gaining ground in the mainstream

The May 2010 issue of Scientific American has an article about carbohydrates causing obesity.

This article isn’t anything new to some of the folks who read my blog, but I’m happy to see that good science is finally starting to displace bad.

Some good quotes:

Other conclusions of the past few years run counter to the conventional wisdom that saturated fat is bad for the heart because it increases total cholesterol levels. That idea is “based in large measure on extrapolations, which are not supported by the data,” Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, says.

And

Although the subjects on the low-carb diet ate the most saturated fat, they ended up with the healthiest ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol and lost twice as much weight as their low-fat-eating counterparts.

My only quibble is this quote:

Right now, Robert C. Post, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion explains, the agency’s main message to Americans is to limit overall calorie intake, irrespective of the source.

When it comes to health, calorie quality is infinitely more important than calorie reduction.