Is the CIM really dead or...

Beating-My-Betes

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@Beating-My-Betes you might find one of the authors interesting considering your disparagement on another thread yet look at the company he's keeping..[/QUOTE]

I think that Gary Taubes is completely lacking in scientific integrity, and guilty of some of the greatest perversions of the scientific method, in recent history. I'm not sure it's such a good look for those who choose to be associated with him. But, alas...

If anyone is slightly curious as to the the science and data that Taubes had to ignore or manipulate to end up with 'Good Calories Bad Calories', and if it's deemed on-topic, I can post links.

But given the focus of this thread is on a study that aims to explain a possible theory behind the obesity epidemic, I'll offer a counter-argument

https://thedietwars.com/why-are-americans-getting-fatter-a-food-love-story-in-six-graphs/

It's focused on Americans, but really we're talking about the Standard Western Diet. It's part of a much bigger deep-dive into the ideas around the low-fat government guidelines and the obesity epidemic:

https://thedietwars.com/dietary-guidelines-megapost/

And all this before we consider how activity levels dropped from this period, onward.

You stick with insulin-theory; I'll go with Occam's Razor ;)
 

Oldvatr

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@Beating-My-Betes you might find one of the authors interesting considering your disparagement on another thread yet look at the company he's keeping..
>>>>>>
You stick with insulin-theory; I'll go with Occam's Razor ;)[/QUOTE]

You mean the thoughts of blogger Kevin, whoever he is apart from being the author of thedietwars. This is hardly an infallible or unbiassed source of information. You have on many occasions quoted from the same source as if it is fact based. I put as much faith in this as i would in Nostradamus. And Occam posited in the 13th century, before science existed. I prefer the modern version KISS.
 

Oldvatr

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https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqab270/6369073

The author list on this non definitive paper is interesting and maybe calls for some nuance where there has been little in the past.

@Beating-My-Betes you might find one of the authors interesting considering your disparagement on another thread yet look at the company he's keeping..
As you suggest, strange bedfellows in that listing. But then most of them are Harvard based so probably all hanging onto the same funding pot of gold.
 
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Energy in clearly matters, but equally as important is what happens inside the body once it’s consumed. An extreme end of the scale, admittedly, but it serves a point to pose the question to those who deny any impact of CIM: if insulin does not or cannot drive obesity then how do we explain that those with insulin deficiency lose weight no matter how much they eat?

No further questions.
 
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Beating-My-Betes

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You mean the thoughts of blogger Kevin, whoever he is apart from being the author of thedietwars. This is hardly an infallible or unbiassed source of information. You have on many occasions quoted from the same source as if it is fact based.I put as much faith in this as i would in Nostradamus.

Firstly, I've already suggested to you in other threads that the revisionist-history of Taubes, Teicholz et al is at complete odds with my own experience, or of anyone I've known, over the last 50 years. The information contained within these articles by Bass more closely aligns with my own experience of the world. And I'm not just choosing the information that fits what I want to 'hear' (It would actually be much more convenient to be able to blame the government, carbs, insulin or..."THE MEN" who made us fat, for why I've nearly always been overweight/obese).

Does KB have a bias? Of course...we all do. Is his info infallible? doubtful What Im looking for when it comes to what i deem as reliable sources of information, are people who will pursue the science in spite of their biases. And in my pwn pursuit of the truth, it has led me to unsubscribe and unfollow most of the vegans I used to watch/read, and now most of the people i follow on Twitter etc. and from whom I get my information are neither vegan, nor interested in my personal preference for a very high-carb diet. It's also unfortunate that a few of the people I follow, including KB, act like utter clowns and edge-lords out in the social-media world (I've even been banned from one of their Twitter accounts for suggesting that them acting the fool really deters people away from the quality of their information. Such is life)

So, no...blogger is not a rude word to me; neither, in fact, is science-journalist. I'll take my information from a pre-schooler if what they are presenting to me is true.

