Guyenet v. Taubes: Random Thoughts on the Reaction

Now that I've weighed in with my thoughts on Stephan Guyenet's disassembling of Taubes' "Carbohydrate Hypothesis", I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the reactions of others to his posts (including the first one responding to the "drama at AHS").

First, although clearly many still (as well they should and hopefully always will) hold Stephan in high regard, the mere fact that he addressed the altercation at all has drawn the criticism of some.  I found the seemingly well-meaning-sounding comments of Andreas Eenfeldt to be especially bothersome in this regard.  Honestly folks, how many of you have been in a situation where you were caught by surprise by something only to think later -- gosh, I should have said that!  Or perhaps, I wish I had the time to look into that for a better response, or merely had more time to respond period.  Don't get me wrong, Stephan did well in that exchange.  But clearly he had more to say in response to Taubes' questions and/or wanted to share more thoughts with his readers.    For the life of me I can't see what's wrong with that, nor do I see what is so wrong with the "people who live in glass houses" written/online response vs. the "thanks for the advice" live one.  I thought the live one was witty and cool, but the glass houses one is actually more to the point as it calls Gary out on his hypocrisy -- much needed to say the least.  Why is it a one-way street for so many of these LC promoters?  Why was it OK for Gary to offer that advice, even if he apologized, and not for Stephan to essentially stick up for himself and point out that Gary is guilty of his charges?  Is it that somehow any who disagree with LC dogma are expected to take some stratospheric road all the time while these guys (and gals) muck around in the trenches ruthlessly abusing anyone who doesn't agree with them?  Oh ... and it is sooo funny when they do it too, right?


No, this is clearly a debating tactic of this faction, and it is nothing but the ad hominem attacks they decry in disguise.  Nonsense I say!  What happened here was that Taubes tried to sucker punch Stephan and missed.  Live this played out as Taubes falling when he failed to connect and Stephan stepping over him on his way out of the ring.  On his blog Stephan blocked the punch and threw a few legal ones in return in a match initiated by Gary's challenge.  I'm hoping the bell for round 1 has not yet rung, or that we get some sort of tandem thing going like in WWE with some other ancestral/paleo or other bloggers climbing in.

There also seems to be this large group that feels one cannot be critical of any of Taubes theories because to do so might discredit others.  They seem especially protective of the whole saturated fat and cholesterol part of GCBC.  I say be not afraid.  Others like Malcolm Kendrick have your backs and the science supporting  your views is pretty solid.  Well ... let me qualify that, and say that consuming normal amounts of saturated fat in a relatively balanced diet does not seem to be unhealthy and may well improve health.  I do think the jury is still out on eating the amounts some do -- of any fat for that matter -- on their very high fat diets.  In any case to try to stifle debate on topic A because of topic B is silly.  And unfortunately, it appears that the diet doctor is protecting the franchise here a bit.  This is seemingly more a "movement" in Sweden than it is here in the US or on the internet.  The draw of this is obvious -- going against the mainstream and feeling like you have science on your side.  The sentiment seems to be "if you don't agree, that's OK just so long as you don't tell anyone else".  Stephan is but the latest "traitor" to a cause he never really seemed to be a part of to begin with, which I've always found a bit odd.  

It's too late for me (and probably most of you) to do this, but if you haven't already read Stephan's "drama" post, it might be an interesting lesson in how the LC dogmatists warp perceptions to read the comments first.  Because some of them read like the devil now doth possess Stephan and he said some mean things about Gary.  Bring back the old Stephan one cried!  Just because GT apparently later apologized to Stephan all should be forgiven and forgotten ... and let's move on ... nothing to see here.  Does YOUR world work that way?  Apologies are wonderful, but they do not undo what has transpired.  Only future actions to make amends can mitigate but never erase a transgression.  I think a prompt and open apology on, say, his blog would have gone a long way for Gary to save face, and it would probably have netted Stephan a bigger drubbing if he published the exact same posts after receiving such.  But what I've learned is that timing and strategy in dealing with criticism are really not Gary's strong suit.  There's no reason to believe his thinking would be any clearer in this situation, and he should have done it by now if he ever intended to.  Still, it would do nothing what transpired, and Stephan should not feel bound, IMO, by some ridiculous gentlemen-when-convenient scientists code in responding to the meat of the matter.  Which is just what he did in his next post.  

Still, many of the reactions around the web deal with Stephan and defend Taubes' honor, and have nothing to do with what he wrote vis a vis Taubes' hypothesis.  And worse, they mock him for his food reward hypothesis simply because their n=1 experience doesn't seem to mesh with it.  FWIW, my own experiences don't seem to mesh with FW & setpoint theories, but that doesn't disprove it.  It just makes for some observations that it doesn't adequately explain.  So personally I think there's merit to FW but I just disagree that the mechanism is via a resetting of the setpoint for body fat regulation.  And I maintain that, at least once one is obese, but probably contributing to its development in many, higher brain function overrides any of these homeostatic mechanisms.  If not ... why are not all low carbers effortlessly slim?  Atkins popularized the diet almost 40 years ago before the obesity epidemic even got traction.  People are undergoing radical surgery in desperation in record numbers (with great success but also considerable recidivism) ... if just cutting carbs were the solution don't you think it would have worked by now??????  

