I unhappily report that I am right about obesity and diet (Very long)

[Stoid]

I don’t have any issue with your reporting, Richie. You didn’t (contrary to some comments) show that Taubes misrepresented or misquoted or was in any respect dishonest.

You do have a different POV and reasoning than Taubes, however - kind of an interesting one:

@Richie_Incognito

It seems like the point he is leaving out is that weight loss is difficult and very few people are successful at it. That’s going to be true no matter what weight loss method you choose.

…Common sense would indicate that any large scale study of the overweight or obsese over a long period of time will show a very large failue rate. Some will succeed, but most will fail.

Conventional diets fail because most diets fail. It’s not because those methods don’t work.

Coming up with a new diet method centered around fat accumulation in the body and hormone insulin is not going to change this. The diet may work great if followed. And like every other diet, most people will fail at it.

You are wedded to the idea that all diets will fail because most people will not stay on them. You call it common sense.

Okay. That’s fine as far as it goes, and true. Taubes agrees. I agree. It’s a fact. But you’re willing to accept it as an unexplored, unexplained, immutable fact that must simply be accepted. Neither Taubes or anyone in the field of obesity research is as willing as you are to just treat this truth as something impossible to change, and that’s exactly what leads obesity researchers to keep at it, and it’s what led Taubes to do the research and writing that he has done.

And in fact, Taubes disagrees with your conclusion, and so do I, that “Coming up with a new diet method centered around fat accumulation in the body and hormone insulin is not going to change this.” because it treats recognition of the matter of insulin and fat accumulation as nothing different, when it absolutely is, and if you’ve read this thread, the 3K challenge thread, and the “tell me your low carb” Cafe thread, you should recognize that, because there have been a lot of dopers telling you it is. Their experience with carb restriction is profoundly different than their experience with low fat and low calorie diets, most importantly because they do not have to be hungry, and they do not have to be driven insane by out-of-control cravings. No other way of eating accomplishes that.

And if you don’t believe that that is an extremely significant difference, one that very much supports people finding it easier to adhere to over time, then I can only assume you do not have anything resembling a serious problem with weight that you have had to contend with.

Instead of just assuming that the failure rate with diets was an inevitability, Taubes looked at why people fail so much. And the number one reason was the pain and suffering that comes with low-fat and low-cal. If we could embrace the legitimacy of the low carbohydrate approach to begin with, throughout our society, and apply the principles as soon as any obesity issues appear,the way we did when I was a kid and before, then the extreme and pervasive obesity we have now would be vastly reduced, back to the same levels that existed when I was a little girl and the modern way of thinking about it hadn’t yet taken hold. People still got fat, but nowhere near as many, and almost none became morbidly obese as they do today.
As for “Taubes ignores the recommendation of the study that it can be assumed more activity increases the probability of the prevention of unhealthy weight gain” - well, yeah, exactly: Taubes’ whole point is that we have been blindly accepting researchers telling us "Yeah, we can’t really prove that what we’re telling you is really true at all, but it seems logical, so we think you should do it.” And that is exactly what you’re saying: Taubes ignored the recommendation that was based on an assumption. That’s a reasonable and understandable position: I’m no fan of recommendations based on assumptions either. If you are, great. But that doesn’t mean Taubes is dishonest because he isn’t.

@CarnalK

Anyways, even given your more charitable interpretation that he is merely shirking his duty to prevent wrong assumptions,

Ah. I take issue with your presumption that such a duty exists. As I said, this is certainly an argument you can make, because it starts from the truth, I’m just objecting to you stating it as a certainty. FTR I think laying that kind of burden on a journalist is pretty outrageous, given that people are capable of all manner of assumptions.

Anyway…

when added to the way he misrepresents that JAMA/WHI study in his Slate article, I get more and more of a propagandist feel off of Taubes.

Well, you’d have to tell me how he misrepresented the study for me to comment one way or another. I read his article, I read the main material of the study relating to weight, I read the part of the editorial on JAMA commenting on it, and then I located more quotes from that editorial on a different website, and I really don’t see what you consider misrepresented. Taubes is definitely working to convince us all that his thesis is correct, there’s no doubt about that. But “propaganda” implies deceit, and I’m not seeing it. I think he picked that study because there are so few to begin with and that one was huge - and the agenda was really about disease, so there was no preconceived expectation to contend with. But what he said about it was dead accurate.

