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Comment by Toucan | Hacker News Reader

This isn't a reversal, at least not on the part of scientists. Reporting like this just reinforces the public's idea of "Why should I do what doctor's say? They just change their mind. First it was eggs..." and so on. Seriously, ask your mum.

Scientists have known about insulin sensitivity and why and how weight gain/loss happens for a long time. Bodybuilders and other sportsmen and women listen.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=139058 is an interesting article on what actually happened. In contrast with the "oh those silly scientists, always changing their mind" headline, that article states 'scientists have known what makes us fat for almost half a century'.

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That's an article by Taubes partially explaining how the consensus that fat makes you fat came about and why that was a departure from the mainstream up to that point, but, uh, you are aware that Taubes has been just about crucified for those opinions? The article you cite is itself a non-mainstream article, you can't cite it as an example that the mainstream scientists have "always known" this. No, in fact mainstream scientists all over the place have been insisting that Taubes and Atkins and everybody else claiming it's actually carbs are not just wrong but evil for saying so. If this shift is actually made (which is still not a done deal), it will in fact be a consensus shift, one where the evidence has been available for centuries that the consensus was wrong, but a consensus was manufactured anyhow.

Agreed. I was on the Zone Diet for about four years, and I recall doing a ton of reading in 99-2003 on the topic. The whole idea of limiting your dietary intake to being no more than 40% carbohydrates was seen as being "fringe" dietary advice - and it only got play in the "alternative" arena of dietary advice. Atkins was seen as an outright kook. Basically, Fats and Cholesterol were the only components that seemed to get mainstream attention - there was almost no establishment focus on carbohydrates as being problematic at the time - to say otherwise is revisionist.

I wasn't arguing against this article being contrary to public opinion, more that it's not a change in what science has said up to this point. I'm more concerned about the damage done by provocative headlines such as these that imply that scientists have changed their minds. There's no new research or evidence here.

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