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Monday, 8 September 2014

Princess Health and Thoughts on the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend. Princessiccia

Princess Health and Thoughts on the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend. Princessiccia

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For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. John McDougall is a doctor and diet/health advocate who recommends a very low fat, high starch, whole food vegan diet to control weight and avoid chronic disease. He's been at it for a long time, and he's a major figure in the "plant-based diet" community (i.e., a diet including little or no animal foods).

Dr. McDougall invited me to participate in his 3-day Advanced Study Weekend retreat in Santa Rosa, CA. My job was to give my talk on insulin and obesity, and participate in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. McDougall in which we sorted through issues related to low-carb, Paleo, and the health implications of eating animal foods. I was glad to receive the invitation, because I don't see myself as a diet partisan, and I believe that my evidence-based information is applicable to a variety of diet styles. I saw the Weekend as an opportunity to extend my thoughts to a new community, challenge myself, and maybe even learn a thing or two. It was particularly interesting to compare and contrast the Advanced Study Weekend with the Ancestral Health Symposium, which is more Paleo- and low-carb-friendly.

General Observations

The attendees were a lot older than AHS attendees. I estimate that most of them were in their 60s, although there were some young people in attendance.

I don't place too much emphasis on peoples' personal appearance at conferences like this. You don't know what a person's background, genetics, or personal struggles may be, you don't know how closely they adhere to the program, and you don't know to what degree a group of people might be self-selected for particular traits*. But I will note that Dr. McDougall, his family, and many of the other starch-based/plant-based diet advocates tended to be extremely lean with low fat and muscle mass. They also tended to have a healthy and energetic appearance and demeanor. As I would expect, decades of exceptionally high starch intake hasn't made them obese or obviously ill.

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Friday, 5 September 2014

Thursday, 4 September 2014

Princess Health and What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??. Princessiccia

Princess Health and What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??. Princessiccia

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The same day the low-fat vs low-carb study by Bazzano and colleagues was published, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a meta-analysis that compared the effectiveness of "named diet programs". Many people have interpreted this study as demonstrating that low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets are both effective for weight loss, and that we simply need to pick a diet and stick with it, but that's not really what the study showed. Let's take a closer look.

Johnston and colleagues sifted through PubMed for studies that evaluated "named diet programs", such as Ornish, Atkins, LEARN, Weight Watchers, etc (1). In addition, the methods state that they included any study as low-carbohydrate that recommended less than 40% of calories from carbohydrate, was funded by the Atkins foundation, or was "Atkins-like". These criteria weren't extended to the low-fat diet: only studies of name-brand low-fat diets like the Ornish diet were included, while the meta-analysis excluded low-fat diet studies whose guidelines were based on recommendations from government and academic sources, even though the latter group represents the majority of the evidence we have for low-fat diets. The inclusion criteria were therefore extremely asymmetrical in how they represented low-carb and low-fat diets. This fact explains the unusual findings of the paper.

The abstract immediately activated my skeptic alarm, because it states that at the one-year mark, low-carbohydrate diets and low-fat diets both led to a sustained weight loss of about 16 pounds (7.3 kg). Based on my understanding of the weight loss literature, that number seems far too high for the low-fat diet, and also too high for the low-carbohydrate diet.

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Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Monday, 1 September 2014

Princess Health and Low-carbohydrate vs. Low-fat diets for Weight Loss: New Evidence. Princessiccia

Princess Health and Low-carbohydrate vs. Low-fat diets for Weight Loss: New Evidence. Princessiccia

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A new high-profile study compared the weight loss and cardiovascular effects of a low-carbohydrate diet vs. a low-fat diet. Although many studies have done this before, this one is novel enough to add to our current understanding of diet and health. Unlike most other studies of this nature, diet adherence was fairly good, and carbohydrate restriction produced greater weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor improvements than fat restriction at the one-year mark. Yet like previous studies, neither diet produced very impressive results.

The Study

Lydia A. Bazzano and colleagues at Tulane University randomly assigned 148 obese men and women without cardiovascular disease into two groups (1):
  1. Received instructions to eat less than 40 grams of carbohydrate per day, plus one low-carbohydrate meal replacement per day. No specific advice to alter calorie intake. Met regularly with dietitians to explain the dietary changes and maintain motivation.
  2. Received instructions to eat less than 30 percent of calories from fat, less than 7 percent of calories as saturated fat, and 55 percent of calories from carbohydrate, plus one low-fat meal replacement per day. No specific advice to alter calorie intake. This is based on NCEP guidelines, which are actually designed for cardiovascular risk reduction and not weight loss. Met regularly with dietitians to explain the dietary changes and maintain motivation.
Participants were followed up for one year, with data reported for 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month timepoints. This study actually measured body fat percentage, but unfortunately did so using bioelectrical impedance (like on some bathroom scales), which is essentially meaningless in this context.

Results

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Monday, 25 August 2014

Princess Health andENDURrun: Final PB Count.Princessiccia

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Well, it was an exciting week for our team at the 2014 ENDURrun as you can see HERE. 



As a team, we had some excellent performances.  As the Waterloo Running Series pointed out, we achieved the following:


  • 37 TOTAL runners (who ran over 1,400K)
  • 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th place teams
  • 4th fastest relay team ever
  • Women's team event record



Not only did H+P excel as a team, but there were also a number of personal bests along the way.  Here's a complete tally of all of them:

Men's A1 Team Personal Bests
  • Sean Delanghe, Half Marathon: 1:16:58
  • Ahmed Ahmed, 15K: 101:31
  • Brendan Hancock, 30K (1st time): 2:24:22
  • Luke Ehgoetz, 10M: 1:03:44
  • Greg Dyce, Chicopee: 2:12:34
  • Jordan Schmidt, 10K: 35:49
  • RunnerRob, Marathon: 2:41:37
Men's A2 Team Personal Bests
  • Chris Goldsworthy, 10M: 1:04:28
  • Pat Mulherin, Chicopee: 2:14:22
  • Nick Burt, 10K: 38:32
Women's Team Personal Bests
  • Gillian Willard, Half Marathon: 1:30:30
  • Payton Thiel, 15K: 1:11:44
  • Nicole Green, 10M: 1:35:10
  • Emily Hunter, Chicopee: 2:34:33
  • Kailey Haddock: 42:47
  • Jessica Kuepfer, Marathon: 3:21:36
Mixed Team Personal Bests
  • Dave Haiser, Half Marathon: 1:34:11
  • Dragan Zubac, 10M: 1:23:44
  • Justin Buis, 15K: 1:18:45
  • Laura Richards: 53:50
Ultimates Personal Bests:
  • Holger Kleinke, ENDURrun: 12:43:42
  • Vicki Zandbergen, ENDURrun: 14:06:52
  • Vicki Zandbergen, 15K: 1:10:44
  • Vicki Zandbergen, 10M: 1:19:47
  • Vicki Zandbergen, Chicopee: 2:43:29
  • Andrew Heig, ENDURrun: 14:03:01
  • Heather Heij, ENDURrun: 22:12:53
TOTAL PERSONAL BEST COUNT: 27

#cantwontstop indeed!

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