The ExASPerating Gary Taubes
Yes, I'm going to address Part I of Taubes' ... um ... what would you call that bout of verbal incontinence he unleashed yesterday? When someone writes a 4731 word blog post with a 30+ word title, ultimately about nothing of consequence, words to describe it escape even this usually ... shall we say ... less-than-concise blogger. Yes, folks, the irony will not escape me when this post undoubtedly runs lengthy.
We're treated to Taubes' "shaggy dog story", whatever the heck that means, in which Gary yip yaps out the "iconic moment numero uno punch line" like the not-so-shaggy Taco Bell dog who just had his paw run over by some wayward scientist chasing a pair of dimes in his wheelchair:
In the Q&A session following my hour-long presentation, a member of the PBRC faculty, a distinguished-looking gentleman who I’d guess was in his mid to late sixties, raised his hand and said, “Mr. Taubes, is it fair to say that one subtext of your talk is that you think we are all idiots?”
Is it fair to say that I think they are all idiots? A surprisingly good question.
Certainly one subtext of my talk (and my work) is that a journalist is getting it right and sixty-odd years of nutritionists and obesity researchers got it wrong (with maybe a half dozen exceptions who were marginalized for their beliefs.) So, yes, it was fair to say that I think a large body of otherwise very smart people, Ph.D.s and M.D.s all, were operating with suboptimal intelligence. Certainly in a pursuit — science — in which the one goal is to get the right answer, getting the wrong answer on such a huge and tragic scale borders on inexcusable.
First, what does the age or physical characteristics of the person asking that question have to do with this? Had I asked the question wearing an outfit that emphasized my ... erm ... assets, would he have mentioned that a buxom blonde of whatever age he guessed asked the question? Instead of 32 words intended for his audience to picture some sort of doddering, past-his-prime scientist, a mere 9 words would have sufficed: "During the Q&A session, a PBRC faculty member asked". In a field where words certainly do count, was Taubes so overcome by his own brilliant rhetoric that he didn't realize when proofing the post, just how "surprisingly" arrogant that sounded? Perhaps he feels scientists are such idiots they are unable to even formulate "good" questions, but surely this is not the first time Mr. Taubes has read such interpretations of the way he writes about researchers. Such a question should not have even been surprising let alone "surprisingly good".
Then, with more verbal flourish, Taubes answers the question. Any Armageddon (movie) fans in my readership today? Taubes ought to ditch his Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) act, and channel his inner Oscar (Owen Wilson).
Oscar: Ok, Mr. Truman, let's say that we actually do land on this. What's it gonna be like up there?
Truman: 200 degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade, canyons of razor-sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that
Oscar: Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That's all you gotta say, scariest environment imaginable.
Taubes would have come off better just saying that he really felt that, yes, they're all idiots. It's obviously how he really feels anyway. Of course he didn't have the chihuahua jewels to tell the old gent he was an idiot in person. Good thing he has a blog to do that where he can be all Che Quiero rather than his in-person Bruiser Woods (Legally Blonde).
GARY TAUBES
OR 
guess it depends on the venue
Enough small humor 
What does Gary's opinion of scientists have to do with his TWICHOO or even FR for that matter anyway? Answer: Nothing. But it makes for a good diversionary tactic. You see, in the lecture he links to in his article, we learn yet a bit more about Taubes and science. Seems he was not even a very good student when he was a physics major. This is not surprising to this blogger. I'm coming around more and more to the opinion that Taubes ultimately understands very little of what he writes about. It is what fuels his hubris because he really thinks he knows better due to his inability to understand why it is that he's so blatantly wrong.
