Seen this youtube debate yet?

[groundhogg]

INTERESTING! JUst the sort of thing I love to see.

Taubes in interesting, in that he has shaken the very core of what nutritional science has been built on... unearthing a poor foundation for virtually all of nutritional investigations...and not really seeming to come to any REAL conclusions, only saying it's possible everything you know is wrong..e.tc. In this debate...I feel Ornish came out ahead, in a pragmatic sense, having some actual reports from studies he was involved in or knew about. The AHA rep even did a fairly decent job, her main point being that moderation will keep people healthy if they don't feel they can committ to a real DIET (meant in the sense of elimination of certain foods, i.e., Ornish or whatever)...

Yet, Ornish came out first, in my own opinion. I noticed Ornish himself doesn't look really healthy to me, though??? But that's not necessarily meaningful, I guess...I mean, he doesn't look terrible...and maybe it's lack of sleep, or maybe he just had an extra busy time or something...but of all at the table, i felt he looked the least healthy...that's subjective...I felt the MC looked the healthiest of them all...and have no idea how he eats...lives, etc.

Anyway...it seemed to be an honest attempt at examination of the issues.

NOt wanting to feel like a total heretic, I must say that after my own personal wranglings over recent months, I have read many things about nutrition...ideas from both "extremes," and also everything I can get my hands on that fall in the middle. I find Taubes book (yes...I even ordered the doggone thing and have been reading it...it reads like a college text...I've had less time than aniticipated...and so it's taking me frustratingly long to read...still at it...but I'm learning a lot plowing my way through some of the more scientific stuff and will really dig into the 60 pages of references of all sorts, dating from the 1800s and even earlier, up to present day sources, etc., after I finish the book) interesting and bold...yet there is much to think about after considering those ideas...

one fascinating idea that keeps popping up is that whatever one seems to eat, it seems their body seems to try to do the identically same things with whatever one eats....same as GEorges Osawa claimed would happen after his own global dietary observations, and he attributed the very idea to Claude Bernard, author of that book I read a long tie ago...what's the tite....??? Darn...I think it was something about experimental study of medicine or similar title...used to be required reading for all 1st year med students...don't know if it still is or not....but as an example...Eskimos eating ONLY meat, plus other native tribes who ate only meat didn't seem to require vitamin C...yet, once other foods are addied, something with Vitamin C must also be there...thus most people need vitamin C...etc.

I'll go into all of it more later....here the debate:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... sh+taubes+

[dagnabit]

Good post groundhogg! I enjoyed the discussion, even though the audio did not match the lip movements. I thought Ornish did a respectable job of portraying his views with references to supporting studies that sound credible. While I believe that Taubes arguments have some merit, i.e. that you cannot blame heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes solely on animal fats, I think he goes too far the other way, trying to shift all the blame on carbohydrates and starches rather than fats. It almost sounds like he is trying to stir the pot, not to prove anything, but, rather to just be controversial (perhaps to drum up support for the book he had in the works). He's basically saying that the methodology of almost all existing studies is suspect and cannot prove anything. So if you cannot prove that fat is bad, then maybe it isn't, and maybe it is the carbs that are bad.

He is so anti-carb that he downplays the health risks of the high-protein Atkins diet, which to me makes little sense, especially considering that the risks of that diet are so easy to measure. What attracted me to the McD way of eating was its abundance of common sense -- eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Humans can thrive on a plant-only based diet. I don't think they can thrive long-term on a solely animal-based diet. As far a nutrition goes, meat does not really have much going for it. And considering our factory-farm meat industry and all the diseases, hormones, and accompanying antibiotics, and unnatural feed that are pumped into the animals, how can that be good for one's health? Now if we all ate pasture-fed animals, then Taubes might have a pinkie toe to stand on, but we don't; and the "organic meat" industry could not support our entire population anyway so it is a moot point.

[groundhogg]

I'd love to see McDougall, Campbell, Ornish, Taubes...at least them...go at it like this, armed only with research and studies to argue over.

Once I finish Taubes' book, I intend to spend some time with his references...then try to cross-reference the ideas presented with references from the China Study. I.e., have my own little groundhogg debate with myself!

[Berry]

what is your goal

[JourneyMan]

Videos like that just make me furious . It seems so obvious to me, and Dean Ornish I might add, that there is a huge double standard when it comes to evaluating scientific studies. Its like the Atkins Camp has literally not published 1 credible scientific study but people will already quote early "findings" as if it were indisputable fact. But when it comes to Ornish it seems like if he didn't control for some variable then his whole theory is a sham. I think that this guy Taubes is part of a larger overall problem. His main concern is selling books and so he is looking for controversy and arguments against his position. I think Dr. Orninsh did an excellent job of not being sucked into this guys trap during the discussion.

