More on Taubes Book

I found a little more information, or "PR" distribution on the Taubes
book from a Google search. Links and quotes are below. Long articles or
interviews are simply linked.

Blurb on the publisher's website.
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9781400040780


Interview : Martha Henry, program coordinator for the Knight
Fellowships, MIT, interviews Gary Taubes about his controversial New
York Times article.

http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fe...ws/taubes.html

HENRY: I'm sure you're aware that what a writer writes in an article and
what the average reader takes away from the article may be two very
different things. Though the thrust of your NYT Magazine article may
have been that there is scant evidence to support the hypothesis that a
low-fat diet is the best and most healthy way to lose weight and that
the evidence may fit the alternative hypothesis (low-carb diets are
healthier, more effective for weight loss and do not raise cholesterol)
better, what my Uncle Donald took away from the article is that he
should eat bacon-double-cheese burgers for breakfast. As a science
journalist, do you feel that you have a responsibility, or even the
ability, to make what you say and what people take away from an article
converge in any way?


TAUBES: You have to consider that when I wrote the article I already
knew the results of five clinical trials—short term, admittedly—that
compared Atkins-like low-carb diets to low-fat, low-calorie diets of the
kind recommended by the American Heart Association. Since my article
came out, those five studies have been published and they all showed
that cholesterol profiles—specifically triglycerides—improved on
low-carb diets compared to the AHA diets. So I knew that your uncle's
bacon double cheeseburger for breakfast wouldn't kill him as long as he
remembered to skip the bun.

I also knew that some 30% of Americans—40% over 60, which probably
includes your uncle—have Syndrome X/Metabolic Syndrome and, for those
people, low-fat diets will do more harm than good. I also knew that
long-term studies of low-fat, low-calorie diets showed they were
worthless and didn't lead to long-term weight loss. I also knew that if
individuals could lose weight on Atkins or any diet, their cholesterol
would drop with the weight, regardless of the diet. Knowing all that, I
knew that anyone could try a low-carb diet and it wouldn't kill them and
might actually help them. I had faith that if they somehow gained weight
eating all the fat that Atkins recommends, they'd stop the diet. (I'm
still mystified by nutritionists and other "experts", who feel they have
to condemn a diet in advance because some individuals might allegedly
gain weight. Don't they think that anyone smart enough to read what they
write is also smart enough to stop a diet that doesn't work for them ?).....



Jimmy Moore's Blog
http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.co...-calories.html

And another:

http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.co...avent-got.html

I was talking with my wife Christine the other day about the front cover
of the upcoming Gary Taubes book entitled "Good Calories, Bad Calories."
I asked her, "Why do you think there is a slice of bread with butter on
the cover?" Christine, being that brilliant woman who was the
salutatorian of her high school class, retorted matter-of-factly by
saying, "Jimmy, the butter is the 'good calories' and the bread is the
'bad calories.'" Isn't she BRILLIANT! That makes so much sense now. DUH!


Frontline PBS Interview
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ws/taubes.html

Question: What made you go after this topic in the first place?

Taubes:
Two things. I'd been reporting on salt and blood pressure, which is a
huge controversy, and some of the people involved in that were involved
in the advice to tell Americans to eat low-fat diets, and they were
terrible scientists. These were some of the worst scientists I'd ever
come across in my 20-odd year career of writing about controversial science.

I literally called up my editor and said, "I just got off the phone with
so-and-so, and he's [taken] credit for getting Americans to eat less
eggs and less fat. This guy's one of the worst scientists I've ever
talked to, and if he was involved in this, then there's a story there."
And that was it. I didn't know what the story was. I just knew there was
a story.

You cannot say that because fat consumption associates with heart
disease, that that means it causes heart disease, because a lot of other
things, for instance, associate with fat consumption.

[ correlation doesn't equal causation - classic bad science fails to
understand this differentiation ]

Question: Why is it so easy for us to believe that fat is a bad dietary
ingredient?

Taubes:
The idea is that fat has nine calories per gram, and carbohydrates and
protein have four calories per gram, and somehow the theory is that the
denser the calories, the more easier it is for us to eat more of them.
What happened is in the '50s and '60s, when researchers started
fingering fat as a cause of heart disease, the obesity researchers, the
obesity community started advocating low-fat diets, which they had never
done before. A low-fat diet is by definition a high-carbohydrate diet.

But you had this sort of synchronicity where you had the heart disease
people saying, "Give up fat, saturated fat, for heart disease," and the
obesity people started saying, "Give up fat because it must be the best
diet because fat is the densest calories." They moved from there without
ever testing actually either of those hypotheses, so the obesity people
start recommending low-fat diets; the heart disease people are
recommending low-fat diets. They have actually no idea whether it's
going to cure heart disease, and the obesity people have no idea whether
these diets even work. But because they believe that it's only the
calories that [are] important, obviously if you give up the major source
of calories in the diet, you must lose weight.


[Science should be as simple as possible to explain all the data, but no
simpler just to explain some of it.]

Question: You get this hypothesis that animal fats are the worst kind
of fats. That seems reasonable.


Taubes:

That came out of studies where you compare the fat consumption in
various countries versus the heart disease rates. Basically that's what
we still believe, that the Japanese have a very low fat consumption.
Greeks have very low animal fat consumption. They have low heart disease
rates. The U.S., Sweden, Finland have high fat consumption, they have
high heart disease rates, and that's the genesis of that whole belief.
"It's a worthless exercise," is what one researcher in the '50s called
it. You cannot say that because fat consumption associates with heart
disease, that that means it causes heart disease, because a lot of other
things, for instance, associate with fat consumption. Wealthy nations
have a lot of fat. They eat a lot of fat; they eat a lot of sugar; they
get less exercise; they smoke more cigarettes; they drive more cars;
they have more televisions.

