Dr. Henry Bauer, Why We Shouldn’t Trust Science |362|

Was this a typo?

David

Isn't it consistent with the quotes I supplied as evidence? Japan and South Korea have low obesity rates, and the asian diet is a low fat diet?

People in countries with the lowest obesity rates eat a low fat diet.

(Advocates of a low carb diet say that insulin produced in response to elevated blood sugar tells the body how much fat to store. But complex carbohydrates from foods with a lot of fiber make you feel full so you don't overeat and are digested slowly so you won't produce a lot of insulin.)

http://suneeldhand.com/2012/06/12/which-countries-have-the-lowest-obesity-rates/
Take a look at the obesity rates in these countries (OECD latest data):

South Korea- 3.8 %
Japan- 3.9 %
...
compare these percentages with the United States, which stands at a disappointing 33.8 percent


http://www.canadianliving.com/healt...secrets-from-countries-with-low-obesity-rates

The Asian diet

Rice and rice products are a staple of this diet, and if you look at people living in rural areas of Asian countries, the diet consists of minimally processed grains, not instant white rice.

The diet is also high in vegetables, Beck said. If you look at some of the vegetables they eat, they are full of compounds called cruciferous chemicals that studies have shown can actually help reduce the risk of cancer by affecting the enzymes in our liver that detoxify cancer-causing substances.

"Soy is the main legume in their diet, soy is the protein, they use plant-based beverages every day; (they drink) green tea, saki, even beer," she noted. "It's really a low-fat diet that's almost vegetarian. Animal protein foods are used very minimally."
 
Isn't it consistent with the quotes I supplied as evidence? Japan and South Korea have low obesity rates, and the asian diet is a low fat diet?
Right sorry - it just looked inconsistent with what was above it, but you are pointing out some of the contradictions about complex carbs that confuse this subject. I do wonder, however, if we are really talking about people whose intake of food is limited by wealth or other factors such as tradition.
The ignorant country folk could've told one better right off the bat (concerning at least a good deal of this food info). Now, as it turns out, the ignorant country folk are doubtful of climate change, and I'm inclined to trust them more than the plethora of "experts" telling us otherwise.

This is something that strikes me too - people have a pretty effective bullshit detector in them, which is weakened by education! However, I think that means most people on this forum, need to take care!

David
 
Regarding the question of what is the best diet, in an ideal world we would ask the experts, but clearly from everything that is coming out, that doesn't work very well right now! I am not an expert in this issue, I have just read around the subject enough to try to comment!

It seems to me that eating a traditional diet - one our grandparents would have recognised and approved of - may be the best we can do.

It also seems clear that the demonisation of saturated fat stemmed from deliberate fraud by Ancel Keys, but science in this area may still be wrong/incomplete in other ways.

One obvious simplification now is to say that all carbohydrates get digested into glucose, and sometimes fructose. The more complex the carbohydrate is, the longer it takes to digest - so it doesn't deliver the damaging spike in blood glucose levels that sugar itself yields.

However, is that the only problem with sugar? 'Ordinary' sugar - sucrose - breaks down into glucose and fructose, and somehow sugar seems to be uniquely bad for us (or will this medical fact also be overturned at some point). I agree with Jim Smith (I think), there is still something odd about this story, because many people live on a diet of rice - and indeed we in the West used to eat a lot of potatoes. Maybe when carbs are sufficiently complex to reach the intestines, they don't just deliver glucose, but get chomped by all those gut flora and produce other, more useful chemicals. Another possibility might be that despite its name, fructose is uniquely harmful - remember that most carbs only break down into glucose, sucrose is somewhat exceptional in that it also produces fructose.

Perhaps the really low carb diets are most suitable for people who are already ill - diabetics, and those with cancer. The rest of us would be best advised to eat a traditional diet in moderation.

David
 
People in countries with the lowest obesity rates eat a low fat diet.

(Advocates of a low carb diet say that insulin produced in response to elevated blood sugar tells the body how much fat to store. But complex carbohydrates from foods with a lot of fiber make you feel full so you don't overeat and are digested slowly so you won't produce a lot of insulin.)

http://suneeldhand.com/2012/06/12/which-countries-have-the-lowest-obesity-rates/
Take a look at the obesity rates in these countries (OECD latest data):

South Korea- 3.8 %
Japan- 3.9 %
...
compare these percentages with the United States, which stands at a disappointing 33.8 percent​
I'd refer you to the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment's big meta-study of 16,000 studies published in 2013, discussed in the following article:

Anders Hansen, "Swedish Health Advisory Body Says Too Much Carbohydrate, Not Fat, Leads to Obesity", British Medical Journal 347 (15th November 2013)

As I understand it, this is the best study to date, and led to Sweden changing its governmental advice so as to reject a low-fat diet. The general position seems to be that it doesn't seem to make much difference overall. It doesn't seem to have received much attention from the MSM but there are some online write-ups, e.g. here.

With respect to the notion that the Japanese eat more carbs, from memory I think that idea may have been based on post-WWII studies when the country was quite impoverished, but I'd have to look up the details, though Ancel Keys was involved in that area in the 50s. You have to consider the amount of calories being eaten. So, for instance, prisoners in concentration camps have low levels of obesity but one can't draw too many conclusions based on the constituents of their diet.

