Phosphor wrote:

>>Pennington in the 1940s treated type 2 diabetics by giving >them 2 pounds
>>
>of fatty meat a day -- they lost gobs of weight >and their diabetic symptoms
>to boot. Peckwick and Kawan >demonstrated the same thing in the 1950s.
>Liz, do you have any on-line references to these guys, i havent heard of
>them. certainly points to the stupidity of 'lean meat only' diet.
>
>

I have never managed to find much on-line information about Albert
Pennington.  The diet that he devised for DuPont executives in the 1950s
is what was later published as the "Steak Lover's Diet", by Melvin
Anchell, MD.  It was Pennington's theory that obesity is caused by an
inability to metabolize pyruvate.  As for Kekwick and Pawan (note
spelling), you will find many references,  such as
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/chap1.htm, and elsewhere.  Note that
two pounds of fatty meat comes to about 2400 calories.  The few carbs
allowed by Pennington, or Kekwick and Pawan brings the total to about
2600.  The reason why these studies remain controversial is that they
have been cited as some as evidence that calories don't matter, if carbs
are low.  But they don't show that at all.  For example, if a 260-pound
man eats 2600 calories a day, he is still only eating 10 calories per
pound of bodyweight, which is still hypocaloric.  As a rule of thumb,
anything under 13 calories/pound is considered hypocaloric.  What was
interesting and significant about these studies was the fact that these
same people had difficulty losing weight with the same caloric reduction
if the diet was high in carbs.  I.e., they showed that reducing carbs
enabled obese people to take maximum advantage of reduction in calories.

Todd Moody
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