Major evidence that low carb diets not needed for long term weight loss/maintenance success

[h90]

But now there's this:

Low-Carb Diet Trumps Low-Fat Diet In Major New Study

The NY Times reports on a new study (abstract) showing that low-carb diets have better health benefits than low-fat diets in a test without calorie restrictions. "By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity. While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat. They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,' Dr. Mozaffarian said.

--http://beta.slashdot.org/story/206679

The information here is not enough.......not clear why people on low fat diet without calorie restriction should loose weight at all.

On sugar and noodles you can perfectly eat yourself fat, but these actually lost weight....I doubt that.

[Ragz]

But now there's this:

Low-Carb Diet Trumps Low-Fat Diet In Major New Study

The NY Times reports on a new study (abstract) showing that low-carb diets have better health benefits than low-fat diets in a test without calorie restrictions. "By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity. While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat. They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,' Dr. Mozaffarian said.

--http://beta.slashdot.org/story/206679

The ‘low fat’ group in this study was at 30% fat….not very low. Even low carb gurus are shooting down this study. Actually, low carb author Denis Minger had one of the best responses to this study (taken from her Facebook page):

“I see this study making the rounds lately as long-awaited vindication for low carb. I guess I'll be the bubble-burster and point out that regardless of its results, it's the kind of shoddy research we should be ripping to shreds. The "low fat" group only changed a smidgen from baseline (AKA the Standard American Diet of Doom) -- from a normal diet of about 35% fat to a so-called-low-fat diet of 30% -- and for anyone who saw my AHS talk, was very much in the "macronutrient swampland" where the effects of reducing fat are pretty much nil. Low fat should really be defined as under 15% of calories or so, which certainly wasn't the case here. The low carb group, on the other hand, had very strict requirements (40 grams of carbs per day) and a much greater degree of change. Comparing these two diets is like racing a Ferrari against a unicycler and thinking the latter actually has a fighting chance. I'm crossin' all my fingers and toes that we'll one day get a study pitting whole foods paleo or low-carb against whole-foods true low fat -- THAT would be interesting.”

This is the trick that Gary Taubes uses in his books. He says that the whole 'low fat craze' has failed because everyone has gotten fatter. But average percentage of calories from fat have only gone down incrementally since low fat guidelines were released in the 70s. Low fat is 10%-15% fat not 30% lol.

[tropo]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tropo

[Ragz]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

The percentage of macronutrients are critical IMO. But, I believe in the Lipid Hypothesis. If you don’t believe higher lipids in the blood cause heart disease then I could see how fat percentages wouldn’t matter to you. Good on you for finding something that works for you and for making the lifestyle changes though.

[tropo]

But, I believe in the Lipid Hypothesis. If you don’t believe higher lipids in the blood cause heart disease then I could see how fat percentages wouldn’t matter to you. Good on you for finding something that works for you and for making the lifestyle changes though.

I was talking about moderate levels of both macronutrients and making the assumption that they are clean foods and the fats are good fats (what constitutes good fats is an extremely debatable topic that I don't want to go into here).

It's a little bit easier to restrict dietary carbs when you have a deadly disease to concern yourself with rather than worrying about body aesthetics.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Before anyone decides to undertake any sort of diet they should at least find out if their blood sugar levels are normal or not. On average people find out they have impaired insulin metabolism (type 2 diabetes) 12 years after it began. By that time it has already caused a considerable amount of irreparable tissue damage and specifically nerve damage.

The reason I stress this point is because a person who has normal insulin metabolism will do a lot better on a higher (moderate) carb diet than one who is impaired. Carbs in an impaired person are more likely to end up as bodyfat than in a normal person. A positive diagnosis could very well indicate the major cause for a person's obesity and they might well be able to normalize their bodyweight just by controlling blood sugar using diabetic drugs, carb control and exercise.

Then consider that a huge percentage of the world's population are undiagnosed diabetics. It truly is a silent killer. Many more are near diabetic (pre-diabetic) and still many more on their way to the pre-diabetic condition (FBS in the mid to high 90 mg/dl).

This means that anyone who is reading this thread that hasn't been diagnosed is quite likely to be in one of the above categories.

