4 ms·

Gary Taubes is a journalist, not an expert in nutrition. He also has a track record of questionable academic honesty. He's an excellent writer who has cashed in

by xiaoma 16y ago

Gary Taubes is a journalist, not an expert in nutrition. He also has a track record of questionable academic honesty. He's an excellent writer who has cashed in fabulously on fad diets, particularly the Atkins craze 10 years ago. Follow his advice at your own risk. http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

count 16y ago
I'd recommend reading Taubes followup to that hit piece.
beagle3 16y ago
I've started reading this hit piece, and saw, e.g. > "One can lose weight on a low-calorie diet if it is primarily composed of fat calories or carbohydrate calories or protein calories. It makes no difference!" Quoted from one of the "experts" refuting taubes. And yet, research by Robert Israel and Michel Cabanac (full list of references in Roberts' "What Makes Food Fattening" bibliography) shows that this is completely untrue - even flavor makes a huge difference, let alone "caloric intake". (BTW, if anyone can point me to any peer reviewed paper that validates "calories in-calories out" theory, I would be thankful. It appears to be an argument of faith, not of science, as far as I can tell). Good Calories Bad Calories is meticulously referenced. You may disagree with the content, but as far as science writing goes, it doesn't get any better or more rigorous. (And that's less of a compliment to Taubes, and more an indication of the sad, sad state of science writing). Taubes is a scientist and a journalist. The fact that nutrition is not his original field doesn't change much.
- xiaoma 16y ago
  The problem wasn't just Taube's penchant for taking extremely selective evidence and his own hunches over the vast majority of the available research evidence. The problem is many of the very scientists that Taubes referenced were furious about him misrepresenting their work, and taking extremely selective quotations to make it sound like they were supporting theories that they did not actually believe were true. >"Taubes is a scientist" The claim that Taubes is a scientist is unsupported by anything I've ever read about him, or his current wikipedia file. What science has he actually done, as opposed to reported on? RE calories in / calories out: Here's article might interest you. It details a nutritionist's "twinkie diet". He dropped 27 lbs in two months, shed body fat and improved various blood markers while eating 1800 calories a day, mostly from junkies. It's not a peer reviewed study, but it was conducted by a professor of nutrition at the university of Kansas. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...
- eavc 16y ago
  You're saying one can't lose weight on low-calorie diets that are primarily composed of carbs? In that case, we should send a single rice grain to all starving persons to serve as their only nutrition. I imagine you have a more nuanced point, but the statement you quoted is clearly true taken for what it actually is saying.
  - beagle3 16y ago
    > I imagine you have a more nuanced point, but the statement you quoted is clearly true taken for what it actually is saying. You are right, of course. Without quantifying (how low is "low calorie"?) these statements are useless. There was an experiment in Mass General some 15 years ago, in which they were able to get people with similar lifestyle/activity on 1500 cal/day diet. About one third lost weight, one third stayed the same weight, and one third gained weight, depending on how exactly the diet was composed. Yes, you will lose weight, regardless of diet composition, on less than 800 kcal/day. Is that "low calorie"? "too low calorie"? "moderate"?. No, you will not necessarily lose weight on more than 800 kcal/day. You probably will if your diet was not specially crafted to make you keep your weight on 800 kcal. When you get up to the 1200-1500 range, there is a non-negligible probability of "accidentally" gaining weight (or at least not lose it) by randomly stumbling on a bad diet composition. One of Cabanac's (If I'm not mistaken) experiment was able to make rats gain weight for 3 weeks on a diet of water+chalk (caloric value 0) for a while, by feeding them water+sugar+chalk for a while, and then dropping the sugar. Sure, it was water gain - but the calories in - calories out theory fails so miserably in this case (and countless others) that it cannot be taken seriously. (For only 3 weeks for a rat; it might not hold for a human for a few months in similar conditions). The calorie accounting is an approximation at best, which possibly takes several months to a year to average out reasonably, whereas a lot of the research focuses on results over 3 months or less.
    - ajslater 16y ago
      I'd bet a fair amount that your Mass General study used self reported calorie intake. 800kcals a day is typically enough for a 100 lb person to lose nearly a half a pound of fat a week. That's low calorie by most people's measure. Certainly mine at 200lbs When most people are talking about 'losing weight' they mean losing fat. At least losing actual body tissue. Anyone can gain or lose 10% of their body weight in a few days by controlling for carbs. But its just water. Try to ignore rat studies if you possibly can. Their metabolism, particularly their capacity for denovo lipogenisis is very very different than that of human beings.
- ajslater 16y ago
  Taubes is a quack, pure and simple. Most of the studies he cites that I'm familiar with use self reported food intake. Any study that uses self reported food intake should be entirely disregarded for physiological purposes (perhaps useful for studying psychology). You can get razor sharp lean on a diet with lots of carbs in it and you can get nice and fat on a ketogenic diet. No controlled calorie study supports the idea that carbs, fats or proteins have any particular metabolic advantage over the minor differences in their thermic effects of feeding (TEF) (essentially energy required to digest).