What does Gary's opinion of scientists have to do with his TWICHOO or even FR for that matter anyway? Answer: Nothing. But it makes for a good diversionary tactic. You see, in the lecture he links to in his article, we learn yet a bit more about Taubes and science. Seems he was not even a very good student when he was a physics major. This is not surprising to this blogger. I'm coming around more and more to the opinion that Taubes ultimately understands very little of what he writes about. It is what fuels his hubris because he really thinks he knows better due to his inability to understand why it is that he's so blatantly wrong. What is inexcusable at this point Mr. Taubes, is your continual evasion of the valid questions that have been raised about your own hypotheses. YOU need to man-up and answer those questions. Good science begins with a hypothesis that explains observations. Not with a hypothesis that must be "complicated" -- to quote a certain Swedish diet doctor -- in order to explain mountains of inconvenient facts.
Because in reality, your hypothesis has actually undergone rank simplification over the years. Not because you suddenly discovered the fine art of brevity or needed to streamline it, but because so much of what you put forth in GCBC turned out, in the end, to have been not supported by the science. And most of the contradictory evidence post-dates WWII, but predates -- often by a decade or more -- publication of your "three PhD thesis equivalent" tome.
So it is with supreme irony that you mention Dr. Allan Sniderman because, once again, you inadvertently provide critics of your theories (that are now inextricable from criticisms of your professional competence and ultimately your credibility and conduct) additional insight into what you should have known all along. You know, when for years you were still ignoring that 2003 Reshef et.al. paper and glyceroneogenesis, a GCBC reference no less, while lecturing research scientists with your provably wrong version of fat tissue regulation. You see, Gary, you kept at it with the whole "G3P is rate limiting for deposition of fat in adipose tissue" schtick when you should have known it was wrong all along. And many times along the way, folks have mentioned ASP to you and you've been asked about it. You always brushed that stuff off. Now we know you even had a science-buddy in Allan Sniderman. I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude for your stubborn intransigence in addressing Reshef and the whole G3P issue. You see, had you just had the LC Kindergarten Cop post a comment here dismissing Reshef on the basis that "it's mostly rat studies", you could have saved yourself this whole waste of time of having to actually read some of those references in GCBC. And I would probably have never heard of Keith Frayn as I persisted in trying to get you to answer to the science.
Some readers may be wondering what tangent I'm off on now, so let's bring it in here and now. Keith Frayn is probably the most comprehensive research science expert in the field of adipose tissue metabolism. He is among the authors of articles concerning research on the etiology of insulin resistance, the triglyceride/fatty acid cycling and trafficking, and the role of acylation stimulating protein -- ASP -- in all of this. And when it comes to ASP, where did Frayn's trail lead? To Dr. Allan Sniderman -- articles such as the two cited below (note the dates).
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 1997. 56:703-712.
AD Sniderman (1), K Cianflone (1), L Summers (2), B Fielding (2) and K Frayn (2)
(1) McGill Unit for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Royal Victoria Hospital, Quebec, CA
(2) Oxford Lipid Metabolism Group, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford UK
Related Blog Post: The ASP pathway and regulation of postprandial metabolism ~ Part I
J. Saleh (1), LKM Summers (2), K Cianflone (1), BA Fielding (2), AD Sniderman (1), and KN Frayn (2)
Related Blog Post: Fat Accumulation: Taubes v. Frayn ~ ASP in vivo in humans
Surely Gary Taubes has read these papers? If not before publication of GCBC, but in the intervening years whenever his professional interactions with Sniderman came about? Or how about when, as discussed in the Fat Accumulation blog post, Josef Brandeburg asked him about it?
In a post entitled WHAT IF LOW CARB IS WRONG? DOES ASP PROVE THAT INSULIN DOESN’T MATTER AND THAT ITS CALORIES THAT REALLY COUNT?, Josef Brandenburg (June 30, 2009) wonders over the significance of ASP and asks Taubes about it. Brandenburg cites the following articles as references for that post: Purification and Characterization of Acylation Stimulating Protein Katherine M. Cianflone, Allan D. Sniderman, Mark J. Walsh, Hai T. Vu, Jean GagnonS, and Miguel A. Rodriguez, 1989; and Metabolic response of Acylation Stimulating Protein to an oral fat load,K. Cianflone, H. Vu, M. Walsh, A. Baldo, and A. Sniderman, 1989.
