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#21
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
On Oct 15, 7:47 pm, Susan wrote:
But Taubes appears to possibly not be objective, from the bits I've read, except for the epidemiology aspect, that is. Best comment from Taubes in an interview I've seen. He said he doesn't believe 40% of what he wrote in the Big Fat Lie piece anymore. When asked to explain, he said, back then, he was still in the calories are calories, eat less and move more mindset, and that's 40% of the Big Fat Lie piece. His research on the book caused him to reevaluate everything. Quick question: I know cortisol is near and dear to you, Susan. But what's the percentages in the general population? If it's not a big number, then maybe it just doesn't fit into the 450 pages of content that the publisher allowed him. The original draft of the book, according to Dr. Mike Eades was over 1100 pages (versus 640 published). The second draft was over 800 pages. This is a very condensed version of those. If hypercortisolemia is not the cause for a really large number of people (the way that insulin resistance and syndrome X are), maybe it doesn't make the cut of a broad oversight book. The thing of the 450 pages of content: there's not a lot of fat in there. There's some repetition, but there's not many wasted words. So, maybe cortisol was a space consideration, considering that every 16 pages over 250 probably hurts sales a bit. |
#22
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
On Oct 15, 10:04 pm, Jim wrote:
I've concluded that you aren't doing that much of a service with the paraphrased rehash as given below. Too far out of context, especially for those who haven't read much of the book at this point. I do understand your desire to have tried to be helpful. So, I think this is the actual. 1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease. 2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being. 3. Sugars--sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically --are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver. 4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times. 5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior. 6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller. 7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry. 8. We get fat because of an imbalance--a disequilibrium--in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance. 9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel. 10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity. As written, I think there's room for Susan's cortisol concerns. Insulin IS, as far as we know, the PRIMARY regulator of fat storage. Other hormones may contribute, but insulin is #1. And a hormonal situation that's out of whack and directs fat to be stored and not used, well, there's your disequilibrium. Definitely should have gone with the original. Didn't feel like retyping. Lazy never wins. |
#23
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
On Oct 15, 7:05 pm, "Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Alice Faber" wrote in message ... In article , "Roger Zoul" wrote: "Jackie Patti" wrote in message ... Roger Zoul wrote: "Jackie Patti" wrote in message ... My understanding is that Taubes book is primarily a review of the stuff we've known for a long time about carb, fat, insulin and glucagon; it sounds like it's primarily just a typical explanation of low-carb, though much more well-organized than most. No one posting about it has said anything unfamiliar or new yet. But I'm not into it very far yet, so don't know if there will be more useful info or not. I think his book is more about how we've come to this point of understanding...with "researchers" having tunnel vision and all...not seeing (or trying to see) the full picture and blindly slaving (or getting rich) at finding prove for what they want to believe. Well, at least in the first chapter.... I'm not yet sure if there's anything actually *new* or even relatively recent. Maybe, the mainstream hasn't "got" the whole carb thing just yet, but the relationship of sugar and insulin was well-established back when I was in college a couple decades ago. And it goes back even further - farmers have known to feed lots of corn to fatten pigs for one heck of a long time. It seems Taubes is largely preaching to the choir; selling a book to low-carbers to justify why they do what they do. Is anyone besides us reading this thing? Well, that's going to be extremely hard for us here {LCers} to know. However, I'd guess that since he has had some press that he might get some non-LCers to read his book. Jim posted a "response" that some low-fat guy wrote almost the day Taubes' book hit the stands. There was a really nasty response in my local paper this morning, by a Yale Medical School "expert" on obesity (an MD, no less). It really amounted to him saying that he didn't *like* the book, because it contradicted everything he'd been recommending, both to patients and in popular columns. See...this is good...when folks read this...they might read the book, so they can ask their doc what's up. Of course, s/he'll say Taubes is an idiot...most people think their doctor walks on water if they like h/im/er.... I read a report on a study where people will refuse to sue a doc they like for malpractice, even if things went really wrong. If there is any other out, they will sue someone else. On the flip side, they will rush to sue a doc they don't like for malpractice, even if there is no real malpractice. The take away was that bedside manner is the best malpractice insurance. |
