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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

#291

Post by matthewdgreen »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #244
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…

> 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings I did keto for a year and the sugar cravings never stopped. :-\ I let myself have a donut 3 months in, and everyone on keto always tells me that after a few months, if you eat something sweet, you'll find it disgustingly sweet. Nope. As I ate that apple fritter, I was like "Oh my god this is so delicious, I've missed sugar so bad" In about 9 months, I had gone from 260 lbs to 205…

The "fall off the bandwagon" effect is huge. I find Keto to be one of the most tolerable long-term diets, but it is a long term diet. It's an unnatural restriction diet, and there is nothing at all durable about its effects.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#292

Post by rafaelero »

bpizzi wrote: post #284
rafaelero wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you relying on meta-analysis of observational studies when we have meta-analysis of RCT's?

I’m all ear actually, if you could kindly point me to the relevant material.

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#293

Post by daxfohl »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #244
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…

> 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings I did keto for a year and the sugar cravings never stopped. :-\ I let myself have a donut 3 months in, and everyone on keto always tells me that after a few months, if you eat something sweet, you'll find it disgustingly sweet. Nope. As I ate that apple fritter, I was like "Oh my god this is so delicious, I've missed sugar so bad" In about 9 months, I had gone from 260 lbs to 205…

Mine went away at three months and came back three months later. Plus my dentist said the acid reflux was damaging my teeth. So gave up keto and binged for a few months. Now trying going dairy-free, which feels more sustainable and eliminates most of the things I'd binge on but leaves a couple options for when cravings start. So far so good, but I'm only at the three months mark so....

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#294

Post by strken »

Semaphor wrote: post #285
strken wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a given, it's the first two predicates of an illustrative example of how dietary advice is more complicated than "which diet is best?" If all three of those predicates hold true, then your advice has killed them, therefore all-cause mortality rate is important. It doesn't matter what the exact reason for higher all-cause mortality rates on low carb diets is unless you can give people advice on how to avoid…

That’s like saying you should never give any advice unless you exhaustively list all possible ways for someone to fuck up the implementation. Telling someone the pharmacy is on the other side of the street will raise mortality unless you also tell them that they should check for cars before crossing. And not run into cars. Or walls close to the pharmacy.

No. You should give advice that causes good outcomes. You don't need to do anything else.

We know that low carb diets have higher all-cause mortality. Because of this, telling people to eat low carb will (probably) cause a bad outcome. If we want a good outcome, we need to work out more specific advice.

To be clear, advice doesn't always have to be very specific. This particular advice needs to be improved, because it looks like it would kill more of them than current dietary advice. We can tell it would kill them because the meta-analysis several comments above shows an increase in all cause mortality.

This is not the same as telling people where the pharmacy is, because A) we have no studies at all about going to the pharmacy, B) people need to get important medicine from the pharmacy and going to it could plausibly lower mortality, and C) telling someone where to find a building is not lifelong public health advice and the risk for one person crossing one road is miniscule anyway.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#295

Post by Semaphor »

strken wrote: post #294
Semaphor wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s like saying you should never give any advice unless you exhaustively list all possible ways for someone to fuck up the implementation. Telling someone the pharmacy is on the other side of the street will raise mortality unless you also tell them that they should check for cars before crossing. And not run into cars. Or walls close to the pharmacy.

No. You should give advice that causes good outcomes. You don't need to do anything else. We know that low carb diets have higher all-cause mortality. Because of this, telling people to eat low carb will (probably) cause a bad outcome. If we want a good outcome, we need to work out more specific advice. To be clear, advice doesn't always have to be very specific. This particular advice needs to be improved, because i…

So the part I objected to was not actually relevant for your argument.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#296

Post by mlindner »

darzu wrote: post #21
mlindner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic food itself is a fraud as it doesn't actually mean anything. If anything they should just ban the label entirely.

Citations needed. I worked on an organic vineyard for a summer and I can tell you it took a lot of work to get that label. Non-organic vineyards in our area had barren earth or gravel under the stalks as they used weedkillers regularly. In contrast, we practiced “turf flipping” where we would, with clever machine and hard work, turn the soil over to smother weeds. The soil was alive and rich with the longest earthwor…

Just because you're forced into extra "make work" activities to get the label, doesn't make it any less of a fraud.
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