Until the sometime in the 90's, at least most people didn't have internet access, so the poorly conducted studies were only seen in newspapers, the evening news shows, and magazines, so they weren't as readily seen by nearly everyone - miss the newspaper or evening news one day, you'd miss out on the study. Skip buying a magazine one month, you'd miss seeing anything about the study.

Now, as soon as a study is completed, all the news outlets (and every self-appointed nutrition expert on the planet) are splashing the twisted study information all over the internet. If you're looking at nutrition and diet stories at all, you're hit with it everywhere you turn. Most people would automatically believe whatever they claim (not realizing that the data may show something entirely different) when every news outlet on the planet makes it one of their top stories.

As Were-bear said, we have loads of n=1 experiences. Some n=1 experiences are better examples of the efficacy of LC than others. For instance, I never lost down to a normal weight, so I'm still very overweight. However, due to eating LC for 15+ years, I have kept off the majority of the initial weight loss, and despite some other age related changes (as well as aches and pains due to standing on concrete for hours and hours at a time at work) over those 15+ years, I don't suffer nearly as many physical problems as prior to LC.

It's still very much a YMMV situation though, and in all honesty, for some people, they may not ever see the problems some of us did from eating SAD, or LC may not help them enough for them to make it their permanent way of eating. Switching to a more whole food WOE with a somewhat lower percentage of fat than LC might work better for some people.

For instance, my naturally thin friend is still doing fine on her usual diet of one tiny frozen diet meal (I don't know how she can eat those things, but that's her taste buds), or green salad each day, with minimal protein, and some fruit and/or juice each day... oh and a tiny bit of chocolate on a fairly regular basis. But she also avoids grains most of the time, just doesn't see any need to fill up on breads or cereals in her day to day eating patterns, and her portions of the carby fruit, juice and chocolate are so tiny that in the end, she's still eating relatively few carbs - far less than the minimum 120 g/day that nutritionists insist we need. So for all intents and purposes, she's always eaten a diet lower in carbs - it's just low in most everything else too. I'd feel like I was starving to death on such a dietary plan, but it works for her. *shrug*

The real problem (as I see it) is the gov't setting up this cookie-cutter diet based on bushels of hearthealthywholegrains, fruits and veggies, minimal (or no) animal products, very low saturated fat and cholesterol, and low sodium dietary advice for every single person on the planet, insisting it's THE ONLY WAY to health and longevity, no matter how much the n=1 experience may vary. (And that's without getting into what's really better for the planet)