Thirty Years of Glycemic Index Dogma, and The American GI Man

The former British colonies/territories may be known for a lot of things, but in the nutrition world, I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that the Glycemic Index - GI - is the trifecta.

In Canada, David Jenkins pioneered the concept, for applications in diabetes treatment.  This caused was picked up and concurrently championed in Australia by Janette (Jenny) Brand-Miller.  A little late to the party, in one of the original Thirteen, David Ludwig took up the cause in the USofA.  Are these the men and woman who made us fat?

Adapted from Adele Hite's Eathropology
image link

Yes, that's pretty silly ... but no moreso than Adele Hite and others like her who in the same breath decry the error in equating correlation with causation as they point to plots like the one above to indict the low fat diet.

EPIC Fitness Summit Podcast

Hey all!

In all of the "IRL" commotion last fall, I neglected to put up an announcement of my appearance in the UK this May.  

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Here's the general website:  EPIC Fitness Summit.  As you can see, I'm in some pretty ridiculously cool company (not to mention being the only female speaker!) and there will be two much anticipated debates.  I'm not going to lie, it's pretty intimidating to be sure, and I feel a bit of a fish out of water as sports nutrition is not really my focus.  But this is a nutrition focused event, and I'll be talking about all the sorts of things CARBS that I talk about here on the blog.   Still tossing around the exacts in my head -- after all Alan Aragon will have taken down Gary Taubes in that debate, and James Krieger will have already covered all things insulin, on the day before, so I've got my work cut out to put a different twist on things.  I've got some ideas brewing and it's going to rock, if I dare say so myself.

Science Made Simple ~ Of Causation & Correlation

Summary:

If A and B are significantly correlated, then:

• A MAY cause B, or
• B MAY cause A, or
• Any number of other factors could correlate with A and B such that these two variables "track" together.

If A and B are not correlated, then it is exceedingly improbable that any of the above are true.  

Shorter Summary:

Correlation does not equal causation, but without correlation, there's no causation.

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2015: An Update

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

What?  It's the 18th already?  Yeah ... well ... that's about par for the course for me lately.

I haven't updated much personally on this blog for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, because this is not a blog about my personal journey.  I realize that some of my critics don't seem capable of grasping that point, but that is what it is.  In addition, while threats to my security, that began to develop almost 3 years ago, have abated somewhat in the past year, they have not disappeared entirely ... and the internet, for better or worse, has a long memory.  Hopefully things continue to improve on that front, and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you'll never have to!

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes ~ Reference Check Posts

All posts thus far in the series specific to checking references in Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.   (To be bumped and/or added to periodically)

1. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part I of ? ~ Metabolic Adaptability & Energy Balance
2. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part II of ? ~ Insulin Resistance (again)
3. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part III of ? ~ Is glycerol phosphate rate-limiting?
4. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part IV of ? ~ Kipnis
5. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part V of ? ~ Insulin Resistance: Taubes v. McGarry
6. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VI of ? ~ The Massa
7. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VII of ? ~ Julius Bauer's Lipophilia Hypothesis
8. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VIII of ? ~ The Paleo Diet
9. GCBC Reference Check ~ Part IX of ? ~ Every Woman Knows Carbs Are Fattening

GCBC Reference Check ~ Part IX of ? ~ Every Woman Knows Carbs Are Fattening

  Every woman knows that carbohydrate is fattening 

Most wouldn't even need to do a search on that phrase and Taubes to recall how frequently Gary Taubes mentions this quote.  Here is the highlight in Good Calories, Bad Calories.

{Kindle Location 7624}

Taubes repeated this quote in relatively recent editorials in the New York Times, and even the British Medical Journal.   Innumerable others have dragged it out in their own iterations of Taubes' so-called Alternate Hypothesis.   It was indeed a quote published in the British Journal of Nutrition.  So far so good.  What is not featured prominently, per usual for Mr. Taubes, is the nature of the source:  Observations on the respiratory quotients and weight gain of man after eating large quantities of carbohydrate.

