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  #76   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 11:12
Bonnie OFS Bonnie OFS is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz53
How do we know it is xenoestrogens doing it? This author points out that we are all becoming shorter in the US. She theorizes that it is due to less meat/protein in our diets (and more carbs). Perhaps it is both.


I recall reading years ago that the Japanese started getting taller after WWII due to the increased protein in their diets. Don't know if that was a proven thing or an educated guess. If true, it would follow that populations eating less protein than their ancestors would eventually become shorter.
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  #77   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 13:54
rightnow's Avatar
rightnow rightnow is offline
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I agree that complete omissions and misuse of research papers is inappropriate regardless of whether the outcome happens to agree with our existing point of view.

PJ
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  #78   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 14:15
Liz53's Avatar
Liz53 Liz53 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rightnow
I agree that complete omissions and misuse of research papers is inappropriate regardless of whether the outcome happens to agree with our existing point of view.

PJ


I agree with that as well. Scholarship and the truth is what we are all after, preferably with a minimum of hyperbole. Though I have long loved Dr Davis's blog and website, I also think he stretched things in Wheat Belly. I could hardly finish it. But I never had that feeling with Taubes and aside from a few minor factual errors, I don't have that feeling with Big Fat Surprise either. They both present My Reality pretty well.

I'm curious who here has followed up the accusations in the Amazon review and confirmed that they are in fact true.

Also, what constitute "complete omissions" and "misuse of research"?

Who, in your opinion, has presented the closest version of the truth of what we should eat?

I appreciate you breaking down the "Masai Problem", aj cohn, and will be looking into who said what later this afternoon.
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  #79   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 14:36
aj_cohn's Avatar
aj_cohn aj_cohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz53
I'm curious who here has followed up the accusations in the Amazon review and confirmed that they are in fact true.

Also, what constitute "complete omissions" and "misuse of research"?

Who, in your opinion, has presented the closest version of the truth of what we should eat?

I appreciate you breaking down the "Masai Problem", aj cohn, and will be looking into who said what later this afternoon.


I don't have access to the research papers the reviewer cites, and I probably couldn't understand them if I did. I rely on sites like this, Suppversity, and the blogs of Chris Kresser, Dr. Michael Eades, Zoe Harcombe, Dr. John Briffa, and Mark's Daily Apple to explain studies in lay language.

Complete omissions and misuse of research go hand in hand. The Masai example I provided is a textbook example. Here's another example from the review:
Quote:
For example, on page 75 Teicholz discusses a dietary trial by Dayton et al and quotes from Dayton's paper stating: "'Was it not possible,' he asked, 'that a diet high in unsaturated fat...might have noxious effects when consumed over a period of many years? Such diets are, after all, rarities.'" This is part of a larger argument by Teicholz to paint unsaturated fats as unhealthy and potentially dangerous...

...What's also interesting is that Teicholz and Taubes both completely misrepresent the paper. Dayton actually asks that question in the beginning of the paper to kind of whet the reader's appetite, so to speak. He then goes on to answer that very question in the text with an answer that would not be favorable to Teicholz's (or Taubes's) argument. Do you want to know if the experimental diet has noxious effects? Well there's a section in the results portion of the study titled "Does the Experimental Diet Have Noxious Effects?" where Dr. Dayton states: "As indicated in table 29 and discussed in some detail above, the excess mortality in nonatherosclerotic categories was not sufficiently impressive to justify the conclusion that harmful effects had been demonstrated." AND "One may also wonder whether the experimental diet may have exerted its effect on mortality data primarily by accelerating nonatherosclerotic deaths (see table 28), decreasing the atherosclerotic mortality by inducing early death due to other cause. Such a mode of action would be associated with higher numbers of deaths in the experimental group compared with the controls, whereas the reverse was true in this trial (fig. 13)." AND "The other observation which raised some question of a possible toxic effect was the low arachidonic acid concentrations in atheromata of long-term, high-adherence subjects on the experimental diet (tables 37 to 40). For reasons already cited, this may be more appropriately viewed as evidence of a salutary rather than a toxic effect."


Because I can't understand the original research that anyone cites, I get confused when I run across the type of critiques of the low-carb paradigm presented by Paul Jaminet, Stephen Guyenet, and the reviewer under discussion. I know what works well for me (so far), but that's not a good yardstick.
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  #80   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 14:48
teaser's Avatar
teaser teaser is offline
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With the Masai paper--I'd call quoting a direct observation--low cholesterol with high fat intake--and using a paper that has an alternate explanation as to why this is so, but not actually going into that explanation a grey area, rather than outright misuse. Does anybody know if the idea of a special adaptation of the Masai to the high-milk diet actually panned out? Unless we have somebody eat a similar diet--preferably from weaning--it's hard to say whether their adaptation to the diet is at all unusual.

