I’m trying to finish up some programming work and don’t have time for a full post, but in cleaning out my bookmarks, I did find some news items I saved that deserve comment:

Mrs. Obama to Lead the Charge Against Obesity

According to a Reuters story a couple of weeks back, the First Lady will be heading up a new campaign against obesity.  Yes, of course, because all those other government-led campaigns against obesity did such a great job.  Here’s my favorite line:

Obama, who created a White House garden with local school children, said the solution to the obesity epidemic cannot come from government alone.

The solution can’t come from government alone?! Why would anybody believe the solution to obesity will come from government at all?  Based on what, their outstanding track record?  We didn’t have an obesity epidemic (such as it is) until they started telling us how to eat.

Here’s another choice quote:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at the launch that the Obama administration was investing $650 million in economic stimulus money in wellness and prevention programs aimed at obesity and stopping smoking.

Ummm … the media is careful with their camera work because they adore the guy, but in case you weren’t aware, President Obama is a smoker.  He tried to quit and couldn’t — despite being a Harvard-educated lawyer who knows smoking is bad for his health.  I’m trying to imagine the thinking here … “Sure, I can’t give up cigarettes, but if we spend $650 million to tell other people what’s good for them, they’ll change their behavior.”

Here’s a better solution:  get rid of corn subsidies.  That would actually save money instead of piling up more debt.

Jillian Michaels Sued

Jillian Michaels, a star on NBC’s popular reality show, “The Biggest Loser,” is being sued by Christie Christensen, who claims she didn’t lose weight with the supplements endorsed by the celebrity trainer, according to the Associated Press

I have mixed feelings about this one.  Jillian Michaels annoys me because she’s one of those “eat less, exercise more” gurus.  She horsewhips people who are already starving themselves into exercising for hours a day on the show … so of course they lose weight temporarily, but they can’t keep it off because they haven’t adjusted the amount of fat their bodies need to maintain their energy balance.  According to Gary Taubes, who’s tracked down the “The Biggest Loser” contestants, most have regained nearly all the weight.

On other hand, I can’t stand trial lawyers who run around suing everyone, and I really and truly can’t stand people who believe buying a weight-loss product that didn’t work warrants $5 million in damages.  For what, pain and suffering?  Mental anguish?  If we’re going to go down that road, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig better start preparing their legal defenses right away.  The proper response is to ask for a refund, period.

Normal Weight, but “Obese”

From the DUH! files … an article on the ABC site notes that people can be “normal” weight, but still fat.  No kidding?  Pretty soon they may even realize people can be “overweight” without being fat or unhealthy.

Monika Sumpter did what many women dream of — she set a goal to lose weight and dropped 50 pounds. Despite losing all of that weight, her ratio of fat to muscle was around 25 percent, 5 percent from where she started and dangerously close to what some researchers say is an unhealthy situation.

So she lost 50 pounds and barely changed her fat-to-muscle ratio.  That means Ms. Sumpter lost quite a bit of muscle.  I’ll bet you dollars to donuts (and you can keep the donuts) she was on a high-carb, low-fat diet that didn’t provide enough protein — the kind Weight Watchers pushes.

If you read the article, you’ll see that she eventually took up resistance training and is now 20 pounds heavier than she was after the diet, but down to 14 percent body fat.  That means she has a higher BMI, but is quite a bit leaner.  So of course, embedded in the article is this link:

Are you a healthy weight? Click here to measure your body mass index.

As Mike Eades likes to say, Jesus wept.

Dumb Statistic About High School Football Linemen

Football linemen are more likely to die by age 50 than baseball players.  This article suggests it’s because of their size … they have larger waist-to-hip ratios than baseball players and are, of course, much bigger in general.

The article says the football players are more likely to have metabolic issues, but doesn’t say why.  Diet?  Maybe, maybe not.  Perhaps the combination of hormones and genetics that produce a 320-pound, six-foot, six-inch body also produce metabolic issues.  Insulin is, after all, a growth hormone.

But the violence of football may also be a factor in the shorter average lifespan.  I can’t recall where I read about it, but someone measured the impact of two pro linemen hitting each other.  To reproduce the same impact, the average man would have to stand 30 feet from a garage door, then run into it as fast as he can.  These guys take those hits dozens of times per game … not to mention practice sessions.

But what annoyed me about the article was this:

Recent studies suggest that this phenomenon may impact the next generation of players as well. A recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association  that examined the incidence of overweight players and obesity among 3,683 high school football linemen found that 45 percent were classified as overweight and 9 percent would be classified with severe obesity.

“As younger athletes in high school and college are encouraged to get larger for competitive reasons, these conditions may manifest themselves in younger and younger populations,” explains Dr. John Helzberg, FACG, Co-director of the Division of Gastroenterology, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Missouri- Kansas City School of Medicine, who co-authored the study.

Coaches aren’t encouraging high-school football players to get fatter.  They’re encouraging them to get heavier — by working out and putting on muscle.  That doesn’t harm your health; it improves you health.  (Even ABC figured that out.)  What would be truly unhealthy would be facing off against a defensive tackle who outweighs you by 40 pounds. 

That’s why the claim that 45 percent of high-school linemen are “overweight” is just stupid.  Remember, we’re talking Body Mass Index measurements here.  If you’re a six-foot male, you go into the “overweight” category as soon as you top 185 pounds.  A football lineman who doesn’t weigh at least that much goes into a different category:  it’s called guy about to get his @$$ kicked.

