Do you subscribe to Gary Taubes's alternative hypothesis of obesity? page 3

[Apex Predator]

Yes, he did. Anyone who keeps repeating the "Taubes is all about teh evil insulinz" line is just parroting a line from a blog who got their info from a Cliffs Notes summary or from yet another blog. If one bothers to actually read the book, this is obviously not the case.

Granted I read WWGF, not GCBC, but the heavy emphasis certainly was on insulin/carbs. His own diet is a pretty terrible version of Atkins, the last I remember reading it.

[fiercehunter]

No, not really. Yes, starches are the problem and yes Gary is right in pointing out that the researchers have known this for over 100 years. We need carbs though, everyone knows this. He would have been a lot more radical if he had said in his books that sugar and fruit is OK while hammering home that grains & PUFA are the devil. I haven't read GCBC only WWGF, can't remember what all he said about PUFA but pretty sure it's not his central thesis.

[Paleobird]

Granted I read WWGF, not GCBC, but the heavy emphasis certainly was on insulin/carbs. His own diet is a pretty terrible version of Atkins, the last I remember reading it.

WWGF is the Cliff's Notes version of GCBC. It is simplified. A bit too much, IMO, but if it gets people to read without nodding off, I guess that is a good thing.

[Owly]

Yes, he did. Anyone who keeps repeating the "Taubes is all about teh evil insulinz" line is just parroting a line from a blog who got their info from a Cliffs Notes summary or from yet another blog. If one bothers to actually read the book, this is obviously not the case.

Actually, I have read both and also a number of his articles, and I think he misses a big piece of the puzzle and does overfocus on insulin while neglecting many other factors that lead to obesity. I don't buy the carbohydrate theory of obesity--it's a multifactored problem that I think is more about too much poor quality, hyperpalatable and overmarketed junk and the overabundance of cheap, grain-based carbs and sugar as well as garbage fats, toxic additives, and manipulative food engineering.

As someone who has done much better adding carbs back into my diet and has seen accelerated fat loss and better health by doing so, I think his solutions make sense for some people but are not a one-size-fits-all answer for people who want to shed body fat.

[Paleobird]

No, it shouldn't be one size fits all and I am glad you are finding success with another size. But that one size does fit a lot of people very well, myself included.

So you say he "over-focuses" on insulin. How much focus is over-focused? In a nation full of people with messed up insulin levels, I would say it is a good thing to focus on.

Nobody ever said it wasn't multi-factoral or that there weren't other important pieces of the puzzle. Insulin, for a lot of people, is just a good place to start.

[Owly]

No, it shouldn't be one size fits all and I am glad you are finding success with another size. But that one size does fit a lot of people very well, myself included.

So you say he "over-focuses" on insulin. How much focus is over-focused? In a nation full of people with messed up insulin levels, I would say it is a good thing to focus on.
Nobody ever said it wasn't multi-factoral or that there weren't other important pieces of the puzzle. Insulin, for a lot of people, is just a good place to start.

The issue I have is that there's more and more research emerging that points to leptin resistance as preceding insulin resistance, and a number of other hormonal issues seem to also come into play. Controlling the insulin response seems to be helpful as a treatment in many cases, but it is not at all clear that insulin is the cause of the problem initially. I also his whole theory on activity levels to be a bit ridiculous--I know some very active obese folks (some of whom are also type II diabetics).

I also think that people can become overfat for different reasons--Kessler's "The End of Overeating" paints a pretty compelling picture of the influence of engineered hyperpalatability on obesity rates, for example. I think that people become fat through multiple modes, but that we basically have a perfect storm of overabundance of high calorie, low nutrition bad food (sugar, grain, vegetable oils) that is then made as palatable as possible through food engineering, sold at ridiculously cheap prices, on top of a body of bad science that says that some of the worst things we could eat are somehow healthful.

[Apex Predator]

The issue I have is that there's more and more research emerging that points to leptin resistance as preceding insulin resistance, and a number of other hormonal issues seem to also come into play. Controlling the insulin response seems to be helpful as a treatment in many cases, but it is not at all clear that insulin is the cause of the problem initially. I also his whole theory on activity levels to be a bit ridiculous--I know some very active obese folks (some of whom are also type II diabetics).

I also think that people can become overfat for different reasons--Kessler's "The End of Overeating" paints a pretty compelling picture of the influence of engineered hyperpalatability on obesity rates, for example. I think that people become fat through multiple modes, but that we basically have a perfect storm of overabundance of high calorie, low nutrition bad food (sugar, grain, vegetable oils) that is then made as palatable as possible through food engineering, sold at ridiculously cheap prices, on top of a body of bad science that says that some of the worst things we could eat are somehow healthful.

Very well said.

[paleo-bunny]

I say that levels of obesity at different ages are important where any hormonal imbalances are concerned.

A slow rate of weight gain leading to being moderately overweight or borderline obesity during late middle age really doesn't require any serious metabolic derangement or serious explaining - merely often a gradual decline in activity levels that lead to an accumulation of weight at a snail's pace of a few pounds a year. This actually confers some biological advantages regarding maintaining bone density, chances of surviving a heart attack and longevity.

Whereas central obesity, and obesity in general, in a teenager or young adult are much more cause for concern and likely to indicate serious metabolic and hormonal imbalances.

[Paleobird]

I thought GCBC was quite influential. The biggest accomplishment of the book was pulling the curtain back on the whole body of work masquerading as science that has driven the conventional approach to weight management and diet. That said, there is clearly more going on than carbs and insulin. If Taubes has replaced the word 'insulin' with 'a host of interacting metabolic hormones', then people would have and less problem with the book. Of course, the book would have gotten even longer if he had done that.

That's all I'm saying.

[Finnegans Wake]

What about inflammatory foods? Don't they cause insulin resistance as well?