The myth of fruit and more Taubes

Just to highlight a couple of interesting bits from the newspapers this last week.

On Wednesday, the Guardian had a really thought provoking piece on fruit. Not low carb by any means, but certainly saying that the current focus on fruit in the diet is not necessarily healthy:

The myths of fruit

Fresh fruit is good for us, we believe - so much so that sales of prepared fruit have almost doubled in the UK in the past two years. But are all those ready-sliced apples, mango medleys and 'superfood' smoothies really such a healthy choice? Aida Edemariam investigates

Then the Daily Telegraph had an interview with Gary Taubes:

Big fat lie

For years doctors have held that the only way to lose weight is to eat less fat and take more exercise. But now an eminent science writer says they've got it wrong. So, asks Melissa Whitworth, could Atkins have been right all along?

I liked Taubes' realistic comment:

Gary Taubes: 'If I was writing about me, I’d assume that I am both wrong and a quack.'

And the conclusion of the article, which is pretty close to my current thinking (although I think there is still something about exercise and also fasting which can have interesting hormonal effects of their own):


Weight-loss the Taubes way

• Expending more energy than we consume – exercising more or eating less – does not make us lose weight. It makes us hungry
• Dietary fat is not a cause of obesity or heart disease. The problem is the carbohydrates in our diet, and their effect on the hormone insulin
• Insulin makes us store calories as fat. Simple carbohydrates – starches and sugars – raise insulin levels and so lead to excessive fat storage
• The smaller the amount of fattening carbs you eat, the leaner you’ll be
• Obseity is not a disorder of overeating – it’s a disorder of excess fat accumulation. We overeat because we are hormonally driven to grow fat; we don’t grow fat because we overeat

UPDATE

Seth Roberts has done a fantastic and wide ranging interview with Gary Taubes here:

Basically, the way we work, at least if you believe the biology that I describe, is that as we secrete insulin in response to the carbohydrates we consume and the insulin works, among other things, to facilitate the movement of glucose into the cells of your muscles and other lean tissues. But blood sugar is kind of toxic, so your muscle tissue doesn’t want the insulin pushing all this blood sugar in, and it becomes insulin resistant. Your fat tissue now remains insulin-resistant, because your body doesn’t like to waste fuel. So if you eat a high-carb diet, your lean tissue takes up some of the glucose for fuel, and the rest gets dumped in your fat tissue, and your fat tissue remains insulin-resistant for a long time --- far longer. Because once your fat tissue becomes insulin resistant, then you just become diabetic; you have no place to put the glucose. You just pee it out. That’s the last resort, because your body doesn’t want to waste fuel.