#24
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Hollywood wrote:
/im/er.... I read a report on a study where people will refuse to sue a doc they like for malpractice, even if things went really wrong. If there is any other out, they will sue someone else. On the flip side, they will rush to sue a doc they don't like for malpractice, even if there is no real malpractice. The take away was that bedside manner is the best malpractice insurance. Years ago, I did research for an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in difficult cases - correcting other surgeon's screwups. He also was often called in for expert medical testimony in malpractice cases. He told me that he had never been sued. His father was a doctor and taught him the necessity to talk to and listen to his patients. My doctor client followed that lesson well. He was a pleasure to be with partly because he listened, partly because he talked and told such interesting stories. I have read what you described above - and read it in several places. It is a good truth, and there is a lot behind it. One thing that he appeared to do was to explain the risks of the surgery and the range of outcomes that he had experienced and the kinds of things that could additionally be done to minimize the consequences of a less then perfect surgical outcome. On several occasions, our departure from the office for the day would be set back while he went to talk to patients concerned about their surgery. No patient had to wait overnight to see the surgeon about a problem. Bedside manner is the best malpractice insurance. That is true. |
#25
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
I sometimes help relatives pick Christmas presents for me. Taubes' book
will be on the list. Thanks for the summary. I've caught flak for my anti-exercise stand in this newsgroup, over the years. It is good to have a reference book (of sorts) to point at. During my 174 pound weightloss, I found that exercise (YMCA weight training) made no difference, personally. I have not read the book, but I'm a bit concerned that the summary list does not seem to include the issue of total calories in addressing the issue of body weight. Cubit 320/155/160 "Hollywood" wrote in message oups.com... In his concluding chapter of Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes comes to ten inescapable conclusions based on his five years of research and his attempt to put it all together. I'll paraphrase, but you can find the actual ones around about page 427 or so. 1. Dietary fat doesn't cause obesity, heart problems, or other chronic diseases of civilization. 2. Yes, carbs are the real problem. It's in how they work with insulin and therefore the entire hormonal regulatory system. 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). 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. 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. 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. 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) 8. High insulin = fat goes into storage. Low insulin = an environment where you can move fat out of fat cells. 9. Carbs stimulate insulin secretion, which leads to fat storage. Fewer carbs = leaner us. 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. 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. 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? |
#26
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Susan wrote:
Jackie Patti wrote: Susan wrote: It's never just ONE hormone, they all readjust to compensate for each other, but with a pituitary or adrenal tumor secreting excess ACTH and cortisol, there's no predictability or rhyme or reason for the hormonal secretion patterns. The problem with focusing on insulin is that there is no such thing as just one hormone; the endocrine system is incredibly complex and operates on feedback loops that change everything else in the system. It's not about just insulin or just cortisol or just thyroid or just estrogen/progesterone imbalance... it's all one system and you can't change any individual bit of it without changing ALL of it. There is no simplistic cause-and-effect in the endocrine system; everything is a cause and everything is an effect and it goes on like that, wheels within wheels. My understanding is that Taubes book is primarily a review of the stuff we've known for a long time about carb, fat, insulin and glucagon; it sounds like it's primarily just a typical explanation of low-carb, though much more well-organized than most. No one posting about it has said anything unfamiliar or new yet. But I'm not into it very far yet, so don't know if there will be more useful info or not. Actually, I don't think Taubes is strongest on the subject of diet and insulin so much as he is with the history of the misuse of epidemiology in developing clinical medical guidelines. I read a few hundred pages last night. He did make the point I made about endocrinology, then went on to cover a whole chapter about insulin. Cortisol is not in the index, nor does he really discuss other hormones in any depth. For him, it's all about the insulin and metabolic