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and am interested in the individual reactions of those who hear it through.
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http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/jan/04/wh ... being-fat/
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I think Taubes' comment within his Introduction toGraham wrote:However, a low carb regime for the whole world seems to pose a problem:
is a world-wide low carb diet possible with the current level of world population?
In the more than six decades since the end of the Second World War,
when this question of
what causes us to fatten---calories or carbohyrdates--has been argued,
it has often seemed like a religious issue rather than a scientific one.
So many different belief systems enter into the question of what constitutes a healthy diet
that the scientific question--why do we get fat?--has gotten lost along the way.
It's been overshadowed by ethical, moral, and socological considerations
that are valid in themselves and certainly worth discussing
but have nothing to do with the science itself
and arguably no place in a scientific inquiry.
I don't believe an answer has been developed for your question,Graham wrote:Yes, BA, what I'm saying doesn't change the science, or reject it
rather it poses the question "Given our current population, how would we implement this knowledge?"
As a matter of interest, does that principle point towards a low-carb solution, or a low GI solution? I noted Taubes referring to unprocessed grains as less obesogenic during the broadcast, and wondered if he is now advising low-carb or low GI carbs - presumably either approach would prevent the surge in insulin production?BrightAngel wrote:
"the way the body handles carbs is what creates obesity
in those who have a genetic tendency to become obese."
Taubes mentions the glycemic index in the book a few times.Graham wrote: As a matter of interest, does that principle point towards a low-carb solution, or a low GI solution?
I noted Taubes referring to unprocessed grains as less obesogenic during the broadcast,
and wondered if he is now advising low-carb or low GI carbs -
presumably either approach would prevent the surge in insulin production?
"Not that all foods that contain carbohydrates are equally fattening.
This is a crucial point. The most fattening foods
are the ones that have the greatest effect on our blood sugar and insuin levels.
These are the concentrated sources of carbohydrates,
and particularly those that we can digest quickly;
anything made of refined flour (bread, cereals, and pasta),
liquid carbohydrates (beers, fruit juices and sodas),
and starches (potatoes, rice, and corn).
These foods flood the bloodstream quickly with glucose.
Blood sugar shoots up; insulin shoots up. We get fatter.
Not surprisingly, these foods have been considered uniquely fattening
for nearly two hundred years (as I'll discuss later")
Interesting observation, although our bodies still require exercise/movement for many reasons. Adapting to the point where we don't is still hundreds, if not more, years away.Graham wrote:Not sure whether Taubes' book covers it (I plan to read it, but not sure when as I don't read much these days and have a pile of "must read this" books already) but we should remind ourselves, the diets of the past and in the third world today are in conjunction with a high level of obligatory activity.
Any anti-exercise/obesogenic effects of their diets would be overridden by necessity: no cars, so no walk = no water. This obligation to be active could flatter peasant diets - it would be wrong to assume their level of carb consumption is healthy without considering their massively higher level of activity when compared to us in the West.
The Science that Taubes presents is an interesting and different way to look at things.Sharpie wrote:I have not looked at the science- which, as he says, is the crux of the issue.
I have trouble believing what he claims the science shows though.
Does he go through it (the studies he referred to) in the book?
Insulin resistance causing/potentiating obesity makes sense,
but I cannot comprehend how eating one plate of spaghetti as part of my diet will cause obesity?
I do agree with his comments on sugars and HFCS,
maybe that's more the issue than so called low-GI carbs?
You can get a better feeling of the subjectTaubes lays out his evidence, and his argument, with compelling precision.
You are not expected to take (nor should you take) anything he says on faith.
Very well written, and a very good balance of enough technical science to be informative,
but not so much that a reasonably attentive reader would get bogged down.
wosnes wrote:BrightAngel -- I want to make sure I'm understanding what Taubes is saying.
Is he saying that insulin sensitivity causes obesity?
I've read that the planet can't support its population eating a diet high in animal foods, nor can it support a population that eats a diet high in grains. Either extreme is unsustainable. In the case of animal foods, factory farming is the most efficient way of getting meat to a lot of tables, even though it produces a lower quality product with an inferior nutrient profile. I don't think there is an affordable way to eat a high protein, low carb diet.Graham wrote: However, a low carb regime for the whole world seems to pose a problem: is a world-wide low carb diet possible with the current level of world population? If low-carb means eating lots more animal fat and protein wouldn't that be both costly and ecologically unsustainable? What is the affordable sustainable way to low carb? Any ideas?
