New Nutrition Study Changes Nothing
kimny72
Posts: 16,011 Member
I thought this article was a nice change of pace from typical study reporting
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/09/moderate-intake-of-things-linked-to-health/538428/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/09/moderate-intake-of-things-linked-to-health/538428/
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Replies
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Indeed: Sensible, truthful, well-founded.
But as even its author seems to understand . . . kinda boring.
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“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.”
Quoted for truth.10 -
I have read Moby Dick.
I have even read The Sea Wolf.4 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I have read Moby Dick.
I have even read The Sea Wolf.
Clearly you are out of touch lol.
I read Moby Dick too. I enjoyed it, but to be honest probably wouldn't have read it if it wasn't required for a class. Also read Billy Budd for a class, but don't remember anything except the name, so I guess it was boring too.4 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »I have read Moby Dick.
I have even read The Sea Wolf.
Clearly you are out of touch lol.
I read Moby Dick too. I enjoyed it, but to be honest probably wouldn't have read it if it wasn't required for a class. Also read Billy Budd for a class, but don't remember anything except the name, so I guess it was boring too.
Back before internet and social media, I read stuff. I still read stuff, but back then I turned pages. Now, I just scroll. When I was young and poor I subscribed to a service that sent me an expensively bound public-domain book each month, hence those two.3 -
I'm back in this thread already because I want to refer to this bit in the article:
"Obsession with novelty has been called “neophilia.” The term was used as early as 1965 in a story by J.D. Salinger, who was apparently wary of it."
I'm in a discussion about "superfoods". Need I say more?5 -
Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.32
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A better question might be, "how is the weight loss going?" I am eating a low calorie diet with about 45-55% calories from carbohydrates and succeeding for the first time in my life. I finally understand how out-of-balance my portion sizes were and believe that paying attention to that has allowed me to have success at weight loss WITH balance in my diet. I don't believe a lower carb diet would help me any better than what I am currently doing. Demonizing carbs isn't helpful, in my opinion. I've seen plenty of fat people who have been low carb for years without significant weight loss. Maybe they are "doing it wrong" or maybe they simply eat too many calories. I think option 2 is probably the more acurate answer. Carbs aren't a bigger "enemy" than calories. Balance is necessary no matter how you like to eat.23
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
Almost 80 lbs lost in 10 months on 50% or more carbs (it's the one macro I sometimes exceed target on). But thanks for asking.20 -
Sorry in advance for the long post! Lot of thoughts on it, thanks for sharing.
CW prevails and is boring, and is counter to capitalism and our neophilic tendencies as a culture. I think the sugar lobby story that broke out semi-recently was the biggest nutrition news to hit in a while, but people knew sugar was bad even before that made headlines. Sad but true for nutritional journalists who hope for the next big "holy *kitten* i can't believe we've been eating [carbs/meat/dairy/legumes/wheat/etc.] all these years!" story to hit: it's pretty much all been said.
The real stories are just how much these industries influence our lives: how our school lunches look, how much processed food we feel is "normal" to eat, how so many in our generation literally don't know how to cook. Food fads thrive because our food culture has been lost. We're on this website not because we eat too many carbs or too much meat or too few avocados... we're here because our society inundates us with subpar food options and promotes sedentary behaviors, and as a result we're all pretty *kitten* lost.
That being said, the "boring" doesn't get promoted often enough; in some circles we did talk about Michael Pollan's body of work, especially his three-rule manifesto (1. eat food, 2. not too much, 3. mostly plants), but this didn't permeate the mainstream. And nutritional journalists contribute to the problem by publishing preliminary/weak studies as canon; suddenly the demons in our diet are everywhere, when the basics really are very simple and boring and were in front of us all along. But that's not what people want to hear.
The author of the article was right: neophilia is the downfall of popular science. The most boring stuff tends to be the stuff with the most data backing it up, and also is the worst at selling things. Truly revolutionary stuff is rare, but science is more exciting when there's a surprise waiting around every corner, things "science can't explain", magic bullets and sorceror's stones and magical elixirs waiting to be discovered that will allow us to transcend our human needs of air, water, carbs, proteins, fats, and a sprinkling of nutrients. The promise of those things sells things. Neophilia and capitalism go hand in hand, and if we let our diets be dictated by the latest trends we will stray farther from conventional wisdom to our peril.
Sigh.10 -
rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
I lost 80 lbs in 12 months and have kept it off for 17 months and counting and gone from couch to 42.2K, all while eating 55% carbs, 30% fat, 15% protein.
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Whenever people find out someone is trying to lose weight, I've noticed a common question is, "Oh, what diet are you on?"
As if there has to be a label. A fad. A title. A certain method, maybe involving apple cider vinegar or activated almonds. Something, ANYTHING to avoid the boring, prosaic truths contained in that study, and in the countless other studies that say the same thing.
