The Carb-Sane Asylum

BUMP! In addition to blogging on several topics raised during Stephan Guyenet and Gary Taubes recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast , I've decided to bump some of the past content on this blog relevant to some topics discussed and/or research studies mentioned.  I'll include a little commentary with each. At around the 12 minute mark, Stephan makes a great opening play, and then gets distracted or flustered into fumbling the football.  Stephan asks what it is about the food environment, etc. that causes obesity, and distills it down to the simplest of questions (paraphrase): Q:  What is the most fattening diet on the planet? A:  Human junk food. Nail.  Head.  Boom.  He then calls out some numbers from the research summary he posted on his blog in advance of the podcast .   The study I discuss in this blog post is the one included in "#52" that he's discussing in the podcast.    Joe seemed perplexed by thi...

NOTE  (8/7/2018):     I've edited this post, originally written/published 5/5/2011, to omit the no longer relevant back story and broken links.  I had referred to a discussion on Jimmy Moore's now-long-defunct LLVLC Discussion Board that made me aware of the Eades' post discussed. SUMMARY:  Fat in the blood following a fatty meal is almost entirely due to the fat in the meal. ~~~~~ Several years ago, Dr. Michael Eades wrote the following post:   ABC’s big meal propaganda .  Sadly, the video is no longer available.  It involved subjects consuming a GIGANTIC meal of 6000 calories, after which blood was drawn two hours later.  This "after" blood was very cloudy, and the technician holds this up and identifies the source of the cloudiness as fat.  The meal was deep fat fried mac&cheese, a bacon cheese burger quesadilla and fries and an ice cream smothered giant cookie.  Yes, high in fat and carbs, but favoring the s...

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...

Preface: I have to say this.  Sorry, not sorry.  If you have children, and you want to help them with nutrition and health as they grow, teach them about food and teach them how to cook.   Get your own weight and health under control (if it's a problem) so that you can pass down good habits to your children.  Or do nothing.  None of my business.  But whatever you do, do not buy your child a copy of Fat Head Kids or let them within 50 yards of a showing of the Fat Head Kids movie if it ever comes out.  Put a block on your Hulu or whatever streaming service it is eventually on.  I cannot recommend more strongly against this. Every time I have watched snippets of some video of Tom talking about this book, or read the preview content on Amazon, I just get utterly creeped out by the whole thing, and Tom Naughton specifically.  Books for children should not include shirtless pictures of the middle aged author who goes on about boy boobs....

Is Gary Taubes losing it?  His grip on reality, that is?  I submit that it is the only "innocent" explanation for his behavior of late. Gary Taubes and Mike Eades in Better Days for Low Carb "Science"  8/13/2008 direct image link I'll have more to say when I can recoup from the busy time of year in my real job coupled with traveling weekend before last.  But if you haven't heard, two studies conducted by NIH scientist Kevin Hall: The unveiling of the results of the NuSI funded multi-center study at an obesity conference.  See Nutrition Wonk for the most info.  This was a 2 month metabolic ward study. The followup results of a study on The Biggest Loser with some confusing metabolic outcomes.  I say confusing as the numbers don't add up, but that hasn't stopped pretty much everyone from painting a picture of doom and gloom topped with a large dollop of CICO/ELMM is going to destroy your metabolism fatalism.    I will have more...

Sixteen post bumps for 2016 ... No. 4 While I'm way beyond behind in my post bumping for the new year, I still plan to finish out a total of sixteen at some point. This one doesn't need much in the way of summary, but quick points: In terms of energy homeostasis, the main role of insulin in the body is as a signaling molecule in the regulation of the circulating levels of energy substrate, the two primary ones being glucose and free fatty acids. This post models this for just the fatty acids using a room temperature/thermostat feedback analogy. In the case of fatty acids, circulating levels are controlled mainly at the release point from the fat tissue.   The role of insulin is to keep total amount of circulating free fatty acids at appropriate levels, and not to regulate the amount of fatty acids stored in the fat cells, and thus overall fat tissue mass. Original post date: 12/13/14 Insulin doesn't regulate fat mass.  This is a bold statement.  M...

gratuitous image of the Drs. Eades, early 2015 A little while back I wrote  Nutritional Ketosis is an Oxymoron .  I was taken to task a bit in comments for the inappropriate use of oxymoron, but I'm going to plead for leniency in the spirit of the use of the term.  The crux of that post was that the terms nutritional (as in being in a calorically sufficient, weight stable state) and ketosis are metabolically contradictory.  This is perhaps evidenced in no more profound manner than the extremes required to produce and sustain such a state, and the ease with which it is abolished. Ketowars rage on as the standard bearer appears to be imploding on the sidelines ...  I got into a discussion on Twitter with Dr. Eades about a side issue, and here you go ... SUMMARY: Starvation ketosis is distinctly different from nutritional ketosis. No human populations in sustained nutritional ketosis (not even the Inuit). Dietary reasons why the Inuit weren't in nu...

