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What Should We Eatand Why?

By Marty Cej October 2012

Gary Taubes and NuSI aim to correct a decades-old problem by telling the worldwhat to eatand backing their recommendations up with real science. Marty Cej reports.

What right has the ederal government to propose that the American people conduct a vast nutritional experiment,with themselves as subjects, on the strength o so very little evidence that it will do them any good? Philip Handler,

president o the United States National Academy o Science, testiying to Congress in 1980 on the creation o thenutritional guidelines that still govern the American diet today.

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Gary Taubes is picking a ght. Again.

The best-selling author o Good Calories, Bad Calories andWhy We Get Fat has partnered with Peter Attia, M.D., tolaunch a nonprot organization with the ambitious goal

o slashing the current U.S. obesity rate by more than haland the prevalence o diabetes by 75 percent by 2025. To

do that, hell have to topple the ood pyramid, take on themedical establishment, and go toe-to-toe with the multi-

trillion-dollar ood and drug industries.

That will be a problem, he admits. But, i we get the

science right, we can convince the scientic community,and they will want to speak out about it.

The ounders o the Nutrition Science Initiative, or NuSI(pronounced NEW-see), say it has been created to nally,

and with scientic certainty, answer the question: Whatshould we eat to be healthy?

The organization will und research into nutrition with arigor that has never been seen beore, Taubes said. The

scientists and researchers being recruited will come romvaried backgrounds and, in many cases, hold opposingbelies to the ounders. They have one thing in common,

though: the conviction that nutrition science ails to meetthe same standards o proo and inquiry applied to other

disciplines such as chemistry, biology or physics.

The NuSI scientic advisory board comprises Alan

Sniderman, a lipid researcher at McGill University inMontreal, Que.; David Harlan, ormer head o the Diabetes,

Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases branch o the

National Institute o Diabetes and Digestive KidneyDiseases, now at the University o Massachusetts; MitchelLazar, o the University o Pennsylvania; and KevinSchulman, o Duke University.

According to Taubes, the ambitious project is still in theearly stages.

We could be recruiting subjects by this time next year, buta lot o things need to go well beore that, he said.

The work will be independent and unded entirely by

private citizens and other organizations. The Laura andJohn Arnold Foundation, a philanthropic venture oundedby hedge-und manager John Arnold and his wie, has

provided NuSI with $5 million in seed money. It may soundlike a signicant sum, but that generous git represents just

0.003 percent o the almost $150 billion spent on treatingobesity-related disease in the U.S. last year, with roughly

hal o that nanced by Medicare and Medicaid. In 1998,the bill was $78.5 million.

More than one third, or 35.7 percent, o U.S. adults areobese the Centers or Disease Control and Preventionreported in a data brie published in January 2012, and

some 16.9 percent o U.S. children and adolescents areobese. That means 78 million American adults and 12.5

million children and adolescents are obese.

From 1960 through 1962, the obesity rate was just 13.4

percent, according to the U.S. Department o Health andHuman Sciences, or just over one in 10 people.

But what does obese mean?

It is Taubes contention thatthe quality of the calories

matters more than thequantity, and that the dietaryguidelines that have dictated

family meals for decades are wrongheaded.

Taubes goal is to hold nutrition to the same scientifcstandards as chemistry, biology and physics.
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The CDC denes obesity or adults through the body massindex, or BMI, which is weight in kilograms divided by

height in meters squared, rounded to one decimal place.Obesity is dened as BMI greater than or equal to 30. For

example, or an adult who is 59 in height, he would beconsidered obese at 203 lb. or more. A score o 25.0 to 29.9is considered overweight, while a number between 18.5

and 24.9 is considered normal.

Yet a tape measure, scale and a calculator dont really tell

the story or count the human toll.

Obesity is considered a major contributory actor in

coronary heart disease; Type 2 diabetes; cancers includingendometrial, breast and colon; stroke; osteoarthritis;

gynecological problems such as abnormal menses andinertility; and sleep apnea and other respiratory problems.

There is also the terrible burden o depression and other

mental illnesses.

In 2010, more than 40 million children under the age o vearound the world were considered overweight, according

to the World Health Organization (WHO). By 2020, theWHO estimates, obesity will be the single biggest killer onthe planet, and those 40 million overweight children rom

2010 will be entering their early teens, or perhaps nearingthe end o their lives.

Nobody wants to be obese, Taubes said. I you can solvethe problem, people will embrace it. The advice people are

given now has not worked.

At the center o it all is government-sponsored nutritioninormation that essentially recommends a high-carbohydrate, low-at diet. Carbohydrates in the orm

o grains, cereals and breads did not begin their trans-ormation to the supposedly heart-healthy oundation

o the ood pyramid until the late 1960s. Carbohydratesstimulate the secretion o insulin, which inluences

at storage in cells, but bad science could make carbsappear to be the preerred macronutrient because they

contain less than hal the calories per gram o at.In 1977, ater years o discussion and debate, and in

the ace o opposition rom the National Academy oSciences and others, the U.S. Senate Select Committee onNutrition and Human Needs, chaired by Senator George

McGovern, produced Dietary Goals for the United States,the rst recommendation o which was the increased

consumption o complex carbohydrates and naturallyoccurring sugars.

