What happens when our personal experiences disagree with research.

Hello @DavidGrahamJones I read the article and the key point is surely the number of calories eaten. I follow a lchf diet but I log my food on myfitnesspal so that I can monitor my carb intake and my calories. I thought the article was showing the two need to go hand in hand.

Associate Professor Andrikopoulos says the Mediterranean diet is the best for people with pre-diabetes or diabetes.

“It’s backed by evidence and is a low-refined sugar diet with healthy oils and fats from fish and extra virgin olive oil, legumes and protein.”

In other words a low carb high fat/protein diet

A critique of the mouse study.

http://fb.me/7KwOZ51BF

DavidGrahamJones said:

Only some research. This turned up on my FB Homepage - https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/paleo-diets-weight-gain. It's interesting because it doesn't exactly follow what anybody here on a low(er) carb diet will have found. Personally I didn't replace my carbs with fat because my stomach wouldn't tolerate it. I eat less than 100 gms of carb a day and less than 30 gms fat a day (so says my "weight by date" software). Perhaps I've misread the article, there again, perhaps I should say "It's those (expletive deleted)mice again. They might be the closest analogue we have to the human being (I think the bonobo monkey is actually) but maybe mice aren't close enough.

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Hi David
They fed the mice on a cocktail of **** that had very little similarity to a real food diet. The article has been debunked all over the place. And as you say our own, admittedly anecdotal, but fairly overwhelming evidence would suggest the article is bull.

These are fascinating posts both the original research and then the above disagreement link by atkinsmo.

A couple of other critiques of the study:

http://profgrant.com/2016/02/20/the-most-famous-new-zealand-mice-in-the-world/
http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/good-news-from-melbourne-universitys.html

I would think that most of us doing LCHF understand that it is by controlling the fat intake that weight gets controlled. More fat = weight gain, less fat = weight loss, personal fat level = static weight, To take a poor church mouse that normally thrives on a relatively low fat diet and then up the fat to way above normal is IMO pushing things. ~Q what is the personal fat level of a NZO mouse?

@JohnEGreen I try to follow that diet too.
I couldn't do high fat because I felt sick .I don't think the Med diet is high fat though.

Dr Taylor on his Twitter thing yesterday stressed that the guidance world hasn't caught up with the low carb thing yet because of the lack of high quality evidence ( because the research hasn't been fully finished YET. He said it's coming and then the world will catch up .

There is far too much emphasis of the High Fat part of the diet, and some of the questions that get asked about adding Fat are quite frankly bizarre.

It is a (Very) Low Carbohydrate diet, and it is that which gives you positive results in both BG control and weight loss.

I've found that the less I think about Fat, and just concentrate on LC the more weight I lost and the better my BG control became.

We have a Low Carb Diet forum, but all too often the main topic of conversation is Fat, which shouldn't happen.

I just don't focus on fat at all, I just don't avoid it. It took me years to start enjoying crispy bacon fat, nice brown fat on steak etc. it felt so strange and counter-intuitive, but it's only counter-intuitive because we've been sold a lie for decades. For me, high fat is half an avacodo nearly every day, vegetables usually sauted in a moderate amount of butter, one tablespoon of double cream in a mug of ground coffee every morning. The benefit of fat is that makes food more tasty and satisfying, but there's no need to gorge on it. Try finely shredded cabbage and a shallot, sautéed in a knob of butter, with a few drops of water added to 'steam' for four or five minutes, sliced sautéed Brussels sprouts (utterly gorgeous), grated raw cauliflower, again sautéed with cumin, coriander, turmeric and natural sea salt. All absolutely delicious and help you not to miss the higher carb veggies.

Hi. First you will never see me use the acronym LCHF on this forum as the HF can and is often interpreted as High Fat and in my opinion that's extreme and stupid as are many really extreme diets. This 'research' talks about zero carbs and high fat. Whoever said zero carbs was what it is all about. LC means Low-Carb not zero carb and many interpret HF sensibly as Higher-Fat. So, this research got off to a bad start. A lot of these university research papers are published to keep the funds rolling in and for the Prof's own ego. Many do not use statistically valid analyses (e.g. the key Statin research paper that the world has followed is statistically invalid)

britishpub said:

There is far too much emphasis of the High Fat part of the diet, and some of the questions that get asked about adding Fat are quite frankly bizarre.

It is a (Very) Low Carbohydrate diet, and it is that which gives you positive results in both BG control and weight loss.

I've found that the less I think about Fat, and just concentrate on LC the more weight I lost and the better my BG control became.

We have a Low Carb Diet forum, but all too often the main topic of conversation is Fat, which shouldn't happen.

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Sorrry, i disagree with what you have just posted here. There are some of us here who do not need or want to lose weight, but use LCHF to control bgl. We need to have a higher fat content to increase calories to keep our weight static. Others using LCHF are also undertaking strenuous exercise, and also increase fat content to provide energy to burn in ketogenic mode.

