I'd almost imagine you were trolling if you hadn't responded to evidence in other places.
There's no other way to interpret that statement other than the vegetarian diet will make kids fat and diabetic. This isn't parsing some old study of some obscure tribe, it's basic english.
I've seen politicians with more convincing explanations.
The "if...then..." construction clearly applies to whether or not the vegetarian parents know they'll make their kids obese, not whether or not the kids will get obese.
As for implications. If a guy pulls a gun on you and says "if you care about your life you might want to give me your wallet" is he robbing you? I mean he's just implying he'll shoot you, he's not making an unambiguous assertion.
Note that Taubes also referenced the same study, which isn't surprising since the rise in obesity was tied directly to white flour/sugar. So you're assuming that either Taubes overlooked the fat kids or the 'nearly' qualifier just applies to something mild like babies or sample size.
Put another way, they aren't independent variables - which is what the general nutritional advice of today is. The same advice we use to make people hungry (skip a few meals, do some vigorous exercise), we use to counsel them for weight loss. Doesn't seem rational to think that inducing hunger will help people lose weight.
I've never heard nutritionists counsel people to skip meals.
Exercise helps for other health measures but for weight loss (at least for normalish people) it sounds like the effect is mild.
Sure they might, but they're no match for the cereal and grain and sugar industry. To imagine that our current nutritional research system is unbiased is very optimistic:)
Science isn't that expensive.
And besides, if the cereal, grain, and sugar industry is so powerful why are they letting the government fund all that research into low-carb diets? I've consistently agreed with you that low carb diets lead to weight loss, that data came from grant funded research.
That's an interesting statement - I'm not sure if you'd accept any refutation of it though. If I added tasty carbs back to my diet, and gained weight, you could blame "tastiness". If I added bland carbs back to my diet, and gained weight, you could blame some personal gluttony of mine.
What would you accept as proof that someone ha a carbohydrate allergy?
Please don't say allergy since I don't think you really mean it.
But that narrow hypothesis could probably be tested in a metabolic ward. Feed a controlled diet of exactly X calories, one that's carb heavy and another that's fat heavy, and see the results. It wouldn't test the palatability component, but it would test the macronutrient effect on calories in vs calories out.
I'd argue with the second part of that statement - it may be a part of the puzzle, but it's almost certainly an insignificant part. I'm also not convinced palatability is anything but a circular definition...if there was some additive you could put on anything to increase its palatability, you could test it directly, but because it's a subjective measure, you could have the *exact* same diet for two people, one who finds it more palatable than the other person, and you'd still be left with the question as to whether or not subjective palatibility made the difference, or if it was some other fact.
I suppose if you could find some sort of twins that were equivalent in everything except how tasty they found salt, you could test the palatability hypothesis...but other than that, it seems dubious as a measure.
Well salt would probably be a good way to test it since it has no caloric value but tastes good.
Test foods with salt and bland, see which group eats more over a few weeks.
Wait, you think that a refutation of the insulin/differential insulin resistance hypothesis would be a fall back to the "consensus view"? We know calories in/calories out is bunk, even if you have doubts about insulin/differential insulin resistance.
Or do you think there is some other consensus view?
Calories in/calories out is correct, it's just that both sides can vary even without exercise.
And the consensus view is complex as evidences by that simplified 9 part model on hunger that Guyenet posted.
He can't do that without grants, and he can't get grants without toeing the line on the current dogma.
Seriously, pick up GCBC and read it just as a history lesson on the kind of blackballing that goes on in the nutrition sciences since Ancel Keys.
Ya don't think the cattle growers association would give him grants to show a high fat diet is better for you? Even if you accept the Federal grant agencies are engaged in some massive conspiracy to blackball dissenters they're not actually the only ones allowed to give grants.
That's not true at all - kids have *huge* variation. Heck, one of my kids didn't even hit the bottom of the height/weight chart until they were 7.
The have huge relative variation, the absolute variation is much smaller than adults since they weigh less. You know I'm not even going to go link hunting to back up these assertions since the possibility that the 1-14 demographic, the oldest and heaviest of whom probably weighs under 120 lbs on average, and the average something under 80, could do anything but drag down the 5 kg average, is just nonsense.
What? You think the average 8 year old boy went from 65 lbs to 90 lbs in that period and all the adults stayed skinny? Even that probably wouldn't be enough to create the average. Plus the fact the researchers would miss the obvious sight of the giant kids and scrawny adults and not think to make that the primary focus.
All published studies should include the raw data, archived for posterity - otherwise you get people arguing like us over how to interpret the one sentence summary of thousands of rows of data:)
Agreed, though we're not arguing over the study but the summary, presumably the paper itself has the breakdowns.
One interpretation for the 'nearly' could be babies and toddles since I doubt they'd eat adult food, but again speculation.
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
It's not ambiguous or open to multiple interpretations, he's not saying that it's merely possible for vegetarians to become obese, or that vegetarianism has other health problems, he's saying that making kids vegetarian will make them obese and diabetic. A statement that is clearly false.
If Taubes theory is correct it shouldn't matter if he himself lied, the theory should stand on its own merits and you should be able to explain vegetarians on other grounds, so why is it so important to justify that ridiculous statement?
I'm sorry but Taubes is a crank (I've been in a massive week long debate in another thread (that's seriously less then half of it, there's 1.5 other threads going...).
