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
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
It’s always useful to hear other people’s ideas and we shouldn’t dismiss them just because they don’t agree with ours.
However, if you’re on a hill and you know you’re on a hill, but someone else’s map says you’re not, who do you believe? Yourself or someone else’s map?
I know what makes me feel as if I’m having a heart attack and it’s any starch and sugar. I’m not going to eat starchy food and feel awful just to keep someone else happy and boost their egos or book sales.
Why do so many people think that just because they’ve found a way that works for them that it’s got to work for everyone else too?? We all need to find our own way.
It’s good to advise and offer alternatives, but sometimes these discussions just feel a bit too much like someone’s ego trip.
That’s why I think we all have to find the diet that fits our own bodies. The Asians are an interesting example, but of course we’re talking about a different ancestry. Most Europeans can drink milk, but most Asians can’t. They don’t have the lactose-tolerating gene. I wouldn’t expect them to look at Europeans and conclude that milk is okay for Asians too; by the same token I’m not going to assume a diet based on rice will work for me.
I doubt I could ever consume as many starches at Matt does without negative effects, but I think his ideas are worth looking into for people who don’t do well on the kind of diet that works for me.
Shane, there are many studies on the positive effects of carbohydrates on thyroid function.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1249190?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=137
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/744060?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=136
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/500814?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=134
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7064875?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=19
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6257866?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=21
i have been following Matt’s blog for a while now. i agree with a lot of what he has to say, however getting the information and answers is hard to come by.
1- you have to pay to read his “research and opinions.” He’s got no credit for what he does, ie, a degree in anything, but you need to pay for his stuff? thats a bit far stratched
2- a quick skim in the comments section shows all the women who try his low fructose diet are constantly gaining weight, and not just a little bump in weight either
3- there is no prescription as to diet on his whole website…he harks about vegetable oil and fructose which i fully agree with… but where are the recommendations?
Also, it seems to “limit” protein consumption, thus making it a “diet”…so where are the sources coming from? what foods are low fructose? what foods are good to eat (white vs sweet potatoes…what about byurate?)? the naturally occuring carbs in vegetables are from fructose, so is this a veggie-less diet? starch and fat, low veggie and low meat? what qualifies as a “tuber” and what would a starchy vegetable be considered as-high fructose?
and how…with out spending gobs of dinero on grassfed products is one supposed to get their omega-3’s?
rice? natural?
potatoes…grown in comercial rancid soil?
what about oats?
cornmeal?
grits?
and beans (chickpeas and the such)… low fructose, edible? GI?
Hmm, I’ve been following Matt for a while now since my son introduced me to him. I enjoy his iconoclastic ideas, though I’m not sure how much the self-experimentation of a young man my son’s age, who clearly does not have a seriously damaged metabolism, can apply to a 50-something post-menopausal woman who has been morbidly overweight for 25 years.
I’m not sure we all fit into one mold either. For me I’ve found low carb has been more satisfying, and better for all-around health and weight loss, than anything else I have tried. I don’t go to ketogenic lows, and try to keep my carbs above the 50g level that Dr. Broda Barnes thought was the minimum for people with thyroid issues (I have Hashimoto’s disease). On the low carb message boards I frequent I find people who didn’t feel well and lose weight until they went to an essentially zero-carb all-meat diet. And also people who didn’t feel well and lose weight until they increased their carbs up to levels of about 100g a day.
I’ve mostly been following Kwasniewski-type ratios and foods. I like to eat plenty of eggs. I try to vary my proteins and eat sardines 2-3 times a week, and I like to have chicken livers every other week or so. I could never be one of these “ground beef and water only” eaters, although I do drink mostly only water.
But over the last year I have also come to believe that starches are the least harmful of carbs, and now use brown rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes as my primary carb sources. I avoid all high-PUFA vegetable oils, avoid HFCS and sugars, avoid almost anything “refined”. My diet is still high in fat ala Kwasnieski, mostly grass-fed butter, lard, bacon grease, coconut oil, very occasionally splashes of olive oil if I want a lipid that is liquid at room temperature.
But I’m not as low-carb as I once was. Yesterday I went to a Thai restaurant for lunch and had spicy pork with brown rice. My son gave me Matt’s totally awesome sweet potato recipe and now it’s all I can do not to make it every day! It is one of the best recipes I’ve ever tried, and it makes me ill to think of having sweet potatoes with pineapple and marshmallow!
I tend to avoid most fruits but I’m not religious about it. We have a summer home in Canada that has about 5 acres of wild blueberries, and when I go there during the blueberry season I have to have some. But these days it’s blueberries with freshly whipped (unsweetened) cream – and not blueberry pies full of sugar with white-flour crusts.
Of course my metabolism is still tanked as I lose weight at around a rate of 1 pound every month or two, even though I still have lots of weight to lose! I don’t think anyone yet has found the magic bullet that allows fat people to become like normal people in any effortless fashion.
I believe we’re all different too. I need to keep the total carb count down or I don’t feel so hot. I don’t think I could ever get away with consuming 200-300 carbs per day again, even if it’s all sweet potatoes and brown rice. My composer also had health issues until he cut back on his rice consumption, which was his main source of carbohydrates.
I’m a little confused about the “complex carbs in moderation are okay” message from Matt.
And that everyone seems to be talking mostly weight loss.
As far as I know, all grains, especially whole grains, contain phytates, lectins and gluten, all of which damage the intestinal tract and cause poor mineral absorption to occur. All legumes contain lectins which do that thing called hormone-mimicry and can cause your body to attack itself. Even in moderation, that sounds dangerous to play with.
I’m not about the weight loss or “low” carb, although it doesn’t seem to be specified what “low” carb is. According to the SAD, “low carb” is anything under 200 or 300 grams per day. According to Paleo, “low carb” is anything under 100g per day. And according to fanatics “low carb” is under 50 or even 20 g per day.
I try to aim for 100 grams of carbs a day in the form of vegetables (which contain glucose, not fructose, if I’m not mistaken) and low GI fruits that don’t send my insulin into the clouds.
I noticed that one of the blogs that Matt follows actually promotes you to eat table sugar / fruit juice / fruits “every single day”…. um, I’m sorry?
See here: http://diet-fucked.blogspot.com/
And can anyone confirm what I’m seeing? And can anyone explain to me how someone can promote eating sugar to help you lose fat?