When it comes to Taubes, he has a long history of hiding the truth when it would be inconvenient to his message. Furthermore, for years now, he has set out to prove his theories correct, which is in direct opposition to the idea of the scientific method i.e to falsify one's hypotheses.

Also, where you put your 'faith' is your business. But instead of dismissing the info out-of-hand, why not present information that counters/debunks it


I prefer the modern version KISS.

Well, in your parlance KISS favours 'Ate more; moved less' over insulin done made us all fat ;)
 

Beating-My-Betes

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Energy in clearly matters, but equally as important is what happens inside the body once it’s consumed. An extreme end of the scale, admittedly, but it serves a point to pose the question to those who deny any impact of CIM: if insulin does not or cannot drive obesity then how do we explain that those with insulin deficiency lose weight no matter how much they eat?

No further questions.

There is an irony that when it comes to proposed or known human mechanisms that when it comes to fructose-metabolism etc. the body is infallible, but when it comes to calories suddenly it's all about "...but humans aren't closed machines" ;)

But you are right that calories in is not the whole story. There is definitely a distinction to be made between calories in vs absorbed/utilisable energy. However, in the context of weight-gain/loss it seems to be a bit of a red-herring, because I fail to see any action/reaction of metabolism that doesn't subtract calories/energy from the initial pay-load i.e If the food i eat is said to contain 2000kcal, there doesn't seem to be anyway that that a person could end up absorbing, for instance 2200kcal.

Of course, there are mechanisms by which the body can dial back metabolism and effect energy-expenditure such that we don't burn off as much of the initial given caloric load, and in more extreme case to perhaps lead to some weigh-gain. I'm not familiar with all the exact mechanisms, as I'm but a lay-person. Suffice to say, these mechanisms can be over-ruled, and we can see the devastating effects in those who intentionally starve themselves into anorexia etc.

But, as I already said, in the context of weight-management, this disparity between calories pushed into the cake-hole and what is utilisable only reinforces the deficit aspect of dieting.

So, if someone has a known (Let's say they've been metabolically-tested) TDEE of 3000kcal, per day. If their intention is to slowly lose weight (Slow enough to try and avoid the body getting scared of starvation), they might decide to stick to a small daily deficit of 300kcal. And let's say the cost of digestion, energy lost to TEF etc. robs that initial pay-load of another 70kcal, how is that not of benefit to someone trying to lose weight using calories in/out?

How does the body not being a machine and losing energy to its various processes falsify the claim that cutting a certain amount of calories in, at the face, is a good strategy for losing weight/fat?

those who deny any impact of CIM: if insulin does not or cannot drive obesity then how do we explain that those with insulin deficiency lose weight no matter how much they eat?

Firstly, Im not denying that CIM has any impact, I just believe that it's a small part of a much bigger story, and that that story is full of countless (literally) observable instances that falsify CIM as an explanation for the obesity pandemic.

Now it seems that Taubes has somewhat dialled back his message (Perhaps wasting $40million of private investment in debunking ones self will do that to ya ;) ), but now he seems content with showing potential favourable differences in caloric-burn, over carbs make us fat. Maybe that message will eventually filter down to the masses, because there are still people on this forum and the rest of eh low-carb world who believe that carbs = obesity.

I'm also not saying insulin does not or cannot play a part in it. Of course it does...mechanistically-so. But mechanisms are just one part of a bigger whole, and we can observe in many cases where human outcomes fly in the face of proposed mechanisms; no doubt, in part due to the fact that humans aren't closed systems ;)

As for your question, I'm afraid I'm not knowledgable enough to explain that situation. Would be interested if you find out.

No further questions.