One of the things that Teicholz discusses very thoroughly in her book (which, again, I would strongly recommend) is that notions of population-wide or region-wide diets (e.g., the so-called "Mediterranean diet") are largely invented. To consider the Mediterranean region, diets vary hugely and so the advice to eat a lot of salad and olive oil is just garbage. In Japan, coastal fishermen ate a lot of fish (high protein, low carbs) but others didn't. It very quickly gets really complicated by all sorts of other factors, e.g. smoking (the Japanese smoked a lot in that period).

What comes across very strongly from Teicholz is that much of our understanding of diet comes from very sketchy, low-sample-size studies from the 1950s, the influence of which has persisted through to the present day.
 
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I was surprised at Alex's criticism of Daniel Pinchbeck wanting science to inform policies which lead to a predominantly plant based diets.
Surely nothing wrong with policies following factual science and there are quite a few other reasons to eat plant based other than cutting down on greenhouse gases - health being a major one.
For so many years the animal agriculture industry has pushed meat and dairy as healthy but is now at last is having to admit the opposite.
Now the American Medical Association is pushing for hospitals to serve vegan food
See this:
 
I was surprised at Alex's criticism of Daniel Pinchbeck wanting science to inform policies which lead to a predominantly plant based diets.
Surely nothing wrong with policies following factual science and there are quite a few other reasons to eat plant based other than cutting down on greenhouse gases - health being a major one.
For so many years the animal agriculture industry has pushed meat and dairy as healthy but is now at last is having to admit the opposite.
Now the American Medical Association is pushing for hospitals to serve vegan food
See this:
I live in so cal... and my diet is about 90% vegetarian, but I don't pretend that the rest of the US is the same... or has any freak'n interest in becoming so... even if they read Daniel's book.
 
I do think it is vital to separate two issues:

1) What are the medical issues regarding different kinds of diet.

2) What are the ethical issues regarding different kinds of diet.

If you argue both at the same time, you get absolutely nowhere.

David
 
Look at a United Airlines flight schedule and you'll know the Flat Earth theory is bogus. Really? Have y'all tried that? I'd be curious to know how many have actually looked at the history of flat earth theory here and where the Solar system theory comes from and how it was developed.
better language: geocentric or heliocentric models, I think they call it. I find it fascinating and had no idea before I started to really look into it that there really has been a controversy, even among engineers, explorers, and so on. I don't know! Just asking, how do you?
 
Look at a United Airlines flight schedule and you'll know the Flat Earth theory is bogus. Really? Have y'all tried that? I'd be curious to know how many have actually looked at the history of flat earth theory here and where the Solar system theory comes from and how it was developed.
better language: geocentric or heliocentric models, I think they call it. I find it fascinating and had no idea before I started to really look into it that there really has been a controversy, even among engineers, explorers, and so on. I don't know! Just asking, how do you?
I certainly haven't! If you really think there is something here we should know about, it might be best to start a new thread to discuss it.

David
 
25:22 The global warming/climate change debate is a red-herring for Geoengineering.

Who is 'some guy' when you speak about Flat Earth? There is a long history there. It's so interesting you dismiss it so readily with no references. It is actually not true about tracking airline flights, this does not prove anything. Flat earth does not mean the earth is not round. A plate, or a ball, that's the question.

One more question, why don't flights/ships go around the 'globe' from 'north to south'? Why is Antarctica off limits to exploration?



This is my new favorite interview!
 
The second part of my interview - or, rather, dialogue, since our contributions to the text are relatively equal - with Henry Bauer is ready and published.

Dare I say, we two did truly remarkable work. Don't you think?
 
I think that was a great interview, but what I would really like would be to see FLS go head to head with H. Bauer on the subject of AIDS/HIV. If you could facilitate that, it would be fantastic!

David
 
I think that was a great interview, but what I would really like would be to see FLS go head to head with H. Bauer on the subject of AIDS/HIV. If you could facilitate that, it would be fantastic!

David

Henry Bauer has just entered the Psience Quest forum as a member. This entrance was his own initiative - I was going to contact and ask him about that, yet he had passed ahead of me.

So, the discussion we both would like to see will probably happen! :)
 
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Henry Bauer has just entered the Psience Quest forum as a member. This entrance was his own initiative - I was going to contact and ask him about that, yet he had passed ahead of me.

So, the discussion we both would like to see will probably happen! :)
Super - it would be particularly good if that discussion could happen in a new thread - because it is really important! I have a strong suspicion I know who will win!

David
 
The second part of my interview - or, rather, dialogue, since our contributions to the text are relatively equal - with Henry Bauer is ready and published.

Dare I say, we two did truly remarkable work. Don't you think?

Was this available in audio as well? Maybe I am missing the link?
thank you, looking forward to hearing it!
 
Was this available in audio as well? Maybe I am missing the link?
thank you, looking forward to hearing it!


Michelle meant my interview with Bauer on Psiense Quest, not Alex's one on Skeptiko.

Unfortunately, my interview is purely textual, no audio version exists. Psience Quest is a only a forum, not a podcast combined with forum as Skeptiko.

For now, at least. ;)
 
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