The Collapse of a $40 Million Nutrition Science Crusade
 

Article about Gary Taube's Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI):

https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-d...ade-fell-apart/

Sad!

.............

We all had hope that sound research and RCTs sponsored by NuSi would remove the veil. Understanding nutrition and health is a very complex venture. Replicating a SAD approach to establish a baseline is a very difficult task due to all of the myriad variables potentially involved.

I respect the researcher's desire for academic freedom. But I don't think it's a good idea to make too much of the very specific findings Hall is talking about.



For one thing, a controlled study can miss factors that are present in a less controlled population. Control calories, and sugar isn't fattening? What effect does sugar have on calorie control?

In mouse studies, a ketogenic or just a high fat diet can be fattening. Put in a running wheel, and the animals will lose the extra fat, a slightly more stimulating environment totally changes the response to the diet. Mice don't run because they want to lose weight, they run because they want to run, this is a fairly useful measure. So what is a metabolic ward for humans? Is it a stimulating environment, or the other sort? Heck, maybe a little rock and roll music would make a difference.

With mice they do hundreds of studies, various slight variations are found that make profound differences. The handful of metabolic ward studies that can be afforded in humans (lets take almost every penny out of epidemiology and put it into metabolic ward studies, there's a start) is so small that maybe it's useless.

I criticized Hall for being an idjit. It's one thing to want scientific freedom, it's another to use this argument to justify doing bad science.

Let me just illustrate where we find that argument.

Good scientists who are told to do bad science.
Bad scientists who are told to do good science.

Which kind of scientist is Hall, and what kind of science does he do, hm? What kind of scientists do we find predominantly in nutrition science, hm? Or, what kind of science do nutrition scientists predominantly do, hm? I can only think of one nutrition scientist whom I respect, and ironically he's a self-acknowledged vegetarian - Chris Gardner, lead researcher for the A-TO-Z experiment. Versus Hall, Chris certainly did not twist that experiment to prove that a vegetarian diet is the way to go.

NuSI, that's the kind of world it's facing, the kind of world it's trying to change. On the flip side, we got this: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=480510 Changing the world by the side door. So, I guess, don't put all your eggs in the same basket.

I'd rather have Taubes as a writer than a fund-raiser, too. Fund-raising activities suck energy faster than an old internal combustion engine sucks gasoline.

I won't say randomized controlled experiments in nutrition are impossible. But the confounding factors are, well, confounding.

Me? I'm happy with my own N=1 of about fifteen years, plus the information and collegiality I find here, and on Diet Doctor. Don't confuse me with "facts" while I'm cruising serenely towards a healthy old age. :wave:

Perhaps someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos could pull it off? Or Google Calico, already working on lengthening life and "healthspan."

Why would Taubes ever think that someone that disagreed with his theory would be honest and actually scientific? Of COURSE Hall would try to verify his own theory... And Taubes should definitely have checked to make sure the study being run was based on good science. It certainly wasn't from what I read.

Well, hindsight is 20/20, they say...

Unbelievable that Hall said that it falsifies the fact that sugar makes people fat. LOL!! How absolutely ridiculous!