Okay, back to my software project …

I suppose the Starch Is Bad vs. Starch Is Good debate will go on for awhile, if not indefinitely.  What people like Matt Stone and I agree on wholeheartedly is that our diets should contain as much natural, whole food as possible.  Unfortunately, some state governments have made that nearly impossible, at least when it comes to dairy products.  More on that in a moment.

First, for you hard-core Paleo types out there, I realize dairy products aren’t Paleo.  It’s unlikely that Paleolithic humans tried to chase down wild, horned animals and milk them … and those who did probably made a dramatic exit from the gene pool. But unless someone can prove to me that butter and cheese are harmful, I’m going to keep eating them because they taste awesome. 

These days I buy Kerry Gold butter, which comes from grass-fed cows in Ireland.  Unlike Costco butter, which is nearly white, Kerry Gold is a deep yellow.  The first time I tasted it, I was transported back in time to my grandmother’s kitchen.  (Stupidly, I forgot to buy Microsoft stock in 1982 on the return trip.)  This is how butter tasted when Grandma served it.  It’s how butter is supposed to taste.

I also buy raw-milk cheese from a vendor at our local Farmers’ Market.  Some months ago, I went to see a naturopathic doctor in California because my digestion was sluggish.  His first piece of advice was to give up diet sodas completely.  So I did, after some backsliding.  Now I don’t even like the stuff.  The last time I bought a Diet Coke, I took a few sips and tossed the rest.  Yee-uck.

The doctor’s second piece of advice was to stop eating cheese — unless I could find locally-produced raw-milk cheese.  As he explained, raw milk cheese contains live enzymes that make it digestible.  But if you pasteurize the cheese to death to transport it across the country, it’s more like plastic — his words, not mine.

In Tennessee, raw milk seems to be semi-legal.  Some farmers sell it openly at the Farmers’ Market, but the farmer we prefer can’t …  because his farm is 40 miles away.  But if we request it ahead of time by sending an email, he can legally sell it to us.

When I heard that explanation, I tried several times to make sense of it, then stopped when I thought my head was about to explode.  Apparently, if the farmer drives a cooler full of raw-milk cheese 40 miles and then sells it to just anybody who wanders buy, the cheese will feel slutty and throw a temper-tantrum that results in an explosion of salmonella bacteria.  However, if I request the cheese ahead of time, the cheese views it as an arranged marriage and is happy.

A growing number of people who understand the benefits of eating real food want to buy raw milk, but can’t — at least not legally in many states.  Some manage to find it anyway.  To get an idea of the effort this requires check out this blog post: 

Just as promised, I found the milk in the fridge. “Nelson” was printed neatly on the glass with indelible ink on an otherwise unlabeled jar. No one was around except for a dog, who surveyed my intentions and went back to guarding the cows. I left the money on the counter and departed with my contraband.

This was actually the least secretive element in my quest to find raw milk. Getting here had required everything short of a secret handshake.

After delicately putting the word out that I was looking, I was interviewed by a local gatekeeper who gave me the name of someone else who would send me in the right direction. In order to get that far, I had to prove my bona fides. The gatekeeper wanted to know my experience with raw milk, an attempt to ascertain whether I was a state health official operating a sting.

You’d almost think some of these state regulators have confused raw milk with heroin.  In fact, it’s probably easier to score heroin. 

Curious about which states have outlawed raw milk, I checked the state-by-state listings on a Weston A. Price site, The Campaign For Real Milk.  Tennessee is still listed as a state that outlaws raw milk, so that’s old information.  At least I hope it is … a vendor at the Farmers’ Market here sells it.  Perusing the state laws confirmed one of my most deeply-held and cherished beliefs:  governments are inherently stupid.  Here are few examples:

Idaho
Even though state law permits the sale of raw milk if the farmer obtains a retail raw milk license,in practice the Idaho Dept. of Agriculture refuses to license anyone to sell raw milk. There has not been a retail raw milk licensee in the state for the past 15 years.

That’s an interesting way of handling it.  Maybe California could use that technique to reduce traffic congestion.
 “Sure, it’s legal to drive here, but you need a license.”
“Okay, where do I get a license?”
“Sorry, we don’t actually issue any.”
“But … I need to drive!”
“Then you’d better get a license.”

Illinois
Raw milk sales are legal on the farm if the farmer complies with the following conditions:

1. No advertising the sale of raw milk.
2. Customers must bring their own individual containers.
3. The customer MUST put the milk from your container into their container.

Okay, I see … the farmer has raw milk in a container.  If I take it home in that container, the milk will be contaminated.  But if the milk is poured from his container into a plastic milk jug that’s been sitting in my “to be recycled” bin for the past three weeks, the contamination goes away and the milk is now safe … but only if I do the pouring, and only if I didn’t find the farmer in the yellow pages. 

Kentucky
Raw milk sales are illegal with one exception: An individual with a written recommendation from a physician may purchase raw goat milk.

“So why do I feel so terrible, doctor?”
“According to your labs, you have a rare intestinal disorder.  It’s called Capralactinecessitis.”
“Oh my gosh!  Can it be treated?”
“Yes, but only if you drink milk that would kill a healthy person.  I’ll write a prescription.”

Maine
Raw milk sales are legal on the farm and in retail stores. Raw milk and raw milk products must have a label on the product containing the words “not pasteurized.” Farmers do not have to obtain permit to sell raw milk if their sales are only on the farm and they do not advertise.

No, that’s not particularly stupid.  I listed Maine because — Stephen King-style horrors! — raw milk is sold there, both on farms and in stores.  If the stuff is as dangerous as the detractors say it is (assuming you don’t neutralize the contaminants by pouring the milk into your own container), wouldn’t the population of Maine be dwindling by now?  Wouldn’t we have heard about it on the news?

