Laura Dolson on the recent meeting of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians

*** Can you help a girl out?  Where is the traffic coming from?? Thanks! ***

In the past week, I've noticed a sustained trickle of traffic to this post of mine from over a year ago (original publish date 4/28/12) .  Therefore, rather than write another post on a somewhat older topic, I decided to bump this one and add some comments.   For most of this year I have been under attack for posts of this nature and all I can do to counter those is to point out that this post is not a personal attack.  What I've written is as respectful as can be when the subject is someone who, were she promoting veganism or McDougall's diet would be vilified and likely destroyed in the LC community.   Yet I haven't done so even though I believe Laura Dolson is deserved of some criticism for not telling the full story here.



I would like everyone to please listen to the clip here of Laura Dolson's introduction on this March 29, 2013 episode of Low Carb Conversations.  The woman introducing her is Cassie Bjork "Dietitian Cassie".  It is unedited, exactly as aired:


Now.  This is a public figure who is employed in the capacity of "expert" or "guide" by a prominent website (About.com).   Most people try LC to lose weight, let's face it ... and I'd dare say that the jury is still out and at best headed for a deadlock as to the healthfulness of various versions of the diet.  Did you get the impression that LC worked for Laura?  To drive the deception home, Cassie says {paraphrase} 'a lot of our friends have tried that other way, low fat, calorie counting, maybe that worked, lost a couple of pounds, gained weight back, maybe more, get frustrated, then they find LC and voila and how sustainable it is!'   To which Dolson responds that this is exactly what happened to her, and as if one "exactly" wasn't enough, she repeated it.

So if there's a person reading this who thinks it's out of line for me to point this out -- and doing so without hurling epithets or making fun of her looks or weight like some think is appropriate -- then there is no talking to you.  I do sometimes regret writing this when I first discussed Dolson here:

She doesn't seem to blog much about her personal story - or I just haven't made it to those posts - but when I first saw this picture on Jimmy's menus blog I was not just shocked, but horrified.

And yet I was sharing my honest reaction as someone who had hit the wall with low carb weight loss and was looking for assurances in the community.  Learning that the real faces behind the prominent blogs and valuable resources were -- almost to a one! -- obese at that time was an abomination.  This hasn't changed much if at all in the four years since.

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Original post 4/28/12

full original pic link

On April 20th, the ASBP had a conference in Denver.  Many names in the LC community attended, including About.com's Laura Dolson.   Jimmy Moore hosted a get together outside the conference and posted pictures on Twitter.   It was in those pictures I caught sight of Andrew DiMino and later Dolson.  So when I saw the CarbSmart announcement I wondered if Dolson was still writing for About and here we are with another post on hypocrisy if not downright fraud in the low carb community.   < sarcasm > It was a perfect storm if you will that sparked these unsciencey gossip posts we all know folks never visit the Asylum to read.  < /sarcasm >  

So there you have at right, a screenshot crop showing Laura Dolson, April 2012.  As it turns out, Dolson does indeed still write for About, and she filed her first report from ASBP last week.  Now again, I'm not picking on Laura because of her weight, but I am calling foul on this woman being a guide and advocate for low carb diets especially in the context of an obesity treatment conference.    Clearly, the diet is not working for her.  (For more on of my thoughts on Dolson see HERE) 

So Laura writes:

This year, I was impressed by these trends:

1) Many of the scientific presentations referred to benefits of low-carb diets simply as part of their talks -- as if it was an underlying assumption that low-carb diets can be helpful. This is a big change from even a few years ago. It seems that the value of low-carb diets is much more taken for granted than it used to be.

I don't suppose this should have come as a surprise when Dr. Eric Westman is President elect and Dr. Mary Vernon is a past prez or that there's some sort of relationship between ASBP and Feinman's Nutrition & Metabolism Society that piggybacks their conference with the ASBP?  I also think it's past time for proponents of LC/Atkins to drop the Rodney Dangerfield act over the usefulness of the diet.  Just about everyone acknowledges low carb is useful for weight loss (edit:  in most, but then what?).  The next trend:

2) On the other hand (but, I think, related), totally absent from the conference was the "eat less and exercise more" emphasis on calories that has been the traditional focus. Even Dr. Robin Blackstone, the bariatric surgeon who gave the keynote address, said that "we know that weight loss surgery doesn't work through calorie restriction or malabsorption, but through metabolic effects". It's all about metabolic changes, and guess what? As far as dietary changes go, carbohydrate restriction is a chief driver of these favorable effects.