Irrespective of the theoretical risk of higher blood lipids, the risk of high blood sugar is worse IMO. If you're diabetic fats are your friend. They help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

In actual fact I've shown perfectly normal levels of HDL/LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides on 6 or more eggs per day.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tropo

[Ragz]

But, I believe in the Lipid Hypothesis. If you don’t believe higher lipids in the blood cause heart disease then I could see how fat percentages wouldn’t matter to you. Good on you for finding something that works for you and for making the lifestyle changes though.

I was talking about moderate levels of both macronutrients and making the assumption that they are clean foods and the fats are good fats (what constitutes good fats is an extremely debatable topic that I don't want to go into here).

It's a little bit easier to restrict dietary carbs when you have a deadly disease to concern yourself with rather than worrying about body aesthetics.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Before anyone decides to undertake any sort of diet they should at least find out if their blood sugar levels are normal or not. On average people find out they have impaired insulin metabolism (type 2 diabetes) 12 years after it began. By that time it has already caused a considerable amount of irreparable tissue damage and specifically nerve damage.

The reason I stress this point is because a person who has normal insulin metabolism will do a lot better on a higher (moderate) carb diet than one who is impaired. Carbs in an impaired person are more likely to end up as bodyfat than in a normal person. A positive diagnosis could very well indicate the major cause for a person's obesity and they might well be able to normalize their bodyweight just by controlling blood sugar using diabetic drugs, carb control and exercise.

Then consider that a huge percentage of the world's population are undiagnosed diabetics. It truly is a silent killer. Many more are near diabetic (pre-diabetic) and still many more on their way to the pre-diabetic condition (FBS in the mid to high 90 mg/dl).

This means that anyone who is reading this thread that hasn't been diagnosed is quite likely to be in one of the above categories.

Irrespective of the theoretical risk of higher blood lipids, the risk of high blood sugar is worse IMO. If you're diabetic fats are your friend. They help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

In actual fact I've shown perfectly normal levels of HDL/LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides on 6 or more eggs per day.

Actually there are many people who have reversed diabetes with high carb low fat plant based diets, check out the work of Dr Neal Barnard. Many people believe that low carb diets work as an effective bandaid while low fat diets actually reverse diabetes. I posted this video a couple of week ago, but I will post again, it is of a popular low carb author who was previously critical of high carb low fat diets, she actually does a great job summarizing the evidence of high carb low fat diets (and graciously admitting she was mistaken). She zeroes in on diabetes in this talk too:

Also be careful what passes for ‘normal’ lipid levels in the blood. In the US ‘normal’ is in the area of 200 mg/dl. Doctors will say this level is ok because it is the norm, but it is way higher than the levels of traditional cultures with no heart disease (<150mg/dl).

[h90]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

While I agree mostly, I have a different view on this: "A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods."

If you can't follow it, you couldn't follow eating carbs in moderation. I think it is much easier to eat very low carbs than eating popular high carb food in moderation because it always makes me more hungry.

If I eat a nice pasta, I am very hungry again after a couple hours. Eating just meat with the same or less calories and I am not that much hungry.

But that might be different for other people.

[tropo]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

While I agree mostly, I have a different view on this: "A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods."

If you can't follow it, you couldn't follow eating carbs in moderation. I think it is much easier to eat very low carbs than eating popular high carb food in moderation because it always makes me more hungry.

If I eat a nice pasta, I am very hungry again after a couple hours. Eating just meat with the same or less calories and I am not that much hungry.

But that might be different for other people.

The reverse is true for me. I get hungry again quickly after low carb meals and they rarely satisfy me. I need to add some carbs to a meal or I'm not satisfied at all. I've just come off a year of eating high carbs and now, on a low carb diet I'm always feeling hungry. I have to use nuts in between meals to keep the excessive hunger at bay.

[h90]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

While I agree mostly, I have a different view on this: "A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods."

If you can't follow it, you couldn't follow eating carbs in moderation. I think it is much easier to eat very low carbs than eating popular high carb food in moderation because it always makes me more hungry.

If I eat a nice pasta, I am very hungry again after a couple hours. Eating just meat with the same or less calories and I am not that much hungry.

But that might be different for other people.

The reverse is true for me. I get hungry again quickly after low carb meals and they rarely satisfy me. I need to add some carbs to a meal or I'm not satisfied at all. I've just come off a year of eating high carbs and now, on a low carb diet I'm always feeling hungry. I have to use nuts in between meals to keep the excessive hunger at bay.