I get that some people might not want to read through all the science and dodge through Taubes's various rationalizations so I thought I'd toss out this gem that illustrates Taubes intellectual honesty from a previous Taubes interview (emphasis added)
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
There's actually almost no evidence that calorie restriction diets work (in fact there is much more evidence in favor of low carb type diets).
That's so idiotic it hurts my head to read it.
ALL DIETS involve calorie restrictions. Low-fat diets, low-carb diets, Mediterranean diets, all-kelp diets, etc., they ALL involve reducing calorie intake as the fundamental first step in the diet program.
No studies have shown any type of diet is more effective than any other (beyond the margin of error). Whether you follow Atkins, or the FDA pyramid, or Jenny Craig, or anything else, your chances of success are the same, and you'll lose the same amount of weight. It's the "diet" part, consuming slightly fewer calories, that causes the weight loss and health improvements.
Calorie restriction ALWAYS works. There's no way for it not to. All the body reactions that can cause gains or reduce losses, are entirely temporary and rather short-term. And starving is never required... Just keeping yourself very slightly hungry for a few weeks, rather than stuffing your face at every opportunity.
It's not quite that simple.
At the end of the day you can't beat input vs output but that doesn't mean you have to be hungry, some diets like low carb and/or high protein tend to lead to spontaneous caloric restriction, ie people are simply less hungry and eat fewer foods.
Another strategy is bland foods, say you want to eat 2500 kcal/day. Doing that on pasta, cake, and cookies you're probably going to fail. But looking at a bunch of raw broccoli tends to keep your appetite in check.
This is just like the "hardened" warships they ordered (frigates I believe) for billions. Unless the evil master plan is to use the tar sands pollution to melt the arctic enough so that they might actually be able to go there (Watch youtube videos of actual icebreakers getting stuck, wonder how long a frigate might last)... No to mention there is no one to fight there ever, nor will their ever be.
To be fair I think that might be the plan. The arctic warships become relevant when the ice clears and people start using it.
In the interview he directly implies that vegetarians are obese and diabetic. This is empirically false, and your response seems to be something between "well Taubes' theory is right so they must be fat!" and dodging the issue entirely.
I don't give a crap about whether vegetarians are healthy, what they say about meat eaters, or whether it's moral or environmentally friendly. Deal with the fact that Taubes is making a statement that is false.
And you know what, I can believe that. It's more than possible that your brain has hunger pathways primarily driven by mental "tastiness" properties than mine, and fewer hunger pathways driven primarily by differential insulin resistance and muscle starvation. But I suppose I'd also bet that I've had a worse obesity problem than you ever had...I got up to 250 pounds on about a 5' 11' frame, probably a 44" waist, maybe 46". I'll never be thin and skinny again, but after 7 years of carbohydrate restriction, I've maintained at around 195 and a 34" waist (I also discovered slow burn strength training which greatly increased my relative muscle mass).
The fact that low carb is an effective way for you to lose weight doesn't mean carbs are the reason you gained weight.
Maybe my problem is that the alternatives he poses ("tastiness" for example) simply don't hold up to the scrutiny he poses to others - it seems a peculiar myopia. And for many of the refutations he tries to make, just a little scratching on the surface makes you realize that it's not nearly as clean a refutation as he supposes (i.e., the low glycemic nature of the Hazda diet).
Palatability is only part of the puzzle, a significant part but still a part. And there's few perfect tests of hypothesis laying around, but different populations can test different components.
It'd probably increase. He'd write the book that refutes the insulin hypothesis, and laugh his way to the bank! After all, he's just a science reporter - he could write about *anyone's* hypothesis (even Guynet's), and make money because he's a good writer.
There's a lot of good writers, the reason he's famous is because he's circled the market on a particular diet belief. If he accepted the consensus view he'd become one of many and fall back towards relative obscurity.
Guynet, on the other hand, probably couldn't get a grant to show that the past 40 years of dietary advice by the USDA has actually caused epidemics of diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. Too many people in power with vested interests in the status quo would quash such investigation flat.
You really don't understand science do you? He'd get publications in Science, Nature, wherever the hell he wanted. He'd get public speaking engagements, academic job offers, etc. The only reason he'd lose grants is if he couldn't back up his novel hypothesis, which would beg the question, why would he believe something he couldn't show?
Sure the youth could impact the 5 kilo average gain. If the youngest cohort gained 10 kilos, and was the most numerous, the oldest cohort could have gained much less. Now, if *every* cohort of Tokelauans gained 5kg, from the youngest to the oldest, that's real data, but they didn't state that - they simply said "in *nearly* all age groups" and "gained weight", which leaves open some age groups *not* gaining weight, and some age groups gaining more weight than others.
Data. Need data.
You realize kids are small? Particularly kids under the age of 14 who would have had this interuterine exposure you're talking about? The actual weight differences required in kids to generate the average effect you're talking about is absurd.
Granted I'm curious about the "nearly" qualifier about the age groups, but that might be something as simple as statistical significance (ie the 5 90 year olds didn't gain weight).
Where's the evidence that they got fat in less than a generation? I see the graph starting from the 1960s...but where's the data on diet from 1765 - 1960?
You can guess they were similar to surround islands, but we don't have that data. But you can assume it didn't change during that period since there was very little import, the weight gain only started with the jump in imported food.
Furthermore: "Between 1968 and 1982, Tokelauans in nearly all age groups gained weight, roughly 5 kilograms (11 pounds) on average."