There is some evidence that the Masai are imperfectly adapted to their diet.

Quote:
Lactose malabsorption among Masai children of East Africa.
Jackson RT, Latham MC.
Abstract
There is much disagreement about milk and its use in feeding programs both in the United States and internationally. A few authors suggest that milk consumption should not be encouraged in lactose intolerant populations due to adverse symptoms. Others suggest, however, that small or modest quantities of milk can be tolerated and can be nutritionally useful to such groups. Data are presented in this paper that show that 1) the Masai regularly drink considerable quantities of milk without apparent symptoms, 2) milk is an important constituent of the Masai diet, and 3) 62% of 21 Masai examined were malabsorbers of lactose as measured by the lactose tolerance test. This finding of lactose malabsorption in a nomadic cattle raising and milk drinking people is interesting and is contrary to the views often expressed by anthropologists and others. An ability to drink nutritionally useful quantities of milk does not, however, necessarily mean that milk production or imports should be encouraged in the Lesser Developed Countries.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/581925

This always makes me wonder if difficulties tolerating lactose are not just a problem of malabsorption, but of the gut bacteria--with the right gut bacteria, lactose fermentation in the gut might be beneficial, rather than detrimental.
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  #81   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 15:13
teaser's Avatar
teaser teaser is offline
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Quote:
For example, on page 75 Teicholz discusses a dietary trial by Dayton et al and quotes from Dayton's paper stating: "'Was it not possible,' he asked, 'that a diet high in unsaturated fat...might have noxious effects when consumed over a period of many years? Such diets are, after all, rarities.'" This is part of a larger argument by Teicholz to paint unsaturated fats as unhealthy and potentially dangerous...


Dayton doesn't really answer this question... not according to Seth, anyways. Wish I had access to the actual paper he's talking about. But unless the intervention was over the course of "many" years, the question remains.

Dayton actually did a paper where peanut oil caused atherosclerosis in rabbits... I think I remember it being narrowed down to an effect of lectins in later papers, but I don't think it's been demonstrated to be applicable to humans.

http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/4/1/62.long

From the bunny study;

Quote:
A lag of 4 to 6 months may occur before appreciable increase in serum lipids is found in animals on the P 50 or the P50 M diets. The arterial lesions produced by the diet of ground peanuts can not be distinguished from the early lesions of rabbits fed diets rich in cholesterol. These studies again raise the question whether fat of vegetabole origin may possibly play a role in the genesis of atherosclerosis in human beings.


Assuming this is the same Dayton...

Seth says;

Quote:
Dayton actually asks that question in the beginning of the paper to kind of whet the reader's appetite, so to speak.


I doubt it. The question, taken quite seriously,

Quote:
"'Was it not possible,' he asked, 'that a diet high in unsaturated fat...might have noxious effects when consumed over a period of many years?


Is apparently one that Dayton was in the habit of asking. Hypothetical, yes, but hardly rhetorical.
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  #82   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 17:05
Liz53's Avatar
Liz53 Liz53 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aj_cohn
I don't have access to the research papers the reviewer cites, and I probably couldn't understand them if I did. I rely on sites like this, Suppversity, and the blogs of Chris Kresser, Dr. Michael Eades, Zoe Harcombe, Dr. John Briffa, and Mark's Daily Apple to explain studies in lay language.

Complete omissions and misuse of research go hand in hand. The Masai example I provided is a textbook example. Here's another example from the review:


Because I can't understand the original research that anyone cites, I get confused when I run across the type of critiques of the low-carb paradigm presented by Paul Jaminet, Stephen Guyenet, and the reviewer under discussion. I know what works well for me (so far), but that's not a good yardstick.


Thanks for your answer, aj cohn. We probably have more in common than in difference here - I too am sometimes confused by the original research, and rely on these sites to understand it further.

I think the main difference between us is that you are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to "Seth" an anonymous Amazon reviewer with an anonymous website whose content can shift at will. In these cases I'm much more likely to throw my support to the person who researches and writes a book, subjects it to the editorial/fact checking process and has it printed it in black and white with footnotes and references by a reputable publisher. When "Seth" publishes his version of things, I'll give him the same accord as Taubes and Teicholz.

Moving on to his points, I guess I just *don't get* how the Masai situation is an omission/misrepresentation. Even if the original paper were trying to demonstrate that the Masai had a unique physiological makeup that they could eat meat and milk to the near exclusion of other foods, could the data not be examined in support of an alternate hypothesis? Is that somehow dishonest? It is unfortunate that there are so few remaining hunter/gatherer populations - it might turn out that they were not particularly unique in their dietary choices at one time.

