"When, in my forties, my cholesterol level rose to 242—200 is considered the upper limit of what’s healthy—I embarked on a regimen that restricted fatty foods (and also cut down on carbohydrates). Six months later, having shed ten pounds, I rechecked my level. It was unchanged; genes have a way of signalling their power. But as soon as my doctor put me on just a tiny dose of a statin medication my cholesterol plummeted more than eighty points...
Everyone wants to be healthy, and most of us like eating, so we’re easily swayed by any new finding, no matter how dubious...
fat should not be characterized simply as inert blubber. It is the vehicle by which our cells receive certain essential nutrients, like Vitamins A, D, E, and K. The myelin sheaths around our nerves are eighty per cent lipids, “which means fat is actually required to think,” Tara writes. Studies by Jeffrey Friedman, at the Rockefeller University, have shown that the hormone leptin travels from fat cells to the hypothalamus, a part of the brain which is involved in regulating appetite. “Friedman’s discovery redefined fat,” Tara writes. “It was a verifiable endocrine organ with wide influence to our bodies. Through leptin, fat could talk. It could tell the brain to stop eating.”...
Our metabolism reflects an interplay of things like genes, hormones, and the bacteria that populate the gut, so how much energy we absorb from what we eat varies from person to person...
Taubes is critical of scientists’ tendency to see disorders as “multifactorial” and “multidimensional”—that is, as arising from a complex interplay of factors. Lung cancer, he argues, is also multifactorial (most smokers don’t get it and many non-smokers do), yet no one disputes that smoking is the primary cause. But cigarette smoke contains carcinogens, molecules that have been shown to directly transform normal cells into malignant ones by disrupting their DNA. There’s no equivalent when it comes to sugar. Taubes surmises a causal link by citing findings that cancer cells need glucose to thrive, and absorb more of it than other cells. But this proves nothing: malignant cells consume in abundance not only carbohydrates like glucose and fructose but other nutrients, like vitamins...
A woman I know who recently emerged from chemotherapy treatment for ovarian cancer and is now in remission told me that she was terrified after reading Taubes’s book. She asked if eating chocolate would make her tumor start growing again."
I was at a Whole Foods recently and I overheard a guy asking if there were any yogurts with "no sugar", then loudly saying that he was going to email Jeff Bezos "the richest CEO in the world and you can't even find any yogurt without sugar".
Which, like, so much to unpack there...
I couldn't handle it and turned to him to let him know that all yogurt is going to have sugar in it, because all fermented foods need sugar for the microbes. I should have helped him out by saying "you probably mean ADDED sugars". Or, even better, "you, sir, look healthy and sound like you're getting nutrition advice from the internet or your annoying friend at the swim club, and not a medical professional. Sugar is bad in excess, when you are not wealthy enough to avoid foods that are full of hidden added sugars; restricting sugar is not necessarily a healthy activity. You sound like an asshole."
But I just said that in my head while I walked away.
FB: basically, ignore fads and eat what feels healthy "Other research seems to undermine the whole idea of dieting: extreme regimens pose dangers, such as the risk of damaged kidneys from a buildup of excess uric acid during high-protein diets; and population studies have shown that being a tad overweight may actually be fine. Even studying these issues in the first place can be problematic. Although the study of the Mediterranean diet, for example, reflects randomized controlled experiments, most nutritional studies are observational; they rely on so-called food diaries, in which subjects record what they remember about their daily intake. Such diaries are notoriously inexact. No one likes admitting to having indulged in foods that they know—or think they know—are bad for them."
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