I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but much of the material in it isn’t mine – it’s Anthony Colpo’s.
Why don’t I simply link to the material instead of reprinting it?
Because Anthony changes or removes his material when it proves to be an embarrassment to him. So I want you to see it the way it is as of today when I wrote this post.
For those of you unaware of the tempest in a teapot drama that has been going on for the past month or so, here’s the story.
About two months ago I wrote a post describing the Ancel Keys starvation studies of the 1940s and compared the data from these studies with those published by John Yudkin about 25 years later. I selected the Yudkin study because the subjects switching to low-carb diets spontaneously dropped their caloric intake to 1560 kcal, which was almost exactly the same as the 1570 kcal the Keys subjects consumed.
I wrote then that I wasn’t
…truly comparing apples to apples with these studies, but they do confirm Yudkin’s 15 years of experience before he wrote his paper and they confirm my 20 plus years of experience taking care of patients on low-carb diets. I’ve had many, many patients who have stayed on low-carb diets for much, much longer than the men in Keys’ experiment stayed on their diets of roughly the same number of calories. Most of the papers in the medical literature on low-carb diets show a spontaneous drop in caloric intake that’s about what Yudkin documented when people switch over to low-carb diets. It stands to reason that if someone had replicated Keys’ experiment using the same number of calories, but with much more fat and a lot less carbohydrate, that the outcome would have been much different.
When I wrote those words it was at the end of a long post and I was ready to be done with it. I could have probably said what I meant a little better. If anyone wants a more comprehensive explanation of why I chose this specific Yudkin study, let me know, and I’ll post on it later.
This Keys/Yudkin post got Anthony Colpo agitated to the max. Why? As near as I can figure, for a couple of reasons. First, I said I thought that calories aren’t always calories in the way most people think of them. Second, because I implied that such a thing as a metabolic advantage exists. And third because in response to one of the comments I had the temerity to opine that I thought Colpo might be wrong on the metabolic advantage issue.
That’s it.
That’s what has inspired all the name calling, accusations of idiocy and other foaming at the mouth that has been going on since.
It started with an open letter to me that I received by email. Here is a pdf of the letter, email and follow up that I copied from Anthony’s site. an-open-letter-to-dr-michael-eades.pdf
As you can see when you read it, Anthony is fond of using fonts to make his points. One wonders where he is going to get all the fonts he may need as this interchange ensues?
For some reason Colpo seems to have a lot of his ego tied up in being correct on the metabolic advantage. After doing what he considers his due diligence, he has decided that there is no metabolic advantage, and that anyone who says there is qualifies as a moron. Richard Feinman and Eugene Fine both believe there exists a metabolic advantage, ergo they are morons. Same holds for Gary Taubes.
Last thing I read from Anthony was that he hadn’t read Gary’s book yet, but he (Colpo) had heard that Gary refutes the calorie is a calorie idea, ergo Taubes is a moron. Same goes for me for all the same reasons. Colpo has gotten so worked up over this issue that he has actually taken the time to write a 50 page book attacking Taubes, Feinman, Fine and me. You can download your very own copy below.
Now as you read all this sturm and drang remember that what we’re talking about as a metabolic advantage is at the max about 300 kcal per day. That’s the most I’ve ever seen demonstrated in a study, so that’s probably the outside range. Calorically that represents about two frankfurters per day or a medium bagel. What that means is that if you figured out how many calories you had to eat to maintain your weight on a low-fat diet, you could consume that many very-low-carb calories plus the two frankfurters and still maintain your weight. Of course, if instead you ate the bagel, which has about the same number of kcal as the two wieners, you would lose your metabolic advantage because almost all of its calories are carbs.
So we’re not talking about a whole lot of calories here. It’s not as if I’ve written that you could eat 10,000 kcal per day and still lose weight as long as you follow a low-carb diet. I’m talking about a few hundred calories per day at best. It’s just not that big a deal. Certainly not a big enough deal to make all this fuss over.
Before I give you my thoughts on the metabolic advantage issue, I want to speak for Feinman, Fine, and Taubes, even though they haven’t asked me to.
Feinman and Fine are experts on the laws of thermodynamics, a subject on which they have published a number of papers. Recall in an earlier post of mine that of all the laws of nature, the laws of thermodynamics are the least likely to ever be overturned. Even Anthony Colpo with his self-proclaimed towering intellect hasn’t been able to defy or refute the laws of thermodynamics.