The low carb thing works, if you go for no carbs 1-2 weeks first so the body learns to burn the fat direct. Than the hunger goes away. Some people switch easily in no time. Others switch difficult. Robblok had this experience recently.....

After the body switched you can eat low carb.

[tropo]

But, I believe in the Lipid Hypothesis. If you don’t believe higher lipids in the blood cause heart disease then I could see how fat percentages wouldn’t matter to you. Good on you for finding something that works for you and for making the lifestyle changes though.

I was talking about moderate levels of both macronutrients and making the assumption that they are clean foods and the fats are good fats (what constitutes good fats is an extremely debatable topic that I don't want to go into here).

It's a little bit easier to restrict dietary carbs when you have a deadly disease to concern yourself with rather than worrying about body aesthetics.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Before anyone decides to undertake any sort of diet they should at least find out if their blood sugar levels are normal or not. On average people find out they have impaired insulin metabolism (type 2 diabetes) 12 years after it began. By that time it has already caused a considerable amount of irreparable tissue damage and specifically nerve damage.

The reason I stress this point is because a person who has normal insulin metabolism will do a lot better on a higher (moderate) carb diet than one who is impaired. Carbs in an impaired person are more likely to end up as bodyfat than in a normal person. A positive diagnosis could very well indicate the major cause for a person's obesity and they might well be able to normalize their bodyweight just by controlling blood sugar using diabetic drugs, carb control and exercise.

Then consider that a huge percentage of the world's population are undiagnosed diabetics. It truly is a silent killer. Many more are near diabetic (pre-diabetic) and still many more on their way to the pre-diabetic condition (FBS in the mid to high 90 mg/dl).

This means that anyone who is reading this thread that hasn't been diagnosed is quite likely to be in one of the above categories.

Irrespective of the theoretical risk of higher blood lipids, the risk of high blood sugar is worse IMO. If you're diabetic fats are your friend. They help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

In actual fact I've shown perfectly normal levels of HDL/LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides on 6 or more eggs per day.

Actually there are many people who have reversed diabetes with high carb low fat plant based diets, check out the work of Dr Neal Barnard. Many people believe that low carb diets work as an effective bandaid while low fat diets actually reverse diabetes. I posted this video a couple of week ago, but I will post again, it is of a popular low carb author who was previously critical of high carb low fat diets, she actually does a great job summarizing the evidence of high carb low fat diets (and graciously admitting she was mistaken). She zeroes in on diabetes in this talk too:

Also be careful what passes for ‘normal’ lipid levels in the blood. In the US ‘normal’ is in the area of 200 mg/dl. Doctors will say this level is ok because it is the norm, but it is way higher than the levels of traditional cultures with no heart disease (<150mg/dl).

Before you start getting too excited about the prospect of the rice diet curing diabetes, you may want to read this:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/

I don't see any evidence that this diet cured "some" diabetics other than them saying so.

Some practitioners still advocate the use of this diet (in modified form) for the "nearly dead".

I'll bet my bottom dollar that this diet would send many diabetics into a coma.

I'm calling total bs unless you can introduce some proper evidence, which I've been unable to find. To even mention it is dangerous.

PS. By proper evidence I mean precise details about each diabetic patient who was cured. How bad their condition was before they started the diet i.e. FBS, 1 and 2 hour postprandial readings, average daily blood glucose, HbA1c etc, how long their readings took to normalize on this diet and how long they stayed normal before they were declared "cured". How long they used this diet. It's clearly a very unhealthy diet which would cause malnutrition if continued for extended periods.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tropo

[tropo]

The percentage of carbs or fat in a diet are secondary to long term adherence to whatever diet one chooses. A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods.

Sure, some super heros with super will power will come on here and say they have no problem following it forever, but I don't believe most of them. You never lose your taste for sweet things no matter how long you stay away from them. Most of us were brought up on sweet stuff and the desire will never go away.

Don't get me wrong - I believe a low carb diet is very effective if you can stay on it, but I believe a diet of moderate carbs and moderate fat will win in the long term.

As for me, I have a medical reason why I need to keep my diet low in carbs i.e. (pre)diabetes, but normal people will not have that problem to consider and can do well on a more "normal" diet and just consider total calories and cut out the obvious crap. It is known among diabetics on strict dietary control that very low carb diets make them more sensitive to carbs. They lose their ability to handle them at any level.