Michigan
Raw milk sales are illegal. Michigan was the first state to pass mandatory pasteurization laws-the year was 1948-and has some of the strictest milk laws on the books. Farmers may not even sell raw milk from the farm. In 2002, at hearings on the revision of the Michigan State Dairy Code, the industry attempted to amend the code to make it illegal for dairy farmers, their family members, their farm workers, and even their farm animals to drink the farm’s raw milk.

“Open the door!  Police!  I said OPEN THE DOOR!  Okay, guys, kick it in.”
BOOM!  CRASH!
“Drop the bottle, lady!  I said drop it!  Starsky, grab the kid; he’s got a milk moustache!”
…
“So, what’re you in for, kid?”
“Well, I was milking Daisy and I took a sip.”

Minnesota
The Department of Agriculture prohibits the sale of raw dairy with the exception of “milk, cream, skim milk, goat milk, or sheep milk occasionally secured or purchased for personal use by any consumer at the place or farm where the milk is produced.” The farmer cannot advertise and customers must bring their own containers. The state interprets “occasionally secured or purchased for personal use” to mean that farmers cannot sell raw milk to regular customers on a routine basis.

So you can buy raw milk from a farm as long you don’t decide you like it and go back on a regular basis.  Great, we’ll have people showing up at farms wearing Groucho Marx glasses to avoid detection.  See, here’s the thing:  if the raw milk makes you sick, you won’t be going back.  That’s why I only tried vegetarian chili once.

Nevada
Raw milk sales are legal but, in practice, there are no raw milk sales in the state. In order for a farmer to obtain a permit from the state dairy commission to produce and distribute raw milk, the county milk commission must first certify the farm for the production of raw milk or a raw milk product. There has never been a county milk commission in existence at any time, so to this point, there has been a de facto prohibition of raw milk sales.

Most of us who saw “Brazil” took it as a warning.  Apparently some government folks took it as an inspiration.

New Jersey
Raw milk sales are illegal. To obtain other unpasteurized dairy products, residents travel to Pennsylvania and New York, which both allow raw milk.

“Waddaya want me to do with this jamook, boss?”
“Bury him in Pennsylvania, but transfer him to your own duffel bag so he don’t rot.  And pick up a gallon of raw milk while you’re out there.”

Pennsylvania
Raw milk sales are legal on the farm and in retail stores. Raw milk for retail producers must have a permit and can only sell to stores if they have their own packaging operation with labeling and bottling machines.

For Pete’s sake, didn’t the Pennsylvania regulators learn anything from the Great Raw Milk Massacre in Illinios?!  You can’t let the farmers bottle this stuff themselves!  You’ve got to make the consumers pour the milk into their own jugs, or all hell will break loose.

Rhode Island
Raw milk sales are illegal with one exception: An individual may purchase raw goat milk from a producer if that person has a written, signed prescription from a physician.

So that lady from Kentucky with Capralactinecessitis can live in at least one other state and still receive treatment.  Lucky break.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s late and a wedge of Baby Swiss beckons.  I expect to wake up tomorrow without experiencing any ill effects.

A reader asked to submit a brief article on what’s required to become a registered dietician.  I had mixed feelings about it, considering how much bad advice is dispensed by dieticians who’ve been brainwashed into following the Food Pyramid.  But what the heck, we need more people in the field who don’t swallow the “artery-clogging saturated fat” line.  So here it is:

Quick Facts about Being a Registered Dietitian

If your profession has something to do with food and nutrition, it is a
must for you to learn as much as you can about the field that you are in.
This is where your understanding about the basic facts of your specific
field proves to be useful.

For example, if you want to become an RD or a Registered Dietitian, your
primary role would be to promote good health through proper eating.  If
your service as a dietitian is required by a senior citizen, for example,
you will be responsible for preparing food and developing a modified diet
to suit the health requirements of the individual.

Dietitians are also involved in research, while those in the medical
community help patients get the nutrition that they need from artificial
sources if they are unable to consume food normally.

Frequently Asked Questions about Registered Dietitians

Now that you already have an idea about the basic role of an RD, take a
look at the following list of frequently asked questions regarding their
profession:

1. What are the requirements for being a Registered Dietitian?

If you want to become a Registered Dietitian, you need to complete an
internship of at least 900 hours.  However, a nutritionist who wants to
acquire state certification may or may not be required to complete the
same number of hours of internship.

Those who would like to become certified nutritionists with a licence to
practice in their respective states would be required to complete an
internship. This usually requires anywhere from six to twelve months of
internship. If you cannot commit yourself to doing a full-time internship,
there are part-time internship programs which would take about two years
to be completed.

2. Are there state-specific requirements when it comes to the credentials
that you need to have in order to become an RD?

The agency which provides the list of the 46 states which have regulating
laws for dietitians and nutritionists is the Commission on Dietetic
Registration.  This is the credentialing agency for the American Dietetic
Association or ADA – and they are the institution which sets up
requirements such as the 900 hours needed for an RD internship.

In states such as Washington, New Mexico, North Dakota and Maryland,
dietitian is actually different from a nutritionist – while other states
do not clearly define the difference between the two professions.

3. Which agency can you consult if you have further questions regarding
the RD profession?

Check with your state’s Board of Dietetics if you have any questions
regarding the internship requirements for your state.

All in all, whether you’re a nutritionist or an RD, what’s important is to
learn about the state-specific requirements of your profession beforehand
so that there is no confusion between the terms nutritionist and dietitian
as defined by your state’s laws.

