This week's New Scientist features an excellent article by renowned science writer, Gary Taubes entitled, "The great diet delusion ." In it, he urges nutrition researchers and health authorities to wake up to the fact that people do not get fat simply because they overeat. For more than a century, medical dogma has stated that the only way to lose weight was to expend more energy than is consumed. While that may work in some cases, he goes beyond that into the physiological mechanisms of fat deposition and over-consumption. Citing examples from adolescent growth spurts, Taubes credibly describes the impact of hormones on growth and fat deposition. Carbohydrates, such as starches and sugars, stimulate the secretion of the hormone insulin which, in turn, accelerates deposition of fat.
Taubes, describes the conventional medical practitioners as being in denial of this phenomenon because acceptance of it would imply that Robert Atkins was correct in his diet recommendations all along. So they largely ignore it while witnessing the greatest epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes in history.
The Taubes article fits closely with the recent article entitled, "A Call for Higher Standards of Evidence for Dietary Guidelines," in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine by Marantz, Bird and Alderman and recently reviewed in SaltSensibility .
