Scientific Battlegrounds in Diets

There's an interesting article currently carried by the NYTimes (free reg. yada yada) that talks about the world of dieting, National Institutes of Health, Atkins as well as low-carb vs low-fat. The interesting thing, from a scientific perspective, is the sheer lack of study - and the reticence from the scientific community to question the party line.

Comments

Direct link to article

[Hatter]

Here is the direct link to the article via the NYTimes.com Registration Generator.

Re:Atkins does work...

[jockm]

Right now I'm loosing 1-2lbs per week on a traditional low fat moderate exersize diet. Nothing special, just eating healther and in moderation. I've been doing this for six months now without problem.

I think the truth is that there are different diets that work for different people. A one size fits all approach probably won't be the answer here. until we do more good science on the subject, I'm skeptical of anyone who says there is one true way.

Re:Moderation

[Peyna]

Yah, I never found it all that hard. Eat healthy food. Healthy not being in a box in a grocery store that says "99% fat free". Healthy food being everything in that colorful corner of the grocery store. Fruits, vegetables, and if you eat meat, eat it. I recommend fish, salmon, etc. if you're going to eat meat, but some people love their beef, so I guess eat it.

"Diets" don't work. By definition they are temporary and restrictive. Instead, just eat GOOD food. It's pretty simple what's GOOD food. That extra large pizza with extra cheese? Not good. That orange and apple over there? Good. Those vegetables? Good.

Don't eat too many potatoes or excessively high carb foods, but don't eat nothing but steak either. Thus, eat everything in moderation, mostly good food, but don't deny yourself bad food either. Besides, most 'healthy' food that isn't processed and stamped with the 99% fat free label, is pretty good tasting. You don't hear many people saying "Boy, that orange sure was disgusting," unless it was a rotten one.

And exercise too, but do something fun. I don't know how people can ride stationary bikes or run on treadmills for an hour every day. The boredom kills me. I play racquetball and other active sports.

In summary, it's pretty much the same stuff you've been hearing all along: eat good food, and exercise. What qualifies as 'good food' is pretty easy to figure out.

Not the case...

[mensan98th]

Caveat: I work at Pennington Bimedical Research Center, and my boss, Dr. George Bray, was interviewed for but not quoted in the NYTimes article, I suspect because he argues for what he calls "the inevitability of calories." Some problems with the article:

1. It's lopsided journalism (surprised?). There's no *honest* attempt at balance, which is precisely what the author accuses the researchers of doing.

2. The acknowledgement of the validity of the alternative position is buried in the middle of the article on page 4: "Few experts now deny that the low-fat message is radically oversimplified." The author seems to return to it, but never really does.

3. Atkins's program, as with other low-carb programs, work well initially but are extremely difficult to maintain. (The same is true of low-fat diets, incidentally.) This is acknowledged by the research community.

4. Some of the substantiations, such as that claiming that one's body sees all carbohydrates as sugars (page 5), is imprecise.

5. An "Atkins diet without excess fat" (page 7) is a low-fat diet. Someone needs to get over himself.

6. This quote is especially choice: "...the public-health authorities may indeed have a problem on their hands. Once they took their leap of faith and settled on the low-fat dietary dogma 25 years ago, they left little room for contradictory evidence or a change of opinion, should such a change be necessary to keep up with the science" (page 7). It only seems like "contradictory evidence or a change of opinion" if you're outside the research community. This is one research community that is not monolithic.

Do more investigation before taking this article as gospel.

Re:Not the case...

[jqcoffey]

1. It's lopsided journalism (surprised?). There's no *honest* attempt at balance, which is precisely what the author accuses the researchers of doing.

True. However, how much lopsided journalism and research has the low-fat diet seen over the past 25 years? The NIH hasn't even sanctioned a research project on anything else until now!

3. Atkins's program, as with other low-carb programs, work well initially but are extremely difficult to maintain. (The same is true of low-fat diets, incidentally.) This is acknowledgedby the research community.