@ladyfoxfyre

But that’s exactly what we are saying

You saying it doesn’t make it true, though: I’ve read what the researchers have said in their complaints.

and the fact that the quoted researchers feel misrepresented supports that idea

First, you really need to be specific and clear: “feel misreresented” how? ztken out of context vs. placed in a context, etc.

Second..do you really want to stand by this idea, that the way the unhappy parties "feel" determines the accuracy or legitimacy of their allegations? Really? Because if you think about that for a few minutes, and start applying it to other people you’d have to rethink a lot of positions you’ve taken about a lot of things. People’s anger doesn’t make them right. (It’s actually more inclined to make them wrong: “blind rage”)

Take the study cited upthread, Taubes misrepresented and distorted the purpose of that study and the results of it in order to support his thesis. The actual meaning of the study is wholly irrelevant to his work, but because he can find a couple sentences that appear to be supporting what he is saying he will use it.

See my previous. Taubes did not misrepresent or distort anything at all. If you genuinely believe he did, I respect that, but I will have to insist that you show me what it was, rather than describing it. Since it’s in writing it should be simple.

So you have a situation where someone’s work has a paragraph or a page to illustrate an idea…

Speaking of illustrating… you have illustrated how misrepresentation operates. I also illustrated it, so we know that I know how it operates, now we know that you know how it operates.

What you need to do now is show us that Taubes did it. Not by telling. Not by making things up that “sound like”. Not by paraphrasing. Not by using hypothetical examples. Not by saying that someone else said it or showed it. Not by assuming or inserting things that are not there. Not by claiming it is self-evident. Pull the quotes.

You need to start, of course with the quotes from the researchers wherein they say that Taubes misrepresented their words, their data, the facts. But keep in mind that quoting their concerns about readers assuming that they agree with Taubes entire thesis don’t count, because we already know they fear that. Quote them saying ***that Taubes misrepresented their words, their data or their facts. ***

Then, when you have shown that this is the actual charge, you will need to find something that shows that the charge is true.

[Stoid]

@Sauron

This helps me put a finger on what bothers me about Taubes’ approach:

This is a thread unto itself, really. But it’s a good chance to share what Taubes also said: (Remember this was all about his NYT article from 2002)

After all, readers might perceive that by being quoted saying what he did, that strongly implies he is an advocate of the Atkins diet? Space is limited. If I include the caveats with Willett, do I do it with everyone? It never crossed my mind that I would have to. Apparently it should have.** I’ve decided to raise this issue in the introduction to my book, and make the point strongly that just because someone is quoted in the book, it does not mean that they endorse the thesis itself. **

Curiously enough, those researchers who did speak directly to the Atkins low-carbohydrate issue—in particular, Albert Stunkard of Penn or Terry Maratos-Flier of the Joslin Diabetes Center or Sam Klein, who’s now president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity—never appeared in any of the articles that were critical of my article. They never disavowed the quotes or the context. I assume the people who wrote the critical articles also talked to those researchers, since their quotes were far and away the most salient. Stunkard, one of the grand old men in the obesity field, is the one you want to see refuting his quotes, and, to my knowledge, he never does. Maratos-Flier is quoted saying that maybe 40% of Americans get fat on low-fat/high-carb diets. Maratos-Flier later told me she was contacted by at least one journalist and she said that she stood by the quotes, but none of those reporters chose to put that piece of positive information in their articles. To me it was a lesson in how to take down any piece of journalism. You simply re-interview the sources, faithfully report anything negative any of them might say and faithfully leave out anything positive.

[CarnalK]

@Stoid

And in fact, Taubes disagrees with your conclusion, and so do I, that “Coming up with a new diet method centered around fat accumulation in the body and hormone insulin is not going to change this.” because it treats recognition of the matter of insulin and fat accumulation as nothing different, when it absolutely is, and if you’ve read this thread, the 3K challenge thread, and the “tell me your low carb” Cafe thread, you should recognize that, because there have been a lot of dopers telling you it is. Their experience with carb restriction is profoundly different than their experience with low fat and low calorie diets, most importantly because they do not have to be hungry, and they do not have to be driven insane by out-of-control cravings. No other way of eating accomplishes that.

Maybe for some people, but since you have a great love of baking and you couldn’t get through the first week without an insanity-stopping meal of cornbread, perhaps you aren’t one of those people.

pulykamel’s post lists reasons why I thought his reporting of the JAMA study was deceptive.

