1350 words
Dr. James Thompson is a big proponent of ‘diet being an IQ test‘ and has written quite a few articles on this matter. Though, the one he published today is perhaps the most misinformed.
He first shortly discusses the fact that 200 kcal drinks are being marketed as ‘cures’ for type II diabetes. People ‘beat’ the disease with only 200 kcal drinks. Sure, they lost weight, lost their disease. Now what? Continue drinking the drinks or now go back to old dietary habits? Type II diabetes is a lifestyle disease, and so can be ameliorated with lifestyle interventions. Though, Big Pharma wants you to believe that you can only overcome the disease with their medicines and ‘treatments’ along with the injection of insulin from your primary care doctor. Though, this would only exacerbate the disease, not cure it. The fact of the matter is this: these ‘treatments’ only ‘cure’ the proximate causes. The ULTIMATE CAUSES are left alone and this is why people fall back into habits.
When speaking about diabetes and obesity, this is a very important distinction to make. Most doctors, when treating diabetics, only treat the proximate causes (weight, symptoms that come with weight, etc) but they never get to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is, of course, insulin. The main root is never taken care of, only the proximate causes are ‘cured’ through interventions, however, the underlying cause of diabetes, and obesity as well is not taken care of because of doctors. This, then, leads to a neverending cycle of people losing a few pounds or whatnot and then they, expectedly, gain it back and they have to re-do the regimen all over again. The patient never gets cured, Big Pharma, hospitals et al get to make money off not curing a patients illness by only treating proximate and not ultimate causes.
Dr. Thompson then talks about a drink for anorexics, called ‘Complan“, and that he and another researcher gave this drink to anorexics, giving them about 3000 kcals per day of the drink, which was full of carbs, fat and vitamins and minerals (Bhanji and Thompson, 1974).
The total daily calorific intake was 2000-3000 calories, resulting in a mean weight gain of 12.39 kilos over 53 days, a daily gain of 234 grams, or 1.64 kilos (3.6 pounds) a week. That is in fact a reasonable estimate of the weight gains made by a totally sedentary person who eats a 3000 calorie diet. For a higher amount of calories, adjust upwards. Thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics? Take the first law. The first law of thermodynamics is irrelevant to human physiology (Taubes, 2007; Taubes, 2011; Fung, 2016). (Also watch Gary Taubes explain the laws of thermodynamics.) Now take the second law of thermodynamics which “states that the total entropy can never decrease over time for an isolated system, that is, a system in which neither energy nor matter can enter nor leave.” People may say that ‘a calorie is a calorie’ therefore it doesn’t matter whether all of your calories come from, say, sugar or a balanced high fat low carb diet, all weight gain or loss will be the same. Here’s the thing about that: it is fallacious. Stating that ‘a calorie is a calorie’ violates the second law of thermodynamics (Feinman and Fine, 2004). They write:
The second law of thermodynamics says that variation of efficiency for different metabolic pathways is to be expected. Thus, ironically the dictum that a “calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics, as a matter of principle.
So talk of thermodynamics when talking about the human physiological system does not make sense.
He then cites a new paper from Lean et al (2017) on weight management and type II diabetes. The authors write that “Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disorder that requires lifelong treatment. We aimed to assess whether intensive weight management within routine primary care would achieve remission of type 2 diabetes.” To which Dr. Thompson asks ‘How does one catch this illness?” and ‘Is there some vaccination against this “chronic disorder”?‘ The answer to how does one ‘catch this illness’ is simple: the overconsumption of processed carbohydrates, constantly spiking insulin which leads to insulin resistance which then leads to the production of more insulin since the body is resistant which then causes a vicious cycle and eventually insulin resistance occurs along with type II diabetes.
Dr. Thompson writes:
Patients had been put on Complan, or its equivalent, to break them from the bad habits of their habitual fattening diet. This is good news, and I am in favour of it. What irritates me is the evasion contained in this story, in that it does not mention that the “illness” of type 2 diabetes is merely a consequence of eating too much and becoming fat. What should the headline have been?
Trial shows that fat people who eat less become slimmer and healthier.
I hope this wonder treatment receives lots of publicity. If you wish to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings just don’t mention fatness. In extremis, you may talk about body fat around vital organs, but keep it brief, and generally evasive.
So you ‘break bad habits’ by introducing new bad habits? It’s not sustainable to drink these low kcal drinks and expect to be healthy. I hope this ‘wonder treatment’ does not receive a lot of publicity because it’s bullshit that will just line the pockets of Big Pharma et al, while making people sicker and, the ultimate goal, having them ‘need’ Big Pharma to care for their illness—when they can just as easily care for it themselves.