Also from Dr. McDougall:Dr. John McDougall wrote:So what is insulin resistance? One of insulin’s primary jobs is to push fat into the fat cells – thus saving fat for the day when no food is available. The calories consumed in excess of our needs cause us to gain fat – this is a natural, expected change to prepare us for a possible future famine. Soon, a point is reached when this accumulation becomes counterproductive – a point when any further excess fat gain is likely to cause serious physical harm. When this hazardous excess is reached, the body puts “the brakes on†in order to slow the rate of weight gain. This is accomplished by a variety of changes that cause the hormone insulin to become less potent. In other words, our cells become resistant to the actions of the fat-gaining hormone, insulin – a state referred to as “insulin resistance.â€
This excerpt from a vignette from reversingdiabetes.org explains it this way:One of the greatest distortions of the truth promoted by high-protein diet advocates is that protein causes little or no increase in production of insulin. However, research shows just the opposite. When fed in equal amounts (calories), beef raises insulin more than whole grain pasta, cheese more than white pasta, and fish more than porridge (Am J Clin Nutr 66:1264, 1997).
One of the things I've learned over the years is that exercise, even something as simple as walking, is equally, and some sources say more, important as diet in control of insulin resistance/Type 2 diabetes.Sugar is the fuel we run on
We all use carbohydrates (sugar) for energy to live. The potato as well as the candy bar are all converted into glucose (blood sugar) circulating in our blood stream. This sugar will be taken into the cells and "burned" to supply the energy to move a muscle or to think a thought or whatever it was that the cell is designed to do.
But to get into a cell sugar must pass through a special sugar door in the cell's wall. These doors are how a cell tells the body it is hungry. A hungry cell will have thousands of these sugar doors all over its surface.
But sugar by itself has no way to open these doors to get into the cell. Here is where insulin has its job. Imagine insulin as a little guy with two hands. With one hand he grabs the doorknob and opens one of these sugar doors and with the other hand he shoves a sugar through the door into the cell. That is what insulin does, it opens the sugar doors.
Where does insulin come from? It comes from special cells in the pancreas called beta cells. These beta cells constantly taste your blood to see just how sweet it is. And when they taste your sugar level rising after a meal they release more insulin into your blood. This insulin can then open more doors and put the extra sugar into the cells. And thus, the amount of sugar left in the blood is brought back down to normal. This is how your body normally controls its blood sugar level.
So what causes diabetes?
Imagine sitting on a couch following a heavy meal. All of the calories you just ate are being absorbed into your blood. As your blood sugar level rises insulin is released. And this insulin goes around from cell to cell trying to open doors to get all of this sugar out of your blood and into your cells. But your leg muscle cells are still full of sugar from lunch. So they say to the insulin, "We are full and we aren't going for any exercise tonight so we don't need anymore sugar. Maybe you could take some to the finger muscle. He will be busy working the TV clicker." But how much sugar can a finger muscle use? And so eventually all the muscle cells are stuffed and don't want anymore sugar.
But how does a cell tell the body that it doesn't want any more sugar? It removes the doors from its surface! Now we have a problem. Where will the insulin take all of its extra sugar? Some cells can store extra sugar in the form of glycogen or fat. But day after day of no exercise while continuing to eat a high calorie diet eventually overloads these cells also. Not only do you get fat but even the fat cells are feeling stretched to their limit and don't want anymore calories. And now the problem gets worse.
How does a fat cell tell you he is full and doesn't want anymore? He removes the doors from his surface too. Now you have a serious problem. Where will the insulin take all of that extra sugar that you are eating? The answer is it has nowhere to go. It just backs up in your blood and your sugar level gets higher and higher. You go to your doctor and he does some tests and then he tells you that now you have diabetes.
The Rx
Your doctor probably did something else for you that first visit. He got out his prescription pad and wrote you a prescription for some pills to lower your blood sugar. Pills like DiaBeta or Micronase. Do you know how these pills work? They go to the beta cells in your pancreas and say, "Make more insulin!"
So the beta cells, whipped on by the medications, start to put out more insulin. And all this extra insulin rushes around your body looking for a few last doors somewhere that they can force more sugar through.
But after a time even these last few doors are removed. And your sugar levels continue to rise in spite of increasing doses of medications. Finally one day your doctor says to you, "I guess you've become resistant to your medications so we are going to have to start you on insulin." In other words, we can't whip enough insulin out of your exhausted pancreas so we are just going to start injecting more insulin into you.
But day after day there are less and less doors for the ever-increasing amounts of insulin to find. And so with your diabetes still out of control you rush down the road towards blindness, amputations and death.
