JOLLYBLOGGER: An Important Review of Gary Taubes

Hello, Jolly the low-carb Nazi here offering more propaganda in favor of the low-carb lifestyle. Here's a review of Gary Taubes book Good Calories, Bad Calories by Jeremy J. Stone, past president of the Federation of American Scientists (HT - commenter Kevin at Jimmy Moore's Livin La Vida Low-Carb). As I've mentioned before, I am very excited about Taubes book. It's not a diet book per se, it's a science book, a research project, but his research has been enough to motivate me to continue on the low carb plan.

Since June 1, 2007 I have lost 50lbs, weigh less than I did when I get married and am approaching my college weight. And all this while cheating way more than I should. I am feeling better than I have in a long time and one of the best parts of this is that I no longer vomit when I see myself in the mirror. I'm no Tom Cruise and will definitely not be taking my shirt off in public any time soon, but it really is nice to get dressed in the morning and not look like I'm pregnant (yes, I have had people make that joke about me before!)

But I also know that a yahoo like me doesn't have the cred to recommend this so I wanted to reference a real live scientist, whose credentials and ability to read technical research material should not be in question. So, let me encourage you to read what Dr. Stone says about Taubes book after the jump.

Bet Your Money on Taubes - Five star review.

From the point of view of world public health, the Taubes book-"Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease"-could hardly be more important. Beautifully and carefully written by one of America's premier science writers, it is composed of two extraordinary reports. Each is greatly embarrassing to the medical community establishment and its fellow-traveling health reporters.

In the first, Taubes explains how, in the middle of the 20th century, the medical establishment managed to convince itself that it was dietary fat that caused heart disease. From this, in another absurd step, it argued the falsehood that a low-fat diet would prevent obesity.

In fact, as he shows, it had been known since the middle of the 19th Century that obesity was caused by refined carbohydrates, i.e., high glycemic foods, not by the quantity of calories.

Notwithstanding the fact that all serious studies, earlier and later, showed this result, the public health authorities managed to launch an epidemic of obesity, based on a low-fat diet, by suppressing and/or shouting down their critics. This is wrecking the health of our citizenry.

Even more important, Taubes goes on to document that the same factors that make us fat are the main causes of the chronic diseases of modern civilization-the diseases that primitive peoples get 20 years after they adopt a Western diet, cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. In sum, it was dietary sugar (glucose) and not dietary fat that had to be avoided.

Diet is a very complicated business. And the book does not pretend to prove the above points so much as to advance them as a preferred hypothesis. In the end, the book proposes an expensive and long-term dietary study. But, obviously, the reader has a finite life span and cannot wait for long-term studies. So what the reader needs to know is what is the most plausible diet: low-carb or low fat. The evidence seems overwhelming that the low-fat approach was an aberration based on a false study and that the low-carb approach, established 150 years ago, should be followed.

So buy this book. Learn how to stay slim and avoid disease. Learn how the medical establishment can screw up big time through excessive specialization, follow-the-leader sycophancy, and arrogance.

Learn how the public health writers at the finest newspapers, such as the New York Times' Jane Brody-or, unmentioned in the book, the Washington Post's Sally Squires-- misinformed their readers and attacked and ridiculed the critics of the establishment view. They just rewrote the conventional wisdom on which their careers and books had been based. Newspapers need to hire higher quality science writers, embed opposing points of view on their staffs, and oversee their health and food sections much more carefully.

Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, and peace too important to be left to the politicians, it appears that public health cannot be safely left to the public health establishment. Happily Taubes had the great courage and gigantic skill to examine and confront the reigning consensus. It seems obvious from the book that his view will prevail.

Jeremy J. Stone
President, Federation of American Scientists (FAS), 1970-2000.