11 pounds doesn't seem like rampant obesity...although I'd like to see the age breakdown (my suspicion is that younger cohorts increased more (say, someone pregnant in 1968, with a high blood sugar uterus, might produce a 4 year old child in 1972 that was significantly more obese than a 4 year old child in 1968).
I hope you realize there's no way that the youth could in any way significantly impact the 5 kilo average gain. When it's stated "Tokelauans in nearly all age groups gained weight" you can't just speculate it away.
And I never said they got obese, just that they got fatter (though maybe there were some obese in there, I don't know the variance)
As for the GCBC stuff. So Japan is fine just by avoiding sugar. So why is Taubes pushing a low carb diet? Why is he obsessed with insulin that has a huge response to white rice and other starches? Why doesn't he simply tell people to eliminate sugar and white flour and they'll be thin like the Japanese? All that rice only becomes acceptable as a rider when he needs to explain away the east.
Here was my experience with that - I'd wake up in the middle of the night, starving. I'd eat the bland food (raw carrots, plain baked potatoes) until my stomach was so full that I felt like it was overflowing into my esophagus. I'd still be desperately hungry.
Now, the insulin/differential insulin resistance hypothesis models this well - most of the calories sent to my stomach were being shunted to my fat cells, starving my muscles. I suffered through competing "hunger" signals - the stomach feeling so bloated that I was nauseous, but my muscles feeling so starved I was ravenous.
Well my experience is completely different. Maybe you did something different in an important aspect, maybe your diabetes caused the difference, maybe there's an individual variation explained by something else.
And that's definitely something Guynet needs to work on - his apparent attitude precludes there being gaps in *his* knowledge, which means it's hard to trust that he's been thorough in critiquing himself. It doesn't help either that his financial interests are aligned with the status quo, and gaining study grants that must pass through the hoops of bureaucrats with a vested interest in maintaining a certain narrative.
I'd argue that. He readily admits shortcomings in his understanding, he's stated they're not completely sure of all the factors behind the low-carbohydrate model, or if insulin might not play a minor in regulating appetite (I think his lab actually studies insulin and obesity), or if fructose or wheat might have a particularly bad effect on health. He regularly brings up examples of surprising studies or examples that don't seem to fit the models that well, the only time he's sure of his knowledge is when dealing with someone who's theories are completely without merit.
And considering the cranks that regularly invade academia and the invention of tenure (which he wouldn't have, but many do) it's kind of funny for you to throw out the grant money as some great corrupter pushing people towards orthodoxy.
If Taubes stood up tomorrow and said "Sorry folks, I messed up interpreting the data and it turns out my big insulin hypothesis is wrong" what do you think would happen to his income?
I wasn't claiming vegetarians or vegans can't have health problems, it's well known that they have to pay close attention to their diets to get enough protein and certain nutrients.
But that's not what Taubes said
"Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans"
That statement is empirically false. If Taubes only thinks that vegetarians/vegans are obese/diabetic because of his theory than he's laughably inept since a potentially extreme high carb diet in a western setting like vegetarians/vegans should have been one of the first things he looked at. On the other hand if he knows they're much thinner on average he's flat out lying.
Forget all the other criticism I've had, that quote is probably the most damning thing I've seen from Taubes because it's impossible to justify.
The embarrassing thing is I listened to that interview at the time, it was actually responsible for making me a Taubes follower for a while. In retrospect I remember something fishy about that statement but figured that he studied that stuff so he must be right.
If your first principals lead you to think an empirical fact is wrong than the problem is with you, not with reality.
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
That's a very good narrative, too bad he's just making things up?
No, the high blood sugar during gestation in an otherwise non-obese woman can grant differential insulin resistance to her child, who then, under the same diet as her mother, ends up being obese instead of normal weight.
Even if that's a thing that can happen you'd need this to be a huge effect to explain western obesity, and you'd need to show immigrants with the same lifestyle and diet don't get fat (they catch up, but there's lifestyle and diet confounders). You'd also need to explain one of Taubes own favourite examples The Tokelau Island Migrant Study who started getting fat in less then a generation.
The problem is that it very well may be that eating, appetite, activity, and even excretions, are driven by fat accumulation. And what I mean by that is that if the *first* order cause is fat accumulation, and that makes you hungrier, and lazier, and makes you eat more, and perhaps even excrete less, we need to be able to discern that.
Put another way, the orders of magnitude here are important, and I don't think that simply because the system is complex that all factors are of equal weight.
I never implied they were of equal weight, but they're all part of the picture and you're discounting every other factor and making it all the result of one root cause.
And it's a good thing that despite that there are some people out there who are willing to argue with textbooks:)
Oh I still argue with textbooks, but I've learned that the most common result is that I misunderstood the textbook. There's a difference between digging deeper into the consensus view because a certain part doesn't make sense to you, and digging in because you want to prove it wrong in a specific way.
The sad fact, and Taubes exposes this extraordinarily well in GCBC (even if you dismiss his conclusions), is that the nutrition science in this country has not been driven by science, but by pre-determined agendas, be it to sell more cereals and grains, or to demonize meat eating, or to prop up a pet theory by a powerful government science administrator.
Honestly, more than a science book, I found Taubes work to be more interesting on the history side of the equation.
