The first video is only a couple minutes long, and is a good lead-in to the TED talk.
New Study Confirms That Carbs Make You Fat
- Thread starter Baron
- Start date
Thanks. I'll watch it at the top of the hour. In a CPE presentation right now.
But are your studies of low carb/high fat and protein advocating keeping caloric intake the same?
because the whole bonus of focusing on protein and fat is greater satiety and you end up eating less...hence less calories.
Ok, I watched both videos. The first video was a complete waste of time, I'm sorry. All that was is a few clips stitched together of people attacking Atkins at a conference. There was no science, from either side, and certainly no specific data or arguments. It looked like a Hannity show where everyone talks over everyone else and shouts.
So on to the second video, which is the one you asked me to specifically look at.
Up to the 3 minute mark, its just a general overview of a wholistic approach to health - diet, psychological and spiritual approaches to a healthier, happier way of living. At the 3 minute mark Ornish brings up a specific patient (73 yr old male) who had significant atherosclerosis of one of the main arteries of the heart (not specified). The patient was told to have a bypass and he elected to go with Ornish's diet instead. Ornish claims there is significant improvement in blood flow and overall health of the patient. Prior to this diet, the patient couldn't walk across the street without chest pains and after a year he was apparently (as claimed) walking up 100 flights of stairs on a Stairmaster.
The problem immediately here is rather obvious - what was the original diet of the patient? If that patient ate sweets and refined flours all day long then any diet improvement from this point would show results. Switching to a vegan diet or a plant based carb diet would absolutely show benefits - and extreme benefits - right from the start. A year into it I can absolutely believe in that kind of a transformation. But this doesn't mean that he wouldn't have the same, or close to the same or better results from a high protein and fat replacement diet. These aren't mutually exclusive.
At one point he claims that 99% of patients showed improvement, he goes through this slide really quickly. Like 2 seconds. This is an astounding claim and I would expect him to spend more time on it. I had to go back and when I did I saw that 55% of patients in the control group showed improvement as well. So I don't know what the details of the study were, but this would make me want to know more if the control group performed so well on its own.
The next few minutes he goes into a psychological conversation about depression and what makes people eat, smoke, etc...and says nothing on diet until he says the following sentence: "What makes arteries constrict? Cocaine...a high fat diet...emotional stress..."
But a high fat diet doesn't make arteries constrict. Certain fats do, in certain forms. But to say this is misleading and quite frankly, wrong. I'll get to that in a bit.
He then throws this chart out there as "proof" that blood flow goes down with a high fat meal:
I can't debate or review this because there's simply nothing to back up the chart with any specificity. All he says is "you've all experienced this when you feel lethargic after a big Thanksgiving meal." But a big Thanksgiving meal is high on carbs, too. It's also high on Turkey which has tryptophan, and which the body uses to create niacin, which is then associated with melatonin levels and sleep. So I don't know if this chart is a good study or not. I simply have no idea.
At 8:30 minutes, he mentions the whole "you can lose weight by eating less or exercising more" which we've (you, me and El 85) discussed now quite thoroughly. You can, indeed lose weight by eating less. But its not sustainable, and Ornish agrees and is exactly right with why - because people get hungry and you can only go so long before you don't want to be hungry anymore. If you just give up and go back, back comes the weight.
So Ornish then talks about substituting the type of calories, and again, I agree. Getting rid of bad calories is, indeed the problem. He then talks about the main problem being all the bad carbs - the sugars, the enriched flour, etc...none of this is in dispute by me.
And so he continues on the conversation of good carbs and good fats - again, all of which I agree with (and are agreed with by Taubes in the book Why We Get Fat). And the conversation on bad fats, although simply saying "Saturated fat is a bad fat" is not a wholly accurate statement. I can get to that shortly as well.
at 11 min, he begins attacking Atkins again, which I have no intention of defending. And then he quickly goes through another slide showing a peer reviewed study of blood flow with some really difficult to see images and says that his diet saw a happier heart than Atkins diet patients did. I'd love to see that study if you've got it handy. I understand he has to be brief as he has a time limit. But this is important stuff you can't just blow through.
This is silly. First, any diet with no fiber (which is what Atkins recommends) will leave you constipated. Halitosis occurs whenever you burn ketones in large quantities and headaches occur when you're breaking your body of the sugar/easy carb dependency and would occur on this diet as well. So saying all of that is very disingenuous. The other stuff....hair loss? Over what period of time? how old were the patients? Correlation/causation. I've never ever heard of anyone ever complaining about hair loss as a result of Ketogenic diets.
