
Reversal on Carbs: Scientists now blame carbohydrates for America's ills - cwan
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-carbs-20101220,0,5464425.story
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ghshephard
This upsets me to no end. When I was growing up in the 70s, we had a food
pyramid that was based on carbohydrates, created by no less than the USDA -
not the surgeon general. Then, in the late 90s, the establishment totally came
down on the Atkins/Zone type diets as being inappropriate and foolish.

How is it that we went through at least 40 years of incorrect diet advice
without controlled studies giving us accurate and science based broad
understanding of what actually made sense?

I also find it annoying that we continue to discuss a universal "Diet", when,
in fact, different people react very differently to different types of food.

I sometimes think we're still in the dark ages in terms of certain fields of
endeavors.

~~~
smokinn
If you're actually interested in what happened (you may just be venting, can't
really tell) there's an excellent talk called "Big Fat Fiasco" on youtube that
goes into the history of the lipid hypothesis (fat makes you fat) and how it
got hold: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exi7O1li_wA> (it's about an hour
long).

One of the most amazing parts for me was the video of the senate commission
tasked with coming up with dietary guidelines (the commission that created the
food pyramid) outright rejecting the majority consensus that it's foolish to
publish guidelines at a time that so little is truly known and that, if
anything, it's carbs, not fat that are the problem. (Yes, the scientific
community back then was leaning towards carbs being the problem.) One of the
senators has an amazing quote along the lines of: _I don't have the luxury of
waiting to make an informed decision like a scientist._

Anyway, long story short it was politicians blessing the lipid hypothesis and
then later removing all funding from anyone with a contrary opinion. The
nutrition "scientists" are almost all funded by the government and therefore
started to self-censor and never publish anything contradicting the anointed
hypothesis. If they did they were basically booted out and never funded again.

Finally it seems the breaking point has been reached and we might get actual
scientific research done in nutrition science instead of the quack research
that's been the norm for the past 40 years.

~~~
anonymousDan
Global warming (* _ducks_ *) ?

~~~
viggity
You are 100% right on. It is infinitely easier to test and isolate the
variables that go into metabolism than it is to test and isolate the variables
that go into global climate. Its infinitely easier because the later simply
isn't possible.

"I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable
hypotheses" - Crichton

------
msluyter
As someone who's been on a low carb, no-grain diet (mostly) over the past
year, this is gratifying to read. In that time I lost (with little effort)
about 30 pounds, and while I find the diet occasionally difficult to maintain
(mostly due to boredom), it's easier than a low fat diet, in which I was
always starving.

~~~
jerf
I've been toying off and on with low carb diets, and my body has made it clear
that if I want to continue with high carb diets it intends to make me one of
the guys having heart attacks at 40 or 50, so it's now permanently "on". (I'm
31 right now.)

For a while I've been playing with spices, in all the good senses of "play",
and I've been upping my culinary game. Even more recently I've started to get
into sort of "gourmet" cooking; I'm scare quoting it because I'm not really in
it for the attitude, but just the flavor. I have a small collection of
vinegars, cooking wines, various extracts and oils (you can pry my sesame oil
out of my cold dead fingers), and have been experimenting with a variety of
cheeses. My wife, who isn't quite as into this yet, has also become hooked;
she's discovered she really likes Balsamic Vinegar in a couple of recipes. (We
buy the, ahem, "fake" stuff that doesn't take decades to create and only costs
slightly more than other vinegars in the store; I'm sure it's not as good but
it's good _enough_.)

And lo, it turns out that there are entire culinary traditions around the
world that have centuries of history working with these ingredients, and it is
good. My "boredom" level has plummeted in the past six months as I've opened
these doors, and lately I'm getting to the point where I couldn't go back.

It isn't that hard, and it isn't actually that expensive. It does take some
experimentation, though; you can follow recipes but I've found that my tastes
and the tastes of those who are really "into" the culinary thing diverge quite
strongly, even as we agree on ingredients. These are expensive ingredients
relative to other foods in the store, yes, but typically you only use them in
very small quantities; per use they are monetarily insignificant.

Example: I like hamburgers. For other reasons, I _have_ to eat them without a
bun, but I now wouldn't eat them with a bun anyhow. I do not know what it is
exactly, but I find that adding one _drop_ of sesame oil to a pound of
hamburger can really change things. Don't forget to salt the meat. Toss in
some dried onions for even more fun. Mix it all together, then form the
patties. This is not a normal burger. I say "I don't know what it is" because
something is really opening up the sesame oil, usually one drop does not have
such an effect on a meal, but don't dribble much more in or you will actually
ruin it. (Unless you _really_ like sesame flavor.)

