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Part 1 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319Part 2 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=459Part 3 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=536article makes some good points but like many of these articles the comments below are pretty entertaining.
Part 1 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319Part 2 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=459Part 3 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=536article makes some good points but like many of these articles the comments below are pretty entertaining.
It does bring up good points. And personally I was never a fan of low carb diets (less than 100 g per day) for normal, healthy people that aren't insulin resistant. I also don't know anyone beyond some fringe radicals that recommend low carb diets for healthy people.I do have some problems with the series though. The central part of their argument is: "Protein stimulates insulin just as much as carbohydrates. High protein diets work well for weight loss, so carbohydrates and insulin are not the problem." First of all, they are using a straw man here. While low carb diets are often high protein they are not replacing protein with carbohydrate gram per gram. Usually the most protein most someone will get on a low carb/high protein diet is 1 g/lb. However, when someone is on a carbohydrate based diet, they consume 300 g or more everyday. If protein and carbohydrate stimulate insulin similarly, there will be significantly more insulin in the carb based diet. While there are very high protein diets that are low in carbs, these are not diets that are designed to keep insulin low.Second, they cherry pick studies on protein and insulin. For instance they cite Holt et. al and say beef stimulates insulin more than brown rice. However, if you actually read that study you will that not only was the beef very low fat, but the measurements are based on the area under the curve two hours after the food was ingested. This means if insulin was elevated for longer than two hours, which in the case of brown rice that is very possible, it was not included in the calculation. In addition, not all of the test subjects in Holt et. al, ate all of the foods. Only one did. The test subjects that ate the brown rice had a much lower insulin response to white bread than the group that ate the protein. This means the brown rice group was more insulin sensitive. Lastly, the standard deviation for the AUC for beef was much higher than any of the carb rich foods.Third, they just don't look at the big picture. No mention of glycogen stores and the effects of diet composition have on how the body uses energy.
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