I think its folly for humans at this point in evolution to still believe that we don't know what an optimal human diet is. The truth is that we do know whats optimal, the problems are that a) Most regular people don't want to hear it or have to make any significant changes to their lifestyle b) Lots of companies have a lot of money to lose if the truth becomes too mainstream.

So we live in world were major companies and interest groups can just keep confusion out there by making weakly supported barely truthful statements to keep the average person ignorant in these matters.

[SarahJ]

I could only stand to watch about half of this. Taubes was smug, condescending, and rude. A journalist, telling Dr. Ornish to "try harder" to be honest, while he (Taubes) tries to put the SAD, full of simple sugars and refined carbohydrates, in the same category as a whole-foods, plant based diet. He didn't seem at all objective to me. He almost sounded like a PR man for the meat industry.

[sojourner]

Taubes in [sic]interesting, in that he has shaken the very core of what nutritional science has been built on... unearthing a poor foundation for virtually all of nutritional investigations...

(I added emphasis)

You are a funny groundhogg.
You are kidding, right? Tongue in cheek, right?

"...he has shaken the very core of what nutritional science has been built on...." How funny you are.

"...unearthing a poor foundation for virtually all of nutritional investigations...."

You're pulling our legs, right?

[Caroveggie]

I also gave up watching this. Once you know and understand the truth you don't want to hear more baloney. I think I'll go pull out one of my McDougall books for a refresher.

[Soils4Peace]

Ornish's science is better. Taubes' presentation of the science is skewed and biased. He is too focused on low carb and not on overall health, and diverts the discussion away from cancer prevention, which favours fruit and veggies, and gives red meat a black eye. Ornish is pushing for health and has historically shifted his viewpoint with new information, like with omega 3 fatty acids.

The AHA spokesperson looked the healthiest, and she is older. But I don't buy her argument for moderation. I am doing doing fine in the extreme - eating mainly extremely healthy foods and minimizing unhealthy foods. I feel no obligation to eat the crap I am offered outside my home.

My breakfast today was healthier than any of theirs and they would likely admit it if they were honest: a smoothie with four kinds of cruciferous veggies, three kinds of fruit, a tablespoon of ground flax seed, and a tablespoon of sunflower butter.

Taubes said you can't lose weight restricting calories. I guess I can't lose the 60 lbs I have lost in the past year then. I eat low calorie nutrient dense food. I don't have to count, I am full for the day before I get to 2000 calories. I recently saw a post of a metastudy of diets made at a low carb website. The diet that lowered fasting glucose in T2D patients was a LC diet with a 33% reduction. Big deal, mine is down 39%: I'm an outlier.

Taubes' only point that is useful for me is of the relationship between hyperinsulinism and some of the chronic diseases that plague the modern world, but it is not enough to make me want to change to low carb.

Ornish wins, on science, and because his approach most closely resembles that which brings me success.

[groundhogg]

Well...all the politickin' season here has got me into the mood for debate...and I love comparing what one person believes with another.

To Berry...my goal is to seek true understanding about human nature...how do we think? How do we know? When do we know? Why do we need to know? And, unlike all other creatures on this earth, how do we know what to eat? Those are my goals...I guess.

Well, Sojourner, I guess I'm not kidding after having read (most of) Taubes' book...whatever he personally believes, the book is teeming with studies built on shaky conclusions and biases...speaking of ALL nutritional studies and common beliefs... A long time ago, I'd read Claude Bernards' little book that was once required reading for 1st year medical students...maybe still is, I have no idea...anyway I cannot remember the title now...as I normally read a book in less than an hour (fast groundhog!!) and then cash it in at the used book store and buy another one...I used to save them, but haven't saved so many in recent years...

I guess now on m y shelf are a few Pritikin books, Ornish books, McDougall books, The China Study, and a bunch of knitting books...that's it...my books I've hung onto are few...anyhow...I did read an out-of-print book by Georges Osawa (the guy who basically devised the ideas that eventually led into the macrobiotic diet...who'd spent much of his youth travelling to different countries, studying what natives ate and how healthy they seemed, and then attempting to isolate factors common to indigenous people not affected by civilization, if you wanna call it that...Osawa had a law degree, I believe, and wasn't really scientifically "qualified" to do such study, but on the other hand, I believe his mind was not as boggled down with presumptions as a real scientist...so...there's just one sample of yin vs. yang, fer ya, I guess...anyway...Osawa came to some of the same conclusions as I remember reading in the Claude Bernard work...that humans, & animals, have great capability of making what they need from whatever food is before them...etc. This was said of vitamin C at the time...Osawa noticed some people didn't consume ANY, yet did not have scurvy...I believe Bernard --- going by memory here-- said something similar...that under certain condiditons, humans could manufacture, or somehow get the vitamin C they needed without having it from foods. Of course, the big question then becomes-- why did British navy personnel get scurvy, only to be relieved by lime juice, etc. etc. etc.? But it appears the answer may be in exactly what they were eating which may have interrupted the vitamin C producing process...I don't believe any writers I've read have committed entirely to this belief, but have hinted strongly that it appears to be the case. Same situation with corn and pellagra...if you read up on the introduction of corn to societies for the first time, you see pellagra, b vitamin deficiency, appear on the scene...it appears that something about corn may interfere with utilization of b vitamins...maybe. Or other examples...to be found among various authors of societies beginning foods new and not part of their own indigenous diets.