I'd say that when it comes to dropping the mic, that you're getting ahead of yourself ;)


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As an aside, it's perhaps worth pointing out that I used to believe a lot of this stuff also. Years ago, I experimented with low-carb, keto, primal etc. I used to live out in the middle-of-nowhere, and had to take advantage of fewer shopping trips to stock up on huge amounts of meat I (not so fondly, at this point) remember dividing up portions of liver, chicken, cow into separate freezer-bags. Ahh, the good ol' days. Had it been a year or so later, I could've got my animals killed right in front of me, as my friends started rearing their own pigs, chickens etc.

I bought into the whole low-carb idea, and was a regular reader of Sisson's now defunct 'Daily Apple' and Richard Nikoley's blog. My own experiential misgivings aside, things started to fall-apart when Nikoley and a guy who went by the name 'Duck Dodgers' started experimenting with potatoes and resistant-starch. And much (I'm sure) to Sisson's chagrin, many on his forum also started experimenting with potatoes. Many seemed to report breaking through long-held weight-loss plateaus and reported feelings of greater energy and well-being.
 
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bulkbiker

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Many seemed to report breaking through long-held weight-loss plateaus and reported feelings of greater energy and well-being.

So their anecdotes are ok but anyone else's are invalid...

But what drove you to veganism .. apart from Saint Kevin the Bass***e.
 
M

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Firstly, Im not denying that CIM has any impact

To be fair I wasn't replying or referring to yourself at all. Just a passing comment. There are lots of folk, particularly in the health and fitness sectors, who will argue to the death that insulin has nothing to do with obesity.

In the end, insulin, among many other factors I have no doubt, is the gatekeeper of energy storage and partitioning. It's the primary variable that determines whether glucose energy is used for fuel there and then, stored safely as fat, or in extreme cases, simply left to accumulate in its absence and become toxic. You also can't really burn body fat for fuel when circulating insulin is excessive, but you can most certainly make fat from glucose in the same setting.

In my mind, the energy in/out model is valid, but all the variables are heavily influenced by CIM, so I don't think it's necessarily one or the other. Rather it's a complex relationship between the two.
 
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Beating-My-Betes

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So their anecdotes are ok but anyone else's are invalid...

How many times (I mean, literally...give me a number) do i have to say that I place a lot of value on anecdotes, and that yours caused me to change my previously-held position that LC/Keto couldn't bring about remission? I didn't even skips beat. it was just a case of acknowledging I was wrong, and changing my view. More than that, I've even (Possibly twice now) corrected certain folk in the low-fat camp who made claims counter to yours, and those of others in the LC movements' experience.

In the last two decades of being in the online health/dieting world, I've seen countless examples of extreme healing on all manner of diets, extreme and not-so, so it is very disappointing that in 2021 there are still pockets of the online nutrition-sphere who hold onto their own protocol as if it's the one-diet-to-rule-them-all, whether low-carb, high-carb, vegan or whatever, and act with such incredulity and outright dismissal when being asked to consider contradictory evidence.

When I've posted HCLF anecdotes, they are dismissed on the grounds that they are not backed by robust scientific data and/or that because those who run the program are vegan and also would like to be financially compensated for their time and information, that it calls into question the integrity of any results that are shared.

There are a few incidences on this forum where I've read anecdotes that invite further investigation, but I don't think anyone here is intentionally dishonest, which is actually the only grounds on which I'd immediately dismiss an anecdote or testimonial

In the case of the episode on Sisson's forum, I said "many". I didn't say all experienced positive effects, nor did I even suggest they all tried it. I didn't claim that all of them were experiencing weight-loss plateaus, nor that the majority weren't thriving. I simply pointed to a phenomenon which I not only found interesting, but eventually was the undoing of my Low-carb dreams.

But what drove you to veganism .. apart from Saint Kevin the Bass***e.

