Whole Health Source

Stephen Guyenet's my favorite writer in this area, by that criterion. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ On Good Calories, Bad Calories, I was convinced by the critique of the mainstream but not by his alternative proposal.

The best answer I can give you is to spend some time on http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ -- Stephan's own diet (which you can divine with a little reading) is based on his survey of food science. He provides references for everything. The closest thing you'll find to a "diet" is a list of real foods: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/real%20food Good luck.

I'm a bit surprised that this article doesn't deal with the increasing amount of science behind neurological food reward mechanisms. The tl;dr is that our junk food (and much mass-produced food in grocery stores) has been tailored for a kind of hyper-palatability that mutes the effectiveness of our normal satiety mechanisms. So in the article's context the "nudge" is up against an evolving attack by industrial food against very low-level neurological mechanisms. I don't have a good "lay" source for this field, but I'd recommend digging into Stephen Guyenet's blog[1], that is if you're up for wading through an academic's professional musings. He's a neurobiologist and obesity researcher, and as such the blog provides his perspectives on ongoing work (his and others') in this field. Warning: DO NOT go here expecting any specific answers, and be able to deal with a fair bit of hypothesizing (i.e. untested, maybe totally wrong) both on Guyenet's part and via the work he reviews. You'll only really get a sense of how this field is going as you pick up enough context of ongoing work. IMO, the most interesting self-contained posts that go by are the significant negative results, where robust work comes to light that just crushes an existing hypothesis. [1] http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/

We have to make decisions now. Do you think the prescriptions from the current state of nutrition science outperform ancestral eating heuristics in real life? I don't, and whether it's true or not is one of the major points under debate. The debate can't automatically be vetoed by invoking "pseudoscience". As an epistemic issue, I have to use all the evidence available to me. What I've noticed is that human physiology is a dynamic equilibrium of a massive number of variables and the current state of our analytic tools have had immense trouble evaluating it efficiently. Ancestral eating patterns looks like worthwhile evidence under the circumstances. Incidentally, essentially no one is blindly promoting traditional eating. Folks are using it as a guide and together with science to make decisions in the face of limited understanding. One of the most popular ancestral diet proponents is Stephan Guyenet, a Ph.D. neurobiologist who studies the link between the brain and obesity for a living[1]. Everyone is for science and no side on the issue owns it. [1] http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/

Sigh. I mean, they're right, but they're also still missing the concept of "What kind of fat?". Different kinds of fats effect you differently. This has been known for a long time. One my favorite blog posts summarizing some research on this point, on Butter vs Margarine, is 8 years old now, and it still hasn't penetrated the mainstream. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/10/butter-vs-margarine-show…

I bought an Instant Pot after reading a recommendation on obesity researcher Stephan Guyenet's blog: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/instant-pot-electronic… I've been using it regularly since then and I highly recommend it. I had a manual pressure cooker many years ago but I rarely used it because it was too much hassle. The automation and easy cleaning of the Instant Pot makes a big difference. I rate it second only to the microwave oven as most useful cooking technology.

Taube's carbohydrates/insulin hypothesis isn't looking so great, after NuSI (he helped found the org) released their metabolic chamber findings... http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/07/nusi-funded-study-serves…

Taubes breezily dismisses the Hall paper, which is, methodologically speaking, pretty conclusive. If you're curious about the paper and its implications for Taubes's obesity-insulin hypothesis, I'd recommend these two blog posts by Stephan Guyenet, an obesity researcher: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-new-human-trial-seriou… http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2015/08/more-thoughts-on-recent-…

>>>> Obesity is a self-inflicted issue.Consuming more calories than you burn is all it is. - Why is this restaurant always full of people ? - Because there are more people entering the exiting. Really ? Maybe it has to do with the food quality, price, customer care, the location of the place, etc, etc. See, explaining obesity with the simple calories-in, calories-out argument tell nothing about the root cause of this disease. Take a look at Dr. Guyenet blog[1] for a fascinating view of this issue. [1] http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com