The very nature of the second law of thermodynamics implies that there has to be a metabolic advantage. Feinman and Fine published a paper stating this and discussing a number of recent papers showing that there does indeed appear to be a measurable metabolic advantage that accrues to those following a low-carb diet. Here is another Feinman/Fine paper and another in pdf. thermodynamics-and-metabolic-advantage-of-weight-loss-diets.pdf
I seriously doubt that Anthony Colpo can understand the math, biochemistry and/or the reasoning in any of these papers. But he doesn’t have to because, you see, he just knows that there isn’t a metabolic advantage, so anyone who writes a paper saying that the second law of thermodynamics virtually demands that there be one is a fool. Thus his criticism of Fine and Feinman. No substantive discussion of their work; no intelligent criticism; simply a dismissal because their work contradicts what Anthony believes with all his heart to be true.
Same with Gary Taubes. I suspect that Anthony has yet to read Gary’s book, which lays out in great detail the basis for his ideas. Colpo heard that Gary wrote that one can consume more calories on a low-carb diet than on a low-fat diet and still lose weight, which is all Anthony had to hear. It saved him from having to read that great big book because he just knows Taubes has to be an idiot to write such twaddle. Never mind that Gary researched the subject in greater depth than anyone who has ever written on it – that doesn’t matter. What matters is that after spending five plus years of his life studying the subject Gary’s conclusions contrast with Anthony’s. Therefore Gary is just another diet book author preying on the simple minded to harvest his millions.
Since this entire brouhaha stems from a difference of opinion on the existence of a metabolic advantage, let me go on the record and state my opinion.
I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that by God there is a metabolic advantage, and that’s all there is to it. My opinion has been formed by my comprehensive reading on the subject (contrary to what Colpo thinks, he is not the only person who reads the medical literature. I was humping it to the medical library and pulling papers when Anthony was still in diapers) and my 25 plus years of medical practice taking care of overweight people. I do think that calories count.
That is an unquestionable fact. But they don’t count in the way most people think they do. Let me explain.
Insulin is the primary metabolic hormone responsible for both storing fat in the fat cells and keeping it there. If your insulin levels are up, fat is on a one way street into the fat cell. And it’s pretty much trapped there until insulin levels fall, allowing fat to escape. When you go on a low-carb diet, you reduce insulin levels markedly, and you do it quickly. You put yourself into a metabolic situation in which fat can easily flow from the fat cell to the tissues where it is burned. But just because you’ve put yourself in a situation where fat can easily come out of the fat cell doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. In order for the fat to come out, you must create a caloric deficit.
If you are eating enough fat (the main macronutrient on a low-carb diet) to meet all your body’s energy needs, your fat cells have no reason to give up their fat, and they don’t. Despite the door’s being open, the fat won’t come out unless it’s needed. Even on a low-carb diet you have to create the caloric deficit to get the fat out and get it burned and lose weight. So far, it all sounds pretty Anthony Colpo-ish, but that’s about to change.
As far as I’m concerned there are two parts to the metabolic advantage question. One that will send our good friend Anthony into a rage – another that will make him absolutely apoplectic.
First, the metabolic advantage in the context of diet is simply measured as the difference in caloric intake required to lose weight on either a low-fat or a low-carb diet. Let’s say that you closely monitor a group of subjects on a low-fat diet, and you find that as their caloric intake falls to, say, 1800 kcal per day, they begin to lose weight. Above 1800 kcal they hold steady or start to gain; below 1800 kcal they lose.
Now you start those same subjects on a low-carb diet. You find that now they start to lose weight as their intake drops below 2000 kcal and they maintain at 2000 kcal or above. This 200 kcal difference is the metabolic advantage created by the low-carb diet. In other words, on the low-carb diets these subjects can eat 200 more kcal than they can on a low-fat diet and still lose weight. The scientific literature is full of studies showing this phenomenon, so don’t let Anthony Colpo tell you it doesn’t exist. Plus the second law of thermodynamics predicts it. And looking at the biochemistry it’s easy to see why.
Basically what happens is that the body uses more energy to maintain blood sugar levels during a low-carb diet than it does during a low-fat diet. When you eat glucose or starch it hits the blood as glucose, so there isn’t really any energy expended in converting it. When you don’t eat enough carbs to provide all the glucose the body needs, the body has to make it from protein.
It’s obviously more costly energy-wise to make glucose from protein than it is to use the glucose ready made. Colpo mistakenly believes this energy has already been accounted for as the thermic effect of the protein, which is higher than the thermic effect of carbohydrate or fat. The thermic effect of protein is simply the energy required to metabolize the protein normally, not that required to run it through the gluconeogenic machinery to convert it to glucose. This latter process consumes more energy.