Frankly my issue with Taubes is when ever I read/listen to him he sets off alarm bells. Why could I listen to an hour long interview with him talking about the dangers of carbs, sugars particularly, but also starches, and I never heard him mention Japan or China? Why when asked about Japan did he start talking about brown rice and 50 years in the past? Why in this summary of his book is Japan only mentioned once, and in the context of Sumo wrestlers who were also high protein in addition to high carb, and who may have chosen the extra calories from carbs because it lead to a healthier fatness? Why doesn't he talk about all the cases that seems to be problematic for his hypothesis? Even his post about the lipohypertrophy, presented like a coup de grace even though it didn't challenge conventional wisdom in the slightest.
Taubes weaves a very nice story, but when he's leaving out something as significant as Asia in his main argument you have to wonder why. A proper researcher embraces the conflicting evidence because it offers another part of the story, a crank ignores it because his goal isn't the truth but the theory. That's why I don't trust Taubes, his goal is to push his theory and I don't think he looks at conflicting evidence as anything other than something to explain away.
Well here's another experiment you can try. Surround yourself with bland foods like raw veggies and plain baked potatoes. When that's what you have to choose from see how not hungry you are.
I'll admit I don't like always like Guynet's writing style (esp his 'Food Reward Fridays'), but he always strikes me as reliable. I think the defensiveness comes from being a professional researcher who keeps having to argue with highly dedicated amateurs who don't realize the gaps in their knowledge.
"In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence"
The womb environment is a mechanism other than the underlying DNA sequence.
that's a very long way from explaining why the Kuna have no obesity since the obesity has to start somewhere and 25 tsp a week is a good place to start.
Read GCBC. Check it out from a library if you don't want to funnel cash to Taubes. The clear, obvious history of the path of diseases of civilization show a pattern of taking hold as generations pass. The Kuna are in for a rough ride if they continue their habits, and there's no reason to believe they'll be an exception to other native cultures who were introduced to refined carbohydrates - unless you believe they've got some sort of genetic mutation that allows them to be immune to the diseases of civilization.
I'm still not convinced those changes to the pre-natal environment are necessarily epigenetic but that's not really important.
If I even have a chance I'll read GCBC, but I'd really suggest you follow Guyunet's blog or something similar for a while and approach it with an open mind. Taubes is trying to sell you a narrative, and the truth is that true or not you can write a book that convincingly supports that narrative. To actually know if a science book is selling you a factual narrative you need to look at people who are experts in the field and see how they respond.
The impact of white sugar consumption accumulates over generations, as demonstrated by the gestational diabetes paper.
Which would explain a lower than western prevalence of obesity, but you still need some obesity to start that accumulation. But they have no obesity, they're not outside the non-industrial baseline, is none of this generation are fat why would the next generation be different?
Let's be specific. Differential insulin resistance is the driver of obesity. You keep focusing on "look at this group that eats low glycemic, but high starch and fructose, but isn't obese!", while ignoring the necessary factor of differential insulin resistance.
Why do you continue to refuse that factor as part of my position, and simplify it down to "insulin"?
Well to be more specific I think your position is insulin plus differential insulin resistance. And I don't think many starchy tubors are low GI, they're not all potatoes but they should still have a decent glycemic index.
Which has been done in depth with the Kreb's cycle, and the basics of fat accumulation biology. Now, perhaps your position is simply "there is no good answer, and I'm annoyed at Taubes for asserting he has one" (ignoring your support of Guynet for the moment) - but you seem to be wilfully ignoring the study of the system that has occurred.
But isn't that just studying a metabolic pathway in depth? The system we're interested in has to do with eating, appetite, activity, excretions, as well as fat accumulation.
Odd. You don't seem to hold that research and knowledge up to the same level of scrutiny:)
I do, but they're usually rigorous enough in their methadology and restrained enough in their results that they pass. They've also been subjected to scrutiny by people in the field a lot more knowledgeable than I and found to stand up. Part of this is at the end of the day I've found it's generally not profitable to argue with the textbook.
The first quote is talking about damage. Since the widely accepted role of insulin is to regulate blood sugar, so cells neither get too little nor too much, I'd assume that's what the damage refers to.
The final paper seems to show what you're talking about, that adipose cells being insulin resistant, reduces the risk of obesity, though that is consistent with the idea that insulin is just a fat storage mechanism. I'd be curious to learn more about this line of evidence, it seems to support your claim but I still have reservations.
So I'm not sure I'm fully groking those excerpts. But the 2nd and 3rd don't seem to have anything to do with whether or not "You can have type 2 diabetes with or without differential insulin resistance". The first seems to suggest it, but also doesn't seem to make any mention of its correlation to obesity, which you implied.
Sure there is - insulin resistant mothers eating high carbohydrate diets create an interuterine environment that makes their offspring more insulin resistant (differential insulin resistance, of course). So the epigenetic effects are actually well documented.
That's not epigenetic, it's the womb environment. And they seem to be saying that the effect is linked to maternal obesity and the insulin resistance is along for the ride.
Though I think there are actual epigenetic factors that do contribute to obesity, but even if epigenetics is part of the answer that's a very long way from explaining why the Kuna have no obesity since the obesity has to start somewhere and 25 tsp a week is a good place to start.
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I'd almost imagine you were trolling if you hadn't responded to evidence in other places.
There's no other way to interpret that statement other than the vegetarian diet will make kids fat and diabetic. This isn't parsing some old study of some obscure tribe, it's basic english.
So if I follow for the population eating sugar and not getting fat you say it's delayed because of epigenetic effects.
So I counter with a population switching to a western diet and getting fat, and you eventually concede that that population shows no epigenetic delay.
