The Guardian declares no evidence for keto

(Jack) #1

The Guardian have decided to publish an article (or rather “hit piece”) on a ketogenic diet today. It is focused on evidence (or rather claims to be) so I think this is the right home for this link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/07/high-on-fat-low-on-evidence-the-problem-with-the-keto-diet

A few choice quotes…

“By anyone’s standards, this is a tough regime to stick to – adherents even have to limit their fruit intake.” [As opposed to all those other diets people famously find it really easy to stick to! Which is why everyone has sub-10% body fat and looks like a model!]

“Claims about the keto diet have been blown way out of proportion, driven by anecdote, hyperbole and its celebrity following (among them, Halle Berry and Vanessa Hudgens). As a registered nutritionist, I am interested in the evidence.” [Great, that’s good news!]

" Keto is not a free pass to go hard on the butter and bacon (too much of which may increase the risk of colorectal cancer, according to the World Health Organization)" [oh, you meant shoddy science, that’s disappointing…]

“dieting has been shown to increase body shame, anxiety, depression and disordered eating patterns, particularly binge eating and bulimia. It is also ineffective, being one of the strongest predictors for future weight gain.” [Personally I would say the keto diet is the least eating disorder-like diet; certainly better than low kcal / kcal counting “government approved” diets!"]

“One possible solution to diet dogma is an approach called intuitive eating: learning to eat mainly in response to physiological hunger and satiety cues.” [Oh for fucks sake, they believe that just saying what your body tells you to is the best solution! My body tells me to eat pizza and chips twelve times a day, so called intuitive eating is what got us into this problem in the first place!]

“But the answer to long-term, sustainable good health is probably not wrapping bacon round everything.” [Wrapping bacon round everything has helped me lose 12kilos whilst not feeling hungry or losing energy and keeping it off for 6 months. Just because something sounds ridiculous, doesn’t mean it is ridiculous]

This was on the front page of the Guardian today, so all we can do to resist this narrative is using ourselves as examples of what can be achieved. Personally I think people are more convinced by a friend losing a ton of weight than anything the Guardian writes!

Guardian article
(Marius the butter craving dude) #2

First they ignore it (I never heard about keto on mainstream news, I found it after some time doing research)
Then they laugh at you (current state)
And then…

(Marius the butter craving dude) #3

" Its followers, however, swear by it for weight loss and health, sometimes with a fanatical passion."
Vegans are never fanatics… right… ?
Man the hypocrisy in all of this:
"The fear, of course, is that many people don’t seek out information and support from regulated healthcare professionals before making major changes to their diet. " - This would never be stated about a vegan

(bulkbiker) #4

OOO and she’s a PhD and has to tell us…

And as usual with the new way in the Guardian nowhere for comments…

#5

What exactly is a ‘Wellness Advocate’ anyway? I mean it’s not actually a thing right? It sounds very shallow & instagrammy.

(Running from stupidity) #6

Much as I hate to get into the whole “Fake news” thing (given I was a journalist for so long) you do have to take the source into account. And The Guardian is after the veganesque market, so you get what you expect from that.

(Running from stupidity) #7

To be fair, comments are a seriously difficult thing for any website to tackle, and more so for a media site that gets the traffic they do.

#8

To be fair they also said some half decent things like:

… Jan Vyjidak, 38, a management consultant … has been on the keto diet for nearly a decade. He came to it, he says, to manage his health and improve his athletic performance. “It transformed my life,” he says. “It wiped out my constant hunger, and I was able to stop all medication for my asthma and psoriasis within six months.”

Been on it 10 years, solve his asthma and psoriasis within 6 months. “Transformed” his life.

That’s pretty encouraging actually.

(Omar) #9

they are looking for evidence.

I guess most members here if not almost every member is a living evidence.

the author says keto is hard.

how about blood glucose over 200 isn’t it hard?

kidney disease heart problems and autoimmune related problems aren’t they hard?

(Jack) #11

A good point, well made!

(bulkbiker) #12

They used to have a comment is free section on nearly every news article these days fewer especially dietary ones… almost as if they wish to preach their message and no other…

Edit to ad just seen they bloody opened a comments section under the article… here we go…!

(Scott) #13

I don’t recall diabetes or insulin resistance being mentioned. So far the only intuitive eating that works is for people on a keto or LCHF WOE IMO.

(Bunny) #14

Lol what a contrived bunch of [spoiler]crap[/spoiler] looks like nothing more than a bunch of attention grabbing jargon based on a whole lot of nothingness and cherry picking stupidity at its worst for a journalism piece? You can tell that Laura Thomas PhD <== :joy::rofl::joy::joy::rofl: did not really do her homework? Or If you want peeps to visit your sight, you need to create controversy? So let’s get Laura to do some half baked research, after all if your not buying the processed sugary goodies from their advertisers and invested stocks how would they make money?

Bottom line if you eat three meals a day of [spoiler]crap[/spoiler] and eat the nice sugary snacks in-between; that the stock investors make for you to buy, then your a good little robot?

(Bob M) #15

That’s not really true. Here are some outcomes for type 2 diabetics:

These people are/were on a keto diet.

Also, a lot of these studies at least started at a keto level (few or none ended at that level, though):

And we should also note that often it was ad libitum (eat as much as you want) low carb versus calorie-restricted low fat.

I do think we need more keto studies, including studies with varying levels of PUFAs in different groups.

(Carl Keller) #16

The author of that article, Laura Thomas PHD, has a website called plantbased-pixie.com. I think she forgot the ‘i’ that should be after the ‘b’ in her website name.

*edited link. Forgot a dash in first posting.

(Scott) #17

Plant based? I never suspected that to come up.

(Alec) #18

And a dietician… hmmmm.

I’d like to ask her where her evidence is for what dieticians peddle. They are the quacks here, head in sand, following a dogma that has failed again and again and again and again.

(Bunny) #19

”…Intuitive Eating is a non-diet approach to health and wellness that helps you tune into your body signals, break the cycle of chronic dieting and heal your relationship with food. In short: intuitive eating is normal eating. …More

NORMAL? How did we get in this predicament in the first place?

It is more like:

How to intuitively eat your way into a cardiac arrest (eventually), is more like it?

It is not even a diet, just eat whatever?

No distinguishment from SAD and most importantly NO SCIENCE AT ALL?

From Laura’s site:

How Can We Help?

”…Intuitive Eating is a process to help you get out of your head when it comes to food and body image and tune into the signals your body is sending. So many of us feel guilt or anxiety about eating the ‘wrong’ things. We worry and beat ourselves up for that doughnut we had last week. Intuitive Eating helps break down arbitrary food rules and restrictions and external influences over what you can and can’t eat so you can focus on internal cues. It’s about relearning how to eat from the ground up! …More

(Carl Keller) #20

She’s still young and likely able to eat ‘whatever’ without noticeable repercussion. I’d like to see what whatever gets her in 20 years. I already know the answer because I was on the eat whatever diet for most of my life. It did catch up to me.

(John) #21

I have my own evidence. My experiment on long-term sustainability is in progress.