<p>[Low-carb</a> and Mediterranean-style diets took off more pounds than a low-fat diet](<a href=“http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/25539714.html?location_refer=Lifestyle:highlightModules]Low-carb”>http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/25539714.html?location_refer=Lifestyle:highlightModules)</p>
<p>Did Science have it wrong or did the fad people have it wrong. My biochem 101 60’s era told ya that the conversion to fat is a lot easy to go from carbohydrates than from fat or protein.</p>
<p>I would however be careful in eating palm and coconut fats with pound cake.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, what does this have to do with science?</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with ‘science.’ What you ment to say was the ‘unqualified guru authors that everyone’s gullible for’ were wrong.</p>
<p>And of course the study did find that all three diets resulted in weight loss and lowering of chloresterol further debunking the op’s premise.</p>
<p>It’s also valuable to offer patients a number of options, because some patients simply cannot/will not comply with Diet A but might succeed with Diet B. For those patients, it doesn’t matter that Diet A is optimal; they need an alternative way to control weight.</p>
<p>Diet “science” is science in the same way that smooth “jazz” is jazz.</p>
<p>And if science got it “wrong” before, what makes you think that this time they got it right?</p>
<p>What does it have to do with science?? Well for many years most doctors, and other experts on food and health would have sworn on a stack of whole grains that eating fat led to high cholesterol, heart disease, etc. Many people with these indications were put on very low fat low cholesterol diets, much to their unhappiness. I’d call that a major part of medical science. Are all you people asleep?</p>
<p>Looks to me like science got it right! It advanced through observation, formulation of hypotheses, and scientific testing of same. </p>
<p>Certainly there are all kinds of beliefs from the nineteenth century, based on the best available information, that we now consider outmoded or foolish as a result of science.</p>
<p>It is good to see that it still works.</p>
<p>^ 100% right. Science is not a statement of beliefs that holds throughout eternity. Science is the current set of knowledge that we’ve accumulated through conjecture, experimentation, and analysis to theorize and prove things are true or untrue. </p>
<p>What you posted is a story about a scientific study that refuted a previously accepted theory. Its also possible that a further study shows another trend in the opposite direction. I guess what I’m trying to say is that science is more of a process.</p>
<p>It took me about 2 minutes online to discover that this “study” used a “low fat” diet that isn’t really “low fat” – those on the “low fat” regimen had 30% fat intake compared to the 10% fat intake recommended by many low fat plans.</p>
<p>Another couple of minutes of Googling and it was obvious that “Mediterranean” diet can mean just about anything. </p>
<p>I didn’t bother to read up on low-carb diets, so I don’t know whether the study used an Atkins-like plan or something else. </p>
<p>All I know is that they compared 3 different plans with 3 different labels, none of which are the same as the many dozens of different plans available with similar labels. </p>
<p>I also noticed that this study reported average weight loss of 12 lb. over 2 years. Yikes! For me, that’s the “I just got back from vacation” or the “post holiday season” goal – not a 2 year target.</p>
<p>Four years ago I created and adhered to the “Calmom personal diet & exercise plan” which led me to lose 70 lb. over 18 months. I’ve since gained back about 10, so the net loss over 4 years is 60 lb. It might also be called the “eat a whole lot less than I used to eat before” diet, and the “no more Krispy Kremes diet”. It was “lo” everything - less fat, less carbs, less calories. It worked because I wanted it to work – it was also nutritionally balanced and was something I could stick to over time. </p>
<p>The problem with most “studies” of diets as well as hype over them is that different people have different needs – so the studies are of factors that are not well quantified. You get some stats that may be interesting, but they don’t tell you anything about what diet plan is best for a particular individual. At the time I got serious about losing weight, I read up on a lot of diet plans and used that to incorporate some basic ideas, but the bottom line was that I recognized that I had to come up with something that I could live with and stick to over time.</p>
<p>I am glad that W doesn’t invoke the Scientific Argument, much.