Hello all!  A quick follow-on post to yesterday's offering on the Ma-Pi2 diet for diabetes.  This diet is vegan, grain based (brown rice, millet, barley), includes legumes and copious veggies, and "macrobiotic" foods like seaweed and green tea.   Recent Post:   Vegan Ma-Pi Diet Bests "Conventional Treatment" for Diabetes in Recent RCT Previous Posts:   Carbohydrate and Diabetes , Carbohydrate and Diabetes II I want to make clear that my purpose for blogging on this particular diet is not one of advocacy.   I don't believe there is any evidence for humanity avoiding all animal derived sustenance and, sorry, but the Ma-Pi diet does seem a rather austere one to me.   Furthermore, I am offering no comment on the "macrobiotic" claims and whether the inclusion of some of these special foods is integral to the success of these programs.  When looking at the success of programs such as native Hawaiian diets (discussed here ), and others, which...

A little detour into the Protein Power  book by Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades, 1996.  Was looking at a few things sparked by the thermodynamics posts he's made, and was surprised by a few things in the PP book that I had never even skimmed until now.  This post didn't fit the thermo topic, so I thought I'd mention this separately (and there may be another post or two coming as time permits). I had never heard of the Eades or their books until I found the low carb community in 2009.  While Atkins remains the primary low carb diet, the PP book/plan is high up on the list for second place, and Eades' blog was still uber popular at that time. Circa 2009 the low carb mantras of the day were largely focused on: Up the fat intake Fat can't make you fat You can't get fat or gain fat weight without eating carbs, so even if you don't lose more weight, at least you won't gain.

For the past couple of months, I've been somewhat obsessing about thermodynamics having written the AARR piece and a few blog posts, not to mention revisiting several dating back to near the beginnings of this blog.  I began this a while ago as a single lengthy post, but it's gotten out of hand and finding time to tidy up such a post vs. publishing shorter chunks in parts became impossible.  Not sure how many parts this will have.  This series will put several members of the IHC "on the record" so to speak.  While I've done so in the past, the hope is to have it all in one place. Robert Atkins the Calorie Guy!    Surely Atkins is an honorary member of the IHC, even though he passed away over a decade ago before this community reached the level that it has.  Most of the "greats" have learned something (perhaps essentially everything) they know about low carb diets and tangentially about thermodynamics/calorie theory from the "late great one...

A bump of sorts to an Asylum Classic.  Yes folks, the evil $ appeared in Gary Taubes name for ... what? ... the second time and second-to-last if not the last time, way back when.   I think the title of this post holds ;-) Since that time, Dr. Eades has used the same analysis in his AHS11 presentation :  Nouvelle Paleo: Caving in to Carbs?   (this begins at the 22:44 mark in the video) .  More recently, and the reason for this bump, Nina Teicholz shows this study on a slide in her TEDx East talk   (18:50 mark as she says "a tremendous amount of research done") , and makes multiple references to it in her book,  The Big Fat Surprise .    I'll be discussing this egregious misuse of science here shortly.  So without further ado, "you can't eat carbs, you can basically exercise as much gluttony as you want as long you're eating fat and protein"     ~ Gary Taubes

Investigative journalist, Nina Teicholz has written a book extolling the virtues of dietary fat (and saturated fat) and perpetuating the lie that is Americans on a low fat diet.  She calls it The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet . Don't waste your money.  Spread the word so others can save as well. I'm not going to review this entire book because I cannot stomach reading it.  It is a poor follow-up to her friend and manuscript reviewer Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories ... and its what ... over 6 years late in the game?? In the Highlight reel: Teicholz claim Americans went from eating 43% fat to 33% fat.  Unreferenced assertion.  I.just.can't. We will now know Ancel Keys middle name is Benjamin.  As if referring to him by his full real name makes the demonizing better somehow -- like scolding a child.  Pathetic.   I will have much to say about Keys in the coming week as regards revisionist...

Does carbohydrate intake cause diabetes?  How about hyperglycemia in the established diabetic, is that caused by carbs?  Is the only way to fix this without insulin to reduce carbohydrate, perhaps virtually eliminate it? If you've come here from the low carb or paleo realms, you would answer yes, and yes, and an unequivocal yes.   I believe that when you cast aside the hyperbole about rotting scrambled brains, starving cells, toxic sugar and all the rest, the remaining misconception that using insulin causes your pancreas to break down is the most damaging of all. image link Dr. Eades is fond of hunting black swans.  By that I mean, the whole falsifiable hypothesis thing.  If I say all swans are white, then finding all the white swans in the world provides further support for my claim, but it can never be "proven".  However all I need is one black swan for the claim to be falsified.  Too bad those that are so fond of this are unable to d...

