Science, rational evidence, and made up nutritional facts.

markja

jknops2:

Excellent post.

I ran into the same thing about a week ago when I responded to a post about a blood type diet. I did some quick "research" by Googling blood type diet and lo, there was the fringe versus scientific consensus. I've come to the conclusion that these folks are part of the crowd which says that I'm not listening unless I agree with them.

If you're trying to debate a topic you have to have a person who is willing to listen your arguments and logically refute or accept them. Otherwise its just emotion. In your argument with the "egg lady," nothing you say is going to change her mind. You only tell the truth and let the reader decide who to believe.

Anecdotal evidence is always attractive to believe from an emotional perspective. I have to accept the argument based on the other side's dedication to their own experience. Otherwise I end up being accused of dismissing the individual, not the "fact' or assertion that is being supported. (It happens to me all the time.)

At the end of the day, these are just folks who are posting on a message board. Its all hearsay, I lost 8 lbs since starting this program but you can only accept or dismiss my assertion since you have no way of verifying my log entries.

Thanks for bringing up this topic, It got me to thinking.

Best,

Markja

safetypins

Mostly I appreciate your need for real evidence. I have a hard time going off what just anyone says on here (or in life in general) without some real speculation. (But I'm a philosophy major, so, that may have something to do with it.)

As far as HCG is concerned: It worked FOR ME, and that's what I'm happy about. I've lost almost 20 pounds. That's weight I haven't been able to lose on my own for a variety of reason... be it food addiction, out of control portions, my body CLINGS to carbs.

But that's a little beside the point. I've said it a thousand times... different things work for different people. I try really hard not to speculate on what everyone says here mostly because if its something they're doing and its working, well, perception is reality.

I DO, however, appreciate this post in its entirety. I think its great that you've found the real issue with our media/ healthcare.

TropicalKitty

jknops2:

Excellent post.

I ran into the same thing about a week ago when I responded to a post about a blood type diet. I did some quick "research" by Googling blood type diet and lo, there was the fringe versus scientific consensus. I've come to the conclusion that these folks are part of the crowd which says that I'm not listening unless I agree with them.

If you're trying to debate a topic you have to have a person who is willing to listen your arguments and logically refute or accept them. Otherwise its just emotion. In your argument with the "egg lady," nothing you say is going to change her mind. You only tell the truth and let the reader decide who to believe.

Anecdotal evidence is always attractive to believe from an emotional perspective. I have to accept the argument based on the other side's dedication to their own experience. Otherwise I end up being accused of dismissing the individual, not the "fact' or assertion that is being supported. (It happens to me all the time.)

At the end of the day, these are just folks who are posting on a message board. Its all hearsay, I lost 8 lbs since starting this program but you can only accept or dismiss my assertion since you have no way of verifying my log entries.

Thanks for bringing up this topic, It got me to thinking.

Best,

Markja

I think your post in the blood type diet thread is a good example. But the OP in that thread wasn't asking for evidence for or against it - they just wanted to know something about oats and wheat. You have to pick the battles you want to "fight." Some people are going to want to listen, others aren't. Not to mention, what works for you may not work for another person. That's one of the biggest lessons you have to realize on here. Some of those wacked out diets actually work for some people, but not necessarily for the reasons they think. In typical MFP style, my example is Atkins, I rocked on Atkins. Turns out that I have a wheat sensitivity that causes me issues when I eat standard carbs, so no duh that I lost weight on there and felt great.

As with most things, there are some general rules, but not everyone can live by those rules - it's how we make progress in learning more things.

dwarfer22

It is very common to see people spouting total garbage on this site. This site is mainly about people trying to change their weight/diet in general and there is so much information out there, constantly changing, it is difficult to know what is real and what can be trusted. Like the girl on here earlier who said that nuts are bad for you because they are a high calorie food, and to eat a handful is 300 calories. Crazy. But you can't say they're crazy cuz then they get defensive and cry. So what do you do? Explain the scientific benefits, the cals per serving and explain that in moderation they are a good source or protein and fat. It's up to you whether you wanna list a book of research for the person as they are always "right" but it could help the other people out there who don't know much about nuts or whatever have a more balanced view. As for quick fix diets and the like I don't really pay any attention to them. If people try it and it works for them, more power to them. But for most of us, we may experiment and quickly realize that starving our bodies, or just eating meat, or whatever the case may be, is not the best option. I say, respond to posts that you feel could be unhealthy or downright dangerous which as many scientific facts you can find. If there is misinformation as to nutritional facts, correct them. As to the people just being silly, i think you should just ignore it.

jknops2

I don't disagree with you about the general wackiness of the fringe element in nutrition,but I also want to say something that's been on my mind quite a lot lately as I read MFP posts and compare them to the medical community's official word on weight loss.