I think one of the keys to a higher carb diet is, you need a lot of animal fat (think how people used to eat, even in the 1940s: fatty meat, potatoes drenched in butter, veggies with butter). I truly believe it’s the low-fat, high-carb diets that screw up the metabolism (even Asians cook with lard, etc.), plus the lack of nutrients in food (the body is literally starved of nutrients). I’ve come around to a Weston A. Price way of eating and have put on maybe a couple of lbs. I had gone through an eating disorder a couple of years ago and a brief low-carb stint so my metabolism got messed up – but I have never been overweight. It seems to be working well now, but I’ve never taken my body temperature to check. I eat fruit (1-2 pieces/day, no more), but I barely eat any sugar and never, ever anything with hfcs. Lots of fat (and a protein) anytime I eat a carb, and that seems to help me avoid blood sugar issues and weight gain. Plus, all really nutrient-dense food.
Is this supposed to be a new controversy? The Weston A. Price Foundation has been tussling with low carbers and paleos about this forever, not the mention the people touting traditional Native American Diets like Born to Run and Gary Nabhan.The truth is that not eating complete trash like sugary drinks and wheat tortillas is usually sufficient to prevent obesity and diabetes. Paleo is about going beyond just not being fat and many people do it to heal autoimmune problems caused by SAD diets.
The thing that might be problematic about Matt Stone’s diet is that I don’t see lots of mentions of traditional preparations of grains and legumes that all traditional societies practiced such as soaking and fermentation. Look at the teeth of the people in that video…they may not be fat, but white rice is maybe not so great for your teeth…though perhaps they are also getting inadequate amounts of other nutrients. I did a post on my own blog awhile back about how poor SE Asians sometimes feed their children ONLY RICE and don’t allow them to eat the seafood the adults eat (http://huntgatherlove.com/content/traditional-foolishness).
My involvement with WAPF has taught me so much about traditionally preparing foods and I am really grateful because I can consume some fermented beans without problems. I am more of a gourmand than many paleo dieters and I would be unhappy if I couldn’t use kimchee or miso. WAPF emphasizes traditionally prepared grains, dairy, legumes, etc. but also emphasizes that you also need lots of things like fatty offal and oily fish. From Nabhan’s work I have also learned how many varieties of food you find in the store are bred just for yields and that Native people had hundreds more varieties because they were breeding for various nutrients. Brown rice from the store might not be the best thing to prescribe for people. I order my rice online from a Native American seed bank project (http://nativeharvest.com/) and I ferment it.
Anecdotally I do notice that WAPFers and others I know who eat traditional agrarian diets tend to gain weight as they get older, though maybe that’s not a bad thing since some weight seems to be protective later in life. My grandmother eats a traditional diet and she is a little overweight, but she is 95 and healthier than anyone I know.
A fascinating read. I, too, am interested in what happens metabolically over the long term on low-carb diets. I viewed going into this as something of an experiment with myself as The Lab Rat and I continue to do so and will keep an open mind. From my extensive but by no means exhaustive reseearch into all this, I believe Atkins had it right regarding bringing back carbs on a one-at-a-time basis to see how your body reacts to them and then to adjust as required from there.
However, what I will NEVER do is go back to the same-old Fat Ass Standard American ‘Diet’.
Charise asked, “I noticed that one of the blogs that Matt follows actually promotes you to eat table sugar / fruit juice / fruits “every single day”…. um, I’m sorry?
See here: http://diet-fucked.blogspot.com/
And can anyone confirm what I’m seeing? And can anyone explain to me how someone can promote eating sugar to help you lose fat?”
If you click on the link and read some of the comments, we find this from Matt Stone:
Matt Stone said…
Fructose inhibits fat storage! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since I read that directly from Peat himself.
Peat believes that because fructose does not stimulate insulin, that it is therefore less fattening. Not so.
Insulin greatly diminishes hunger. Eating a food that doesn’t raise insulin makes you want to eat more. Insulin is a hunger-suppressing hormone.
Insulin only triggers hunger once it has caused hypoglycemia. This is why giving insulin to rodents triggers them to eat and eat and eat in an attempt to raise blood sguar levels in the face of an insulin cascade.
Instead, fructose is directly converted into fat via the liver, where it inhibits the function of insulin. Then the body does not respond to insulin, insulin levels go considerably higher (spiking neurotransmitters that later lead to withdrawals and addictive eating behavior in those with addiction-prone neurochemical profiles), and you’re then in trouble.
This is why studies show that the combination of fructose and glucose together, as in refined sugar, cause the greatest levels of hyperinsulinemia. The appetite-suppressing effect of insulin does not kick in, but the fattening nature of insulin is still present.
What, do you and Peat just think this is make believe? Why hasn’t our 30% + increase in fructose consumption saved us from obesity?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/34669.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/125848.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/125739.php
You guys need to remove some of your eggs from the Peat basket.
Diversify your research to include:
William Dufty
T.L. Cleave
John Yudkin
Nancy Appleton
Connie Bennett
E.M. Abrahamson
Melvin Page
Rameil Nagel
Just because someone follows a blog doesn’t mean they agree with everything written there.
Yo peeps,
If you want some more answers, recommendations, and “prescriptions” then go to Matt’s blog, scroll down about 2/3 of the way and click on Diana Schwarzbein there on the right. Read all 18 posts that mention her and you’ll know more. Or just read her book “The Schwarzbein Principle II: The Transition” which is basically “how to fix/prevent a broken metabolism by eating food and lots of it, even carbs.”
And yes, you can get TONS of info from Matt without paying a cent. Blog = free. Subscribing to monthly eZines and weekly podcasts = free. Asking him stuff = free. Hearing a voice of reason and learning to ask more of the right questions = priceless.
I went lower carb/paleo about 3 years ago. I had a glucose tolerance test done (you know the one where they slam you with sugar, then do a blood glucose test 2 hours later to see how you handle it). Previous to going primal, my glucose tolerance test was 198, not good! Now after two hours it’s 100. (Anything below 140 is considered normal).
I feel great, my blood pressure is 20 points lower and my blood sugar is totally normal, even when they test it with a glucose tolerance test. And my insulin level, fasting, is just 2.
So why would I go back to eating bread and cereals?
