The
calorie-is-a-calorie notion dates to 1878, when the great German nutritionist
Max Rubner established what he called the isodynamic law.
It was applied
to obesity in the early 1900s by another German — Carl Von Noorden, who was of
two minds on the subject. One of his theories suggested that common obesity was
all about calories in minus calories out; another, that it was about how the
body partitions those calories, either for energy or into storage.
This has been
the core of the controversy ever since, and it’s never gone away. If obesity is
a fuel-partitioning problem — a fat-storage defect — then the trigger becomes
not the quantity of food available but the quality. Now carbohydrates in the
diet become the prime suspects, especially refined and easily digestible
carbohydrates (foods that have what’s called a high glycemic index) and sugars.
UNTIL the 1960s,
carbohydrates were indeed considered a likely suspect in obesity: “Every woman
knows that carbohydrate is fattening,” as two British dietitians began a 1963
British Journal of Nutrition article.
In this article, Gary Taubes goes into what the study I cited in this post - Limits of the JAMA "Metabolic Advantage" Study - did that was unique, and puts it in the historical perspective of scientific investigation into obesity that very few others could.
Read it.
I'm hopeful that I can finish my critique of AC's criticism of the study; if you don't know AC yet, it'll be fun to meet him. He's a crossbreed between banty rooster and a bone gnawing terrier.
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