The Carb-Sane Asylum

Gary Taubes is out with a new article in Scientific American ... rehashing the same old same old, and essentially getting paid to write a press release for NuSI.   What Makes You Fat: Too Many Calories, or the Wrong Carbohydrates? Rigorously controlled studies may soon give us a definitive answer about what causes obesity—excessive calories or the wrong carbohydrates We get the rehashing of how WWII stopped Bergmann and Bauer's Lipophilia Hypothesis from becoming the working hypothesis for obesity, and yet another primer on calories vs. carbohydrates.  We again are asked to ignore the obvious -- that Americans are definitely eating more, on average, with no concurrent need for those calories, and likely moving a bit less as well.   The obesity epidemic that supposedly was instigated by the low fat craze is blamed on the fact that much of our additional caloric load is in the form of carbohydrates.  This is not supported by one of Gary Taubes' own paradoxical cultu

I changed the title of this post entirely for obvious reasons.   So, in T-minus 4 days the world will finally achieve Cholesterol Clarity !  Thanks to NYT Bestselling (hopeful is he) author Jimmy Moore.   The banner states that: So I looked at the list of experts and recalled this post highlighting how one of them, Dr. Cate Shanahan, blamed carbs for being turned into LDL and then make us fat.  You can browser search to "Skip to here!" and skip the intro stuff.   You might also be interested in my notes from the full presentation, HERE .  I've also had a chance to see what she says about LDL in her book Deep Nutrition, a whole 'nother theory there, and her interview with Jimmy  for the book was quite enlightening.  Beware the shaman lab tech and doctor trying to read your bloodwork tea leaves!  If you don't get hungry between meals you are a healthy fat burner ... don't worry, be happy.  

In Deep Nutrition , one of the World's best health experts* Dr. Cate Shanahan writes this of cholesterol: Genetic Experimentation—On You You may have noticed the various cut-off levels over the years to identify people at “high risk” of a heart attack.  Years ago, if your total cholesterol was 300 or less, your doctor would have said you were fine. Soon, that number was lowered to 200.  Now people also watch their LDL, “safe” levels of which have been lowered from 200 to 160, to 130, to 100, and now 80.  Currently, the average person’s LDL level is still about what it’s always been, around 120–130. The controversial 2001 revision of the cholesterol guidelines means nearly half of the US population can now be labeled “high risk.”  And drug companies are raking it in.

Orthorexia.   According to the National Eating Disorders Association  {all emphasis mine} Those who have an “unhealthy obsession” with otherwise healthy eating may be suffering from “orthorexia nervosa,” a term which literally means “fixation on righteous eating.”   Orthorexia starts out as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, but orthorexics become fixated on food quality and purity.   They become consumed with what and how much to eat, and how to deal with “slip-ups.” An iron-clad will is needed to maintain this rigid eating style. Every day is a chance to eat right, be “good,” rise above others in dietary prowess, and self-punish if temptation wins (usually through stricter eating, fasts and exercise). Self-esteem becomes wrapped up in the purity of orthorexics’ diet and they sometimes feel superior to others, especially in regard to food intake.

I'll have another followup post to the War on Moderation , but just some random thoughts in response to some of the reaction to the first one.   Most of the knee-jerk reactions come down to: I can't eat X because I have Y-syndrome so I can't eat everything in moderation. Oh you're just using this as an excuse to eat crap OK so just go stuff yourself with SAD Cheetos and Twinkies. On Facebook, the following  caught my eye

Last week, or so, there was an issue with a comment that had never shown in my moderation queue jumping back and forth.  It said awaiting moderation when I viewed the post here, then I saw it in Pending, then I'd approve it.  All was well then it jumped back.  Then I whitelisted the ID ... In the end I think it eventually "stuck" ... I think. For most of the time I've been using Disqus, using the Disqus dashboard has been a mixed blessing.  While new comment notifications appear (sweet!) when I am reading comments on the blog, they do not appear "real time" on the dashboard (not so sweet!)    Therefore I'm left to have to refresh the dashboard from time to time.  Which is OK, but it does not alway refresh properly. And then there's Feedly which I am using to replace my sorely missed Google Reader.  Perhaps it's time to look for other options there.  I don't like it all that much on its own, but its interaction with Disqus is rather

Fruity?  Notice that I did not mention fruit. Most folks are battling some kind of metabolic derangement, aka obesity, diabetes, fertility issues, depression, etc. This with a mixed bag of autoimmunity and systemic inflammation. Until you are lean and healthy, you don’t get much fruit. There is no nutrient in fruit that is not available in veggies, and fruit may have too many carbs for you. When we start talking about what constitutes “health,” we will see where on that spectrum you are. For now, just keep things simple and you will reap the greatest rewards.   ~ Robb Wolf, p. 214 The Paleo Solution

As I am spending more time working on my upcoming book, Calorie Clarity: Entropic Thoughts on a Hot Topic ,  I have had a bit less time for blogging of late.  I don't know what it is about this calorie debate, but just when you think the latest scheme to convince you that calories don't count has been beaten back, another huckster comes flying down the poop slide regurgitating the crap they swallowed on the way down.  Apologies to those who have eaten recently.  I use the term huckster because my name was used in vain in an exchange with one of the best hucksters in the low carb sphere, Dr. Mike Eades. Who?  If you're asking that question, congratulations, you've either forgotten everything you've ever read on his blog or never read it at all.  Either of which would be a good thing.   Eades imagines himself a scientist in a doctor's coat and apparently still tweets his pearls of critical thinking wisdom.  Yeah, I'm being snarky because, well, it's

On Facebook today, Mark Hyman MD (functional medicine doc) posted : There are no essential carbohydrates. There are essentials fats and essentials proteins, but if you never had any carbohydrates again, you would survive. The Teaspoon Party This was brought to my attention but also reminded me that Richard Feinman is at it again with a recent blog post on this no essential dietary carb canard, couched in a history lesson of sorts:   Revolutions. Political and Scientific .  He discusses Claude Bernard finding sugar in a dog that hadn't been fed any carbohydrate.  The question is why ... again ... why ... now?   This idea has earned him an honored place in the group at right.

Another two-fer for the Thursday post bumps again this week.  More explanation for why this set in the next bump. Original Publish Date:  7/26/11 In the comments on  a recent post on beta cell lipotoxicity , Ned Kock (of Health Correlator blog) posted a link to a post he made a while back entitled:   Lipotoxicity or tired pancreas? Abnormal fat metabolism as a possible precondition for type 2 diabetes .  This article deals with the concept of the "tired pancreas" in the development of diabetes.  It seems that (and hopefully he corrects me if I'm wrong here) Ned and I agree that this is not a likely explanation for diabetes.   Ned summarizes the progression of obesity induced T2 diabetes from  Unger & Zhou, 2001 .  It is worth mentioning that Unger is often summarily dismissed from the "scientific discussion roundtable" by low carbers because of the unfortunately titled "Gluttony and Sloth" paper, that, even more unfortunately also included