I don't know how many here have watched it, but it all reminds me of a scene from Ab Fab (UK sitcom):
Saffy: "Look, mum. All you've got to do is eat less and take a bit of exercise."
Eddie: (Rolls eyes in scorn) "Sweetie, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it."18 -
TheSunAndTheRainfall wrote: »Whenever people find out someone is trying to lose weight, I've noticed a common question is, "Oh, what diet are you on?"
As if there has to be a label. A fad. A title. A certain method, maybe involving apple cider vinegar or activated almonds. Something, ANYTHING to avoid the boring, prosaic truths contained in that study, and in the countless other studies that say the same thing. "
I'm guessing you haven't read the study, as it isn't about weight loss at all.
The PURE study looks at food consumption (self reported questionnaires) and tries to drag out of the statistics any interaction between the diets of the participants and health outcomes because "The relationship between macronutrients and cardiovascular disease and mortality is controversial"
The study found thatHigher carbohydrate intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality (highest [quintile 5] vs lowest quintile [quintile 1] category, HR 1·28 [95% CI 1·12–1·46], ptrend=0·0001) but not with the risk of cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular disease mortality. Intake of total fat and each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality (quintile 5 vs quintile 1, total fat: HR 0·77 [95% CI 0·67–0·87], ptrend<0·0001; saturated fat, HR 0·86 [0·76–0·99], ptrend=0·0088; monounsaturated fat: HR 0·81 [0·71–0·92], ptrend<0·0001; and polyunsaturated fat: HR 0·80 [0·71–0·89], ptrend<0·0001). Higher saturated fat intake was associated with lower risk of stroke (quintile 5 vs quintile 1, HR 0·79 [95% CI 0·64–0·98], ptrend=0·0498). Total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality.
but it is important to note that the range of fat and carbohydrate intake reported was limited - the lowest carbohydrate intake quintile was 46% and the highest fat 35%. In part this is because the study is specifcally trying to avoid being dominated by US / European data and hence has a lot of high carb low fat Asian population data in it. The highest carb quintile is 77% and the lowest fat 11% (all median values).
So what PURE tells us is that within those ranges of consumption there's a modest trend to see more deaths (from any cause) in people eating 77% carbs compared to 46% and fewer deaths in people eating more fat (which is really just the same thing as if carbs go up fat comes down). The fact that these high carb consumers are in China and the lower carb ones in the USA may of course be an influence on the outcomes.
It didn't find any indication of fat consumption causing mortality, cardiovascular disease, or stroke - in fact stroke reduced with increasing sat fat consumption in this population but again the high sat fat consumers would be Western.
I don't see how anyone can recommend a particular diet based on PURE, that is just them restating their own beliefs having been given a platform.
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
@rfrenkel77
Are you aware that the healthiest populations with the lowest instance of obesity tend to have high carb diets?
A high carb diet worked very well for me when I was losing weight and also works for long term maintenance at goal weight.
When I "look around" I see people eating too many calories for their too inactive lifestyle. It's not one particular macro that is the problem - it's over consumption.
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The PURE study found that the highest carb consumers had the highest death rate. 7.2 deaths per 1,000 person years in the high carb (Asian ?) eaters, vs 4.1 in the lowest.
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
Thank you for asking.
44% or higher since I joined MFP.
Maintenance since August 2016
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TheSunAndTheRainfall wrote: »Whenever people find out someone is trying to lose weight, I've noticed a common question is, "Oh, what diet are you on?"
As if there has to be a label. A fad. A title. A certain method, maybe involving apple cider vinegar or activated almonds. Something, ANYTHING to avoid the boring, prosaic truths contained in that study, and in the countless other studies that say the same thing.
I don't know how many here have watched it, but it all reminds me of a scene from Ab Fab (UK sitcom):
Saffy: "Look, mum. All you've got to do is eat less and take a bit of exercise."
Eddie: (Rolls eyes in scorn) "Sweetie, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it."
You've made my day by quoting ab Fab.
Can we also work in the "tax the stupid people" line somehow???7 -
TheSunAndTheRainfall wrote: »Whenever people find out someone is trying to lose weight, I've noticed a common question is, "Oh, what diet are you on?"
As if there has to be a label. A fad. A title. A certain method, maybe involving apple cider vinegar or activated almonds. Something, ANYTHING to avoid the boring, prosaic truths contained in that study, and in the countless other studies that say the same thing. "
I'm guessing you haven't read the study, as it isn't about weight loss at all.
Yes, but I was talking rather more generally about faddish thinking and the pursuit of novelty, appertaining to the article itself.