But wait, there’s more.
The increased dietary fat in a low-carb diet increases the mitochondrial density within the cells, and this fat also increases the synthesis of uncoupling proteins that dissipate energy within these mitochondria. Along those same lines data indicate that both the elevated fat and subsequent ketone formation increase the proton leak across the inner mitochondrial membrane, which dissipates even more excess energy. And this doesn’t even include the increase in futile-cycling that can go on within the mitochondria, getting rid of more.
Now the above is the part of the metabolic advantage idea that gives Anthony hives. What will really put him over the edge is what comes next.
Remember when I wrote a few paragraphs back that when insulin levels are low fat is no longer held in the fat cells? The doors to get out are wide open and fat can easily flow out – but only if there is a caloric deficit and that fat is needed to make it up. If there isn’t a deficit the fat stays where it is and there is no weight loss. There is another side to that equation. When insulin levels are low, it is extremely difficult to increase the amount of fat inside the fat cells.
Both MD and I have had patients who complained to us that they were following our program to the letter and weren’t losing any weight. When we asked them for their diet diaries we found that they were consuming huge amounts of food but were rigorously keeping their carbs below 30 grams per day. Sometimes we calculated that these patients were eating 4000+ kcal per day, which could have even been higher given that patients tend to under report what they eat instead of over reporting. What was amazing to us was that they weren’t gaining. They were pretty much maintaining their weight on an enormous number of low-carb calories.
We would explain to them about how they needed to create a caloric deficit to lose. Most people will create the caloric deficit when they go on a low-carb diet because the increased fat and protein in the absence of carbs is extremely satiating. But some folks don’t have the off switch that most others do and can eat large amounts of fat and protein along with very little carb without seeming full. You would think they would gain weight like crazy, but they don’t because with low insulin levels it’s tough to pack fat into the fat cells.
This isn’t so strange when you consider that typically the first symptom experienced by a type I diabetic is an unexplained weight loss. Many of these people go to their doctors saying that they’re eating like hogs, yet are losing weight like crazy. All it takes is a quick check of their blood sugar, which is always sky high to make the diagnosis.
These type I diabetics have no insulin so they can’t really stuff fat into their fat cells. And they are breaking protein down, converting it to glucose and urinating it away. They are voraciously hungry and eat, eat, eat but they can’t store any fat. If they go untreated they will ultimately develop severe life-threatening problems. Their fragile situation demonstrates that in the absence of insulin it’s virtually impossible to gain weight.
After following a low-carb diet for a while, our overweight patients lower their insulin levels, so, as with type I diabetics, it is difficult for them to store fat as well. They crank up all the futile cycling, elevate levels of uncoupling protein synthesis and increase proton leakage to dissipate the excess energy they’re consuming, but they don’t store it as fat. This situation creates an enormous metabolic advantage, but one that is used to maintain weight, not lose it. This is why it is pretty easy to maintain your weight loss on a low-carb maintenance diet. If you start throwing back the carbs, however, you will lose this advantage.
A number of studies have shown a metabolic advantage of the first type discussed, but the second type – the weight-maintenance type – arises from MD’s and my hands-on treatment of many patients. And from our thinking the biochemistry through. As far as I know there are no recent papers that have studied this phenomenon specifically, but a few skirt around the edges. Much of the work done by Pennington back in the 1940s and 1950s discusses the same phenomenon. And I have heard other doctors who take care of patients with low-carb diets remark on it as well.
That’s pretty much my take on the metabolic advantage. Until he reads this, Anthony won’t see the second part of my metabolic advantage beliefs, so the driving force behind all his outrage the past couple of months is over the measly couple of hundred calories that I believe exist as a metabolic advantage as a consequence of rigorously following a low-carb diet. The amount of huff he has put up over this seemed a little extreme to me, but then I started looking a little more closely at our friend Anthony, and a few things started to become clear.
Anthony is seeking the attention and publicity, which he considers his due for having written a book that few people bought.
What follows is The Anthony Colpo Reader, a few gems from Anthony’s pen to give insight into his character. (Some with my commentary) Plus the promised free book.
The following is the post that made me realize his quest for attention. I apologize for the foul language, but it’s his, not mine.
A reader of his wrote him asking why he couldn’t carry on a civil debate with me and others and why he had to resort to nastiness. This person also pointed out that he (AC) would be better received as a serious researcher were he to tone down his vitriol. Here is his answer, positively brimming with civility.