Against the backdrop of his office/desk, with several presumably authoritative reference books the great Taubesini consults when doing his version of good research and hypothesis testing, Josef says: "I shared my research with Gary Taubes and he had this to say"
.... “One thing to keep in mind in all this is the need to explain the observations, not just work with possible mechanisms that can’t explain anything. So one of the observations is weight loss on a high fat diet — the Atkins diet.
“So if ASP was good at sequestering dietary fat away in the fat tissue without carbs being needed, why would people lose weight when they ate an Atkins diet? ....
There's a really "scientific" approach to the topic, eh? Rigorous hypothesis testing? Not! Keep in mind this was before some formerly anonymous bunny-eared blogger came along who just wouldn't let him drop this issue anymore. Mr. Taubes, there are observations made by even some of your most ardent defenders that yes, folks not only can, but they do, gain weight on VLC/VHF diets. Or how about the work of Dr. Jeff Volek? How is postprandial triglyceride clearance improved ... it can't all go into the muscles! How does it get into the adipose tissue in the absence of the carb-induced insulin spike?
In his current post, Taubes writes the following:
One of my supporters in mainstream medical research is Allan Sniderman, a professor of cardiology and medicine at McGill University in Montreal. Since the mid-1980s, Sniderman has been arguing that Apo-B (the protein component of low and very low density lipoproteins) is a far better predictor of heart disease, which it surely is, than the cholesterol that happens to be contained in these lipoproteins. He’s also a co-discoverer of the hormone ASP — acylation stimulating protein — which plays a role, however controversial, in fat storage. Sniderman read Good Calories, Bad Calories shortly after it was published in September 2007 and then invited me up to lecture at McGill.
[As an aside, thank you again Mr. Taubes for illuminating yet another oft-ignored body of research as regards Dr. Wheat Belly's version of low carb "science". Very interesting stuff there courtesy of some hapless group of research scientists, likely including a few gents (and surely some ladies too) toiling away trying to elucidate actual mechanisms rather than publishing fluff pseudoscience. I hope to get to blog on this fascinating new information soon.]
The truth of the matter is that ASP is not some poorly understood protein. It's role is NOT controversial. And now that Taubes is on the record acknowledging that ASP is a hormone, there's yet another little fib-b-poo he slipped into his interview (pt 2) with Jimmy Moore responding to yours truly and others (~9:50 mark). You see, as recently as January of this year, Gary was still insisting that "when you write about adipose tissue metabolism, the only thing people will write ... the only hormone they're usually talking about is insulin .. where they're talking the part where putting fat in the hormone [sic] ... nobody ... you know ... at least ... the books I have ... nobody talks about any other hormone" all because for reasons unknown, in the 2010 version of Frayn's Metabolic Regulation, ASP is not in the graphic. It is mentioned in the text, but who reads those sorts of things in science picture books. [Taubes also admits he never read the 1995 version of that book referenced in GCBC ~30:50 mark]
ExASPerating indeed.
Whoa boy. It's been a long while since I listened to those January 2011 interviews. It was a busy and stressful time in my life and addressing those comments fell by the wayside. Still, I realize that at this point, in light of his recent behavior, I need to go back and discuss this man's supposed response to my criticisms. If for no other reason, but to remind people of -- or introduce them for the first time to -- the real mettle of this man in the face of criticism of any sort. It's long overdue. Because he's still at it with a new target in his sights.
I'm just hoping all his talk about rubbing back and forth is truly metaphorical in nature.
(oh no she di' int)Of course every quack thinks he's right
~ Gary Taubes, referring to himself
Comments
“So if ASP was good at sequestering dietary fat away in the fat tissue without carbs being needed, why would people lose weight when they ate an Atkins diet? ...."
