Blog Spotlight: Weight of the Evidence

image from Texas A&M University College of Education and Human Development

I haven’t been writing much lately, for a variety of reasons – travel, contagious diseases, a small promotion at work that’s sucking up much of my time, winter blues (alleviated some by getting back to my daily multiple-mile walks, along with my usual winter cod liver oil supplement – oh, and being able to eat normally after my bout of stomach flu), a backlog of household chores due to travel, illness, winter blues, and work.  And then of course there are two other factors –  that creeping self-doubt that comes from trying to digest conflicting information about a subject that is important to oneself, and the lure of reading other people’s blogs.  I find that more of my “goofing off” is spent reading what other people write (and commenting on it), leaving less time to actually write for myself.

Oh, and one other thing – when I do sit down and write a post, I get almost done and wonder when I became so verbose!  So I set the post aside, intending to edit later, and then something intervenes.  Like, say, another idea for a blog post.  WordPress tells me I have 21 draft posts!  Clearly I have a problem with finishing things.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to writing daily – I doubt it – but I hope to post at least a couple of times each week.

Today I’m starting a new series on this blog – the Blog Spotlight.  I’ll shine the Blog Spotlight on blogs that I find to be interesting or informative.  Most of these blogs cover subjects that are dear to the heart of the Migraineur – migraine, low-carbohydrate eating, nutrition, and the strange state of medicine in the U.S.  Human nature being what it is, I will largely cover bloggers who say things that make sense to me, but I promise to also throw some alternative views into the mix.  And finally, as in today’s post, I may use a specific post as a jumping off point for my own views on a topic.

In today’s Blog Spotlight, we have Weight of the Evidence.  Written and researched by Regina Wilshire, Weight of the Evidence is largely devoted to examining research both in favor of and against low-carbohydrate diets.  “Examining” is the key word here.  In my opinion, too many people accept without question what the media says about scientific studies.  If a scientist makes a claim, and it appears in the news, it must be true.  Wilshire, however, is a born skeptic.  She doesn’t settle for reading the news; she obtains the research papers and applies her considerable skill to analyzing the research methods, the data presented, and the conclusions drawn.  Anyone who has done this even once knows that the stories you read in the paper are often oversimplified, uncritical parrotings of the press release from the study’s authors.  In fact, sometimes the data in a research paper support conclusions other than, or even opposite to, the claims of the investigators.  Wilshire’s great gift to the blogosphere is her willingness to find out what that study really shows.

In addition, Wilshire makes some sharp commentary on the news in nutrition and science.  Take yesterday’s post, on a new study that has uncovered one of the mechanisms by which protein consumption causes satiety.  The study shows that protein consumption increases the release of a hormone called PYY.  The conclusion the study authors draw is that we might be able to create the same sense of satiety by giving people PYY supplements.  Wilshire, quite rightly, asks why we don’t just eat protein instead.

This reminds me of the idea of gene therapy for diabetes.  Some of us (lots of us, probably) have genes that make us more susceptible to contracting diabetes in an environment full of grains, sugars, and starchy root vegetables.  Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a gene therapy that made it possible for us to eat all the pasta, bagels, Snickers bars, mashed potatoes, apple pie, ice cream, and corn chips we wanted without fear of contracting diabetes and all its ugly complications?  For a carbohydrate addict like me, with a massive family history of diabetes, this would be a dream come true!

Wait, no, it wouldn’t.  Well, it probably wouldn’t.  We just don’t know.  For one thing, we don’t fully understand all the ill effects that sugar has on our bodies.  Supposing there was a gene therapy that would make us immune to diabetes.  What then?  What other ill effects does sugar have on our bodies?  Does it displace other, more nutritious foods, leading to subclinical deficiencies?  Does it mess with other pathways other than the insulin-endocrine pathway?  We already know it’s bad for our teeth.  Plus, gene therapy is way more expensive than substituting chicken for pasta.  In effect, I’m advocating that, before we go too far down the path of fixing our genes, we try to fix the environment in which those genes are expressed.  For diabetes, that environment is the great mountain of carbs that is the Food Pyramid.

The same thing would be true with a PYY supplement.  Satiety is a complex phenomenon.  PYY surely isn’t the whole story.  There are multiple hypotheses to explain satiety; I’ll name just a few here.

• Fat consumption causes satiety.
• Protein consumption causes satiety.  (PYY)
• Fiber consumption causes satiety.
• Insulin and glucagon regulate satiety.
• The hypothalamus regulates satiety.
• Satiety is related to micronutrient consumption.  Subclinical deficiencies of micronutrients can cause hunger.

These are just the ones that popped into my head without .  How could tampering with one of these factors possibly fix the problem of overeating?  And even if it could, wouldn’t a PYY supplement be more expensive than just, say, eating a couple of eggs?  Besides, unlike PYY, the eggs would cover three of the hypotheses above (fat, protein, and insulin).