I won't say untrue, however I do disagree. I've been on it in "maintanence mode" for the past year, without issue. People think that the Atkins diet is just a "cold-turkey" kind of deal. It's only that way for the first couple of weeks. After that you slowly ramp up your carb intake to something more inline with your fat and protein intake, still avoiding processed and bleached carbs (white bread, potatoes, etc.)

4. Some of the substantiations, such as that claiming that one's body sees all carbohydrates as sugars (page 5), is imprecise.

I think you're misinterpretting here. He's talking about simple/processed/bleached carbs, which indeed your body turns almost immediately into sugars.

5. An "Atkins diet without excess fat" (page 7) is a low-fat diet. Someone needs to get over himself.

Does without excess food mean a low food diet? No, it means food in moderation, just as "without excess fat" means fat in moderation. That does not mean a low-fat diet.

It only seems like "contradictory evidence or a change of opinion" if you're outside the research community. This is one research community that is not monolithic.

I will bow to your experience/background on that comment, however, so called legitimate research has never been done or released to the general public on anything but low-fat diets. In fact, not to long ago the "food pyramid" replaced the "four food groups" advocating an even starchier diet! The old "four food groups" diet was a much saner plan, and in reality is much closer to the "revolutionary" Atkins diet than you might think.

Remember, the Atkins diet is a crash diet only in the beginning. It's designed to get people who are overweight into ketosis so they can "eat themselves" and start losing weight right away. Once they get to a healthy weight it goes into maintanence mode, which is damn close to the old four food groups doctrine.

Re:The studies have been done.. by interested part

[Lemmy Caution]

The only reason that `low fat' diets fail is because of a lack of personal willpower

Since diets are for humans, and not for iron-willed Nietzschean super-heros who heed not the plaints of crude appetite, nor the pangs of hunger, a diet that doesn't work for the averagely-will-powered person is a pretty bad diet. (This logic is also useful for other domains.)

The fact that the dieting population has been getting poor advice for the past several years could also have something to do with the obesity problem, ya think? Naaawww, it's far better for you to be a judgemental jerk.

You know, your attitude betrays a fascinating, yet increasingly common, combination of ignorance and arrogance, that I'm struggling to come up with a new term for it. It's a combination of asshole and moron. Are you an assron or a mohole?

Factor Analysis

[Somnus]

How does one get ripped? Look at all the shredded people, and see what they do and what they have going for them in the environment and genetically. My subjective observations, based on the research I've done to formulate my own diet/training program:

• Eat a diet low in saturated fats (generally, animal fats) and simple/refined carbs, high in protein, vegetables and fiber, with just the right amount of complex carbs and essential fatty acids (generally, canola and fish).
• Hit the weights. The extra lean muscle mass increases your base metabolism.
• Cardio is good, but overrated. It compels your body to raid sugar stores instead of burn fat because the rate in energy expenditure is too high to burn fat efficiently. Having a higher base metabolism is the best strategy since it burns all day.
• Eat all day, in small amounts -- increases utilization since your body expects food to be coming in short order. The flip side is if you miss a meal (e.g., if you're traveling), you feel like you want to go into "standby."
• It helps to be a good athlete who can pack on muscle easily.
• Sleep and relax like you don't have a care in the world -- stress (read: cortisol) is the enemy of looking and feeling healthy.

My own results have been mixed. I got pretty lean late last year when I had time to do things right, and my strength and endurance were quite good, but I didn't gain as much muscle mass as I wanted. I was probably overtraining, lifting four days a week an hour at a time, all out.

This dude is hardcore -- he's probably the top male fitness model out there right now. The only modification I've made is that I lift more and play basketball and do less cardio, and try to eat big after a workout to replenish my muscles.

What's worked for Slashdotters?

Re:Dieting and eating contests

[Tablizer]

(* I am just guessing here, but the skinny Japanese guy might have some sort of 'training program' which involves drinking a lot of fluids or eating sugar-free jello to keep the stomach expanded while not gaining any weight. *)

Even being a glutton has been "Samurized" now?

"I shall be not just a pig, but an honorable pig that my ancestors will be proud of. They will belch from the afterlife in thunderous approval as my enemies puke in pain after glorious defeat. For I have the stomach of a bear and the mouth of a tiger!"