I’ve noticed that neither JM and BO also do not talk about Science. But why do our kids put so much faith in Science?</p>
<p>I haven’t looked at all at this study, so my comments are merely related to how science should work, not to the merits of this article about dieting. Barrons indicated that current “medical science” promotes low fat diets as the best. In my experience, I have found that the overwhelmingly majority of doctors, nurses, dietitians, etc. recommend low-fat diets and ridicule low carb diets. This would be OK if their opinions were based on rigorous scientific experiments, but instead the opinion seems often to be based instead significantly on arrogance.</p>
<p>According to Mini, science advances through observation, formulation of hypotheses, and scientific testing of same. While I generally agree with mini’s description of how science should advance, this is often violated by the medical / scientific community when politics, political correctness, and/or arrogance ( and unwillingness to admit error) leads to supporting theories that are unsupported by rigorous scientific study, and hence excuses and other bogus explanations and analyses are provided. For example, “shaken baby syndrome.” Anyone who claims that bouncing a baby on your knee can cause brain injury has no concept of biomechanical principles. This is a fraud that has been propogated by the medical community, in the guise of “science.” Obviously, if you take an infant and smash its head against the floor or a wall, major damage could result. You should look at the illogical and sloppy articles on which shaken baby syndrome is based, and you would recognize that none of it meets Mini’s definitions of science.</p>
<p>Since I know very little about nutrition (except than regularly exercising, using a low-carb diet, and taking certain vitamins has dramatically reduced my own blood sugar level from diabetic levels to the normal range), I have no basis for supporting or contradicting these findings. But I can understand Barrons’ general premise that “medical science”, which is frequently presented by clinicians as the gospel, is often wrong.</p>
<p>Similarly, Al Gore is no “scientist”, and the case for human activity greatly contributing to global warming, with an implication that “scientists” can accurately model these effects, also avoids Mini’s suggested approach to science.</p>
<p>I agreed with Mini’s response too- Science does march on. But also don’t hold as golden truth everything scientists say today. It is subject to change without notice. Especially when it is relatively new and unproven.</p>
<p>
But science is self-correcting, even if it takes many years to self-correct. </p>
<p>I’m a developmental neurobiologist. A very brilliant and otherwise generally correct scientist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, said that no new neurons were born in the adult brain. People believed this for a long time, even when they had the tools to look in the adult brain to see the birth of new neurons. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that some scientists said, “Hey, but there are some new neurons born in the adult mammalian brain!” And they were right, and they rigorously demonstrated how right they were, and now everybody accepts that there is limited adult neurogenesis. Voila, science self-corrects. The truth will out.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I don’t often find that scientists themselves present their ideas as gospel. That tends to be a popular press thing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So the purpose of this thread is for you and like-minded others to further your anti-global warming beliefs by attacking science as a whole. And you do this by setting up a really obvious strawman - citing a new, poorly-done study in a field that isn’t even part of general scientific study. Nice</p>
<p>I think the biggest irony is quoting an article and immediately accepting it as truth - while warning us not to do the same, especially when things are “new and unproven.”</p>
<p>Poorly done?? I think the folks at Harvard would have a big problem with that. If you think it was poorly done you should send your critique to the authors and the journal. That would be the New England Journal of Medicine–one of the most respected journals in the world.</p>
<p>"Other experts said the study – published today in the New England Journal of Medicine – was highly credible.</p>
<p>The research was done in a controlled environment – an isolated nuclear research facility in Israel. The 322 participants got their main meal of the day, lunch, at a central cafeteria.</p>
<p>For breakfast and dinner, the dieters were counseled on how to stick to their eating plans and filled out questionnaires on what they ate, said Dr. Meir Stampfer, the study’s senior author and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health."</p>
<p>And yes the field of nutrition has been subject to FAR more and longer scientific study than the field of climate study which was founded at my school and has been broadly studied for only a relatively short time–and is infinitely more complex than simple nutrition and how our bodies process foods.</p>
<p>
Actually, he quoted a headline… nothing so complex as various factors that were presented in most of the news articles. </p>
<p>Some more facts & observations:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The study was funded with a $497,000 grant from the Jenkintown, Pa., nutritional-research foundation established by Robert Atkins </p></li>
<li><p>Low-carb diets permit people to freely eat cheese, meats and animal fats that are discouraged in traditional diets, although in the Israel study, employees were counseled to emphasize vegetable fats.</p></li>
<li><p>Dean Ornish, a doctor and University of California at San Francisco professor who advocates extremely low-fat diets, said the Israel study shouldn’t be seen as endorsement of the Atkins diet because the low-carb participants in the study were encouraged to consume vegetable fats, as opposed to the meat fats that Atkins dieters typically ingest. “A vegetarian Atkins diet is almost an oxymoron,” he said. He also said the low-fat diet in the study, which was based on recommendations by the American Heart Association, doesn’t cut out enough fat.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Source: [Study</a> Fuels Low-Fat vs. Low-Carb Debate - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121624140800859549.html?mod=googlenews_wsj]Study”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121624140800859549.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) </p>
<ul>
<li><p>The average weight loss in all three diet plans was small and participants regained some of their pounds before the study was over. </p></li>
<li><p>*The study tracked 322 moderately obese people in Israel who were randomly assigned to one of the three diets. The average age of participants was 52, and most were men. *</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Source: [Study:</a> Greater weight loss with low-carb diet – chicagotribune.com](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-low-carb-dietjul17,0,617836.story]Study:”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-low-carb-dietjul17,0,617836.story)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Haha, but as of two months ago this was news to my high school biology teacher. (I believe his response was, after some resistance, “Fine then. Finish your final project.”)</p>