[Stoid]

I read it before; none of it undermines Taubes reporting of it.

[Meyer6]

@Stoid

And in fact, Taubes disagrees with your conclusion, and so do I, that “Coming up with a new diet method centered around fat accumulation in the body and hormone insulin is not going to change this.” because it treats recognition of the matter of insulin and fat accumulation as nothing different, when it absolutely is, and if you’ve read this thread, the 3K challenge thread, and the “tell me your low carb” Cafe thread, you should recognize that, because there have been a lot of dopers telling you it is. Their experience with carb restriction is profoundly different than their experience with low fat and low calorie diets, most importantly because they do not have to be hungry, and they do not have to be driven insane by out-of-control cravings. No other way of eating accomplishes that.

Personal anecdotal evidence exists for all kinds of diets. Even so, in the Cafe Society thread there were several posters who mentioned not being able to stick to the diet, boredom, and lack of weight loss maintenance. It might work for some people (and I still think that’s mostly due to calorie restriction), but it’s far from a universal panacea for the obesity issue. Do you know of any scientific research showing that low-carb diets produce long-term weight loss more often than low-calorie diets do? We know they can both produce short-term results.

If we could embrace the legitimacy of the low carbohydrate approach to begin with, throughout our society, and apply the principles as soon as any obesity issues appear,the way we did when I was a kid and before, then the extreme and pervasive obesity we have now would be vastly reduced, back to the same levels that existed when I was a little girl and the modern way of thinking about it hadn’t yet taken hold. People still got fat, but nowhere near as many, and almost none became morbidly obese as they do today.

So you share Taubes belief that the sole reason for the rise in obesity in America is that doctors and dieticians have stopped recommending low-carb diets to overweight people and instead recommend healthy balanced diets? You don’t think that lifestyle changes have anything to do with it? The rise of fast food, increase in women working outside the home (and thus not being home to cook dinner), decrease in physical labour required to do many household chores, increase in people who live in the suburbs and spend much of their time in their car, fear of sending children outside to play, rise of television and video games, growing portion sizes in restaurants, and availability of packaged snack foods all have nothing to do with it?

[pulykamell]

@Stoid

I read it before; none of it undermines Taubes reporting of it.

Perhaps you should take a more disinterested look at his reporting.

Here is what he wrote:

A conspicuous example of how these kinds of diets fail is the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest and most expensive nutrition trial ever conducted. The researchers enrolled nearly 50,000 mostly overweight or obese women into the trial, chose roughly 20,000 of them at random, and instructed that group to eat a low-fat diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, and fiber. These women were given regular counseling to motivate them to stay on the diet. If we believe what these women said they were eating, they also cut their average energy intake by well more than 300 calories a day.

The result? After seven-plus years on the diet, these women lost an average of one pound each (PDF). And their average waist circumference—a measure of what the diet-book authors like to call “belly fat”—increased. This suggests that whatever weight these women lost was not fat but lean tissue—muscle. It also suggests that getting people to increase their consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is not the way to induce weight loss.

First, I find it somewhat disingenuous that he doesn’t mention the context of that study. It’s actually testing whether low-fat diets do cause weight gain, as many suggest. The results seem to indicate they do not. Also, they involve post-menopausal women aged 50+, and that’s a rather important caveat to leave out in terms of framing the context of the study.

He also leaves out the important fact that participants were not told to decrease their energy intake. Weight loss was never the point of this study. I’m not sure where he gets the “[they] cut their average energy intake by well more than 300 calories a day”, but if it’s from the chart with the follow-up numbers (taken at a mean of 7.5 years later), the control group also cut their intake by about 240 calories. He doesn’t mention that fact. Makes sense to me–as we age, our bodies slow down, our metabolism slows down, and our caloric needs decrease.

Then, he cites those belly fat numbers. He doesn’t mention that while the low-fat group gained 1.1 cm on their waist, the control group gained 1.4 cm. Again, makes sense to me. Here’s where leaving the post-menopausal bit out makes a significant difference to me. As we age our muscle mass tends to go down. The mean age at screening was about 62, so that’s 69-70 at follow-up.

Leaving out all this context and all these other numbers is important to me to make a disinterested judgment as a reader.