by xiaoma 16y ago

count 16y ago

I'd recommend reading Taubes followup to that hit piece.

beagle3 16y ago

I've started reading this hit piece, and saw, e.g. > "One can lose weight on a low-calorie diet if it is primarily composed of fat calories or carbohydrate calories or protein calories. It makes no difference!" Quoted from one of the "experts" refuting taubes. And yet, research by Robert Israel and Michel Cabanac (full list of references in Roberts' "What Makes Food Fattening" bibliography) shows that this is completely untrue - even flavor makes a huge difference, let alone "caloric intake". (BTW, if anyone can point me to any peer reviewed paper that validates "calories in-calories out" theory, I would be thankful. It appears to be an argument of faith, not of science, as far as I can tell). Good Calories Bad Calories is meticulously referenced. You may disagree with the content, but as far as science writing goes, it doesn't get any better or more rigorous. (And that's less of a compliment to Taubes, and more an indication of the sad, sad state of science writing). Taubes is a scientist and a journalist. The fact that nutrition is not his original field doesn't change much.

xiaoma 16y ago
The problem wasn't just Taube's penchant for taking extremely selective evidence and his own hunches over the vast majority of the available research evidence. The problem is many of the very scientists that Taubes referenced were furious about him misrepresenting their work, and taking extremely selective quotations to make it sound like they were supporting theories that they did not actually believe were true. >"Taubes is a scientist" The claim that Taubes is a scientist is unsupported by anything I've ever read about him, or his current wikipedia file. What science has he actually done, as opposed to reported on? RE calories in / calories out: Here's article might interest you. It details a nutritionist's "twinkie diet". He dropped 27 lbs in two months, shed body fat and improved various blood markers while eating 1800 calories a day, mostly from junkies. It's not a peer reviewed study, but it was conducted by a professor of nutrition at the university of Kansas. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...
eavc 16y ago
You're saying one can't lose weight on low-calorie diets that are primarily composed of carbs? In that case, we should send a single rice grain to all starving persons to serve as their only nutrition. I imagine you have a more nuanced point, but the statement you quoted is clearly true taken for what it actually is saying.
- beagle3 16y ago
  > I imagine you have a more nuanced point, but the statement you quoted is clearly true taken for what it actually is saying. You are right, of course. Without quantifying (how low is "low calorie"?) these statements are useless. There was an experiment in Mass General some 15 years ago, in which they were able to get people with similar lifestyle/activity on 1500 cal/day diet. About one third lost weight, one third stayed the same weight, and one third gained weight, depending on how exactly the diet was composed. Yes, you will lose weight, regardless of diet composition, on less than 800 kcal/day. Is that "low calorie"? "too low calorie"? "moderate"?. No, you will not necessarily lose weight on more than 800 kcal/day. You probably will if your diet was not specially crafted to make you keep your weight on 800 kcal. When you get up to the 1200-1500 range, there is a non-negligible probability of "accidentally" gaining weight (or at least not lose it) by randomly stumbling on a bad diet composition. One of Cabanac's (If I'm not mistaken) experiment was able to make rats gain weight for 3 weeks on a diet of water+chalk (caloric value 0) for a while, by feeding them water+sugar+chalk for a while, and then dropping the sugar. Sure, it was water gain - but the calories in - calories out theory fails so miserably in this case (and countless others) that it cannot be taken seriously. (For only 3 weeks for a rat; it might not hold for a human for a few months in similar conditions). The calorie accounting is an approximation at best, which possibly takes several months to a year to average out reasonably, whereas a lot of the research focuses on results over 3 months or less.
  - ajslater 16y ago
    I'd bet a fair amount that your Mass General study used self reported calorie intake. 800kcals a day is typically enough for a 100 lb person to lose nearly a half a pound of fat a week. That's low calorie by most people's measure. Certainly mine at 200lbs When most people are talking about 'losing weight' they mean losing fat. At least losing actual body tissue. Anyone can gain or lose 10% of their body weight in a few days by controlling for carbs. But its just water. Try to ignore rat studies if you possibly can. Their metabolism, particularly their capacity for denovo lipogenisis is very very different than that of human beings.
ajslater 16y ago
Taubes is a quack, pure and simple. Most of the studies he cites that I'm familiar with use self reported food intake. Any study that uses self reported food intake should be entirely disregarded for physiological purposes (perhaps useful for studying psychology). You can get razor sharp lean on a diet with lots of carbs in it and you can get nice and fat on a ketogenic diet. No controlled calorie study supports the idea that carbs, fats or proteins have any particular metabolic advantage over the minor differences in their thermic effects of feeding (TEF) (essentially energy required to digest).