So here goes. The medical community has repeatedly stated that the ONLY thing that matters for weight loss is eating fewer calories than we use. When we (people who are not successful at losing weight while diligently counting calories and consuming fewer colories than we use) tell them (the medical community) that it's not working and that there must be more to it, they tell us that we must not really be counting all the calories we consume.

But perfectly reasonable posters on MFP who have no reason to lie repeatedly describe situations in which they have been consuming fewer calories than they used, sometimes for weeks, without losing weight. When science tells us that something HAS to be true and then our own life experience denies it, that confuses us, makes us distrust science, and leaves a lot of room for superstition about things like high fructose corn syrup.

In my own experience, I lose weight when I do anaerobic exercise, and I do not lose weight doing only aerobic exercise, even if the calories consumed are the same. I don't understand the science behind this, and there is nothing in the medical community's "rule" about weight lost to account for it, so is it surprising that I would believe other posters when they talk about what works for them, even if the whole body of medical knowledge denies it?

Yes, to be honest, I'm carrying a grudge against the medical community because doctors tend to have a really bad attitude toward fat people. But if they ever said word one about weight loss that actually helped me lose weight I'd for sure be lining up to listen to the second word.

First off, my expertise is plant ecology, carbon and nitrogen cycling, not nutrition or medical fields. Having said that, I have researched my health issues in the primary literature and I can comprehend what is well known and what is not.
And you make a good point, medical research is pretty good evaluating drugs, but not genetic influence on peoples weight and health issues. Which is for good reasons, it is not ethical to do these experiments on humans and rat and mouse studies can only tell us a limited amount. Correlational studies like the large nurses study can help us a bit, but are still limited. See
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/145/7/614.abstract
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/289/1/76.abstract

But for instance looking at myself, examining diabetes risk, there is not a lot of good data and enough of a sample size to get solid evidence to evaluate what BMI is best for me. Reading though it, BMI of 20 seems best for me. There is solid data supporting of having a BMI below 25, but the data is not that solid for if it is better to be substantially below it like 20, which I am aiming for, but it points in that direction. And yes, I had to read through a bunch of papers to figure this out, most of the websites, even reputable ones don’t cover this much. And these scientific articles are not easy to read or evaluate, because they are outside my field. Websites and government agencies simplify them down to make them understandable to everyone, which does not help either.

Going back to you. Genetics clearly matter. Ultimately calories in and calories out is what counts for most people. For me, eating less works, I don’t have time to exercise that much, work, kids, a spouse with a long commute, so I take care of dinner and moving kids to school and daycare.

But, going again back to you, yes genetics matter and, as far as I can see, there is not much in the literate evaluating this, which is a problem. I actually thought about this and this website like this has the potential to address this. Think about the large number of people logging in what they eat, what their weight is and what results you get. I think this has the opportunity to get much better data than most scientific studies have. We should email the owner of this website to encourage him to pursue this NIH has grants for this kind of research.

But again, again, going back to you, I don’t know what to say. Yes, there must be something else than just counting calories for a large number of people that’s important. And yes, I see a problem, with high fructose corn syrup. Yes calories are calories, but HFCS is cheap, so it gets added in large amounts to many foods. In my opinion, there is nothing fundamentally different from other sugar, but 48 grams in each can of soft drinks adds up fast. My doctor told me nothing about losing weight, but to cut my carbs in ½. I did not use much sugar before, rarely drink soft drinks, and probably (before my fitness pall) consumed less than 150 grams of carbs a day, so I don’t think that’s what caused my high sugar level

“In my own experience, I lose weight when I do anaerobic exercise, and I do not lose weight doing only aerobic exercise, even if the calories consumed are the same. I don't understand the science behind this, and there is nothing in the medical community's "rule" about weight lost to account for it, so is it surprising that I would believe other posters when they talk about what works for them, even if the whole body of medical knowledge denies it? “
Sorry nothing useful I can say about this. I did not look into this.

And yes, I agree about doctor’s attitude. Me being pre-diabetic, my doctor mentioned eating less carbs, as I said I don’t drink pop and rarely eat sugar, so not much I can do there. But weight is a major factor, which she did not mention, which I can do something about. In addition, I actually teach many pre-med students in an ecology-evolution course and I am not impressed with most of these students either. Future earnings seem to be more on their mind than anything else.