The Carbohydrate Hypothesis of Obesity: a Critical Examination: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-… Basically debunks the carbohydrate hypothesis: "I hope you can see by now that the carbohydrate hypothesis of obesity is not only incorrect on a number of levels, but it may even be backward. The reason why obesity and metabolism researchers don't typically subscribe to this idea is that it is contradicted by a large body of evidence from multiple fields. I understand that people like ideas that "challenge conventional wisdom", but the fact is that obesity is a complex state and it will not be shoehorned into simplistic hypotheses."

Two good referenced articles: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-among-inuit.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-in-other-non-indu… As far as what they're consuming - sugar, processed oils and processed grains are the most widespread aspects of the industrialized diet, and therefore the best suspects. Try finding a processed "food" product without either sugar or an industrialized oil. Jobs only started experimenting with weird diets after he became an adult. Also, while industrialized crap is likely the primary culprit, other things contribute - sedentary lifestyle and lacking basic necessary nutrients (Jobs experimental diets are like nothing I've ever heard of any non-industrial tribe or society eat).

Low-carb diets work for plenty of people (including me), but this is a must-read refutation of Taubes' carbohydrate hypothesis: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-…

I loved GCBC, but unfortunately Taubes goes a little bit too far near the end in condemning carbohydrates. It's really hard to recommend the book because of that overreaching. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-…

While Fat may not make you fat, all fats are not alike and some fats may be responsible for heart disease and cancer while others may actually be beneficial. This post by Kurt Harris does a good job of explaining why lumping together all fats is not a good idea: http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/1/29/there-is-no-such-thing-… (PS: Unfortunately, he doesn't cite studies, but with some googling you can find most of the studies). Obesity itself is a complex topic and blaming it all on carbohydrates seems too simplistic. Over at whole health source, Stephen Guyenet has written a series of articles on the current state of research on insulin resistance - http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-causes-insulin-resi… Worth a read if you're interested in this topic.

I initially thought Good Calories/Bad Calories, and "Why we get Fat" were revelations - until I read http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-… Turns out Taubes just masquerades as a scientist - he's more like gladwell in his approach to writing - it _appears_ to be correct, but if you dig a little deep at all, you discover there isn't really much substance. So - in that sense, "Good Calories, Bad Calories" was a great book for me in 2011. It showed me how easy it was for you to to be taken in by fraudulent writing. Lesson learned.

The Paleo diet is interesting but is not the be all and end all. Check out http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ , http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ and http://www.westonaprice.org/ for more viewpoints. The general consensus though is to avoid processed foods and stick to whole foods. A big one is to eat animal fat instead of industrially produced vegetable and seed oils. Also, limit carbohydrate intake (ideally eating only fruit and vegetables).

For the last few months every morning I brew a cup of coffee and then sit down in a chair for ten minutes and stare at a dracaena plant across the room, coffee in hand, taking an occasional sip. I try not to let my mind wander and just focus on the plant and my breathing, and make sure to relax when I notice muscular tension anywhere. That's it! That's meditation, as far as I'm concerned. Totally worth it! My ability to notice stress and shut it off during the day has gone way up. When I get flustered at work I conjure up the dracaena in my mind's eye for an instant and get everything under control. The bit of literature that turned me on to the "meditation" practice is this: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/06/meditation.html

It really is an eye opener. I was blown away when I started reading about it all. Some good resources if you're interested. I totally agree to that. Those sources changed the way I was thinking about human health and nutrition completely. To be quite honest, I was not thinking about these topics very much before. I would also add a source that kind of got me started: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ Stephan appears to be a very knowledgeable guy, he is probably the least "radical" in his approaches, writes on a variety of topics and is not afraid to change his opinions when faced with contradicting evidence. Also, blog of Dr. Mike Eades http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ and Hyperlipid http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/

Yeah, the modern foundations espousing his ideals do promote junk science like homeopathy. But some of his original research is still interesting. Consider reading some of Stephan Guyenet's blog posts about that research (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/) (grain of salt implied, like with any prescriptive nutritional advice).

