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...

U nless you've been living under a "rock" in the world of nutrition, you're aware that Stephan Guyenet "debated" Gary Taubes on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. It took me several days broken up to watch/listen to the whole thing. In a nutshell, it was Science & Substance (Stephan Guyenet) versus Stories & Slander (Gary Taubes). Rather than summarize, there were several points made that I'd like to address. In no particular order. I'll include this intro with links to prior topics as this series progresses.

This post was prompted by the following article on Medscape Why Aren't We Prescribing Pills for Obesity? It is written by Caroline M. Apovian, MD  I'd encourage you to read this whole thing first, as I'm genuinely interested in that response. Additionally I'm curious as to whether or not your response changes after reading this blog post (or other sources I'm about to link to).

[no I'm not retiring the blog] TLDR:  Rather than dragging things on by dismissing more black swans, Gary Taubes could eat crow and go quietly into the night. After a long hiatus from any meaningful new content, and monumental blows to TWICHOO (Taubes Wrong Insulin Carbohydrate Hypothesis Of Obesity -- c'mon, it has a much better ring to it than the Ludwigian version), , Gary Taubes has gotten back to blogging a bit.* He has apparently been reading (in fits and starts, in other words, probably not really reading) obscure books about obscure cultures from long, long ago.  Mind you, that in five years plus of arduous and comprehensive research put forth in Good Calories, Bad Calories , there was no mention of the Yahgan people he's about to discuss.   One wonders why not.  Heck, this is right in his time period of excellence for nutritional research and reporting!  ( Uttermost Parts of the Earth , this is to a 2007 version of a book Taubes...

R ecently (May 2018) comments about obesity at a Pediatric conference have made the rounds. Specifically: Obesity Is a Disease, Not a Choice, Experts Advise .  Here is link to the full text in   "print version" . The AMA classified Obesity as a disease in 2013. Five years later we've made little to no progress, likely because we've got "experts" pontificating and arguing over semantics and false dichotomies.  The false dichotomy of Disease vs. Choice is right out of whatever master playbook teaches that if you keep the "masses" arguing, they might not notice you're full of it.  It's really the only explanation I can think of for the circular arguments made with nary a tinge of irony on board straight faces. I have a bunch of stuff in the draft pile here on this topic, but cannot seem to organize it. I decided to start a series.  In no particular order.    This installment deals with the following statement from the 2013 R...

Just have to share, this ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS clip from a recent episode of NCIS Los Angeles (Season 9, Episode 15, around 13 min in).  Shared on Twitter and Facebook if you want to share on social media!

s ummary This post discusses a few studies on BMI and body composition and CVD mortality.  It was prompted by a Twitter conversation wherein Rob made claims regarding  frail obese people , and that obesity science must address body composition to move forward.  The idea being that people with BMIs up to 40 don't have a "weight" problem, they have a fat problem, and the solution is to gain more lean mass then lose fat mass whether or not there is net weight gain/loss/neutrailty in the process.  BMI is essentially a useless measure.     There are a lot of people, particularly in the "strong women" and Healthy-At-Every-Size (HAES)/related communities putting forth a similar message, that weight doesn't matter, and the former, especially, promoting lifting heavy weights and "thickness".  A sizeable proportion of people from just about every corner of the internet is fixated on the concept of preserving and/or building lean mass.   ...

T his mix of snarkasm and practical advice is brought to you by Facebook Memories reminding me of a post I made around a year ago -- The #LCHF Weight Loss Industry & Evangelizing Low Carb  -- and the upcoming Keto Clarity Academy event featuring Melanie Miller and Jimmy Moore "influencing" people on how to stay healthy for the holidays. The holiday season will be soon upon us, and even those who celebrate no December holidays will likely still have to navigate related social engagements.  Let me preface this by saying that I recognize there are a number of people who absolutely cannot, or probably should not, stray from their dietary regimen.  There are others who, when they do, have a much harder time getting "back on the wagon" compared to whatever issues staying on plan will cause.  If you are any of these people, this blog post is not for you.  This blog post is aimed at all of those who are angst-ridden going into and through the upcoming holi...

Bumping Again! New Article in BMJ:   Analysis: Beating type 2 diabetes into remission * The original posting of this was shortly after the first papers published on the success of a very low calorie diet -- essentially a 6-800 calorie protein-sparing-modified-fast, protein shakes + non-starchy veggies -- in curing diabetes in relatively short order.  You may also be interested in the following posts: The Diabetes "Crash" Cure Revisited  (a follow-up to this one) Diabetes "Crash" Cures: VLCal vs. VLCarb Check Featured Comment (if any) for further updates from me. *In light of commentary below, I'll add that I am not a fan of using the term remission here.  Cancer does seem to strike at random most times and recurrence seems to be equally random.  At best we have few if any ways to predict who will see cancer return etc.  But Type 2 diabetes doesn't work that way in most.  The source of the beta cell dysfunction is pretty well k...

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....

This series was inspired by my own "journey" through what I'm going to call disabilesity.   If you haven't done so and would like some personal background, read  Disabilesity ~ Part I: Intro and My Own Journey . This installment is about increased risks and rates of physical impairment, preceding and including formal physical disability, that have coincided with the rising rates of obesity.  A theme of this series is that unlike the chronic metabolic disease risks (diabetes, CVD, etc.), the impairment of physical ability is often overlooked.  In my opinion, this does a disservice, especially to younger obese individuals who are not properly educated/warned about these very real consequences.  Most people don't die of things like osteo arthritis, but quality of life can be greatly affected.