‘Trial shows that fat people who eat less become slimmer and healthier’. Or how about this? Fat people that eat well and exercise, up to 35 BMI, have no higher risk of early death then someone with a normal BMI who eats well and exercises (Barry et al, 2014). Neuroscientist Dr. Sandra Aamodt also compiles a wealth of solid information on this subject in her 2016 book “Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession with Weight Loss“.
Dr. Thompson writes:
I see little need to update the broad conclusion: if you want to lose weight you should eat less.
This is horrible advice. Most diets fail, and they fail because the ‘cures’ (eat less, move more; Caloric Reduction as Primary: CRaP) are garbage and don’t take human physiology into account. If you want to lose weight and put your diabetes into remission, then you must eat a low-carb (low carb or ketogenic, doesn’t matter) diet (Westman et al, 2008; Azar, Beydoun, and Albadri, 2016; Noakes and Windt, 2016; Saslow et al, 2017). Combine this with an intermittent fasting plan as pushed by Dr. Jason Fung, and you have a recipe to beat diabesity (diabetes and obesity) that does not involve lining the pockets of Big Pharma, nor does it involve one sacrificing their health for ‘quick-fix’ diet plans that never work.
In sum, diets are not ‘IQ tests’. Low kcal ‘drinks’ to ‘change habits’ of type II diabetics will eventually exacerbate the problem because when the body is in extended caloric restriction, the brain panics and releases hormones to stimulate appetite while stopping hormones that cause you to be sated and stop eating. This is reality; these studies that show that eating or drinking 800 kcal per day or whatnot are based on huge flaws: the fact that this could be sustainable for a large number of the population is not true. In fact, no matter how much ‘willpower’ you have, you will eventually give in because willpower is a finite resource (Mann, 2014).
There are easier ways to lose weight and combat diabetes, and it doesn’t involve handing money over to Big Pharma/Big Food. You only need to intermittently fast, you’ll lose weight and your diabetes will not be a problem, you’ll be able to lose weight and will not have problems with diabetes any longer (Fung, 2016). Most of these papers coming out recently on this disease are garbage. Real interventions exist, they’re easier and you don’t need to line the pockets of corporations to ‘get cured’ (which never happens, they don’t want to cure you!)
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
This is getting into crackpot territory, man.
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No it’s not. Who funds most dieticians associations? Who stand to gain the most on these “cures”? Big Pharma and Big Food. They were given 800 kcal per day for three months. Is that sustainable? Who benefits off of people buying these drinks?
Read what Nutritionist Dr. Zoe Harcombe says about this study.
Reversing diabetes (type 2)
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“Eat less” and “fast intermittently” are the same things.
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Sure they are, but the ‘eat less move more’ mantra and the caloric reduction as primary mantra hold that all kcal do the same things once ingested into the body. That’s not true. That’s far from true and shows that whomever is talking doesn’t know about human metabolism and physiology. Most of these ‘low calorie’ diets you hear of are actually low carb, which is a reason why they give favorable blood markers.
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I eat 2,500 calories a day, and some of it is sugary or junk food. But I know that I’m definitely getting a bunch of carbs. My TDEE is 2,700 and I’m dropping like 2 pounds every 2 weeks. So from this I conclude that a calorie is a calorie and doesn’t matter where it comes from
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You’ve violated the second law of thermodynamics. Stating that a calorie is a calorie violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Further, as insulin is continously spiked by processed carbs then weight loss will eventually stall since fat cannot be unlocked from the adipocite when insulin is high.
Therefore you cannot proclaim that a calorie is a calorie because each of the four macros (protein, carbs, fat and alcohol) get processed through different metabolic pathways so therefore a calorie is not a calorie and it does matter where calories come from.
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do they ever say exactly how the law is violated? no need for such a dramatic claim. their claim is simply that…
thermic effects of nutrients is approximately 2–3 % for lipids, 6–8 % for carbohydrates, and 25–30% for proteins…
so a diet with lots of lean meat might be advised for weightloss. game meat is often so tough it must be braised for hours. in this way it is very unlike the meat of domesticated animals. another note in favor of the paleo diet.
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Yes. They write:
The second law of thermodynamics says that variation of efficiency for different metabolic pathways is to be expected. Thus, ironically the dictum that a “calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics, as a matter of principle.
For the claim “a calorie is a calorie” to be true, all macros (protein, fat, carbs, and alcohol) must go through the same metabolic pathways.
