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USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

unsettledscience.substack.com

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Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#101

Post by Broken_Hippo »

themitigating wrote: post #14
throwaway98797 wrote: post #2

the best diet is the one that works for you. for some it’s low carb, for others it’s vegan. what’s key is to focus on what you eat, that’s probably 80% of the battle.

"The best treatment for cancer is the one that works for you" "The best way to change your oil is the one that works for your car" Come on.

The best way to change your oil is the one that works for your car"

Which changes depending on your car, and standards have changed over time - in no small part because they wanted to sell more oil and filters (like selling diet food to folks) and you might not even need one if you have an electric and you might need more oil changes if you have a diesel engine. It doesn't mean that you should apply a one-size-fits-all to your car, it is just going to be off. Not only that, but a lot of folks go well past the recommendations and rarely change oil and they at least get by. Doing it sometimes is better than none at all.

Yeah, I can understand the analogy. It still is lacking a bit, but it works well enough. There is no one size fits all in diets, and you'll need to do the one that works for you and your situation, kinda like doing the oil change that is right for the car you have.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is the sort of analysis that you intended.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#102

Post by jokethrowaway »

thelittleone wrote: post #32

Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict (used to eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet has been a complete game changer. I kept my weight in check by doing 6 days of exercise a week, but I was on an energetic roller coaster. 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings (I crave oils sometimes) and damn I just feel well in a way I haven't for long before I c…

Similarly, with ageing, I started having tons of small health issues + diarrhoea and blood in my faeces.

I tried removing milk (I was eating milk with cereals in the morning) - which appeared to improve the situation (becoming less frequent) - but it turned out it worked only because I got rid of eating cereals in the morning and I can drink milk just fine.

The doctor said nothing was wrong and that it was just stress and other BS. They told me my cholesterol was high and told me to avoid meat (I was basically on a pasta, meat and vegetables diet) and prescribed me statins to drop cholesterol.

I ignored the advice and switched to a only meat diet; diarrhoea and blood disappeared completely in around 3 days and I started feeling way better. A lot of the small pains disappeared as well.

The only cons I've experienced is that I have less energy for workouts (during the day I feel fine) and I switched from doing sets of 5 reps to set of 3. I should be eating roughly the same amount of calories but no carbs means no immediate energy to use. I'll be on this diet until I drop a few more kgs and then I'll try to up the calories (still only meat) and see if I can go back to 5 reps. If not I'll consider reintroducing some carbs before workouts (from fruit / vegetables, in moderation).

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#103

Post by tpush »

oifjsidjf wrote: post #75
rafaelero wrote: post #68

If you want to convince regulators, perhaps you should first try to convince serious nutritionists. Because very few of them really buy this keto narrative.

And yet there are thousands of people who posted their successful weight loss or bloating and autoimmune issues online which were solved by keto or carnivore. The term "modern serious nutritionist" is a joke anyway: a true nutritionist is one who heals himself with a diet, and many people on keto do. Science advances one funeral at the time. Remember: ~150 years ago people were making fun of the guy and outsted him b…

> And yet there are thousands of people who posted their successful weight loss or bloating and autoimmune issues online which were solved by keto or carnivore.

There are success anecdotes for every diet imaginable; that isn't any kind of high bar for suitability.

> Modern "serious nutritionist" are those kind of people: they are too arrogant and egoistic to see that thousands of people have given successful testemonies online.

Absolute nonsense. Fad diets come and go, and I hope nobody here gets their nutrition advice by shady grifters on blogs/twitter instead of the actual science.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#104

Post by bryans »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #71
bryans wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm rarely shocked by the ingredients of food anymore, but I was looking at a packet of "honey sauce" from KFC the other day, and couldn't help but laugh at the things we're doing to ourselves. There are 11 ingredients and 5 of them are added sugar. All to recreate something resembling honey, at approximately 2/3 the cost of real honey. "High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Honey (7%), Fructose, Contains 2% o…

Imagine the price of honey if all these faux sauces were made with more than a passing sniff of the stuff.