Then at 12 minutes is the ecological angle, which I suspect is a big part of this push. I know this will surprise you (sarcasm), but I'm not choosing what I eat because people are supposedly tearing down the Amazon for cattle. I'll eat what is good and right for me as biological entity.
The last few minutes are centered around a prostate cancer study that he released (shortly after filming this) where 45 patients (he said there were 90 and they split the groups - one into the diet and one control) improved on the PSA scores based on changing to the diet. The problem is we don't know what diet they had before. We need to know this if we're going to say "this diet is better than that diet". Do you know where the study is?
It was a nice video. Had some interesting claims, no supporting evidence (but the speech wasn't designed for that in that forum). He's funny (good comics interspaced in the presentation) and a charming speaker.
But I don't see how anything he says in this counteracts or disproves anything Taubes says in "Why We Get Fat". And I really looked.
So on to the second video, which is the one you asked me to specifically look at.
Up to the 3 minute mark, its just a general overview of a wholistic approach to health - diet, psychological and spiritual approaches to a healthier, happier way of living. At the 3 minute mark Ornish brings up a specific patient (73 yr old male) who had significant atherosclerosis of one of the main arteries of the heart (not specified). The patient was told to have a bypass and he elected to go with Ornish's diet instead. Ornish claims there is significant improvement in blood flow and overall health of the patient. Prior to this diet, the patient couldn't walk across the street without chest pains and after a year he was apparently (as claimed) walking up 100 flights of stairs on a Stairmaster.
The problem immediately here is rather obvious - what was the original diet of the patient? If that patient ate sweets and refined flours all day long then any diet improvement from this point would show results. Switching to a vegan diet or a plant based carb diet would absolutely show benefits - and extreme benefits - right from the start. A year into it I can absolutely believe in that kind of a transformation. But this doesn't mean that he wouldn't have the same, or close to the same or better results from a high protein and fat replacement diet. These aren't mutually exclusive.
At one point he claims that 99% of patients showed improvement, he goes through this slide really quickly. Like 2 seconds. This is an astounding claim and I would expect him to spend more time on it. I had to go back and when I did I saw that 55% of patients in the control group showed improvement as well. So I don't know what the details of the study were, but this would make me want to know more if the control group performed so well on its own.
The next few minutes he goes into a psychological conversation about depression and what makes people eat, smoke, etc...and says nothing on diet until he says the following sentence: "What makes arteries constrict? Cocaine...a high fat diet...emotional stress..."
But a high fat diet doesn't make arteries constrict. Certain fats do, in certain forms. But to say this is misleading and quite frankly, wrong. I'll get to that in a bit.
He then throws this chart out there as "proof" that blood flow goes down with a high fat meal:
I can't debate or review this because there's simply nothing to back up the chart with any specificity. All he says is "you've all experienced this when you feel lethargic after a big Thanksgiving meal." But a big Thanksgiving meal is high on carbs, too. It's also high on Turkey which has tryptophan, and which the body uses to create niacin, which is then associated with melatonin levels and sleep. So I don't know if this chart is a good study or not. I simply have no idea.
At 8:30 minutes, he mentions the whole "you can lose weight by eating less or exercising more" which we've (you, me and El 85) discussed now quite thoroughly. You can, indeed lose weight by eating less. But its not sustainable, and Ornish agrees and is exactly right with why - because people get hungry and you can only go so long before you don't want to be hungry anymore. If you just give up and go back, back comes the weight.
So Ornish then talks about substituting the type of calories, and again, I agree. Getting rid of bad calories is, indeed the problem. He then talks about the main problem being all the bad carbs - the sugars, the enriched flour, etc...none of this is in dispute by me.
And so he continues on the conversation of good carbs and good fats - again, all of which I agree with (and are agreed with by Taubes in the book Why We Get Fat). And the conversation on bad fats, although simply saying "Saturated fat is a bad fat" is not a wholly accurate statement. I can get to that shortly as well.
at 11 min, he begins attacking Atkins again, which I have no intention of defending. And then he quickly goes through another slide showing a peer reviewed study of blood flow with some really difficult to see images and says that his diet saw a happier heart than Atkins diet patients did. I'd love to see that study if you've got it handy. I understand he has to be brief as he has a time limit. But this is important stuff you can't just blow through.