H-G Food Procurement Strategies

In the Incestral Health Community, HG stands for Hunter-Gatherer.  If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times over the years:  humans are hunter-gatherers at heart.  True enough.  We are, after all, animals and at some ancient point we behaved just like any other wild animal seeking sustenance.  

Fast forward, and most in the IHC think Jared Diamond was correct when he wrote The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race.  In that 1987 article, Diamond lays out his case for why human domestication of both plants and animals for food was not, as is commonly held, progress for our species after all.  In keeping with the HG acronym, the human transition from Hunter-Gatherer to Herder-Gardener has been nothing short of a disaster according to Diamond.

Of course the irony is totally lost on the paleos as they sit down to a meal of prime rib topped with ghee and that kale and avocado salad on the side.  Perhaps some 90% cacao with coconut butter to round out the meal ...

Harvest from a Three Sisters Garden
direct image link

But the paleo community is often rife with misrepresentations of other HG food procurement strategies.  While these folks would prefer you to focus on the select few northern tribes that were pure hunter gatherers, it would be safe to say that most of the tribes native to the Americas were Hunter-Gardeners.  

Payleo™ Schneckenfeude

Several months ago, I began writing a post entitled Paleo Schneckenfeude, inspired by the concept of schadenfreude and the misfortunes brought on one faction of the paleo community by other factions, and vice versa.  I never published it up, because the "sell by" date had definitely passed before I had the time.  But I will use the title here, with the addition of the term Payleo™ to the IHC lexicon, courtesy of the latest high profile Guy to jump ship.

Schadenfreude [shädən froidə]  from the German: schaden (damage) and freude (joy).  

Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Yes, it is fair to say that there is no love lost between me and most in the paleo wing of the IHC, and I am experiencing a tinge of guilty enjoyment in watching the coconut fed chickens coming home to roost yet again.


Schneckenfeude ...

The Evolution of Schnecken?

That New Volek (& Phinney) Study: Part III ~ Science or Advocacy?

LC Biomarker Bingo

OK ... before I begin on this, let me say this has languished in the draft hopper probably past it's usable publish date :-)  So first, I'll give a belated shout out to Kevin Klatt over at Nutrevolve blog for taking a close look at this study and "getting it out there" in rapid time!  Carbs, SFAs, and Circulating Fatty Acids.





Effects of Step-Wise Increases in Dietary Carbohydrate on Circulating Saturated Fatty Acids and Palmitoleic Acid in Adults with Metabolic Syndrome

I confess to skimming it b/c the last time he scooped me Kevin wrote so much of what was in my head I wasn't sure how to formulate the parts I still wanted to discuss without sounding repetitious.  For me, this study and its media blitz has hit a nerve and awoken my interest in a topic I had gotten a bit side tracked from.  It's almost a perfect ending to this year of what can only be described as utter insanity in the nutrition world.  

So, with that said, I won't be doing any further analysis of this study ... this will be the last post on this paper per se.  It's not worth the attention it received.  Instead it will provide a foil for discussing the rank dishonesty permeating the low carb "scientific" community.

A Ma Pi Meta

Hello all!  A quick follow-on post to yesterday's offering on the Ma-Pi2 diet for diabetes.  This diet is vegan, grain based (brown rice, millet, barley), includes legumes and copious veggies, and "macrobiotic" foods like seaweed and green tea.  

Recent Post:  Vegan Ma-Pi Diet Bests "Conventional Treatment" for Diabetes in Recent RCT

Previous Posts:  Carbohydrate and Diabetes, Carbohydrate and Diabetes II

I want to make clear that my purpose for blogging on this particular diet is not one of advocacy.   I don't believe there is any evidence for humanity avoiding all animal derived sustenance and, sorry, but the Ma-Pi diet does seem a rather austere one to me.   Furthermore, I am offering no comment on the "macrobiotic" claims and whether the inclusion of some of these special foods is integral to the success of these programs.  When looking at the success of programs such as native Hawaiian diets (discussed here), and others, which neither contain special foods and include some animal products (chicken in the case of the Hawaiian trial), my best educated guess is that they are not magical.  That said, seaweed may act as a "supplement" of sorts.