The road back
If you will think carefully about how this disease has progressed to this point you will begin to see what all the excitement is about. What is the real problem here? Is it a lack of insulin or is it a lack of these sugar doors? There are not enough doors! The cells have removed all the doors because they aren't hungry anymore.
So can you see that what we really need is not more insulin but more doors.
But your doctor can't prescribe a pill or injection of new doors for your cells. So how can we get more doors back on our cells. It is really quite simple. We have to make the cells hungry! A hungry cell will make thousands of doors all over its surface.
How do we make a cell hungry? Exercise! Walk, walk, walk, walk.
From ScienceBlogThe Human Body Does Not Turn Sugar to Fat
The process of synthesizing fat from sugar is known as de novo lipogenesis—the new production of fat. This activity is highly efficient in some animals, such as pigs and cows—which is one reason they have become popular people foods—these animals can convert low-energy, inexpensive carbohydrates—grass, say, in the case of cows and grains for pigs—into calorie-dense fats.5 However, human beings are very inefficient at this process and as a result de novo lipogenesis does not occur under usual living conditions in people. Thus the common belief that sugar turns to fat is scientifically incorrect—and there is no disagreement about this fact among scientists or their scientific research.
Under experimental laboratory conditions, however, where people are overfed large amounts of simple sugars, the human body will resort to converting a small amount of sugar into a small amount of fat (triglycerides) in the liver. For example, in one recent study, trim and obese women were overfed with 50% more calories than they usually ate—note, 535 of these extra calories each day came from four and a half ounces (135 grams) of refined sugar. In this forced-fed situation, the women produced less than 4 grams (36 calories) of fat daily from the extra carbohydrate.8 Extrapolation from these findings means a person would have to be overfed by this amount of food and table sugar every day for nearly 4 months in order to gain one extra pound of body fat from the conversion of sugar to fat—by de novo lipogenesis. Obviously, even overeating substantial quantities of sugar is a relatively unimportant source of body fat.
So while it's possible for calories from sugar to be turned into fat, it's highly improbable.Although rates of de novo lipogenesis in the carbohydrate-enriched energy-balanced control diet were significantly greater in the obese than in the lean women, the absolute quantities of fat synthesized from carbohydrate via de novo lipogenesis during both phases of the study were relatively small. An editorial by Hellerstein points out that de novo lipogenesis is a “path of last resort†in the body’s overall carbohydrate metabolism.
This is exactly how I feel when I read what Taubes writes.BrightAngel wrote:
That information sounds good, but perhaps it isn't really true.
This is from The World's Diet Secrets in Forbes magazine in 2009. The excerpt is from The Jungle Effect by Dr. Daphne Miller -- I've mentioned it several times before:One landmark experiment carried out in 1925 on two healthy adults, a man 25 years old and a woman 28 years old, had them live on a diet primarily of white potatoes for 6 months (A few additional items of little nutritional value except for empty calories -- pure fats, a few fruits, coffee, and tea -- were supplemented in their diet).7 The report stated, “They did not tire of the uniform potato diet and there was no craving for change.†Even though they were both physically active (especially the man) they were described as, “…in good health on a diet in which the nitrogen (protein) was practically solely derived from the potato.â€
Among her many surprises: The Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon had impressively low blood sugar levels despite deriving 80% of their calories from carbohydrates. The difference, she says, is that the Tarahumara eat minimally processed corn and beans. Many of their staples, including spices and herbs, release sugar into the body slowly. While the Tarahumara have struggled with poverty-related malnutrition, Miller says that the slow-releasing carbohydrates help prevent an overproduction of insulin and aid in maintaining blood sugar levels.
I remember reading "The Great Hunger" about the Irish potato famine and learning that the diet of the Irish peasantry consisted of two things: potatoes and milk. The author stated that this was actually nutritionally superior to the diet of the English working class at the time, which surprised me, but it was, of course, the reason the potato blight was so catastrophic.wosnes wrote: There was a segment on The Potato Diet on the Today Show about a month ago. As the man who did the experiment says, it's not meant to be the next fad diet, but an experiment to show that potatoes are a nutritious food and part of a healthy diet. There's more information here This wasn't news to me.
yoozer wrote:...forgive me for butting in to this argument.
But I am very interested in the arguments put forward by people such as Gary Taubes,
and the whole question of obesity and weight loss in general.
I totally agree with the above-quoted statement.yoozer wrote:Taubes is quite convincing when questioning the consensus behind conventional nutritional advice.
