Extremely Disrespectful Zealot - Is it really n=1?

Dr. Guyenet has really become unglued on his blog site lately, and the purpose of this post is to clear some things up and set the record straight.

Dr. G said on one of his posts that there are many examples of folks gaining weight on a low carb diet.  Now, I know plenty of people who have lost lots of weight on a low carb diet, and plenty of people who gradually gained a few pounds of that weight when they went into maintenance mode.  My theory, if you will, is that that so-called maintenance mode the low carb diet authors promote is unworkable for many.  That maintenance mode includes, surprise, more carbs!

For the record, I NEVER GAINED WEIGHT ON A LOW CARB DIET.  I ONLY GAIN WEIGHT WHEN I ADD IN MORE CARBS.  (OK, now for the inside voice.)  I seem to lose the low carb magic after about three days of eating a typical carb-laden whole foods diet, and it is especially worse if that diet includes wheat or corn.  If I go back on a low carb diet, I can usually lose the added weight quickly, but this seems to be harder in the winter and summer.  It works better in spring and fall.  For me, at least, I seem to leave my ability to burn fat very quickly.

I am annoyed at Dr. G's current attempt to discredit and belittle anyone who has data points that do not correspond with his theories.  Despite his insistence that he removes "extremely disrespectful" posts from his blog, I have only seen him do this with people who disagree with him.  Not with all the other "extremely disrespectful" posters that populate the paleo cesspool.

This issue came up for me well before the famous G-T dust-up at AHS11.  There were some particularly "disrespectful zealots" that IMHO were so bad that I called out by name here on my blog.  One gained the title through her continual bashing of anyone interested in Jack Kruse and an award for the most creative use of moderatorship, and the other gained the title through his constant and creepy support of Dr. G on various websites.  You can read about it here and here and here. Note that both the zealots came by, and instead of offering an apology, continued with more denial and lies.  Go read the comments for yourself lol.  It was during the comments section of Dr. G's blog where I first read Woo.  I have continued to read her blog because despite the wackiness and mis-placed passion, she continues to supply good information in an entertaining fashion.

And just a shout-out to the other zealots.  Carbsane has never gone after me, anywhere, as far as I can tell, so, like Woo, she gets a free hall pass.  But, Jack!  Quit hatin' on Jimmy and his struggles with weight.

Open Letter to Tara Parker-Pope

[and....I have a dream.....happy birthday to MLK, the man with dreams.]

This leptin reset thingy is turning me into a  kinder, gentler, yet still very exceptional person.  Is it me or did you also think Gary Taubes' letter/petition in response to Tara Parker-Pope was a little harsh? I didn't sign the petition, but here's my response.

Dear Ms. Parker-Pope

I applaud you, Ms. Parker-Pope, for laying it all out there for people to criticize in a recent blog post on resistant obesity.  But, instead of calling out all the flaws of the article, I realize that you were really just banging the despair gong, and I want to help.  Go read this really great article I saw last year, about sugar, featuring Gary Taubes.  Oh!  Wait a minute!  You wrote that, so of course you read it.  I read this week that eating lots of fat rots your brain, but now I wonder if it is the other way around?  Anyway, I hope you continue to search, and then find, what works for you, even if it seems outlandish and goes against every dietary guideline that you have ever written about.

See, I think you have the balls to do a complete public 180.  Does the ADA?  No.  Those Heart people?  No.  Hey, why not you?  You don't even have to believe in any of Taubes' theories in order for it to work.  How cool is that?  Seriously, wouldn't it also be really cool to prove him wrong?  In order to do that, you have to try it.  I hope you'll join us.

Sincerely, EB"

After writing the letter I fell asleep and had another big dream.


"I am walking in a dense forest.  The path is so thick with fallen leaves that I can't hear my own footsteps.  Now I fear I am lost.  I see a light ahead, so I go towards it.  It is a gathering.  When I enter the tent, I realize that I have been here before.  Other people motion me to my seat that has been saved for me while I was away.  It is almost time for dinner.


Daphne Oz is sitting next to the fire.  Next to her is a blood-stained atlatl.  Robb Wolf is explaining hunting physics to her.  She looks both intrigued and confused.  I realize that Daphne has ditched vegetarianism to get rid of that last bit of fat that she tries to hide under the stylish salwar she wears on her TV show.  She and Robb talk about how TV makes vegetarians look fat.


Gary Taubes is sitting on the other side, immersed in his field notes.  He brought a giant salami to the dinner.  Reminded of Robb Wolf's podcast where he mentioned that he felt somewhat violated by a fan crush, I try to look away.


Tara Parker-Pope pokes her head in.  She looks exhausted, hungry and thirsty, having been all around the dense forest and getting nowhere.  Betty White, dressed in a Native American blanket, welcomes her.


"Come, we must give thanks!"  and Tara sits down at the circle right between her and Gary.


I am still trying to look away, and to reason with myself.  "Strange dream!  What could it be?  Sometimes a salami is just a salami.  But, shouldn't it be bread with Argentinian Malbec?  Gary offers a piece of the salami to Tara,


"Here, this is for you......"

I'm So Bored with the Paleo's - the Diet Wars

Berto's comment on my previous post got me thinking about my view that this latest Paleo dust-up is more than a couple of egos, that it is a fight between the fatties and the cross-fitters.

Who owns Paleo??

There seem to be two routes into paleo.  The first is through the "crossfit" guys, those who are young and lean, but want to get even more ripped.  This camp also includes young hip vegans who have recently become "meat-curious"

Then there are the "fatties".  It is this group I am going to focus on more now, because this is the path that I took.

Most fatties, as the crossfitters like to call them on the interwebs, start their diet wars by following some CW diet program.  It usually starts with them cutting out some soda and fast food, and that plan does seem to work pretty well for the men, and the younger people.

If reducing junk food doesn't work, they start to try other things.  This might involve skipping breakfast and adding in exercise, or going to a "healthy" low-fat diet containing lots of diet yogurt and Kashi bars.  Or, ordering a turkey burger instead of a beef burger.  If that doesn't work, they go to a cleaner low-fat diet, or mess with their meat intake.  They might add in even more exercise (even though the actual studies show that exercise is a poor way to lose weight, especially for women).  There's probably a stint involving some kind of diet shake or bar in the mix, too.

Lots of times, this plan results in some health improvement and the loss of some weight, probably around 15 pounds or so.  Eventually, if they need to lose more, they might join Weight Watchers, Dr. Oz's ShareCare or even [redacted]people dot com, and get really serious.  Some folks follow the recommendations of these CW organizations for years and never get anywhere.  These are the people you see week after week in WW meetings or racking up lots of "sparky" points.  Mostly fat old women, but there are also lots of younger women with diabetes and PCOS and depression. They usually try lots of things:  vegetarian, vegan, marathons, fasting, juice, etc.  They are eating stuff that Dr. Oz recommends.  Contrary to what the Crossfitters are saying, these fat old ladies aren't eating SAD.  They are failing in their weight loss attempts despite doing all the right things:  Blueberries.  Lean Proteins.  Olive Oil.  Soaked Walnuts.

Now, the crossfitters have NO IDEA what some of these fat old women have been doing to get into better shape all these years. The fat older ladies weigh and measure their food and themselves regularly, eat on small plates, count out each and every nut, count their steps on the pedometer, try just about every diet they can think of.  They recommit every few months or so, or every Monday morning.  One diet they rarely try is the paleo diet.  And that is because the CW diet experts hate paleo.  They don't even want the fat old women to know about it.  That's why people like me aren't allowed to post links to my blog on [redacted]people, and why Dr. Oz can be so nice to the hundreds of guests on his TV show and still be such a little brat to Mr. Taubes.

So, the next crazy thing these fat old ladies try is to cross over to the dark side, and go on a low carb diet.  Now, you have to be either pretty brave or pretty stupid to look into the low carb diet.  Once the fat old women have read GCBC, broken through that barrier, and have lost a bunch of weight, they want to find a way to incorporate healthy clean eating in with low-carb.  That's when they find diets like Protein Power and Paleo.  Again, most Crossfitters assume that they are all on Atkins, and that all those Atkin's people eat tons of bars and fake stuff.  Some do, most don't.

