Science Saturday: Why We Get Fat (John Horgan & Gary Taubes)

[themightypuck]

I don't think Taubes is saying calories are irrelevant. He is saying looking at calories is ass backwards. He also admits that carbs don't necessarily make you fat (as I stated above). He sees fat as a pathology and offers the hypothesis that it is carbs that causes the pathology. Like smoking is to lung cancer so carbs are to obesity. Clearly this hypothesis is not proven but compare it to the other hypotheses (toxic fast food environment, sedentary lifestyles). It is not without its problems but it is the most compelling hypothesis I've heard so far. I don't see it as saying all carbs are bad but rather that fat is caused by too many carbs. He sees this as the traditional hypothesis with centuries of support (I suppose the book has sources) while the modern hypothesis that only calories matter has no scientific support and is really just a kneejerk way to escape the conundrum that if fat causes heart disease (something Taubes disputes) we need to eat high carb diets to be healthy. The narrower view (expressed in the NYT piece) that fructose is the problem is also very interesting. The problem is, what is the null hypothesis? We all need to eat.