So when the population gets fat there's no epigenetic effect, but if they don't become fat there must be a missing epigenetic factor?
I've seen politicians with more convincing explanations.
The "if...then..." construction clearly applies to whether or not the vegetarian parents know they'll make their kids obese, not whether or not the kids will get obese.
As for implications. If a guy pulls a gun on you and says "if you care about your life you might want to give me your wallet" is he robbing you? I mean he's just implying he'll shoot you, he's not making an unambiguous assertion.
Note that Taubes also referenced the same study, which isn't surprising since the rise in obesity was tied directly to white flour/sugar. So you're assuming that either Taubes overlooked the fat kids or the 'nearly' qualifier just applies to something mild like babies or sample size.
Put another way, they aren't independent variables - which is what the general nutritional advice of today is. The same advice we use to make people hungry (skip a few meals, do some vigorous exercise), we use to counsel them for weight loss. Doesn't seem rational to think that inducing hunger will help people lose weight.
I've never heard nutritionists counsel people to skip meals.
Exercise helps for other health measures but for weight loss (at least for normalish people) it sounds like the effect is mild.
Sure they might, but they're no match for the cereal and grain and sugar industry. To imagine that our current nutritional research system is unbiased is very optimistic :)
Science isn't that expensive.
And besides, if the cereal, grain, and sugar industry is so powerful why are they letting the government fund all that research into low-carb diets? I've consistently agreed with you that low carb diets lead to weight loss, that data came from grant funded research.
That's an interesting statement - I'm not sure if you'd accept any refutation of it though. If I added tasty carbs back to my diet, and gained weight, you could blame "tastiness". If I added bland carbs back to my diet, and gained weight, you could blame some personal gluttony of mine.
What would you accept as proof that someone ha a carbohydrate allergy?
Please don't say allergy since I don't think you really mean it.
But that narrow hypothesis could probably be tested in a metabolic ward. Feed a controlled diet of exactly X calories, one that's carb heavy and another that's fat heavy, and see the results. It wouldn't test the palatability component, but it would test the macronutrient effect on calories in vs calories out.
I'd argue with the second part of that statement - it may be a part of the puzzle, but it's almost certainly an insignificant part. I'm also not convinced palatability is anything but a circular definition...if there was some additive you could put on anything to increase its palatability, you could test it directly, but because it's a subjective measure, you could have the *exact* same diet for two people, one who finds it more palatable than the other person, and you'd still be left with the question as to whether or not subjective palatibility made the difference, or if it was some other fact.
I suppose if you could find some sort of twins that were equivalent in everything except how tasty they found salt, you could test the palatability hypothesis...but other than that, it seems dubious as a measure.
Well salt would probably be a good way to test it since it has no caloric value but tastes good.
Test foods with salt and bland, see which group eats more over a few weeks.
Wait, you think that a refutation of the insulin/differential insulin resistance hypothesis would be a fall back to the "consensus view"? We know calories in/calories out is bunk, even if you have doubts about insulin/differential insulin resistance.
Or do you think there is some other consensus view?
Calories in/calories out is correct, it's just that both sides can vary even without exercise.
And the consensus view is complex as evidences by that simplified 9 part model on hunger that Guyenet posted.
He can't do that without grants, and he can't get grants without toeing the line on the current dogma.
Seriously, pick up GCBC and read it just as a history lesson on the kind of blackballing that goes on in the nutrition sciences since Ancel Keys.
Ya don't think the cattle growers association would give him grants to show a high fat diet is better for you? Even if you accept the Federal grant agencies are engaged in some massive conspiracy to blackball dissenters they're not actually the only ones allowed to give grants.
That's not true at all - kids have *huge* variation. Heck, one of my kids didn't even hit the bottom of the height/weight chart until they were 7.
The have huge relative variation, the absolute variation is much smaller than adults since they weigh less. You know I'm not even going to go link hunting to back up these assertions since the possibility that the 1-14 demographic, the oldest and heaviest of whom probably weighs under 120 lbs on average, and the average something under 80, could do anything but drag down the 5 kg average, is just nonsense.
What? You think the average 8 year old boy went from 65 lbs to 90 lbs in that period and all the adults stayed skinny? Even that probably wouldn't be enough to create the average. Plus the fact the researchers would miss the obvious sight of the giant kids and scrawny adults and not think to make that the primary focus.
All published studies should include the raw data, archived for posterity - otherwise you get people arguing like us over how to interpret the one sentence summary of thousands of rows of data :)
Agreed, though we're not arguing over the study but the summary, presumably the paper itself has the breakdowns.
One interpretation for the 'nearly' could be babies and toddles since I doubt they'd eat adult food, but again speculation.
Lets review the quote again
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
It's not ambiguous or open to multiple interpretations, he's not saying that it's merely possible for vegetarians to become obese, or that vegetarianism has other health problems, he's saying that making kids vegetarian will make them obese and diabetic. A statement that is clearly false.
If Taubes theory is correct it shouldn't matter if he himself lied, the theory should stand on its own merits and you should be able to explain vegetarians on other grounds, so why is it so important to justify that ridiculous statement?
I'm sorry but Taubes is a crank (I've been in a massive week long debate in another thread (that's seriously less then half of it, there's 1.5 other threads going...).