I'm of the opinion that if a person needs to go virtually zero carbs to keep their blood sugar levels in the normal or near normal range without diabetic drugs, that they'd have a better life if they ate more carbs and used medicine to control blood sugar. This approach has served my mother well and she's still kicking in her mid-80's eating a diet quite high in carbs.

One must consider a long term strategy and unless you're diabetic there's no reason to make life more difficult that it already is.

While I agree mostly, I have a different view on this: "A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods."

If you can't follow it, you couldn't follow eating carbs in moderation. I think it is much easier to eat very low carbs than eating popular high carb food in moderation because it always makes me more hungry.

If I eat a nice pasta, I am very hungry again after a couple hours. Eating just meat with the same or less calories and I am not that much hungry.

But that might be different for other people.

The reverse is true for me. I get hungry again quickly after low carb meals and they rarely satisfy me. I need to add some carbs to a meal or I'm not satisfied at all. I've just come off a year of eating high carbs and now, on a low carb diet I'm always feeling hungry. I have to use nuts in between meals to keep the excessive hunger at bay.

The low carb thing works, if you go for no carbs 1-2 weeks first so the body learns to burn the fat direct. Than the hunger goes away. Some people switch easily in no time. Others switch difficult. Robblok had this experience recently.....

After the body switched you can eat low carb.

You're not talking to a newbie here mate. I've been experimenting with low carb for many years, mostly to control high blood sugar, but also to get lean. I got down to 9% body fat back in 2012.

My hunger problem doesn't go away no matter how long I maintain low carbs. Low carb diets always stimulate my appetite. I'm always thinking about food. On high carbs I don't. On the plus side, on low carbs I have more energy. High carbs make me feel more lazy and tired.

[JSixpack]

This is the trick that Gary Taubes uses in his books.

No, he doesn't use any "tricks."

He says that the whole 'low fat craze' has failed because everyone has gotten fatter.

Got a quotation?

[h90]

While I agree mostly, I have a different view on this: "A lot of people talk up the low carb diet, but few can follow it for long as it requires giving up too many popular foods."

If you can't follow it, you couldn't follow eating carbs in moderation. I think it is much easier to eat very low carbs than eating popular high carb food in moderation because it always makes me more hungry.

If I eat a nice pasta, I am very hungry again after a couple hours. Eating just meat with the same or less calories and I am not that much hungry.

But that might be different for other people.

The reverse is true for me. I get hungry again quickly after low carb meals and they rarely satisfy me. I need to add some carbs to a meal or I'm not satisfied at all. I've just come off a year of eating high carbs and now, on a low carb diet I'm always feeling hungry. I have to use nuts in between meals to keep the excessive hunger at bay.

The low carb thing works, if you go for no carbs 1-2 weeks first so the body learns to burn the fat direct. Than the hunger goes away. Some people switch easily in no time. Others switch difficult. Robblok had this experience recently.....

After the body switched you can eat low carb.

You're not talking to a newbie here mate. I've been experimenting with low carb for many years, mostly to control high blood sugar, but also to get lean. I got down to 9% body fat back in 2012.

My hunger problem doesn't go away no matter how long I maintain low carbs. Low carb diets always stimulate my appetite. I'm always thinking about food. On high carbs I don't. On the plus side, on low carbs I have more energy. High carbs make me feel more lazy and tired.

Rob told almost exactly the same....till he really tried NO carbs (not even half a carrot) ....zero and than the hunger went away. Maybe your body won't switch to burn ketone bodies, but most do at some point.

[Ragz]

This is the trick that Gary Taubes uses in his books.

No, he doesn't use any "tricks."

He says that the whole 'low fat craze' has failed because everyone has gotten fatter.

Got a quotation?

And I quote:

“Since the early 1970s, for instance,
 Americans' average fat intake has dropped 
from over 40% of total calories to 34%; average serum cholesterol levels have dropped
 as well. But no compelling evidence suggests that these decreases have improved 
health Although heart disease death rates 
have dropped and public health officials insist low-fat diets are partly 
responsible the incidence of heart disease does not seem to be declining, as 
would be expected if lower fat diets made 
a difference……Meanwhile, obesity in America, which remained constant from the early 1960s through 1980, has surged upward since then--from 14% of the population to over 22%. Diabetes has increased apace. Both obesity and diabetes increase heart disease risk, which could explain why heart disease incidence is not decreasing. That this obesity epidemic occurred just as the government began bombarding Americans with the low-fat message suggests the possibility, however distant, that low-fat diets might have unintended consequences--among them, weight gain.”