And this is just one example. It really isn't surprising (in hindsight,
remember I've been there) that trying to take a typical American diet and
subtract the bad stuff, which also happens to be where all the flavor is, has
a boring result. But there are other traditions and ways of cooking that are
as good or better; after all, the recommended American diet is a local
aberration, not what we've been eating for centuries.

~~~
Nick_C
FYI, you may want to check out some Chinese recipes. The Chinese use sesame
oil quite often. As you say, a little goes a long way, but that little amount
has a great affect. Vegies like broccoli and bok choy especially seem to like
it.

------
presidentender
I think our best bet is to let our own bodies figure out what's good for us.
The problem with that is that "food" these days includes many nutritive
substances which simply didn't exist in modern quantities during the
evolutionary development of our appetites, most notably this abundance of
fructose (HFCS, anyone?). The act of consuming food usually prompts one's body
to produce insulin in order to assimilate the carbs in the food, and this
insulin acts as an appetite suppressant. The problem is that fructose is so
simple that no insulin needs be produced in order to assimilate it, so the
appetite goes unsuppressed after the consumption of calorie-dense food, and
the subject continues to feed.

This leads to a positive feedback loop, because the stored calories require
maintenance (heavier people must eat more to maintain their bodies, regardless
of whether that weight comes from muscle or fat). This feedback loop causes
all sorts of other problems, too.

That's not even getting into the ancillary effects of the other stuff that we
get from grain.

~~~
commandar
>(HFCS, anyone?)

I'm not a big fan of singling out HFCS because it misses the forest for the
trees. _Any_ refined carbohydrate is going to cause a strong insulin response.
White bread is pretty awful for similar reasons, for example.

~~~
richcollins
There are considerations other than insulin response (other parts of liver
metabolism):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

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Toucan
This isn't a reversal, at least not on the part of scientists. Reporting like
this just reinforces the public's idea of "Why should I do what doctor's say?
They just change their mind. First it was eggs..." and so on. Seriously, ask
your mum.

Scientists have known about insulin sensitivity and why and how weight
gain/loss happens for a long time. Bodybuilders and other sportsmen and women
listen.

<http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=139058> is an
interesting article on what actually happened. In contrast with the "oh those
silly scientists, always changing their mind" headline, that article states
'scientists have known what makes us fat for almost half a century'.

~~~
jerf
That's an article by Taubes partially explaining how the consensus that fat
makes you fat came about and why _that_ was a departure from the mainstream up
to that point, but, uh, you are aware that Taubes has been just about
crucified for those opinions? The article you cite is itself a non-mainstream
article, you can't cite it as an example that the mainstream scientists have
"always known" this. No, in fact mainstream scientists all over the place have
been insisting that Taubes and Atkins and everybody else claiming it's
actually carbs are not just wrong but evil for saying so. If this shift is
actually made (which is still not a done deal), it will in fact be a consensus
shift, one where the evidence has been available for centuries that the
consensus was wrong, but a consensus was manufactured anyhow.

~~~
ghshephard
Agreed. I was on the Zone Diet for about four years, and I recall doing a ton
of reading in 99-2003 on the topic. The whole idea of limiting your dietary
intake to being no more than 40% carbohydrates was seen as being "fringe"
dietary advice - and it only got play in the "alternative" arena of dietary
advice. Atkins was seen as an outright kook. Basically, Fats and Cholesterol
were the only components that seemed to get mainstream attention - there was
almost no establishment focus on carbohydrates as being problematic at the
time - to say otherwise is revisionist.

------
cageface
So how is it that Asians eat tons of white rice but don't suffer from obesity,
heart disease, diabetes and hypertension at anything close to Western rates?

~~~
msluyter
Low carb skeptics often raise this point, but I'd like note that it can be
misleading to consider a single diet variable in isolation. The Japanese smoke
more than we do, and yet have less heart disease. Hence, smoking reduces the
risk of heart disease....