Now, the real problem is, they have just escaped the tyranny of CW, only to be hit with conventional crap talk by the paleo blogosphere. (Aravind and Dr. Harris come to mind here.)  For me, I really noticed it on Paleohacks in early summer, and then after the AHS11, all hell broke loose.  There were lots of comments about low-carbers having puffy red faces, and the "who does that Taubes guy think he is?" kind of stuff.  There was also a systemic disregard for the experiences, intelligence and viewpoints of fat people.  Earlier this year, I sent a ton of my hundreds of fat [redacted]peeps over to the Paleo blogs, but they had become such an embarassment, and downright hostile to fat people that I no longer recommend most of the sites anymore.

I came to think that not only was this much more than just science, as some penned, but that it was much more than mere battling egos.  It was about bashing fat old people, and in the most CW way.

I really noticed a shift at AHS11, right after Taubes made his comment.  The man next to me, who apparently heard about the paleo diet only yesterday and clearly (to me at least) was never fat, had an interesting response to the exchange.  Of course, he hadn't read anything about Guyenet's theories or had read any of Taubes' books.  He kept trying to lecture me about carbs.  He said, "You know, why do you talk about eliminating carbs, don't you know there are carbs in that food you're eating?"  (I was munching on a fairly unrewarding raw zucchini.)  Huh?  Duh?  Who knows more about the carb content of foods than a low-carber???  It was clear that he was not aware of low-carb talk and his belief that fat people are stupid was showing.  (Primer:  "carbs" are foods that contain lots of carbs, foods on the carby list, like potatoes, rice, wheat.  Zucchini is not on that list.  Yes, we know that zucchini contains carbs but it is not a "carb".)

During and immediately after the conference, there was a flurry of attacks against fat people by the paleo demi-gods.  And, I am not talking about the luminaries who spoke and who have the largest audience for their books and blogs, but more the commenters and hangers-on-ers, the people who think because they read some stuff or know someone really well, that they can define how it is for everyone else.  Just really nasty stuff, all just different versions of, "Fat people are fat because they are lazy and weak-willed."

So, do Guyenet and his buddies have anything better to offer to fat people?  They already get scoldings by CW dietitians and exercise coaches for eating saturated fat and not moving enough, get lectures on belly fat and portion control by their doctors, told it's calories in calories out, and then told they are stupid Dr.Oz-watchers who eat too much tasty food and cheat on their food diaries.  What's next, all your food through a straw (oh, we did that in the 70's, remember jaws wired shut?), or size 3X hair shirts with tight belts so they are even more uncomfortable?  Let's take their kids and health insurance away, fine them, discriminate against them in employment and take all their salt and pepper and their wok away until they behave themselves.

In the paleo world, carbs aren't the enemy anymore.  Fat people, people who have different body chemistries and reactions to dietary interventions are the enemy.  This is so much bigger than Taubes vs. Guyenet.  Stanton and Kruse have both commented that they don't have a horse in this race.  Well, maybe Taubes and Guyenet and Lustig and others are competing with each other.  But they are just messing around with theories.  The real fat people are messing around with their health.  Maybe Taubes and Guyenet have placed their bets, but it is the real fat people who are truly in the race.

Well it ain't Rocket Science, ain't It?

Reading Gary Taubes post this weekend got me thinking of the first time I worked with a bunch of PhD's.  I used to work at a mega-company known for its research.  In my department, there were a few, but then there was this other whole building of them.  Chemists mostly.  Tons of them, all walking around in their lab coats in nice hallways and better offices.  They had their own library.  They even had better pens than we did.

One thing I learned pretty quickly is that many of these chemists thought that when they got their fancy diploma, God had also included a key to all universal knowledge and wisdom.  And I also learned pretty quickly that I had better behave as if they were gods themselves, or my career would be about as terminal as my degree.

One day I went on an interview for a job in another division.  I was led into the office of the big VP.  He was a chemist and he had a PhD.  After the hello's, I started right in.