I get that some people might not want to read through all the science and dodge through Taubes's various rationalizations so I thought I'd toss out this gem that illustrates Taubes intellectual honesty from a previous Taubes interview (emphasis added)
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
There in a snapshot is the credibility of Gary Taubes, evidence doesn't fit your theory? Just reverse the evidence.
That's so idiotic it hurts my head to read it.
ALL DIETS involve calorie restrictions. Low-fat diets, low-carb diets, Mediterranean diets, all-kelp diets, etc., they ALL involve reducing calorie intake as the fundamental first step in the diet program.
No studies have shown any type of diet is more effective than any other (beyond the margin of error). Whether you follow Atkins, or the FDA pyramid, or Jenny Craig, or anything else, your chances of success are the same, and you'll lose the same amount of weight. It's the "diet" part, consuming slightly fewer calories, that causes the weight loss and health improvements.
Calorie restriction ALWAYS works. There's no way for it not to. All the body reactions that can cause gains or reduce losses, are entirely temporary and rather short-term. And starving is never required... Just keeping yourself very slightly hungry for a few weeks, rather than stuffing your face at every opportunity.
It's not quite that simple.
At the end of the day you can't beat input vs output but that doesn't mean you have to be hungry, some diets like low carb and/or high protein tend to lead to spontaneous caloric restriction, ie people are simply less hungry and eat fewer foods.
Another strategy is bland foods, say you want to eat 2500 kcal/day. Doing that on pasta, cake, and cookies you're probably going to fail. But looking at a bunch of raw broccoli tends to keep your appetite in check.
This is just like the "hardened" warships they ordered (frigates I believe) for billions. Unless the evil master plan is to use the tar sands pollution to melt the arctic enough so that they might actually be able to go there (Watch youtube videos of actual icebreakers getting stuck, wonder how long a frigate might last)... No to mention there is no one to fight there ever, nor will their ever be.
To be fair I think that might be the plan. The arctic warships become relevant when the ice clears and people start using it.
In the interview he directly implies that vegetarians are obese and diabetic. This is empirically false, and your response seems to be something between "well Taubes' theory is right so they must be fat!" and dodging the issue entirely.
I don't give a crap about whether vegetarians are healthy, what they say about meat eaters, or whether it's moral or environmentally friendly. Deal with the fact that Taubes is making a statement that is false.
And you know what, I can believe that. It's more than possible that your brain has hunger pathways primarily driven by mental "tastiness" properties than mine, and fewer hunger pathways driven primarily by differential insulin resistance and muscle starvation. But I suppose I'd also bet that I've had a worse obesity problem than you ever had...I got up to 250 pounds on about a 5' 11' frame, probably a 44" waist, maybe 46". I'll never be thin and skinny again, but after 7 years of carbohydrate restriction, I've maintained at around 195 and a 34" waist (I also discovered slow burn strength training which greatly increased my relative muscle mass).
The fact that low carb is an effective way for you to lose weight doesn't mean carbs are the reason you gained weight.
Maybe my problem is that the alternatives he poses ("tastiness" for example) simply don't hold up to the scrutiny he poses to others - it seems a peculiar myopia. And for many of the refutations he tries to make, just a little scratching on the surface makes you realize that it's not nearly as clean a refutation as he supposes (i.e., the low glycemic nature of the Hazda diet).
Palatability is only part of the puzzle, a significant part but still a part. And there's few perfect tests of hypothesis laying around, but different populations can test different components.
It'd probably increase. He'd write the book that refutes the insulin hypothesis, and laugh his way to the bank! After all, he's just a science reporter - he could write about *anyone's* hypothesis (even Guynet's), and make money because he's a good writer.
There's a lot of good writers, the reason he's famous is because he's circled the market on a particular diet belief. If he accepted the consensus view he'd become one of many and fall back towards relative obscurity.
Guynet, on the other hand, probably couldn't get a grant to show that the past 40 years of dietary advice by the USDA has actually caused epidemics of diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and other chronic diseases. Too many people in power with vested interests in the status quo would quash such investigation flat.
You really don't understand science do you? He'd get publications in Science, Nature, wherever the hell he wanted. He'd get public speaking engagements, academic job offers, etc. The only reason he'd lose grants is if he couldn't back up his novel hypothesis, which would beg the question, why would he believe something he couldn't show?
Sure the youth could impact the 5 kilo average gain. If the youngest cohort gained 10 kilos, and was the most numerous, the oldest cohort could have gained much less. Now, if *every* cohort of Tokelauans gained 5kg, from the youngest to the oldest, that's real data, but they didn't state that - they simply said "in *nearly* all age groups" and "gained weight", which leaves open some age groups *not* gaining weight, and some age groups gaining more weight than others.
Data. Need data.
You realize kids are small? Particularly kids under the age of 14 who would have had this interuterine exposure you're talking about? The actual weight differences required in kids to generate the average effect you're talking about is absurd.
Granted I'm curious about the "nearly" qualifier about the age groups, but that might be something as simple as statistical significance (ie the 5 90 year olds didn't gain weight).
Where's the evidence that they got fat in less than a generation? I see the graph starting from the 1960s...but where's the data on diet from 1765 - 1960?
You can guess they were similar to surround islands, but we don't have that data. But you can assume it didn't change during that period since there was very little import, the weight gain only started with the jump in imported food.
Furthermore: "Between 1968 and 1982, Tokelauans in nearly all age groups gained weight, roughly 5 kilograms (11 pounds) on average."
