Saw this one on Netscape today;I will comment within the quote in bold.


I already suspect the statements are skewed to produce a pre-ordained outcome showing yet again the agenda of the low-fat "big sugar" people.

Two studies of the popular diets that limit sugar and processed starches show they can work faster than some low-fat diets.

A pointless statement since we are trying to rid the world of the notion of "quick fix" rather than lifestyle. Any quick-acting diet might be taken as a "cure" instead of a regimen, thus paradoxically, working faster will lead to abandonment for many who aren't being told the more important truth: You have to stay on the regimen because once having corrected the problem, you can do even *more* damage by going back to the bad habits that led you to change them in the first place!

OTOH, for some who are more in despair, seeing some good results gives them hope, since likely they have been exposed to so many *true* fad diets that really don't work that they are disheartened already even before trying LC or even worse, "toying" with LC, meaning attempting it but ultimately incorrectly with predictable negative results.

I also have a problem with the term "processed starches" since this is an attempt to mislead as well: A naive reader may well come to the conclusion that "unprocessed starches" were somehow good for you!

Both studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that after six months, the low-carb dieters lost more weight than the low-fat group.

Perhaps a little more realistic, but again, we have to avoid the idea that LC is a "prison sentence" needed to get thinner only to then follow it up with a "get out of jail free" attitude. The purpose of LC is to produce a life-long result, so this whole notion of "timing studies" of diets is bogus.

But one of the studies showed that after 12 months, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight.

A deliberate attempt to oversimplify the problem. No discussion of health benefits/changes in the body good or bad, no discussion of how much of the weight lost was lean tissue versus muscle mass, etc.

In one study, a team at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia followed 132 obese adults who were assigned randomly either to a low-carbohydrate diet with intake of less than 30 grams of carbs a day, or a low-calorie diet that kept fat intake at a moderate 30 percent of calories from fat.

Interesting that value-judgements are so simply placed here. 30 grams of carbs is low while 30 percent fat is moderate. Many studies show that 30 percent fat may be low and 15 percent may best be described as inadequate to support proper health.

Volunteers with diabetes had better control of blood sugar on the low-carb diet, the researchers reported.

Finally something that stands on its own as useful fact!

The low-carb group lost weight faster, but the low-fat dieters caught up.

Race horses, not human beings! This fails to be realistic as all LC dieters know a "plateau" when they see it. Merely ignoring a plateau has predictable lame results, as apparently was done in this study. It is true that LF diets generally don't have this effect as profoundly as LC, thus catching-up is irrelevantly true if you aren't doing anything to keep the LC diet in the "lead".

However, a properly monitored LC diet has to be tweaked as necessary to always be effective. Plateau-busting may involve lots of changes such as a 3-day carb-high "heresy" period followed by strict induction phase which could be far lower than the 30 grams they suggest in their study, or going on the Stillman LC and LF diet for a short time [or fasting], planning for a temporary high-exercise program then reverting to a more moderate one that is perhaps still higher than was being done before, increased dosages of various vitra-nuitrients such as Chromium or L-carnitine, etc.

A year later, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight -- 11 to 19 pounds (5 to 9 kg) for the low-carb group and 7 to 19 pounds (3 to 9 kg) for the low-fat group.

Be wary of undefined statistics here! No statistical profile is offered as to what the trends are in the two groups. How many people lost the LC 11 and how many people lost the LF 7 for example? Is this a group weight loss thus this is just putting the groups on a collective scale?

Dr. Linda Stern, who led the study, said it confirmed that any diet that cuts calories will work.

Sounds like a politically-correct statement made to avoid ruffling feathers of the various agenda groups. But it muddies the waters where they need to be most clear. A recent US government-funded [NOT ATKINS!] study found that eating more calories in a LC diet inducing ketosis causes more weight loss of fat-only tissue than a lower calorie diet consisting of too much carbs to causes ketosis.

Moreover, what about the various positive and negative side effects that likely suggest the LF diets are deficient in all the other ways that really count, such as not helping diabetic control, not lowering LDL while raising HDL, not lowering triglycerides, etc. Still wanna take this "it doesn't really matter" stance?

"Americans are overweight because we're eating too much food and ingesting too many calories," she said in a statement.

