This article in the New York Times today, should be required reading for anyone interested in obesity or diabetes. In my history of medicine book, I tell the story of Robert Atkins and his diet. When I was researching the chapter, I looked for references on the subject and found nothing positive about him in the medical literature. In fact, I have seen rather gloating comments on his early death (72), not mentioning that it was a consequence of a slip on ice with a severe head injury. He was described by the coroner as “obese” and this led to gloating in vegetarian circles. In fact, he was not obese when admitted to the hospital following the head injury. Note the intense interest in his health in this report on CNN. And here is an example of the vitriol that followed his death. Unmentioned in that piece, is the source, a radical group called Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, that opposes all animal research, in addition to advocating a strict vegetarian life.
Do some reading about metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance then think about the anger and even hatred of Atkins. He was an advocate of a science theory that opposed the accepted wisdom on health. For this, he was scolded and vilified in life and there was rejoicing and even lying about his death. Is this what we face 50 years from now when everyone starts to realize that we have crippled the western economies to conform to a science fallacy ?
Tags: Atkins diet, diabetes, diets, global warming, health, obesity, science
I just read that Snopes article and saw that Dr. Atkins’ height and weight are identical to my own. As far as I’m concerned, the health Stalinists (and the apparatchiks who came up with that ridiculous BMI scale) can go piss up a rope.
Oh, and Merry Christmas! 🙂
I could add that the medical establishment keeps moving the “normals” back, lower and lower. My mother lived to 103 and had bacon and eggs every morning she could. My father died at 66 of emphysema due to a 5-pack-per-day smoking habit. The low fat diet is a myth but smoking was real. That makes it harder for those without special knowledge to judge.
Thanks for that language, Mike L.
I got about 5 pages into that NYT article.
Ok, but there’s something about the congealed fat under a rasher of bacon that makes one think it might be bad for your arteries. And it still is bad for cholesterol, right? Bacon and sausage seem like “extras”, anyway, and I’d rather save the life of the pig.
Actually, Dr. K., I have heard rumors that statin drugs for cholesterol are vastly overprescribed, without concern about side effects (liver toxicity, etc). What say the Sage of Medicine? Heck, some statins are going to be available over the counter nowadays, right? Money, money, money….
I think that anything to excess can be harmful. I remember Burgess Meredith’s character in “Dirty Old Men” lecturing his son (played by Jack Lemmon) regarding having bacon every day, at every meal.
My guess is that we’ll find that there is a great deal of genetic variability in terms of biochemistry. That helps explain people who eat eggs and bacon all the time and live into their 90s…and I also think it helps explain second hand smoke arguments.
Hope everyone had a happy Christmas.
I think the exercise argument has merit in the question of obesity. I know that we got more exercise than my kids did. Atkins’ argument about fat was that we are programed to seek fat by evolution and our appetite is suppressed more effectively by fat in the diet. I do know that fat in the duodenum stimulates several hormones. The second part of the theory was that carbohydrates do not suppress appetite.
Donna, ethical issues about meat eating are outside the scope of my piece and I really don’t care.
The statins have significant side effects. I was begun on Lipitor by a cardiologist friend and found that I got severe muscle cramps from it. I now take Vitorin, which is a combination, and the cramps do not occur. I need to lose 25 pounds and maybe I should go back on the Atkins Diet to lose it.
I am sure that genetics is a much more important factor than diet. So is exercise.
How timely, I just got in from a 70 minute walk around RB.
I must have been born when the genetics genie was having a good day. Out of 4 siblings, I’m the only one who stayed on the slim side. Then again, we see diet and exercise playing roles in the family. I’m the heavily exercised brother, and blessed with will power at the food trough. Since high school in 1964, I’ve gained maybe 10 lbs and added 1 inch in the waist. My dad weighed 116, served on a sub in the Pacific, and came home at 205. Stayed hefty, too. I’d put that to diet. A dessert man all the way.
I used to eat anything and everything put in front of me. But after 50, that had to change when I noticed this strange puffy stuff suddenly appearing around the beltline, even with a heavy exercise routine. Out went most of the flour products and essentially 98% of the sugary desserts. Two meals a day now. One coke and one beer or wine, max a day. I wouldn’t mind dropping off that 1 inch, but it seems to have set up permanent residence. The 5-10 lbs could be from lifting weights, I think. I’d exercise anyway, since I love physical activity, but I know that it provides a good measure of my slimness.
Taubes’ article (from 2002, I think) is interesting on all kinds of levels. My favorite bit is how scientists and physicians deal with data that doesn’t fit their preferred explanations/paradigm. In a word: poorly.
Taubes ends his article, quoting a researcher, with: ”Can we get the low-fat proponents to apologize?”
Ah…no. You will never get people who are ego-invested in a subject to admit that they were wrong.
And it is sad, because science is *about* being wrong. You then move forward, come up with a new explanation of something you have been observing, and test that explanation.
The “debate” is NEVER over, in science. Oh, sure, people like to play word games with that—saying things like “what about gravity?” Sounds nice, until you realize that we don’t really understand gravity. And if you think we do, why, how does it work, precisely?
Back to the subject. The medical researchers had a big belief system in play about fats and (frankly) carnivory. They want to push low fat, low meat diets. Okay, fine. I see their point, in terms of ethics. But notice two things: (1) misrepresentations of the science involved, and (2) how they deal with data that doesn’t fit (with ridicule, etc).
Sounds a whole lot like how opponents to the current belief system in global warming act.
But after all, we have a Nobel Prize winner tell us that “the debate is over,” scientifically. True, he is a Nobel Prize winner who never earned above a “C” grade in his science classes (of which he took three or less) in college.
The MSM thinks the debate is over, too. And you would never, ever get them to say that they were wrong. Not even if a glacier was knocking on their door.
That’s because none of this—global warming, Atkins diet, etc—is about science. It’s about politics. No facts are needed there.
Sorry about the rant.
Thanks for that language, Mike L.
Anything for you, my sweet.
Hope all is well, Professor LaRoche. Always great to see your posts! By the way, one of my students did a great “Freudian slip” in class. I asked a question on a exam about a particular microbe that was discovered by a pretty cool fellow named Karl Stetter.
The student in question, meaning Stetter, wrote “Karl Rove.”
The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is everywhere!
[…] Here’s another interesting post I read today by A Brief History… […]
Mike K,
Some bloggers like a difference of opinion or a slight tangent in comments, because it makes their blog more interesting…but I guess you’re not one of them!
Still, best of luck to you.
The day I can no longer eat meat is the day I no longer want to live.
Now where’s my beef jerky?
To borrow a phrase from Ted Nugent, Professor LaRoche: top of the food chain, baby!
Do you make your own jerky, Professor LaRoche? I have some decent recipes, if not.
Don’t take this the wrong way (I am pretty much a carnivore, truth be told), but I would stay away from elk meat for a while, until we understand that crazy elk Chronic Wasting Disease (Dr. K., have you heard of this one—sounds like a prion transmissible spongiform encephalopathy to me, but transmissible easily, unlike the others):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease
No real JAMA proven evidence of deer/elk/moose transmission to humans, but I would sure be careful. It’s sound a bit different from TBEs based on PrPc to PrPsc conversions. But the skeletal meat does contain infective prions, at least in a mouse model.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16439622?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus
Since I have never had venison or moose, no problem for me.
I don’t understand CWD. TBE I do understand, because of our not-so-bright (Blair-ese for “idiotic”) factory farming practices (feeding animal parts to herbivores).
Anyway, Professor LaRoche, sorry for the downer…from one fan of jerky to another!
Jessie…
Super article…