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
*Looks around at so many vets losing or lost eating all the carbs (and protein and fat) including myself*
Pretty well actually!11 -
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »
Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
Another one that ate carb at 45-55% the whole time I was losing. Lost over 25Kg and am in maintenance now, a a better weight than ever before. It all works like a charm with MFP as the guide and just CICO all the way.TheSunAndTheRainfall wrote:
I don't know how many here have watched it, but it all reminds me of a scene from Ab Fab (UK sitcom):
Saffy: "Look, mum. All you've got to do is eat less and take a bit of exercise."
Eddie: (Rolls eyes in scorn) "Sweetie, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it."
Yes I remember that one! AbFab had some more hidden gems like that
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Yup - carbs doing me just fine - I'm down 12lbs to my goal, weight stable and focusing on recomp with between 3-400g carbs a day3
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
LOL! I've never been overweight and I eat tons of carbs - at least 50%...all that matters is that you stay within calories. Don't fear the carbs.
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
I'm jumping on the pile to say I lost 50 pounds and have kept it off for 15 years on a ~50% carbs diet.6 -
If they maintain a calorie deficit whilst eating 55% carbs I bet it's working fantastically.rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
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rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
I'm losing weight eating that many carbs.
Your point?7 -
The PURE study in the Lancet is behind a paywall: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32252-3/fulltextFindings
During follow-up, we documented 5796 deaths and 4784 major cardiovascular disease events. Higher carbohydrate intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality (highest [quintile 5] vs lowest quintile [quintile 1] category, HR 1·28 [95% CI 1·12–1·46], ptrend=0·0001) but not with the risk of cardiovascular disease or cardiovascular disease mortality. Intake of total fat and each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality (quintile 5 vs quintile 1, total fat: HR 0·77 [95% CI 0·67–0·87], ptrend<0·0001; saturated fat, HR 0·86 [0·76–0·99], ptrend=0·0088; monounsaturated fat: HR 0·81 [0·71–0·92], ptrend<0·0001; and polyunsaturated fat: HR 0·80 [0·71–0·89], ptrend<0·0001). Higher saturated fat intake was associated with lower risk of stroke (quintile 5 vs quintile 1, HR 0·79 [95% CI 0·64–0·98], ptrend=0·0498). Total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality.
Interpretation
High carbohydrate intake was associated with higher risk of total mortality, whereas total fat and individual types of fat were related to lower total mortality. Total fat and types of fat were not associated with cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction, or cardiovascular disease mortality, whereas saturated fat had an inverse association with stroke. Global dietary guidelines should be reconsidered in light of these findings.
Nothing really new, no, but some of it bears repeating since government and organizations (like ADA or AHA) are so slow to change their guidelines:
Saturated fat is not dangerous so eat fat. The higher intakes of fat they looked at appears tolead to a longer life although the macro range was limited... Stroke is reduced among those with higher saturated fat intake which makes me wonder if that is part of the reason that SE Asia has such a high stroke rate.
The healthiest people avoid refined carbs and sugar so for carbs eat veggies, fruit, beans, seeds and whole grains... and whole grains in bread is not eating whole grains. The lower carbohydrate intake appeared to lead to a longer life although their macro range was limited.
PURE really had nothing to do with weight loss but just concerned the resultant mortality based upon those diets and their nutrition. I'm sure being overweight would affect mortality levels but it has nothing to do with the study unless you assume some foods are more likely to lead to obesity which then can lead to an earlier death.
Discussing which macros worked best with weight loss is not really relevant to the PURE study. To keep with the theme of the study, we'd need to have everyone declare their macros, stick with it for 10 years, and then check back in to see who is still living.
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Here's David Katz's insightful take on the PURE study.
https://linkedin.com/pulse/diet-health-puzzling-past-paradox-pure-understanding-david?trk=mp-reader-card4 -
The article was about health, not weight loss, yes. And I'd like to highlight that the first post to mention weight loss was a low carb post, which led to other posters replying that they lost weight just fine eating plenty of carbs.rfrenkel77 wrote: »Can't believe people who are trying to lose weight still talking about eating 55% carbs. How's that working for everyone? Look around.
Which I think highlights the point of the article, that there are too many people jumping on bandwagons and insisting there is "one true way" to be healthy that we are just starting to understand and doctors don't want you to know about, and the scientific community is too confused to see the truth. 4 -
Looks like overweight people are clearly not maintaining a calorie deficit. After being overweight for a while they develop pre diabetes and type 2. Then loosing weight while eating carbs and having insulin resistance becomes near impossible for them. Introducing high fat low carb ketogenic lifestyle. It works for healthy people by simply reducing food cravings, and it works for diabetics and pre diabetics by also reducing insulin spikes. Win win. I'm coaching/cooking for my wife on this plan, and I'm on it myself. It's totally sustainable. She went from 167 to 151 in 3.5 month. Yes of course she is eating less calories, but for first time in her life she is not binge eating and not craving. It's an awesome tool.15
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