The Carb-Sane Asylum

Let me preface this post by saying I'm a bit time constrained, and computer issues have made my life miserable these past few days.   However a new article from the PURE study was recently published in Lancet, and I wish to add some limited commentary to the mix.   First things first, the links: Associations of fats and carbohydrate intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 18 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study The first study:   The Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study: Examining the impact of societal influences on chronic noncommunicable diseases in low-, middle-, and high-income countries Secondly, I've tweeted these links out.  Commentary by others: Kevin Klatt:   On PURE Nutrition Wonk:   Research Review The 5 Continent (PURE) Study: A Prospective Cohort Study And now for my favorite headline!

S ummary: A white paper has been published by the True Health Initiative attempting to set some things straight vis a vis Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries Study Such discussions will always involve the erroneous conflation of that 1970s study and Keys' 1953 "Six Countries Plot" ANCEL KEYS DID NOT CHERRY PICK.   In 1953, it was "possible to get fully comparable dietary and vital statistics data from 6 countries" from 1948-9.   Yerushalmy originally put forth data from 12 and then 22 countries.   These data were from different sources and for different classifications of disease vs. that used by Keys. NEITHER set of data used by Y&H even existed in 1953, so it could not have even been available to Keys. Zoe Harcombe is a terrible researcher at best.  Some institutions will give a PhD to pretty much anyone these days.

Last Friday (Sept. 16, 2016 for those who may stumble upon this in the future), I had the pleasure of being a guest on  Angelo Coppola's Latest in Paleo podcast .    I had/have a post on the main topic discussed -- the *SMOKING GUN* that the sugar industry funded a study 50 years ago, and *O*M*G* -- in the works, and was not even half done by the time recording came around.  I was also trying to get in the last bit of summer.   This link  will go live when that post is finally published (hopefully later today or tonight):   The Slimey Truth About Sugar Slammers I have not had a chance to listen yet, so hopefully this isn't even necessary.  But, due to my passion on the topic and being mid blogging swirl, I'm sure I was quite animated at times.  It was a new format for Angelo's podcast, and for me as a guest as well.   I may well have talked over the other guest, Meredith Rhodes (a.k.a The Forward Health Coach; Forward Health C...

source:   Politico I have had several conversations since I wrote  Nina Teicholz Reports in the British Medical Journal ~ The Conflicts & Funding  and a petition to editors at The BMJ .  I have some of my answers, most of which were not provided to me in the interests of the same transparency demanded of others by the players themselves -- Nina Teicholz, The BMJ  and The Laura and John Arnold Foundation.  Details to follow.  First, some personal notes, an apology, and why the George Soros nod.  Then the goods insofar as I have them.

It's hard to believe that Tim Noakes actually gave the presentation in the embedded YouTube video over two years ago.   It's even more difficult to believe that anyone has taken him seriously since.   For the topic of this post, one needs only devote ~ 6 minutes to listening to Noakes read to you about human evolution and how Ancel Keys destroyed the world.  This begins at roughly 3 min 36 seconds.   If you can't tolerate the video, or simply wish to follow along with a written form, the South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition has dramatically lowered their standards and published Noakes' heavily fortified "transcript" (at least 25 references date to after the 2012 delivery of this speech) without any peer review .  His references, regardless of date, are enlightening, so I'm glad they were provided, however the journal should put a heavy disclaimer directly in/on the paper in question (and fix the oversight that allowed the peer reviewed ...

So in No Big Surprise fashion, Nina Teicholz, is back at it again, this time in the New York Times with an editorial.  It's bad enough that she has mangled past history, and the science, beyond recognition, but this time she is distorting (one might justifiably use a stronger word such as LIE at this point) current events.   The  Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee  is out.   (It is important to realize that these are not the actual guidelines, but the DGAC report, the official guidelines will not be issued by the USDA and HHS until sometime later this year if not early next). Who did the NYT tap to comment?   Someone with ANY knowledge of nutritional science?  No.  Nina Teicholz.  Seriously, Gray Lady.  This was clearly commissioned in advance, you couldn't do any better for your readers?  Is business that bad?  I guess so.   The Government's Bad Dietary Advice   by Nina Te...

... or at least stop lying about him and promoting bad research reviews. Around a year ago, a "commissioned and internally peer reviewed" Editorial appeared in the British Medical Journal 's off-shoot Open Heart online journal.   The author, James J DiNicolantonio is identified as a Cardiovascular research scientist and PharmD, and he is also an Associate Editor of the journal.     

In Part I , I discussed the first three of four talks at the recent Ancestral Health Symposium that were actually devoted to -- or supposed to be in some fashion -- "ancestral diets".  The IHC has a long history of co-opting select aspects of such dietary practices to fit the current interpretation of the hunter-gatherer-inspired way.  If the deluge of cookbooks from all corners are any indication, there will be no letting up soon of the trend to cauliflow paleoize all "inferior" but nonetheless delicious and often cultural staple foods.   But now, in a most bizarre twist, we've reached the point where imposing "paleofied" versions of ancestral diets on  these very peoples went off without a hitch, or seemingly any notice of the supreme irony of it all. This assault on ancient humanity was culminated in a presentation by Gideon Mailer, PhD.  I took a screenshot of his title slide for visual impact here.  So that you won't need to clienlarge...

I'm going to make an exception to the general rule here of not blogging on articles in the media.  This is an important read and I don't want those who don't interact with me on social media to miss this. Long time colleague of Ancel Keys, or A. Ben as I have nicknamed him (affectionately!) here, Henry Blackburn has apparently had enough of the Big Fat Smear Campaign masquerading about as "science journalism".   In defense of U research: The Ancel Keys legacy The renowned scientist has become the target of a high-fat “smear” campaign.

I preface this post with words of wisdom from a science journalist. Long before Nina Teicholz burst onto the scene as the latest Atkins-mouthpiece (Chapter 10 of The Big Fat Surprise , I rest my case), from almost the very beginning of my exposure to the low carb internet community, I've been hearing how Ancel Keys was single handedly responsible for the low fat plague that has made us all fat and sick.  While I'm sure I'd heard the name Ancel Keys somewhere along the way during my formal studies, it never really rang a bell ... and I'd venture to guess that most outside this Incestral Health Community had not either.  This is the enduring legacy that appears to trace back to Gary Taubes' demonization of the man in Good Calories, Bad Calories .  It also appears to have origins in the Weston Price Foundation movement with the writings of Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, for example, The Oiling of America  (2000).

As I mentioned in my "opening post" on the matter of Ancel Keys, one of the inspirations was listening, for the umpteenth time, to a low carber blaming our ills on the "low fat diet" we were all duped into switching to by Ancel Keys.  In this case, it was Dr. Cate Shanahan: Reversing Diabetes ^ Knowledge Summit this past May. This woman wrote a book called Deep Nutrition with her ghost-writer husband Luke who has absolutely ZERO relevant background in the subject matter.  That book is an abomination.  Seriously.  As she possesses an MD (how she's board certified and practicing eludes me at this point!), the misinformation it contains on basic matters is even more potentially dangerous than that put out by some of the other diet gurus out there.   

My friend Seth over at Science of Nutrition blog (check it out!) wrote the following post:   FAT IN THE DIET AND MORTALITY FROM HEART DISEASE: A PLAGIARISTIC NOTE .  I encourage you to go read it, but it is long, so in case you don't have the time at the moment, let me summarize my take away.  It's quite a bit more complicated than this, but he lays out the case that a diverse group of people has essentially plagiarized Gary Taubes (from GCBC) .   On