11 pounds doesn't seem like rampant obesity...although I'd like to see the age breakdown (my suspicion is that younger cohorts increased more (say, someone pregnant in 1968, with a high blood sugar uterus, might produce a 4 year old child in 1972 that was significantly more obese than a 4 year old child in 1968).
I hope you realize there's no way that the youth could in any way significantly impact the 5 kilo average gain. When it's stated "Tokelauans in nearly all age groups gained weight" you can't just speculate it away.
And I never said they got obese, just that they got fatter (though maybe there were some obese in there, I don't know the variance)
As for the GCBC stuff. So Japan is fine just by avoiding sugar. So why is Taubes pushing a low carb diet? Why is he obsessed with insulin that has a huge response to white rice and other starches? Why doesn't he simply tell people to eliminate sugar and white flour and they'll be thin like the Japanese? All that rice only becomes acceptable as a rider when he needs to explain away the east.
Here was my experience with that - I'd wake up in the middle of the night, starving. I'd eat the bland food (raw carrots, plain baked potatoes) until my stomach was so full that I felt like it was overflowing into my esophagus. I'd still be desperately hungry.
Now, the insulin/differential insulin resistance hypothesis models this well - most of the calories sent to my stomach were being shunted to my fat cells, starving my muscles. I suffered through competing "hunger" signals - the stomach feeling so bloated that I was nauseous, but my muscles feeling so starved I was ravenous.
Well my experience is completely different. Maybe you did something different in an important aspect, maybe your diabetes caused the difference, maybe there's an individual variation explained by something else.
And that's definitely something Guynet needs to work on - his apparent attitude precludes there being gaps in *his* knowledge, which means it's hard to trust that he's been thorough in critiquing himself. It doesn't help either that his financial interests are aligned with the status quo, and gaining study grants that must pass through the hoops of bureaucrats with a vested interest in maintaining a certain narrative.
I'd argue that. He readily admits shortcomings in his understanding, he's stated they're not completely sure of all the factors behind the low-carbohydrate model, or if insulin might not play a minor in regulating appetite (I think his lab actually studies insulin and obesity), or if fructose or wheat might have a particularly bad effect on health. He regularly brings up examples of surprising studies or examples that don't seem to fit the models that well, the only time he's sure of his knowledge is when dealing with someone who's theories are completely without merit.
And considering the cranks that regularly invade academia and the invention of tenure (which he wouldn't have, but many do) it's kind of funny for you to throw out the grant money as some great corrupter pushing people towards orthodoxy.
If Taubes stood up tomorrow and said "Sorry folks, I messed up interpreting the data and it turns out my big insulin hypothesis is wrong" what do you think would happen to his income?
I wasn't claiming vegetarians or vegans can't have health problems, it's well known that they have to pay close attention to their diets to get enough protein and certain nutrients.
But that's not what Taubes said
"Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans"
That statement is empirically false. If Taubes only thinks that vegetarians/vegans are obese/diabetic because of his theory than he's laughably inept since a potentially extreme high carb diet in a western setting like vegetarians/vegans should have been one of the first things he looked at. On the other hand if he knows they're much thinner on average he's flat out lying.
Forget all the other criticism I've had, that quote is probably the most damning thing I've seen from Taubes because it's impossible to justify.
The embarrassing thing is I listened to that interview at the time, it was actually responsible for making me a Taubes follower for a while. In retrospect I remember something fishy about that statement but figured that he studied that stuff so he must be right.
If your first principals lead you to think an empirical fact is wrong than the problem is with you, not with reality.
Oh yeah, and I meant to check how Taubes explains vegetarians:
TAUBES: And soy. But that’s Yeah, it’s tough. So you’re pretty much stuck with (gasp!) animal products. And it becomes this ethical issue, this religious issue, this environmental issue when it’s fundamentally The argument I You know, let’s get the health right. Like if somebody knows that they’re going to doom their kids to a life of obesity and diabetes cuz they’re going to make them vegetarians or vegans, then that’s fine as long as they understand that they’re not doing their kids any favors and that (that’s) the choice they made.
That's a very good narrative, too bad he's just making things up?
No, the high blood sugar during gestation in an otherwise non-obese woman can grant differential insulin resistance to her child, who then, under the same diet as her mother, ends up being obese instead of normal weight.
Even if that's a thing that can happen you'd need this to be a huge effect to explain western obesity, and you'd need to show immigrants with the same lifestyle and diet don't get fat (they catch up, but there's lifestyle and diet confounders). You'd also need to explain one of Taubes own favourite examples The Tokelau Island Migrant Study who started getting fat in less then a generation.
The problem is that it very well may be that eating, appetite, activity, and even excretions, are driven by fat accumulation. And what I mean by that is that if the *first* order cause is fat accumulation, and that makes you hungrier, and lazier, and makes you eat more, and perhaps even excrete less, we need to be able to discern that.
Put another way, the orders of magnitude here are important, and I don't think that simply because the system is complex that all factors are of equal weight.
I never implied they were of equal weight, but they're all part of the picture and you're discounting every other factor and making it all the result of one root cause.
And it's a good thing that despite that there are some people out there who are willing to argue with textbooks :)
Oh I still argue with textbooks, but I've learned that the most common result is that I misunderstood the textbook. There's a difference between digging deeper into the consensus view because a certain part doesn't make sense to you, and digging in because you want to prove it wrong in a specific way.