OK, granted I only have this version of Taubes response that you provided, I would have personally been embarrassed to give the above response. The answer to Taubes question in the second paragraph is so obvious it shows his ignorance of the energy balance equation or at least his extreme bias against it. Simply, if intake is less than expenditure, a high fat diet will still allow one to lose weight (nothing trapped-he loves this idea). It is well known that Atkins allows some to eat less and still feel satisfied. I have a hard time believing Taubes wouldn't consider this in his response, at least to avoid looking stupid to someone he seems to openly criticize as less than intelligent(obesity researchers). Maybe in the full response he does? Anyway, preaching to the choir here.
But the blog post seems to consist of an 80,000 word (give or take a few) self-administered pat on the back. Does he think those scientists are idiots? Well, yeah, seeing as how some lowly writer managed to trump 60 years of research by knowing where to look! And not that he's saying he's right or anything (wink!) like all of those crayon-wielding nutcases out there, but he might just be that one-in-a-million voice in the wilderness who is about to change the world!
I didn't have a problem with his description of the question-asking researcher. I see that as a bit of artistic license. But the rest of it could have been boiled down to "I may not know anything about this stuff, but I know I'm right." Considering that he's really really busy with a REAL LIFE (something the rest of us obviously cannot relate to), you'd think he'd try to be more concise in his approach.
He seems to be trying really hard to come off as humble, but does not appear to have the ability to pull it off.
Fair enough. But I can't help but wonder how he would have described it were the person posing the question Stephan himself, or someone like Denise Minger. I don't know that it matters in the end ... I suspect ultimately his description would be intended to make them look hopelessly mired in the wrong paradigm for whatever reason, be it entrenchment or newbie entrainment, to make his point.
No need to say he's right. Let someone else show he's wrong. I hope it happens 'big time' and not in a footnote that points to a pubmed abstract.
The 'lowly writer' trumping the scientists does capture the popular imagination, doesn't it?
The 'scientists are idiots and, in particular, doctors, who know nothing about nutrition and lack the education and reasoning ability... (yadda, yadda, yadda)' attitude unites Taubes believers and fans those flames.
We're all victims of the wrong information and now the individual can see the truth because ONE BRAVE MAN challenged the establishment. I smell Nobel prize!
I swear that when I wrote my crack about "Einsteinitis" I was going to throw in a line about "Feynmanitis" but I refrained because the comment was long enough and I'd made my point.
Taubes did not disappoint, quoting Feynmann, as if a quote from the great man makes your point right.
Thanks,
Jim Jozwiak
It would be nice if bloggers on these issues would stick to dicussing the facts, and refrain from impugning motives and personal attacks.
This criticism applies to a greater or lesser degree to most people who blog on this subject, so I am not just criticising this blog.
Readers can make their own judgments about whether (insert name) is arrogant, egotistical, greedy, stupid, aggressive, balanced , knowledgeable, nice, horrible, fat, lean, a shill, or whatever.
To all bloggers: more signal, less noise please. Resist resorting to the ad hominem stuff; in the end it does no good. I know how hard it is to resist attacking someone who has attacked or misrepresented you. I live in a glass house too.
Please (all) impress me and others with high quality discussion while treating others with dignity and respect (whether or not you think they deserve it. Show you are better by not taking the bait.
Steve L (maybe I will post this comment on other blogs to show I am trying to be even-handed here)
They both have Richard as a first name - but are not in the same intellectual decile.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/how-we-get-fat.html
Short answer, the body increases carb burning at the expense of fat burning so more dietary fat is stored.
@Diana: Well, Arafat got a Nobel Peace Prize ... *sigh*
@Sue: Josef reminds me of a lot of others. Here's this inconvenient fact, please convince me why I it doesn't invalidate my long held beliefs.
@Fashion: Welcome to the Asylum! It's like with LC, common sense has left the building and is living it up at Alice in Wonderland's tea party. Sure seems that way sometimes doesn't it? It's really too bad because there are so many benefits to various facets of the diet. I've been saying for a long time that ultimately Taubes will do more harm than good for the cause because you cannot gain mainstream acceptance for one's ideas by promoting flawed theories in a faddish manner.
Surely you do not think everyone should just ignore the arrogant antics of the pop culture hero of the LC world? There's enough of this "can't we all just get along for the movement" crap going around. It serves no one well and is ultimately harmful as those who do not achieve the promised result sink into despair.
