The Carb-Sane Asylum

Summary: In the Women's Health Initiative, a 2017 analysis of the energy density of baseline diets, stratified to quintiles, revealed several correlative components of an energy dense diet (comparing the top quintile (Q5) to the bottom (Q1).  The energy density, in kcal/gram of food, nearly doubled in Q5 vs. Q1 corresponding to a nearly 50% increase in caloric intake.  The dietary components correlating with this are: Fat:  Fat content is by far and away the greatest contributing factor to consuming an energy dense diet.   Absolute intake more than doubled (2.5X) from Q1 to Q5, and comprised roughly 90% of the increased caloric intake. Animal Protein:  As protein intake from plant sources remained relatively constant, animal protein intake increased by 40% resulting in an increase in total protein of 25%.  Therefore animal foods are a considerable contributor to increased energy density of the diet. Added Sugars:  Added sugar comprised 11...

Bump! Over on Twitter I was made aware that Dr. David Ludwig is coming out with a new book in January (HT Steven Snyder @NoGimmicksNutri) mentioned in this Time piece:   You Asked: Should I Count Calories?    The book is to be called Always Hungry   (affiliate link if you're going to buy it anyway!)   This is a similar title to the NYT editorial Ludwig co-wrote with NuSI's VP of Research last year, discussed in this post.  I also have a friend who attended an obesity conference recently at which Ludwig presented much of the same ideas.  It is repackaged TWICHOO (Taubes Wrong Insulin-Carbohydrate Hypothesis Of Obesity) , and what is most galling about all of this is that much of Ludwig's own research counters this ... Yet he perpetuates it?  From the article:

ORIGINAL PUBLISH DATE:  October 3, 2015  This post will probably repeat some things I've said before.  But in light of recent events, and with controversy over the US 2015 Dietary Guidelines reaching fever pitch, I wanted to collect them in a semi-coherent summarized fashion.   Mostly I want to discuss the role of governments and industries in the evolution of what we know today as a science.  In many ways, a look back at the early Twentieth Century demonstrates how the more things change the more they stay the same.   Are we doomed to repeat past mistakes in the Twenty-First?

. Lori H. Barrett original Perhaps we should chip in and buy the print for Nina Teicholz? I recently noted yet another "error" made by Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise .  This time it was in an editorial in the New York Times , unsurprisingly blasting the report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. As much as I am no big fan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, CSPI, their  Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson  wrote an article in response to this same editorial for the Huffington Post.  It has been pretty widely shared and well received:   Distorting Nutrition Facts to Generate Buzz

direct link   African Buffalo I have recently revisited Chapter 1, The Fat Paradox, in The Big Fat Surprise , and it's safe to say that Nina Teicholz's contentions about the diets of Native Americans are grossly inaccurate.  The "all the Indians ate meat" is rounded out by a British physician named Prentice who visited South Central Africa and attributed rampant meat eating to the natives there as well.  An then (begins at location 327 of 12033 in Kindle version) : ... no savvy heart disease researcher can read these historical observations without raising a standard and reasonable objection, namely, that the meat from today’s domesticated animals is far more fatty— and a greater proportion of that fat is saturated— than was the meat from wild animals roaming around a hundred years ago. Experts argue that the meat from wild animals contained a higher proportion of polyunsaturated fats, which are the type found in vegetable oils and fish. IV   If wild anim...

Alternate Title:  Baffling with Bull $#!† This post discusses two "research articles" recently published in peer review journals, and how their use of statistical terminology: imparts undue scientific seriousness to the content of the paper obscures the fact that there is nothing new in the paper to make it even worthy of publication, and allows the authors to assign scientific significance to editorial opinions that are at best not supported by the statistical analysis in question, at worst directly contradicted by it. These two "studies" both boil down to exploiting statistical jargon and methodology to further an agenda.  It's a darned shame the quality of the peer-review process has declined so precipitously in recent times as to allow such obvious examples to get through.  