I just bit the big financial bullet and, upon discovering that it is available in Kindle form, purchased William Banting's Letter on Corpulence on Amazon.com (it's only $2.99, or you can read it online at Eades' site which I found later, it's also available in full text here  - ht C.Grashow).  I do not think there's a low carb diet book and/or author that hasn't at least referred to Banting's weight loss as the quintessential example of low carb in all it's glorious action. "I am now nearly 66 years of age, about 5 feet 5 inches in stature, and, in August last (1862), weighed 202 lbs., which I think it right to name, because the article in the Cornhill Magazine presumes that a certain stature and age should bear ordinarily a certain weight, and I am quite of that opinion. I now weigh 167 lbs., showing a diminution of something like 1 lb. per week since August, and having now very nearly attained the happy medium, I have perfect confidence th...

A summary post of ideas here, that I've likely stated elsewhere on the blog but wanted to gather in one place.   Last week on Facebook, to the detriment of his credentials and credibility, Jason Boehm posted and deleted a post about calories and the Second Law of Thermo.  I queried what it had to do with the original point which was more of a 500 cals spinach vs. 500 cals Coke type nonsense, so he did address that in a second FB post that stands (minus lots of relevant input from people he deleted , labeled hateful and pretty much had a kitten over  ... nobody called him a moron BTW, that's a clever tactic of those that can't hold up their end of an intellectual debate on the science ... can't leave the self-incriminating evidence).   But I digress.

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...

The title of this post is a play on "feast or famine".   One of the things about blogging, for me anyway, is that over time you accumulate a draft bin full of posts that never get published.  Some of these are on studies I never got the chance to fully flesh out, others are on the "goings on" during a particular time that never seemed appropriate to hit Publish on by the time they were ready.  They are the closest thing I have to a diary and it can often be interesting to read back through the draft bin.   It is hard to believe that I've been blogging over three years now, and involved in this community for more than another year longer than that.  Barely a blink of an eye compared to some but my how times have changed.  This time four years ago Mark Sisson published Primal Blueprint and Jimmy Moore weighed around 245 lbs after getting down to the mid 230's earlier in the year.  Nobody would have known about or considered eating nothing but egg...

Related Post:   Insulin Doing Its Thang! And Still No Starving Cells .  It discusses another study by Keith Frayn that shows increased NEFA uptake into the muscle cells of men with hyperinsulinemia.  It may be worth a read for newer readers along with The Myth of Starving Cells. Original Content Published June 7, 2013: A couple of years ago I wrote:   The Myth of Starving Cells .  As the story goes --as related by science journalist Gary Taubes, to Low Carb Diet Doctor Mike Eades, to Fat Head Naughton -- insulin traps our fat in our fat cells, causing "internal starvation" as the rest of our cells go without, triggering hunger and overeating.   We overeat because we are getting fat, or some nonsense like that.   In the post, I discussed studies demonstrating the opposite is true.  In obesity, there is failure to properly suppress NEFA release from fat cells, NEFA are elevated in the fasted state, and irrespective of absolute concentration,...

A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women I don't know that this study is worth three posts -- grin -- but I decided to break it up anyway.  I blogged on the diet itself here , and the weight loss here .  This post will address the impact on ectopic fat.  So first, I want to mention the "misleading title" peeves.  Ectopic fat is defined in the abstract: Ectopic fat accumulation in liver and skeletal muscle may be an essential link between abdominal obesity, insulin resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular disease after menopause. Here's the relevant synopsis of the results: Liver triglyceride levels decreased by 49% whereas IMCL [intramyocellular lipid] levels in skeletal muscle were not significantly altered. Which apparently garnered the conclusion: A modified Palaeolithic-type diet has strong and tissue-specific effects on ectopic lipid deposition in postmenopau...

I'm hoping to get to my analysis/comments of the hyperinsulinemia paper in Cell , that's causing all the buzz on the internet lately, published up by tomorrow.  Such posts require more attention to detail and seriousness than posts such as this one.  But it's a nice little break from my real life grind at the moment to bring you a little commentary such as this post. The LC position on insulin is getting to be downright ridiculous.  But the title of the paper, "Hyperinsulinemia Drives Diet-Induced Obesity Independently of Brain Insulin Production" can be quickly read as "Insulin causes obesity", which led two LC docs to jump right in.  First, Eades tweeted :  Dec Michael Eades, M.D.  ‏ @ DrEades Hilarious. Researchers @ UBC stumble onto the fact that insulin stores fat. As if they're the 1st to notice this.  http:// bit.ly/121FvTM