That GT chose to tout the support of someone intimately associated with the non-controversial role of ASP (though more needs to be learned and its relationship with inflammation for example) in a post that dealt with little else is worthwhile pointing out, IMO.
@Leon: Did you mean quintile? >:)
Mos def not. Read Taubes' blog post - in order to bolster his own shaky creds, he quotes Feynmann's (I never know how many n's to put, sorry) oft-quoted quote about science, discovery, etc.
In another comment on another post here, I had conjectured that a lot of Taubes' shtick arises from his aborted career as a wannabe physicist.
I don't think it is out of line to call Taubes on his arrogance. Because it is truly relevant to the subject. If he was right, it wouldn't matter if he was a dick. He would be a dick who is right! I don't frankly care what any great scientist's personality flaws are. The only thing that matters is the work.
But - when someone falsifies sources, cherrypicks data, calls everyone else an idiot, and distorts the historical record (the Pima), it's different. Is this not somehow related to a personality issue?
Furthermore, I believe that it was the publication of GCBC that gave the Church of Low Carb its founding scripture and gave it such cred. Before that you had a disparate group of people with varying agendas. With GCBC you had validation. Thus Taubes requires special scrutiny. Perhaps endocrinologists don't take his shizzle seriously but the desperate overweight do, and he deserves for his whole act to be fact-checked. This act includes attitude.
wrt Taubes saying: "why would people lose weight when they ate an Atkins diet?" Answer: because they consume fewer calories. That's something he cannot even envision. I agree that he likely has no actual understanding of much at all - but I bet he can organize his references perfectly.
No one can "win" an argument with Taubes or his followers because he is all about mechanisms and he sidesteps the many real world examples where his theories fail. In science such as medicine, nobody accepts mechanistic arguments as proof of anything - quite the contrary. They've seen many theories come and then go when they don't pan out (McCully's "Homocysteine Revolution" e.g.) . But in nutrition, about all that exists lies in supposed mechanisms - and they are presented as some sort of "proof".
About thirty years ago, there was a saying: aerodynamic engineers can "prove" that a bumblebee can't fly, but we all know they do".
In our time, Taubes can supposedly "prove" his theories, but they don't fly.
if carbohydrate calories by themselves are in excess then carbohydrate calories will be used for all of one's energy needs, and that (at least) 10% fat will go to fat stores first, maybe followed later by the excess carbohydrate being turned to triglycerides.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/how-we-get-fat.html or click
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/07/nutrient-fates-after-absorption.html or click
De novo lipogenesis is low in humans most of the time. I've lost track of the references but from what I recall, in the presence of dietary fat DNL is even lower than usual.
In the case of the McD's junkie I sincerely doubt any of the carb from the fries or the bun is being stored as fat - those carbs are likely all being burned (how many calories of carbs is that, really?) and some of the frying fat and the beef fat and the fat from the milkshake are being burned but if that junkie is gaining adiposity, what's being put in the adipocytes is the dietary fat, and very little of any derivative of the carbohydrates.
"The world has held great heroes,
As history books have showed;
But never a name went down to fame
Compared with that of Toad!
Intelligent Mr. Toad!
Encouraging(exasperating?) Mr. Toad!
The clever men at Oxford
Know all there is to be knowed.
But none of them know half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!"
Sorry, I know, ad hominem and totally non scientific but it really was my first thought
I guess, in short, there's a lack of truth in advertising I find somewhat galling.
And Evelyn isn't promoting a certain diet, but focusing on the science in the area of fat metabolism, evaluating things from the perspective of biochemistry, and then calling out the spurious scientific claims being promoted as "science" in the name of LC.