Not sure why you're directly insulting Kevin. I understand the temptation, but at least on these forums I've been very careful to attack professional/scientific conduct. If anyone can point me to any instances where I've attacked someone's person, I'll gladly retract the statement and apologise. If you want to insult him, go and do so on his social media. He'll block you, just as Gary did when I insulted him (I still think what I said was the truth), but at least you'll know you've been heard ;)

As for Kevin apparently having anything to do with my veganism? I first tried veganism about 24 years ago, I've been following Kevin on and off for about 5 months. And not only is he not vegan, but some of his recent takes on veganism are just nonsense (Suffice to say, I don't imagine it'll be long before I'm blocked from his page also).

I never made veganism stick until the last 3 years. Before that, it was always tied to raw-veganism and for health/weight-loss reasons. i get that it's still a risk (Can be mitigated somewhat by not listening to fringe lunatics, pseudo-science and absurd reductionism, and planned to cover bases). However, over the last couple of decades I've seen countless cases of vegans thriving at different stages of life, and some upwards of 50-years, (I also am finding more and more from-birth, some from-inception, vegans who are more than thriving), to make a confident bet that for most of the population it's possible. As such, I can find absolutely no reason to pay money to others to perpetrate and perpetuate the suffering, torture and slaughter of innocent beings.

That, for the moment, is the last thing I'll say about veganism.
 

zand

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So a question to you clever guys.

Years back, before I was diagnosed T2, I noticed something odd. I had been following low fat diets on and off..If they had worked I would've stuck with them It's easy to stick to something when you get the results.

I gave up trying to lose weight as the diets didn't work.

My son and I used to have a bacon butty for breakfast. One day I ran out of bread and gave him the butty whilst I just had the normal amount of bacon.

I was usually snacking by 10 and starving hungry by 12. That day I worked through till 1 pm and still wasn't very hungry. That was the start of low carbing for me.

I have always explained this to myself as 'carbs make you feel more hungry '

Can you clever guys explain this phenomenon to me? Why was I less hungry that day? I guess insulin, leptin and ghrelin might be involved but why did eating the same amount of bacon with no bread satiate me for longer?
 

Beating-My-Betes

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To be fair I wasn't replying or referring to yourself at all. Just a passing comment. There are lots of folk, particularly in the health and fitness sectors, who will argue to the death that insulin has nothing to do with obesity.

In the end, insulin, among many other factors I have no doubt, is the gatekeeper of energy storage and partitioning. It's the primary variable that determines whether glucose energy is used for fuel there and then, stored safely as fat, or in extreme cases, simply left to accumulate in its absence and become toxic. You also can't really burn body fat for fuel when circulating insulin is excessive, but you can most certainly make fat from glucose in the same setting.

In my mind, the energy in/out model is valid, but all the variables are heavily influenced by CIM, so I don't think it's necessarily one or the other. Rather it's a complex relationship between the two.

Thanks!

You keep going with the mixed messages. On one hand, you point to a "complex relationship between[...]" CIM and energy balance, but then suggest that "all the variables are heavily influenced by CIM". I don't think that's true. Can insulin be thought of as "the gatekeeper of energy storage and partitioning."? Sure! Is it meaningful in the context of a body that's trying to scavenge stored-energy due to a deficit of incoming food? No!

Even if, in that moment, fat is being stored, the very fact hat the body needs to start emptying stores to keep ploughing through the day means it's gonna be accessed straight-away, no? Kinda like depositing money with the teller inside a bank, then walking outside and withdrawing the dame amount of money from the 'hole-in-the-wall' ;) I've asked you before whether the body would look to store energy for the future, when it didn't have enough for the 'current' day. I can't remember your answer.

Of course, that's only talking about weight-loss. But in terms of initial weight-gain, I don't see how insulin is any more than just a cog in a big wheel. Certainly, there are hundreds of millions of folk who live on this planet that are neither obese nor overweight, who don't avoid carbs.

Also - and I think this is really important to stress - obesity (Something I see as fundamentally distinct from being a bit overweight) has in many/most cases very little to do with the actual food. Looking at eh obesity epidemic from a purely metabolic/energy point-of-view is likely never really going to cut it
 

lucylocket61

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Also - and I think this is really important to stress - obesity (Something I see as fundamentally distinct from being a bit overweight) has in many/most cases very little to do with the actual food.
How does that tie in with you saying that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little??

