Now carbs are bad and fat is good

stanmann571

Cue the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/large-study-suggests-carbs-not-fats-bad-for-you/

janejellyroll

"The research also found that eating fruits, vegetables and legumes can lower your risk of dying prematurely."

All those foods have carbohydrates.

"The investigators found that high-carbohydrate diets are common, with more than half of the people deriving 70 percent of their daily calories from carbs."

This just blew my mind. I consider myself to eat fairly high carbohydate and I'm usually in the 55-60% range. I can't imagine regularly getting 70% from carbohydrates. These are almost Freelee levels of carbs.

NorthCascades

Since I'm an active person, carbs are useful fuel for me. They're also delicious.

AlabasterVerve

Here are a few reactions from people who generally seem to favor the current dietary guidelines about PURE. Lots to critique, lots of confounders:

• Kevin C. Klatt: On PURE
  
• Nutrition Wonk: The 5 Continent (PURE) Study: A Prospective Cohort Study
  
• Science Media Centre Expert Reactions: High carb diet linked to poorer health

Little naysaying/questioning or even much of a reation from the low carb community from what I've seen but here were a few take aways from Twitter:

• PURE distilled - Eat fruits, veges, and legumes regularly, get enough animal protein, and enjoy plenty of "total fat". With some salt. -George Henderson
  
• Epi studies are useful to REFUTE previous unsubstantiated hypothesis. Causality is unlikely when inverse association -Jose C Souto, M.D.
  
• No I genuinely believe that dietary glycemia is currently the single greatest threat to human health — this is why I am a low carb advocate. -Ted Naiman

All in all it looks like business as usual to me. I think Stephan Guyenet, PhD summed it up best:

One observational study, however large, is not going to rewrite our understanding of nutrition and health.

deannalfisher

yep - all the low carbers on my facebook feed were atwitter about it - is it wrong of me to be less likely to respect the results since they were published in the lancet which was the source of the vaccines causes autism debacle?

seska422

The media headlines are touting that the study is basically saying: carbs are so bad they will kill you! fat good! and not a peep about protein.

The study suggests that 50-55% of calories should be from carbs and ~35% from fat. That's right in line with current government and MFP recommendations and is in no way groundbreaking. How many low-carbers really consider 50-55% low carb and 35% high fat?

Honestly, half of respondents getting 70% of their calories from carbs sounds like a self-report of calorie intake data problem. Are they reporting beans cooked with fatback as 100% carbs?

lemurcat12

I really like NutritionWonk and her reaction was worth reading.

Thanks for those links, AlabasterVerve.

I continue to think that beyond getting adequate protein, some fat, not overeating, and having an overall nutrient dense diet, macros don't matter much. They matter more (for some) when food is abundant because for some of us they might affect how much we eat when not logging.

Psychgrrl

A different review of the study I read also talked about a number of the participants being low income and there being a relationship to that and this study regarding the number of pre-packaged, high-carb foods eaten. According to what was reported by the participants.

Though, as another poster said, I think the self-reporting can be an issue as even folks paying attention to macros struggle at times to see what's what. Imagine folks living paycheck to paycheck and just being happy to have food to eat. Someone in my office asked the other day, "What's a trans fat? Why should I care about that?"

This study also doesn't account for Blue Zones, with the healthiest people in the world and a 70% or higher diet in carbohydrates. But Blue Zone people don't typically eat a lot of pre-packaged foods where there might be other things in them they didn't know they were eating. Like fat.

janejellyroll

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I really like NutritionWonk and her reaction was worth reading.

Thanks for those links, AlabasterVerve.

I continue to think that beyond getting adequate protein, some fat, not overeating, and having an overall nutrient dense diet, macros don't matter much. They matter more (for some) when food is abundant because for some of us they might affect how much we eat when not logging.

I just finished reading that Nutrition Wonk piece and I found it really helpful in putting this study in context.

GottaBurnEmAll

janejellyroll wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

I really like NutritionWonk and her reaction was worth reading.

Thanks for those links, AlabasterVerve.

I continue to think that beyond getting adequate protein, some fat, not overeating, and having an overall nutrient dense diet, macros don't matter much. They matter more (for some) when food is abundant because for some of us they might affect how much we eat when not logging.

I just finished reading that Nutrition Wonk piece and I found it really helpful in putting this study in context.

Same here. Shocking that media science reporting misses the finer points of things.

VeronicaA76

Water is bad for you. Everyone that drinks it, eventually dies. Ugh, pseudoscience at it's finest

cwolfman13

From the article:

Current global guidelines recommend that 50 percent to 65 percent of a person's daily calories come from carbohydrates, and less than 10 percent from saturated fats, the researchers said.

Dehghan suggested that "the best diets will include a balance of carbohydrates and fats, approximately 50 to 55 percent carbohydrates and around 35 percent total fat, including both saturated and unsaturated fats."

So how is this some kind of ground breaking news? Dehghan's suggestion is basically in line with current global guidelines. And how does this lead to the sensationalized tags about low carb vs high carb...this would pretty much suggest being somewhere in the middle...I don't know of anyone who would consider 50-55% of carbs to be "low carb" or 35% fat be "high fat"

The Nutrition Wonk piece provides much more context than this sensationalized media column that does little in the way of actually delving into the study.

From the wonk piece:

Ok, but who is getting 80% of calories from refined carbohydrates?

EXCELLENT QUESTION! The answer?

1. A supermodel in the 80's

or

2. Someone at risk for malnutrition (not getting enough to eat)

What makes me say that?

