Review of a Critique, Part 4

Mr. BS then moves on to another topic – Taubes’ hypothesis that, as Mr. BS writes it – well, he writes it about three different ways, and finally he comes pretty close:  “(Taubes’) claim is that positive energy balance is a result of accumulating excess fat, not the other way around.”  He again does the “predictions resulting from this hypothesis” routine, but his understanding of Taubes’ points is insufficient, so again his test predictions are not valid.  Mr. BS is fully wedded to the “body fat accumulation results from eating too much” model, and he cannot think through the implications of Taubes’ hypotheses, the most relevant two of which are as follows:

5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.

6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.

In other words, as previously mentioned, Taubes’ focus is on causality.  The energy balance equation does not say anything about causality (but tons of folks have assumed that it does).  What they assume is “fat people get fat because they eat too much and work/exercise too little.”  This of course has never been proved, as most who believe it to be never thought to question it.  Note that this belief is rooted in a moral conviction that obesity results from human frailty.  Stated another way, the belief that obesity is a simple matter of people being too gluttonous and too lazy is a moral judgment – and thus serves the bias of any who wish to feel virtuous because they are not fat.  The question for those of us who would rather understand than judge the growing phenomenon of deteriorating health associated with increasing obesity is:  what has caused a larger and growing percentage of our fellow citizens to grow obese in the last 30 to 40 years?  It strikes me as unlikely on its face that the answer is “people are getting more lazy and more gluttonous”, particularly when viewed alongside the statistically significant increase in the number of people who are working out for the sole purpose of being leaner and more healthy.

How could it be true that fat accumulation causes hunger and thus more eating (increased intake of food energy), as well as a lower activity level (decreased expenditure of energy)?  The key is the work of insulin.  If carbohydrate intake is excessive, which means (by definition) it drives blood glucose towards a toxic glucose concentration level, resulting in an insulin secretion (the body’s natural defense for toxic glucose levels), blood glucose levels are reduced.  Muscles and organs can absorb some glucose at the cellular level, but most of the excess glucose will be converted to triglycerides and stored as fat.  Further, the consistent excess intake of carbohydrates will result in an increased baseline level of insulin – whatever that is for each individual.  High insulin levels prevent the body from liberating fat to make it available for use.  In effect the body fueled with excess carbohydrate is starving within a couple of hours of eating.  That is to say, just as in a starving body cannot get energy to its cells, so it is with the body we’ve described above.  There is energy in the body as stored fat – but at the cellular level, it may as well be in the next county. 

There’s a common set of reactions in a starving body.  The core temp will decrease as the body starts looking for ways to conserve.  Starving people move around less. They feel, generally, more hungry.  So the notional body we’ve described above will result in human that will eat what’s available but will likely otherwise be conserving energy in ways that are not conscious. 

In summary, the driver for the accumulation of more fat for this person is the de facto deprivation of energy by the natural cycle that results from excess carbohydrate intake. 

This is not to say that no one on the planet is a gluttonous, lazy slob.  What I believe, and what Taubes’ work points to, is that gluttony and laziness are not likely drivers of population wide changes in body fat percentage.  It also seems unlikely that kids started to develop type II diabetes all of sudden, at the exact same time that the ‘authorities’ began to obsess over fat consumption (resulting in parents and governments feeding their kids a higher carbohydrate diet), because they became gluttonous and lazy.  If anyone chooses to believe that fat people are morally deficient, that’s their choice of course.  The only thing that leaves is the question of which meds to treat them with because, as the last 30 years have proved, the “eat less workout more” advice is not working (and for obvious reasons once the CH is understood).  My experiment in high carbohydrate land made me significantly fatter despite acute attention to my intake and while working out six days a week, sometimes twice per day, doing resistance training, cardio and martial arts.

In the end, Mr. BS’s piece includes an admission that he’s all wrong, but doesn’t realize it.  I quote: “There is strong evidence that diets high in refined carbohydrate, and the ingestion of sweet and palatable foods, cause disruptions in appetite regulation.  This then leads to overeating.” 

Then we are treated to Mr. BS’s closing shot: “Those of you who think Taubes is without bias, keep in mind that he has built a career around the CH.”  First off, anyone who thinks anyone is without bias is either immature or ignorant or both.  That’s why humanity benefits from the scientific method, the guiding principle of which is do not trust humans (especially other scientists).  But secondarily, Mr. Taubes was a highly regarded science journalist long before he started publishing the material that was eventually encapsulated in GCBC.  If anything, his work of late has put him into great conflict with a majority of the scientists and many doctors who care about this topic.  And that brings me to a reasonable segue to the close of this review, which I hope you'll join me for tomorrow.