"Oh, you have a PhD", I gushed, "I'll bet you are really smart".  The VP answered,
"Not really.  Just persevering"
I thought, hey, I could work here!  At that moment, thousands of Canadian geese started flying around the building and they all landed right by the lake outside the VP's window.  We both decided that it was a delightful birdy omen.  I started work there the very next day.

One of the things I learned while working at the birdy place is that there are some very smart people who don't feel the need to tell everyone about it all the time.  They just quietly do their work and get things done, and through other people mostly.  I have been able to meet and work with others like this throughout my career, and it is such a pleasure.

Now, its not all PhD's who think they are such hot stuff, but many do.  And, some think that because they are from those fine institutions, they are smarter than all the others.  So here's what I have to say about that.  First, PhD's think they are the cream of the crop, but really they are only the top percentage out of all the people who apply.  Not a good representative sample of the entire population, I think.  Now maybe it is different in chemistry, but in my field, the only people who went along to higher learning right away were the dorks who couldn't get either a decent date or a decent job.  The rest of us (the smart, cute ones) were going off, getting married, making money.  So, if they were in the top 10 percent of the people who tried to continue on to grad school, well, they were still uglier than me and good luck with that.

Second, there was sure lots of crap talk on Guyenet's and others' blogs about the fact that Taubes doesn't have a PhD.  But really, the only advantage anymore to getting an education at some fine institution is that someone is checking your work and grading your papers.  There is quite a bit of interesting and challenging research work done in the private sector, and just because it doesn't get handed in to the agreed-upon professor for grading doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.  In fact, it may be more worthwhile.  In addition, the people who did the work usually were adequately compensated for their work.

Taubes can read and research all he wants on the internet.  If he wants someone to grade his papers, he can join any number of clubs and groups on Facebook and elsewhere or pop an e-mail to just about anyone.  It's not rocket science. 

One other thing I eventually learned about working at the birdy place is that I was brought in exactly because I knew absolutely nothing about what had gone on before.  It was my job to figure it out.  No need to be too smart for that, just persevering.  They already had alot of smart people, just that not enough were looking for the right things.

Gosh, someone needs to figure out this obesity mess!  Why not the rocket scientist?
And to end, here's another interesting take on rocket science here.  Enjoy!

I'm So Bored with the Paleo's - Part 3 - My N=1

After reading Hyperlipid's take on the Guyenet/Taubes smackdown, I realized that I had better get out part 3 of my series before everyone is so exhausted from it all.  No need to do an experiment in food reward.  I already have.  Of course, to Guyenet's homies, it is still N=0, but I'm posting it anyway.  So there.  (This is the snarky part, now, on to the serious part.)

A few years ago, I participated in a year-long "food experiment".  I became a locavore.  And, it was bigger than N=1.  You can read about it here.

The plan was for us to eat food grown within 100 miles of Ojai.  Pretty much everything was to be local, except salt and 3 exception foods per month.  And, we were allowed 2 meals out per month. (I didn't know this at the time, but this experiment was to be the start of my journey towards the paleo diet.  I'd never even heard of a paleo diet and I was a semi-vegetarian.)  Every month, we switched out our exceptions.  I usually chose a grain, some kind of meat, and something different, like coffee.  Many others chose chocolate.

A few weeks into the challenge, things loosened up a bit.  We voted in canning additives like citric acid, yeast, and one rule that turned out to be really helpful for me, that if there was something that was going to be thrown away, that was OK to eat, too.  (And its just amazing what people throw out, once you start paying attention, but that is for another post.)

We had different rules for out of town, and I figure that I was out of town for a total of almost three months out of the year.  But, I didn't eat SAD food when I was gone.  Mostly it was scratch cooking.  And, when I visited my mom for a few weeks, it was low-fat "diet" scratch cooking, just not local.

I figure that taking into consideration all the exceptions, vacations and dumpster food, I was eating about a 75% local primal/paleo diet, better than many I saw at the AHS11.  There, that's my disclaimer, but I'll bet I have a better food log than those folks over at the Foster's POUNDS LOST study.