Why make that blatantly oversimplified misleading statement? A better, more honest statement could be "Americans are overweight because we as a nation have been mislead for decades about the supposed advantages of low-fat foods which are killing us because in actuality it causes us to crave combinations of sugars and fats that are in fact unhealthy. We likely cannot curb the apetites of people, but at least we can tell them that if they eat sufficiently lowered carb quantities that they wind up in ketosis, they can eat all they want of protein and fat and actually wind up less obese and more healthy. And if they also want to lower their weight even more, then they have to somewhat lower their total intake of food and exercise as well."

But most people tend to overindulge in high-carbohydrate foods. "I think a low-carbohydrate diet is a good choice because much of our overeating has to do with consumption of too many carbohydrates," she added.

This is an MD speaking, but why does it have to sound so naive? My point is that the presence of a doctor in a study implies to some that the study is somehow scientific. But if the doctor isn't trained to understand how to conduct the study in the best way, what relevance is there to it?

My read of this study is that despite heavy pressure from "Big-Sugar", this doctor agreed to perform a somewhat misguided study comparing a typical LF diet (which requires far less tweaking) to a poorly-adjusted LC one in the hopes of proving LC people wrong. But even lamely implemented, LC won out in some ways, and the results, even spun towards LF mindset, can't deny that LC needs to be in the picture, etc.

In the second study, a team from Duke University followed 120 overweight people and found those on the low-carb diet who also took a variety of vitamins and supplements lost an average of 26 pounds (12 kg), compared to an average of 14 pounds (6 kg) on a low-fat diet after six months.

Clearly this shows that LC diets managed properly with vita-nutrient tweaking outperforms LF. And thus largely invalidates the other study!

However, to be fair, it doesn't point out what happens after the six months. Many of us who know how to tweak the diet could demonstrate that the results would continue comparably, or at least not imply the plateau effect reported in the other study. Notice that someone who insists that LF is better will point this out and just say that the continued results *must* be in-line with the other study because the other study was longer. This is of course absurd because you are comparing a study result to a conjecture.

However, the low-fat dieters lowered their cholesterol levels more, reducing their risk of heart disease.

This has to be wrong! Or at least is spun using irrelevant statistics. Remember, it may be true that total cholestrol levels could drop in certain LF diets, but that's not even a useful factoid unless you are some carb-company's marketroid. There is widespread belief in the HDL/LDL ratio factor and almost no belief in the total level as heart risk predictors, and in some circles, LDL is itself not a monolith. Thus raising HDL and the "good" component of LDL while lowering the "bad" component of LDL, lowering overall triglyceride levels, and ignoring total cholesterol levels [unless they severely *drop*!] is the statistic we need to hear. The LC dieters likely did this, thus reducing their risk of heart disease. I would really like the writer of the article to back up the claim made!

"We can no longer dismiss very-low-carbohydrate diets," Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in a commentary. But researchers said more study was needed to show whether low-carb diets are safe in the long term.

The standard BS rears its ugly head! LF is shown to be bad for you long-term but no one complains about it. LC shows that it's better, so the status quo people suggest it might not be safe simply because they have no data to confirm or deny any such notion.

I think we need to fund a study on the long-term effects of carb-selling companies on the deleterious effects of their practices on curtailing scientific studies!

"Patients should focus on finding ways to eat that they can maintain indefinitely rather than seeking diets that promote rapid weight loss," Willet added.

A good point that totally undermines the reasoning the other study is trying to use. There is a real danger that the led-by-the-nose public will never understand this, since the larger problem is the notion of a diet versus a WOL. We live in a society quite poisoned by the notion of instant gratification on too many levels. No wonder the carb-companies can manipulate so much!

Moreover, we have this relatively new bandwagon of "LC-friendy" food purveyors that are in actuality trying to make us eat too many carbs while wrapping the Atkins flag around themselves falsely. The main point missed is that merely a little less carbs doesn't accomplish much at all. Only severely restricting carbs works, and you have to count *all* of them, not this "net" carb crap! Thus, this is the carb-companies wolves in LC sheep's clothing as usual manipulating us.

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/diet.fitness/05/17/health.diet.reut/index.html[/url

cjl (Is it me or is the count of carb obfuscation articles getting published dramatically rising?)