This is silly. First, any diet with no fiber (which is what Atkins recommends) will leave you constipated. Halitosis occurs whenever you burn ketones in large quantities and headaches occur when you're breaking your body of the sugar/easy carb dependency and would occur on this diet as well. So saying all of that is very disingenuous. The other stuff....hair loss? Over what period of time? how old were the patients? Correlation/causation. I've never ever heard of anyone ever complaining about hair loss as a result of Ketogenic diets.
Then at 12 minutes is the ecological angle, which I suspect is a big part of this push. I know this will surprise you (sarcasm), but I'm not choosing what I eat because people are supposedly tearing down the Amazon for cattle. I'll eat what is good and right for me as biological entity.
The last few minutes are centered around a prostate cancer study that he released (shortly after filming this) where 45 patients (he said there were 90 and they split the groups - one into the diet and one control) improved on the PSA scores based on changing to the diet. The problem is we don't know what diet they had before. We need to know this if we're going to say "this diet is better than that diet". Do you know where the study is?
It was a nice video. Had some interesting claims, no supporting evidence (but the speech wasn't designed for that in that forum). He's funny (good comics interspaced in the presentation) and a charming speaker.
But I don't see how anything he says in this counteracts or disproves anything Taubes says in "Why We Get Fat". And I really looked.
They are absolutely about eating the same or similar amount of calories. In some cases, more.
If fat is approximately 9 calories/gram and protein/carbs are approximately 4 calories per gram, if you ate the same amount of food you would actually get more calories by substituting carbs with fat. And you still lose weight. But it doesn't matter if the additional calories go towards powering muscle cells vs. being stored later for fat. You get slimmer.
Now you are saying same exact quantity of food, not calories.
Would love to see the studies that say keeping calories exactly the same and activity exactly the same and changing from "unhealthy" to a low carb high fat/protein diet leads to weight loss (and not a study with 8 people). if you are eating 5000 calories a day and change quality of food then you would naturally eat less given more calorically dense foods being eaten.
If someone is eating 1800 calories and switches to low carb and high fat protetin at same 1800 calories, well of course they would lose weight because it is easier to be full on 1800 calories of quality food and that is already a caloric deficit.
You could even increase calories and lose weight if you increase activity like body builders often do or swimmers. But if you sit on the couch eating 4000 calories a day as average body type and switch to 4000 calories exactly of low carbs and fat protetin (which is a lot) and same non-activity, you will not start melting off pounds
It usually takes only 5 minutes to poke a hole in a study data set so would be interested to read them.
You said absolutely so if you can five at least 5 studies that you have read and are referencing I would like to dive in and see them.
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Okay, thanks for watching. I guess we're at something of an impasse. There is some agreement, but, and although I didn't read his book, you said that Taubes recommends leafy greens as the carb component of a diet. While I eat leafy greens 6 days out of the week, limiting myself to those would deprive me of the countless micronutrients found in vegetables other than leafy greens, as well as in fruits and whole grains. I guess we'll leave it at that. Or at least I will.
Ok, but just remember I was open to the dialogue on specifics and the science. If you are unable or unwilling to discuss it further because you lack the data or the desire to confront a paradigm you do not want to challenge, that is fine.
I will always accept challenging my paradigms if any new information presents itself.
Remember, we are debating whether it is possible to lose weight without restricting caloric intake. That is the statement you made, and I challenged. This statement:
If you are eating more calories and still lose weight, this is still my side of the argument, since you are not eating less. I hate to be pedantic or overly complex with these statements, but people around here (these forums) constantly try to move the goal posts in these types of discussions.
No discussion was on quantity of food.
I will go and do some work and find the studies and present them to you, assuming you will accept them as proof. And not some silly 2 people studies.
Ok then. So why are you arguing the point?
You may not "melt off" pounds, but you could very well lose weight. Of course this depends on what carbs you were eating before. If you were eating 4000 calories of complex carbs and fiber, maybe not. But if you were eating 4000 calories of high fructose related carbs, then you definitely would.
I don't know if I can find 5 studies, but I will find some studies. As for poking holes, I'm glad you feel you can confidently derail studies accepted by the scientific community and endocrinologists so easily. Your qualifications must be astounding.
Give me a few days.
You seem to be better versed about the beliefs of a journalist (not a scientist or expert in the field) who is widely criticized by scientists and experts in the field. I will grant you that. I try to stick with the mainstream collective wisdom of the medical community. Yeah, they can get it wrong, and they do from time to time, but I'll take my chances with them.
As for saturated fats, I realize they're all the rage just now. But I prefer to hedge my bets.
Meanwhile, you remain the paragon of paradigms.
Eat well and prosper.