About the Author

Amanda Clary writes a non commercial blog focused on her experience on
helping her family and friends to eat healthy. She is a “Nutritionist for
Hobby” and writes on the online nutrition certification blog to help people learn how to get certified and learn all the aspects related to this job (Skills, requisites, everyday problems, upgrading, etc.).

Some of you may already be familiar with Matt Stone, either from his own blog or from his always-interesting comments on this blog. Matt and I agree on many issues, but he’s taken me to task a few times for scaring people away from starches. I asked Matt to write a guest post to explain his views more fully. He graciously agreed. Here it is:

Just Say No to In-Breeding

by Matt Stone of 180DegreeHealth.com

In-breeding is just wrong. I mean, if two things are related to one another, they just shouldn’t be comingling. Things get nasty. People talk. Banjos run wild.

But it’s totally okay for insulin resistance and glucose to hook up. They can shag all night. Get married. Have kids with the normal 10 fingers and 10 toes. All kinds of good stuff. Nothing the least bit immoral or chromosomally risky about. Why? ‘Cuz glucose and insulin resistance are unrelated.

Recently, I was asked to do a guest blog post by Fat Head Master and Commander Tom Naughton, a man who I hold in the utmost regard for translating the work of Gary Taubes into something smart, clever, understandable, and friggin’ hilarious. It’s a tough task indeed — making Taubes palatable to a broad audience is like making a low-fat product taste good. You need lots of high-fructose corn syrup. Crap, bad example, Gary Taubes is a mad HFCS hater! And Naughton too! Don’t worry, I am too. I can usually count the grams of fructose I eat per week on one hand.

Round of applause for Tom. Tom contacted me to do this guest post PRECISELY because he knows that some of my research, theories, and therefore beliefs are not congruent with his and the rest of the low-carb crowd. That is the mark of a real researcher. It still amazes me how much the disease called “like-minded camaraderie” stifles the great health debate. Some low-carb gurus are more stubborn and set in their beliefs than frickin’ vegans. I won’t name any names.

So let’s take another look into insulin resistance, because one thing I can promise you is that it is more complicated than Glucose = Insulin = Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and Cancer. If you get absolutely nothing out of this article, if I lose you along the way, don’t forget that. Everyone who demonizes ANY macronutrient group, especially one that can be found in the milk of every mammal on earth, is a hopeless intellectual cripple.

To begin with, let’s look at just how fragile the Carbs = Disease hypothesis is. You thought the Fat = Disease hypothesis was comical in its simplicity and oversimplification, wait ’til you get a load of this! (Note: I’m not a fan of a low-fat diet, don’t think saturated fat is harmful, and am not a vegetarian, a food-combiner, calorie-counter, or any other kind of diet-dogma nutcase. I’m a researcher with an open mind who’s tried it all).

One of my favorite examples is that continent that eats a primarily low-fat, starch-based diet, but has health that is irrefutably better than the status quo in the United States and many European countries. It’s called Asia. In reference to the British article about Big Fat Lies in which starch was demonized, I created a fun game. It’s called “Count all the obese people on a low-fat, starch-based diet.” Feel free to participate.

Another fine example that shows the greater complexity of the issue of insulin resistance and the disease that stems from it — and its relationship to dietary carbohydrate — is that of the Pima Indians.

Now, wait a second. Didn’t Gary Taubes show that the Pima Indians of Arizona are now the most obese, diabetic, insulin-resistant people on earth? Yes, he did! That I won’t deny. What I’m talking about is the Mountain Pima of Northern Mexico. They don’t live on the American reservation and they continue to follow their traditional farming practices. Their diet does not consist of mostly meat, white flour fried in vegetable oil (fry bread), Pepsi products, alcohol, and packaged “food” products — like the diet of the American Pima. They are the genetic twins of the American Pima, but they, as Andrew Weil describes, “remain lean, active, and free of the diseases of Western civilization, while their relatives from the same gene pool have ballooned into the fat, hypertensive, diabetic Indians who are now so numerous in southern Arizona and northern Mexico.”

What their diet does consist of, in contrast to the American Pima, is EVEN MORE high-glycemic carbohydrates. Their staples are corn (gasp), potatoes (shriek), beans (Holy Lectins, Paleo Man!), and other grains and tubers, along with primarily game meats. Oh, and by the way, I’m not a big fan of Andrew Weil either. Dr. Santa has some kind of boner for soy products and eats enough fructose and polyunsaturated fat to, well, be fat.

What about fructose? Taubes talks about its unique metabolic property. He calls it “the most lipogenic carbohydrate.” Is this significant? I thought high-glycemic carbohydrates that raised our blood sugar and insulin levels the fastest caused insulin resistance and the constellation of metabolic syndrome. I wonder what Richard J. Johnson, author of The Sugar Fix (2008) has to say about that?

“…we have powerful direct evidence to show that consuming too much fructose-rich sugar and HFCS causes the toxic brew of conditions known as metabolic syndrome. Moreover, this same body of research suggests that starchy foods do not induce metabolic syndrome.”

“It’s worth noting here that the glucose in starchy foods may cause blood glucose levels to rise, which stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. But this is normal and healthy. Dietary glucose does not cause insulin resistance; fructose does.”

“And so begins a vicious cycle caused by eating high-GI foods, which overstimulate the pancreas. It’s an interesting theory, but it is not well supported by the metabolic facts. Stimulating the pancreas to produce insulin is not the problem. Your body is supposed to produce insulin when blood glucose levels rise, so that’s normal and healthy. It is insulin resistance that is closely linked to metabolic syndrome and weight gain. Glucose does not cause insulin resistance. Fructose does. Glucose does not trick your body into persistent hunger. Fructose does.”