If the thesis that carbs are really the only things that count, then why aren’t we seeing gains in the carb or group or a greater loss in the non-carb group? I’ll do the math for you: at follow-up, the intervention group was eating 762 calories worth of carbs a day. The control group was eating 699 calories worth of carbs a day. Come to your own conclusions. (And so I’m not being completely Taubesian and leaving out a bit of info, the control group also ate overall about 120 calories more than the experimental group at follow-up.)

So, when I see an author omit all that important information, I do get a little :dubious:.

Anyhow, I’m done in this thread. I know what worked and works for me, there’s more than enough info here for people to come to their own conclusion, and I sincerely hope things work out for you. I don’t believe there’s a “one size fits all” diet, and if low-carb works and is sustainable for you, then that’s the diet for you. I personally don’t believe in low-fat diets, either, but I could never do hard-core low-carb as, well, I love bread and pasta too much and do not have the willpower to make it sustainable.

[Stoid]

@Meyer6

Personal anecdotal evidence exists for all kinds of diets. Even so, in the Cafe Society thread there were several posters who mentioned not being able to stick to the diet, boredom, and lack of weight loss maintenance. It might work for some people (and I still think that’s mostly due to calorie restriction), but it’s far from a universal panacea for the obesity issue. Do you know of any scientific research showing that low-carb diets produce long-term weight loss more often than low-calorie diets do? We know they can both produce short-term results.

I know that I’ve heard of more people living comfortably over longer periods of time restricting carbs.

And now that I’m no longer afraid of committing to it myself, I’m being my own guinea pig. We’ll see. I love all kinds of food, I don’t expect it to be painless. But it’s actually getting easier.

I’m most concerned about summer. It’s hard to sustain in hot weather with an abundance of ripe fruit everywhere. (I’ve been doing this long enough now that I’ve noticed one wonderful side effect: strawberries that I would have thought were barely adequate before are MUCH tastier now that my sweet-sensitivity has gone up. That’s another for the plus column of adherence: getting a sweet craving satisfied with a much healthier, lower carb food than anything involving refined sugar.)

So you share Taubes belief that the sole reason for the rise in obesity in America is that doctors and dieticians have stopped recommending low-carb diets to overweight people and instead recommend healthy balanced diets? You don’t think that lifestyle changes have anything to do with it? The rise of fast food, increase in women working outside the home (and thus not being home to cook dinner), decrease in physical labour required to do many household chores, increase in people who live in the suburbs and spend much of their time in their car, fear of sending children outside to play, rise of television and video games, growing portion sizes in restaurants, and availability of packaged snack foods all have nothing to do with it?

No, I don’t think they have nothing to do with it, but I think they are more the match that lights the fat-regulation-breakdown bonfire which is stoked by the carbohydrate overload, then fanned by starvation dieting, leading to insane numbers of obese people and insane degrees of obesity.

[CarnalK]

@pulykamell

Then, he cites those belly fat numbers. He doesn’t mention that while the low-fat group gained 1.1 cm on their waist, the control group gained 1.4 cm. Again, makes sense to me. Here’s where leaving the post-menopausal bit out makes a significant difference to me. As we age our muscle mass tends to go down. The mean age at screening was about 62, so that’s 69-70 at follow-up.

It’s omissions like these two things that bring him perilously close to flat out lying, imho. If post #706 doesn’t undermine his credibility to you in any way, Stoid, that makes me think you are a little less of the hard-nosed science lover you claim to be.

[jabiru]

What a depressing thread. The message I’m getting from it is that there’s sweet FA I can do to lose weight and keep it off.

So, I can manage to actually lose the weight (hey, I’ve don’t it about 20 times, so it can be done). Just can’t keep it off.

[Stoid]

@jabiru

What a depressing thread. The message I’m getting from it is that there’s sweet FA I can do to lose weight and keep it off.

So, I can manage to actually lose the weight (hey, I’ve don’t it about 20 times, so it can be done). Just can’t keep it off.

Don’t believe that. Read the low carb thread in cafe society. Follow links from that thread.

[jabiru]

@Stoid

Don’t believe that. Read the low carb thread in cafe society. Follow links from that thread.

If I could give up or, at least, severely curtail, my intake of carbs forever more, I think I’d have this weight loss thing sorted. I’m not sure I can, though.

[psychobunny]

What I don’t get is that I still don’t see any evidence that low-carb diets show longterm success. In fact, all of the studies cited show no difference between low carb and low fat diets at times exceeding a year. Now if you attribute this to low adherence, then the fact remains that low carb is not any easier to stick with longterm than any other diet.