That's a good question. KFC gets 12 million customers per day. Let's generously assume an average of one 9g packet is included per customer. The packets already contain 7% honey, so to go full honey is an additional demand of 100 metric tons out of 4,850 produced daily, which represents ~2% of the total market. The average retail price of this grade of honey is $0.45/oz, so even presuming production continues to decline during this increased demand, we would see an increase of roughly $0.10 per 16oz bottle for store brand honeys. We would also be taking 5,475 metric tons of sugar out of global diets every year, or 22 billion calories.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#105

Post by martingoodson »

The BMJ has had to issue several corrections about this author’s work. For example:

This Feature (BMJ 2015;351:h4962, doi:10.1136/bmj.h4962) by Nina Teicholz stated that when the guidelines advisory committee started its work in 2012 there had been several prominent papers, including a meta-analysis and two major reviews (one systematic), that failed to confirm an association between saturated fats and heart disease. This statement did not aptly reflect the findings of the more authoritative of these reviews, by Hooper et al (Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;5:CD002137), which found that saturated fats had an effect on cardiovascular events but failed to confirm an effect on cardiovascular mortality.

https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5686

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#106

Post by tpush »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #97

Another case of "trust the experts" and a corrupt centralised entity. Of course it makes perfect sense: when you buy meat you're not buying highly processed, expensive, vegetarian/vegan food. The meat and dairy industry vs vegetarian food. Guess who can lobby more?

I don't know if this is sarcasm, but the answer is wholeheartedly the meat and dairy industry.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#107

Post by xkbarkar »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #55
throwaway98797 wrote: post #2

the best diet is the one that works for you. for some it’s low carb, for others it’s vegan. what’s key is to focus on what you eat, that’s probably 80% of the battle.

No, "ignore everything and do whatever you like" is terrible and dangerous advice.

I disagree. When it comes to your eating habits listen to your body and ignore well meant but oftesn outright dangerous comments like this.

Especially from anyone that has a “miracle” cure just for you.

I have never eaten breakfast, always hated eating before lunch.

Having had this exact comment thrown in my face for 30 years. Turns out ignoring everything and doing whatever fit me was not only healthy but has strong scientific basis.

Aka intermittent fasting.

Do not give bad advice or scold people for listening to their bodies and follow what works for them.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#108

Post by nebfield »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #102
thelittleone wrote: post #32

Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict (used to eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet has been a complete game changer. I kept my weight in check by doing 6 days of exercise a week, but I was on an energetic roller coaster. 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings (I crave oils sometimes) and damn I just feel well in a way I haven't for long before I c…

Similarly, with ageing, I started having tons of small health issues + diarrhoea and blood in my faeces. I tried removing milk (I was eating milk with cereals in the morning) - which appeared to improve the situation (becoming less frequent) - but it turned out it worked only because I got rid of eating cereals in the morning and I can drink milk just fine. The doctor said nothing was wrong and that it was just stres…

Were you tested for coeliac disease? Diagnosis can be difficult, and the standard blood tests don't always pick it up.

It might be a good idea to avoid wheat, barley, rye, and oats to test for gluten sensitivity.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#109

Post by strken »

I'm not convinced by some of the common beliefs about low-carb diets either. They seem to be good for weight loss[0] but bad for all-cause mortality[1]. If you're making dietary recommendations, it's hard to justify choosing a diet that makes the people who eat it skinnier and less diabetic but also kills some of them.

I'm also not convinced that "low-carb" in the literature means you can draw conclusions about ketogenic diets, especially ones that actually send you into ketosis. Some low-carb diets from that first meta-analysis had 35% carbs by energy!

My impression of the available evidence is that if you want to lose weight, calorie restriction and high-satiety foods matter more than macros.

[0] https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/12/3774/htm

[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#110

Post by ddorian43 »

bamboozled wrote: post #94
rayiner wrote: post #74

If you haven't tried a low-carb diet, you should and see how it works for you. I never felt better than I did when I was eating pretty much just Chipotle salads (chicken+salad+guac) and doing a bit of weightlifting three times a week ( https://stronglifts.com/5x5 ). Of course, I was in my mid-20s and had three fewer kids, so there's that... I'll add--free office snacks are the devil's work.

Yeah but what’s the point of living till 100 without some wine, pasta and pizza in there occasionally ?

It's not about living to 100, but quality of life (to me personally). The gains in QoL are bigger than pizza/pasta.
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