Jesus, Dick, settle down. Take it easy, bro. We get the point. Ever think to enroll yourself in fructose-anger management class?

Of course, fructose is a low-glycemic carbohydrate. It causes the lowest blood sugar spike of any carbohydrate. It makes Pepsi (caffeine also can intensify insulin resistance), look like a better choice than a baked potato, when the metabolic effects of the two are as different as Anthony Colpo and Ghandi (they are both bald, but that’s about it). Hence the name of one of the chapters in my most recent book , “The Glycemic Index Catastrophe.”  This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to analyzing the glucose vs. fructose issue.  And that is one hell of a big iceberg involving leptin, the hormone with the greatest influence over metabolic rate, appetite, and levels of lipolysis (fat burning) and lipogenesis (fat storage) of any other biochemical. 

In fact, if you had to narrow down insulin resistance to one primary biochemical reason, it would be the state of “leptin resistance,” also thought to be caused primarily by fructose — whereas other dietary carbohydrates have the opposite effect. That’s why starch-based cultures in Asia and elsewhere don’t overeat, have healthy metabolisms, and are generally better off than people in places that put “sugar on top.”

So let me throw this out at you. Even if your blood sugar and insulin surge after ingesting potatoes or rice due to having insulin resistance, let it be known that those potatoes and rice didn’t cause your insulin resistance. Low-glycemic fructose played the heaviest hand in creating that fabulous metabolic state you find yourself in. Cortisol-triggering inflammation from omega 6 overload is a prime suspect as well. If you don’t believe that cortisol can trigger metabolic syndrome, then shoot yourself up with cortisone every day for a year and tell me how it goes for ya. Fructose, cortisol, and other factors, such as lack of key nutrients lost in the carbohydrate-refining process, all play a role.

Which brings up another key point. Refined and unrefined carbohydrates cannot be equated. Even Gary Taubes makes this general assertion in GCBC. T.L. “Peter” Cleave, author of Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease, on which Taubes built a large part of his hypothesis, hit the nail on the head when he stated on page 15 of that book:

“…carbohydrates should not be taken as a single group but as two very different groups; one being natural, unconcentrated carbohydrates, such as unrefined grains, potatoes, and fruits, and the other being unnatural, concentrated carbohydrates, notably refined flour and sugar.”

This was the conclusion he came to after seeing plainly that rural Zulus, eating an extremely high-carbohydrate diet, had none of the health problems of the urban Zulu, who ate a high refined-carbohydrate diet and had every facet of what Cleave called “The Saccharine Disease.” Sounds like metabolic syndrome to me:

“The saccharine disease includes dental decay and pyorrhea; gastric and duodenal ulcer and other forms of indigestion; obesity, diabetes, and coronary disease; constipation, with its complications of varicose veins and hemorrhoids; and primary Escherichia coli infections, like appendicitis, cholecystitis (with or without gall-stones), and primary infections of the urinary tract. The same applies to certain skin condition. Not one of these diseases is for practical purposes ever seen in races who do not consume refined carbohydrates.”

Taubes was right on track to echo this conclusion early on in GCBC (which is one hell of a badass book overall)…

“If cavities are caused primarily by eating sugar and white flour, and cavities appear first in a population no longer eating its traditional diet, followed by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, then the assumption, until proved otherwise, should be that the other diseases were also caused by these carbohydrates.”

… but veered into Keto Land when he stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, which is a massive, unfounded, unwarranted, unnecessary, and unfortunate leap.

Yep, it wasn’t until the Epilogue that he sings the praises of a ketogenic diet, which is, don’t say I didn’t warn ya, metabolic suicide if continued long-term. Trust me. My blog has become a sanctuary for low-carbers in metabolic rehab. And I low-carbed for 3 years and felt all the initial benefits too — weight loss, energy, clear skin, fewer allergies — then watched them all fade away, along with my emotional state, and come back with a vengeance. Low-carb is seldom a happily-ever-after, and don’t be stubborn if you start having problems with it. End rant.

The final question is simply, “Where do we go from here?”

If we, as a race of people, are becoming increasingly insulin-resistant — then does that mean that the right “diet for our metabolic type” is a low-carbohydrate diet? Well, it’s a huge step in the right direction that we have good folks like Michael Eades and Uncle Tom Naughton that can at least step outside of the “repeat after me: artery-clogging saturated fat” wacky world of the American Dietetic Association. Finally, we’re getting somewhere at least, and see that our woes are all about hormones, not willpower.

But I think the grandest solution is not to cater to the metabolic disorder known as insulin resistance by running from carbohydrates in fear. Rather, my ambition as a researcher and writer is to truly find the pathways that allow us to topple insulin resistance completely — freeing us to eat whatever macronutrient combo we feel like without compromising our health. We don’t have all the answers yet, but we’re making progress. Dropping my fasting and postprandial glucose levels by 25% recently is a testament to the fact that it can be done. Eating two baked potatoes with my blood sugar peaking at 75 mg/dl one hour later is a metabolic feat few can claim.

Most importantly, people are overcoming hypothyroid symptoms and a low body temperature very quickly, and without medication, by following some of my ideas. I think this is key, as the most successful doctor in history at preventing type 2 diabetes and heart disease (Broda Barnes) did so by keeping the metabolism high, but had to use medication to do it.