Having been on my ELMM kick lately, this perked the former bunny-ears.  I find it alarming that a bariatric surgeon would say such a thing as that WLS doesn't work through calorie restriction or malabsorption because that is EXACTLY how it works.  Funny how we've been talking about that here too lately vis a vis one Carnie Wilson.  So when I Googled Blackstone it was yet another woven thought web coincidence that her name popped up being quoted in several articles on Wilson's second WLS such as this one.   Perhaps Blackstone was referring to the metabolic changes that occur prior to significant weight loss, and the promise of GBP in curing diabetes, but if the bariatric surgery profession is abandoning reality we're in trouble folks!  Regarding Carnie adding a gastric sleeve to her GBP surgery Blackstone said:  “In effect, she’s added something to her first surgery,” said, Dr. Robin Blackstone, president of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery. “It gave her enough of a boost so that she could get her weight down.”  Wonder what further metabolic changes those could be .....  Oh, almost forgot, what's a bariatric surgeon doing giving the keynote speech at a meeting of a physicians organization dedicated to non-surgical treatment of obesity anyway??    Onto the next trend:

3) In addition to general mentions of carbohydrate reduction or restriction, more of the speakers mentioned what has been called the "diabetes spectrum", and that different individuals do best with different amounts of carbohydrate in their diets, depending on their degree of carb sensitivity and the amount of progression along the spectrum. I was cheered by what seems to be a strong move away from one-size fits all recommendations, as well as realizing that a low-carb diet does not mean the same thing for each person."

If only the ever militant "the right way LC diet is high fat, moderate protein, blah blah" wing living in LLVLClue had gotten this memo!  In point 4 Laura hails paleo making the stage at ASBP in one Loren Cordain.  Given as many of the studies done by Westman have been funded by the Atkins Foundation and utilized foods from Atkins Nutritionals ....  

Probably the most interesting segment of the conference for my readers took place on Friday afternoon, when we heard from experts representing four different diets and how they can cause weight loss:

• Joel Fuhrman, who advocates tons of vegetables and fruit as the foundation of a micronutrient-rich vegan (or almost-vegan) diet
• Loren Cordain, who famously advocates and researches the effects of the Paleo Diet (link)
• Jeff Volek, researcher of reduced-carbohydrate diets and author or co-author of several low-carb books (although his talk focused on saturated fats)
• Scott Rigden, who wrote a book about eating according to metabolic type, and spoke about the Mediterranean diet (turns out that the weight loss version he uses with patients is low in carbs).

Why did I excerpt this?  Well, for one, the TWICHOOB's and such must acknowledge that Fuhrman's approach, while perhaps not for them, helps many despite its relatively high carb content.  But what comes next about Fuhrman is just precious!

I could easily do a long blog post about Dr. Fuhrman's talk, but I realistically won't (it's off-topic for me, for the most part), but I did want to say a few things because it was attention-getting. Although I think it's very clear that our biology and physiology has evolved to be omnivorous (and that we would not have gotten to the point where we would have an Internet if our ancient ancestors remained vegan) I am also sure that Fuhrman is not lying when he talks about his patients who have benefitted greatly from his approach. There is definitely a lot to be said for a high-nutrient diet, which is the main reason that vegetables are at the base of my low-carb pyramid, and different people do respond to different diets. Problems come in, though, when there is an assumption that "what works for me will work for everyone".

Yeah yeah, find what works for you blah blah but carbs can kill, sugar is toxic, wheat is murder, and Hope Warshaw and Dr. Oz are criminals!   

To me, the main thing that contrasted Fuhrman with the other speakers was not only the lack of a scientific basis for his talk (I'm used to seeing lots of research cited, graphs, and explanations of biological mechanisms cited at these conferences, which Fuhrman's talk was lacking), but his throwing in loads of scientific-sounding things that gave the impression he was just making things up. This may fly when you are "preaching to the choir" and people are hanging on your every word, but it will not wash in a scientific conference.

Oh that is just so ... dripping with irony!   All those low carbers are so much more sciencey what with their graphs and made up  explanations of biological mechanisms.  So Dolson is actually admitting that she's the choir or otherwise she might scrutinize some of the erroneous things presented by low carb advocates -- as a matter of routine!  After all, if their explanations are correct, how come she's still significantly obese?  When it comes to making things up there are few low carber docs who are not guilty of this.  Mary Vernon, who apparently tried to play referee is the queen of making stuff up and making incorrect statements as fact that are easily refuted by non-controversial science.  Wake up!

I know Dr. Fuhrman was included to represent a wide spectrum (which is, in theory, a good idea), but I'm afraid he stood out like a sore thumb. Plus, he yells or borderline-yells much of time, and I find it off-putting, and, again, this was a big contrast with the other speakers and participants.

So ... LC has become so accepted that you have to invite an Atkins opponent (Fuhrman's Disease Proof website hosts quite a bit of anti-Atkins information, and I'll not defend the accuracy of much of it) to represent a wide spectrum?  It would seem one wouldn't have to question the reason Fuhrman was invited other than his success treating obesity/diabetes.  To Fuhrman's behavior, I imagine that when you're being ganged up on by dogmatists like Atkins Foundation funded  Jeff "Paul Jaminet is a nut job" Volek, you might get a little hot under the collar.  Not that it would excuse unprofessional behavior, but I'm willing to bet he was simply trying to get heard while being figuratively shouted down even if the others didn't raise their volume literally.  It's probably a good thing Gary wasn't there ;-)