As a by product, the fat content gives a feeling of fullness and satisfactiion after eating and this reduces hunger pangs and the munchies. This is one major reason why this particular diet should survive long term use compared to a basic LC only diet.
Finally there has been recent research published that indicates a high fat diet actually improves our lipid panel and reduces harmful arteriosclerosis. I have seen two independent studies reporting this so far, so it is gaining support.
EDIT: I personally prefer LCFF (Full Fat) as a better anacronym.

Or LCHF = Low Carb Healthy Fat, which is grass fed butter (Kerrygold is, I believe, the best of the commercial brands) extra virgin olive oil and extra virgin coconut oil, dripping of any sort, avocados, oily fish. Definitely a no-no are seed oils, vegetable oils and any sort of margarine, including those marketed to reduce cholesterol. They all have far too much Omega 6 which is now acknowledged to be a source of inflammation.

I'm really enjoying this thread, and im not going to put my 2p worth in to the pros and cons, or about the original op link and study.

What I will say that, because of the nature of my blood glucose problems. I have to very low carb, is how I describe it, because you just can't get zero carbs.
Full fat is what I go for.
However, every where I look on every website that I read on RH. It says I have to eat a modicum of complex carbs, wholemeal grains and low fat dairy.
What a load of rubbish!
Even the homepage on this website, says that RH ers should eat carbs!
I myself and my RH co patient, @Brunneria, (and who would argue with Brun!) Have been allowed by the admin to set up our forum. The advice is contradictory to all them websites. We don't choose to eat unnecessary carbs!
And from our personal experience and others that have joined in the forum agree, that carbs are not essential for good health and of course weight loss.
However you do low carb is entirely up to you and how you balance the food you eat is of personal choice and experience. How low you go is to your experience and how much full fat is the same, obviously there are those that have to be careful with that.
But the bottom line, the best way to gain control is to get rid of as much unnecessary carbs as you can. Reduce your carbs, reduce your plate size, increase your exercise!
The key to unlock better health is low carb.
And it works.

What a silly article.

The arguments that stuffing mice with processed cr%p and claiming that Paleo = zero carb, are nonsense from the start.

I think articles like this are siezed on by journalists and fat phobics and trotted out like some kind of 'evidence', but the reality is that the kind of eating they describe is never going to be healthy.

Volek and Phinney make a big point in their books and their research - they have been studying, running studies and publishing about LC for decades now - about what they call a well formulated low carb diet.

The main features (from memory) include:
- low enough carbs that the individual dips below their personal carb tolerance threshold (could be 20g, could be 180g)
- high enough fat that the individual is losing desired weight, or gains, or is weight-stable (again, personal preference)
- has enough fibre, veg, nutrients and particularly minerals, etc. to provide complete nutrition
- is enjoyable
- is sustainable
- maintains great blood lipids
- each person finds their own level on all of the above

So, clearly, a well formulated LC diet does not have to be high fat. Nor does it need to be ketogenic, or high saturated fat, or any of the little urban myths and obsessive bug bears that crop up so often on the forum. Although it can be one, or all of them.

Basically, each of us has wide freedom to find a diet that suits us, with appropriate fat, veg, carb, mineral, fibre, etc. levels to suit us individually.

Actually, the only thing a LC diet actually needs to have is carbs that are lower than the average Standard American/UK Diet - and that ain't difficult, is it?

Those poor mice.
Force fed cr$p til it kills them, and then used to promote an indefensible argument.

Oldvatr said:

Sorrry, i disagree with what you have just posted here.

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You may want to disagree, but you are not managing it very well.

You don't seem able to comprehend what I posted.

In fact the last line of your response agreed with me entirely.

Indy51 said:

A couple of other critiques of the study:

http://profgrant.com/2016/02/20/the-most-famous-new-zealand-mice-in-the-world/
http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/good-news-from-melbourne-universitys.html

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That second article is particularly damning. The mice apparently have a genetic defect that impairs their fat tolerance. So why would you use a fat-intolerant mouse to test a high fat diet and expect the results to be transferrable to a population of humans that is not (by and large) intolerant to fat?

britishpub said:

You may want to disagree, but you are not managing it very well.

You don't seem able to comprehend what I posted.

In fact the last line of your response agreed with me entirely.

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I am sorry, it is you who needs to clarify, in what way was I agreeing with what you said? You stated that we should not be discussing fat in that forum, and that LC is the way to go for bgl control (agree) and weight loss (also agree), but what i was discussing was there are some who do not need or want to lose weight, but want to use an LC based diet for bgl control. Whilst a pure LC diet will do the bgl control, it does not do the weight control
EDIT: to add clarification.

If you are suggesting that LCHF has no place in the Low Carb Forum, and needs to be set up as a subthread in its own right, then please take this up with the administrators.