The Carb-Sane Asylum

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...

B ump! One would think that the calorie or energy-balance denialists would have gotten a clue by now, but apparently this post needs bumping.   If you make it through this post and still believe calories are some non-entity, that somehow insulin or any hormone can trump energy balance, I don't know what to say. Original Post Date July 1, 2013    Calories ... ... or joules or ergs or foot·lbs or BTUs or eV or ... These are all the same thing folks.  They are all units of energy. That we use different terms in different contexts doesn't mean we are talking about different things.  It's like different languages, be it vida or leben or liv or  อายุการใช้งาน  ... they all mean life. The bastardizing of basic science in the Paleo and LLVLC realms is both ubiquitous and unrelenting.  This is what prompted me to start this blog.  I could really care less about the diet fads that come along that are obvious quackery, but this ...

Bump Again! I've bumped this before.  I'm still alive and working on blogging, finishing off an installment about the Sugar Slammers. I think this post is worth a read or re-read.  The Laura and John Arnold Foundation funds several non-profits all engaging in targeting sugar as the ultimate cause of everything. Such funds are obscured as donations to universities.  Additionally other non-profits with clear agendas present themselves as taking no industry funding.  It's a dense mess. ORIGINAL CONTENT PUBLISHED MARCH 16, 2015 I'm working on another post regarding conflicts of interest and such, and this came up on the background gathering.  A number of journals are adopting "noble" policies of no longer accepting industry funded studies. Mind you, many of these same journals appear to have no qualms publishing the works of individuals with clear biases and conflicts. I think this hard line on industry funding is wrong-headed.  Not that I'm...

5.  Dr. Mark Hyman -- Because of his pop culture appeal coupled with the gravitas of "Cleaveland Clinic".   This man will stop at no mangling of the facts for personal enrichment. 4.  Gary Taubes -- Despite his own funded study (and countless before that), he continues to cling to his deliberately misrepresented hodge podge of facts supporting TWICHOO.  Still given legitimate ink in the press.  Sigh. 3.  Dr. Arya Sharma -- Big on the Canadian and international obesity stages.  Torch-carrier for obesity as an incurable disease that needs to be managed medically through useless pharmaceuticals.  Wears that darned red sweater too much (grin). 2.  Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian -- Heads up Tufts' nutrition research, big into sustainability and other things, huge pusher of veggie oils as "healthy fats", seemingly funded by anyone and everyone at some time that explains some of his more absurd commentary.  This high on the list as he is...

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