And your final point about overweight people. I think the problem is that for many people it is the basic issue of eating less or losing more, i.e exercising. And they dominated the people that doctors interact with. But yes, another part of overweight people has other factors causing this and for these people we don’t know what the key factors are and doctors, because there is no solid data, lump them in with the rest. The only hope is that with the decreasing cost of sequencing genetic data, the new development of individually based health care is coming soon. This has the potential to maybe address this issue in the future.

aeevr

I'm a scientist. I have to say as a non-medical doctor the medical community lets us down. It's recommendations are very often not based on good science especially in the realm of nutrition. You clearly don't need a PhD to pick up on this.

Medical 'science' fails people all the time. And when it does they turn to whatever crazy thing might possibly work... as they should.

Check this out:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbs-against-cardio

Maybe the egg lady isn't so crazy.

janesmith1

I'm interested in the scientist view of Coconut oil.....it's a saturated fat, right? I hear both positives and negatives. There's a lot of "this is the greatest thing for you" with an almost cult-like fervor attached to it which gets me immediately suspicious, then there's Dr. Mercola, who I think has SOME interesting info but is also a crank. I'm interested in what the scientists on this thread say.

janesmith1

n/a

hemlock2010

Great article! Thanks for the link.

Here's another one--this time about exercise: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-exercise-really-make&page=4

I'm a scientist. I have to say as a non-medical doctor the medical community lets us down. It's recommendations are very often not based on good science especially in the realm of nutrition. You clearly don't need a PhD to pick up on this.

Medical 'science' fails people all the time. And when it does they turn to whatever crazy thing might possibly work... as they should.

Check this out:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbs-against-cardio

Maybe the egg lady isn't so crazy.

jknops2

I'm interested in the scientist view of Coconut oil.....it's a saturated fat, right? I hear both positives and negatives. There's a lot of "this is the greatest thing for you" with an almost cult-like fervor attached to it which gets me immediately suspicious, then there's Dr. Mercola, who I think has SOME interesting info but is also a crank. I'm interested in what the scientists on this thread say.

Not a lot of good data. Below are a couple of sample articles that have some relevant info in them. But sorry, this is not my research field, there are hundreds of similar articles and this would take a while to review and synthesize.

However, looking at this it is clear there is at best, marginal evidence that coconut oil is good for you, and nothing that it is magically good for you.

Fish oil clearly is, and there is much more evidence that oils, like olive and grapeseed, high in unsaturated fats are good. And there is lots of evidence that saturated fats are really bad, coconut oil is very high in saturated fats, so I would not include this in any diet, if you have high cholesterol. Outside of that, any food including coconut oil is, in my opinion, fine, it eaten in moderation. Except for trans fats, there is clear evidence that we should eliminate these.


• (Assunção, ML; Ferreira, HS; Dos Santos, AF; Cabral Jr, CR; Florêncio, TM (July 2009). "Effects of dietary coconut oil on the biochemical and anthropometric profiles of women presenting abdominal obesity.". Lipids 44 (7): 593–601). This study used 20 women for 12 weeks with a coconut supplement versus soybean oil, 20 women. This shows a 3 point increase in HDL. No difference in weight loss.
• Plasma lipid and lipoprotein response of humans to beef fat, coconut oil and safflower oil. R Reiser, JL Probstfield, A Silvers… - The American journal …, 1985 - This compares 19 males, 25 years old for 5 weeks. It shows that men with beef fat have lower LDL cholesterol
• Mechanisms of hypertriglyceridemia in the coconut oil/cholesterol-fed rabbit. Increased secretion and decreased catabolism of very low density lipoprotein. M Van Heek… - Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and …, 1991. This study looks at rabbits, comparing coconut oil to olive oil and shows lower cholesterol with olive oil.
• Serum and liver lipids in rats and chicks fed with diets containing different oils. AM Feoli, C Roehrig, LN Rotta, AH Kruger… - Nutrition, 2003 –This looks and rats and chickens comparing soybean and coconut oil and shows that coconut diet has higher cholesterol levels.

Teemo

Topics for this are:
• Cholesterol health issue being a myth
• Saturated fats being a health issue
• HCG diet
• Paleo diet, or other diets eliminating all carbs
• Corn sugar being bad and natural sugars being good (sugars are sugars after all)

I run into this with science all the time, on issues like global climate change, evolution, the cause of AIDS, etc.
The broad consensus, versus the couple of fringe people and most people perceiving these debates as there is no consensus. I think for many science issues, including nutrition and health, this is major problem in our society.