But the second part of his argument,
the alternative hypothesis that high carbohydrate consumption has caused the obesity epidemic,
is less persuasive to me.
It may be correct,
but as yet there is not a convincing weight of evidence to support it.
I also agree with this statement. However, I think it important to note,yoozer wrote:Taubes comes across as if he already believes it.
When I use the phrase "almost assuredly",
what I mean is that I believe this to be the case with such conviction
that I would stake my reputation on it.
But...I find I can't remove the "almost".
We can never say anything for certain in science until it has survived rigorous tests,
particularly when we're challenging accepted beliefs.
I also agree with this quoted portion of your comment.yoozer wrote:I think the truth is that nutritional science is just very hard to do.
...evidence is difficult and time-consuming to collect reliably.
So I think it's going to take a long time before we have complete answers.
You might want to check out a recent post on my Check-in Thread,wosnes wrote: One thing that bothers me about this is that protein metabolism is hard on the kidneys,
especially if one is at risk for diabetes or already diabetic.
I've seen people follow high-protein diets and lose kidney function.
Does a Low Carb Diet Cause Kidney Damage?
The belief that high protein diets cause kidney damage is one reason why, for many years,
doctors warned people with diabetes that low carb diets would kill their kidneys.
Fortunately, this turns out not to be true.
While almost any intake of protein is a problem for people with advanced kidney disease,
studies have found repeatedly that for people with normal kidney function
or early diabetic changes the low carb diet not only doesn't promote kidney damage,
it also reduces blood pressure, which is a major cause of kidney damage
and may actually reverse early kidney changes.
Graham, I agree with your above-quoted statements.Graham wrote:None of the foregoing should blind us to what works for us.
I'm aware when I discuss such issues as glucose vs ketone bodies for the brain,
I'm just regurgitating what I've read.
In the real world,
my body is at times bafflingly uncooperative with my efforts,
seeming to mock common sense,
shedding weight without good cause, or piling pounds on
- indifferent (or hostile?) to my efforts to change it.
This is true, but ketosis is an abnormal and unhealthy state. See this and this.Graham wrote:
On the matter of brain food - I read that, in the absence of glucose, the brain burns ketone bodies, and can do so for weeks on end without impairment.
.
Whilst I bow to your experience with insulin/diabetes, I must disagree with one point you make here - I don't think the diet you describe is "fine" unless you are physically active. I spend many hours with people from the Indian subcontinent - they are all rice-eaters and all have serious recurrent obesity problems - including heart attacks, by-pass surgery etc. They are all well-educated, well-to-do and leisured. Their servants and employees, by contrast, are also eating the white rice, but are physically busy, and slim.Kevin wrote:This is just my opinion, but it comes from years of captive study of insulin and blood glucose (I have been a Type I diabetic for 32 years).
Most cultures in the world have a plant-based combination (of grains and beans) that provides all the protein that is necessary to be healthy, and does not digest into glucose quickly. For the vast majority of people, this diet is fine.
I think the big problem for most people is refined carbohydrate, which might as well be sugar.
Graham wrote:Whilst I bow to your experience with insulin/diabetes, I must disagree with one point you make here - I don't think the diet you describe is "fine" unless you are physically active. I spend many hours with people from the Indian subcontinent - they are all rice-eaters and all have serious recurrent obesity problems - including heart attacks, by-pass surgery etc. They are all well-educated, well-to-do and leisured. Their servants and employees, by contrast, are also eating the white rice, but are physically busy, and slim.Kevin wrote:This is just my opinion, but it comes from years of captive study of insulin and blood glucose (I have been a Type I diabetic for 32 years).
Most cultures in the world have a plant-based combination (of grains and beans) that provides all the protein that is necessary to be healthy, and does not digest into glucose quickly. For the vast majority of people, this diet is fine.
I think the big problem for most people is refined carbohydrate, which might as well be sugar.
My view is that so long as the carbs are counterbalanced by obligatory activity, obesity is held at bay. Take away the work-load and the pounds can pile on alarmingly quickly. That is my own observation, though it is confined to one type of diet in one geographical region.
I think what Taubes is saying is that the effect of carbs varies with both individual susceptibility and time of exposure. The more affected the person is, the more drastic the measures they may be obliged to take to restore metabolic equilibrium, and there may be a point beyond which diet can no longer reverse the situation.
That's a many-sided question. Just to be alive is to be active to some degree, we'd have to decide what we meant by "physically active" and "safe" to discuss it sensibly.Kevin wrote:I'm sure you are right, but is any diet "safe" if you are not physically active?