I was digging around and I found this article on the Livin La Vida Low Carb Blog about the issue of fructose. The best thing is it includes commentary from Gary Taubes.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/sugar-fix-author-blames-fructose-alone-for-obesity-but-taubes-counters/
That’s a good post, and it confirms what I said about Gary being open-minded on the issue. This sums it up:
“There are four questions here that are key, and I don’t think any can be answered definitively: 1) is fructose alone the problem? 2). Is it worse or particularly noxious, as I suggest in the book, when it’s packaged with glucose, as it is in sugar and HFCS? 3) Does this mean high-glycemic index carbohydrates–white flour and white rice, for instance–are relatively harmless if fructose and so sugar and HFCS is not in the diet? And once sugar and HFCS have caused, say, obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, can you cure the problem only by removing the fructose, but not the glucose?“
The last question is the one I believe I’ve answered at least in my own case. Eating starches (glucose, but not fructose) still causes me to gain weight. If I’d never gotten fat by over-consuming fructose, that might not be the case, but it is now.
I also want to point out another brilliant concept put forth by Scwarzbein (and thus Matt):
If you gain weight from eating real food (whether it be butter, steak, or potatoes) then you have a damaged metabolism. Healing the metabolism usually involves gaining weight (depending on age and extent of damage). However the weight that you put on is not just fat, it is muscle mass, bone density and the replacing of other functional and structural biochemicals your body needs to repair itself and function at optimal levels. You didn’t damage your metabolism overnight, therefore you won’t heal it overnight. It takes time and patience and faith.
Okay that was more than one concept, but you get the gist.
I believe we all have varying tolerances for different foods, processed or not. My wife’s metabolism clearly isn’t damaged — she snapped right back to 120 pounds after each child and never has to try to keep her weight down. But when she left the Peace Corps, she weighed 145. In pictures taken then, her face is clearly rounder.
That was after two years of living in a village where the dietary staple was millet — locally grown, unprocessed. Living on whole grains made her fatter. She wasn’t eating sugar or fruit because it wasn’t available, except on rare trips to the big city.
She said most of the women she knew in the Peace Corps also gained weight, and they were all eating millet or rice. Interestingly, most of the men she knew lost weight … they didn’t get any fatter, but lost muscle mass.
As soon as she returned stateside and resumed a diet that was less dominated by starch, she snapped back to 120.
Now that I’ve lost 60 pounds and am within 10 of my rough goal I have added more cards, except it’s exclusively from potato, squash, etc. — still real food. Even still, I cycle stuff. Some days I fast, some days I’m zero to VLC, and some days I’m maybe up to 150g.
Still losing weight. I think the issues with grains & legumes are the autoimmune and other issues already mentioned.
That’s the biggest reason I avoid wheat for the most part. Eat very much of it, I get arthritic pains. So I figure it’s not good for me, even when I don’t eat enough of it to feel the pain. The rare pizza or burger on a bun is about it.
To Mallory, Charise, and other skeptics of Matt Stone and his message,
I can relate to your apprehensions over accepting nutritional guidance handed down from a bloggerhead with no real credentials to his name. I’d wager most individuals browsing Tom’s blog ruined their health placing blind faith in mainstream nutritional wisdom, only to experience further deterioration as they turned in desperation to loony diet guru’s promoting veganism, zero-carbomania. Having been fooled so many times by seemingly well intentioned zealots with an axe to grind, a purse to fill, or party-line to tow, why should we take seriously the rants of a goofball with nothing but a blog and force of conviction to his name?
I’ll tell you why. Matt Stone is not your run-of-the-mill health blogger. Although he may sound rigid in his views, he is not only receptive to, but actually seeks out cognitive dissonance. His concern is not with maintaining and spreading blind faith in an idealized diet/lifestyle. Rather, he operates like a scientist, constantly updating and revising his theories in order that they conform more closely with reality. In line with his goal, his research has been expansive and open-ended. Although Matt does not have a medical degree — and therefor may not be able to wade through dense published medical articles with the same facility or level of comprehension as, say, stephen at wholehealthsource — he probably has developed a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying nutritional/metabolic theories advanced by nutritionists and doctors alike in the past century than just about any credentialed “expert” you will ever meet. He does this because its his passion. He only charges money for some of his work because, huge dork that he is, this passion of his has kind of taken over his life. Guy’s gotta make a living some how.
Over the past three years, as he has gobbled through tombs of nutrition literature, his views have radically evolved. At each stage, he spoke as if he had finally attained nutritional enlightenment, only to change his mind a few months later upon exposure to conflicting information or new perspectives on old information. Some would view his inability to stick rigidly to a specific set of internally consistent dietary stipulations as vice, but I see this as his strongest virtue; it has enabled him to avoid the confirmation bias pitfall most nutrition researches fall into. Over the past couple of years, his principal theories HAVE grown more stable, suggesting he has refined his ideas to the point where they are internally consistent with the preponderance of legitimate research.
Nonetheless, his site is not, and has never been about creating packaged diets or scheduled meal plans. If you want somebody to tell you that you should eat twelve sticks of celery and two sheep livers for breakfast, three liters of distilled water for lunch, and sack of hay for dinner, then Matt’s blog is not the place for you. Nor is it the place for you if you are afraid of being exposed to contradictory ideas. Matt Stone is a “follower” of the dietfucked site because its two publishers, “harper” and “chloe,” were formerly active commenters on the 180 degree blog who took perhaps too seriously the ideas of a certain endocrinologist with brilliant but just as often misguided insights into the human metabolism. Matt never agreed with Harper or Chloe that binging on sugar and orange juice was a smart idea, but he embraced their active participation on his blog because it made for some interesting conversation and debate. Although he disagreed with them, he choose to link their blog because they are, like him, interested interested in improving health and well being through nutrition.
I’m no evangelist for the 180 crusade. Matt Stone certainly doesn’t have all the answers, nor do I expect he ever will, but he is a passionate researcher, a powerful thinker, and, in my opinion, a man of high integrity. I’d sooner take his advice than my doctor’s any day.
My ancestors didn’t eat much starch and almost no grains (back hills Welsh). so I’m afraid I don’t get away with much in that category. But I don’t count carbs either, if it’s a fruit or vegetable I can eat it.
I did find this post very interesting, especially the info about how fructose contributes to diabetes. I suspected that it did but had never thought about it overriding a built in mechanism. That really makes alot of sense, I found it no surprise that diabetes rates soared when HFCS came on the market. The scary thought is, what else is it doing? I also agree that you can’t go wrong with whole foods.
I believe my Irish ancestors weren’t big starch-eaters either, despite living on potatoes late in the game.
I think part of the problem is: there’s what a normal healthy person should be able to eat while staying fit and healthy, and then there’s what you need to eat to GET fit and healthy after years of abuse with modern food products. Those may be two very different things. I still haven’t seen any evidence that our bodies NEED carbs in the normal course of things. But someone whose metabolism is really messed up may BENEFIT from some carbs because of the neurotransmitter production they trigger. A certain level of carbs may spur the energy that they need to stick with the program. I don’t think that means anyone should go HIGH-carb, but some may benefit from more carbs than others. You’re surely better off having 50g/day than 20g/day for four days followed by a 200g binge day because you just couldn’t take the cravings anymore.
Like Tom, I know that I can’t go hog wild on starches. I’ve tried it, and I know what happens. A couple hours after a plate full of potatoes, my BG will be around 180-200, and a couple hours after that it’ll be crashing (the lowest I’ve seen it a few hours after a carb binge was 37, and yes, I was pretty shaky). If Matt can eat a lot of starches, good for him, and maybe I’ll be able to again someday without having to worry about seizures, but I can’t at this point.
Potatoes are about the only starch that isn’t a lot of trouble, if you’re trying to follow a traditional diet. All the grains and legumes must be soaked at the very least, and many need to be fermented for a day or more. Some need special treatment, like corn needing to be soaked in lime water. This isn’t about just having buns on your burgers and crust on your pizza again–not if you’re trying to do anything authentically paleo, anyway.
That’s why I think the key is to listen to your body. If I eat a steak, salad and side of broccoli covered with melted butter, I merely feel full. Swap the broccoli for a baked potato with butter, and I feel bloated and uncomfortable, then tired.
But Matt’s key point — it’s not starches that make us insulin resistant in the first place — could well be true, regardless of how potatoes affect me now.
Charise asked, “I noticed that one of the blogs that Matt follows actually promotes you to eat table sugar / fruit juice / fruits “every single day”…. um, I’m sorry?
See here: http://diet-fucked.blogspot.com/
And can anyone confirm what I’m seeing? And can anyone explain to me how someone can promote eating sugar to help you lose fat?”
If you click on the link and read some of the comments, we find this from Matt Stone:
Matt Stone said…
Fructose inhibits fat storage! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since I read that directly from Peat himself.
Peat believes that because fructose does not stimulate insulin, that it is therefore less fattening. Not so.
Insulin greatly diminishes hunger. Eating a food that doesn’t raise insulin makes you want to eat more. Insulin is a hunger-suppressing hormone.
Insulin only triggers hunger once it has caused hypoglycemia. This is why giving insulin to rodents triggers them to eat and eat and eat in an attempt to raise blood sguar levels in the face of an insulin cascade.
Instead, fructose is directly converted into fat via the liver, where it inhibits the function of insulin. Then the body does not respond to insulin, insulin levels go considerably higher (spiking neurotransmitters that later lead to withdrawals and addictive eating behavior in those with addiction-prone neurochemical profiles), and you’re then in trouble.
This is why studies show that the combination of fructose and glucose together, as in refined sugar, cause the greatest levels of hyperinsulinemia. The appetite-suppressing effect of insulin does not kick in, but the fattening nature of insulin is still present.
What, do you and Peat just think this is make believe? Why hasn’t our 30% + increase in fructose consumption saved us from obesity?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/34669.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/125848.php
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/125739.php
You guys need to remove some of your eggs from the Peat basket.
Diversify your research to include:
William Dufty
T.L. Cleave
John Yudkin
Nancy Appleton
Connie Bennett
E.M. Abrahamson
Melvin Page
Rameil Nagel
Just because someone follows a blog doesn’t mean they agree with everything written there.
I was digging around and I found this article on the Livin La Vida Low Carb Blog about the issue of fructose. The best thing is it includes commentary from Gary Taubes.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/sugar-fix-author-blames-fructose-alone-for-obesity-but-taubes-counters/
That’s a good post, and it confirms what I said about Gary being open-minded on the issue. This sums it up:
“There are four questions here that are key, and I don’t think any can be answered definitively: 1) is fructose alone the problem? 2). Is it worse or particularly noxious, as I suggest in the book, when it’s packaged with glucose, as it is in sugar and HFCS? 3) Does this mean high-glycemic index carbohydrates–white flour and white rice, for instance–are relatively harmless if fructose and so sugar and HFCS is not in the diet? And once sugar and HFCS have caused, say, obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, can you cure the problem only by removing the fructose, but not the glucose?“
The last question is the one I believe I’ve answered at least in my own case. Eating starches (glucose, but not fructose) still causes me to gain weight. If I’d never gotten fat by over-consuming fructose, that might not be the case, but it is now.
Now that I’ve lost 60 pounds and am within 10 of my rough goal I have added more cards, except it’s exclusively from potato, squash, etc. — still real food. Even still, I cycle stuff. Some days I fast, some days I’m zero to VLC, and some days I’m maybe up to 150g.
Still losing weight. I think the issues with grains & legumes are the autoimmune and other issues already mentioned.
That’s the biggest reason I avoid wheat for the most part. Eat very much of it, I get arthritic pains. So I figure it’s not good for me, even when I don’t eat enough of it to feel the pain. The rare pizza or burger on a bun is about it.
To Mallory, Charise, and other skeptics of Matt Stone and his message,
I can relate to your apprehensions over accepting nutritional guidance handed down from a bloggerhead with no real credentials to his name. I’d wager most individuals browsing Tom’s blog ruined their health placing blind faith in mainstream nutritional wisdom, only to experience further deterioration as they turned in desperation to loony diet guru’s promoting veganism, zero-carbomania. Having been fooled so many times by seemingly well intentioned zealots with an axe to grind, a purse to fill, or party-line to tow, why should we take seriously the rants of a goofball with nothing but a blog and force of conviction to his name?
I’ll tell you why. Matt Stone is not your run-of-the-mill health blogger. Although he may sound rigid in his views, he is not only receptive to, but actually seeks out cognitive dissonance. His concern is not with maintaining and spreading blind faith in an idealized diet/lifestyle. Rather, he operates like a scientist, constantly updating and revising his theories in order that they conform more closely with reality. In line with his goal, his research has been expansive and open-ended. Although Matt does not have a medical degree — and therefor may not be able to wade through dense published medical articles with the same facility or level of comprehension as, say, stephen at wholehealthsource — he probably has developed a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying nutritional/metabolic theories advanced by nutritionists and doctors alike in the past century than just about any credentialed “expert” you will ever meet. He does this because its his passion. He only charges money for some of his work because, huge dork that he is, this passion of his has kind of taken over his life. Guy’s gotta make a living some how.
Over the past three years, as he has gobbled through tombs of nutrition literature, his views have radically evolved. At each stage, he spoke as if he had finally attained nutritional enlightenment, only to change his mind a few months later upon exposure to conflicting information or new perspectives on old information. Some would view his inability to stick rigidly to a specific set of internally consistent dietary stipulations as vice, but I see this as his strongest virtue; it has enabled him to avoid the confirmation bias pitfall most nutrition researches fall into. Over the past couple of years, his principal theories HAVE grown more stable, suggesting he has refined his ideas to the point where they are internally consistent with the preponderance of legitimate research.
Nonetheless, his site is not, and has never been about creating packaged diets or scheduled meal plans. If you want somebody to tell you that you should eat twelve sticks of celery and two sheep livers for breakfast, three liters of distilled water for lunch, and sack of hay for dinner, then Matt’s blog is not the place for you. Nor is it the place for you if you are afraid of being exposed to contradictory ideas. Matt Stone is a “follower” of the dietfucked site because its two publishers, “harper” and “chloe,” were formerly active commenters on the 180 degree blog who took perhaps too seriously the ideas of a certain endocrinologist with brilliant but just as often misguided insights into the human metabolism. Matt never agreed with Harper or Chloe that binging on sugar and orange juice was a smart idea, but he embraced their active participation on his blog because it made for some interesting conversation and debate. Although he disagreed with them, he choose to link their blog because they are, like him, interested interested in improving health and well being through nutrition.
I’m no evangelist for the 180 crusade. Matt Stone certainly doesn’t have all the answers, nor do I expect he ever will, but he is a passionate researcher, a powerful thinker, and, in my opinion, a man of high integrity. I’d sooner take his advice than my doctor’s any day.
Debbie said: “enjoy his iconoclastic ideas, though I’m not sure how much the self-experimentation of a young man my son’s age, who clearly does not have a seriously damaged metabolism, can apply to a 50-something post-menopausal woman who has been morbidly overweight for 25 years”
This.
I think a lot of us only came to low-carb/paleo research because we had begun to gain weight or exhibit signs of metabolic syndrome. It’s a shame indeed that my parents and myself didn’t know that sugar and wheat are so harmful until a few years ago, but what’s done is done.
The only thing that makes me wonder about whether high amounts of glucose is good was the recent study about how the benefits of calorie restriction displayed in lab animals may in fact be more glucose restriction than actual calorie restriction. The question is, is our bodies ability to digest glucose leftover from evolution from a very distant omnivorous ancestor, but more recently and ideally we should be primarily carnivorous? Or is glucose not harmful at all?
My gut instinct is that, as someone of European ancestry, my body has the ability to live entirely off meat (ketosis) because winter conditions probably made that a necessity. In that, maybe it’s possible we weren’t meant to live in ketosis forever, only part of the year, but I generally think it’s pretty remarkable that our bodies have the ability to go either way and are so adaptable. In this, I think we’d probably have the ability to handle many variety of foods just fine before modern processing gave us the ability to consume massive amounts of wheat and sugar at once and together. But now most of us have messed our bodies up, and like everyone is wondering, is there a way to permanently reverse the damage we’ve done?
I have concerns about high glucose levels too, apart from insulin resistance. High blood sugar is toxic, and glucose feeds cancer. People with healthy metabolisms can probably eat a plate of potatoes or rice and experience only a brief rise in blood sugar which is then lowered, as Matt points out, by a proper insulin response. But if starches elevate your blood sugar more than briefly, I think that’s a problem.
What I find most intriguing is Matt’s contention that if fructose is restricted, the dysfunctional metatbolism can eventually heal and then starches aren’t a problem. I hope he’s right on that one.
I think part of the problem is: there’s what a normal healthy person should be able to eat while staying fit and healthy, and then there’s what you need to eat to GET fit and healthy after years of abuse with modern food products. Those may be two very different things. I still haven’t seen any evidence that our bodies NEED carbs in the normal course of things. But someone whose metabolism is really messed up may BENEFIT from some carbs because of the neurotransmitter production they trigger. A certain level of carbs may spur the energy that they need to stick with the program. I don’t think that means anyone should go HIGH-carb, but some may benefit from more carbs than others. You’re surely better off having 50g/day than 20g/day for four days followed by a 200g binge day because you just couldn’t take the cravings anymore.
Like Tom, I know that I can’t go hog wild on starches. I’ve tried it, and I know what happens. A couple hours after a plate full of potatoes, my BG will be around 180-200, and a couple hours after that it’ll be crashing (the lowest I’ve seen it a few hours after a carb binge was 37, and yes, I was pretty shaky). If Matt can eat a lot of starches, good for him, and maybe I’ll be able to again someday without having to worry about seizures, but I can’t at this point.
Potatoes are about the only starch that isn’t a lot of trouble, if you’re trying to follow a traditional diet. All the grains and legumes must be soaked at the very least, and many need to be fermented for a day or more. Some need special treatment, like corn needing to be soaked in lime water. This isn’t about just having buns on your burgers and crust on your pizza again–not if you’re trying to do anything authentically paleo, anyway.
That’s why I think the key is to listen to your body. If I eat a steak, salad and side of broccoli covered with melted butter, I merely feel full. Swap the broccoli for a baked potato with butter, and I feel bloated and uncomfortable, then tired.
But Matt’s key point — it’s not starches that make us insulin resistant in the first place — could well be true, regardless of how potatoes affect me now.
Is anyone else sick of people trying to tell us they know the magic answer, for only $19.95?
IMO, the answer is simply eat what satisfies you, that provides the damned nutrients we apparently need, and doesnt make you sick. The answer seems to be different for everyone. Cookie cutter shapes only work for cookie dough after all.
Hi Matt!
Greatly appreciated this post and will definitely start following your blog.
You make an important point in separating the risk factors for obesity versus mets.
Although cutting close to all carbs seem to be a necessity in some obesity cases, it does not mean that one have to run on ketone bodies for the rest of ones life.
In the discussion of insulin resistance I miss a distinction between the different tissues. It is not irrelevant which tissues are resistant, although muscle, liver and fat tissue are the most discussed.
The fact that insulin resistance is usually measured at a whole body level, makes it difficult to identify causal biological mechanisms.
Once again. Thank you for a good post. Keep up the good work!
Debbie said: “enjoy his iconoclastic ideas, though I’m not sure how much the self-experimentation of a young man my son’s age, who clearly does not have a seriously damaged metabolism, can apply to a 50-something post-menopausal woman who has been morbidly overweight for 25 years”
This.
I think a lot of us only came to low-carb/paleo research because we had begun to gain weight or exhibit signs of metabolic syndrome. It’s a shame indeed that my parents and myself didn’t know that sugar and wheat are so harmful until a few years ago, but what’s done is done.
The only thing that makes me wonder about whether high amounts of glucose is good was the recent study about how the benefits of calorie restriction displayed in lab animals may in fact be more glucose restriction than actual calorie restriction. The question is, is our bodies ability to digest glucose leftover from evolution from a very distant omnivorous ancestor, but more recently and ideally we should be primarily carnivorous? Or is glucose not harmful at all?
My gut instinct is that, as someone of European ancestry, my body has the ability to live entirely off meat (ketosis) because winter conditions probably made that a necessity. In that, maybe it’s possible we weren’t meant to live in ketosis forever, only part of the year, but I generally think it’s pretty remarkable that our bodies have the ability to go either way and are so adaptable. In this, I think we’d probably have the ability to handle many variety of foods just fine before modern processing gave us the ability to consume massive amounts of wheat and sugar at once and together. But now most of us have messed our bodies up, and like everyone is wondering, is there a way to permanently reverse the damage we’ve done?
I have concerns about high glucose levels too, apart from insulin resistance. High blood sugar is toxic, and glucose feeds cancer. People with healthy metabolisms can probably eat a plate of potatoes or rice and experience only a brief rise in blood sugar which is then lowered, as Matt points out, by a proper insulin response. But if starches elevate your blood sugar more than briefly, I think that’s a problem.
What I find most intriguing is Matt’s contention that if fructose is restricted, the dysfunctional metatbolism can eventually heal and then starches aren’t a problem. I hope he’s right on that one.
Where’s the science supporting Matt’s hypothesis?
Matt will have to answer that one.
Is anyone else sick of people trying to tell us they know the magic answer, for only $19.95?
IMO, the answer is simply eat what satisfies you, that provides the damned nutrients we apparently need, and doesnt make you sick. The answer seems to be different for everyone. Cookie cutter shapes only work for cookie dough after all.
Hi Matt!
Greatly appreciated this post and will definitely start following your blog.
You make an important point in separating the risk factors for obesity versus mets.
Although cutting close to all carbs seem to be a necessity in some obesity cases, it does not mean that one have to run on ketone bodies for the rest of ones life.
In the discussion of insulin resistance I miss a distinction between the different tissues. It is not irrelevant which tissues are resistant, although muscle, liver and fat tissue are the most discussed.
The fact that insulin resistance is usually measured at a whole body level, makes it difficult to identify causal biological mechanisms.
Once again. Thank you for a good post. Keep up the good work!
Think of this from an evolutionary perspective. Our bodies could have evolved to process sugar in a way that did not increase fat deposition. But they didn’t. There must have been some advantage to processing sugar in a lipogenic way. If you think seasonally it makes sense that we would want to be able to store energy from fruits since they would only have been available for a short while. We are adapted to turn into fat storers when we eat sugar. Almost all fruit that I know of has as its main sugar, fructose. It was fruit that represented a temporary bonanza of energy, but in the evolutionary sense we could only take advantage of it if we were prone to store. I believe that the lipogenic nature of fructose metabolism is an adaptation.
Good point. It would make sense that fruits become ripe and edible in the autumn, just in time to fatten us up a bit for the winter.
While Matt’s message that glucose and starch are, at worst, harmless and perhaps even healthy appears reasonable based on observational evidence, he commits the same logical sin that he rails against. Sure, the carbohydrate hypothesis, at least in the form Matt presents it, may indeed be a simplification and the fact that there are healthy societies that eat a diet relatively high in starch corroborates this position. However, to say that a ketogenic diet is “metabolic suicide if continued long-term” is also called into question by the same observational evidence he uses to show that high starch diets can be healthy: there are several societies, such as the Inuit, that have lived on a long-term ketogenic diet and are/were at least as healthy as the societies Matt refers to, such as the Zulus. The evidence he uses to support his hypothesis that a long-term ketogenic diet is harmful is, at best, anecdotal (including the quote from Robert Atkins). After all, even for those individuals whose thyroid function appears to have been impaired, the question of what was missing from their diets is not answered. Was it the carbohydrates, or was it some other nutrient(s) that were missing? As far as I can tell, no attempt to answer this question with any sort of controlled study has been attempted. The existence of healthy societies eating a long-term ketogenic diet indicates that if the effect on thyroid function actually exists, it is likely due to the absence of some other nutrient(s) than carbohydrate, which itself amounts to empty calories.
Human beings are omnivores and, as such, are adapted to eating a large range of diets. Thus, Matt is almost surely correct that a diet with significant starch can be healthy and, as he alluded to, Atkins himself advocated introducing carbs back into the the diet until a comfortable and sustainable level is found. It’s also true that human beings exhibit genetic diversity (i.e., “not everybody is the same”), thus some individuals may do better on a diet relatively high in starch, while others may do better on a diet nearly devoid of starch. There is much we don’t know and to Taubes’ credit, he is careful to present the carbohydrate hypothesis as just that: a hypothesis. It is, however, a hypothesis that fits the data much better than the lipid hypothesis.
Thanks to Tom and Matt for continuing this discussion.
Where’s the science supporting Matt’s hypothesis?
Matt will have to answer that one.
So the iodine/thyroid thing has come up a few times here. What I’m wondering is, if iodine is such a crutial part of the diet, where did our paleolithic ancestors get enough of it, especially in the winter?
Seafood and some greens contain iodine. Since most people lived near water by necessity, I would imagine seafood was a pretty common food.
It´s very interesting what happens at the moment: “everybody” suddenly realizes that we can´t be linear about food. For instance if you´ve weigh less with low carb, that doesn´t mean that you can continue with that strategy to keep that weight and/or become healthy. Furthermore if you for instance change the amount of carbs, it means that you change something else, like the amount of meat and/or fat. So if you change the carbs, does that mean that you became healthy by lowering your carb intake or because you changed your vitamin/mineral intake, because in meat there are all kind of mineral that are not in carbs or not in specific carbs, like bread. Metabolism is very complicated and probably you never ever can do real scientific research on people, because you can´t control them like rats in a cage. That´s why I prefer the stochastic thinking of people like Dr. Art De Vany for instance. He criticizes Sowjet regimes of exercise and eating, everything he does has variety and is intermittent. And that´s more like the original people of the earth have lived and have eaten. And not like those ridiculous strict regimes in diets. Anyway I prefer to look at our ancestors before the agrarian revolution, what did they eat and what can you learn from them? Then you don´t need all those discussions about a few grams more or less of carbs. What is good for you depends on your genes, adaptations to the environment and interactions of nutrients etc etc. Listen to your body and intuition…..