Fashiontribes, I'm also sorry that my question got you involved. I never will comprehend, I guess, why people get so emotional in defending their diet writers.
wrt Sanjeev's links, I'm surprised at the idea of low postprandial conversion of carbs to TAG. So I went looking and see this older study:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/77/1/43.long
"Hepatic de novo lipogenesis in normoinsulinemic and hyperinsulinemic subjects consuming high-fat, low-carbohydrate and low-fat, high-carbohydrate isoenergetic diets" 2003
Intro
"Indeed, by converting excess carbohydrate and excess gluconeogenic substrates to triacylglycerol, DNL in the liver may be an important pathway for controlling glucose production and blood glucose concentration."
then
"Our results showed that after 5 d in energy balance on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, normoinsulinemic lean and hyperinsulinemic obese subjects had significantly higher fractional DNL than did normoinsulinemic lean and obese subjects fed a high-fat diet."
Table 3 has for LFHC diet in Lean normoinsulinemics: postdiet:prediet TAG = 1.44 (and 0.96 for HFLC)
So... where is the study that counters that? More importantly, is there one somewhere that takes the same measurements but on carb-only meals?
Also what exactly are you going to do with the physical location of my IP address? That's a very odd statement.
after 5 d in energy balance on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, normoinsulinemic lean and hyperinsulinemic obese subjects had significantly higher fractional DNL
_______
Lerner, that's basically what I concluded from the 2 pages I pointed to.
Normally DNL is low, but rises with extended low fat and/or excessive carbohydrate regimes (the ajcn study you pointed to says 5 days at maintenance calories, Lyle wrote 3 days of caloric excess)
Who mentioned Taubes' weight? No one. He looks terrific IMO. I've seen him on the street in Greenwich Village but I didn't give a holla. He's a big, athletic dude. I seem to remember that he thinks he should lose a few. I don't think he has any weight to lose, not an ounce.
We do refer to Jimmy Moore's weight because he does. Constantly. It's one n=1 experiment after another, one 60 pound weight swing after another. Never-ending. This isn't relevant to his "calories don't count" mantra? I think it is.
On the other hand, it would be low and mean to include his personal problems in this discussion, even though he does so constantly. So we don't.
Enjoy the evening gang :-)
This study is interesting. If you read a little further down in the paragraph you quote about the high carb diet leading to higher DNL you get this little gem.
"In the present study, this higher proportion of simple sugars (54%) led to elevated fractional hepatic DNL, whereas when only 40% of the carbohydrate consisted of simple sugars, hepatic DNL was minimal (11). Overall, these findings confirm and extend previous results from Hudgins et al (8), who found that the proportion of simple sugars in very-low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets was the determining factor for hepatic DNL in healthy subjects. "
It seems that it's not necessarily the high carb content per-say that lead to higher DNL, but rather a high sugar content. Snackwells do make you fat! :)
This study does speculate that consistent high sugar diets may lead to insulin resistance, but that's just speculation (I highly doubt that it does if the people consuming a high carb diet are in calorie deficit at least some of the time-but that's my own speculation).
So, this study shows hat DNL happens to some degree and that it's more in the obese hyperinsulinemic subject at all tested macros and more for everyone on a higher carb (especially sugar) diet. At the worst, at least in this study, it seems to increase about 10% (like going from 1 to 1.1-I've seen other studies show higher increases, over 20%, which still doesn't say much). So, it happens-and we already knew this.
So why on earth would anyone have to explain that you can't get fat from merely eating carbs?? Ahaaaa!!! Because they were brainwashed by Taubes and the other LCers that calories don't matter. Oh boy... I have to laugh but it's also kind of frightening... the nonsense has spread around the world and people actually do believe it. No wonder Lyle seemed irritated, he must be pestered over and over by people saying "but Taubes says calories don't matter, only carbs do! It's the insulin!!!"
Oh boy... What I really wanted to get into was whether Intermittent Fasting is inherently atherogenic, specifically regarding postprandial elevations in TAG from carbs AND/OR fat and the effects such as resulting reduced levels of HDL (e.g. http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/260/3/E492.short "Postprandial decrease in HDL cholesterol and HDL apo A-I in normal subjects in relation to triglyceride metabolism"). But once more, Taubes derailed things - even from afar.
