Alzheimers and “Severe Brain Degeneration” linked to excessive Carbohydrate Intake?

Today I read an interesting article on LiveScience.com titled “Obese People Have ‘Severe Brain Degeneration“. I couldn’t find the link to the actual UCLA study text (sorry – please let me know if you find it) it cites, but you’re likely to see many articles parroting the same basic info that the LiveScience.com one did. In fact, as of this writing, Google News reports that over 158 publications have published articles on this study so far today – with a helluva lot more coming I’m sure.

What really DOES surprise me is that no-one has really tried to draw any conclusions from this study…

Another Worthless Study and Pointless Anti-Fat Article from the New York Times

Ah, yes, here we go again. Bad science reigns at The New York times ‘Well Blog’ this week by Tara Parker-Pope (technically, it was from last week, but I just discovered it on Slashdot). Its sad that the NYT was also the original publication where Gary Taubes published his brilliant ‘What if its all been a Big Fat Lie’ article (which is the exact opposite of what this article is trying to say).

I guess that’s some fair and unbiased journalism – we give credibility to all kinds of information: right, wrong or otherwise!

Anyways… into the rat maze we go again…

The “Eco-Atkins” rundown (once again – for fairness sake)

I’m not a fan – But, I realize that there is very little straight-forward information on the web regarding this new diet, and a good number of people stumbled upon my previous post (as snarky as it is) strictly looking for Eco-Atkins information. So here it is, albeit through the looking glass of my perspective.

This diet was created by Professor David Jenkins of The University of Toronto, it stands to reason that he wanted to try and merge the successful-ness of the Atkins plan with the (so-called) “healthiness and hipness” of a vegetarian diet. The unfortunate thing is that you can’t just combine what you see as the “best parts” of things and create a super-powered version that pleases everybody…

“Eco-Atkins” Vegetarian Protein Diet Study = Meaningless

I don’t know if anyone came across these news stories on Reuters and elsewhere (and elsewhere still) today, but I couldn’t help but be slightly offended. They report on a ridiculous study that was done in Canada trying to prove that the “Eco-Atkins” diet – a “low-carb” plant-based protein diet (composed solely of gluten, *soy*, nuts, fruits, vegetables, cereals and vegetable oils) is a good tool for lowering blood cholesterol and losing weight… The result from my point of view? FAIL.