Can't wait for the asian entries in the farting contests. "The Eastern Wind shall blow such that there will be no denial...."

I've read The Zone, and Body For Life

[puppetman]

Both are healthier (I think) varients on Atkin's diet.

Higher fat, healty protien, and carbs from non-refined sources makes sense. It more closely follows the diet that we've evolved to do well on.

I don't believe in saturated fat. And I don't believe in most animal protien.

I've never seen a study that says vegetables cause cancer, and meat prevents it. It's always been the reverse. Most meat is stuffed with antibiotics (which most experts believe is helping create antibiotic-resistent super bugs) and pesticides (the higher up the food chain you go, the more pesticides you will see, as it is stored in body fat; dead whales in the St Laurence are have toxicity levels high enough to get them classified as toxic waste). The meat industry also creates alot of pollution (mostly due to the size of sed industry); manure poisons ground water, etc. In Canada, we had a case in Walkerton were a bunch of people died after cow shit got into the drinking water during a flood.

And, especially for Slashdotters, don't use vitamin suppliments. Two studies just came out that said vitamin E (and, to a lesser extent, vitamin C) reduce the chances of getting Alzheimers; lesions relating to free radicals are found on most Alzheimer patients, and thus anti-oxidants are being viewed as a potential salvation. But only if you get it from natural sources. Pills had no effect.

And then there was the study on smokers who took beta carotene in pill form. They had a higher incidence of lung cancer than those who didn't take the vitamin pills.

Soy has been shown to have many benefits - lowering cancer risks in both men and women. There are alot of great soy analogues out there for hot dogs, hamburgers, ground beef, etc. Try a few - some are pretty good.

Re:I've read The Zone, and Body For Life

[sigwinch]

And I've never heard of a natural pesticide that is as dangerous as man-made ones.

Many common plants contain extremely toxic chemicals. Make a salad of tobacco and the nicotine will kill you. Amanitas phalloides mushrooms are famously poisonous. So is jimson weed. Many spices and flavoring herbs are poisonous in larger quantities. Numerous plants contain potentially dangerous amounts of oxalic acid. Milkweed is so poisonous that many insects can't eat it. Monarch butterflies do, however, and in the process become so poisonous that nothing will eat them; another species of butterfly evolved to look like monarchs to scare off predators.

Man-made pesticides do awful things to your body and the environment.

Rubbish apocalyptic religion. The scientific truth can be found by simply looking outside: if pesticides were as bad as the envirodorks say, everything would be dead.

(The main problem with synthetics are that certain chemicals structures are highly persistent, esp. molecules containing halogens or aromatic rings. If you use them indiscriminantly, they tend to build up over time, which is much worse than simply being toxic.)

They can't add fertilizers, etc, that speed up the growth of the plant/fruit/vegetable, but often leave them tastless.

Breeding for durability is a bigger part of the problem. From a seller's point of view, a good tomato is one that can be spend weeks in a truck; taste is simply not a consideration. Likewise, a florist's ideal rose is indestructible, rather than a fragrant variety you'd want to grow in a garden.

Corn: The Culprit?

[tlambert]

"With these caveats, one of the few reasonably reliable facts about the obesity epidemic is that it started around the early 1980's."

Gee.

That's the same time we went from granulated sugar as a sweetener to High Fructose Corn Syrup, because it was easier for the food industry to deal with liquid rather than powdered supplies; welcome to "Old Coke"/"New Coke"/"Old Coke But Not Really".

At the same time, we went from peanut and palm kernel oil to... corn oil ("and/or corn oil" on a label means "whatever's cheapest, and it's always corn").

Try and find a food product in the grocery store today without corn oil/corn meal/corn starch/corn syrup/corn syrup solids/corn/corn/corn.

And just what is it that we feed to cows and pigs to fatten them up? ...corn?

Try an experiment: weigh yourself. Then, for one month, read the labels on everything you buy; and if it has corn products in it... don't buy it. Then weigh yourself again after the one month is up. If you lose weight, please send me the money you would have sent to Dr. Atkins... 8-).