OK ... so, some general responses  to Stephan's recent blogging, and my commentary -- in no particular order.  The bolded words are not mine, they are me paraphrasing comments about the web.

Stephan's wrong therefore Taubes is right after all:  These responses are predicated on the assumption that these two are alternate hypotheses.  I contend that in a heterogenous condition such as obesity with so many possible causes that cannot be independent of one another, the whole notion of a singular hypothesis is fantasy ... let alone that we can formulate two competing hypotheses where it is either A or B, never A and B, and not possibly C or any other explanation.  So in this regard, just like it really matters not whether I'm a legit low carber, thin-as-a-rail or fatter-than-Kimmer, it doesn't matter much if Stephan's hypothesis was wrong, that doesn't make the case against TWICHOO weaker on the merits.  It may make one more inclined to scrutinize the studies Stephan cites to make sure they support his assertions, but when you find that they do the source could have been Durian Rider for all anybody should care.  This is about science, right?

Stephan and Taubes can both be right:  This twist on the response is to try to reconcile food reward with carbohydrates.  I say why bother?  Each is different and must stand on its own merits as to how the hypothesis fits the evidence.  There are enough carb eating human black swans living on planet Earth today, billions in fact, to falsify Taubes.  Period.  Stop stressing your brains to reconcile how food reward and your beloved carb/insulin dogma can co-exist peacefully so you can keep liking Stephan.  Keep liking him because you do and you don't have to stop liking Gary just cuz he's wrong.

Food Reward theory doesn't explain obese poor mothers with starving babies:  It doesn't have to, but it may very well explain it if we were provided all of the information.  It can't be repeated enough, because some never seem to "hear" it.  Stephan said FR is A dominant factor.  A = singular, dominant factor indicates there are other factors and does not preclude that some of those may also be dominant.  To say that one Klitschko is a dominant force in boxing does not mean the other is not, or that a boxer named other than Klitschko cannot fit that description as well.

Stephan is an insulting idiot who doesn't understand fat people and what makes them fat:  This seems to be the prevailing sentiment on LC forum threads such as this one (among many)  and the now-deleted commentary of one seemingly woofully distraught person.  It seems to boil down to an argument that since food reward ultimately goes through a CICO path to obesity (aka taking in more energy than one expends)  Stephan is merely trying to find a more highly-minded scientific way of calling fat people gluttons and sloths.  And I do find it interesting that while many don't take offense to the Eades' and Taubes' of the world telling them "just don't eat carb", they do take offense to Stephan suggesting they choose less rewarding foods prepared at home and stop eating the highly processed crap with engineered hyperpalatability.  That, they protest, would be unsustainable, but subsisting on fatty meats and greens for the rest of your life ... now that is a workable solution to this hot mess.  Please.  

I'm sick of listening to skinny guys with degrees and their scientific mumbo jumbo:  I actually agree with this to an extent.  Except that many of the gurus they do listen to are skinny guys with degrees.  Or worse, they're less than skinny guys with degrees, or worse they're less than skinny people (male or female) with or without degrees.  If any of those ALC'ers are reading this, consider for a moment that I am a whole lot more like you than you think.  I've been there.    I've even used a version of low carb (mostly VLC) to lose a lot of weight -- likely 100 lbs -- and keep it off without that dang weight cycling.   I don't really care what y'all think of me but really, read your own words ladies (mostly) and get a grip -- or it will be another two years from right now and I'll be reading the same old same old from you as you continue your quest for some magical solution.  If all the studies and the long term results from GBP tell us anything it is that scientists can come up with theories upon theories and unless you're that rare human who has a genetic condition akin to a Zucker diabetic rat, the reason you can't lose and maintain the losses has less to do with the diet than the mind after all ... and I'm not talking the hypothalamus and leptin.  If you've lost the weight and you're regaining then perhaps seek leptin therapy or get in some study or whatever.  Go have your BMR actually measured so you know what you're working with.  And if all else fails only you can decide for yourself what puts you at higher risk:  remaining obese because no diet seems to stick for you or bariatric surgery.  Get gene tested or whatever to see if you have a metabolic insufficiency.  None of the individual cases of "this or that" "works or doesn't work" for you changes the validity of the science.