syndrome. He is *very* strong on the heart disease business. I'm finding lots of research that backs up Dr. Davis's recommendations, which have a lot more to do with lipoproteins and inflammation markers than with cholesterol. This would've been a good book for me to read when I had the question about whether to be on a statin or not. It starts to become clear that cholesterol has nothing to do with anything. I have gotten an answer to a question always posted on ASD. Glycation of proteins actually proceeds faster with fructose than with glucose. This explains to me why there is so much lack of correlation between the A1c and bg readings. Bg readings only read *glucose* whereas A1c is more highly correlated with serum fructose levels. It also explains why sucrose is so much worse than starch: the liver is busy converting fructose to triglycerides just at the moment when it has a large glucose dose that it ought to be converting to glycogen. He understands this as the primary problem with HFCS, but misses the carbonyl issue with HFCS, presumably because it's relatviely new. So I'm learning stuff. I'm learning, among other things, that I'm not cooking the same way for the nondiabetics in my life as I have been. Things shall change. I have a copy of this book from the library, but I'm probably going to buy it after all. Unfortunately, I doubt most of those I'd prefer read it will ever do so. -- http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/ |
#27
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Hollywood wrote:
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being. I'm not getting that from the book. Sugar causes heart disease and other issues directly due to the glycation of proteins. High serum insulin is definetly bad, but it does not seem worse than high blood sugars. 3. Sugars--sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically --are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver. The liver converts fructose to triglycerides, hence raising blood trigylceride levels. They're removed from the blood and stored in adipose. 7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry. In the earlier parts of the book, he discusses research wrt rice-eating countries with low heart disease and obesity and makes the point that the low calories versus the amount of physical work *do* make a difference. Low-calories and exercise *does* work and he says so early on. As written, I think there's room for Susan's cortisol concerns. Insulin IS, as far as we know, the PRIMARY regulator of fat storage. Other hormones may contribute, but insulin is #1. And a hormonal situation that's out of whack and directs fat to be stored and not used, well, there's your disequilibrium. All the hormones contribute. The issue is simplifying the endocrine system to just insulin, which you can't do as insulin does not exist in a vaccuum. A low-carber with thyroid out-of-whack is not gonna lose fat effectively either. Certainly high carb intake increases insulin, but so can other hormones being screwed up. Taubes is really not addressing this. -- http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/ |
#28
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Jackie Patti wrote:
Jim wrote: You haven't gotten to the part of the book where he talks about how other published researchers have tried to force normal subjects into massive weight gain with overfeeding..... and haven't been all that successfuyl, have you. That's been reported elsewhere also, though I can't recall where I've read it, but I know I read it relatively recently before picking up Taubes book. That's what I personally meant by "new" - not that I expected Taubes to have done reserach himself, but it'd have been nice if he had reviewed the most recent research as well as the old stuff that's been reported generally again and again and again. What if there has been no "new" stuff in the area, say, of the knowledge of induced feeding causing weight gain? Should he ignore this area then, because SOME people already know this? Maybe, if he stuck to "just the new", he could have finished the whole thing in maybe 140 pages. What you may mean is that "he didn't review the new stuff that I have been studying....". There is tons of new stuff. I just posted two new items on hormones and genetics research article today. He wouldn't really be able to review all the new stuff and still put this large package of sad history into a story which has current relevance. Or should he have just not bothered at all because SOME people also know this large sad history? Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it, as it fails to meet with your preceptions..... like happens with medical experts. Criticizing Taubes is not disagreeing with a low-carb diet; most who are criticizing here are confirmed low-carbers after all. I never claimed that criticism of Taubes was in any way disagreeing with a low-carb diet. He underplayed the role of the second law of thermodymanics in the energy conversion and energy balance issues. [criticism] The second law is about inefficiency of energy conversions (heat to work, mostly) and a big part of obesity is the efficiency of conversion of food energy of form A into stored energy in form B. That complex and variable set of processes is not 100% efficient, and thus one should doubt the firmess of the "3500 calories = a pound of fat" argument