I've blogged on the works of Jequier (http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/07/nutrient-fates-after-absorption.html) and Hellerstein (http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/06/excess-carbs-coverted-to-fat.html, http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/08/where-do-triglycerides-come-from-part.html) as pertains to DNL, as well as a study demonstrating that it occurs in skeletal muscle feeding into a futile fatty acid cycle (http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/fat-futile-cycling-from-carb-excess.html. Everything I've ever read about DNL is that it is not a significant pathway leading to fat accumulation. And, as has been pointed out, even 20X not-a-lot is still not-a-lot. Also, let's not forget that DNL is an energy requiring process. Which means that 100g carb will create far less than 100g stored fat while 100g dietary fat can come a whole lot closer to creating 100g stored fat.
I just realized I may have been mis reading it (doesn't change the conclusions by a lot).
when they speak of "15% fractional DNL" do they mean
1. out of all the TAG, 15% came directly from dietary carbohydrate
OR
2. 15% of the dietary carbohydrate ended up as TAG
Note that this study is using fasted DNL. However, I'll point to the results I'd posted a few days ago on the Homburg Cream and Sugar (HCS) study: that *postprandial* TAG is a better CVD predictor than fasted, in normals.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/08/where-do-triglycerides-come-from-part.html#comments
That's in line with the apparent move to switch to postprandial TAG testing in general over fasted - at least in research but not in most clinical practice.
The normoinsulinemic lean HC subjects in this thread's study were:
weight ~156 pounds
daily 11163kj (2666kcal)
Fasting TAG is already up 44% from that.
Put all that food intake into one big Intermittent Fasting feeding session and I'd think that *postprandial* fDNL would be much larger than after each of 3 meals per day - simply because you've got more excess carbs to put away at the time. (Evelyn's ref to the Susan Powter effect would also enter into it.) Total postprandial TAG would presumably be very high.
This all relates to the proposition put forth by the HCS lead author that possibly "atherogenesis is a postprandial phenomenon". That can make IF more dangerous than isocaloric frequent small meals - independent of macro composition.
(I did realize the purpose of the study that I'd posted in this thread was for comparisons between groups. However, I disregarded the comparisons and only wanted to look at the data from the normals.)
P.S. I had already read Evelyn's Jequier article, but that seemed to focus on relatively small "meals" of 100g glucose. The smaller the feeding, the less fDNL.
Do you have information regarding differences in ASP expression in adipose tissue between humans and rats? I have written about the subject (while specifically about ChREBP levels, http://www.ketotic.org/2011/08/chrebp-forgotten-factor.html). It seems that the lipogenic capacity of rat adipose tissue is way greater than humans, so interpretation from rat studies can be misleading.
Thank you
I took a look at the ChREBP and bookmarked that to have a closer look at it when I have a bit more time later in the week. On first glance my "correlation v. causality" radar went up.
massive carbohydrate overfeeding in man" 1988
http://www.ajcn.org/content/48/2/240.full.pdf+html
"When the glycogen stores are saturated,
massive intakes ofcarbohydrate are disposed ofby high carbohydrate-oxidation rates and substantial
de novo lipid synthesis (1 50 g lipid/d using ‘ı-475 g CHO/d) without postabsorptive
hyperglycemia." Am JClin Nutr 1988;48:240-7.
Now I need to find a study about postprandial TAG levels from massive fat meals.
http://slowburnfitness.com/fat-regulation-insulin-or-asp/
Did Frayn sign the emails using gpg? That would do it for me.
AND THEN, it will be argument from authority anyway because we have not seen that result so far in a peer reviewed journal
and we so far have no good, well controlled studies to contradict the studies we have seen so far
This is NOT an invitation for "logical"[0] arguments, it's an invitation to find & post good studies.
[0] or FRED-ical arguments
After I check the hash/signature for myself
http://www.gnupg.org/ or click here
My website; garcinia cambogia weight loss research
Post a Comment
Comment Moderation is ON ... I will NOT be routinely reviewing or publishing comments at this time..