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I CAN tell good studies from bad. Also, low carb is not even remotely prevalent. Usually when I see a low carb study, the scientists are back pedaling from their research. They get results they didn't expect, and then basically say "well this doesn't prove anything". It makes you wonder why they bothered if it didn't mean anything. Then the pro high carb studies, tend to be propaganda used to sell people cheap crap at high profit margins.

This whole paradigm is fallacious though. There is no good or bad. I wish people would quit looking at it that way. "Good" and "bad" are completely meaningless without CONTEXT. Good or bad *FOR WHAT*? Only a total moron is going to eat the same thing in all circumstances.

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I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

I have always thought that this was an interesting study. In the past, most researchers grouped saturated fats in with trans fats. Also most people eat saturated fats with carbs, such as a hamburger on buns or in baked goods, like pizza, bread and donuts. Compared with mono or unsaturated fats, often eaten with vegetables, it's not a fair comparison. It's definately something that needs further research.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I agree completely. One thing that I find very annoying is that, if it's not conventional wisdom then it NEEDS evidence, as if the other side is correct by default, that has to be a fallacy of some kind.... Even though, all the other studies that state saturated fat does lead to CVD are inclunclusive too but the word, "May," seems to have different meanings for people.

Absolutely! This is probably my biggest problem with much of the research into nutrition. They fail to separate their variables. Then they pick out the one thing, and assume it's the cause based on nothing but presupposition. Frequently the association doesn't even have proof that it's a causative one either. So it could be real science if they conclude there is a relation of between one grouping of foods and some other thing, vs another group without such a relationship. However the always seem to assume causation AND assume their presupposed idea is the one variable out of many that is responsible. When they do that, it isn't science. They definitely need to research these things in a way that allows variables to be separated.

Yea, it's a form of presupposition. So it depends on exactly how they state it. It can be considered "appeal to popularity"/"argumentum ad populem" or "proof by authority", or even "begging the question" if they use it as both a premise and a conclusion. I bet there is a term for treating an empirical claim as if it were a logical axiom, but I don't know what it is.

By the way, proof by authority is what the medical pro was doing, in the story you relayed in a post I saw last night.

NightFall,

Jebus' Post

The sites Jebus posted had carb intake at about 22%. So, where are you cominhg up with "70% fat, 25% protein, 5% carbs"?

Low Carb Diet

There are a variety of low carb diets. Very few of the low carb diets restrict carbs to 5%. Living The Low Carb Life/Dr Johnny Bowden does a nice job of examining the majory of Low Carb Diets.

Purpose of Low Carb Diet

As you are aware, chronic high insulin levels are insure health problems. High carb diets trigger insulin release.

Thus, lowering carb intake eliminates chronic high insulin levels.

Low Carb Doen't = NO Carb

The majority of low carb diets simply restrict carb intake to "foods of color." Foods such as brocolli, spinach, squash, tomatoes, celery, green beans, etc.

"Food of Color"

All of these foods are low in carbs and calories and high in fiber. This means, you carb intake remains low, pretty much no matter how much you consume.



Fructose

Fructose is processed by the body completely differently. Too much fructose lead to a number of health issues.

As the article points out fruit isn't the problems, high corn fructose corn syrup is.

Eating Too Much Fruit

That's pretty hard to do since fruit is "packaged" in fiber.

Example: An apple contains 15-20 grams of carbohydrate. Of that 15-20 grams, approximately 30% of the carbs is fructose (let's say 5-7 grams of fructose per apple).

How many apples can you eat at one time or in a day? Not that many.

Fruit Juice The Same As Soft Drinks

The percentage of fructose in fruit juice is basically the same as soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, etc)
Thus, it doen't matter that much which one you drink.

Kenny Croxdale

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Thanks TimD.

I wish had ironmans analytical skills for my literature review part of my dissertation!

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I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21507735

"Early Farmers Were Sicker and Shorter Than Their Forager Ancestors."

http://www.ajcn.org/content/67/3/556S.a ... f_ipsecsha

"Diets high in fat do not appear to be the primary cause of the high prevalence of excess body fat in our society, and reductions in fat will not be a solution."

http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/88 ... 9341#sec-7

This study is well worth the read!

"The results of this study demonstrate that a very low carbohydrate diet, taken without a specified restriction of caloric intake, is effective for weight loss over a 6-month period in healthy, obese women. Compared with the low fat group, who followed a diet conforming to currently recommended distributions of macronutrient calories, the very low carbohydrate group lost significantly more weight, a finding that was apparent both when the women completing the diet were considered alone and when the data were analyzed using intent to treat principles. In addition, despite eating a high percentage of calories as fat and having relatively high intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol, the women in the very low carbohydrate group maintained normal levels of blood pressure, plasma lipids, glucose, and insulin. These data suggest that the deleterious effects of diets containing a high percentage of fat on body weight and cardiac risk factors are mitigated by restriction of caloric intake and associated weight loss. "

> healthy, obese women

Made me chuckle.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1638 ... t=Abstract

"Lowering serum cholesterol concentrations does not reduce mortality and is unlikely to prevent coronary heart disease. Claims of the opposite are based on preferential citation of supportive trials."


http://www.springerlink.com/content/5p1348696516v6rl/

John Yudkin's journal on the effects of sugar and fats on CVD.


http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0708681

"Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets may be effective alternatives to low-fat diets. The more favorable effects on lipids (with the low-carbohydrate diet) and on glycemic control (with the Mediterranean diet) suggest that personal preferences and metabolic considerations might inform individualized tailoring of dietary interventions."

Clincial Trials, The Effects of Nutrition on Cancer

http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2009/ ... 8.abstract

"On the basis of the results of this quantitative assessment, the available epidemiologic evidence does not appear to support an independent association between animal fat intake or animal protein intake and colorectal cancer."

This one looks interesting: http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/inf ... bi.1002116

That sugar can be converted into fatty acids in humans is a well-known fact. The question whether the reverse direction, i.e., gluconeogenesis from fatty acids, is also feasible has been a topic of intense debate since the end of the 19th century. With the discovery of the glyoxylate shunt (...) it has been considered infeasible in humans since the corresponding enzymes could not be detected. However, by this finding only a single route for gluconeogenesis from fatty acids has been ruled out. (...) we searched for gluconeogenic routes from fatty acids in a metabolic network comprising all reactions known to take place in humans. Thus, we were able to identify several pathways showing that this conversion is indeed feasible. Analyzing evidence concerning the detected pathways lends support to their importance during times of starvation, fasting, carbohydrate reduced and ketogenic diets and other situations in which the nutrition is low on carbohydrates. Moreover, the energetic investment required for this pathway can help to explain the particular efficiency of carbohydrate reduced and ketogenic diets such as the Atkins diet.

_________________
I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness