Dr Eades: The low-fat diet cascade

[Daryl]

Finally the New York Times comes up with a halfway decent review of Gary Taubes’ book Good Calories, Bad Calories. In yesterday’s Science section John Tierney (obviously not a member of the Kolata/Brody/Burros coven) takes a serious look at Gary’s book and what it has to say about the mainstream medical/nutritional establishment’s recommendation to follow a low-fat diet.

Read the rest HERE >>> http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=970

[Zei]

This is really scarey how so many millions of people can be led astray by this "cascade" psychology by just a few loud voices which build up until everyone is fooled and they don't even know it. After seeing stuff like this I'm going through everything I "know" about health and wondering how much of any of it is really true. Especially creepy is how dissenting voices are silenced by the threat of losing their credibility or jobs. Yikes. Thus far I'm not tossing my low carbs, exercise or vitamin pill, at least.

[bluesmoke]

Once again it seems that Dr. Eades just has to give in to the urge to trash Dr Atkins. I can only assume it is jealousy. While accusing Dr Atkins of hubris may be accurate, the charge is equally valid against Dr Eades. Nyah Levi

[ValerieL]

He got a little shot in at Anthony Colpo, too. I enjoy Dr. Eades' blog and his information, but he's not without his own ego issues. ;)

[teaser]

Maybe Low Carb doesn't just give you the energy of a twelve year old. :lol:

[Daryl]

He got a little shot in at Anthony Colpo, too. I enjoy Dr. Eades' blog and his information, but he's not without his own ego issues. ;)

Yes, he's lobbed several barbs at Colpo in the last couple of weeks :lol:

[bluesmoke]

The difference is that Colpo started it with Eades, I have never heard or read anything negative that Dr Atkins said about Dr Eades, and now he can't defend himself.

[Nancy LC]

Maybe Dr. Atkins was arrogant and unlikable? I didn't actually meet him or deal with him professionally so I have no idea. But gosh, I've worked with lots of people like that so I can imagine the possibility exists. Just because he led us to a great diet doesn't mean he was a sterling individual all the time in all ways.

[bike2work]

Every time I saw Atkins on Larry King or the Today Show he was charming. And as someone pointed out, it's bad form to insult the dead. Go after his ideas maybe (oh, wait, Eades can't do that, can he?), but not his character.

I wish Eades would think through the effect of his comments a little more carefully. By bashing Atkins, he's bashing Atkins, which is his own program in different packaging. A united front would be more effective.

[Nancy LC]

I don't think Eades was trying to insult Atkins, I think he was trying to explain why Dr. Atkin's ideas weren't accepted.

[Angeline]

Maybe he was on his best behavior with Larry King? Who knows? But Eades is right. If you disagree with someone's position that's one thing. But if you also happens to hate his guts, that makes the disagreement emotional and personal. It becomes an entirely different ball game. You might agree to disagree with a person you respect, but only a very mature and professional individual will manage to separate their personal feelings enough to be objective if they hate the person.

So to me it goes a long way to explain why Atkins detractors were so very virulent.

I can also understand why Dr Eades is bitter. Imagine that you're a animal activist, intent on improving the lot of animals especially in factory farms and puppy mills. Along comes extremist like the members of PETA, who end up giving a bad name to your whole movement, and turn away a whole slew of people who might have otherwise been sympathetic to your cause. If Eades is right, that's what happened

[kyrasdad]

I can also understand why Dr Eades is bitter. Imagine that you're a animal activist, intent on improving the lot of animals especially in factory farms and puppy mills. Along comes extremist like the members of PETA, who end up giving a bad name to your whole movement, and turn away a whole slew of people who might have otherwise been sympathetic to your cause. If Eades is right, that's what happened

I've said before that DANDR was written with a copywriter's heart, not a doctor's. He was selling a book, for sure and he knew exactly the right buttons to push. He was not writing it for medical acceptance. He wrote it so that overweight housewives, truck drivers, and office workers could understand it and apply it to their lives. His mission was not to gain mainstream medical and nutritional community acceptance.

I don't know if Eades believes Atkins is the equivalent of a PETA wingnut, but if he does, he's a fool. A complete fool.

Atkins' hucksterish tone and claims may have hindered the acceptance of low carb at the "top" of the nutritional policy food chain, but they also created a gigantic grass roots following that Eades, for all his intellectual gifts, could never create.

Those people Atkins theoretically turned away would not have converted if the message had been more polite, had, say, a writer like Eades written the book and stripped it of its populist charm. I own a copy of Protein Power, and thought it was nearly dry and something of a task to read. I submit that had Dr. Atkins been less carny and more cowtow toward the mainstream, none of us would have ever heard of Eades.

Don't take this as a slam on Eades, who I respect. It's just that I don't think a different approach would have worked. Atkins' best contribution to the situation is the successful and happy truck drivers, housewives, office workers, waitresses and other regular Joes who could understand and apply his work.

When Eades has done a tenth as much, he should feel free to throw a rock or three.

[ValerieL]

I bought a copy of Protein Power long before I ever bought DADR or DANDR. I remember reading the introductory paragraphs and thinking it was an interesting concept. I got to the part about how to do the diet and it lost me. Too complicated for me to wrap my head around at the time. It's too bad because for me, low-carb was a magic ticket, I wish I'd figured it out earlier.

It was years later that I picked up DADR. The original version of Atkins was freakily simple. If it isn't on the list, don't eat it. If it is, eat anytime you are hungry and until you are satisfied. I even think DANDR is too fussy with it's rules and carb counting and OWL ladder.

I submit that had Dr. Atkins been less carny and more cowtow toward the mainstream, none of us would have ever heard of Eades.

I concur.

[Angeline]

Well PETA was my example, so it's certainly nothing Dr Eades said. I was using it as an example to illustrate how one person or group can negatively impact a cause. I wasn't comparing Dr. Atkins to PETA, rather his detractors perception of him. This is a bit muddled because we hate PETA and we respect Dr. Atkins. But take a step back and you should see what I mean. I'm sure in the minds of those people who seem to believe Dr Atkins was Lucifer himself, he was as objectionable as the PETA is to us.

And when you mention "acceptance of low carb at the "top" of the nutritional policy food chain" that was exactly the problem with Atkins [according to Dr. Eades]. No one denies he was popular with the masses and no one denies he was universally condemned by all the "experts". Yet it's the so called experts who influence policies not Joe Average. This, Dr Eades contends, has hurt the acceptance of low carb.

To avoid any more confusion here is the quote from Eades's blog we are refering to. You'll have to read the whole thing if you want to known about binary choices and its impact on information cascades

This analysis confirms one of the suspicions I’ve held for a long time, namely that the most vociferous popularizer of the low-carb diet - Robert Atkins - was its worst enemy in terms of its gaining wide acceptance. Atkins was so personally cantankerous and made such hubristic pronouncements that most mainstream researchers couldn’t stand him and couldn’t bring themselves to admit that he was right about what he said. As a consequence they thought in binary terms: either the low-carb diet is good or it’s bad. And since Atkins is its main proponent and we hate Atkins, it’s bad. Even low-carb proponents didn’t particularly like Dr. Atkins. As I mentioned in a previous post, John Yudkin, a low-carb proponent if there ever was one, said of the Atkins book that its

chief consequence [may have been] to antagonize the medical and nutritional establishment.

Had Dr. Atkins been charismatic, friendly, approachable, in full command of the medical literature, and had he not made the bizarre and hubristic comments about repealing the laws of thermodynamics, I think low-carb would probably be the diet of choice right now, recommended by mainstream nutritionists instead of being viewed as a fad diet that is dangerous. The obesity and diabetes epidemics might have been avoided. I’ve learned from many conversations with various scientists that they just can’t bring themselves to say publicly that Atkins was right because they loathed him so much.

[Daryl]

Maybe he was on his best behavior with Larry King? Who knows? But Eades is right. If you disagree with someone's position that's one thing. But if you also happens to hate his guts, that makes the disagreement emotional and personal. It becomes an entirely different ball game. You might agree to disagree with a person you respect, but only a very mature and professional individual will manage to separate their personal feelings enough to be objective if they hate the person.

So to me it goes a long way to explain why Atkins detractors were so very virulent.