An issue that is just as great as that ^ is that fructose is a glycating agent potentially reaching high concentrations is the liver, causing direct damage to it, elevating liver enzymes and contributing to non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/liver

The GI is narrow we need a holistic view of food. What we're really after is long term glucose/insulin sensitivity. The GI too focused on one aspect of food. We know of cultures (e.g Chinese, Kitavans) who thrive on high GI foods [1]. I don't follow the glycemic index much. That said, it is relevant. Eating low GI and low carb generally is good for the obese and overweight. It'll do wonders against prediabetes and metabolic syndrome because they're insulin insensitive. [1] Against the GI: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search?q=glycemic

What is your goal with better eating? Better health or weight loss? if better health, please know that nutrition science is very hard to do and most of it is of low quality. Eat medditarian diet minus the wine which is best science based advice if weight loss, its even harder. I read probably about 20 books about it. Weight loss trials work pretty bad and I didnt find any hacks in research papers. What worked for me (losing 10kgs) was following Stephen Guyenets ideas: I eat 3 meals a day at specific time everyday. No snacking. Second part is based on science of appetite. Eat food low in caloric density. Our organism treats 100g of carrot the same as of bread. You will feel similar satiety but eat way more calories with calory denser food. This is a basis of Volumetrics diet I could write way more, but Im on a mobile. Please write what is your goal with healthy eating and I can try to find some sources. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/06/food-reward-dominant-fac…

I would agree with banning any ads for children under 18 years old, b/c they get bombarded with ads for junk food on all media channels. Plus I would agree with media campaigns teaching people that sugary drinks are a leading cause of obesity. But I disagree with banning ads on sugary drinks specifically because I am increasingly concerned about recommending, taxing or banning foods based on weak scientific evidence and politicians are too quick to pull the trigger in favor of industries that donate money for their political campaigns. First of all the evidence that sugar directly causes T2 diabetes is weak [1], even if there is an association between sugary drinks and metabolic syndrome, see for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17646581 You can associate sugar or fat or meat consumption with an increased risk for T2 diabetes, but fact of the matter is that it all comes down to calories, T2 diabetes having an _energy excess_ as the cause and the available evidence for that is pretty solid [3]. When energy excess happens, all markers will start indicating problems, your blood glucose, triglycerides, LDL, etc, all of them going up. People like to focus on one macro-nutrient, or another and it is true that they aren't the same ... for example fructose might give you non-alcoholic fatty liver disease before glucose or saturated fat are able to. But only when consumed in excess, only when it's not burned for energy and the liver's glycogen stores are full, only…

If various articles I've seen on the topic are to be believed, eggs from pastured hens don't just look and taste different—they're far more nutritious than the rest[1]. I forget which nutrient (and I'm not certain it's even one of the ones listed at that link) but IIRC there's one that's very difficult to come by in the recommended quantities unless you 1) eat lots of insects, or 2) eat eggs and/or meat from birds that eat lots of insects. As one might expect, it's almost completely absent from non-pastured eggs. See also declining nutrient levels in produce generally[2]. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that our ultra-low food prices, especially the US, amount to a scam. We've got year-round variety (shipped from hundreds to thousands of miles away), we've got quantity, our produce is colorful (though bland), and our food rarely makes us sick (very nice, to be sure), but if you seek out quality there go convenience (distant 1 day/week farmers' markets versus a dozen nearby supermarkets that operate 24/7) and low prices, plus you've got to remember all the labeling and advertising tricks of the sort mentioned in the article so you don't get screwed. [1] http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/pastured-eggs.html [2] (PDF WARNING) http://www.drapsley.com/Documents/Mineral%20losses%20in%20foods.pdf