This is how Osawa came to observe that some foods, or types of foods, seem to be necessary to balance out the other foods...and indigenous cultures had this down to the point where they were healthy eating combinations, with the seasons, of what foods were right there in their environment for them. Civilizied societies completely lost track of this, and even modern day macrobiotics, in my own opinion, has lost sight of this delicate balance.

Now...as to the above debate, which I thoroughly enjoyed and would like to see more of, including as I said, McDougall (who is much more extreme than Ornish), Campbell...Taubes, etc., anyway...as to the debate...yes, Ornish really made his case much better than Taubes...Taubes did surprisingly poorly in that debATE. I felt the AHA rep did amazingly well too.

Now as to Taubes' book I'm reading (and frustratingly slowly...which drives me nuts!!!), I would say that Taubes did indeed turn everything upsidedown...by going back to the beginning of the ideas on which current "understanding" was built. Which side are you on, (neat folk song title, by the way! ) doesn't seem to be as important to me as-- how did anybody come to wonder about this, or this...etc. Why did they study this thing or that, in the ways they did? And this is what Taubes' book is...sorta a history of nutritional investigation, mainly when it comes to obesity in all different kinds of cultures around the world. It is fascinating to read....there are tons and tons of notes and references...I can't wait to dig into those things (I work in an academic library...and figure I'll be able to find quite a few on our research databases here --but TIME will be my major frustration!!!! There's never enough time for this stuff!!!)--- I want to go back to Campbell and try to cross-reference his stuff with things I am able to find from Taubes' references... I would like to get my hands on the actual monograph of the China Study...don't know it that's possible or not...

Anyhow...just into thinking about all of this stuff. After reading the Jeff Novick quote of ten years ago about "grains" (not sure exactly what that word means), and after having had some unexpected difficulty with grains myself...after reading and thinking about many ideas and peoples' experiences... the curious button has been pushed in the ol' groundhog mind...and I have to follow through and seek out all there is to seek out.

As I said before, somewhere along the way...if I ever win the lottery...I will glady spend every penny of it to support a huge dietary debate...one that will last for at least a good year!!!! Yeah...put a big ol' series of debates on national TV for everybody to watch and think about!!! But seriously... I ain't no rich groundhog...rich enough, I guess, but not to sponsor televised debates or any of that... just rich enough to live comfortably ya know...but anyhow...I seriously would love to see Dr. McDougall, Jeff Novick...some others...debate very seriously (no defense or personal stuff involved...no little cliches to explain stuff--- I remember in the above youtube that when Ornish said his little thing he always says..."I'd love to tell you that eating pork rinds was good..." and Tuabes got so freaked over that...LOL... -- none of that stuff ...I'd just like to see the things they all have studied...PLUS...the real live patients' stories they have worked with...oh yeah...Dr. Klaper needs to be in on this too...as he is unique in having followed up on his own patients who did not do well on his preferred diet...and investigated why...I would like to see all dieatry doctors follow up like this and see what went wrong with some people...but Klaper is the only one (from any side of the fence) that I've heard of who has done this...so his input would be wonderful here too.

I'd like to see more of this. I would love to see McDougall's response, in particular, to the ideas of J.P. Flatt and what Taubes has said about his findings in the book...woudl be interesting to see that sort of thing batted back and forth a little bit.

Oka...gotta go!

[Soils4Peace]

I managed to track down a factoid that has been pestering me for a while. Low carbers have been blaming low-fat high carb for the rise in obesity while others have been blaming the increase in total calories. The truth is that in the United States, from 1979 to 2003, there have been increases in the daily consumption of total calories, grams of fat and grams of protein. Look at the graph on the lower left side of page 2. You can calculate from this that carbohydrate consumption is up too. There may have been a low fat dogma during that time, but it is not to blame. Overeating clearly the biggest problem.

[groundhogg]

Except according to Taubes' research, it might not be that simple.

