Ancestral Weight Loss Registry
  • Home
  • Join
  • Results
  • Testimonials
  • Science
  • Blog
  • About

Response to Criticism from 'Carbsanity'

1/22/2012

28 Comments

 
I recently came across a criticism of the AWLR from the carbsanity blog, criticizing the scientific method and overall veracity of this website. She describes it as a "JOKE", condemning the fact that I describe it as an "international assembly" or that I am interested in hearing from those who have gained or maintained their weight while eating a carb-restricted diet as well: 

"They want to hear if you've gained weight! Yeah ... right ... LOL."

This registry is then compared to the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), describing how inferior our data is, praising the fact that the NWCR only accepts registrants who have lost weight and kept it off for at least a year.

Strength of the data
Speaking specifically to the fact that the data created from this site is of poor quality, I say you are absolutely correct.  This is conspicuously explained on the about page. The Ancestral Weight Loss Registry is self-selected, self reported data and should not be interpreted as a scientific study. Of course, people can "pad their stats", saying they've lost more weight than they actually did. They can lie, or they may enter false data. This is a simple fact that plagues all self-reported data. The carbsanity author eloquently describes this fact in her post:

"Feel free to fill out this survey from each email you own or don't own.  Make shit up all you want ... just beware, we have very special double secret statistical methods to catch you if you lie!  Really!!  No ... really really!!  Don't lie or we will send out the fraud patrol to spam your fake email address. What a JOKE. "

I would simply hope that the same criticism be conjured up when describing the NWCR data. The fact that the NWCR require their registry members to mail in a packet of information and provide their home address does not necessarily improve the quality of self-selected, self-reported data. 

The carbsanity author describes the NWCR, saying  "In a word, there's a lot of ACCOUNTABILITY.  You have to give them your mailing address, and as memory serves you must provide some visual verification of your weight loss.  Not a lot of optional there."

In fact, her memory may not be entirely correct.  You can give a visual verification of your weight loss (before and after pictures), as you can with the AWLR, but it is not required. As Dr. Wing explains in their published findings, "19% (145 subjects) were unable to provide any source of documentation" verifying their weight loss. 

Exclusion criteria
Carbsanity criticizes me for allowing anyone, whether they have lost, gained, or maintained their weight to join the registry and share their story, as opposed to only allowing those who were successful to join:

"Let's see what we need to join NWCR.  For one thing, you have to have lost a minimum of 30 lbs and KEPT IT OFF for at least a year.  The criteria for joining the AWLR?  Laughable -- we don't care how much you've lost or gained, we want to hear from you?  This IS a joke ... right?"

No it isn't a joke. Only allowing people who have lost 30 pounds and kept it off for over a year is like Yelp.com only allowing you to review a restaurant if you are going to give it 5-stars. Excluding those who may have been less successful biases the data to immeasurable proportions. Those people who are most successful at losing weight and qualify for the NWCR may be systematically different in ways uncaptured by the registry questionnaire, further confounding the already weak data these questionnaires can provide. 

In contrast, I specifically want to incorporate all people who have tried a carb-restricted or paleo diet, whether they lost weight or gained it. I believe this will provide a deeper insight into the most effective ways to lose weight and improve health.

What I hope for this registry to become is not proof that carb-restricted diets are more or less effective than a low-fat diet, or any other way of eating. It is not meant to belittle the findings of the NWCR. Far from it. What I do hope it can be is a lens by which the clinical data can be viewed. The most rigorous data we have on effective dietary practices is the randomized clinical trial. Since the early 90s the potential benefits of a carb-restricted or low fat diet have been tested, and there have been a few consistent findings:
  • The carb-restricted, calorie unlimited diet usually - but not always - results in more weight (and fat) loss, than a low calorie, low-fat diet. This has been demonstrated at least 14 times. Whether they spontaneously eat less calories because of the satiating nature of a high fat, high protein diet, or they lose weight due to the net reduction in insulin levels, they consistently lose more weight. You can see all the clinical trials (both successful and unsuccessful here). Each study is linked to its original source in the medical literature.
  • The people consuming a carb-restricted diet consistently report feeling full between meals, often eat less at subsequent meals. 
  • A carb-restricted diet consistently reduces triglyceride levels, increases HDL levels, and improves the atherogenicity of LDL-C, by morphing these particles from small and dense - associated with high carbohydrate diets, to the large and buoyant LDL particles associated with a decreased risk of heart disease.
These results are consistent in the clinical data and brought about with one sweeping recommendation: Limit your carbs. 