Because it is a colloquial phrase, it is important to understand exactly what it is meant by “a calorie is a calorie.” The most common meaning is that is it impossible for two isocaloric diets to lead to different weight loss. Frequently, the concept is justified by reference to the “laws of thermodynamics”, but an explicit connection has never been spelled out. More recently, Buchholz & Schoeller [10] appear to identify “a calorie is a calorie” with the first law of thermodynamics. They also admit that high protein /low carbohydrate diets can lead to greater weight loss than isocaloric low fat diets in agreement with our assessment [4]. Nonetheless they maintain that “a calorie is a calorie,” now justifying it by their connection of the phrase to the concept of energy conservation. It is important to point out that no study of isocaloric diets has ever claimed that the first law of thermodynamics is not true. Buchholz & Schoeller [10] have limited themselves by only including the first law and, therefore, do not understand how the differential weight loss could occur and think it “deserves further study.” Our major point here is that there is more than one law of thermodynamics and that a more accurate understanding of the role of the second law shows that differential weight loss is not inconsistent with any physical principle.
[…]
Attacking the obesity epidemic will involve giving up many old ideas that have not been productive. “A calorie is a calorie” might be a good place to start.
Assuming that all calories are ‘created equal’ has exacerbated the obesity epidemic. It, ironically, makes the problem worse. Why assume that two wildly different types of diets with different macros would, in the long run, lead to the same amount of weight loss? It defies logic and the knowledge of human physiological systems.
Yes, that among with high fat low carb would also reverse diabetes. Grass-fed beef is way better here, too. It’s worth noting that, as I’ve shown in the last, very low carb ketogenic diets are also best for weight reduction and to reverse type II diabetes. Yet the AHA still recommends a diet or 65 percent carbohydrates. That’s ridiculous.
It’s also important to note that there is absolutely no scientific evidence for the current dietary guidelines (Harcombe et al, 2016):
The current available evidence found no significant difference in all-cause mortality or CHD mortality, resulting from the dietary fat interventions. RCT evidence currently available does not support the current dietary fat guidelines. The evidence per se lacks generalisability for population-wide guidelines.
This is something that SmiteSucks doesn’t take into account: that the CI/CO model is wrong and has done considerable damage to public health.
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for every extra calorie of heat produced by lean protein vs fat or carbs, there’s a calorie of heat that needn’t be produced to keep the body at 98.6 F or whatever. this calorie becomes fat or is excreted/never metabolized.
taubes agrees. though you may think he doesn’t.
taubes’s point was that CICO is true but useless in the treatment of obesity. but he’s a dishonest jew so he exaggerates.
if i consume no calories and climb mountains i will lose weight.
he has a physics degree from harvard. i have a 99th percentile score on the four exams of the American Chemical Society among other objective bona fides.
and i’m not even part jew.
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I know what Taubes thinks. I’ve read everything he’s written on the subject. He says that the First Law of Thermodynamics only restates that if you eat more you’ll get fatter. No causal information is given at all. CICO is truly useless when it comes to obesity. Why is it that obesity is the only disease to be treated with physics?
No shit. You can Ancel Keys’ starvation experiments to see what a low calorie diet does to metabolism—it slows it, while eating more calories speeds it up. Why do you think the people thst participated in the Biggest Loser Study didn’t maintain their weight loss? Because their metabolism was shot. They needed to eat less yet their brains wanted more and thought they were starving (what the brain thinks is starvation and what starvation actually is are two different things though. For anyone interested in the neuroscience behind hunger, I recommend read Why Diets Make Us Fat by neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt).
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thermodynamics is a victim of its own success./
not too long ago (maybe only 200 years ago) the proposition…
if i consume no calories and climb mountains i will lose weight.
would have been NOT obvious.
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The First Law always applies but is irrelevant to human physiology. Stating that a calorie is a calorie (CICO) violates the Second Law. If only people knew of their thermodynamics denying.
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[…] (Read part I here) […]
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The problem with “if i consume no calories and climb mountains i will lose weight” is that it assumes one is independent of the other — which is absurd. Everybody should acknowledge that if you consume no calories, you will climb fewer mountains (or rather, you will climb no mountains).
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This is exactly what occurs. I would also add that for some, exercise causes them to eat more, as Gary Taubes notes in this article. Either way, the simplistic “eat less and move more” mantra doesn’t make sense when speaking about human physiology and activity. This is something that CICOers don’t realize, and it truly affects the ‘in/out’ equation for weight loss, as especially seen in the Biggest Loser study.
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