight loss?
As for injuries, if exercise is good for health – Taubes and Oz agree – we can’t use that excuse. Nobody is saying to abuse exercise. It’s why I don’t do certain things. But as a commenter on my blog stated so well, if you’re sedentary (as most obese are) to begin with, exercise certainly can’t make you any more sedentary!
I am glad we are on the same page about the MD diet at least on a personal level. There is another thing that I found difficult to accept in Dr.Shai research – it contradicts to the advice and the experience of Dr. Bernstein. It may give even more ground for pushing whole grains on diabetics. Of course, you are right and it is a fair game to refer to the research given by your opponent as an example, in order to make your point.
How different we are in the ways our body works! I still relish on not being hungry all the time probably first time in my life, some insulin resistant people remark on not falling asleep after meals after cutting curbs.I had no idea you are free from the hanger issue for so long There is something very particular about your metabolism, which is very different from my case. Probably, people should try to avoid a rapid weight loss. Easier said than done.
I thought before your post that you would be able to loose an extra weight with MD because you lost on the low-carbing too quickly and something higher in carbs could provide more gradient weight loss . It is all just guessing, no one could tell in advance how another person may respond to a diet. I still agree with GT that carbs should be cut first ( for example, to 50 gram a day) and the individual suppose to decide for himself/herself what to do next based on the body reaction ,not on religious belief that all carbs are created evil. You mention that some people ignore negative changes in their health. What is ignored? I hope you feel well now, I have only positive changes so far. I wish Dr.Oz would ask me to give my blood for testing.
When people say “exercise”, they often mean several things. In my opinion, it is possible to be sedentary and to do exercise. It is when injuries happen, especially when the exerciser believes he is maintaining or loosing the weight. Somebody is trying to compensate in one hour or 1.5 hours his/her 23 hours of sitting or sleeping . It is very often difficult to figure out if you are damaging your body on a long run. I couldn’t. May be, an experienced coach could provide the difference in injury prevention. It is much safer to loose weight first. BTW, I don’t think that walking is an exercise, it is something like Thai-chi – meditation in motion. I do believe in importance of exercising and being non sedentary for health reason. When majority of people make their living by sitting behind computers and driving cars, it is difficult to arrange. So, why not to tell them that the diet is the most important part of any weight-loss plan, any exercise is a welcome addition(for reasons your mentioned), but it is not advisable to try to compensate with physical activity any wrong food choices? Or it will be more of “Loosing Fat at 15″ or “The Big Looser” with that sadistic Julian Mitchel. I am a lay-back person, but I just hate her.
False expectations and disappointments would be the small price to pay. What about multiple sport injures inflicted by the combination of excess weight and exercise? From my personal experience I would advice overweight people to loose at least some weight first than go into exercise program later.I don’t mean they can’t walk or stretch or do some weight lifting just for toning or pleasure. People should be more aware of the long-term dangers of exercise for overweight people. I especially concerned about children .
A very valid point and part of the reason why in one of my replies to carbsane I said “Aerobics is not just worthless for fat loss, its worthless period”. I don’t like the cost/benefit, risk/reward profile of aerobics or steady state cardio.
I didn’t mention your point simply because when someone asks me for advice (and people do, because to answer one of carbsane’s other points, I’ve kept the weight off for eleven years – formerly 283 lbs at a height of 6’7″ now cycle between 200 and 220lbs (count that as putting weight back on if you want, but my health and fitness have always remained far above what they were at 283) I advise beginners to lift weights in a way that is appropriate for beginners and to walk for the health benefits associated with walking, not to burn calories).
I’ve seen too many people handed a bad plan, which then when it didn’t work be accused of not being compliant, doing it wrong, lying, etc. and suffering a loss of self-esteem/confidence in their self-efficacy and that bothers me, but risk of physical injury probably trumps this concern, because it could also lead to a loss of self-esteem/confidence in their self-efficacy.
Here are two more of those thousands that you apparently haven’t reviewed yet.
Finlayson G, Bryant E, Blundell JE, King NA. Acute compensatory eating following exercise is associated with implicit hedonic wanting for food. Physiol Behav. 2009 Apr 20;97(1):62-7.
Turner JE, Markovitch D, Betts JA, Thompson D. Nonprescribed physical activity energy expenditure is maintained with structured exercise and implicates a compensatory increase in energy intake. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Nov;92(5):1009-16.
In the interest of full disclosure and honesty–novel concepts to some–Gary has recently admitted that he’s keeping an open mind on HIIT as regards weight loss as research in this field has recently picked up quite a bit and good studies are coming daily (maybe not by the thousands, though).
Hockey do you have the full texts of the first one?
From the abstract of the first:
An enhanced implicit wanting for food after exercise may help to explain why some people overcompensate during acute eating episodes. Some individuals could be resistant to the beneficial effects of exercise due to a predisposition to compensate for exercise-induced energy expenditure as a result of implicit changes in food preferences.
SOME. Not “all exercise does is make you hungry”. There were others who did not compensate.
From the second one:
…Structured prescribed exercise increased total PAEE and had no detrimental effect on nonprescribed PAEE. Indeed, there was a trend for greater nonprescribed PAEE in the EX group (P = 0.09).
…The adoption of regular structured exercise in previously sedentary, middle-aged, and overweight men does not result in a negative compensatory reduction in nonprescribed physical activity.
Thanks for providing us with further refutation of Taubes’ claims. So much for his false claim that all exercising does is cause us to be lazier the rest of the day.
Another from the references of one of your studies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19568195?dopt=Abstract
We conclude that in middle-aged overweight or obese subjects participating in an extended exercise intervention, total PAEE increased, and there was no compensatory decrease in nonexercise PAEE.
Taubes claimed on Oz that studies show there IS a compensatory decrease in nonexercise PAEE. Now my count is up to three that show it’s not or even increased. Isn’t Dr. Eades always talking black swans to Taubes’ null hypothesis schtick?
Three black swans. Don’t suppose that will convince willingly blind mice though.
carbsane:
hockey guru:
carbsane:
article conclusion (without quote mining):
James, unless Hockey is Taubes, his offerings are not Taubes’
Also, “less than predicted weight loss” is still weight LOSS, as opposed to the controls who gained ever so slightly on average. AND, although the authors estimate about 100 cal/day more consumed, they did not actually measure this. The exercisers didn’t compensate completely if that was what happened.
Which goes to Oz’s point about exercise: The calories you burn gives you more of a cushion to eat a bit more on a regular basis or perhaps splurge on a special meal or treat more infrequently.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/03/exercise-weight-management.html
the posts are there for all to see the exchange between you two. yo