The inevitable backlash against the New York Times Magazine piece by Gary Taubes has arrived. In today's Washington Post, the health section's lead story is "What if the Big Fat Story is Wrong?" by Sally Squires.

It is actually a decent piece, analysing many of the specific claims in the Taubes piece and re-interviewing some of his sources.

The gist of it is that Taubes either discounted or did not include many studies indicating successful weight loss with a low-fat diet, often because he simply did not find the research or the researchers credible.

(Frustratingly, it seems to me that some of these studies seem to reduce both fat AND carbs, or reduce calories seemingly without isolating glucose impact.)

And so, as the article concludes, the public will now be left more confused than ever.

Read the story and judge for yourself:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2002Aug23.html

Thanks for posting that. What I found most interesting was their invocation of the National Weight Control Registry, or as I like to call it, the national starvation club. On their website, here is what they claim to have learned from their registrants:

Gimme a break! Can you imagine living off 1400 calories per day and exercising enough to burn 400? Good greif. I've seen people referred to eating disorder clinics for less.

Here are some comments on the WP article against Taubes from Uffe Ravnskov, author of "The Cholesterol Myths." His excellent website is at http://www.ravnskov.nu.

"This is a typical response from a reporter who dares not question authorities and therefore ignores most of what is questionable or directly contradictive to their statements.

A few examples:

In her article Sally Squires mentions Arne Astrup's review "showing the merits of low-fat diets". But in his review in Brit J Nutr 2000;83:Suppl.1, S25-S32 he has selected only 15 out of 217 publications by a variety of reasons. Knowing that Astrup has been a vigorous proponent for the low-fat diet in Denmark since many years I assume that he may not have been totally unbiased in this selection process.

Worst of all, Squires ignores the fact that Grundy misquoted the literature in Science Magazine. As she has interviewed Gary for several hours she could not have been ignorant of our letter, but I shall ask Gary directly."

The letter Uffe speaks of is in my hard drive somewhere and I'll hunt it down for posting. I beleive it was published Feb 2, 2002.

Studies of Dietary Fat and Heart Disease

In his letter about the article "the soft science of dietary fat" (News Focus, G. Taubes, 30 Mar. 2001, p. 2536), Scott M. Grundy says that saturated fatty acids (SFA) are the main dietary cause of coronary heart disease (CHD) ("Dietary fat: at the heart of the matter," 3 Aug., p. 801), and he cites two reviews in support (1, 2).

In one of the reviews, there are no references (1); in the other, of which Grundy is a co-author, most of the references do not appear to be supportive of his statement (2). For instance, the authors say that "populations consuming diets high in saturated fats have relatively high levels of serum cholesterol and carry a high prevalence of coronary heart disease" (2, p. 34), referring to 12 studies (3-14). In the eight cohort studies (3-10), only one had examined the association between SFA and serum cholesterol (10), five found no increased SFA consumption among CHD patients (3, 4, 6, 9, 10), and one found a smaller consumption (7). In addition, three of the 12 studies were reports from a project comparing the incidence of CHD in native Japanese living in Japan with Japanese-Americans living in the United States (12-14). Although it is correct that the Japanese-Americans, on average, had higher cholesterol, ate more saturated fat, and had a higher incidence of CHD, the determining factor for heart disease was not their cholesterol levels or their diets, but how acculturated they were to Western culture (13).

Grundy also writes in his letter that lowering serum LDL cholesterol by dietary means reduces CHD risk. But the study he cites did not specifically address this question (15), and more to the point, meta-analyses of all controlled and randomized trials that have used modification of dietary fat as the only type of intervention have shown that neither the incidence of nonfatal CHD, nor coronary or total mortality, was lowered significantly (16, 17).

Grundy's way of presenting scientific data is not unique. An analysis of three influential reviews in this field showed that insignificant findings in favor of the diet-heart connection were systematically inflated, and unsupportive studies were either not included or they were quoted as if they were supportive (18).

Uffe Ravnskov,*
Magle Stora Kyrkogata 9,
S-22350 Lund, Sweden.

Christian Allen,
660 Research Drive,
Frederick, MD 21703, USA.

Dale Atrens,
Department of Psychology,
University of Sydney, Australia.

Mary G. Enig,
Nutritional Sciences Division,
Enig Associates, Inc.,
11120 New Hampshire Avenue,
Silver Spring, MD 20904-2633, USA.

References and Notes

1. Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults, J. Am. Med. Assoc. 285, 2486 (2001).
2. Report of the Dietary Guidelines Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2000 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Washington, DC, 2000).
3. R. B. Shekelle et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 304, 65 (1981).
4. D. Kromhout, C. D. L. Coulander, Am. J. Epidemiol. 119, 733 (1984).
5. D. L. McGee et al., Am. J. Epidemiol. 119, 667 (1984).
6. L. H. Kushi et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 312, 811 (1985).
7. P. Pietinen et al., Circulation 94, 2720 (1996).
8. K. L. Esrey, L. Joseph, S. A. Grover, J. Clin. Epidemiol. 49, 211 (1996).
9. F. B. Hu et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 337, 1491 (1997).
10. R. B. Singh et al., J. Am. Coll. Nutr. 17, 342 (1998).
11. A. W. Caggiula, V. A. Mustad, Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 65 (suppl.), 1597S (1997).
12. A. Kagan et al., J. Chronic Dis. 27, 345 (1974).
13. M. G. Marmot et al., Am. J. Epidemiol. 102, 514 (1975).
14. R. M. Worth et al., Am. J. Epidemiol. 102, 481 (1975).
15. M. R. Law et al., Br. Med. J. 308, 363 (1994).
16. U. Ravnskov, J. Clin. Epidemiol. 51, 443 (1998).
17. L. Hooper et al., Br. Med. J. 322, 757 (2001).
18. U. Ravnskov, J. Clin. Epidemiol. 48, 713 (1995).

Dr Byrnes,
Did Dr Ravnskov write a critique of Squire's article? Do you have it so I can post it on another website where Atkins is being attacked with this WP article?

Why is it when they write about these diets, all they seem to care about is our weight? Sure, this woe helps us lose weight, but the main reason I do it, and so many others I know are doing it, is the undeniable results it's had on my HEALTH. My cholesteral has dropped. My blood sugare is normal again. My triglycerides are at the lowest they've ever been.

I work for a man who was a low-fat/high-carb diet advocate until he went to his doctor and found out his triglyceride levels were in the 800's! His doctor told him to stop eating refined white flours, white rice, potatoes and other root vegetables and pasta. He came to me and asked me what I ate. I told him about my triglyceride levels and my woe. He has been able to change his way of thinking from low-fat/high-carb, to low-carb/moderate fat and has lowered his triglyceride levels 600 points in 3 months. This is evidence enough that this woe is HEALTHY.

Hi!

Your quote is "No one can make us feel inferior without our consent" and it is by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Spicey

THANKS!!!!

I thought that was who said it, but, I was feeling inferior and didn't want to write that! (lol)

Given the evidence if you follow the low-fat high cab diet and do exercise 1 hour a day you will lose pounds at lest it work for me. BUT the key is following that diet. As soon as I stopped exercising for a few weeks I gained the pounds back and I was hungry all the time.

If you look at the people who were considered overweight in these studies I bet you will find that they switch from a High Carb High Fat – no exercise diet to a Low fat - High Carb diet with exercise. A LOT of people follow a High Carb High Fat - no exercise diet but no one seems to point this out.