I have been reading dozens of nutritional studies on sites like the NIH one. It is a sorry fact that not many are useful. Most, if not all, are simply expensive bullshit. The studies are poorly designed, poorly executed, and in many cases, biased. Of particular interest to me is how insulin acts as an agent to convert fructose and other carbohydrates into body fat. Many studies say insulin is the source of obesity while others say a carb is a carb/law of thermodynamics. In both views, the studies are clearly designed to prove their view of endocrinology. The scientists spend a lot of time refuting the studies of the other side in YouTube videos and on sites like medium.com. The studies are so full of flaws that they are trivial to dismiss. Both sides cite other bad studies to support their claims. The media has bias, too. The NYTimes reports on a bad study and says the science is settled. How are they flawed? Ketogenic diets in studies lasting a few days with a handful of participants self reporting their food intake. Ketosis takes weeks or months to become fully adapted. The few days isn't a test of anything but what happens in a few days. A handful of subjects isn't a large enough sample. And self reporting is prone to error and outright cheating. I'm sorry, but I don't buy into the idea that much of the funding for these studies is well spent. Not at all. There's no knowledge gained, and all it does is generate grist for the fad diet book mill. On the other hand, endocrinologists and nephrologists and others who deal with type 1 and type 2 diabetes are producing real results. Jason Fung, a nephrologist in Ontario has terrific success treating diabetes in thousands of patients. He and others notice that patients who cannot produce insulin become incredibly skinny; like anorexic people or Jews from the concentration camps. The do not put on weight, no matter what they eat. These doctors also notice that when patients are given large doses of insulin, they become obese. So they apply this to weight loss and they control insulin through diet and people do lose weight. And they keep it off. David Ludwig is head of two departments at Harvard Medical school and has similar results with obese children at the Boston Children's Hospital. The issue with both the NIH type studies and the real world results is confounding. The absence or presence of insulin may simply coincide with other causal factors. Like calorie reduction. In any case, the doctors are achieving great results, even if somehow for unexpected reasons. The scientists are wasting time and taxpayer money. My view is the insulin-fat theory makes way more sense than the calories in/calories out model. For decades, we have been told to eat less fat (thus more sugar) and to exercise. Gluttony and Sloth are the reason for the obesity and diabetes epidemic that continues to grow. When I was growing up, very few people were outright fat, and most likely that then was due to real disorders. As our food providers got better with their science, our food has become more difficult for humans to digest, and potentially outright poisonous. GMOs, aspartame, and the whole slew of ingredients on our food labels with names only a chemist can love. Insulin fits. The food and sugar industries have a lot to lose if sugar were outlawed tomorrow. Heck, you may have seen how Coca-Cola sponsors studies showing sugar is great for us. We don't have to drink coke, though. I'm not exactly bashing science here. The institution is really screwed up. Whoever is giving the OK to do these studies needs to understand the utility of the work and that it's no sin to say "no" and not spend all the budget. I don't think this is isolated to NIH, but is a worldwide kind of disgrace and in most, if not all, disciplines. That's the end of my rant for today. Confounded.
Dude. My docter sent me to a nutritionist who hipped me to some diet and I'm still trying to figure this shit out! I quit smoking, I quit eating fast food, I quit almost all sugar.... and my friends still give me "that look' when I tell them what I had for breakfast. What companies are benefiting from this research?