-- Terry

Re:The studies have been done.. by interested part

[gfxguy]

I have to agree with the other person who replied - this is really short sighted and plain wrong in some parts.

First of all, you obviously didn't have the staying power to read the article. The government has given us guidelines to being healthy - the food pyramid, for example.

20 years later obesity is at an all time high BECAUSE people have been more aware of health issues and thought that by eating low-fat foods they could lose weight or stay slim. The government guidelines simply do not work.

You can blame McDonalds all you want - the fact is that the majority of the population does not eat there. The studies showed most of peoples calories were coming from carbs, NOT fat - which makes sense, since the food pyramid, which is a sham, has high carb foods as it's base.

Atkins, and most low-carb diets DON'T advocate eating fats willy-nilly. There is a clear distinction between good and bad fats, and the good fats can actually help you metabolize store fat - that's why the basic "low-fat" diet doesn't work. People trying low-fat often see an increase in bad cholesterol and triglycerides, while amazingly people on low-carb diets (beyond 3 or 4 months) see a decrease in triglycerides and an increase in HDL - the good cholesterol.

But I do not have to just quote studies and hand waving dieticians - I have lived it. I did not lose weight - even when exersizing, by following the government guidelines. I have lost 50 pounds in less than five months following low-carb (but not Atkins - but they are all similar). My blood pressure went down to normal. My acid-reflux virtually disappeared. I know a diabetic that no longer has to take medication.

Until you understand that low-carb is not just for losing weight, and the implications of what a high carb diet can do (like CAUSING diabetes - the rate of type 2 diabetes has gone up along with obesity - ever since the government said that low fat was the key to health).

The scientific principles behind low carb just make a lot of sense - the blood sugar levels, the insulin production... I didn't believe it until I learned all the principles. Not only do I believe now, but it's worked wonders for me.

And before you get on my case, I get an analysis every other week - my fat free mass (lean body tissue - i.e. muscle) is UP, my total body water is UP, my FAT is the only thing that is down - 50 pounds worth.

Ahha!

[Latent IT]

Obligitory Hackers Diet reference.

Still the king, baby. Common sense, and a lot less trendy crap, and a whole lot more suck it up and deal mentality.

Re:Moderation

[meowmonster]

Almost two years ago I went in for a physical and to talk to my doctor about losing weight. I was almost 400 lbs. At that weight, you can't exercise because you'll destroy your joints before you lose any weight (and on an bicycle you fsck over your lower back). Trust me, I've done it. My doc spent several hours doing a physical and taking blood tests, did and EKG, etc...

After looking at the results he recommended that I get on the Atkins diet. He did recommend getting some exercise after losing some of the weight, but I had to get the weight off first. He also had me stop weight lifting because I was actually developing an un-healthy level of muscle mass. Trying to supply too much muscle with blood is actually hard on your heart. Also I found that when you have too much muscle in your upper body you can develop breathing problems in your sleep becuase your torso is too massive. These are some of the probs that body builders put up with. Also my cholesterol was in the 280's and the ratio was "way off" but I don't remember the numbers.

Well, I was on the diet for almost a year and dropped over 100 lbs. At first I was really skeptical, but after being on it for a couple of weeks, I couldn't believe how much energy I had. I was actually hyper. When I dropped about 50 lbs I started riding a bike and then running when I dropped more weight. Now I am 2 belt levels away from getting my black belt in tae kwon do, a lifetime dream of mine but I have alwasy been too heavy to do.

My cholesterol is in the 130's and the ratio has flipped the other way now. I have been off the Atkins diet for almost 9 mos now and have maintained my weight. I can't say that I am totally off the diet, obviously I had to change my way of eating because that's what got me where I was in the first place. I try to eat a low carb breakfast (bacon and eggs or a flax cereal). And a "lower" carb lunch - chicken salad or left over stir fry, maybe soup. Dinner is usually whatever though, spaghetti, pizza, etc...

The problem with the Atkins diet is that it is INCREDIBBLY BORING. I am so freaking sick of meat and cheese. I really should get back on it and drop another 20 - 30 lbs but haven't come up with the motivation to put myself on it full time again. I probably will this fall but I need a break.