Think of this from an evolutionary perspective. Our bodies could have evolved to process sugar in a way that did not increase fat deposition. But they didn’t. There must have been some advantage to processing sugar in a lipogenic way. If you think seasonally it makes sense that we would want to be able to store energy from fruits since they would only have been available for a short while. We are adapted to turn into fat storers when we eat sugar. Almost all fruit that I know of has as its main sugar, fructose. It was fruit that represented a temporary bonanza of energy, but in the evolutionary sense we could only take advantage of it if we were prone to store. I believe that the lipogenic nature of fructose metabolism is an adaptation.
Good point. It would make sense that fruits become ripe and edible in the autumn, just in time to fatten us up a bit for the winter.
You don’t even have to go back to pre-agrarian times; 50 years will do. I was watching a documentary made in the 1960s on some other topic, and noticed that in the crowds of people who were filmed, hardly anyone was overweight. People were certainly eating plenty of starch at that time, and had been for a century or more, but it was in more natural forms: potatoes instead of chips, rice instead of Rice Krispies, toast instead of pop-tarts, etc. They were also still eating plenty of fat with it–steak and potatoes with butter on both–and of course getting no HFCS. The decrease in fat consumption and the corresponding loss of nutrition may have been as big a factor as the increase in refined carbs.
That’s a valid point. And too many of the fats we still consume are frankenfats.
While Matt’s message that glucose and starch are, at worst, harmless and perhaps even healthy appears reasonable based on observational evidence, he commits the same logical sin that he rails against. Sure, the carbohydrate hypothesis, at least in the form Matt presents it, may indeed be a simplification and the fact that there are healthy societies that eat a diet relatively high in starch corroborates this position. However, to say that a ketogenic diet is “metabolic suicide if continued long-term” is also called into question by the same observational evidence he uses to show that high starch diets can be healthy: there are several societies, such as the Inuit, that have lived on a long-term ketogenic diet and are/were at least as healthy as the societies Matt refers to, such as the Zulus. The evidence he uses to support his hypothesis that a long-term ketogenic diet is harmful is, at best, anecdotal (including the quote from Robert Atkins). After all, even for those individuals whose thyroid function appears to have been impaired, the question of what was missing from their diets is not answered. Was it the carbohydrates, or was it some other nutrient(s) that were missing? As far as I can tell, no attempt to answer this question with any sort of controlled study has been attempted. The existence of healthy societies eating a long-term ketogenic diet indicates that if the effect on thyroid function actually exists, it is likely due to the absence of some other nutrient(s) than carbohydrate, which itself amounts to empty calories.
Human beings are omnivores and, as such, are adapted to eating a large range of diets. Thus, Matt is almost surely correct that a diet with significant starch can be healthy and, as he alluded to, Atkins himself advocated introducing carbs back into the the diet until a comfortable and sustainable level is found. It’s also true that human beings exhibit genetic diversity (i.e., “not everybody is the same”), thus some individuals may do better on a diet relatively high in starch, while others may do better on a diet nearly devoid of starch. There is much we don’t know and to Taubes’ credit, he is careful to present the carbohydrate hypothesis as just that: a hypothesis. It is, however, a hypothesis that fits the data much better than the lipid hypothesis.
Thanks to Tom and Matt for continuing this discussion.
So the iodine/thyroid thing has come up a few times here. What I’m wondering is, if iodine is such a crutial part of the diet, where did our paleolithic ancestors get enough of it, especially in the winter?
Seafood and some greens contain iodine. Since most people lived near water by necessity, I would imagine seafood was a pretty common food.
It´s very interesting what happens at the moment: “everybody” suddenly realizes that we can´t be linear about food. For instance if you´ve weigh less with low carb, that doesn´t mean that you can continue with that strategy to keep that weight and/or become healthy. Furthermore if you for instance change the amount of carbs, it means that you change something else, like the amount of meat and/or fat. So if you change the carbs, does that mean that you became healthy by lowering your carb intake or because you changed your vitamin/mineral intake, because in meat there are all kind of mineral that are not in carbs or not in specific carbs, like bread. Metabolism is very complicated and probably you never ever can do real scientific research on people, because you can´t control them like rats in a cage. That´s why I prefer the stochastic thinking of people like Dr. Art De Vany for instance. He criticizes Sowjet regimes of exercise and eating, everything he does has variety and is intermittent. And that´s more like the original people of the earth have lived and have eaten. And not like those ridiculous strict regimes in diets. Anyway I prefer to look at our ancestors before the agrarian revolution, what did they eat and what can you learn from them? Then you don´t need all those discussions about a few grams more or less of carbs. What is good for you depends on your genes, adaptations to the environment and interactions of nutrients etc etc. Listen to your body and intuition…..
You don’t even have to go back to pre-agrarian times; 50 years will do. I was watching a documentary made in the 1960s on some other topic, and noticed that in the crowds of people who were filmed, hardly anyone was overweight. People were certainly eating plenty of starch at that time, and had been for a century or more, but it was in more natural forms: potatoes instead of chips, rice instead of Rice Krispies, toast instead of pop-tarts, etc. They were also still eating plenty of fat with it–steak and potatoes with butter on both–and of course getting no HFCS. The decrease in fat consumption and the corresponding loss of nutrition may have been as big a factor as the increase in refined carbs.
That’s a valid point. And too many of the fats we still consume are frankenfats.
Responding to the commenter who said ALL the women on Matt’s diet have gained weight…not so. I’ve been doing HED since the beginning of November. I’m 5’9″ and weigh 146, exactly the same as when I started, which is a source of constant amazement given the huge number of calories I’m consuming day after day. Lots of starch, lots of dairy fat, lots of vegetables, eggs, and meat every day. I don’t do it every day, but I try to eat a little past hunger when I’m up for it. I’d guess around 3000 cal/day.
I started out pretty sick, on thyroid and adrenal meds, antibiotics, and a pile of supplements. (Lyme, CFS, hormonal instability, gut problems.) So far my temp has been creeping up, my mood went from black to happy, my hair and skin are much better. I plan to give HED at least a year, hoping that my temps will rise enough to start combatting the multiple infections, and the increased nutrition will stabilize my hormones (per Schwarzbein).