So there are a couple of quick things to point out. 1) research is done by individuals and some of them are very biased and try and prove their point of view. I have found that to be a small minority. 2) This is how things get worked out. Shitty scientists put stuff out, over time it gets repudiated and more valid studies supplant that information. It doesn't happen quickly. 3) For every dollar invested in research by the govt, private industry earns 4 dollars off that research. I don't know much about the specific area of research you are talking about, so I can't comment on that aspect of this. However, from personal experience I did research that did prove several other labs were wrong with the information they were claiming. It bothered me, especially since one of those labs was semi-famous and that meant it was going to be more difficult for us to publish contradictory information without an increased level of research, yet our lab2 (2 labs involved) were subsisting on less than 1.2mil/year total, not enough to do the requisite research to convince top level journals to publish our contradictory research. However, once I began talking more in-depth to the my PI (boss scientist) I came to learn something I hadn't previously understood. The other labs research had a faulty conclusion, but not faulty research. There was a red herring that led to an aberrant conclusion. I do believe, that in most cases (not all) the "bad research" isn't bad at all but we are dealing with topics which are extremely complex and full of unknowns. Those unknowns lead in many cases to the perception of "bad research" whereas it's really missed conclusions. Over time, the information does get overturned, but sometimes at a snails pace. Yet look at ones chance of surviving breast or prostate cancer now vs 40 years ago, most of that improvement is either directly attributable to govt. research or it's from private firms research based off of public Basic Science research.
Some things are simply well known. Like how long it takes to get fully into ketosis. Yet NIH pays for studies that "prove" low fat beats low carb with 6 day trials. The gripes come from all sides about the confounding factors of the studies. The ketosis one is just an example. A smart guy at NIH should say, "this study is bullshit" and not fund it. Shitty scientists shouldn't get funded with taxpayer money in the first place. The $4 in private sector money is in Tony Robins style book sales - or NYTimes publishing coke is good for you so people buy coke. It seems NY Times is clueless or has an agenda. Not just NYTimes, many other news sources.
Here's a typical medium.com piece: The author: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutrit...avid-ludwig-clears-up-carbohydrate-confusion/ Dr. David Ludwig, MD, PhD, a professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, is one of the foremost experts when it comes to carbohydrates. His research focuses on the effects of diet on hormones, metabolism and body weight, and he developed a “low glycemic load” diet – one that decreases the surge in blood sugar after meals – for the treatment of obesity-related diseases.
Contrary to the previous article: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-its-probably-not-your.html
I too have noted that people where not so fat years ago. Especially the young people. What the hell is happening?? Something is not right with the food we get is my take. On my recent sailing trip, eating sparingly, I didn't get enough electrolytes, salt and potassium. This really screws up your information processing. I am coming down on the side of we need to eat much less wheat. And go for food that provide high potassium intake along with meat for protein. Don't worry about the fat. Pork and fish supply the most potassium. You can eat nothing as long as you get enough potassium, but you can't do it. The potassium substitute salt just doesn't work So melons, spinach, swiss chard, bananas, oat meal. pork, fish and rye hard tack. Cans of shit from the store are poison. So are most bottles of shit.
The word "confound" has a special meaning in statistics and scientific studies. It refers to variables not accounted for that might have a severe effect on the observations.
So, when you get the straight scoop, pass it around. Don't count too much on the doctors, they left me with the gout for three years. I had to figure out it was bread for shit sake after giving up all meat and a whole list of other stuff. Dammit! I finally broke the code when there was nothing left but my toast.
In the future, we won't need doctors or scientists. Instead, Trump will just use his very, very good brain to tell you what ails you. barfo
The doctors do fine. They treat people and have success at it when they figure it out. Some of the scientific studies are fine. I just looked at a couple hundred over the past 2 months and find they're mostly bullshit. What does it say that for decades the scientific community has been telling us fat is bad for us and it turns out fat is perfectly fine? Not a small oops. The obesity epidemic is the result - it costs people quality of life and hundreds of $billions in needless health care expenses.
Denny, this following discovery is semi off-topic, but I thought you might be interested due to your intrigue in sugar vs fat. Basically, a discovery that in the most common type of brain cancer, the cells prefer to get their energy from breaking down fats instead of sugars as was assumed. It also demonstrates the complexity of the human body and that there is often competing information. Just thought it was fascinating. http://sciencenewsjournal.com/scientists-breakthrough-better-understanding-fatal-brain-tumor-growth/ good news is that now we can start to use alternate drugs that inhibit fatty acid metabolism for those with this type of cancer. More research is needed.
