> On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:06, Todd Moody wrote:
>
>>> The New York Times (who published Taubes' original article)
>>> reviewed the book a fortnight ago. They regarded it as
>>> sloppily researched and ignoring inconvenient but
>>> well-substantiated evidence that did not fit Taubes' thesis.
>>>
>>> Any comments on that from those who have read it?
>>>
>>> Keith
>>
>>I haven't read the NYT review, so I can't comment on the
>>particulars, but "sloppily researched" doesn't fit at all.
>>Todd Moody
>>[log in to unmask]
>
> Here's a link to the New York Times' review:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2tnzlk

Thanks for the link.  That review is, for the most part, rubbish.  For
example, in defense of the "calorie is a calorie" thesis Kolata cites the
Hirsch studies from the 1950s and 1960s, but fails to mention body
composition.  Although most of my painstakingly collected reprints were
destroyed by office flooding not so long ago, I'm pretty sure I recall
that *fat* loss was not independent of macronutrient composition. 
Numerous other studies (such as Charlotte Young's, in about 1970, which
Taubes mentions) have shown that the amount of lean tissue lost is
directly proportional to the percentage of carbohydrate eaten.  Moreover,
Kolata doesn't address the issue of the caloric threshold at which weight
loss takes place, which apparently depends upon diet composition.  Again,
my papers are all gone, but I recall studies that show that weight loss
occurs, albeit slowly, at higher caloric intake, on lowcarb diets.

The most telling sentence in the review is "If low-carbohydrate diets are
so wonderful, why is anyone fat? Most people who struggle with their
weight have tried these diets and nearly all have regained everything they
lost, as they do with other diets. What is the problem?"  Only a
knucklehead would write a sentence like that.  The answer is simple,
lowcarb diets are wonderful but nobody ever said they are easy to follow. 
They're not, especially in a culture that misses no opportunity to put
sugars and starches in front of you.  Dieting is psychologically
difficult, regardless of the diet followed.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]