And therein lies the true danger of uber-low-carbohydrate diets. All my experience tells me that, the first few years aside, a low-carbohydrate diet and certainly a full-blown ketogenic diet exacerbates a low metabolism. It is not a matter of having a genetically-doomed dysfunctional thyroid gland; it is fixable, and it lies at the core of the health problems we’ve seen explode over the last century. This is why all prolonged restricted diets, low-carb included, in the words of Robert Atkins himself (from page 303 of Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution):

“…tend to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid principle, T3. The diagnosis is made on clinical grounds with the presence of fatigue, sluggishness, dry skin, coarse or falling hair, an elevation in cholesterol, or a low body temperature.”

To that I will add constipation, bad moods, heartburn, cold hands and feet, and a whole host of other minor but significant health problems. To get an idea of how “shutting down the thyroid” can manifest, Mark Starr’s chapter on Hypothyroidism symptoms is 83 pages long.

This is why the acronym FAD is thrown around 180DegreeHealth quite frequently. The AD stands for All Diets. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to what the F stands for.

Anyway, if you like compelling health conversation, stop by my blog at www.180degreehealth.blogspot.com. It is a cesspool of agenda-free health information and discussion. It is also free to become a member of my website and access long-winded but very fascinating monthly eZines and podcasts. Go to www.180degreehealth.com to get a piece a that.

Thanks everyone, and best of luck with your health pursuits. I hope that you too can someday achieve that blessed metabolic state that allows you to do what Tom’s son and way-out-of-his-league wife do: sit down and eat whatever they want, until they are full, without becoming obese or diabetic.

Thanks once again to Tom for keeping the conversation going. Clearly mankind hasn’t solved all the riddles of health yet. But thank the Lord Almighty that the low-carb movement got us all eating fatty meat and butter again. What a stupid phase that low-fat thing was!

Thank you, Matt, for sharing your research and your ideas. My wife is indeed out of my league, but fortunately for me, she doesn’t believe it. — Tom

A couple of interesting articles appeared in the British press this week. One was headlined The Big Fat Lies about Britain’s obesity epidemic, written by the author of a just-published book titled Big Fat Lies: Is Your Government Making You Fat?  (The title is a question.  The answer is yes.)  I haven’t seen the book and I’m not even sure if it’s available in the U.S., but the article is a great read … like a quick synopsis of Fat Head or Good Calories, Bad Calories.  Here are some edited quotes, with my comments:

For the past 30 years we’ve been told to eat less and exercise more, to cut back on calories and on saturated fat and, on the whole, we’re doing it. Our calorific intake between the years 1974 and 2004 decreased by 20 per cent. We are eating about 20 per cent more fruit and vegetables than in the Seventies. We are doing approximately 25 per cent more exercise than we were in 1997. But are our waist lines shrinking? No.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Jogging and joining a gym became popular here in the ’70s as well … along with pet rocks, Jimmy Carter, disaster movies, disco, and calling someone you just met to say, “Uh … I think you might need to go see your doctor for a test.”  I don’t remember anyone jogging or working out when I was a kid in the ’60s.  I also don’t remember seeing many fat people in our small town.

We’re following Government advice on how and what to eat, but that advice is so wrong it is actually making us fatter. The endless message of ‘eat less, do more’ has never been proven using proper clinical trials. And we’ve only started to get really fat since governments started promoting the current low-fat health messages, back in the early Nineties.

Ah, so we probably are fatter than the British.  Our government started pushing low-fat diets in the early ’80s, so we have a ten-year head start.

The Government’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), among others, is pumping out a template of a balanced diet that is based on flawed science that I believe is responsible for thousands of people developing health problems. The co-defendant in the dock with the Government is starch.

Thousands of people developing health problems?  What’s the population of the U.K.?  I’d say it’s probably more like millions, but I guess she’s being cautious.

Another big fat lie we are fed is that we should eat less fat. The simple message is: saturated fats are high in calories and are making us fat. Saturated fats cause heart disease. And most people believe that the fear of saturated fat is based on robust science - why else would the Government be putting out this advice?

In our country, it’s to sell all those subsidized grains.  In Britain, perhaps it’s to provide job security for the National Health Service.

Let’s look at the scientific evidence. When studies have been done with high saturated fat levels combined with low levels of starch and sugar, the subjects not only lost weight faster than the low-calorie, low-fat option but - perhaps more interestingly - the cholesterol profile of the subjects on the high-fat diet was better.

That’s what happened to me when Dr. Mike Eades challenged me to try a high-fat, low-starch diet and check my cholesterol before and after.  My cholesterol dropped and my HDL went up.  But I have to admit, I was kind of nervous waiting for those results to come back.

And the other lie we are fed: exercise more. There is no doubt that exercise is an excellent tool for weight maintenance and is fantastic for our general health. But what is really misleading is the idea that exercise will significantly help you to lose weight.

I attended the European Obesity Conference in 2006, at which Sir Neville Rigby, the former director of policy on the International Obesity Taskforce, referred to several major European studies showing categorically that exercise had no significant impact on the weight of the participants.

Since the conference, one of the studies that has added fuel to the doubters’ fire is the Early Bird Study in Plymouth. This lost its Government financial backing because it showed that exercise made no difference to the weight or weight loss of children.

Anyone who believes governments fund research because they’re interested in the truth should read that last sentence ten times — out loud.  And anyone who believes researchers funded by government grants don’t occasionally fudge their results to keep the money-spigot open should read it twenty times.  (I don’t actually believe reading the sentence twenty times will enlighten the “government is our savior” crowd, but given their slow comprehension, it should keep them occupied and out of trouble for a day or two.)