You know, I really am starting to find this all quite amusing. On one hand, folks like you claim that my style will cause me to be dismissed as some kind of nut job, but at the same time, you are all furiously typing about me on web forums.
If I am so irrelevant and such a non-entity, why do you all spend so much time talking about me?
It’s because I AM important to you. That’s not my opinion, but yours. You unwittingly reiterate this viewpoint every time you make a post about me. Obviously, what I say does indeed matter to you because otherwise you wouldn’t spend so much time writing about it. If I was the ostracized lone voice you so desperately wish to believe I am, then people wouldn’t waste their time on me. My impact would be non-existent. The truth is, my impact is very real – and that’s exactly what eats at you folks.
A lot of low-carbers thought it was great when I used to rip on the low-fat movement for all the rubbish that crowd used to spin. But when I started highlighting the equally unscientific nonsense spouted by many within the low-carb camp, then these same low-carbers started foaming at the mouth and launching repeated attacks on me.
By doing so, they have shown the world what utter hypocrites they are. Evidently, they are happy to jump all over the low-fat movement for the slightest transgression, but are happy to embrace the most absurd BS from within their own camp if it supports what they wish to believe.
Imagine if someone in the low-fat movement came out and said that we should ignore metabolic ward trials because people on low fat forums vigorously insist that they did indeed lose more weight by eating an isocaloric low-fat diet. You jokers would be dumping on their comments to no end. And yet, when people within the low-carb camp make an equally absurd claim, you have the gall to suggest they should be taken seriously!!
UNFKNBLVBL !!!
Sorry, but BS is BS, whether it comes from Ornish, Campbell, Atkins, or Eades…or from their goofball followers on low-fat and low-carb forums.
You folks are going to have to deal with the following facts:
I am right on the metabolic advantage issue.
A LOT of people from all over the world listen to me.
Like I said, what you folks really need to do is spend less time slagging off at me and a lot more time doing some serious soul searching. Why are you folks so pathetic that you will spend so much time and effort denigrating someone who tells you things you don’t want to hear – even when he has the evidence to back up his claims?
I’m sorry, but the whole “Colpo is a rude, rude man” thing is starting to wear a bit thin, it’s so transparent. With all the injustice and deceit going on in the world right now, you get upset over THIS?
Like I said, you poor bastards really need to turn your attention inwards. It will be a disturbing and unsettling experience for many of you, but you need to start sometime. It’s either that, or keep going through life with your heads up your a*sholes.
If you need to be reminded of the dire consequences that can result from such an insistence on being such easily-distracted, gullible, banality-obsessed dolts, then I suggest you watch the following movie immediately: ZEITGEIST
Another answer to a similar question about why he is so rude to people with whom he disagrees. This answer, too, shows how much he relishes the attention.
What a pack of wankers on web forums, many of whom have already demonstrated themselves to be ignorant, gossip-mongering losers, are saying is of little consequence to me. I suspect that deep down inside these jokers really value people like me because I give these losers something to gossip about and occupy their otherwise empty and meaningless lives.
Again, since this whole hoo-hah, my web hits and book sales have remained elevated.
Which means MORE people are now listening to me, and being exposed to the facts.
That’s the reality, whether you wish to believe this uncomfortable fact or not.
So, I should really thank these jokers for the increased publicity. As Oscar Wilde once said: “The Only Thing Worse than Being Talked About is Not Being Talked About”.
And I suspect that what really gets under the skin of people like you is that I’m the one with the nads to stand up and highlight this kind of BS. What are you doing to further public health and knowledge, besides coming on to this forum and sounding like a nagging, serial whining spouse?
Here is AC’s response to a reader of his who had the temerity to ask a few reasonable questions. Admittedly there are more than a few typos here, but the questions are pretty clear. And very reasonable.
Question: I have two basic questions –can you give a response to the “metabolic ward study” that muscular development [Muscular Development – a body building magazine] cites—?? and can you explain how one can gain fat if unsulin levels are low (lowering ones carbs means insulin levels will be low)—can you also address the fact that people with type 1 diabetes lose weight rapidly because they produce little or no insulin??? There are no insults here just questions—an what is the big deal–if you are correct then you should welcome this debate…
Uh oh. AC is pulling out the fonts again. It must be bad.