If you do the research yourself, you will quickly realize how the citation works when people are trying to sell you something. Scientific research is cited when it supports their statements, and is ignored when it counters their beliefs. It's almost too easy to cite weak scientific studies to prove almost any belief you hold these days, in weight loss business. Taubes is as good as Atkins - people and media love to hear and write about something different. I am sure the HN crowd already is aware of that. Despite the hate Stephan Guyenet has been receiving by Taubes fans, he does a great job at explaining why what Taubes is promoting isn't scientifically sound or absolute: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-… For everyone who enjoy making references to Insulin without context, considering it an absolute storage hormone, here's a gem: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=711

Net caloric balance is still the best long term predictor of average body mass, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition. http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.html In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors. In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories gleaned from an activities database) from another estimate (calories written on the side of the food packet). But when you look at population BMI vs population calorie intake, it looks suspiciously like a perfect correlation: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-still-matter… Which is what we would expect from a basic acceptance of freshman physics. Energy and matter are conserved. No exceptions. Singling out fructose as some kind of super-baddy doesn't work, for the simple reason that the population BMI-calories correlation appears in countries outside the USA. Only the USA has corn politics and only the USA has HFCS in the food supply in any abundance. Yet the rest of the developed world is getting fat on the same trajectory as the USA has.

> The problem is exactly that satiation doesn't work well enough, thus some people need a cybernetic add-on, just like some people need glasses. Yes, but the important question is why. Why do an increasing fraction of people have broken metabolic feedback systems, and what can they do to fix them? If we had cybernetic calorie counters that worked as reliably as glasses, it wouldn't be a big deal. But in practice, only a minority of people manage to stick to a calorie counting regime over the long term. And even the ones who succeed have to fight the battle their whole lives. It never becomes automatic. That is why I think it's a mistake to pin people's hopes on calorie counting, when there is a lot of fascinating science about how to fix the built-in automatic system instead (see for example http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/, written by a biochemist who researches obesity and metabolism).

You are wrong. Too much energy dense food makes you fat. Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic. There are many more factors, most important being inactivity and overconsumption of food. The carbohydrate hypothesis is very clearly Bullshit: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-o… When people go on a low carb diet they: a. restrict their food intake by restricing their choices (less processed foods if you exclude a massiv part of " b. increase protein intake (protein has a higher thermic effect than any other macronutrient and drastically cuts down total kcal consumption in ad lib feeding trials by reducing appetite) You can do something similar with a low fat diet (on which another part of the population will feel better - skewed towards more active and leaner people). Low carb (whatever that means - not clearly defined) isn't a better choice for your health than a mixed diet with a high(er) protein intake. If it works for you: great. But that doesn't mean calories don't count and carbohydrates/insulin cause obesity. Nor that it works for everyone.

It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat! Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat. Excellent refutation of Taubes hypothesis: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-… Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese. The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption. They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem. The problems are: 1. High caloric density. 2. *Vanishing* caloric density-- foods that prevent satiation. 3. Addictive flavors and sensations that cause cravings. Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. …

It is all a very vague science to try to look back in time. Centuries is not that long ago, and one can try to assume that remote indigenous populations are still similar. Lets assume we are talking thousands if not tens of thousands of years ago. There are a lot of things that scientists can try to interpret from skeletal and other bone remains, only some of them that would be a direct link to cancer. This is a good overview of some of the science that goes on for that in a context that is relevant to the discussion at hand: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/paleopathology-at-origin… Personally I am convinced that cancer is just one of many degenerative health issues. If you follow that line of reasoning, than the frequency of degenerative issues in skeletal remains are likely related to the frequency of cancer and any other degenerative health issue. As one example, if you simply see caries (cavities) in the remains of the teeth, that would also mean cancer was more likely to occur. (very healthy indigenous cultures have almost no cavities). Obviously this is very loose logic, and certain groups are more likely to have certain issues that are more or less likely to show up in skeletal remains, but I believe the general principle is sound.