That's because there isn't a consensus, the science is constantly developing/evolving, bias funding (real or perceived) shades all studies, and people prefer to listen to the advice their parents and friends give. That, and people like to look for easy excuses and scapegoats. To take your topics in turn:

• Cholesterol health issue being a myth

Not sure what you mean by this. Blood cholesterol, from all schools of thought, is a legitimate issue. The only dispute as it were is whether -dietary- cholesterol has any effect on blood cholesterol. Popular consensus is "yes, of course." Scientific studies lean towards the side of "no, of course not" with a few studies in between.

• Saturated fats being a health issue

I don't think there's a dispute about this, except to the extent that popular consensus is "all fats in any amount are bad" which is simply incorrect.

• HCG diet

Don't know what this is.

• Paleo diet, or other diets eliminating all carbs

Fad diets and or fancy calorie-restriction diets with no scientific support or basis. That said, the Paleo diet doesn't eliminate carbs it eliminates GRAINS... which is an important distinction since even ketogenic diets require some level of carbohydrates. Processed foods and grains are either no worse than natural foods and grains or worse than natural foods and grains -- there has never been an argument that processed foods are BETTER for you. No harm therefore in cutting them out.

• Corn sugar being bad and natural sugars being good (sugars are sugars after all)

Media alarmism and uneducated hype. Sugars are sugars.

aeevr

" superstition about things like high fructose corn syrup"

High fructose corn syrup can be produced from genetically modified corn. We really have no idea how genetically modified produce can affect us since no real thorough testing is required by the FDA.

I am no expert in this issue and really have no idea what to think, but if anyone can produce some hard evidence that shows GMO's are harmless, I'm very interested.

aeevr

"I actually thought about this and this website like this has the potential to address this. Think about the large number of people logging in what they eat, what their weight is and what results you get. I think this has the opportunity to get much better data than most scientific studies have. We should email the owner of this website to encourage him to pursue this NIH has grants for this kind of research. "

I think this is a FANTASTIC idea. Cheap, ready to use data - what more could a scientist want?

jknops2

Almost all of insulin, human growth hormone, hepatitis-B vaccine, and antibodies for cancer treatments these days is produced by GMO modified bacteria, with great benefit and lower cost. Most animal studies (rats, mice) of human diseases use genetically modified animals. No one seems to be worried about this.

In crops, for human health, there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact. Just vague talk about potential problems, like allergies. And keep in mind that the same bt protein that GMO corn produces is used in organic farming as a natural pesticide.

GMO corn leads to substantially lower pesticides use and higher yields. I think that this is a great benefit for all of us.

aeevr

Almost all of insulin, human growth hormone, hepatitis-B vaccine, and antibodies for cancer treatments these days is produced by GMO modified bacteria, with great benefit and lower cost. Most animal studies (rats, mice) of human diseases use genetically modified animals. No one seems to be worried about this.

In crops, for human health, there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact. Just vague talk about potential problems, like allergies. And keep in mind that the same bt protein that GMO corn produces is used in organic farming as a natural pesticide.

GMO corn leads to substantially lower pesticides use and higher yields. I think that this is a great benefit for all of us.

I'm worried and I know I am not the only one.

From my understanding Roundup ready GMO's were produced to withstand more herbicides (the Roundup). So yeah, less pesticide, way more herbicide. An herbicide that to my understanding is an endocrine disruptor/estrogen mimic.

"there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact"
My question is: have valid, thorough studies shown this?

jknops2

I'm worried and I know I am not the only one.

From my understanding Roundup ready GMO's were produced to withstand more herbicides (the Roundup). So yeah, less pesticide, way more herbicide. An herbicide that to my understanding is an endocrine disruptor/estrogen mimic.

"there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact"
My question is: have valid, thorough studies shown this?
[/quote]

Ok, corn is mainly Bt GMO. Corn is a big competitive plant and does not need much weed control, hence herbicide use is not an issue, and neither is Roundup Ready corn widely used.

Most of the soybean in the US, is roundup ready GMO. And Alfalfa is just approved as a roundup ready GMO, and will likely be used widely. These plants are much shorter stature and have major weeds issues. It is planted as a monoculture after all. Roundup is broad spectrum and kills all plants, but it is rapidly broken down in the soil by bacteria, does not accumulate or contaminate water streams, and is better than most alternatives, like 2.4.D. (I do have to say, my undergraduate was in horticulture and I was up on this, but I switched to ecology and am not up on what current herbicides are commonly used, and more recent herbicides are likely to be not as bad as 2.4.D, which does accumulate and leaches into water). So, (my opinion) I prefer roundup over many herbicides, which have a much worse environmental impact.

