The Low-Carb Fraud. T. Colin Campbell

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      First e-book edition: February 2014

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Campbell, T. Colin, 1934–

      The low-carb fraud / T. Colin Campbell, PhD, with Howard Jacobson, PhD.

      pages cm

      Includes index.

      ISBN 978-1-940363-09-7 (trade cloth) — ISBN 978-1-940363-03-5 (electronic)

      1. Low-carbohydrate diet. 2. Nutrition. 3. Prehistoric peoples—Food. I. Jacobson, Howard, 1930– II. Title.

      RM237.73.C36 2014

      613.2’833—dc23

      2013037793

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       To the promoters of the “low-carb” diet whoprompted me to write this book

      CONTENTS

The Low-Carb Fraud

       Appendix: The Paleo Diet

       Preview of Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition

       Acknowledgments

       About the Authors

       Endnotes

       Index

THE LOW-CARB FRAUD

      It’s no secret that Americans struggle with weight loss. Since 1980, when the rise in obesity first caught the attention of the media, the national rate of obesity has doubled.¹ Now, more than one-third of all U.S. adults are obese. And despite hundreds of new (or cleverly recycled) “solutions” hitting the shelves in book or prepackaged food form each year, we just can’t seem to stem the tide. Our national weight problem is just the tip of the iceberg, however; being overweight is linked to some of the major causes of premature death, including heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.²

      This book is primarily about low-carb diets—one of the more financially successful, and one of the most health-threatening, solutions proposed to meet our desire to shed pounds and become healthier. We’ll discuss why the low-carb diet is so appealing, how we’ve been tricked in thinking it’s healthy, and the truth about its health impacts. But this book is also concerned with the beliefs about nutrition that underlie those things: where the belief that carbs are bad came from, and why it has persisted despite so much evidence to the contrary.

      There have almost always been fad diets with varying degrees of scientific merit, some more effective than others. Several decades ago, and still to a certain extent today, the most trusted advice was, essentially: eat less and exercise more. Weight loss was a matter of arithmetic—calories in vs. calories out. But we were also told that dietary fat is the problem. Fat is what makes us, well, fat. So if we want to lose weight, all we have to do is consume less of it.

      But as the national obesity rate rose, it was clear that this advice on fat just wasn’t cutting it. The Standard American Diet (SAD) also wasn’t cutting it. We needed to rethink the way we looked at proper nutrition. It was during the 1980s, in the wake of these rising concerns, that the low-carb movement began to take hold. It hit its stride in 1988, with the publication of Dr. Robert Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, which was “new” only in that it followed Atkins’ 1972 book, Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, which had not been especially successful in the marketplace. And this “new” book’s contents represented an appealing alternate belief system about weight, nutrition, and health.

      In a nutshell, the low-carb movement told adherents to severely limit their intake of carbohydrates and instead to get the lion’s share of their calories from protein and fat. The problem with the SAD isn’t fat, the book claims, but carbs—those found in bread, rice, and pasta, in fruit and starchy vegetables. The best way to lose weight, Atkins proclaims, is to cut back on carbs.

      And it worked! By feasting on bacon and steak and butter, low-carb dieters actually did drop pounds. Which would be great, except for one important thing: the low-carb diet is not good for human health. Report after report has shown the ill effects of a high-protein, high-fat diet. It’s just as bad, if not worse, than the SAD it seeks to replace.

      In this book, I will explore a couple of important questions: Why do people think low-carb diets are a good idea? What’s the truth behind the low-carb hype? What’s the truly optimal diet for achieving an ideal weight while also obtaining health and longevity?

      If there’s one thing I hope you’ll take away from this book, it’s this: the low-carb diet’s ability to bring about quick weight loss is far outweighed by the serious health problems that accompany such an animal foods–heavy diet.

      THE LOW-CARB APPEAL

      I’ve spent more than forty years in experimental nutritional research, first at Virginia Tech and then at Cornell, keeping up with the latest discoveries and doing my own work, both in the lab and in the field. And as a nutritional researcher, I was surprised at first by the popularity and commercial success of the low-carb diet, especially given its serious flaws. The research