He cites animal studies in which energy in = energy out isn't quite so direct...such as hibernators... they get fat before winter, in the wild under natural circumstances. But in the lab, in which the seasons are disguised, they still get fat berfore winter...and in the lab where food is deliberately withheld they still get fat before winter, even during food shortages. And during hibernation, if they are liposuctioned while they are hibernating...they replace the fat within a few weeks while not eating, while still in hibernation. Of course, that's hibernating animals...but only one of many examples of studies he cites in which the simple equation...energy in had to equal energy out...doesn't quite hold up...mabye in the galactic bodies and stars, but in living organisms it seems to not be all there is to it.

He cites examples of indigenous peoples at the turn of the century (the OTHER turn of the century,,,early 1900's)... when the white man encroached on their way of life...and they had earlier been healthy, thin, people...once poverty was thrown onto them, they became obese.

He cites some examples of studies which hint that it's possible that overeating and sedentary behavior are merely SYMPTOMS of metabolic disorders causing obesity and other things...and that once these disorders reverse...it's possible, from studies he cites (which I intend to look into further given time), that animals or people will become more energetic and active on their own...that their eating will normlaize for their health needs on its own.

I don't know...there's an awful lot of stuff indicating it's at least worth lookin' into which came first, the chicken or the egg...and that just because some things are found in association, does not always imply cause and effect. A lot of what Taubes' book is about is searching back into the history of how it was decided what to study... and some of it only leads to more questions.

I think Taubes would stop blaming it on what he calls "gluttony" and "sloth," but more on mechanisms which control biochemical processes becoming out of whack. The gluttony and sloth being symtpoms of that only. It is very interesting stuff to think about.

[groundhogg]

yes, I think so.

I think the thing standing out in my mind at this point... I'm not "taking sides" with Taubes at all, except in agreeing with him that it certainly seems, from his book's elaboration on the history of our food/diet notions, where they came from, what other factors in the world have existed alongside those studies that contradict what the studies have indicated...etc., poor understanding across teh board...I am in agreement with Taubes on that.

In particular, though, in my own thinking, after hving become suspicious of the healthfulness of grains...although exactly how I think of it I'm not so sure. Glutinous grains were the first to grab my attention, personally.

I checked with various Wheat Council, wheat growers organizations a little bit, not a whole lot, but from the little bits I could gather it seems that wheat growing organizations are who pushed for the new ideas, starting in the early 70s, that at least wheat/flour-based foods should become of primary importance in our diet. They may have had a big influence in the shift from the old 4 basic food groups paradigm, to the new food pyramid one...looks like to me. Also, they have various newsletters in which they boast of having influenced America's consumption of wheat-based products since the early 70s...I guess we all just automatically began eating more flour-based foods...

...and my own thinking...not committment to this idea, but THINKING only...musing about possibilities...my own thinking leads me into wondering about the role that flour (of what kinds and types I'm not so sure) itself....especially if consumption of it has risen as fast in recent decades as the Wheat Council newsletters reports, the flour may have a major role in the matching rise in obesity... either in conjunction with high fructose corn syrup...possibly fats of some types (although having lived in SE KY, where just aboue everybody of the old generation lived up to their ninties...didn't have access to doctors...were healthy, most had lard, pork...etc., as a cheap, constant source of food-- I'm not entirely convinced from that that saturated fats alone do all the damage...also, these old Appalachians were SKINNY!) -- possibly hydrogenated or omega 6 heavy oils which had come about, amazingly alongside the increased flour consumption... I mean... I dunno... don't know exactly what to think....but my thinking is that flour-based foods were at least right there with us when we somehow got started on this obesity/syndrome x/diabetes/ autoimmune diseases and allergies/ heart disease epidemic we are finding our country in.

Could it be possible (again...I'm NOT siding with ANYONE at this point) that both Atkins extremists AND doctors like McDougall/Ornish see results because they frown on flour/ baked stuff???? Could that be one uniting factor present in both that's important enough to health that cuases the confusion of people in both extremes getting better??????

Also... there is the enormous gluten issue...always apparent with me... and while raw vegans, or Fuhrman type vegans might feel better sometimes potentially because they are away from that...one could also imagine the same thing happening in the meat-eaters' extremes too.

Again... I jsut read and think...in light of what I think I see around me, and especially in regard to what happens to me personally... I'm not endorsing Taubes' conclusions (although I haven't come to specific conclusions in his book yet), other than he does make a very good case about research not being too successful at isolating causes of obesity or degenerative disease... he pointed it out to Ornish in the youtube...that there were too many changes in Ornish's study to jsut say it was the fat itself...and if you think of it...maybe he's right about that one thing...that you would really have to have a control group who ate exactly the same foods, MINUS the fat...and did the same exact lifestyle changes along with, in order to isolate and be certain that it was the fat that produced the changes. ALthough, in general....Ornish, as I said before, did better overall in this little debate. As I said...I would love to see more of this sort of thing... I think all of the doctors...from various opinions, could discuss these things intelligently and possibly even figure all the enigmas out!!!