I’ve heard so many media pundits lamenting about all the lazy, fat Americans waddling around these days, I guess it’s oddly comforting to know our friends across the pond are dealing the same issues.  And I must admit, I felt the same way when I read about the those Swedish Weight Watchers members who collapsed the floor during their weekly weigh-in.  My media-induced impression was that everyone in Sweden is named Helga or Lars and looks like a model.

So the British government, like ours, is handing out advice that makes people fat.  That made it especially interesting to learn how a former leader of the British government trimmed down.  See if this diet, as explained in the online article, sounds familiar:

She fought hard to get the nation’s finances back in trim. But only now can the secret of Margaret Thatcher’s own diet be revealed - 28 eggs a week. The eggs, along with cucumber, spinach, tomatoes, steak and the odd swig of whisky, went towards a strict meal regime that promised to help her shed 20lb in two weeks.

The diet included a daily breakfast of grapefruit, one or two eggs, black coffee or clear tea. Two eggs were served in each weekday lunch, while steak, lamb chops and fish were the staple of most dinners.

Her political opponents probably wish the four eggs per day had given her a heart attack, but she’s 84 and still alive.  The Daily Mail published a graphic of the diet, which I’ve reproduced below.

Looks as if her only significant carbohydrates were grapefruit and a piece of dry toast here and there.  A half-grapefruit contains about 12 net carbs.  A piece of toast is around 20.  That means Ms. Thatcher was on something much like the induction phase of the Atkins diet. Naturally, one of the experts from the British Dietetic Association had to sound a warning:

These kinds of diets are very effective in losing weight quickly but you feel terrible because your blood sugar levels go right down.  You feel cold, shivery, lethargic, fuzzy-minded and weak and can get bad breath.

Ah yes, in populations where type 2 diabetes is at epidemic levels, we certainly wouldn’t want our blood sugars to go down.  We’ve got to keep that glucose spiking all day long to avoid feeling weak.  That’s why cavemen were such wimpy specimens — not enough bread in their diets.

I don’t doubt that some people feel shivery and lethargic after giving up refined carbohydrates.  It’s called withdrawal.  People who give up heroin don’t feel so hot either, but nobody looks at them and says, “Geez, you look terrible!  Shoot up, for Pete’s sake!”

According to the news stories, Ms. Thatcher wanted to lose weight more for the cameras than for her health.  Well, it’s sad but true: image matters in politics.  (If not, Richard Nixon would’ve been elected president in 1960 … although losing the cemetery vote in Chicago didn’t help his chances either.)  It’s tough to live up to the nickname “The Iron Lady” if the iron appears to be jiggling.

But apparently there’s plenty of jiggling going on in Britain these days, just as there is here.  Too bad our governments decided they should tell us how to eat.  Now they’re piling up huge debts to pay for the consequences (meaning we’re all piling up huge debts, since we pay the taxes.)  Pundits in both countries say our health-care systems are broken.  That may be true — but our health got broken first.

I probably shouldn’t be laughing about this, but I can’t help myself.  When a group of Weight Watchers members in Sweden got together recently for their regular weigh-in, the floor collapsed.  As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.  Here are some quotes from the online news story:

“We suddenly heard a huge thud; we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air,” one of about 20 group members said to the Smalandsposten newspaper. “The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls.”

After the initial collapse on Wednesday evening, the floor started to cave in other parts of the room, and the stench of sewage crept into the clinic, which is in Vaxjo, a city in south central Sweden. The group is looking for an alternate location for future meetings, Weight Watchers consultant Therese Levin told the Swedish paper.

 Since they were able to break the floor badly enough to stir up some sewage, I’m guessing these people were 1) brand-new members of Weight Watchers or 2) long-time members of Weight Watchers.

I’ve known a handful of people who joined Weight Watchers at least once — all women, by the way.  They all lost some weight.  And they all gained it back, usually with a few extra pounds as a going-away present. 

Given what Weight Watchers believes constitutes a good diet, I’m not surprised.  Their entire program is based on the belief that the federal government’s nutrition guidelines are actually based on something resembling science.  So Weight Watchers preaches the same guidelines:  fat is bad, a bit of protein is okay, and carbohydrates are wonderful.

I never joined Weight Watchers, but before I knew better, I did try living on their low-fat Smart Ones meals (along with Lean Cuisines and other diet meals I could nuke.)  By the end of the day, I’d be famished.  Eventually I’d give up and then, like most dieters, blame myself for not having any discipline.  Now I understand the problem wasn’t a lack of discipline; it was a lack of good nutrition.

To illustrate the problem, I went to the Weight Watchers site and put together a sample diet for one day.  Since I’m a male, I allowed myself about 1700 calories.  Figuring three meals and couple of side dishes, I chose a breakfast sandwich, angel hair pasta with marinara, chicken enchiladas, chicken on grilled flatbread, mac and cheese, and rice and beans.  That’s a pretty fair sample of the kind of meals I chose back in the day.  Here’s how they add up:

Total Calories: 1673
Fat: 37 grams
Protein: 77 grams
Carbs: 258 grams

As a percent of total calories, it works out to 20% fat, 18% protein, and 62% carbohydrates — just what the FDA prescribes.  It’s also a prescription for hunger.

If you’re a regular reader or have seen Fat Head, you already know that fat is the most satiating macronutrient …  in addition to being cricual for mood, hormone formation, vitamin absorption, etc.  I won’t go into the many wonders of fat here, except to say that this diet contains far too little of it.  That’s one reason I was so hungry.