So that’s the report from a 51 yo post-meno with a lot of health problems. I’m optimistic about Matt’s approach not only because it makes sense to me — and I’ve had long stints on SCD and WAPF before this, which made sense as well — but because I immediately felt better after making fruit a very occasional thing and cutting out sugar altogether, including honey.
You might be referring to my reply to a comment in which I said the women my wife knew in the Peace Corps pretty much all gained weight on rice and millet. If so, that’s not Matt’s diet. Those women got fatter on starches, but they were living almost entirely on starches — the standard fare in the poor villages where they were stationed. I don’t believe Matt would recommend a diet like that.
Responding to the commenter who said ALL the women on Matt’s diet have gained weight…not so. I’ve been doing HED since the beginning of November. I’m 5’9″ and weigh 146, exactly the same as when I started, which is a source of constant amazement given the huge number of calories I’m consuming day after day. Lots of starch, lots of dairy fat, lots of vegetables, eggs, and meat every day. I don’t do it every day, but I try to eat a little past hunger when I’m up for it. I’d guess around 3000 cal/day.
I started out pretty sick, on thyroid and adrenal meds, antibiotics, and a pile of supplements. (Lyme, CFS, hormonal instability, gut problems.) So far my temp has been creeping up, my mood went from black to happy, my hair and skin are much better. I plan to give HED at least a year, hoping that my temps will rise enough to start combatting the multiple infections, and the increased nutrition will stabilize my hormones (per Schwarzbein).
So that’s the report from a 51 yo post-meno with a lot of health problems. I’m optimistic about Matt’s approach not only because it makes sense to me — and I’ve had long stints on SCD and WAPF before this, which made sense as well — but because I immediately felt better after making fruit a very occasional thing and cutting out sugar altogether, including honey.
You might be referring to my reply to a comment in which I said the women my wife knew in the Peace Corps pretty much all gained weight on rice and millet. If so, that’s not Matt’s diet. Those women got fatter on starches, but they were living almost entirely on starches — the standard fare in the poor villages where they were stationed. I don’t believe Matt would recommend a diet like that.
Jeromie wrote “If the Kitavans can do it eating REAL, traditionally prepared foods, the Okinawans too, then there must be more of an issue with fructose and omega-6s than we thought, even though I know they’re pretty detrimental!!”
The Okinawan Diet popularized the notion that Okinawa is some island of uberhealth. Unfortunately, that’s true for the small group of the very aged the writers interviewed and studied in their research. The youth and middle-aged are not nearly as healthy as their grandparents are/were. Men in the prefecture have already fallen to 25th place in longevity out of Japan’s 47 prefectures. High stress desk jobs, alcoholism, smoking, and a steady diet of junk foods have replaced the traditional diet. While the popular diet book presents a pie in the sky view of life there, the reality is that once the group of cententarians described in the book is gone, no one will replace them.
Too bad they didn’t stick to what worked for their grandparents.
I am following the paleo principles, as closely as I can. This means no refined oils, and very little fructose. My carbs for breakfast is mostly milk, along with eggs. In lunch it is some vegetables, and some fruits. Dinner is mostly rice. I need to reduce the quantity of rice (I tend to over eat it). This is my standard fare. It would in itself not lend to losing weight, but occasionally I do a fast, and sometimes I will eat Zero carb in some of the meals.
My routine varies a lot, even though it is fixed most of the days.
Many times the rice (mixed with split lentils) is properly treated, with soaking, grinding, fermenting, and then cooking the batter, into dosa/uttapam/appam south indian dishes.
Sometimes I do eat wheat (fermented), but that is rarely more than once a week. I still love my pizza, but now I make it myself. I do supplement with fish oil, D3, K2, Iodine, and Magnesium, sometimes, not regularly.
Jeromie wrote “If the Kitavans can do it eating REAL, traditionally prepared foods, the Okinawans too, then there must be more of an issue with fructose and omega-6s than we thought, even though I know they’re pretty detrimental!!”
The Okinawan Diet popularized the notion that Okinawa is some island of uberhealth. Unfortunately, that’s true for the small group of the very aged the writers interviewed and studied in their research. The youth and middle-aged are not nearly as healthy as their grandparents are/were. Men in the prefecture have already fallen to 25th place in longevity out of Japan’s 47 prefectures. High stress desk jobs, alcoholism, smoking, and a steady diet of junk foods have replaced the traditional diet. While the popular diet book presents a pie in the sky view of life there, the reality is that once the group of cententarians described in the book is gone, no one will replace them.
Too bad they didn’t stick to what worked for their grandparents.
I am following the paleo principles, as closely as I can. This means no refined oils, and very little fructose. My carbs for breakfast is mostly milk, along with eggs. In lunch it is some vegetables, and some fruits. Dinner is mostly rice. I need to reduce the quantity of rice (I tend to over eat it). This is my standard fare. It would in itself not lend to losing weight, but occasionally I do a fast, and sometimes I will eat Zero carb in some of the meals.
My routine varies a lot, even though it is fixed most of the days.
Many times the rice (mixed with split lentils) is properly treated, with soaking, grinding, fermenting, and then cooking the batter, into dosa/uttapam/appam south indian dishes.
Sometimes I do eat wheat (fermented), but that is rarely more than once a week. I still love my pizza, but now I make it myself. I do supplement with fish oil, D3, K2, Iodine, and Magnesium, sometimes, not regularly.
Still a total lack of how carbs and starches effect diabetics. And although this is not a pure diabetes blog. Matt has used the same argument trolling those blogs. Low carbs is NOT zero carbs. Even on an IF day some carbs are taken in- with me its fermented diary or veggies until the first main meal. Carbs in a SAD is a far greater mismanaged diet that any LCHF/paleo diet will ever be. Eating less carbs every day is the best way control diet health concerns. Give me a Taubes, Bernstein or Cordain over stone blog for what really counts.
Still a total lack of how carbs and starches effect diabetics. And although this is not a pure diabetes blog. Matt has used the same argument trolling those blogs. Low carbs is NOT zero carbs. Even on an IF day some carbs are taken in- with me its fermented diary or veggies until the first main meal. Carbs in a SAD is a far greater mismanaged diet that any LCHF/paleo diet will ever be. Eating less carbs every day is the best way control diet health concerns. Give me a Taubes, Bernstein or Cordain over stone blog for what really counts.
Here is a great video for you all to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I included it in a post awhile back. Good stuff.
Here is a great video for you all to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I included it in a post awhile back. Good stuff.