Of course not. Asians eat more white rice, perhaps, but they also eat more
fish, seaweed (in the case of the Japanese), more vegetables, walk more, eat
more soy, etc... The effect of all of these variables, combined, may result in
better overall health, and yet it could also be true that white rice in and of
itself isn't that good for you.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"walk more"_

This part is _huge_. I moved to a new city a year and half ago and started
walking everywhere. Where I used to struggle keeping the weight off, nowadays
without even going out of my way to exercise, it just stays off.

And now bear in mind my city is far less walkable than your average developed
Asian city...

I'm convinced that if America finally got rid of its car obsession, health
levels will improve dramatically, and all this talk of the obesity epidemic
will fizzle.

~~~
Khroma
Exactly. We don't _need_ to exercise now, so few people do. Exercise has
become something to do in our spare time. We stay in our homes and are
required to use cars. When I visited China, I had to walk everywhere because I
didn't have a car. Unfortunately we really can't get rid of the car obsession
without a huge effort.

First, the suburbs take up so much space and distances living areas from the
store areas. If we had a New Urbanist city, it would get people to walk. Now,
you can't walk. Walking is impossible. You can't walk to a Walmart and grab
fresh food every day. In China, my family would get food from the market every
day. Now, we get food once a week and it's in big bags. That's because buying
food is inconvenient.

Second, the suburbs take up space and creates the dreaded long commute. You
can't walk to work. This makes public transportation unfeasible. Everyone buys
a car.

It's all a big self-propelling problem. It creates its own problems, and to
fix them, you have to contribute to the problem. Long distance? Get a car. A
lot of cars? Build more roads. The vicious cycle continues...

EDIT: Biking is possible. But does anyone do it to commute, with so many cars
and such long distances? Nope.

I personally witnessed this myself. I had to come home from school one day and
today's roads aren't good for walkers. There's no sidewalk, so I had to walk
on the grass or in the ditches. In many places (in the burbs, not in the city,
the city is fine for walking), there were no walk signals. If there were, you
had to walk along the road to the signal which often required adding more
walking to the trip. For example, I had to cross the street from the library
to a restaurant for lunch. I had to cross the middle of the road, and no one
wants to do that.

------
davidedicillo
I come from a country built on carbs: Italy. I think I hate at least a plate
of pasta a per for 30 years and guess what, I'm not overweight. America, do
you want to see you problem? Don't look further than your car. The one you
drive to go grocery shopping 1 mile from home. Just walk, I'm actually
thinking to not renew my car lease when it will expire in 2 months, and we'll
keep only one car for the family. Do you both need to commute to work? Fine,
get to car, but use them if you need to go further than 1-2 miles. Otherwise
walk. You'd be amaze to find out how many things there are in a two miles
radius.

~~~
enjo
I lived in Italy for a few years (Northern). Generally the portions of pasta
that you ate were relatively small. You also ate a lot of fish, stews, and
vegetables.

In regions of Italy that DO eat mostly carb loaded diets (like Sicily) there
has been a relatively long running obesity issue. Walking is important, and
it's a great thing. But even walking several miles a day does little to combat
obesity when you're offsetting it with thousands of calories of carb-loaded
food every day.

~~~
davidedicillo
I grew up in Milan, and none in my family is obese. If for relatively small
you mean "human" yeah, we don't server Cheesecake Factory portions (we
actually do once in a while, I remember my dad and grand father eating pasta
in a salad bowl few times).

------
yesimahuman
Bodybuilders have known this for a long, long time.

~~~
jerf
As Taubes documented, a lot of people have known this for centuries. It's not
like it's that hard of an experiment to run, even in prior centuries.

If this fully pans out, as I think it will, nutritionists of the past fifty
years or so are going to have the unenviable task of being used as an example
of how an entire discipline with billions of dollars in funding and the best
possible science apparatus can get it horribly, horribly wrong for a very,
very long time.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
What will be the most interesting to watch about this is the social
reprogramming that will go on.

If history is a guide, within 30 years school textbooks will read as if this
was just a logical conclusion and was easily reached -- instead of the brutal
infighting and confusion that it actually was.

One of the weirdest things I learned as an adult was that science does not
progress linearly like they teach in school. Instead people get emotionally
attached to ideas, and miracle of miracles, the evidence shows they are
correct.

Until the evidence shows they are not. Then it's this long struggle for
changing gears, finally ending up in a spot where nobody ever talks about what
went on before.

I think the human part of science is at least as interesting as the science
itself. Lots of complexity and randomness, yet parts are very predictable.
Neat.

~~~
jeangenie
agreed. science has never offered any simple narrative, it's a sprawling,
incomprehensible, fascinating mess. it's a human story just like everything
else.