The diet isn't for everyone. If people would shut their yap long enough to research it, the diet is actually for a specific type of metabolism. The metabolic condition is really brought on by a diet that has been extremely high in simple carbohydrates complicated by a genetic predisposition to diabetes (which is rampant in my family). You develop an insensativtiy to insulin and need more and more of it to metabolize glucose. The prob is, with that much insulin you body readily stores glucose as fat rather than metabolizes it - it becomes a viscious circle.

Through testing my doc found this condition in my body and recommended the diet which worked. There are several people I work with that thought they would try it without checking with their doc (which Atkins warns against in his book) after seeing my success that got sick on the diet. It isn't for everyone.

Re:The studies have been done.. by interested part

[Lemmy Caution]

The fact is that most people in most of the world haven't needed to have the sort of self-discipline that you claim suddenly fell out from the bottom of the public spirit, because until lately most people haven't had an excess of food available to them so often and so constantly.

The real reason why a lot of poor (by US standards) and recently-but-no-longer poor Americans eat poorly has a lot to do with class mobility. People learn eating habits early, and as part of family cultures. When families are still in "survivor mode," when the experience of scarcity is still persistant in the values of that family, they are taught, first, that food is an intrinsic pleasure and, secondly, that the waste of food is unethical and risky. Add to that factors like a. stress, b. schedules that encourage fewer, bigger meals instead of more, smaller ones, and c. the lack of information about healthier foods (or of a traditional food-culture, like those in Spain, France, and Japan, that has over centuries learned how to make healthier meals) and you have the formula for obesity.

Ultimately, people have the willpower that they have, and I find it far more logical, and a better use of Ockham's Razor, to assume that their contexts and environments have changed more quickly than some questionable intangible of "willpower" has.

Incidentally, if you think I'm an obese person trying to explain away my condition, you're wrong. I'm completely fit, a little less than my ideal weight, and lead an active lifestyle.

Common sense would do as well...

[bourne]

So, let me get this straight:

• Low-fat diets aren't a cure-all
• High-protein diets aren't a cure-all
• High-carb and Low-carb diets have problems

Gosh, maybe we should be eating - gasp - a balanced diet?

Now you're talking crazy, man!

The problem is everyone wants a "magic bullet" and few are willing to do the work unless they can find a "drastic" and flashy diet to throw themselves into.

Eat a balanced diet (complex carbs, some fat and some protein) and exercise and you'll do fine. Stay off the sugar bombs. Eat less than you burn to lose weight. Buy a sports nutrition book to figure out your requirements, because those are the people who are practiced at this math. And don't expect to lose 10 years of fat in a few months.

And like your mother always said, eat your peas.

The evidence is all around...

[AJWM]

Ever see a fat carnivore?

Ever see a skinny cow? (Not counting desert-like lack of food conditions).

Carbs are what food eats...

(Okay, I'm slightly kidding. Humans are omnivores.)

The Hackers' Diet

[splorf]

John Walker, founder of Autodesk, wrote a book (now online in entirety in HTML and PDF form) called "The Hackers' Diet. It says the only thing that matters is calorie count, but it says this in interesting ways. According to its blurb, it's Walker's attempt to treat the problem of weight loss as an engineering problem. It comes with Windows and Palm PDA software to keep track of your calorie intake, and has useful advice about what to do about hunger attacks. But basically, it says any successful diet is a program of deliberate malnutrition to make your body consume its fat reserve, so don't expect a fun time. Also, don't exect to lose weight too fast. It's set up to take off about 1 pound per week, so you may have to stay at it for a year or longer.

A friend of mine had some success with it. I don't have much dieting experience so I wonder what others here think of this book.

What worked for me

[interstellar_donkey]

About a year ago, I was fat. Not gross, but definatly verging on the relm of unattractive.

I looked into all these diets and there was so much conflicting information, that I just made up my own.

It was very, very simple. 1. No booze except on the weekends. 2. No matter what, no fast food (I still ate out quite a bit, just at sit down resturants where the nutritional value was a little better). 3. Walk for an hour a night. 4. If you ever are full, don't be afraid to stop eating (I had the bad habit of always needing to finish off my plate, even if I was'nt hungry).