Here's a pop-quiz: 1.  When were the first official Dietary Guidelines released to the American public? 2.  When did the Dietary Guidelines first include the specific recommendation to cut overall dietary fat to 30% of total calories, and saturated fat to 10%? GRATUITOUS SPACER IMAGES  As participants and attendees at the #LCHF 2015 "Summit" in Cape Town, South Africa noshed on gourmet fare such as filet mignon and duck confit, the group's sight-seeing trip took them to the paleo side of town where  the "nose-to-tail" stuff is sold out in the open.     "THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF MEAT WE ADVOCATE FOR"     ~ Jimmy Moore  

After reading the new book   The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina ry T au eicholz more throroughly, I became rather frustrated.  How does a book that contains so many glaring errors even make it into print?  This book is being promoted as discussing how scientists got everything all wrong, one in particular.  It discusses nutritional science and recommendations gone wrong.  It firmly places the blame for obesity on advice to reduce dietary fat.  In doing so, however, Teicholz commits far more egregious errors than any she would like you to believe have occurred.  So I'll do a revolving post, adding them in here as the mood strikes, rather than clutter the blog with tons of posts.   My hope is that this post doesn't end up to be of epic length, and that this book turns out to be a flash in the pan that fades quickly from memory.    Each new entry will bump the post and be at the top with p...

TO SUM IT UP WITH AN IMAGE UPDATE!!!  I've found a genuine, real-life, actual error in Teicholz's book.  She spelled the author's name incorrectly in her notes.

Nina Teicholz is fond of portraying the modern American diet as "near-vegetarian", and that we need to "return" to our meat eating ways of a century ago.  But even her most exaggerated statistic lists meat intake at 200 lbs per year.   [200 lbs/year]  * [16 ounces/lb] ÷ [365 days/year] =  8.77 ounces/day  or 0.55 pounds or 250 grams of meat per day Now to pick a fatty meat ... Prime Rib This works out to just under 800 fat calories and just over 200 protein calories, roughly 75% fat, 25% protein.  Now you have around 1000 of your daily calories.  What else was on the plate to provide the additional 1000 to 1500 or 2000 if the men from the Minnesota Starvation Study intakes are used for reference?

I have long been troubled by the "they ate nose to tail", and all of the fatty organs.  By FAR, the most common organ mentioned is the liver.  Ahem.  The liver is not supposed to be fatty, and I don't think these people are really so hypocritical as to eat foie gras and claim that's what they mean.  Well .... As the fauxtrage over the not-yet-released 2015 Dietary Guidelines rages on over on Marion Nestle's blog , George carries the fatty offal flag in to blame American health issues on our Orwellian fear of the fat in organ meats ... at the hands of the DGAC.  Yeah, if by that he means we've been avoiding tongue, tripe and brains (classic American fare!), I guess he has a point.  Actually, as you'll see, many of these meet the DGAC's definition of "lean" (< 10 grams per 100 grams weight), but are not "low fat" by percentage.    So just a little sampling of some specialty/organ meats.  You can click, resize in browser, ...

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...

This post has been a long time in coming.  Bits and pieces have been in the draft since long before the Ancestral Health Symposium this past August even took place.  The abstracts and bios had been online for quite some time prior, so I had a pretty good idea of what was to transpire.  Indeed, I had intended to blog on this before AHS14 just to "compare notes" after all was said and done and had done quite a bit of research. For an organization and event containing the words "ancestral health", the program in general seemed lacking in relevant material.  Paleo was a less often heard term this year, yet it was sadly not replaced by discussions of more recent and/or definable ancestral diets.  You know ... those that promoted health up until, in many cases, the 20th century and beyond?   The nods to discussion of the lifestyles of ancestral cultures were clustered together on Day Two of the symposium, all of the shorter 20 minute variety, there alo...

I'm sure by now you've heard ... low carb "bested" low fat once again in a gold standard randomized controlled clinical trial.  As usual, some weighed in even before the full article was published, but I guess this is to be expected these days. Before discussing this study, perhaps next week, I wanted to point out that by the standards of Big Fat Surprise author Nina Teicholz, this study should be summarily dismissed.  Why?  Well: Not Representative of the General Population It was conducted in 148 obese adults of which 88% were female and 51% were black. Thus the results are not applicable to the general population. Teicholz relegated a well designed and implemented 2 year RCT on the Mediterranean diet to a footnote in her book for this reason. I discussed this in detail here , which was prompted by this footnote in BFS:

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.   

Yes ... I know "plagerize" isn't a word, but image link As you may or may not have heard, Time magazine, where all dutiful Americans turn for information on what the government and others think we should be eating, has done an about face.  Eat Butter they say ... in a cover article written by one Bryan Walsh. What?  Not Nina Teicholz you ask?  Nope, not Nina.  But it sure sounds like her.  Or does it? Teicholz was all over Twitter several days ago, egged on by many who tweeted along in support.  These ideas are just too new and original to have come from anywhere other than The Big Fat Surprise .