Taubes has argued in his books, his blog and articles or

The New York Times that the undamental tenet o Americas

nutritional wisdoma calorie is a calorieis not only the

result o shoddy science and the inuence o powerulbusiness lobbies a generation ago but also the cause othe nations obesity epidemic. Simply put, Taubes believesobesity is ar more complex than boiling the issue down to

the basic ormula o calories in minus calories out equalsweight gained or lost. This ormula, however, is generally

accepted as science in the world o nutrition.

So why does Taubes believe the science o nutrition ailed

up to this point? Essentially, the research just isnt goodenough yet.

The experimental subjects are human beings. They areexpensive, they have minds o their own, there are behavioral

and socio-economic variables, so everyone assumes that anadequate standard is the best that they can do, he said. Its

observational but its not cause and efect. They are hypothesis-generating observations, not experiments.

Current nutrition science has ailed to explain what we should eat to be healthy and ft,and the costs o that ailure are enormous.
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It is Taubes contention that the quality o the caloriesmatters more than the quantity, and that the dietary

guidelines that have dictated amily meals or decadespromoted by the government and supported by medical

organizations such as the American Heart Organizationare wrongheaded. Never mind the global heavyweights

in the ood industry who prot most rom the prevailingdiet standards, such as Krat Foods Inc. o the U.S. with astock-market value o $71 billion, or the worlds biggest

ood company, Nestle SA o Switzerland, which boastsa market cap o $201 billion and brands including Aero

chocolate bars, DiGiorno rozen pizza and the Jenny Craigdiet centers.

Taubes aims to prove them all wrong.

Taubes reely admits that he has rm expectationshopes, reallythat the results o the experiments NuSI willunderwrite in the coming years will ratiy his hypotheses.

However, that strongly held personal bias is the same sortthat he himsel has argued does not belong in serious

scientic study.

We have our own preconceptions, but NuSI is aboutgetting these hypotheses tested, he said. Were not

interested in nding people who will nd what we want;we want them to nd the truth.

NuSI has recruited six scientists so ar, and all six, Taubessaid, believe his preconceptions to be wrong. It will be their

task to determine who, i anyone, is right. A press releasedated Sept. 12 indicates that NuSIs researchers have very

diferent backgrounds and perspectives on nutrition butare united by the belie that current nutritional science isnot acceptable and has not produced denitive proo that

should inorm nutritional guidance. The press release isalso clear that i NuSI research produces hard science that

contradicts traditional guidelines, it will und additionalstudies to conrm the results.

It is important to state that the U.S. is not alone. Accordingto the Organization or Economic Cooperation and

Development, ewer than 10 percent o people were

obese beore 1980. Since then, the rates have doubled ortripled in many countries, and in 19 o 34 OECD countries,the majority o the population is now overweight or obese.

Mexico has the second largest percentage o obese peopleat 30 percent o the total population, New Zealand isthird with 28.5 percent, Chile is ourth with a quarter i its

population obese, and Australia is th with 24.6 percent.Korea and Japan both have obesity rates less than 4 percent.

In its 2012 report on obesity, the OECD said, Severelyobese people die eight to ten years sooner than those

o normal-weight, similar to smokers, with every 15 extrakilograms increasing risk o early death by approximately

30 percent.

NuSI has recruited sixscientists so far, and all six,

Taubes said, believe hispreconceptions to be wrong.

Taubes believes current nutrition guidelines are not based on good science but rather observations that suggest hypotheses. Hewants to go urther by repeatedly proving or disproving hypotheses in hopes o fnding real answers to the obesity problem.
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I Taubes and NuSI co-ounder Attia are right, and i NuSIsresearch produces denitive nutrition guidelines that will

reduce obesity and improve health, they could changethe world.

The ght Taubes has picked is not unlike the battlewaged against Big Tobacco in recent decades, in which

generations o bad habits, a deep-pocketed agriculturalindustry lobby and even deeper-pocketed tobaccocompanies held the upper hand or years, even in the

ace o good science.

Cigarettes are a good metaphor, Taubes said. In the1960s, hal o Americans smoked, but over the course o 50years, the opposition to smoking has worked.

What NuSI hopes to achieve is nothing short o a sociologicalupheaval in the way Americans understand nutrition, and

by doing so Taubes and company hope to save millions olives, improve the quality o lie or millions more and ease

the debt burden on a struggling U.S. economy by tens obillions o dollars a year.

It would be a shit back to the way we saw nutrition 50years ago, Taubes explained. We know it can be done

because it has been done beore. I we are wrong, thenwe live with it, but lets do these experiments so that in 10

years we have nothing to argue about.

F

About the Author

Marty Cej is a contributing editor to the CrossFit Journal

and the managing editor of Business News Network (BNN) in

Toronto, Canada.

The cost o bad science is steep, and errors made in the 1970s now cost the United States billions.

Courtesy

ofMartyCej
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Cfj Taubes Cej Final4