While I agree with Carbsanity that the strength of data created in the Ancestral Weight loss registry is weak, I don’t think Rose or Jackie or the hundreds of people throughout the world signing up to AWLR each day, many of which have tremendously inspiring stories of weight loss and improved health without calorie counting and devoid of hunger, would agree that carb-restricted eating is a “joke”.

--
Tried a carb-restricted or paleo diet? Whether you lost or gained weight, we want to hear about it! Join today.

28 Comments
Rose Smith
1/22/2012 06:53:24 am

Evelyn (CarbSane) is well-known to many of us who visit low-carb forums and blogs regularly. For reasons I don't entirely understand, she devotes an incredible amount of time and energy to attempts at discrediting various low-carb authors and studies.

By contrast, Weight Watchers was a miserable failure for me (multiple times -- and I paid for it!), yet it's never once occurred to me to criticize my boss, who's been very successful on it, much less to start a blog, a forum and a daily internet-trawling routine dedicated solely and entirely to discrediting WW.

Since my own low-carb experience has been so clear and convincing (to me, at least), I treat her opinions the way I treat my former doctor's negative opinions in the face of real-life evidence: irrelevant, and simple enough to ignore.

Reply
Beth@WeightMaven link
1/22/2012 07:10:21 am

I'm glad to see that you are responding to criticism of this site. Just a couple of quick comments. First, if you've read CarbSane's site, you'll quickly find out that she's not opposed to lower carb diets for weight loss, only for those that attribute their success to Taubes' carbs->insulin hypothesis.

Secondly, ancestral does NOT equal low carb, so the naming of this registry is problematic aside from its other issues (such as those you've noted re the self-reported data as well as others, such the answers for the how long have you maintained your loss, with over one year being the only long-term option).

I do hope something good comes out of your efforts, but there is clearly work that needs to be done!

Reply
Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 02:36:02 am

Why don't you share with us what you believe to be the carbohydrate content of an "ancestral" diet?

Reply
Beth@WeightMaven link
1/23/2012 02:51:23 am

I believe it varied ... higher carb closer to the equator, lower carb closer to the poles. This study of the macronutrient ratios of modern hunter-gatherers suggests it was a pretty healthy range: http://www.nrjournal.com/article/S0271-5317%2811%2900091-1/abstract

Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 03:16:16 am

My bad.

I meant the carbohydrate content of current-day dietary recommendations that are based on ancestral or Paleolithic diets.

Reply
Beth@WeightMaven link
1/23/2012 10:52:14 pm

I think the carb content of a modern "ancestral" type diet should vary as well depending on a number of factors ... particularly one's current health (especially insulin sensitivity) and activity level. I'm also finding Dr. Kruse's thoughts about seasonality and carb level very compelling as well.

Re insulin sensitivity and weight loss, there are studies that show that some people do much better with a higher carb diet. Whether that's genes* or insulin sensitivity** or both is still a matter of speculation. But I think it's clear that not everyone requires (or will do well on) a VLC diet.

* http://www.theheart.org/article/1053429.do#bib_1

** http://paleozonenutrition.com/2011/12/14/study-more-weight-lost-on-high-carb-diets-for-some/

Kevin M.
1/22/2012 12:25:33 pm

Evelyn of Carbsane has some fair criticisms of LC sometimes, but otherwise she is a crank with a bitter ax to grind. Also her rhetoric is often hyperbolic and exaggerated. For example, she recently wrote a long screed against Gary Taubes saying he had been in hundreds of television interviews and had written countless articles. But the article count right on his website lists less than ten published articles about low-carb to date, and I'm sure his interviews were not many more than that. She mentions that she is upset that many low-carbers experience stalls and weight creep in later years of maintenance, and that she was not told about this up front when she tried it, and was disappointed. She blames Gary's theory (actually Dr.Atkins's theory) as somehow demonstrably baseless, even though it makes great common sense, and no one has ever really studied it, pro or con. I think she fell blindly for Gary's theory, and then was disappointed when it did not work miracles for her. But Gary provides a wealth of firm evidence behind his theory, and her criticisms provide little or no firm evidence against it - just invective and ad hominen attacks.