As for the Dayton study, Teicholz explains (p. 75-76) that of the experimental group only 48 died of heart disease while 70 in the control group died of heart disease. She goes on to say the total deaths in both groups were the same. 31 men eating vegetable oils died of cancer compared to only 17 in the control group. She also indicates that Dayton did the study hoping to show that vegetable oils correlated with decreased mortality and that the study was criticized by the Lancet because the control group had twice the number of smokers of the experimental group and only half the food either group ate was actually controlled by those conducting the study.

So perhaps Dayton's questions WERE rhetorical because he had hoped to unequivocally prove that vegetable oils were the healthier choice.

Anyway, I remain unpersuaded by "Seth".
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  #83   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 21:18
Liz53's Avatar
Liz53 Liz53 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser
With the Masai paper--I'd call quoting a direct observation--low cholesterol with high fat intake--and using a paper that has an alternate explanation as to why this is so, but not actually going into that explanation a grey area, rather than outright misuse. Does anybody know if the idea of a special adaptation of the Masai to the high-milk diet actually panned out?


I remember reading somewhere (and someone in the 12 pages of comments to "Seth"'s review attributes it to Taubes GCBC) that when the Masai move to the city and begin eating a more "civilized" diet they have the same sorts of chronic diseases (AKA diseases of civilization) as we do.

Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser

This always makes me wonder if difficulties tolerating lactose are not just a problem of malabsorption, but of the gut bacteria--with the right gut bacteria, lactose fermentation in the gut might be beneficial, rather than detrimental.


Interesting theory. Perhaps all malabsorption can be attributed to gut bacteria? I don't know….
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  #84   ^
Old Tue, Jun-10-14, 23:00
aj_cohn's Avatar
aj_cohn aj_cohn is offline
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Liz,

Thanks for digging into this. I haven't gotten to the remarks by Dayton in the book yet, but your quote from it makes sense to me.

The appeal to authority, however, does not. Presumably, Dr.s Davis and Perlmutter's books both went through a vetting process, and yet, they destroyed their credibility as spokespeople (to anyone who does a google search) for the cause they're passionate about. Lierre Keith (The Vegetarian Myth) suffered the same fate due to poor scholarship. OTOH, Denise Minger, with no academic credentials, destroyed the life's work of a respected academic, on her own blog, without peer review (presumably, but I might be wrong). She further trounced him (with help from Dr. Chris Masterjohn) everywhere Campbell popped his head up on the internet — on blogs. Zoe Harcombe is also self-educated, but hers is the first site I go to when I see a study spouting the nutritional dogma that's hurt 3 generations.
Quote:
Even if the original paper were trying to demonstrate that the Masai had a unique physiological makeup that they could eat meat and milk to the near exclusion of other foods, could the data not be examined in support of an alternate hypothesis? Is that somehow dishonest?


Honestly, I think not. How can you control for a genetic predisposition in the wild? Even if city-migrant Masai developed the "diseases of civilization," you can't infer causality with just an observational study. Sure, it fits with the carb-heart-disease hypothesis, but it's not scientific data.

I'll keep plowing through ABFS, but aside from Taubes, Masterjohn, Kresser, Eades, Harcomb, Briffa, and even Paul Jaminet, I've become very wary of the the evidence used to promote the "carbs are the culprit" disease hypothesis.
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  #85   ^
Old Wed, Jun-11-14, 05:05
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janjfree janjfree is offline
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Of course, while it isn't clinical research, there are thousands and thousands of people conducting their own N-1's, who find that the reduction of carbs gave them not only the weight loss they had chased after unsuccessfully for years but also improvements in a host of diseases and health markers. It is true in my own N-1 and that is enough for me.
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  #86   ^
Old Wed, Jun-11-14, 05:18
teaser's Avatar
teaser teaser is offline
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I'm not sure "is animal fat harmful?" is the right question, anyways. I sort of doubt that there is no dietary context under which it would be harmful. A common criticism of rodent high fat diet studies is that they often include small amounts of sucrose. Okay--but with just the bit of sugar, but without the increased fat, often the rodents do better. I suspect that you could design a diet in such a way that adding lard to it would make it worse. This doesn't mean that high-lard diets are bad for you--it just means that some high-lard diets are bad for you.

I've seen Volek and Phinney take the stance that saturated fat is harmless--within the context of the ketogenic diet. That doesn't mean that there aren't other diets/lifestyles within which saturated fat is equally harmless--but maybe they're wise to be so specific.
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  #87   ^
Old Wed, Jun-11-14, 08:31
Liz53's Avatar
Liz53 Liz53 is offline
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I'm glad you brought up the saturated fat in the context of ketogenic vs non-ketogenic, teaser. I remember Jeff Volek talking about his studies in this area in an interview with Jimmy Moore. And yet, Teicholz suggests that saturated fat is good in any situation. Obviously we need more studies. (I'm trying to remember though, does Volek find sat fat + carbs seem to cause atherosclerosis or does it cause actual heart attacks?).