As far as I can tell, your data showing that low carb is easier to stick with longterm comes from people writing on the boards that they found it easier to stick with. Even stipulating that low-fat diets don’t work, that low-carbs diets are not inherently less healthy than low-fat diets (although the jury is not out on this since there are no long-term studies) and that over the short-term a low-carb diet does tend to make people want to eat less, there is still no long-term data showing that it works. Atkins has been around for over 30 years-where are the studies?

[Stoid]

@jabiru

If I could give up or, at least, severely curtail, my intake of carbs forever more, I think I’d have this weight loss thing sorted. I’m not sure I can, though.

Well it certainly won’t hurt to try.

Severe restriction is actually easier than just trying to cut back, I find, because it’s more effective at breaking the cravings. For me, I think the key is to embrace it on its own terms, rather than trying to make a low-carb diet look and feel like a full carb diet through faking it. But that’s me.

If you are genuinely obese, and you find this works, I think you do have to look at it as a lifelong change, BUT BUT BUT… it doesn’t have to be, probably shouldn’t be as restrictive on maintenance as it is losing. I think the biggest problem is that some people get triggered when they eat carbs again. It’s kind of like smoking or drinking, one is too many and not enough at once.

But you won’t know until you try. And don’t feel you have to get married to a particular way of doing it. As long as you understand the principles, make it work for you, experiment, be patient. IT’s easier to be patient when you aren’t starving and obsessing over what you can’t eat.

Follow the links, there’s a lot of fantastic resources, blogs, recipes. It’s a larger community than you’d think.

(Enjoying my low carb pizza right now… pepperoni and cheese crisped on the bottom in a non-stick, with a shmear of pesto. Tastes great. Very satisfying. Unless the crust is truly amazing I rarely eat pizza crust anyway, so it’s not that different for me.)

[Stoid]

@psychobunny

Atkins has been around for over 30 years-where are the studies?

Ask the researchers!

Actually, in the YouTube link I posted awhile back of the Stanford nutritionist giving a talk on the results of the 2007 study (Ornish, low cal, Zone, Atkins - Atkins wins! The other three were all similar in results, Atkins results were “statistically significant” in their superiority on all measures: weight loss, triglycerides, LDL, HDL, even blood pressure, I think. The vegetarian nutritionist called it a “bitter pill to swallow”) says right at the start that the reason there haven’t been any studies is because the nutrition community considered it a “fad”, and fads are by nature temporary, so why organize the money and effort around something that might be gone by the time you finish? Which sounds plausaible enough until you realize that Atkins specifically and low carb in general has ALWAYS been around in one form or another, and as Taubes makes clear, it was actually the default until the mid-60’s. (A friend and I were remembering when we were little kids that the “diet plate” was always a plain burger patty with a side of cottage cheese. Maybe some peaches. But the burger and cottage cheese was consistent.)

Then there’s the whole matter of the nutrition research community dismissing it out of hand as a fad at all, which is pretty revealing: we aren’t going to test this because we think it’s bullshit. Oh. Is THAT how we’re doing scientific inquiry these days?:rolleyes: I think you deserve to be swallowing that bitter pill, buddy.

[DrDeth]

@psychobunny

What I don’t get is that I still don’t see any evidence that low-carb diets show longterm success. In fact, all of the studies cited show no difference between low carb and low fat diets at times exceeding a year. Now if you attribute this to low adherence, then the fact remains that low carb is not any easier to stick with longterm than any other diet.

As far as I can tell, your data showing that low carb is easier to stick with longterm comes from people writing on the boards that they found it easier to stick with. Even stipulating that low-fat diets don’t work, that low-carbs diets are not inherently less healthy than low-fat diets (although the jury is not out on this since there are no long-term studies) and that over the short-term a low-carb diet does tend to make people want to eat less, there is still no long-term data showing that it works. Atkins has been around for over 30 years-where are the studies?

I have given you the cites. Peer reviewed journals. Atkins works better for *most *people.

And yes, few diets are easy to stay on. Which is why you don’t stay on low-carb. You lose the weight, go on a maintenence diet to keep it off for 6 months. Then go back on, wash rinse repeat.

