Unclogging Drains ~ Odds and Ends Including: Kudos to Quest and Thermodynamic Denialism

Those who don't Facebook perhaps missed one of the best things to happen in a long time in the nutritional world.  You see, Quest Nutrition had teamed with Jonathan Bailor to produce a video series:  The Quest to End the Calorie Myth.  I didn't get to watch the video, but apparently we get yet another rehash of the clogged sink nonsense from Bailor.  Alan Aragon discusses what went down

Welp, science won today, and here are the Cliffs of what transpired:

• Quest Nutrition decided to do a video series with Jonathan Bailor, a program manager for Microsoft who recently authored a diet book.
• Bailor spewed a colorful bounty of nonsense involving "hormonal clogging" and claimed that quantity of calories doesn't matter, but quality does.
• The Quest audience has a high concentration of folks who value scientific evidence, and a resounding uproar ensued. No attempt was made by Bailor to defend his position when challenged by myself & many others on Quest's page.
• The vid contained absurd claims such as, "Those sugar calories cause a hormonal clog that makes it difficult for your body to burn fat, regardless of how little you eat or how much you exercise." This angered the crap out of people who are actually educated in nutritional science. 
• Quest Nutrition saw the mounting dislikes & contempt for the video, and decided to take it down.

Kudos to Quest!  As Alan said, if you're the social media type, show your support by liking their page:  https://www.facebook.com/QuestNutrition (Now if only they'd stop supporting the menace of low carb ....)

In any case, I'm not a big fan of these kinds of bars and such but it is still nice to see a company respond to their customers who are sick of scammers like Bailor.  His book is rife with made up nonsense, and although he lacks her plageristic (sic) flair, Bailor does a fair job of copycatting the meat of Taubes' hypothesis [as it turns out the part even Taubes has sorta been dragged kicking and screaming to admit he those old books were wrong (translation:  they were right he either didn't read them or he didn't understand what he was reading)].  Back when Calorie Myth was just the Smarter Science of Slim, I wrote a few pieces on the thing, summarized HERE.  One of these days I should finish up my post on his continued misrepresentation of the alpha-glycerol phosphate story, but perhaps this is a turning point and I won't have to?  I'm cautiously optimistic.  Very cautiously.

Speaking of clogged drains though ... can we all agree that those with metabolic syndrome would be pretty stopped up? 

Does the Presence of Metabolic Syndome Influence Weight Loss in Obese and Overweight Women?

Background: It is known that weight loss is beneficial for obese and overweight subjects with metabolic syndrome. Very few data exist, however, about whether the presence of metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance (IR) influence the response of these subjects to weight-reducing interventions. The current study intends to examine whether the presence of metabolic syndrome and its components could influence weight loss in obese and overweight women during a short-term, dietary-based intervention program.

Methods: A total of 107 women aged 49.1 ± 13.5 years old, with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25 were studied. The subjects were prescribed a low-fat diet plus weight-reducing drugs when necessary.

Results: After 3 months, the subjects with metabolic syndrome lost more weight than those without (6.62% vs. 4.50%; P < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between the percentage of weight loss and the number of the components of metabolic syndrome present at baseline (Spearman ρ = 0.329; P < 0.01). Furthermore, patients in the quartile with the highest homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA-index) lost more weight than the remaining subjects (8.17% ± 3.34 vs. 5.59% ± 3.87; P < 0.05). These results were significant, even after adjustment for the medical treatment prescribed.

Conclusions: Obese and overweight patients with metabolic syndrome showed a greater reduction of their body weight, compared to the patients without metabolic syndrome. The components of the metabolic syndrome present at baseline correlated positively with the percentage of the weight loss. Finally, the patients with the highest levels of HOMA-index at baseline lost significantly more weight than those with lower levels of this parameter.

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It would appear that the calorie denialists are getting mighty desperate of late.  It must suck being so disjointed from reality.  My previous post of ItstheWooo -- in her own words -- discussing how she ate less and moved more to lose weight was inspired by a recent article by the sleazey Yalie of Caloriegate, who wrote an article citing 11 "experts" who demolished calories.  Apparently some undercarbed intern over at Whole9 shared the thing and it became a bit of an internet sensation.  Well he followed that up with 9 more.  Three of those are dead scientists taken out of context, but one other is worth mention in this post, because Jason Fung has become somewhat of a YouTube sensation of late.  I'll address his "Insulin is Toxic" video at some later date .... but as to calories he has actually written this:

Yes, folks, the physical laws of the universe don't apply to humans.  This is almost as rich as an RD MPH blogging about how her biochemistry texts don't mention calories (only they do).  I worry for the Canadian education system as well if it produced someone with this level of ignorance capable of getting into and graduating from medical school in that country.   I think he needs to read this post of mine, and if anyone agrees with Fung -- not the least of which being a Yalie with a physics degree -- they need to read it as well:  Of Thermodynamics, Complexity, Closed Systems & Equilibrium

But I'm going to leave you with this, a graphic from a Fung video.  The graphic is an accurate copy from the following paper by Ralph DeFronzo:  From the Triumvirate to the Ominous Octet: A New Paradigm for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

 

Can you spot the problem with this graphic and the "alternate hypothesis" of obesity?