I can also understand why Dr Eades is bitter. Imagine that you're a animal activist, intent on improving the lot of animals especially in factory farms and puppy mills. Along comes extremist like the members of PETA, who end up giving a bad name to your whole movement, and turn away a whole slew of people who might have otherwise been sympathetic to your cause. If Eades is right, that's what happened

I wouldn't call Eades "bitter". Just my opinion.

Now.... he is hung up on Colpo! :lol:

[deirdra]

Every time I saw Atkins on Larry King or the Today Show he was charming.He was charming on TV in the last few years of his life, but when his earlier editions came out in the 70's & 90's he was very obnoxious & arrogant, so in my opinion Eades was just stating the facts. I think Atkins finally got it that nobody will listen to you if you treat them like they are blind idiots, so he changed his approach in ~2000.

[keywstdame]

I'm old enough to have been around when Dr. Atkins first book came out and I remember seeing him on different shows and at the hearings. Dr. Atkins was not a great debater and that showed. However, there would always be some "expert" on with him who would be dripping venom and sarcasm and all but calling him a quack to his face. Dr. Atkins put up with a lot of crap from others and if he was spit-in-your-eye cantankerous - well he had the right to be in my opinion. None of the newer low carb docs who have written books have EVER had to go though what Dr. A did. Too bad he's not still around to give the international hand gesture to all those "experts" LOL

[teaser]

On the point of Atkins making bizarre comments repealing the laws of thermodynamics, I never thought he was repealing them at all, although if people were led to believe that, maybe he should have made himself more clear. I know I had a lot of trouble understanding that weight loss is not a simple matter of calories in, calories out until Eade's made himself more clear on the subject in recent posts. My understanding from Atkins wasn't that calories somehow dissipated, breaking the laws of thermodynamics, but that that they simply went somewhere other than my fat cells. Ketones in my urine, or burned for energy.
I think maybe the stronger the current, the more arrogant any upstream swimmers need to be. (I don't mean any of you guys, though... ;) )

[deirdra]

...there would always be some "expert" on with him who would be dripping venom and sarcasm and all but calling him a quack to his face. Dr. Atkins put up with a lot of crap from others and if he was spit-in-your-eye cantankerous - well he had the right to be in my opinion. Atkins certainly was provoked, but rising above it all, as he did in the last few years, was the best approach.

I noticed that Ornish used the word "silly" twice in one interview to describe the researchers/ideas described in Gary Taubes' book. Using such words or dripping venom & sarcasm like Atkins' rivals did just makes THEM look silly & desperate that the low carb "craze" will kill their livelihoods.

[kyrasdad]

I think it's valid to say that Atkins made some grand, and easily-attacked pronouncements that might have harmed the cause of achieving mainstream, establishment acceptance of low carb. It's also safe to say that he did more to put low carb where it could be accepted than everyone else combined.

[deirdra]

I think it's valid to say that Atkins made some grand, and easily-attacked pronouncements that might have harmed the cause of achieving mainstream, establishment acceptance of low carb. It's also safe to say that he did more to put low carb where it could be accepted than everyone else combined.That's a great way of saying it. I don't think anyone else could have withstood 30 years of attacks either.

[keywstdame]

I think it's valid to say that Atkins made some grand, and easily-attacked pronouncements that might have harmed the cause of achieving mainstream, establishment acceptance of low carb. It's also safe to say that he did more to put low carb where it could be accepted than everyone else combined.


I think the reason low carb didn't achieve mainstream, establishment acceptance was - the establishment! They had us so scared that we were gonna drop dread of organ failure if we low carbed and would be standing in a massive line at the door of the emergency rooms - that we caved. They already had too much invested in the low fat dogma and wasn't going to let some...some...doctor rain on their parade. We followed THEIR advice and look where it got us. All the while, some 30 years, Dr. A. kept soldiering on until finally one day someone said, "What if it all has been a big fat lie". :agree:

[Nancy LC]

I wouldn't call Eades "bitter". Just my opinion.

Now.... he is hung up on Colpo! :lol:
Well, I can easily imagine if I had been on the end of one of Colpo's frothing attacks I'd probably enjoy getting a riposte or two in without having to face the guy steroidal rages head on.

[Daryl]

I understand, but I wish Dr E wouldn't castigate others for verbal attacks, then do them himself. None of us are perfect in that regard, though, at least I know I'm not.