Reply
Sue
1/22/2012 11:37:35 pm

Gary needs to update his hypothesis.

Reply
Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 02:28:38 am

"Gary" doesn't have a hypothesis.

He writes about a hypothesis that he believes to be correct.

Reply
dave
1/23/2012 02:16:15 am

http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=2256

Reply
Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 05:54:33 am

I'm not sure what the so-called "metabolic advantage" has to do with this discussion, but I know that it's controversial even among the most prominent advocates of carbohydrate-restricted diets and that there is general agreement that if it does exist, it's relatively small.

On the other hand, if you think that Anthony Colpo is the diet/fitness equivalent of Howard Stern, I see your point.

Reply
Harry
1/23/2012 07:49:57 am

I think Dave's intent was to reference the studies that Colpo cites in that article. They show that, beyond a 12 month horizon, low carb dieting is as useful as other ways of eating (i.e. not very useful at all).

As we all know, what separates the men from the boys is not weight loss, but weight loss maintenance. While the NWCR is explicitly capturing that maintenance element, the AWLR is merely reiterating the well documented trope that low car diets sometimes work, for some people, for some amount of time with respect to 'losing' weight.

Again, why are we doing this?

Cheers,
Harry

Dave
1/23/2012 09:37:25 am

like Harry says, my point was to show all the clinical studies that have been done on low carb diets. Kevin stated that Taubes/Atkins theories have never been studied, but Colpo references like 15.

Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 02:44:01 am

There goes the neighborhood...

Reply
Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 11:34:03 am

@Dave: The theory itself has never been tested.

All that we know for certain is that weight-loss is associated with a reduction in calories from food.

The question that remains to be answered is if ad libitum carbohydrate-restricted diets work in the same way as calorie-restricted "balanced" diets which, for reasons that should be obvious, is difficult to ascertain.

@Kevin: We know that calorie-restriction has a failure rate somewhere north of 95% at five years. Maintaining weight by counting calories isn't impossible, but it requires some rather heroic interventions. If you know of some long-term (five year) follow-ups for carbohydrate restricted diets, please share.

Reply
Conni
1/23/2012 12:35:53 pm

@dave's link shows studies at the bottom that supposedly unfavorably compare low carb diets with low fat diets. I find that these links raise many questions. What types of low carb diets did they actually study? Was it low carb and high fat? Low carb and low fat? Were the carbs veggie and fruit carbs, grain carbs, sugar carbs? How low were the carbs? Were grains included in the low carb diets studied?

I looked up the study cited in reference #2. It was a low carb, high protein, high fat diet. It did not study a low carb, moderate protein, high fat diet.

Study #3 declared the results inconclusive, except to say this, verbatim: High-carbohydrate, low-fat diets decrease HDL cholesterol concentrations and increase serum triglyceride concentrations,34-37 whereas low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets decrease triglyceride concentrations16,27,37 and increase HDL cholesterol concentrations.15 Moreover, replacing dietary polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat with carbohydrate is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, as predicted by changes in triglyceride and HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Sounds like an endorsement of low carb to me.

Here is the conclusion for reference 4: Participants on a low-carbohydrate diet had more favorable overall outcomes at 1 year than did those on a conventional diet. Weight loss was similar between groups, but effects on atherogenic dyslipidemia and glycemic control were still more favorable with a low-carbohydrate diet after adjustment for differences in weight loss.

Sounds like another endorsement to me. Another interesting note is that they kept the low carb group at 30 carbs or less per day. Many people can eat more daily carbs than that and would still be doing low carb. Unnecessarily limiting the number of carbs also limits the variety of food one can eat, which makes it that much harder to maintain the diet, so the attrition rate is also suspect.

Reference 6 - the study was of a VLC diet, for a year. There is no reason to go VLC for a year. LC is good enough, and would be a better study.

I don't have time to investigate the rest of the studies, but it looks like the studies he links aren't conclusive enough to prove much of anything except that a) we need more studies and b) researchers need to decide exactly what a low carb diet is.





Reply
Conni
1/23/2012 11:10:32 pm

@harry, you said: I think Dave's intent was to reference the studies that Colpo cites in that article. They show that, beyond a 12 month horizon, low carb dieting is as useful as other ways of eating (i.e. not very useful at all).