We like to think of all "Western Diet" junk food as being chock full of carbs: snack foods, cheese curls, potato chips, ice cream, cakes, etc. And it is! But these foods also have fats as well. Unless you're mainlining Coke and Jolly Ranchers (which someone, somewhere certainly is), the junk food you enjoy is likely NOT 80% carbohydrate. And even if you DO like tons of soda, you'd need to drink a TON to offset the % of calories you're getting from foods you eat daily like meats and oils in processed food.

In fact, people eating 80% carbs are either eating extremely low fat, or quite low protein... and perhaps not eating that much at all.

And this is where the countries included in the study become an important factor.

LiftHeavyThings27105

I find this conversation interesting.

I was working with a 53yo woman who was 5'3" and weighed in at 200lbs. She was eating 700 calories a day and easily 70% of that was carbs. More likely 85%.

Anyway, she had a lot of issues. Over the course of a few weeks we did several things that radically changed her situation:

1. stopped drinking energy drinks (period)
2. stopped drinking soda (Mountain Dew!!!!)
3. increased her water consumption (from two glasses a day to seven glasses a day)
4. increased her caloric intake (up to 1050 calories a day via about 70 calories a week increase over five weeks)

In that time frame her energy level went through the roof (she had no energy when we started), she lost eight pounds and her urine went from dark to barely visible (sorry if that is TMI....but we are all adults here).

Now, interesting point is....we did not work on her macros at all during this time frame. She continued to eat the same type of food...just more of it.

In a few more weeks we were going to completely restructure her macros. We did not get that far. Anyway, still find that very interesting.

Her lack of protein was the biggest surprise to me. I am confident that once we started the training that we would have needed to address that question. She decided that she could do this on her own (read: she did not want to pay me....) so I will never know the rest of the story.

And, I guess that with the additional water intake we increased her likelihood of dying!

Gallowmere1984

janejellyroll wrote: »

"The research also found that eating fruits, vegetables and legumes can lower your risk of dying prematurely."

All those foods have carbohydrates.

"The investigators found that high-carbohydrate diets are common, with more than half of the people deriving 70 percent of their daily calories from carbs."

This just blew my mind. I consider myself to eat fairly high carbohydate and I'm usually in the 55-60% range. I can't imagine regularly getting 70% from carbohydrates. These are almost Freelee levels of carbs.

You would think, but given the absurd levels of soda and juice consumption, it actually doesn't shock me, IF accurate.

However, given that most people just seem to think along the "meat=protein, oil=fat, everything else=carbs" mentality that I see among most of the population that I have spoken with, it's likely waaaay off.

lemurcat12

CWShultz27105 wrote: »

I find this conversation interesting.

I was working with a 53yo woman who was 5'3" and weighed in at 200lbs. She was eating 700 calories a day and easily 70% of that was carbs. More likely 85%.

So she was an outlier. The typical American eats nowhere near 85% carbs. It is hard for me to imagine how someone could, without having a careful diet aiming at that, kind of like the 80-10-10 vegans.

I also am quite skeptical she was doing so at 700 calories per day with the sources identified above playing a significant role. To be completely forthcoming, I don't believe it, it doesn't pass my you-know-what meter. Not saying she didn't tell you she was eating 700 calories or maybe think she was, I dunno.

LiftHeavyThings27105

I was very skeptical as well.

She logged everything for more than one week. Sure enough. She was legit eating 700 calories a day. Now, that assumes that she was logging correctly. That assumes that she was correct with her serving size. That assumes that she was 100% honest.

I honestly believe that she was. She was very desperate to fix her issues and I stressed the importance of being honest with me as everything that we were going to do was predicated upon her being 100% complete and honest. And, when I saw her daily log it did not pass my bs detector, either.

Anyway, that was my experience with her. I fully believe everything that she told me. I do not work with her any more so I do not know what has happened since we went different ways.

I honestly was amazed that she was still alive......she was definitely alive. I spent hours on the phone with her each day.

janejellyroll

CWShultz27105 wrote: »

I was very skeptical as well.

She logged everything for more than one week. Sure enough. She was legit eating 700 calories a day. Now, that assumes that she was logging correctly. That assumes that she was correct with her serving size. That assumes that she was 100% honest.

I honestly believe that she was. She was very desperate to fix her issues and I stressed the importance of being honest with me as everything that we were going to do was predicated upon her being 100% complete and honest. And, when I saw her daily log it did not pass my bs detector, either.

Anyway, that was my experience with her. I fully believe everything that she told me. I do not work with her any more so I do not know what has happened since we went different ways.

I honestly was amazed that she was still alive......she was definitely alive. I spent hours on the phone with her each day.

If she was self-reporting 700 calories a day and also drinking energy drinks and Mountain Dew regularly (as you said above), then the most likely situation is logging errors. You can't drink those in significant quantities, consume any food, and be at 700 calories a day.

amusedmonkey

Yeah, wonder what's the next bad food/macro/component is going to be. It could be something completely unexpected or maybe something half the population has never heard of (like who would have guessed gluten would get its time in the naughty chair). There's always tilting at windmills when it comes to nutrition and lately I'm just tired of all of it that I don't even want to engage. Kudos to those who don't get drained easily.

Edited: because as usual, my brain moves faster than my typing fingers and words keep going missing somehow.

jdlobb

I'm not sure what "now" means in the thread title. I feel like the push has been away from carbs and toward fats for at least the last 10 or 15 years, and only recently has it started the swing back the other way, or at least toward more "pure CICO" type thinking.