I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of the examples you cited, aj cohn. I would still like to see "Seth" put together a cogent argument proving whatever he's in favor of instead of pricking pins in other theories. I took a look at his blog and have to say I enjoyed him being accused of plagiarism in the same blog post where he accuses others of plagiarism.

As far as the Masai suffering diseases of civilization when moving to the city, you have at least proven that they do not have some special protection that allows them to eat mostly milk and meat. I agree that we can't necessarily say the milk and meat diet confers the protection, but I think we can say it is something in their environment rather than their genetic makeup.

I'm another for whom LC has greatly increased health. I adopted HFLC in two stages, dropped carbs at first but (still)trying to limit fat, particularly sat fat as I was following the South Beach Diet from Jan 2004-October 2007. I dropped 21 or so pounds initially (over 4-6 months) and total cholesterol dropped from 240 to ~160.

Then I read Good Calories, Bad Calories and as soon as I read the sat fat chapters, I bought bacon. Having followed Atkins' principles, my total cholesterol in 2012 was 180, HDL went from the 60s to 94 and trigs from mid 60s to 45. In fact, I've moved since then and my current doc won't even order cholesterol tests for me since my results were so good in 2012. Yay Atkins.

Last edited by Liz53 : Wed, Jun-11-14 at 08:38.
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  #88   ^
Old Wed, Jun-11-14, 10:47
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aj_cohn aj_cohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by janjfree
Of course, while it isn't clinical research, there are thousands and thousands of people conducting their own N-1's, who find that the reduction of carbs gave them not only the weight loss they had chased after unsuccessfully for years but also improvements in a host of diseases and health markers. It is true in my own N-1 and that is enough for me.


Jan -- that's wonderful! It's also part of my point. The experience of many others justifies one's own experimentation. If, however, you're trying to persuade the public, and especially policy makers, of the validity of your cause, you must be thoroughly credible. Good scholarship is fundamental to that credibility.
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  #89   ^
Old Wed, Aug-20-14, 12:09
aj_cohn's Avatar
aj_cohn aj_cohn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser
http://thescienceofnutrition.wordpr...giaristic-note/

This is a blog of Seth's posted in a comment (Amazon deleted it from his review).


Later in that same blog post, Seth says this:
Quote:
[Yerushalmy & Hilleboe] also make the convincing case that comparing total fat to heart disease mortality is kinda lame. They argue that the types of fat (or in this case the sources of fat) are far more interesting. In the paper they actually do some comparisons with heart disease and animal fat vs. plant fat and animal protein vs. plant protein and find that fat from animals and protein from animals each has a much stronger association with heart disease than simply total fat. They go on to say that their analysis shows that plant fat and plant protein is actually negatively associated with heart disease mortality. In other words, fat and protein from plants might have some sort of protective effect against heart disease.


They do no such thing. In fact, what they ultimately say that the data used for both Keys' and their analyses represents only food available, not food eaten. Anybody trying to make a nutritional policy recommendation from this data is a fool and/or charlatan.
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  #90   ^
Old Tue, Aug-26-14, 09:33
Groggy60's Avatar
Groggy60 Groggy60 is offline
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Default Read the book

I read the book, getting very angry at times. I came away believing completely that saturated fats are the way to eat, vegetable oils (except oil) are unhealthy and cooked vegetable oils are toxic. Edes said he really believed about saturated fats after reading the book.

The Amazon reviewers that said it was just another rehash of Taubes two books clearly did not read the books.

An except from the book - The Big Fat Surprise: Toxic Heated Oils

Quote:
Oil chemists began discovering these compounds in the mid-1940s, when vegetable oils first came to be widely used, and published a large body of work showing that heated linseed, corn, and especially soybean oil were toxic to rats, causing them to grow poorly, suffer diarrhea, have enlarged livers, gastric ulcers, and heart damage, and die prematurely. In one experiment, a “varnish-like” substance was found in the rat feces—which caused the animals themselves to be “stuck to the wire floor” of the cages. The oil in some of these experiments was heated to temperatures higher than those typically used in restaurant fryers, but the “varnish” was likely to have been an oxidation product in the same family as those shellac-like substances turning up in fast-food restaurants of late

The second last chapter on frying with vegetable oils has changed what I eat. It makes we wonder how we can warn the world about the dangers of frying vegetable oils. Hopefully this book will do it.
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