And yet those links show nothing of the kind. For one thing, most of them did not last past the one-year mark. The studies I read either support a low carb diet for improved cholesterol numbers, or the studies themselves were flawed. For instance, a year-long VLC diet would severely restrict the number of carbs a dieter could eat, and the lack of variety in a diet will discourage the most committed dieter. That doesn't prove that a low carb diet (done properly) will fail to produce long-term weight loss. Also, many of the studies he linked were not researching whether long term weight loss was possible on a low carb diet. Using the VLC study as an example again, they were studying the effects of a year-long VLC on the mood. I imagine by the end of the study, the answer would have been "surly".

If we're going to 'elevate the level of the discourse somewhat', how about we start by not blindly accepting that the links an anti-low-carb guy posts actually prove what he says they prove?

Best,
Conni

Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 11:36:12 am

"@Kevin" should have been "@Harry".

Reply
Sam Knox link
1/23/2012 11:49:30 am

@Harry

This sentence is nonsense:

"...the AWLR is merely reiterating the well documented trope that low carb diets sometimes work, for some people, for some amount of time with regard to 'losing' weight."

The AWLR is a database. It can't "reiterate" anything, much less a non-existent but mysteriously "well documented trope". Only human beings can do that.

If you don't think it's worthwhile, here's an idea: Ignore it.

Reply
Harry
1/23/2012 01:11:24 pm

Lol @ the "AWLR is a database. It can't "reiterate" anything". Yep...all databases are value-neutral, only human beings can be biased, huh?

Wow, that's seems like some pretty unsophisticated pre-Kuhnian philosophy of science there Sam!

In reality, databases reflect the biases of the people/organisations that frame them, as I suspect you well know. This database is no different, and as such, is perfectly explicable as a propagator of a trope.

Oh, and if you deny the existence of said trope, are you saying that there are no studies that show that low carb diets work for some people, for some amount of time? This would be distressing news indeed for low carb dieters! Say it aint so!

Cheers
Harry

Reply
Harry
1/23/2012 01:16:48 pm

"If you don't think it's worthwhile, here's an idea: Ignore it."

Uh hum...yep I could do that. I could also question it in the hope that this elevates the quality of the discussion somewhat.

Or is it a case of "If you're not with us, you're against us", Sam?

Anyhow, thanks for the advice.

Cheers
Harry

Reply
Carl
1/24/2012 09:34:53 am

In my opinion, carbsane does go over the top in terms of personal attacks on Gary Taubes and some other prominent Low Carb proponents. She strikes me as one of those acerbic, sarcastic types who just can't quite help herself, and inevitably goes too far in many of her critical responses. But if you get past that, and look mainly at her commentary on the science behind low carb diets, she makes some good points.

To be fair, she admits that she has had good success with carb restriction. But she does believe that Taubes missed badly with his scientific explanation for why these diets work. She also, I think, has raised some valid concerns about whether or not a very low carb diet (i.e., in ketosis most of the time) is necessarily an optimal way of eating. It may be the best way for diabetics to manage their blood sugar, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is optimal for people who still have a normal metabolism.

I personally was quite impressed by Good Calories/Bad Calories when I first read it. But there were a few things that made me wonder if his simple explanation was correct. I thought he dismissed too easily the fact that there are some groups who consume very high carbohydrate diets without suffering from the modern diseases of civilization. And there clearly are some people who have managed to lose a lot of weight on a very low fat, high carbohydrate diet. Finally, it is one thing to point out that the scientific case against fat or saturated fat is not as certain or decisive as claimed. It is another thing entirely to proclaim that it has been conclusively and decisively proven that high fat diets or high saturated fats diets are safe. I think Taubes crossed an important line when he went from saying that we really don't fully understand the health risks of higher fat diets to saying that this is the optimal way for people to eat. After reading some of carbsane's criticisms of Taubes explanations, I feel even less confident that he is a reliable source for scientific expertise on these matters.

I agree that carb restricted diets do work (they did for me - I lost 20% of my body weight and have maintained that loss for over a year. But I have also been able to add back carbs and have not regained the weight). And I'm not sure that the popular explanations for why they work are correct scientifically.

Reply
BHI link
1/24/2012 10:44:01 am

I also think proper research of the mechanics behind the diet would go a long way to explaining why the carb restricted diet do not work for some of us. Or for those who lose only a small amount then plateau forever or even those who lose to near leanness then regain majority of it back.