The diet is also too low in protein.  The FDA would approve, but not the people who actually know what they’re talking about, like Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades.  According to their calculations, I need more like 120 grams of protein per day.  Eating too little protein produces exactly the kind of physical effects dieters don’t want.

For one, it’ll make you hungry — never mind the calories.  Research shows that primates eat until they satisfy their protein requirements.  If the food is low in protein, they’ll eat more of it.  Here are some quotes from an article on the subject:

Nutritional ecologist Professor David Raubenheimer’s just-published collaborative study with international colleagues found the Bolivian rainforest spider monkey regulates protein intake by eating greater quantities of low protein/high carbohydrate foods when protein-rich foods are not available.

“This is interesting because our experiments show that humans do the same,” says Professor Raubenheimer from the University’s Institute of Natural Sciences at Albany. The consequence is the current obesity epidemic.

Professor Raubenheimer has been involved in a range of similar studies on other primates, as well as human subjects in Australia, the Philippines and Jamaica, to observe how the protein content of their diets influences energy intake.

The findings, published in the latest issue of the journal Behavioural Ecology, reinforce the theory that humans and other primates are physiologically predisposed to maintain a constant level of protein in their diets. But when the range of foods available to them is low in protein (yet high in fats and carbohydrates) they are compelled to eat greater quantities in order to maintain correct protein levels.

Trust me, I definitely felt compelled to eat greater quantities.  I just didn’t allow myself to, at least until I couldn’t stand it anymore. 

The other problem with eating too little protein is muscle loss.  I’ve heard some researchers claim people lose the same amount of weight on almost any diet if the calories are controlled — that hasn’t been my experience, but let’s suppose it’s true.  So what?  The point of dieting isn’t really to lose weight, it’s to lose fat.  Digesting your own muscles is a lousy idea.  In Protein Power, Drs. Eades & Eades wrote:

On typical low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets, protein intake is often marginal, and as a result as much as 50 percent of weight loss can be muscle weight.  Each pound of active muscle mass lost reduces your rate of metabolism.

Now, a pound of muscle loss isn’t going to dramatically affect your metabolism, but I don’t think most people – especially men — go on a diet hoping to shed a few pounds off their biceps and pecs.  Muscle makes a body look good, whether the body is male or female.

The biggest problem with the diet is, of course, the 62% carbohydrates.  If you’re insulin resistant — and most fat people these days are — all those carbs are going to drive up your insulin and tell your body to store a disproportionate share of the 1673 calories as fat.  Then you’ll starve at the cellular level and really feel hungry.  Keep it up, and you’ll probably make your insulin resistance worse.

And as I learned from an excellent article by Dr. Doug McGuff, insulin resistance can also shrink your muscles.  Dr. McGuff wondered why so many fat people have weak muscles — they are, after all, hauling a lot of weight around.  That ought to make them stronger, but usually doesn’t.  Here’s an edited version of what he figured out (the full article is worth the read):

The key to the paradox of the obese-yet weak client was insulin sensitivity. The modern Western diet is very high in refined carbohydrates when compared to the diet in our evolutionary past. In the face of very high carbohydrate intake, one’s glycogen stores will become completely full. Once the glycogen stores are completely full, glucose will begin to stack up in the blood stream. The evolutionary-based response is to increase insulin to drive more glycogen storage. However, pushing more glucose into a cell whose glycogen stores are full can be very damaging.

In the chronically overfed state, the body protects itself by decreasing the sensitivity of insulin receptors on the muscle cells and preserving (actually increasing) insulin sensitivity on the fat cells. By this mechanism blood sugar can be held in check without making the interior of the cells a syrupy mess, and energy is stored for future starvation (which never comes). The problem is, insulin not only controls glucose homeostasis, it is a major hormone for nutrient storage and all of the anabolic processes of the body. In the state we describe above, a vicious form of nutrient partitioning begins to occur. Nutrients used for growth and differentiation are shunted away from the muscle and the liver and are diverted to body fat. The muscles become smaller and weaker and the liver becomes infiltrated with fat as it desperately tries to produce VLDL.

Not a pretty picture, is it?  I know, because by the time I was 14, I was a fat kid with skinny muscles.  I finally started reshaping my body a bit when my older brother bought some barbells and more or less insisted we work out together.  Our high-school health teacher also us to cut back on sugar, potatoes and bread if we wanted to lose weight, so I did.  Then the low-fat diet craze hit, and I got stupid all over again.

Now I’m at least smart enough to know that Smart Ones aren’t going to help most people lose weight and keep it off, and neither will Weight Watchers.  They claim a success rate of nearly 50%, based on a study they funded.  But it’s interesting how they came up with that figure. 

First off, the study only included people who were already lifetime members.  To become a lifetime member, you have to reach your goal weight and stay there for six weeks.  That means all the people who yelled “I’m starving!” and quit after a month or so were excluded …  as were all the people who stuck it out but didn’t reach their goal weight.

After five years, most of the lifetime members included in the study had regained at least half of what they lost —  but Weight Watchers defined “success” as weighing 5% less than when they first joined.  So if you started at 200 pounds, reached your goal weight of 170, and went back up to 190, you were counted as successful.  Wow.  Sounds like “budget-cutting” in Washington.

A blogger analyzed the study, crunched his own numbers based on Weight Watchers’ enrollment figures, and calculated something closer to 6% of all members ever reaching their goal weight and staying there for six weeks … and when he crunched them again, counting only people who stayed at their goal weight for five years, he calculated a success rate of about two in a thousand.

I’d say the best thing Weight Watchers could do is reinforce their floors.