Re: review of "Good Calories, Bad Calories"

In practice, calories is a meaningless unit of measure for those of us
without bomb calorimeters (ie nearly all of us).

For this reason, calories are neither good nor bad.

Be hungry... be healthy... be hungrier... be blessed:

http://HeartMDPhD.com/PressRelease

Prayerfully in the infinite power and might of the Holy Spirit,

Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Lawful steward of http://EmoryCardiology.com
Bondservant to the KING of kings and LORD of lords.

MarilynMann wrote:
Good Calorie, Bad Calories
By GINA KOLATA
Published: October 7, 2007

Gary Taubes is a brave and bold science journalist who does not accept
conventional wisdom. In "Good Calories, Bad Calories," he says what he
wants is a fair hearing and rigorous testing for ideas that might seem
shocking.

His thesis, first introduced in a much-debated article in The New York
Times Magazine in 2002 challenging the low-fat diet orthodoxy, is that
nutrition and public health research and policy have been driven by
poor science and a sort of pigheaded insistence on failed hypotheses.
As a result, people are confused and misinformed about the
relationship between what they eat and their risk of growing fat. He
expands that thesis in the new book, arguing that the same confused
reasoning and poor science has led to misconceptions about the
relation between diet and heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer,
dementia, diabetes and, again, obesity. When it comes to determining
the ideal diet, he says, we have to "confront the strong possibility
that much of what we've come to believe is wrong." The best diet, he
argues, is one loaded with protein and fat but very low in
carbohydrates.

Taubes spent five years working on the book, which runs to more than
450 pages. The bibliography alone goes on for more than 60 pages. He
also says he interviewed more than 600 doctors, researchers and
administrators, though he adds that "the appearance of their names in
the text ... does not imply that they agree with all or even part of
the thesis set forth in this book." Taubes does not bow to the current
fashion for narrative nonfiction, instead building his argument case
by case, considering the relationship between dietary fat and heart
disease, carbohydrates and disease, diet and obesity. As a result, the
book can be hard to read, tedious in many places and repetitious.

Yet much of what Taubes relates will be eye-opening to those who have
not closely followed the science, or lack of science, in this area.
(Disclosure: At one point he approvingly cites my articles on the lack
of evidence that a high-fiber diet protects against colon cancer.) For
example, he tells the amazing story of how the idea of a connection
between dietary fat, cholesterol and heart disease got going and took
on a life of its own, despite the minimal connection between dietary
cholesterol and blood cholesterol for most people. He does not mince
words. "From the inception of the diet-heart hypothesis in the early
1950s, those who argued that dietary fat caused heart disease
accumulated the evidential equivalent of a mythology to support their
belief. These myths are still passed on faithfully to the present
day." The story is similar for salt and high blood pressure, and for
dietary fiber and cancer.

In fact, Taubes convincingly shows that much of what is believed about
nutrition and health is based on the flimsiest science. To cite one
minor example, there's the notion that a tiny bit of extra food, 50 or
100 calories a day - a few bites of a hamburger, say - can gradually
make you fat, and that eating a tiny bit less each day, or doing
something as simple as walking a mile, can make the weight slowly
disappear. This idea is based on a hypothesis put forth in a single
scientific paper, published in 2003. And even then it was qualified,
Taubes reports, by the statement that it was "theoretical and involves
several assumptions" and that it "remains to be empirically tested."
Nonetheless, it has now become the basis for an official federal
recommendation for obesity prevention.

But the problem with a book like this one, which goes on and on in
great detail about experiments new and old in areas ranging from heart
disease to cancer to diabetes, is that it can be hard to know what has
been left out. For example, Taubes argues at length that people get
fat because carbohydrates in their diet drive up the insulin level in
the blood, which in turn encourages the storage of fat. His
conclusion: all calories are not alike. A calorie of fat is much less
fattening than a calorie of sugar.

It's known, though, that the body is not so easily fooled. Taubes
ignores what diabetes researchers say is a body of published papers
documenting a complex system of metabolic controls that, in the end,
assure that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. He also ignores
definitive studies done in the 1950s and '60s by Jules Hirsch of
Rockefeller University and Rudolph Leibel of Columbia, which tested
whether calories from different sources have different effects. The
investigators hospitalized their subjects and gave them controlled
diets in which the carbohydrate content varied from zero to 85
percent, and the fat content varied inversely from 85 percent to zero.
Protein was held steady at 15 percent. They asked how many calories of
what kind were needed to maintain the subjects' weight. As it turned
out, the composition of the diet made no difference.

As I read Taubes's book, I kept wondering how he would deal with an
obvious question. If low-carbohydrate diets are so wonderful, why is
anyone fat? Most people who struggle with their weight have tried
these diets and nearly all have regained everything they lost, as they
do with other diets. What is the problem?

On Page 446, he finally tells us. Carbohydrates, he says, are
addictive, and we've all gotten hooked. Those who try to break the
habit start to crave them, just as an alcoholic craves a drink or a
smoker craves a cigarette. But, he adds, if they are addictive, that
"implies that the addiction can be overcome with sufficient time,
effort and motivation."

I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced.

Gina Kolata is a medical reporter for The Times and the author of
"Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss and the Myths and
Realities of Dieting."

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: This is different
    ... You're trying to lose fat stores so you need ... calories food that derives the majority of those calories from protein ... So it would seem that a high protein, low calorie, ... it's the most effective diet if your goal is to lose ...
    (rec.games.computer.ultima.dragons)
  • Weight Control: No Magic: A calorie is a calorie
    ... metabolic magic in taking in equal amounts of energy (calories) in ... Low fat diets failed, not for the reason you stated. ... In one of the famous Hawaiian diet studies, ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: Dr. McDougalls Recommendations:
    ... >"The ADA diet allows up to 30% fat by calories." ... >to have upto about 40% of their callories from fat. ... the ADA makes the general recommendation for fat to make ... Why doesn't this mean one should eat a high fat diet if one ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: Gary Taubes interview at Seths Blog
    ... macronutrient content to an equal calorie diet containing low carb/ ... He maintaines that subjects will lose weight on the high carb/low fat ... "Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, ... Energy intake required to maintain body weight is not affected by ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: We should all eat like a Mediterranean
    ... trigger fat burning. ... > I have read many articles about eating like a Mediterranean. ... > Calories are a form of energy. ... Following a diet that consists of the proper ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)