This post was inspired by my own "journey" through what I'm going to call  disabilesity.   It got insanely long and cumbersome, so I'll break it up into parts: Intro and My Own Journey of Disabilesity The Forgotten Disabilesity Epidemic How the Obesity Industrial Complex does a disservice to those at risk or suffering from Disabilesity It has been my observation for a while now that various interests I shall refer to collectively as the Obesity Industrial Complex, are only marginally interested in *fixing* any problems attributable to the obesity epidemic in affluent countries.  Instead, for various reasons and in varying ways, the different factions seem more intent on maintaining some level of the status quo for profit, relevance, notoriety or some combination of the above.

In light of the recent brash of coconut oil articles following the Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association , I thought I'd bump this post.  Of course all the coconut oil advocates are up in arms over this.  Mind you, coconut oil is the most nutritionally bereft oil out there ... "empty calories".  This post discusses a study in the Sixties on two Atoll island populations that live in virtually the same environment, etc. but with nearly opposite diets in terms of total fat content, where the majority of fat comes not from coconut oil, but the more nutrient dense coconut meat and embryos. One Line Summary :   The increased fat content in the Tokelauan diet correlates in increased adiposity in this population as compared to nearby Pukapuka.   While the cited study abstract says the following: Vascular disease is uncommon in both populations and there is no evidence of the high saturated fat i...

A llow me to share just one "a ha" moment I came to in the beginning of 2016.    Me photobombing Nobel laureate Michael Brown and Kevin Klatt (aka @Nutrevolve) October 2016 I'm kinda cute, huh?     I met my now husband the October after graduating from college and getting my first real job.  He was a co-worker and friend of my apartment neighbors and friends.  At the time I was far from the fattest I'd been, but I believe the pants I was wearing were size 14 at the time.  We hit it off instantly.  Movie magical type stuff.  In my sleep-deprived state the next day at work I even told my co-worker friend that "last night I met the man I'm going to marry".

SUMMARY: Back in the early days of the Asylum, there was a commenter who repeatedly fixated on "why do we overeat".  Eventually I coined the phrase "why-ning" for this questioning. This post is about how seeking external whys in the scientific literature is most likely a futile effort.  Science can provide easy answers, it turns out, to how to eat to normalize weight.  Putting that into practice in the *real world*, is a whole 'nother issue!!! If you struggle with weight ... if you're putting all manner of effort in anyway ... this post is a suggestion to alter your "why-ning".  From unproductive questions of why, to more productive, individual and personal questions of yourself as to why. It is emotionally incorrect these days to acknowledge that for many, adult obesity is, indeed, a lifestyle choice.  It may not be conscious.  It may not have started out that way (e.g. if you have always been obese).  Nonetheless, it is far more within o...

NOTE: It's no secret that my blogging has fallen off. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of them has been that I start some train of thought or down some research rabbit hole, and just never get around to finishing a post to my liking ... then things move on. This post is such a one. Unfortunately Blogger doesn't date drafts (or I didn't note it before I opened the draft with edit), but the original introduction referenced events that would indicate sometime in October 2015!  It was also around that time that Robert Lustig came out with a study on NAFLD in children. Lustig has made a comeback in my comments section here of late. He has parlayed a career as a pediatric endocrinologist into a bizarre career as a celebrity doctor/researcher who blames obesity and all evils on one molecule: fructose. I say bizarre because he makes unfounded claim after unfounded claim after unfounded claim as regards fructose. Many of his offerings are backed by the Uni...

It appears that Tom Naughton is making the podcast rounds promoting his new nutrition book for kids.  PLEASE, leave the kids out of it!  That goes for the zealots of all extreme camps including vegans and paleo and WAPF and whatever other diet cult imaginable.   Do not indoctrinate children into your eating disordered behaviors. There are rare instances where ketogenic diets are therapeutic in children, and most of them -- epilepsy -- stay on the diet for the shortest time possible where therapeutic efficacy is achieved, and then wean from the diet. You absolutely cannot make a case for children traditionally being raised on any sort of low carbohydrate diet, not even Zone/Ludwig/Hymanesque 40% levels.  In virtually every culture, the children of both genders consume a diet similar to their mother's ... the gardeners and gatherers.  Children of Tom's generation were raised on mixed diets that included processed foods.  Obesity existed but was not com...

Introduction The current theme of metabolic research seems to have settled on physiological changes, post-weight-loss in the obese, that set the person up for almost assured failure and regain.  It has been reported that the super-obese (usually a term for BMI>40) tend to have REEs that are higher than would be predicted by standard, generally accepted models such as Harris-Benedict or Mifflin-St.Jeor.  This is both what was seen in the Biggest Losers "before" weight loss, and was reported in comments on this blog by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, who measures REE in the obese he treats.   In order for a super-obese person to fully reverse their obesity, they will need to lose large amounts of weight -- 100, 200 or more pounds.   To do so, most will need to dramatically cut calories to lose at a rate that is motivating enough to sustain a fairly lengthy time period.  Even "fast" weight loss, reported by many, and especially gastric bypass patients, occurs over...

I am ( STILL ) working on a comprehensive post addressing "The Biggest Loser Regain" study and fallout.  But as I was going along the way, I'm finding some gems that really just need posts of their own.  This is one of them.  I'm also going to do my best to clean out the draft bin for the remainder of 2016!     [If you haven't seen the previous entry referencing this topic, here is a link .  If it is some time past the publish date of this current post, this link should be active for the TBLR post.]

I interrupt my usual stream of non-blogging for this general "off topic" post.   The Offending Tweet