"Hollywood" wrote

1. Dietary fat doesn't cause obesity, heart problems, or other
chronic diseases of civilization.

I can buy this.

2. Yes, carbs are the real problem. It's in how they work with
insulin and therefore the entire hormonal regulatory system.

I think that depends. If carb consumption is out of line with activity
level, then there is a problem.

3. Sugar is the worst. We're talking table sugar and HFCS here. And
it's the duality of glucose+fructose that's the real killer (OJ
Simpson's quest for the real killers not withstanding).

Don't have a problem with this one, especially if they aren't burned off
quickly.

4. Carbs cause coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the
most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's, and other chronic
diseases of civilization.

Don't have a problem with this one, especially if they aren't burned off
quickly.

5. Being overweight/obese is a disorder of excess fat accumulation,
not overeating and not couching around. The "too much to eat and too
little movement causes fat folks to be fat" crowd has it backwards.
Being fat makes you couch around and overeat.

Well, this seems like the chicken and the egg thing.

6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.

I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is wrong.
Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance can be
fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose weight on
a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an anabolic state
within the body, as too little food intake can create a catabolic state
within the body. Insulin will follow those states. Exercise can affect
those states as well, either by lessening the anabolic state or by
increasing the degree of catabolism within the body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.

7. Fattening is caused by an imbalance in the hormonal regulation
of fat tissue and fat metabolism. Fat creation and storage outpace fat
use. To get lean, you must get your hormones back into balance (i.e.
your insulin under control)

No problem there.

8. High insulin = fat goes into storage. Low insulin = an
environment where you can move fat out of fat cells.

No problem there.

9. Carbs stimulate insulin secretion, which leads to fat storage.
Fewer carbs = leaner us.

Where is exercise in the equation? It is well known that exercise can
influence this balance.

10. Carbs also make us hungry. If hunger/cravings are signals that
cells need nutrition and insulin is putting everything into storage,
you can imagine what chronic hyperinsulemia can do to your
"willpower". Carbs also make us move less, through the same fat
storage story. If you are chronically elevated, and your food is going
into storage, instead of use, the use cells will be starved and not
feel like doing anything. It's the same story, and it's the
explanation of why people have it backwards.

Well, I can buy this too, to a degree. He does say "chronically elevated"
though.


For the folks who maintain that it's the quantity of macronutrients
rather than the quality or that dietary fat is the enemy of
weightloss, I would like to see an alternative model that accounts for
the role of insulin vs. all other hormones in fat accumulation/fat
loss. I would like to see a hole punched in these "inescapable
conclusions" by Chung, Kaz, and all the other volume/calorie/fat
watchers out there who dismiss low carb, either as a calorie limiting
mechanism or as inferior to any other approach to weight loss.

Well, I don't see why one must use this as a reason to justify low carb.
This explains why we get fat : we generally eat too many carbs for our
activity level. Carbs aren't evil. They have a place. We engineer food to
taste good and we generally like to eat carbs and we slow down as we get
older (many of us slow down must quicker than others, too). We end up
getting fat. I can buy that too many carbs (relative to activity level)
creates a situation that makes us lazy, too.


For the rest of us, can we make this the Low Carb Equivalent of Martin
Luther's 95 Theses? The kind of thing we tack to the doors of our
local branches of the USDA, the AHA, both ADAs, local fitness
celebrities, etc? I live in the residential half of a complex that
houses the Diabetic ADA. I work about half a mile from USDA
headquarters. Are they in need of Martin Luther thesising?

No. It's about controling (or adjusting) carb consumption relative to your
activity level {What Atkins referred to later on a "controlled carb"
nutrition.}. It should be tacked to the doors of the ADA for sure however,
and perhaps the AHA since they seem to think fat is dangerous. They do have
it wrong, by and large, IMO, but a flat out "carbs are evil" statement
{which is what the above sounds like} is no better than "fat is evil". The
question about what is a healthy diet is critical here, though. Too many
carbs and too little activity is unhealthy. But so is too many calories and
too little activity. The latter may not be so easy to do compared to the
former if the calories are really low carb calories, but it is still more
true than false, IMO.

Thanks for the post.