Low-carb works & appears safe. It’s right there in the fucking NEJM:
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.

and
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...2a.html?free=2
Samaha and Foster each randomly assigned obese volunteers to either an Atkins-style low-carbohydrate or a traditional low-fat diet. In Samaha’s six-month study, subjects on the low-carb diets lost the most weight — an average of about 6 kilograms, roughly three times the weight loss reported for the low-fat group. Foster’s smaller, year-long trial initially showed similar results, but the difference between the two groups had disappeared by the end of the year.

These two studies provide the best evidence so far that low-carbohydrate diets may be of some use for patients who need to shed weight — at least in the early stages of their treatment. “We have moved it from quackery to science,” says Foster. "Maybe there is something there, with the emphasis on the ‘maybe’.

The trials also failed to find signs that cutting carbohydrates rather than fats will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. If anything, levels of artery-clogging triglycerides, and of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ cholesterol, were slightly better among the volunteers on the low-carb diets."
…
Ideally, five years down the road, with lots of scientific data behind us, we would be in a position to recommend diets tailored to individuals such as, say, diabetics, meat lovers, or those with difficulty sticking to a low-fat diet," says Foster. “This whole idea of one diet wins, one diet loses, seems to say that every overweight person is the same behaviourally and metabolically, and that is just silly.”

Peer reviewed scientific journals.

[Cat_Whisperer]

Oh my God, are you people still here? Go home! It’s over!

[Stoid]

@Cat_Whisperer

Oh my God, are you people still here? Go home! It’s over!

What, it’s over when there’s calm. reasoned exchange with data, vs. sniping and derision?

Depends on what you’re here for, I suppose.

[psychobunny]

As noted above, I have read the above studies and agree that there is an improved initial weight loss with the low-carb diets as well as a favorable effect on blood lipid profile. The difference between the diets lessens over time and may become insignificant by one year. What I don’t see there is evidence of increased compliance with a low-carb diet and I don’t see evidence of significant long-term weight loss. Note that in the NEJM studies, among those who stuck to the diet for 2 years, the mean weight loss was 5.5 kg, which is likely enough to have a slight effect on blood pressure, sugar and lipids but not enought to bring these people back into a healthy weight range.

The other thing I am missing is outcomes data. Even extrapolating to state that low-carb diets by improving lipids and blood pressure will decrease cardiac risk, there haven’t been studies of overall morbidity and mortality. Since there is evidence that high-fat diets do contribute to cancer risk, it is possible that you trade decreased cardiac risk for increased cancer risk. When I talk about outcomes data I look for studies like this which shows angiographically measureable regression of coronary stenosis alsong with fewer cardiac events and less angina on a low-fat diet. While lowering the cholesterol numbers is theoretically good, decreasing the risk of cardiac symptoms and events is demonstrably good.

That is not to say that I am against low-carb diets. Personally, I think that they work well for diabetics and for people who prefer to eat meat. Ideally, I recommend that fat be restricted also. I am just saying that all of the evidence is not in.

Finally, even if this turns out to be the healthiest diet, I suspect compliance will still be a huge issue. Despite the anecdotal evidence of decreased appetite on a low-carb diet, there is still a lot of anecdotal evidence that few people can stick to it long-term.

[Meyer6]

@psychobunny

Note that in the NEJM studies, among those who stuck to the diet for 2 years, the mean weight loss was 5.5 kg, which is likely enough to have a slight effect on blood pressure, sugar and lipids but not enought to bring these people back into a healthy weight range.

It’s also worth noting that in that study the low-carb diet had the poorest adherence rate. 90% of people stuck to the low-fat diet, only 78% stuck to the low-carb (the overall high adherence rates seem to be because the subjects were provided with their food in their workplace). Also, the low-carbers consumed,on average, 500 fewer calories a day than they had been prior to their diets.

[Meyer6]

@Stoid

Then there’s the whole matter of the nutrition research community dismissing it out of hand as a fad at all, which is pretty revealing: we aren’t going to test this because we think it’s bullshit. Oh. Is THAT how we’re doing scientific inquiry these days?:rolleyes: I think you deserve to be swallowing that bitter pill, buddy.

Are you under the impression that expensive, long-term research should be done on every new diet idea that comes along? Of course the researcher have to make some judgment calls on what they decide to delve into.

Regardless of whether or not low-carb turns out to be the magic bullet some people are hoping it is, the fact is that it has behaved exactly like a fad diet. Its popularity has waxed and waned over time - it was popular in the 70s and then again in the early 2000s, but not all that much in between. It’s not really hard to see why researchers wouldn’t be pouring their resources into something that seemed to be a flash in the pan.