So, what were we eating?  Fresh veggies and fruit, backyard eggs, chickens when we could get them, goat meat.  A few months into the challenge, we found a local source of beef, and then some local beans.  The only oil was made from olives.  Southern California isn't a big place for growing grains, so we had just a few of those that we grew ourselves.  But we did have olives, avocado, and every kind of fruit and vegetable, though not all year-round.

I had an advantage over others in the group in that I had access to my own home-grown food, lots of local veggies and fruits that I had canned, dehydrated and grown during the year before and in my 4-season garden.  Others were able to enjoy backyard chickens and eggs that I was prohibited from growing in my yard.

What didn't we have?  Well, lots of things that Guyenet says are rewarding.  Things like packaged foods, msg, HFCS, bread, chips and dip, cooking oil, chocolate, soda, sugar, bottled salad dressings, spices, seasonings, flavorings, crackers, oatmeal, peanuts, cereal, fast-food, potatoes, soy sauce, ice cream, catsup, mustard.  We DID make good use of our exceptions.  On the months that I choose turkey, I ate turkey almost every day.  Then I would switch to beans and then eat them every day.  It was boring at times, especially all the rice.

Eventually, I figured out how to make my own mustard out of the seeds I grew, made with vinegar from apples I purchased at the farmer's market the year before.  What surprised most of us is how our palates changed.  It took really only a couple of weeks, and we got very used to eating foods with no extra spices or seasoning, just a few herbs, garlic and olive oil.

I bought a large container of honey, but rarely used it.  Most of us did no baking because we didn't have flour.  Eventually I stopped seasoning everything, even though I had a stash of dried herbs and hot pepper.

So, without all the food reward, how much weight did we lose?????  We all thought once we got away from that bag of chips and the take-out food, the weight would pour off.  I think I lost around 2-4 pounds for the entire year, but mostly because I really pushed the dieting during the last month of the challenge.  I don't think anyone else lost any weight.  We were all surprised.  After all, people had been telling us that if we got away from all that nasty processed food, we would become thin.  It didn't happen that way.  That is because that theory is wrong.

Stay tuned for my next story:  all about what happened with wheat on the locavore challenge...

Ancestral Health Symposium 2011 - Dreams, Memories, Reflections

OK, here's my take (and I stole the second part of the title from Carl Jung).  First, I am STILL trying to get caught up after clearing a couple of days from my calendar to attend.

First Impression

Everyone is shorter, thinner, younger, healthier-looking and just plain all-around-better-looking than their internet photos.  Oh, and so nice!  I disagree a bit with Dr. Emily Deans on the personalities.  People are lots tougher on their blogs.  Come to think of it, I wasn't all that snarky either.  Maybe it was in the water.

Second Impression

Despite being global trekkers, Paleo rock stars, or credentialed researchers, people don't know how to drive in LA.  Lots of serious misunderestimation of the time it takes to get to the next town, or just a short stretch down the highway.  Hope it goes better for you next time.  We want to see you there early and refreshed so we can get more pictures and stalk you better.

Third Impression

Some people were there to attend a technical/scientific conference.  Some were there to attend a festival and meet and mingle with rock stars.  At times, there wasn't alot of mingling between the two groups, both in space and in thought.  I was at the back of the room during the Guyenet/Taubes exchange and said to my neighbor, "Wow, did you hear that?" and he said, "Yea, what a jerk!"  But it was obvious to me that Taubes was attending a technical conference.  I found that the exchange was similar to the Feinman/Lustig exchange.  They were attending a technical conference, too.  For people at technical conferences, this is no big deal.  Hey people, if you don't want controversy and can't take the heat, don't let people like Taubes or Lustig into your audience.  Just do your webcasts and delete their comments. 
My neighbor was attending the rock festival, and hadn't read either Taubes books or Guyenet's food reward hypothesis blogposts.  He also seemed to not have much of an idea as to why some people are on low-carb paleo plans.  It was also clear to me that he doesn't attend technical conferences much.  But it was probably a good idea that we were sitting next to each other.
I was personally in the rooms where these exchanges took place, so my impression is not based on heresay.  I did hear about Dr. Kruse's exchange after one session.  Some people reacted negatively to that exchange as well.  I am sure that if I had heard it first-hand, I would have heard more the passion than anything.

