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Comment by terio | Hacker News Reader

Fair enough, but, like the article points out, personal experience, or case studies, doesn't count as scientific proof here.

My own experience is that I can eat as much butter (real butter), bacon, olive oil, and other fats as I want and my weight won't change. But as soon as I start to eat bread and potatoes, I can easily gain 10 pounds.

This is a very complex issue. For every single person there are many factors involved, like personal make, hormones, age, genetics, even how your mother ate when you were in the womb.

On the big scale, these studies are trying to find the cause for the obesity (and heart disease) epidemics. The accumulating evidence is pointing to carbs as the culprit.

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Yes, of course. You are following the Atkins diet, basically all fat and protein, very limited carbs. This is an effective way to maintain or lose weight and it's been shown to have positive cardiovascular effects.

On the other hand, the best studied and most effective diet for weight loss and cardiovascular health is the Ornish diet, which is almost the exact opposite: no meat, no fat, lots of vegetables, rice and non-fat yogurt. Plus exercise and meditation. Both work and they are on opposite sides of the fat/no-fat spectrum.

(My own experience is that cardiologists are eager to recommend the Ornish diet and don't really believe the studies favoring the Atkins diet. Doctors are people. They believe what the culture believes.)

The success of both of these diets may suggest to some that nutrition is too complex, that all people are different, that different people react well to different diets, etc. In other words, don't listen to science and follow your gut. That path leads to your gut hanging over your belt.

The simpler explanation is to look at what both the Atkins and Ornish diets restrict: "Sugar and simple sugar derivatives -- honey, molasses, corn syrup, and high-fructose syrup" (WebMD).

The accumulating evidence is not pointing to carbs as the culprit, it's pointing to sugar.

Hmmm. More complex carbs are pretty much chains of glucose. The sugars you are talking about are glucose and fructose, about 50/50. If your explanation is the correct one, does that mean the problem is really fructose?

What I do is more like "paleo" than Atkins, but they are similar.

Apparently both diets avoid grains and sugar.

Check out the comment about by jpb that refers to Robert Lustig's talk. It is very interesting. It refers to your point that low-fat high-carb diets could also be healthy, but not all carbs are recommended.

Apparently eating fat together with carbs in conducive to fat accumulation, and sugar by itself has the same result because half of it, the fructose, is metabolized into triglycerides.

"But as soon as I start to eat bread and potatoes, I can easily gain 10 pounds."

Same here, and I looooove bread, but it makes my midsection fluffy.

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