The sad fact, and Taubes exposes this extraordinarily well in GCBC (even if you dismiss his conclusions), is that the nutrition science in this country has not been driven by science, but by pre-determined agendas, be it to sell more cereals and grains, or to demonize meat eating, or to prop up a pet theory by a powerful government science administrator.
Honestly, more than a science book, I found Taubes work to be more interesting on the history side of the equation.
Frankly my issue with Taubes is when ever I read/listen to him he sets off alarm bells. Why could I listen to an hour long interview with him talking about the dangers of carbs, sugars particularly, but also starches, and I never heard him mention Japan or China? Why when asked about Japan did he start talking about brown rice and 50 years in the past? Why in this summary of his book is Japan only mentioned once, and in the context of Sumo wrestlers who were also high protein in addition to high carb, and who may have chosen the extra calories from carbs because it lead to a healthier fatness? Why doesn't he talk about all the cases that seems to be problematic for his hypothesis? Even his post about the lipohypertrophy, presented like a coup de grace even though it didn't challenge conventional wisdom in the slightest.
Taubes weaves a very nice story, but when he's leaving out something as significant as Asia in his main argument you have to wonder why. A proper researcher embraces the conflicting evidence because it offers another part of the story, a crank ignores it because his goal isn't the truth but the theory. That's why I don't trust Taubes, his goal is to push his theory and I don't think he looks at conflicting evidence as anything other than something to explain away.
Well here's another experiment you can try. Surround yourself with bland foods like raw veggies and plain baked potatoes. When that's what you have to choose from see how not hungry you are.
I'll admit I don't like always like Guynet's writing style (esp his 'Food Reward Fridays'), but he always strikes me as reliable. I think the defensiveness comes from being a professional researcher who keeps having to argue with highly dedicated amateurs who don't realize the gaps in their knowledge.
"In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence"
The womb environment is a mechanism other than the underlying DNA sequence.
Read GCBC. Check it out from a library if you don't want to funnel cash to Taubes. The clear, obvious history of the path of diseases of civilization show a pattern of taking hold as generations pass. The Kuna are in for a rough ride if they continue their habits, and there's no reason to believe they'll be an exception to other native cultures who were introduced to refined carbohydrates - unless you believe they've got some sort of genetic mutation that allows them to be immune to the diseases of civilization.
I'm still not convinced those changes to the pre-natal environment are necessarily epigenetic but that's not really important.
If I even have a chance I'll read GCBC, but I'd really suggest you follow Guyunet's blog or something similar for a while and approach it with an open mind. Taubes is trying to sell you a narrative, and the truth is that true or not you can write a book that convincingly supports that narrative. To actually know if a science book is selling you a factual narrative you need to look at people who are experts in the field and see how they respond.
The impact of white sugar consumption accumulates over generations, as demonstrated by the gestational diabetes paper.
Which would explain a lower than western prevalence of obesity, but you still need some obesity to start that accumulation. But they have no obesity, they're not outside the non-industrial baseline, is none of this generation are fat why would the next generation be different?
Let's be specific. Differential insulin resistance is the driver of obesity. You keep focusing on "look at this group that eats low glycemic, but high starch and fructose, but isn't obese!", while ignoring the necessary factor of differential insulin resistance.
Why do you continue to refuse that factor as part of my position, and simplify it down to "insulin"?
Well to be more specific I think your position is insulin plus differential insulin resistance. And I don't think many starchy tubors are low GI, they're not all potatoes but they should still have a decent glycemic index.
Which has been done in depth with the Kreb's cycle, and the basics of fat accumulation biology. Now, perhaps your position is simply "there is no good answer, and I'm annoyed at Taubes for asserting he has one" (ignoring your support of Guynet for the moment) - but you seem to be wilfully ignoring the study of the system that has occurred.
But isn't that just studying a metabolic pathway in depth? The system we're interested in has to do with eating, appetite, activity, excretions, as well as fat accumulation.
Odd. You don't seem to hold that research and knowledge up to the same level of scrutiny :)
I do, but they're usually rigorous enough in their methadology and restrained enough in their results that they pass. They've also been subjected to scrutiny by people in the field a lot more knowledgeable than I and found to stand up. Part of this is at the end of the day I've found it's generally not profitable to argue with the textbook.
The first quote is talking about damage. Since the widely accepted role of insulin is to regulate blood sugar, so cells neither get too little nor too much, I'd assume that's what the damage refers to.
The final paper seems to show what you're talking about, that adipose cells being insulin resistant, reduces the risk of obesity, though that is consistent with the idea that insulin is just a fat storage mechanism. I'd be curious to learn more about this line of evidence, it seems to support your claim but I still have reservations.
So I'm not sure I'm fully groking those excerpts. But the 2nd and 3rd don't seem to have anything to do with whether or not "You can have type 2 diabetes with or without differential insulin resistance". The first seems to suggest it, but also doesn't seem to make any mention of its correlation to obesity, which you implied.
Sure there is - insulin resistant mothers eating high carbohydrate diets create an interuterine environment that makes their offspring more insulin resistant (differential insulin resistance, of course). So the epigenetic effects are actually well documented.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23000698
That's not epigenetic, it's the womb environment. And they seem to be saying that the effect is linked to maternal obesity and the insulin resistance is along for the ride.
Though I think there are actual epigenetic factors that do contribute to obesity, but even if epigenetics is part of the answer that's a very long way from explaining why the Kuna have no obesity since the obesity has to start somewhere and 25 tsp a week is a good place to start.