Posted on 12/14/2012 6:41:08 PM PST by neverdem
The energy in–energy out hypothesis is not set in stone, argues Gary Taubes. It is time to test hormonal theories about why we get fat.
“It is better to know nothing,” wrote French physiologist Claude Bernard in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), “than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek.”
Embracing a fixed idea is one of the main dangers in the evolution of any scientific discipline. Ideally, errors will be uncovered in the trial-by-fire of rigorous testing and the science will right itself. In rare cases, however, an entire discipline can be based on a fundamental flaw.
As a science journalist turned science historian, I have written at length about how and why this may have happened in obesity research. I have suggested that the discipline may be a house of cards — as, by extension, may much research into the chronic diseases associated with obesity, such as diabetes.
Before the Second World War, European investigators believed that obesity was a hormonal or regulatory disorder. Gustav von Bergmann, a German authority on internal medicine, proposed this hypothesis in the early 1900s.
The theory evaporated with the war. After the lingua franca of science switched from German to English, the German-language literature on obesity was rarely cited...
---snip--
NuSI aims to fund and facilitate the trials necessary to rigorously test the competing hypotheses, beginning with inpatient feeding studies that will rigidly control dietary interventions for participants so that we know unambiguously the effects of macronutrients — protein, fat and carbohydrates — on weight and body fat. These studies will be done by independent, sceptical researchers. This may be an idealistic dream, but we have committed ourselves to the effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Friend don’t feed fat people.
A calorie is a calorie only in a bomb calorimeter...who knows how any calorie behaves from one individual to another. That is what we need to figure out, but I respectfully disagree about fat gain being due to dietary fat...it has far more to do with the insulin response, which fat intake alone will not stimulate. I do agree with you however, that fruit will also not make you fat...this has more to do with the amount of water in the fruit, and less to do the fructose in the fruit.
We need to stop trying to pigeon hole everyone into the same peg....we are all different, and different solutions are needed for each individuals weight gain/weight loss challenges.
So that organic apple I had for desert was a bad idea?
Thanks much! It gets kind of lonely out here in Rationalville. Yeah: cyclamates, f,d&c red dye, green dye, and the granddaddy of them all, freon, are all still banned or partially banned. And don’t get me started on DDT.....
It appears that you have a misguided understanding of the Krebs cycle. You most certainly have a problem with thermodynamics. That puts you in the same company as Taubes, but there's a lot of that going on these days.
Keep posting more BS like this and you will increase your credibility. [/s]
Fats are not you enemy if you control carbs in your studies. I guess the Krebs Cycle was not your strong point.
We have a confused poster here. I think he's belittling your "notions" on de novo lipogenesis though what, exactly, the Krebs cycle has to do with it escapes me.
BTW, I met Hans Krebs while in graduate school. I think it was just before the Yucatan meteor struck. 8^) He made a point of having a separate meeting with us students. He told us to avoid trends and stick to fundamentals. Good advice.
Lol, I began my reply and then got distracted so by the time I posted you had already seen the original.
My 400+ blood sugar readings and virtually zero insulin present prior to being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and beginning insulin injections would tend to disagree with this statement.
Your condescension is off-putting and unnecessary. Did you know that? While the thread was about Type II, your article was not type II specific. The statement that insulin is not needed, could be possible theoretically, under certain narrow conditions, is not practical in the real world, and of little use.
Oh, I'm sorry. I meant Hans Benjamin Krebs, the plumber from Hoboken. I lived across the river in Greenwich Village so I used to run into him all the time. My mistake.
Yes, he is most certainly confused. I have no idea if he’s trying to debate the Krebs cycle, de novo lipogenesis, or the first law of thermodynamics. I don’t believe he even knows what he’s trying to say. This is the problem with folks who have never really studied chemistry or physiology in any meaningful way – they don’t really know what the hell they’re talking about. Yeah, they probably read a few books and dug up some relevant research on PubMed. They might even have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express recently however, they really don’t understand the subject, which is probably why they get so nasty when confronted by someone who does.
BTW, I met Hans Krebs while in graduate school. I think it was just before the Yucatan meteor struck.
I see you go back like I do…..although I believe our friend is still trying to Google something up about that Yucatan meteor…….:^)
He told us to avoid trends and stick to fundamentals. Good advice.
Yup, and it’s excellent advice that is even more appropriate today. I had the opportunity to hear Norman Borlaug speak at an ACSH event many years ago, and he essentially said the same thing. He railed on the proliferation of junk science and the fact that public education was creating a generation of scientific illiterates who, because they had no meaningful education in science, would believe all the crap being published and passed off as legitimate. For that reason, you can read posts from self- proclaimed mavens here claiming that you can consume 3,000 calories a day, while burning off just 2,000 calories a day through metabolic processes and exercise, and lose weight -- as long as you only consume fats, and absolutely no carbs. Apparently, and contrary to what we were taught, you CAN get something from nothing. I’m sure it killed guys like Borlaug to hear this kind of nonsense. He told us nothing bothered him more than listening to the Luddites curse GMO food when his genetic engineering saved a billion people, mostly children and infants, from starvation. His fears, along with those of Krebs, manifest themselves on this forum with regularity.
Our schools today praise the lies of Rachel Carson, who has killed tens of millions, while nary saying a word about Borlaug who saved hundreds of millions. Guys like Taubes make a fortune denying the thermodynamic perspective and basic human nutritional biology, while those of us who stick to the fundamentals earn only the scorn of the practitioners of new age nutritional nonsense. It doesn’t matter if it’s Hans Krebs, the brilliant German biochemist, or Benjamin Krebs the plumber from Hoboken (and I spent some time in The Village myself back in the day- Sullivan Street), the conventional wisdom hasn’t changed, and the bottom line is still all about calories.
Huh? Wherever did I claim that we burn calories unaffected by metabolic physiology? This statement of yours is simply more evidence that you're in way over your head here. You seem to be impressed with the fact that amino acids, glucose and fats all utilize different pathways when being metabolized, and that the efficiencies will not be the same for all of those processes. It's pretty basic stuff, really. So, yes, the burning of calories is absolutely impacted by metabolic physiology. Duh.
If you really understood the subject like you want us to believe you do, you'd realize, like I do, that a calorie is a measure of the amount of energy and that it is always the same no matter what. Good grief, man, that's how a calorie is defined.
Personally, I think you're clenched so tightly, that all those calories you consume spend an inordinate amount of time in your system, and that absolutely none of them pass out of your "pucker hole" unused. You wouldn't have to be so reliant on laxatives and enemas if you could just stop being so freaking uptight.
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