as anything other than a SWAG first order approximation. Actually, I had only let this nag at me, thinking that it was my own failure to understand and believing that all of these subtle points were well known and understood by experts in the diet-obesity community. I was wrong to assume this knowledge as being widespread. People can "burn off" calories as waste heat. If exercise can do it, it is likely that there can be bichemical factors that also do it in the absence of exercise. We keep telling each other how special our individual biochemistries are.... and then often in effect telling other people that they must obey rather rigid orthodoxies. I believe that the low carb diet approach has been a good one for me, and will be a good one for many other people, even if they are different from me in some details. Even if I have criticized Taubes in one area or another, I recognize a worthwhile major piece of researched writing and analysis. |
#29
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Jackie Patti wrote:
Susan wrote: Jackie Patti wrote: Susan wrote: It's never just ONE hormone, they all readjust to compensate for each other, but with a pituitary or adrenal tumor secreting excess ACTH and cortisol, there's no predictability or rhyme or reason for the hormonal secretion patterns. The problem with focusing on insulin is that there is no such thing as just one hormone; the endocrine system is incredibly complex and operates on feedback loops that change everything else in the system. It's not about just insulin or just cortisol or just thyroid or just estrogen/progesterone imbalance... it's all one system and you can't change any individual bit of it without changing ALL of it. There is no simplistic cause-and-effect in the endocrine system; everything is a cause and everything is an effect and it goes on like that, wheels within wheels. My understanding is that Taubes book is primarily a review of the stuff we've known for a long time about carb, fat, insulin and glucagon; it sounds like it's primarily just a typical explanation of low-carb, though much more well-organized than most. No one posting about it has said anything unfamiliar or new yet. But I'm not into it very far yet, so don't know if there will be more useful info or not. Actually, I don't think Taubes is strongest on the subject of diet and insulin so much as he is with the history of the misuse of epidemiology in developing clinical medical guidelines. I read a few hundred pages last night. He did make the point I made about endocrinology, then went on to cover a whole chapter about insulin. Cortisol is not in the index, nor does he really discuss other hormones in any depth. For him, it's all about the insulin and metabolic syndrome. He is *very* strong on the heart disease business. I'm finding lots of research that backs up Dr. Davis's recommendations, which have a lot more to do with lipoproteins and inflammation markers than with cholesterol. This would've been a good book for me to read when I had the question about whether to be on a statin or not. It starts to become clear that cholesterol has nothing to do with anything. Yes. Others have written this before, but the extent to which Taubes elaborated on the point was convincing and educational. I have gotten an answer to a question always posted on ASD. Glycation of proteins actually proceeds faster with fructose than with glucose. This explains to me why there is so much lack of correlation between the A1c and bg readings. Bg readings only read *glucose* whereas A1c is more highly correlated with serum fructose levels. It also explains why sucrose is so much worse than starch: the liver is busy converting fructose to triglycerides just at the moment when it has a large glucose dose that it ought to be converting to glycogen. He understands this as the primary problem with HFCS, but misses the carbonyl issue with HFCS, presumably because it's relatviely new. So I'm learning stuff. I'm learning, among other things, that I'm not cooking the same way for the nondiabetics in my life as I have been. Things shall change. I have a copy of this book from the library, but I'm probably going to buy it after all. Unfortunately, I doubt most of those I'd prefer read it will ever do so. |
#30
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Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions
Jim wrote:
You haven't gotten to the part of the book where he talks about how other published researchers have tried to force normal subjects into massive weight gain with overfeeding..... and haven't been all that successfuyl, have you. That's been reported elsewhere also, though I can't recall where I've read it, but I know I read it relatively recently before picking up Taubes book. That's what I personally meant by "new" - not that I expected Taubes to have done reserach himself, but it'd have been nice if he had reviewed the most recent research as well as the old stuff that's been reported generally again and again and again. Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it, as it fails to meet with your preceptions..... like happens with medical experts. Criticizing Taubes is not disagreeing with a low-carb diet; most who are criticizing here are confirmed low-carbers after all. -- http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/ |
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