In any event, hearing the stories of those who have lost partially and kept it off for a year is hardly helpful. By that measurement most who ever tried a carb restricted diet would be candidates to join AWLR even though may already have regained all they lost and more.

Weight loss stories are uninspiring. Tell me about someone who lost 40lb, 100lb or even 250lb and kept it off of 5, 6, 7 + years because that's where the true success of any change in lifestyle lies.

Reply
Conni
1/24/2012 09:02:03 pm

@ Carl, you said: She also, I think, has raised some valid concerns about whether or not a very low carb diet (i.e., in ketosis most of the time) is necessarily an optimal way of eating. It may be the best way for diabetics to manage their blood sugar, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is optimal for people who still have a normal metabolism.

As far as I have been able to find anywhere, Gary Taubes does not recommend a VLC. In his Why We Get Fat book, as I recall, he rather reluctantly included a diet at the back of the book, so that people would have some jumping off place to start, and he made it clear it was a diet used by a medical facility to treat diabetics. He also makes it clear in his writings that each person's individual genetics are going to play an important role, and that we all need to experiment with the number of carbs we can tolerate, to find what works for us. He also makes it clear that it is not going to work for everyone, and he doesn't claim to know why.

@BHI, you said: I also think proper research of the mechanics behind the diet would go a long way to explaining why the carb restricted diet do not work for some of us.

Despite CarbSane's spittle-flying rhetoric, GT has been as clear as possible in his writings that insulin is only one of many factors in weight regulation. Although carb restriction doesn't work for everyone, it doesn't prove that his findings about how insulin affects fat regulation are wrong. Several other factors can contribute to the inability to lose weight.

I agree with you that more research is needed about low carb diets and fat regulation in general. GT has often said that one goal of his research is his hope that it encourages the medical and political community to rethink its current stance on fat and carbs, so that it will be possible to do more and better research.

Best,
Conni

Reply
Baker
2/14/2012 04:20:35 am

This has been a weird morning. I googled something that led me to the carbsanity blog, where I then spent 20 baffled minutes reading her kind of insane childish email fights with Gary Taubes, and her repeated accusations that he wants to make money from his work (...? as opposed to everyone else?)

So then of course I had to google about other people experiences with the Carbsanity lady and her strange, butterfly-laden blog. Based on the many, many people who blog about having had terrible interactions with her, she seems, basically, to be a troll. She may (or may not - I could not slog through her writing long enough to find out) have good points to make, but she seems like kind of a lunatic.

On the upside, following her trail has led me to some really interesting websites! So thanks for that!

Reply
Larry
3/22/2012 09:37:13 pm

I was searching for responses to the Carbsanity website when I came across this page. You're exactly right. This woman's cheese has done slipped off her low-carb cracker. If she confined her attacks to ideas, I could support that (whether she's right or wrong), but her personal attacks are rife with bitterness and mocking condescension. I suspect she couldn't make a name for herself, so she decided to make a name attacking others (fame by association, I guess).

The really sad thing is, I read through several of her posts and still have no idea what her stance on LCHF is... Other than she detests Jimmy Moore and Gary Taubes, where does she stand on the issue?

Reply
Lowcarber
5/19/2012 10:09:05 am

I was just looking for references to carbsane and found this. After listening to an interview Jimmy did with her on livinlowcarbshow, I cannot believe this chick is getting any airtime/space/electrons anywhere but her own websites. Let me just paraphrase one thing she said in her interview with Jimmy: "you can't gain more weight than the weight of the food you eat. If you eat a pound of chocolate chip cookies, you can't gain more than a pound of weight from that." I would call her carbINsane. She doesn't have the faintest idea of what happens in bio-chemical processes. Jimmy didn't even debunk that. She continued with more garbage born of similarly defective thinking. Don't spend any time on this woman. It only helps her get more fame.

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/3557/blogger-carbsane-calls-gary-taubes-a-willful-fraud-episode-436/

Reply
Carole AKA CarbSaneR link
4/4/2013 03:38:26 pm

You can see a very accurate transcription of Carbsane's (Evelyn Kocur's) interview with Jimmy Moore on my blog.:

http://carbsaner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/jimmy-moore-is-really-polite-and.html

Reply



Leave a Reply.

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.