Good Calories, Bad Calories (Part 3)

This is the final segment I'm writing on Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. In Part 1 I discussed the role of refined carbohydrates with respect to heart disease. In Part 2 I discussed the role of refined carbohydrates with respect to increased body fat. This section will pertain to the limitations of the research Taubes used to write his book.

Mmmmmm, refined carbohydates!

All scientific studies are limited in some way. The gold standard in research is the randomized control trial where neither the researcher nor the test subject knows which treatment they’re being given (i.e. a double blind study). Nutritional studies can’t be double blind studies as the test subjects can see that their diet is changed enabling the chance of developing a placebo effect. Another problem is that lowering a specific calorie containing nutrient (e.g. carbohydrates) changes the caloric content of the diet. Were the results tied to lowering the calorie containing nutrient or rather to lowering total calories? As well, most of the research subjects were overweight and obese, which is more common among those with an endomorphic body type. Is the low carb diet as effective in ectomorphs and mesomorphs? Moreover, much of the research was conducted by clinicians working with obese patients rather than as randomized control trials. While the RCT is the pinnacle of scientific research the research necessary to back up some of the claims in Good Calories, Bad Calories would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and is not currently being investigated.

In addition to the nutritional limitations, Taubes didn’t touch on the research outside of nutrition. There have been many environment links to poor health and obesity. He also didn’t discuss the hypothesis that obesity may be caused by the imbalance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids that is present in the diets of many countries. Finally, he didn’t clarify if the high nutrient content of a mostly animal diet of the Inuit was solely from muscle meat or whether it was necessary to consume the other organs as well. 

In conclusion, the ideas presented by Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories are compelling. While further research is necessary and some of the claims will either be refuted or modified I believe Taubes in on the right track. The consumption of a diet high in refined carbohydrates leads to many health related problems.

Note: For more information watch Sugar: The Bitter Truth by Robert Lustig. If your main interest is fat loss Taubes has also written a book called Why We Get Fat, which I hear is a shorter and easier read than Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt

Pratt's Pro Fitness