I lose weight eating more on low carb and gain eating less on high carb so Taubes is right:  Prove it, or more importantly to your health prove it to yourself.  True, bio-individuality is a reality.  The whole 9/4/4 calorie thing is a guideline and average.  It's not exactly what any single person gets from the macros in their foods and it's not exactly the calories per gram in the food as these are averages.  Heck ... it's not even the same for the same person for different fats, proteins and carbs, or for the same food in different form.  Did you know that ground beef contains more effective calories than the same amount of whole beef with equal lean/fat ratio?  And yet given this remarkable variation, isn't it all the more compelling that in study after carefully controlled study, when isocaloric diets are compared for varying macronutrient composition (and even fructose v glucose or PUFA/MUFA/SF v. other fat) ... things repeatedly settle down to a "washout".  No metabolic difference let alone a demonstrable advantage.  And if anything, where weight gain is concerned the advantage -- as in gaining less -- clearly goes to the carbophiles because converting carbs to fat requires energy, fat is already fat!

I lost weight on LC therefore carbs made me fat so Taubes is right:  So the guy who lost weight on the potato diet got fat from all the other foods he used to eat?  And Little Debbie man got fat on all the non-processed real food he used to eat?  Or Oprah got fat eating solid food because she wiggled into her size 10 Calvins by going on a liquid diet?  This is so silly.  Really!

Stephan is dealing with why we get fat, Taubes is dealing with what to do about it:  Someone actually said this on Stephan's blog and it floored me.  Taubes' new book is Why We Get Fat, and he's openly lamented he'd rather not have added the "and what to do about it" part.  Very little of that book is devoted to that part and it's nothing new under the sun that hasn't been working in the long run, for whatever reason, any bettter than any other dietary solution to the problem.

Stephan's hypothesis applies to normal people.  Taubes addresses the obese and those with diabetes:  OK, but how did they get obese and diabetic?  Taubes implies that provoking an insulin response causes fat tissue to become dysregulated hoarding energy and growing.  So you eat more ... except previously he contends that the obese eat no more than the lean.  He's a walking talking contradiction and he can't explain an initiating event.  Meanwhile, Stephan has offered some food reward-based ideas that might help with weight loss.  Oh but I couldn't live on such a plain diet .....

Stephan's hypothesis is correct for normal people, but we're talking damaged metabolisms and   Taubes is right about them:   First, as Taubes will tell you, the hypothesis has to be consistent with the rise in obesity beginning sometime circa 1980.  Some underlying defect that made people add carbs to break all these metabolisms doesn't fit -- we did not en masse undergo mutation, or epigenetic switcheroo.  Prospective studies looking at fasting insulin or measures of IR or IS do not support that carbs break the metabolism with time.  The effectiveness of LC for weight loss in IR people is not evidence that carbs caused the IR.  We have various routes by which the most broken glucose (and underlying fat) metabolisms (T2 diabetics) can be fixed.  These include early insulin therapy, GBP surgery, and drastic calorie reduction.  This would suggest, by their logic, that a lack of insulin or overabundance of food (and perhaps gut hormones in GBP) are responsible for obesity in each case respectively.  If you're going to use that logic, you have to apply it in uniform fashion.

Gary Taubes saved my life with GCBC, so Stephan Guyenet should STFU about a few minor errors:  OK, that's a reduction of various sentiments I've heard but really now.  If LC worked for you that's great.  It doesn't make GCBC correct, and WWGF is even worse.  Taubes contends that carbs and only carbs make you fat these days. That calories have nothing to do with it.  The guru worship has got to go!  Stephan is not a fill in derogatory adjective because he knows that Taubes' hypothesis is wrong.  Remember, he is in the Endocrinology & Metabolism department at UW -- read, he talks to these folks all the time and he's one of them.  So I think he's well qualified to comment on the sentiment of the group, don't you?  And if you think these folks are irrelevant because no post WWII German research is worth a darn, just remember who wrote those endocrinology and such texts *that were right all along* despite what Gary says, and insist Taubes cite texts no newer than 1950.  Instead he readily cites such as authoritative when it suits his purposes.  

Stephan comments on CarbSane's blog and lost all credibility:  If after reading Stephan's blog post, the GCBC Reference Check posts here, and posts with Frayn or McGarry in the title you still feel that way, there's no hope for you.  Perhaps we need an intensive cult deprogramming intervention ward here at the Asylum. 

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater because we have no better working hypothesis:  This is mostly Andreas (apparent head of the Swedish faction of the Church of Latter Day MAD*) Eenfeldt's sentiment, but others seem to buy this.  No working hypothesis doc?  Really??  This one deserves its own blog post.  Stay tuned!

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In proofing this I noticed that I tend to refer to Stephan by first name and Taubes by last most of the time.  There's no "meaning" to be read into that ... it's just the ease of typing out, sound in my head while typing, etc. and whatever.  I don't think the esteem or lack thereof in which I hold these two is in any question here :-)

*credit Anthony Colpo