You also need to note that organic producers use tillage to controls weeds in the same corps. Tillage leads to increased soil erosion, loss of topsoil which contaminates streams and rivers and is not sustainable. If anyone wants to claim that organic agriculture is environmental better, they need to address the issues of increased soil erosion, which they do not do. I am familiar with these studies and no till agriculture using herbicides, in my mind, is much more sustainable and better for the environment than tillage driven organic agriculture.

As a related issue, urban use of Roundup is much worse; most people apply much too high levels in their yards. So, if you are worried about Roundup, check your neighbors. This scares me more than regulated agricultural use. I don’t eat organic, but I do not use anything herbicide/pesticide in my yard or house. It still surprises me that many people who eat organic do use all this stuff in and around their house and do not realize that they get much more exposure this way.

Going back to corn, the Bt gene which is the GMO part produces a protein that kills insects. Hence much less insecticide use. And, as I said there is no evidence showing that this negatively impact human health. But, as you ask can you prove this? It is really hard to prove a negative. Bt corn has been widely used for more than 15 years and yes, so far nothing has emerged. So, I think, it makes no difference. But, I can see that people want more evidence, but it is not going to be easy to get this.

In the same note, many organic produces claim that their product is healthier. But they also have no evidence or data to support this. Why not require organic producers to provide convincing data that justifies their higher price?

schobert101

Great points knops2, couldn't agree more. As a physician I am trained in uosing evidence based principles. There is so much garbage on some of these boards that it realy isn't possible to argue every point. i too like to see a reference to the data or study that backs up what someone is claiming. If I see something on here though that is just medically wrong or dangerous I wil speak up. I have commented on this problem in several other posts and it behooves all of us to really trust nohting that you see here and do your own research or ask the person claiming something to back it up ith a reference

jknops2

I'm worried and I know I am not the only one.

From my understanding Roundup ready GMO's were produced to withstand more herbicides (the Roundup). So yeah, less pesticide, way more herbicide. An herbicide that to my understanding is an endocrine disruptor/estrogen mimic.

"there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact"
My question is: have valid, thorough studies shown this?
[/quote]

Not quite thru, not more but different herbicides. Roundup kills corn. It kills most plants. Roundup resistant corn has a gene inserted that prevents this, that’s why farmers can use Roundup with this GMO corn. But the bottom line is this roundup in GMO Roundup resistant plants replaces other herbicides, so the question is if Roundup or the alternative herbicides are better. My understanding Roundup is more benign. It decomposes fast and does not accumulate. To answer your question about “endocrine disruptor/estrogen mimic”, I don’t know. You would need to evaluate different herbicides and I have not done this.

And your last question “"there is no evidence that GMO has any adverse impact. My question is: have valid, thorough studies shown this?”
There is not a lot of good data on this. It is much easier to show that something matters than it does not matter. Bt Corn has been around for more than 15 years with no clear evidence that it has an adverse effect on human health. Roundup ready soybeans have been around for more than 10 year, and so far no evidence of any problems. So, in my opinion, no, there is no evidence. However saying this, I am familiar with most this literature. However, if there was a striking scientific paper out there on this topic I would know about this and you too, because the press would have reported on this.

Thinking about this. It is kind of ironic. I work with several agricultural scientists, who consider me the environmentalist. I keep arguing for lowering fertilizer use and pesticide use, because of the environmental consequences of their use. And here I am arguing the benefits of modern agriculture. I guess, like politicians, it is not easy to advocate a middle ground in these issues.

aeevr

Thanks so much for your replies. It's definitely nice to hear someone educated in these matters not pushing an agenda.

I really don't know what to think about this stuff. I don't buy organic, I don't trust those people either! If I had the income, I'd be eating a lot more grass fed beef, though.

I do know that prescription drugs caused me to gain ~60 lbs in 2 years with no correspondingly large increase in calories while living a very active lifestyle (along with some other ailments). So I don't trust the pharmaceutical industry and see the medical establishment as basically their puppets. I don't trust the government to protect us from the likes of Monsanto either.

I just try to eat real food and hope for the best.

Mirabilis

hmmmmm

Diet-tainment.

We're as processed as Kraft Dinner in this... children of the television age who don't ask enough questions because the information's just handed to us.

I agree.. look it up, make inquiries, question the answers. We can't all have medical degrees (mine are Philosophy (Logic) and Law) but we can actively question, which would be a good thing.