Gary Taubes

http://garytaubes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Science-The-soft-science-of-dietary-fat-21.pdf

What Taubes conveniently fails to point out is that total caloric intake also increased by nearly 25% since 1970 which INCREASED TOTAL calories from fat in spite of the paltry percentage decrease. This is an example of a trick, he uses percentages to cover up actual totals, and he calls a 34% diet a low fat diet.

http://www.goodfoodworld.com/2011/04/calories-consumed-per-day-up-nearly-25-since-1970/

[Ragz]

But, I believe in the Lipid Hypothesis. If you don’t believe higher lipids in the blood cause heart disease then I could see how fat percentages wouldn’t matter to you. Good on you for finding something that works for you and for making the lifestyle changes though.

I was talking about moderate levels of both macronutrients and making the assumption that they are clean foods and the fats are good fats (what constitutes good fats is an extremely debatable topic that I don't want to go into here).

It's a little bit easier to restrict dietary carbs when you have a deadly disease to concern yourself with rather than worrying about body aesthetics.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Before anyone decides to undertake any sort of diet they should at least find out if their blood sugar levels are normal or not. On average people find out they have impaired insulin metabolism (type 2 diabetes) 12 years after it began. By that time it has already caused a considerable amount of irreparable tissue damage and specifically nerve damage.

The reason I stress this point is because a person who has normal insulin metabolism will do a lot better on a higher (moderate) carb diet than one who is impaired. Carbs in an impaired person are more likely to end up as bodyfat than in a normal person. A positive diagnosis could very well indicate the major cause for a person's obesity and they might well be able to normalize their bodyweight just by controlling blood sugar using diabetic drugs, carb control and exercise.

Then consider that a huge percentage of the world's population are undiagnosed diabetics. It truly is a silent killer. Many more are near diabetic (pre-diabetic) and still many more on their way to the pre-diabetic condition (FBS in the mid to high 90 mg/dl).

This means that anyone who is reading this thread that hasn't been diagnosed is quite likely to be in one of the above categories.

Irrespective of the theoretical risk of higher blood lipids, the risk of high blood sugar is worse IMO. If you're diabetic fats are your friend. They help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

In actual fact I've shown perfectly normal levels of HDL/LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides on 6 or more eggs per day.

Actually there are many people who have reversed diabetes with high carb low fat plant based diets, check out the work of Dr Neal Barnard. Many people believe that low carb diets work as an effective bandaid while low fat diets actually reverse diabetes. I posted this video a couple of week ago, but I will post again, it is of a popular low carb author who was previously critical of high carb low fat diets, she actually does a great job summarizing the evidence of high carb low fat diets (and graciously admitting she was mistaken). She zeroes in on diabetes in this talk too:

Also be careful what passes for ‘normal’ lipid levels in the blood. In the US ‘normal’ is in the area of 200 mg/dl. Doctors will say this level is ok because it is the norm, but it is way higher than the levels of traditional cultures with no heart disease (<150mg/dl).

Before you start getting too excited about the prospect of the rice diet curing diabetes, you may want to read this:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/

I don't see any evidence that this diet cured "some" diabetics other than them saying so.

Some practitioners still advocate the use of this diet (in modified form) for the "nearly dead".

I'll bet my bottom dollar that this diet would send many diabetics into a coma.

I'm calling total bs unless you can introduce some proper evidence, which I've been unable to find. To even mention it is dangerous.

PS. By proper evidence I mean precise details about each diabetic patient who was cured. How bad their condition was before they started the diet i.e. FBS, 1 and 2 hour postprandial readings, average daily blood glucose, HbA1c etc, how long their readings took to normalize on this diet and how long they stayed normal before they were declared "cured". How long they used this diet. It's clearly a very unhealthy diet which would cause malnutrition if continued for extended periods.

I wasn’t actually talking about the rice diet in particular when I mentioned reversing heart disease. I was talking about plant based diets in general. There is a lot of evidence for the effectiveness of plant based diets for diabetes. I am not sure whether they meet all your criteria, but I would wager there is a lot less evidence for low carb diets in this area, especially long term.