~~~
Stwerner
That's definitely what I got out of reading bill bryson's brief history of
nearly everything. The people involved in most of our scientific discoveries
are incredibly fascinating

------
mootothemax
When I cycled 25 miles a day, Monday to Friday, I could eat /anything/ in huge
quantities without a problem. It makes sense, but not when you add up the
calories; I was putting in way more than the most optimistic calculators said
I was spending.

Then I moved closer to work, and had a total of maybe 20 minutes on my bike
every day - but this being a cheaper bike I could leave it locked up outside
(with a decent lock, natch) so it was my primary form of transport for
_everything_ \- going to the shops, commuting to work or meeting friends out
and about in town. I was still eating whatever I wanted albeit in slightly
smaller portions without putting on a pound.

Whilst it's interesting and valuable science to discover quite what on earth
goes on when we eat things, if your biggest concern is not putting on weight,
why not do exercise that makes you sweat for 20 or 30 minutes 5 days a week?
Seems much easier to me - and satisfying because you don't have to deny
yourself anything!

~~~
aantix
You're giving exercise way too much credit. Even the most rigorous regiment
(which most couldn't even do) can maybe burn a 1,000 calories an hour. But
considering how it easy it is to ingest 1,000 calories, it's easier to make
changes at the dietary level than to correct excess calories by burning them
off.

~~~
mootothemax
Rather, I'm doubting that our understanding of calories and how they're burned
off/turned into fat is wrong. I'm proof, as is anyone else who does 30 mins
sweaty exercise a day. Otherwise, given the amount of Big Macs inbetween
meals, the maths doesn't add up.

------
attila
There are plenty of good points in the article. However, I find the sloppy use
of the word 'carbs' unforgivable and misleading. Fruits and vegetables are
mostly carbs (...as dietary fiber is a form of carbohydrate too). The majority
of the latter are, of course, healthy. The casual reader may get the
impression from the article that all carbs are bad, and turn to a high protein
diet.

------
mey
After having a bought of pancreatitis recently, I've been looking at my own
food choices very closely to find the things that will keep my healthy, out of
the hospital, and off long term drugs.

My anecdotal experience is that, lean meats, veggies, fruits are expensive,
but are the best things for me personally. It is astounding how much sugar,
carbs and fat is in the products I used to be eating. Obviously you need
calories to survive, but I've been aiming to consume more calories that are
slow burning (lean protein) and mix in "healthy" fats (omega 3 etc) with
veggies fiber and vitamins.

I've been loosing weight, feeling better, and managed to cut my bad
cholesterol by more then half, all without taking any medication to do so. I
consider this a success of information and personal experimentation to find
what works for me.

Prior to this health condition, I never put a high value the quality of the
food I was eating. I cared about what food would keep me awake, revved, and
burning the midnight oil, rather then what was good for my long term health.

After encountering all the sugar in our (US) food supply, I'm very much for
removing the corn subsidies the federal government provides. It would remove
the supply of cheap sugar that seems to permeates everything we eat.

~~~
riledhel
Human body has a great capability for adaptation. So change in what you eat is
just another form of adaptation. A couple of months with a new diet and you
won't miss the "old stuff". (let's forget about obsessive patterns for the
sake of the argument)

------
loca
"What If It’s All Been A Big Fat Lie?" by Gary Taubes

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-
all-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-
big-fat-
lie.html?scp=1&sq=what%20if%20its%20all%20been%20a%20big%20fat%20lie?&st=cse)

Tom Naughton's "Fat Head" is now available on Hulu:

<http://www.hulu.com/fat-head>

------
Semiapies
Thanks for catching up on the last 10+ years of nutritional debate, LA Times.

Perhaps the real problem is seizing on one simplistic explanation for a
complicated problems ("Meats!" "Fats!" "Sugars!" "Carbs!") and beating on it
endlessly, then when that doesn't solve the problem, switching to another
simplistic explanation.

------
noarchy
Carbs are _fine_ if you're active, and even necessary if you are very active
(cyclists, for example, understand this pretty well). But this is the problem,
I guess. We are expected to build diets on which sedentary people can get by.

------
anamax
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yCeFmn_e2c>

How about there's more in it for them if they find something new?

------
chopsueyar
<http://veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_avi>