There's a world of difference between the countries that eat low-fat
diets and the countries that eat high-fat diets. And to finger fat
because that's what you have in your mind to go in [to the study], is
just bad science. But that's what they did, and that's how animal fat
came out of it. We knew that animal fat, saturated fat, raised
cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, and it was just this
sort of series of suppositions--

[ plethora of uncontrolled variables - not just FAT ]

-----------------------------------------------------------

It is unfortunate that he will be open to easy attack as a "Mere
Newswriter, not a trained MD".

Jim wrote:

::
:: It is unfortunate that he will be open to easy attack as a "Mere
:: Newswriter, not a trained MD".

In reality, though, it makes little difference. The mainstream will overlook
anyone and anything that doesn't agree with the party line. Taubes' points
need to be made again and again and again, until people finally listen. The
case must be made.

I ordered the book.

"Roger Zoul" writes:

Jim wrote:
:: It is unfortunate that he will be open to easy attack as a "Mere
:: Newswriter, not a trained MD".

In reality, though, it makes little difference. The mainstream will
overlook anyone and anything that doesn't agree with the party line.
Taubes' points need to be made again and again and again, until
people finally listen. The case must be made.

Yep. Dr. Bernstein went back to school for an extra degree just so
the health professions would have to let him play in their sandbox,
but the mainstream press still doesn't seem to be knocking down his
door.

I ordered the book.

It's on the top of my wish list for my next order. The guy deserves
to sell a lot of copies, after going out on a limb like that in the NY
Times (and it was an excellent article besides).



--
Aaron -- 285/254/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz

"Roger Zoul" wrote in message
...
Jim wrote:

::
:: It is unfortunate that he will be open to easy attack as a "Mere
:: Newswriter, not a trained MD".

In reality, though, it makes little difference. The mainstream will
overlook anyone and anything that doesn't agree with the party line.
Taubes' points need to be made again and again and again, until people
finally listen. The case must be made.

I ordered the book.


I want to order the book too, but I have two shelves of books I have
purchased, but not read.

Some months ago I started printing out the Amazon webpage of books I lust
for. I then put the printout on my shelves with the books I should be
reading.

Jim wrote:
I found a little more information, or "PR" distribution on the Taubes
book from a Google search. Links and quotes are below. Long articles or
interviews are simply linked.

Blurb on the publisher's website.
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9781400040780

fyi... our NYT arrived this morning and the magazine's
feature article is "Unhealthy Science" by Gary Taubes.
Looks interesting.


--
Rudy - Remove the Z from my address to respond.

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"
-Emiliano Zapata

Check out the a.s.d.l-c FAQ at:
http://www.grossweb.com/asdlc/faq.htm

RRzVRR wrote:
Jim wrote:

I found a little more information, or "PR" distribution on the Taubes
book from a Google search. Links and quotes are below. Long articles
or interviews are simply linked.

Blurb on the publisher's website.
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9781400040780


fyi... our NYT arrived this morning and the magazine's feature article
is "Unhealthy Science" by Gary Taubes. Looks interesting.



The URL for the NYT magazine feature is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/ma...l?ref=magazine

You may have to register to see the article for free.

Thanks for the pointer.

Jim

Jim wrote:
RRzVRR wrote:
Jim wrote:

I found a little more information, or "PR" distribution on the Taubes
book from a Google search. Links and quotes are below. Long articles
or interviews are simply linked.

Blurb on the publisher's website.
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9781400040780


fyi... our NYT arrived this morning and the magazine's feature article
is "Unhealthy Science" by Gary Taubes. Looks interesting.



The URL for the NYT magazine feature is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/ma...l?ref=magazine


You may have to register to see the article for free.

Thanks for the pointer.

Jim

Just finished reading the magazine and Taubes article is
good. I might copy it hand out to others why they shouldn't
put a lot of stock in the latest media health headline.

It also explains my belief that its likely the research
subjects makeup/behaviors that effects the outcome of many
health studies. If you're the type of person who has one
glass a wine a day, you're a very different person (on many
levels) than someone who has none or someone who has 4-5
glasses. Which is why a study that claims a glass of wine a
day has "heart healthy" benefits should be questioned.

--
Rudy - Remove the Z from my address to respond.

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"
-Emiliano Zapata

Check out the a.s.d.l-c FAQ at:
http://www.grossweb.com/asdlc/faq.htm

RRzVRR wrote:
Jim wrote:

RRzVRR wrote:


fyi... our NYT arrived this morning and the magazine's feature
article is "Unhealthy Science" by Gary Taubes. Looks interesting.



The URL for the NYT magazine feature is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/ma...l?ref=magazine


You may have to register to see the article for free.

Thanks for the pointer.

Jim


Just finished reading the magazine and Taubes article is good. I might
copy it hand out to others why they shouldn't put a lot of stock in the
latest media health headline.

It also explains my belief that its likely the research subjects
makeup/behaviors that effects the outcome of many health studies. If
you're the type of person who has one glass a wine a day, you're a very
different person (on many levels) than someone who has none or someone
who has 4-5 glasses. Which is why a study that claims a glass of wine a
day has "heart healthy" benefits should be questioned.


I like the way he was able to explain this complex situation, and
explain the large difficulties in getting to the scientific or medical
truth, without having to resort to calling the medical research
community "blockheads trapped by the past and unwilling to learn".

Medical research IS full of many more variables than the kinds of
physical sciences where I spent my career - and this article
successfully pointed this out so well that I acknowledged it, finally.

Good writing.