I didn’t mean that a high carb diet necessarily causes weight gain, just that I don’t share Dr. Lustig’s view that sugary diets and starchy diets are two very different things. People do lose weight on high-carb, low-fat diets (I once did, without restricting calories).

I don’t think you necessarily need to be insulin resistant to be hungry due to blood sugar. You’ve heard the chestnut about being hungry an hour after you eat Chinese food, right? Even normal, healthy people get falling blood sugar, and it can make them hungry. Graph of normal blood sugar reaction here: http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/16422495.php. For a lot of people, weight gain could be as simple as eating high-carb meals, getting hungry and snacking. If you’re interested, here’s a page about blood sugar control written by Jenny Ruhl, an amateur researcher who studies diabetes. http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046621.php. SSRIs and corticosteroids are two other things that can increase risk for diabetes.

I totally agree with your quote about wheat. When I quit eating it last year, my appetite ratcheted way down, and just eliminating that one food, I started losing weight. It’s an appetite stimulant. In fact, I could (and would) eat a whole box of cookies or four bowls of cereal or a bunch of brownies at one go, a problem I never had with any other food. The wheat-exorphin food reward could play a big part in obesity.

Pre-packaged low-carb foods haven’t hit the shelves here. (In fact, the low-carb chocolate ice cream disappeared.) Among low-carbers here, the trend is more towards paleo or at least minimally processed foods. Wheat won’t ever go away, but I think in my lifetime, most people will drop the pretense that it’s a health food.

“…there are people who gain weight and suffer from poor blood sugar control when they cut out sugar but still eat starch.”
- Is it starchy or higher carbohydrate diet that causes weight gain in the first place? Granted, low-carb approach will help stabilize blood sugars and likely results in weight loss, but we have populations like the Kitavans that refute the hypothesis that high carbohydrate intake causes weight gain. I might add, that not all overweight people are insulin resistant. This does not mean that insulin resistance wouldn’t be an important piece of the puzzle, but it seems to not be the only determining factor.

“Whether an approach like substituting whole, real foods like fruits and tubers v. cutting carbs helps you depends on your problem. If it’s lack of nutrients, eating a banana instead of a Twinkie will help. If it’s wonky blood sugar, you might as well enjoy the Twinkie if you don’t like bananas.”
- I agree with you when it comes to stabilizing blood sugars but I can’t help feeling that focusing too much on it is akin to focusing on a symptom, not a cause. I assume we agree that those wonky blood sugars are a result of insulin resistance, right? But what causes insulin resistance? It has been shown that low-carb diets help restore insulin sensitivity but is it the low amount of carbohydrates that does it, or is it something else? E.g. something to do with avoiding processed foods, grains, vegetable oils, and fructose? Or simply the effect of lower caloric intake that seems to come naturally to those following a low-carb diet?

“Olives or an avocado will beat both of them in that case.”
- Fo sho :)

I have to say that I’m a little worried about low-carb diets because at least in Finland they are gaining a lot of mainstream attention and more “low-carb” products are hitting the shelves. If the benefits of low-carb diets have been more related to food quality and eliminating grains, the results of people eating processed low-carb foods may very well turn out to be harmful instead of beneficial.

//sami

Whether an approach like substituting whole, real foods like fruits and tubers v. cutting carbs helps you depends on your problem. If it’s lack of nutrients, eating a banana instead of a Twinkie will help. If it’s wonky blood sugar, you might as well enjoy the Twinkie if you don’t like bananas. (I’m exaggerating a bit to make a point.) Olives or an avocado will beat both of them in that case. I think low-carb diets help with both problems: the typical carbs people eat are empty calories with antinutrient properties (e.g., phytic acid in grains, sugars and grains stripped of nutrients). Substitute a scrambled egg for a bagel or cereal and you’re getting more nutrients (and less carb). Substitute a hamburger with no bun for a plate of spaghetti, and a small salad and full fat dressing for a box of crackers or cookies, same thing.

I don’t hear much about this, but Taubes makes the point in Why We Get Fat that obesity is a disease of malnutrition. Low carb diets address this problem.