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/1/38.full

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/What-we-say/Food-nutrition-lifestyle/Low-carbohydrate-diets-for-people-with-Type-2-diabetes/

Speaking of proof, what proof do you have that the rice diet was an unhealthy diet which would cause malnutrition? Or are you speculating? I ask because a diet very close to the Kempner’s diet was followed throughout East Asia for 10,000 years. The only difference being the inclusion of vegetables and very small amounts of meat. Until the introduction of processed and Western style foods Type 2 Diabetes was highly unusual in East Asia. Since these people were eating primarily carbohydrates in the form of rice and vegetables the main macronutrient change to their diets has been the increase in fats and proteins and with it the explosion of Type 2 Diabetes. So it is interesting to blame carbs for Diabetes.

[tropo]

Rob told almost exactly the same....till he really tried NO carbs (not even half a carrot) ....zero and than the hunger went away. Maybe your body won't switch to burn ketone bodies, but most do at some point.

Zero carb is impossible. If he did go very, very low, he didn't do it for long. Most people are interested in practical ways to lose weight, not extreme, unsustainable ways.

[bikerlou47]

H90 has no clue as to how the human body metabolizes food!

[bikerlou47]

If anyone is truly interested in how body metabolism works read the book " why we get fat" by Gary taubes.

[tropo]

I wasn’t actually talking about the rice diet in particular when I mentioned reversing heart disease. I was talking about plant based diets in general. There is a lot of evidence for the effectiveness of plant based diets for diabetes. I am not sure whether they meet all your criteria, but I would wager there is a lot less evidence for low carb diets in this area, especially long term.

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/1/38.full

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/What-we-say/Food-nutrition-lifestyle/Low-carbohydrate-diets-for-people-with-Type-2-diabetes/

Speaking of proof, what proof do you have that the rice diet was an unhealthy diet which would cause malnutrition? Or are you speculating? I ask because a diet very close to the Kempner’s diet was followed throughout East Asia for 10,000 years. The only difference being the inclusion of vegetables and very small amounts of meat. Until the introduction of processed and Western style foods Type 2 Diabetes was highly unusual in East Asia. Since these people were eating primarily carbohydrates in the form of rice and vegetables the main macronutrient change to their diets has been the increase in fats and proteins and with it the explosion of Type 2 Diabetes. So it is interesting to blame carbs for Diabetes.

Your thoughts are wandering all over the place.

Let's get this straight: I was talking about diets to control type 2 diabetes (low carb). I was NOT speculating on the causes of type 2 diabetes. That's a different topic entirely. I am also not discussing heart disease.

You introduced a video by Denise Minger (a mid-20's English major and reportedly not a healthy person), who therein claimed that diabetes could be cured by consuming a diet extremely high in carbohydrates, namely the "rice diet", using Kempner's 1939 diet as a reference.

When you're making amazing claims that diabetes can be cured, the burden of proof is on you. You're not only making claims that it can be cured, you're claiming that an extremely high carb diet is the cure.

I really need to see evidence to support your claim. Individual case studies of everyone who was cured by this diet.

Claiming that you know what the Chinese ate over 10,000 years is preposterous. Knowledge of pre-writing Chinese history prior to 2000 BCE is extremely limited... but you claim to know what Chinese were eating in the Neolithic period, then using that assumption as proof about how effective a "rice diet" is.

Another consideration is that most ancient people had a very short lifespan and probably didn't live long enough to be stricken with diabetic complications, heart disease and cancer etc.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tropo

[Ragz]

I’m the one making wild claims and the burden of proof is only on me? What about:

If you're diabetic fats are your friend

Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

These are wild claims, any scientific backup on these?

Also you still haven’t backed up your claim that people eating the rice diet would be malnourished over extended periods.

I supplied a summary of studies that showed the success of plant based and vegetarian diets in treating diabetes. I backed up my claims with scientific studies. You will be hard pressed to find anywhere near the same amount of studies backing up the success of low carb diets.

I introduced a video from a popular promoter of low carb diets, I am not claiming she is an authority. I wouldn’t be surprised she is unhealthy considering the low carb diet she promotes and eats. However, her presentation on the low fat diet research in the 20^th century was pretty good. It was not my intention to promote the rice diet but I thought the findings from that study were pretty interesting.

Rice cultivation goes back 10,000 years in China. But we don’t need to go back that far to see that rice has been the staple in East Asia for a long time and people did not develop type 2 diabetes eating a rice based diet. No need to obfuscate and talk about Neolithic eating patterns and the lifespan of ancient man etc etc.