What do you think causes obesity?
 

Beating-My-Betes

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How does that tie in with you saying that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little??

What do you think causes obesity?

I (not only me, of course) posit that CICO imbalance is what actually leads people to either gain or lose weight. And yes, it's also implicated in becoming obese. The distinction I make is that whereas overweight is what someone becomes over Xmas (Too many mince-pies; too much sofa), and can often be 'easily' corrected by the obligatory January gym-membership, obesity for many is psychological in nature.

So, I'm not saying the mechanism by which the body gains or loses is fundamentally different. I'm saying that it's not effective to tell the obese that they just need to eat less and move more, when for many the underlying psychological issues remain unaddressed. That's why I hinted that anyone looking to try and decode obesity (at least if their plan is to effect real, lasting change), is wasting their time and a lot of money looking into insulin.
 

zand

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I (not only me, of course) posit that CICO imbalance is what actually leads people to either gain or lose weight. And yes, it's also implicated in becoming obese. The distinction I make is that whereas overweight is what someone becomes over Xmas (Too many mince-pies; too much sofa), and can often be 'easily' corrected by the obligatory January gym-membership, obesity for many is psychological in nature.

So, I'm not saying the mechanism by which the body gains or loses is fundamentally different. I'm saying that it's not effective to tell the obese that they just need to eat less and move more, when for many the underlying psychological issues remain unaddressed. That's why I hinted that anyone looking to try and decode obesity (at least if their plan is to effect real, lasting change), is wasting their time and a lot of money looking into insulin.
I agree in part. I agree about being merely overweight etc.
I agree that obesity, for me at least, was partly psychological. But what now? Now that I have had 29 sessions of counselling and stopped comfort eating to keep PTSD at bay?
I still need to lose much of the excess weight gained. Low carbing is the only thing that has worked at all. It is better with metformin.

I do my best to do anaerobic exercise as I believe muscles are the key. Hours of cardio don't help at all.

I eat one or two meals a day. Currently I am back to doing OMAD and am not hungry enough to eat my meal yet.

When an obese person has addressed the psychological issues they still need to lose weight. It doesn't magically fall off.
 

lucylocket61

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I (not only me, of course) posit that CICO imbalance is what actually leads people to either gain or lose weight. And yes, it's also implicated in becoming obese. The distinction I make is that whereas overweight is what someone becomes over Xmas (Too many mince-pies; too much sofa), and can often be 'easily' corrected by the obligatory January gym-membership, obesity for many is psychological in nature.

So, I'm not saying the mechanism by which the body gains or loses is fundamentally different. I'm saying that it's not effective to tell the obese that they just need to eat less and move more, when for many the underlying psychological issues remain unaddressed. That's why I hinted that anyone looking to try and decode obesity (at least if their plan is to effect real, lasting change), is wasting their time and a lot of money looking into insulin.
I disagree with you, based on the experiences of numerous people I know who have had different experiences with CICO and obesity. I will leave this point there, as i know from previous conversations with you that anecdotes, no matter how many, are not accepted by you. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
 

Beating-My-Betes

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I disagree with you, based on the experiences of numerous people I know who have had different experiences with CICO and obesity. I will leave this point there, as i know from previous conversations with you that anecdotes, no matter how many, are not accepted by you. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

I also know many people that don't conform to that experience, which is why I made it very clear to bot talk in absolutes.

I've also made it very clear that I absolutely value anecdotes. Certainly, I value the anecdotes of virtually everyone I've read on this forum, so not sure where you're getting this idea from. If you don't want to talk further, that's fine, but please don't accuse me of something that is completely untrue.