Impression 4

Mark Sisson is HOT!  No not just that way, he has a really high metabolism.  I sat next to him during Dr. Eades presentation, and I needed a fan!

Fun Story

I told Gary Taubes that I had actually read his WHOLE book GCBC.  He told me I didn't need to read the other one.  I feel like I got a free hall pass.  How cool is that???  (Gary, if you are reading this, I want to know that I did read your cold fusion book, too, just not all of it yet.)

After-Impression 1

I read a bunch of stuff on the internets about the possible discovery that people on low-carb diets have puffy red faces.  I saw Dr. Kruse face-to-face and he looked sunburned to me.  The original post is  here.  I don't think stuff like this moves the cause forward.  I haven't responded online yet to this issue, but what I will say here is that since I went low carb, inflammation everywhere has gone down considerably.  Everyone knows that Dr. K was bobbing up and down into the salt water the day before, looking for his phone.  I don't know how the OP knows what everyone eats unless there was a macro-nutrient scanner at the entry doors.  They were cell-phone-scanning tickets, but I was not aware that phone technology has progressed so far.

After-Impression 2

Are black people all neolithic?  Where were they?  There were a couple of Latino's, a handful or two of Asians, and the rest all white.  This doesn't bode well for the paleo movement.  Some go on about how we don't need to eliminate entire food groups, but have we eliminated entire races?  There was lots of talk about Inuits and Kitavans, like people to study, not people to sit next to at a conference.
Most people I know get into paleo to lose weight and get healthy.  Many do this through a low-carb version.  I am troubled by what I have been reading the past few days on the internets.  Paleo folks, we can't expect a movement to grow if we trash the very people out there are are the most likely to try it.  We can't trash women, gays, fat people, old people with puffy red faces, vegetarians, Dr. Oz viewers, or others we currently disagree with.  If it is just by and for 30-year-old men and their six-packs, it will never lose the cult-like impression.

I have introduced several people to paleo, but frankly, too many people think it is some sort of weird cult.  I can't get some of my science buddies to even take a look.  I have sent some friends to the Mark's Daily Apple forum or to Paleohacks, but they come back telling me that the are full of alot of creeps.  Paleo's need to decide if they want to be the next big movement, or last years' faddish clique.

Gary Taubes gets Tested, and his LDL is as Fluffy as his Breakfast Eggs

Many dear readers remember watching Gary Taubes on Dr. Oz, and wondered why he declined to take a cholesterol test.
In a nutshell, Taubes refused to do the test that was available that day, since total cholesterol isn't much of a predictor of anything.  He did agree to do a test if he could measure the things that he feels are appropriate.  Some of those tests aren't routine, and the results wouldn't have been available on the day of the taping.
In my opinion, Taubes was set up and tricked by the people who run the Dr. Oz show.  Even though the issue had been discussed and settled before the taping began, Dr. Oz still threw the question out there anyway.  Taubes' surprised response is because he thought the issue had already been settled, but Oz brought it up and really tried to hammer it home.
Cheap shot Dr. Oz.  I have been wary of watching the show ever since this was aired.  I have never seen another guest ambushed on the show.  Gary Taubes didn't deserve this.  You said you didn't want to set Taubes up, but you set him up anyway.
Here's Taubes' excellent test results:
http://www.garytaubes.com/2011/04/before-sugar-were-talking-about-cholesterol/
Some who argue against a low-carb diet point to the well-known fact that "bad" LDL usually rises while on such a diet.  But they fail to point out that it is also well-known that there are different types of LDL, some are good, some are bad.  A low-carb, high-fat diet raises the amount of "good", "fluffy" LDL and a high-carb, low-fat diet raises the amounts of "bad" LDL.  (But my readers still aren't that impressed, because they know that a risk factor isn't a cause!)  Other researchers discount these tests altogether, believing that the lipid measures are a marker for type of diet, not any disease.
Here's Taubes' take on the Dr. Oz ordeal:
http://www.garytaubes.com/2011/03/dose-of-intervention-land-of-dr-oz/
And you can also check out Taubes' interview with Jimmy Moore on Livin' La Vida Low Carb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQKH3sqjcDU

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!