BTW I mistyped 'heart disease' in my last post meaning to type 'diabetes'.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Ragz

[tropo]

You need to provide evidence that an extremely high carb diet (the rice diet) cures diabetes.

Let's take it a step at a time and not confuse the issue. Once you provide me with some evidence, I'm quite happy to discuss other topics with you. After all, this debate goes back to a video you presented that claimed that the "rice diet" can cure diabetes...

I don't want endless links that you find on Google searches and I'm not interested in wasting my time watching any more 30 minute videos. I need to see some case studies that prove your claim.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tropo

[sustento]

I’m the one making wild claims and the burden of proof is only on me? What about:

If you're diabetic fats are your friend

Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

These are wild claims, any scientific backup on these?

Readings from my BG meter?

Edited September 5, 2014 by sustento

[Ragz]

You need to provide evidence that an extremely high carb diet (the rice diet) cures diabetes.

Let's take it a step at a time and not confuse the issue. Once you provide me with some evidence, I'm quite happy to discuss other topics with you. After all, this debate goes back to a video you presented that claimed that the "rice diet" can cure diabetes...

I don't want endless links that you find on Google searches and I'm not interested in wasting my time watching any more 30 minute videos. I need to see some case studies that prove your claim.

Ok here is one where insulin therapy could be discontinued after 16 days:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/32/11/2312.short

And again, I am not making any claims about the rice diet in particular. I presented a video on 20th century low fat research, one of the studies outlined in that video was the rice diet.

[sustento]

That paper is 35 years old.

[tropo]

I’m the one making wild claims and the burden of proof is only on me? What about:

If you're diabetic fats are your friend

Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

These are wild claims, any scientific backup on these?

Readings from my BG meter?

LOL. I should have told him that I often use up to 10 strips per day, so I have a very good idea how foods effect my blood sugar levels.

[Ragz]

That paper is 35 years old.

You read the date...great job!

[Ragz]

I’m the one making wild claims and the burden of proof is only on me? What about:

If you're diabetic fats are your friend

Carbs are quite literally poison to diabetics.

These are wild claims, any scientific backup on these?

Readings from my BG meter?

LOL. I should have told him that I often use up to 10 strips per day, so I have a very good idea how foods effect my blood sugar levels.

Still can't back up your wild claims.

[sustento]

That paper is 35 years old.

You read the date...great job!

I also read my BG meter on a regular basis. I will repeat Tropo's claim from my own personal experience:

Carbs are literally poison to diabetics.

[tropo]

You need to provide evidence that an extremely high carb diet (the rice diet) cures diabetes.

Let's take it a step at a time and not confuse the issue. Once you provide me with some evidence, I'm quite happy to discuss other topics with you. After all, this debate goes back to a video you presented that claimed that the "rice diet" can cure diabetes...

I don't want endless links that you find on Google searches and I'm not interested in wasting my time watching any more 30 minute videos. I need to see some case studies that prove your claim.

Ok here is one where insulin therapy could be discontinued after 16 days:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/32/11/2312.short

And again, I am not making any claims about the rice diet in particular. I presented a video on 20th century low fat research, one of the studies outlined in that video was the rice diet.

Thanks you very much. I shall read that study carefully and report back later.

Before I do, I thought I should mention that insulin treated diabetics are quite different from the usual type 2 diabetic. Insulin treatment is only started when a person no longer has sufficient production of insulin. Most type 2's have enough insulin and insulin resistance is the problem. Type 2 diabetes always starts with insulin resistance and may or may not (usually not) progress to insulin dependence. It is normally treated with diabetic medicine, not insulin.

[Ragz]

That paper is 35 years old.

You read the date...great job!

I also read my BG meter on a regular basis. I will repeat Tropo's claim from my own personal experience:

Carbs are literally poison to diabetics.

I’m not arguing that you can get your BG reader in line by avoiding carbs. I’m not arguing that low carb diets dont have other benefits like weight loss. I used low carb diets to lose weight for many years, starting with the Zone in 1999 through Atkins, Paleo etc. What I am arguing is whether the culprit is carbs alone. I believe the culprit to be fat. Of course I can’t be sure of my position and neither can you because the science is not definitive on either end. Either way I am glad you guys have found a way to control your glucose levels, I just think there is a healthier way.