Being somebody who spends 90% of his waking hours behind a computer in a desk chair (not to mention quite a few in my sleeping hours), it probably was the perfect fit.

I lost 45 pounds in 7 months, I feel much better, got to learn a lot more about my town (by walking), and have been told I look 'really good' by a number of very nice women.

I doubt this would work for somebody who was highly obese, or somebody who has a eating disorder... but chances are that for your average geek whos putting on the pounds, it just might work.

My personal experience with ATKINS

[MrIcee]

Being a sedentary scientist (e.g., spending ones time on ones ass) I had gradually gotten larger and larger when, about 6 years ago, I discovered that I was over 250 pounds (yikes!!!). My wife and tried numerous *diets* only to find that the weight didn't come off.

Watching an infomercial one day on Atkins, it sounded too good to be true, so we bought his book and tried his diet.

First... here are the good things about the diet (then I'll list the bad things):

THE GOOD

1) Yes, you can eat *unlimited* quantities of meats etc... as long as you totally control your carb intake. We would go to Outback or Ruths Chris and I would eat 3 or 4 porkchops... and some brocolli... till I could eat no more.

2) The diet throws you into ketosis - which is a diabetic term for pure fat burning. You can go to the drug store and get ketosis testing strips, little PH papers that you pass your pee stream over. The color the paper turns indicates the amount you are in ketosis. Once in ketosis, you are in pure fat burning mode.

3) Did I lose weight? YOU BET!!! I dropped from 250+ pounds to 190 pounds in about 8 months. The diet is amazing because on a daily basis, you can easily see 1/2 to 2 pounds disappear (make sure you weigh yourself at exactly the same time each day for accurate statistics). My wife also dropped 50 pounds.

THE BAD

Here are some negative things about the diet:

1) You must be sure to drink LOTS of water on this diet... and I mean LOTS. The diet is very hard on the kidneys because they have to work overtime to break down the larger molocules. By drinking lots of water you assist your kidneys and actually drop the weight even faster. If you don't drink water, kidney damage can result.

2) The closer you get to your desired weight (e.g., the longer you are on the diet), the slower you begin to drop weight. At the start of the diet, the pounds were flying off. By the end, we would even out for a few days and then drop a pound or two. The book says this happens - and indeed it does. The main reason for this is that your body has adapted to the new diet - so for us, that was the stopping point.

3) Upfront it is very gratifying to eat unlimited amounts of all those wonderful foods... but in the end we tended to become bored with the diet - which happens in most diets. But don't get me wrong, we were still happy as can be that we dropped 60 pounds in such a short time.

THE UGLY

You stop pooping. Because you are getting little fiber in your diet (and the diet recommends that you keep up on high fiber, but it's hard) - you literally stop pooping. Other problems associated with not pooping can raise their ugly bumps at this point. However, this all goes away once you ease yourself off the diet.

The other negative... you drop weight so fast that your skin ends up loose. This was a shock to my wife and me. We actually had skin that looked to be very loose. It took about 3 months after the diet was over for the skin to tighten up to our new bodies - but tighten it did.

So did I keep the pounds off?

The diet encourages you to reach a point and then back off the diet. The wonderful thing about the diet is that you now understand how to quickly lose weight... so if you indulge in a weekend of excess, all you need to do is go on the diet for 3 days to lose that excess and back down you are.

I've managed to keep the weight off - and right now I'm fluxuating around 200 lbs. I'm about to start again because I want to drop the final 30 lbs.

Another positive point... if you have cronic heart burn - we discovered it was from eating carbs. In fact, a friend of mine who had been told to sleep upright because of his cronic heartburn, had the symptoms totally disappear (as did I) on this diet. Amazing. And since, I've noticed that I only get heart burn if I eat too many carbs in a meal.

The diet is not for everyone... and it helps to have a partner go through it with you (otherwise whoever you eat with won't like the meat-only choices you are forcing). Anyway... it worked for me - and it tought me to not listen to the government bullshit about the food pyrimid or any of their other crap they shovel out about dieting. They don't have a clue.

ALOHA!