My Take on Eades' Take on Taubes' take on Tierney's article on Sat Fat

Don't you love blogs?  In one catchy title, I have managed to link myself to several of the weight-loss science journalist titans!   I found this really hilarious blog post by Dr. Mike regarding the controversy over the health effects of saturated fat.  
Here's Dr. Mike's take on things.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/lipid-hypothesis/more-on-tierney-taubes-and-saturated-fat/#more-1344
Scroll down to the quotes attributed to Dr. Eckel.  Again, Priceless!


In Gary Taubes' reply to Tierney's blog post, he hinted at a new 2-year study that was coming out shortly.  He asked readers to predict what the results would be.  These predictions were made in July of 2008.


"Predictions:

1) The study will show (again) that controlled carbohydrate nutrition results in superior cardiovascular health markers as well as weight loss.

2) The medical and scientific community will be “surprised” that such an “unhealthy diet” could have such better results.

3) Dean Ornish and the PCRM crew will publish rebuttals claiming that obviously these results are only because the low-fat diet was not low-fat enough. Various vegan groups will admonish people to read The China Study so they can know just how “dangerous” meat based diets really are. Katie Couric will ask a talking nutritional head on the national nightly news that “this latest study results aside, in the end its really about portion control, right?”. The talking head will nod appropriately and enthusiastically.

4) Various “authorities” will publish statements to the public warning that the long term effects on health of the Atkins diet are not known, so no one should start cutting carbs thinking its actually good for them.

5) The USDA will revise its food pyramid, emphasizing even more whole grains.

6) and once again we’ll inch ever so slowly toward the medical community understanding that eating low-carb is best for optimal health…"

and another:

"Add to your prediction: 6) The AHA will lower its fat recommendation even more."


 (You can read the whole thing here:  http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/the-fat-fight-goes-on/#more-345 )


How did they do?
Here's Dr. Foster's paper, finally published in 2010:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2949959/?tool=pubmed
They concluded that the diets were pretty much the same as far as weight loss, but that the low-carb people had an improvement in heart disease risk factors.  (I'll be having more to say about this soon....hint:  look under "bogus studies" category.)


Here's a botched report of the study:  http://www.fitnesshealthzone.com/diet-nutrition/low-carb-low-fat-long-term-weight-loss-program/ I can't believe that someone actually posted this article.  I could do a whole blog post just on how many things were wrong here.  Paragraph after paragraph after paragraph.  They couldn't have actually read the study and come up with this.


Well, here's the revised food pyramid!:  http://www.mypyramid.gov/guidelines/index.html  Looks like we are in for less fat.


And here's another whine-y Dean Ornish's rebuttal!:  http://www.annals.org/content/153/3/147/reply#annintmed_el_125662


Here's another spin article extolling portion control, and even saying that such a "moderate" diet will improve heart risk factors when the study clearly showed that the low-carb diet resulted in better numbers for heart risk factors. (Although readers here don't care about that minor discretion, because they know that a risk factor is not a cause anyway.)  Note the caption emphasizing the grains, calling them heart-healthy.  This little tale was spun by another Temple University "researcher", the same place that Dr. Foster is from, in a transparent attempt to undercut their own research:  http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20110309/LIFESTYLE01/103090302/0/NEWS19/Meals-packed-nutrition-all-heart?odyssey=nav|head


Here's another report with repeat warnings.  Even though this website looks research-y, this article contains really old information and was just cut-and-pasted from somewhere else, without the references.
http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/HolisticHealth/LowGlycemicIndexDiets.aspx?ChunkID=38729


Here's what the AHA wants you to do:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/aha-urges-stricter-guidelines-for-sodium-fat-intake/7002/ The prediction was correct.  They want even lower fat!