
The Collapse of a $40 Million Nutrition Science Crusade - aantix
https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-dollar40-million-nutrition-science-crusade-fell-apart/
======
sctb
We've reverted the title from the submitted “Gary Taubes's Low Carb Clinical
Studies Were a Failure” to that of the article. Submitters: when you
editorialize like this, users (rightfully) flag and moan and it just makes
everything worse. Please don't do it.

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yasp
You are editorializing with the headline.

~~~
TimSchumann
Yep. This is what's going on here, nothing in the article about the actual
studies failing.

This title is analogous to saying "Amazon is imploding" as a result of the
Fire Phone's failure to launch.

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IB885588
The article doesn't say what the HN headline says, or at least, not in the way
that most people reading the headline would interpret it.

~~~
mcguire
" _By August of 2014 the EBC researchers had preliminary results on their 17
volunteers: The data showed “no significant difference” in energy expenditure.
That didn’t mean it was a failure; to the researchers, they had succeeded in
verifying the methodology before using it in an even bigger, longer study._

" _But when Hall presented the pilot’s results in-person to representatives
from NuSI at a meeting in Bethesda in September, they were not so rosy-
eyed.... “From my perspective, the pilot was a failure for several reasons,”
says Taubes._ "

Then, there's

" _The fourth and largest [NuSI-backed study], conducted at Stanford,
randomized 600 overweight-to-obese subjects into low-fat versus low-carb diets
for a year and looked at whether or not their weight loss could be explained
by their metabolism or their DNA. Published this February in JAMA, the study
found no differences between the two diets and no meaningful relationship
between weight loss and insulin secretion. The most significant finding was
that it’s hard to stick to a diet for a whole year._ "

The rest of the story may not describe the failure of studies.

" _As the remaining researchers continued to clash with NuSI over the summer
about the second phase, the pilot results were finally published in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in July. They received a lot of media
attention, in no small part because Hall said the pilot, along with another
study he’d conducted previously, “basically falsify” the theory that sugar
makes people fat. By the end of the summer the Arnold Foundation had decided
not to fund the second phase of the study._ "

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0xdeadbeefbabe
> NuSI wanted to see the data, and began providing extensive critiques once
> they had it.

That's good, but I'm supposed to be suspicious, right?

~~~
torgoguys
Yes, I think so, but the article is somewhat unclear. It mentions "NuSI would
have no control over the pilot study’s design, operation, or reporting. He
could build the study he wanted." But a couple of sentences later mentions
that "The EBC researchers met with NuSI quarterly to finalize the study’s
design and clinical procedures."

Assuming I'm reading between the lines correctly, I'm interpreting the sloppy
writing there to mean that the study was to be done independently by EBC and
the _type /style_ of study was something EBC got to design, but the that
specifics of the design were signed off by both EBC and NUSI. _If_ that
interpretation is correct, it makes NuSI then critiquing it a bit shady given
they had already signed off on the design as being good before the study
started and now when it didn't provide the results they wanted they suddenly
had problems with the design.

To their credit, it doesn't look like they interfered with the reporting of
result though.

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aantix
It's interesting to hear him talk more humbly..

"Taubes sounds tired. “I say this to my wife all the time: ‘Maybe I’m a
quack.’ All quacks are sure they’re right. Isn’t that the defining
characteristic of a quack? But the fact is that we funded four studies and the
three randomized trials were highly successful operationally."

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Nah, that's his typical analytical style. The wired reporter would have you
believe otherwise, because--well, I don't know.

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grzm
Actual article title: "The Collapse of a $40 Million Nutrition Science
Crusade"

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0x4f3759df
Whenever low carb gets popular, industry is threatened and spins up some FUD
as illustrated in this talk 'Undoing Atkins: A Cautionary Tale'
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIegMp5cWBY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIegMp5cWBY)

Keto sub is really growing fast, up 400k this year
[http://redditmetrics.com/r/keto](http://redditmetrics.com/r/keto)

~~~
skookum
> Keto sub is really growing fast

"We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition,
however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded
believers." \- Daniel Kahneman

~~~
ENTP
So no subs that are popular are based on fact?

~~~
skookum
"A lot of people believing something does not make it true" is not equivalent
to "A lot of people believing something makes it untrue."

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kristerv
Bad headline. Here's the important paragraph:

> Taubes says the fundraising trip to Zurich went well, though he won’t share
> specifics. It could just be the jet lag, or it could be the mental burden of
> having to sing for his supper, but Taubes sounds tired. “I say this to my
> wife all the time: ‘Maybe I’m a quack.’ All quacks are sure they’re right.
> Isn’t that the defining characteristic of a quack? But the fact is that we
> funded four studies and the three randomized trials were highly successful
> operationally. One of these has been published in a top journal with
> interesting results and I remain hopeful that we will soon see if the last
> two studies will move some needles. Our convictions have gotten us this far,
> and despite some disappointments these questions still seem vitally
> important to test.”

The article basically says the team fell apart and the original donations got
closed down because of this. Doesn't actually talk much about the studies
themselves.

~~~
everdev
Actually, it does. In the process of trying to get the study participants to a
baseline by feeding them a 4 week "control diet", they all lost weight before
they even got to the low-carb diet.

The theory that calories from sugar produces more weight gain than the same
number of calories from any other source (veggies, meat, etc.) still hasn't
been proven. But, I think the idea that calories from sugar are less filling,
and therefore promote over-eating is pretty established.

> The EBC’s pilot project would lock 17 overweight men inside metabolic wards
> for two months, feeding them precisely formulated meals and pricking and
> prodding to see what happened to their bodies on a low-carb diet.

> The data showed “no significant difference” in energy expenditure.

> Taubes in particular had issues with many of the study’s designs, which fed
> participants a “standard American diet” for four weeks before switching them
> to an extremely low-carb, or ketogenic, regimen with the same amount of
> calories. It was supposed to get them to a stable weight, or energy balance,
> to establish a baseline before going keto. But the subjects all lost weight
> even before they started cutting out carbs. Taubes contended that was
> because the standard diet didn’t have enough refined sugary beverages to
> depict average American consumption.

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kryogen1c
I don't know how anyone could read this whole article word-for-word. It's so
light in information density but also without a story-telling feel.

Anecdote: I have been ketogenic (usually <20g/day, almost always <30g/day) for
a few months now. I measure my urinary ketone levels to verify I am in
ketosis. This difference is astounding. I have higher peak energy, higher
average energy, sleep better, lower peak hungriness, lower average hungriness,
the ability to skip meals without feeling starving, and am losing weight. And
it's cheaper. The only negative is actually significant: it's much more work.
Hours of picking recepies, crosschecking ingredients that we have vs what we
need to buy, shopping, cooking, and cleaning the many dishes generated.

I strongly encourage everyone to do it.

~~~
TimSchumann
Just rolled into day 6 of a fast.

Between fasting and a ketogenic diet I've managed to lose 80 lbs and keep it
off for more than a year. It was much faster and easier than any other method
of weight loss I'd tried in the past, and the results have been easier to
maintain.

~~~
kryogen1c
> I've managed to lose 80 lbs and keep it off for more than a year.

Hell yeah!

> easier to maintain.

I've never done any other diet, but I've found keto to be self regulating
because eating cheat meals like pizza makes me feel like _garbage_. I suppose
eating healthy carbs like apples might be doable, but I'm honestly not even
interested

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frou_dh
The movement might be reclassified as 'The Flintstones' LARPing