Also, if you're going to accuse me of dismissing anecdotes, I'd be curious how many of the 75 anecdotes I shared from the high-carb, low-fat diabetes crew you summarily dismissed, and which you thought were worthy of further consideration
 
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You cannot burn stored fat for energy if insulin is high. Insulin will likely be high if the person has diabetic pathology, whether or not their blood glucose is being kept at reasonable levels, or whether or not they’re hungry. A massively obese person can run a hundred miles and will not be able to burn much, or any, stored fat so long as insulin is still frantically trying to keep their glucose at manageable levels. In such settings insulin levels remain high almost always, even if blood glucose appears normal.

The body simply will not access the stored energy, but it will definitely make more fat if you continue to eat glucose. Essentially the flow of fat energy becomes a one way street until insulin levels are low enough, which won’t happen overnight. If one gets their preponderance of overall energy from dietary fat, there is a massively lower requirement for insulin to deal with the mopping up of glucose. Therefore giving the person a much better chance of lowering insulin levels long term.

I can’t explain my understanding any clearer than that.
 

Beating-My-Betes

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I agree in part. I agree about being merely overweight etc.
I agree that obesity, for me at least, was partly psychological. But what now? Now that I have had 29 sessions of counselling and stopped comfort eating to keep PTSD at bay?
I still need to lose much of the excess weight gained. Low carbing is the only thing that has worked at all. It is better with metformin.

I do my best to do anaerobic exercise as I believe muscles are the key. Hours of cardio don't help at all.

I eat one or two meals a day. Currently I am back to doing OMAD and am not hungry enough to eat my meal yet.

When an obese person has addressed the psychological issues they still need to lose weight. It doesn't magically fall off.

I also share your experience, although I'd guess mine is 100% psychological. It didn't start that way, back as a kind. But I view the process as a self-fulfilling/self-defeating process, which certainly makes sense in my case.

If LC is the only thing that has worked, then do what you have to do. I'd suggest a different outlook on the diets that you found didn't work, but ultimately, just like the question "What is the best exercise?" The best answer is "The one you stick to".

With regard to cardio not helping, I think that's a question of perspective. I used to believe that cardio could be tapped into to a much greater extent than it probably can. Having read Herman Pontzer's 'Burn', a little, I tend to think about things differently. That's not to say that cardio can't be effective, it's just there will come a point (perhaps sooner, rather than later), when the body fights back. It may not be apparent in the workout, at that current moment, but the body has ways of down-cycling that often go unnoticed (reduction of NEPA, NEAT etc.). Ultimately, cardio should be done for all the other benefits it offers, and should definitely be part of the CO side of the equation. But for overall long-term weight success, either leaning more into the CI side, or better still just viewing loss over a much longer period seems to bring many folk more chances at long-term success.

But no, the weight doesn't magically fall off.Nothing magic about any of it ;) It's often very hard work, especially after the initial bulk drop. But as cliché as it is, it's definitely useful to keep in mind how long it took to accrue the weigh, originally
 
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Beating-My-Betes

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You cannot burn stored fat for energy if insulin is high. Insulin will likely be high if the person has diabetic pathology, whether or not their blood glucose is being kept at reasonable levels, or whether or not they’re hungry. A massively obese person can run a hundred miles and will not be able to burn much, or any, stored fat so long as insulin is still frantically trying to keep their glucose at manageable levels. In such settings insulin levels remain high almost always, even if blood glucose appears normal.

The body simply will not access the stored energy, but it will definitely make more fat if you continue to eat glucose. Essentially the flow of fat energy becomes a one way street until insulin levels are low enough, which won’t happen overnight. If one gets their preponderance of overall energy from dietary fat, there is a massively lower requirement for insulin to deal with the mopping up of glucose. Therefore giving the person a much better chance of lowering insulin levels long term.

I can’t explain my understanding any clearer than that.

Again...your model fails to explain how a growing number of diabetics who greatly increase their carb-intake, not only lose a ton of weight (Presuming they needed to) but also put (or are getting close to putting) their T2D into remission.