I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself, but here goes again:
YOU ARE, BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT, A DERANGED F*CKWIT. Your behavior on this forum has been appalling. You are NOT welcome here and I WILL NOT BE ANSWERING ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS. I DO NOT WASTE MY TIME ANSWERING QUESTIONS NOR GIVING FREE ADVICE TO A**HOLES WHO DEMONSTRATE MALEVOLENT INTENT TOWARDS ME, AS YOU HAVE.
I am nice to those who are nice to me, I have no time whatsoever for those who behave like a*sholes towards me. Quite simple really, although I have no doubt that such a straightforward concept is beyond the comprehension of a little peanut like yourself.
Everything I have to say about the fat loss/metabolic ward study issue is in my book, The Fat Loss Bible. If you were to get off your fat lazy ass and read it, all your stupid questions would be redundant. If you choose not to read the book, then do not expect me to give of my time discussing issues that are addressed in the book.
BTW, YOU LITTLE WEASEL…if you live in, or ever visit, Australia, be sure to forward me your full name and location so we can arrange a little one-on-one ‘meeting’ to see who really is the coward.
FFS, move out of your Mum’s home, get a job, throw away your gay porn collection, and get a goddamn life…you little bed-wetting pissant…
Charming.
Finally, here is the link to Anthony’s piteous whine about why he took down his TheOmnivore website and replaced it with an advertorial for his book. I will post this as a link because it is on another website, and I don’t think AC can take it down at will. If he does, fear not, I have a pdf copy that I’ll put up.
It seems that AC got miffed because he put a lot of time and effort into his website figuring that it would lead people to buy his book. But they didn’t. At least not in the quantities he expected.
So he took the website down, picked up his toys and went home.
At the end of this sniveling dreck AC writes the following words.
I am also working on a fat loss book that will once and for all address the unrepentant stupidity of people who think that eating high/low-fat/carbs/protein at the same caloric intake awards some sort of magical weight loss advantage.
And, folks, Anthony is a good as his word. He has written an ebook titled The Fat Loss Bible doing that very thing – addressing the unrepentant stupidity of people like me. (More about this book in a moment)
But he didn’t stop there. AC is so convinced of his righteousness that he buckled down and wrote another book attacking not just unrepentantly stupid people like me, but actually attacking me personally along with Feinman, Fine and Taubes. My unrepentant stupidity has earned me an entire chapter of my own, replete with color picture. And best of all, AC is not selling this book, he is giving it away. He has made it available for me to give to all the readers of my blog absolutely free of charge.
Download your free book in pdf right here compliments of Anthony Colpo. they_are_all_mad.pdf
Now, about The Fat Loss Bible…
You can get a harbinger of things to come by simply reading the Acknowledgments. I won’t bore you with the whole thing, but just a taste here and there.
AC decides to “part with tradition” and instead of thanking those who helped him he thanks those who attacked him. He wants to
acknowledge a group of people who attacked me in late 2005 after I wrote an Internet article explaining why caloric intake – not the proportion of protein, carbohydrate or fat – is the primary determinant of weight loss.
Low-carbohydrate devotees the world over were outraged at my temerity to state this indisputable fact. I was demonized on Internet forums, and accused of lying.
…[Yada yada yada yada. More of the same. If you’ve read much AC, you get the picture.]…
The staggering level of willful ignorance displayed by my detractors in 2005 impressed upon me the urgent need for a book explaining the true scientific facts about weight loss. Clearly, a lot of people had been brainwashed by gimmicky nonsense.
I suspect the book has come too late for my venomous critics of 2005. I have to seriously question whether those who unfairly slandered my integrity, who ignored the evidence I presented, and who chastised me for daring to present the facts that allegedly harmed their pet ’cause’ possess any real sense of logic or reason. But regardless of whether it will help them, by inspiring the creation of this book, their actions will indirectly benefit thousands of others…
One wonders how many of these ruthless attackers there were out there slandering, ignoring and chastising? A half dozen maybe? This guy is truly a legend in his own mind.
To give him credit, though, he does write one worthwhile paragraph in this two page whine when he discusses a common facet of human nature.
Namely, many people really don’t care for the truth. They are more concerned with reinforcing what they have already come to accept as true. It takes a certain strength of character to discard long-cherished beliefs. Sadly, many people simply cannot muster the requisite strength of character, even when the evidence is overwhelming.
Sadly, I suspect AC is one of those people.
I have read The Fat Loss Bible and I can summarize it in one sentence: Eat less, exercise more, and you’ll lose weight. Of course that message is buried in with all the typical AC folderol about how smart he is and how ignorant everyone else is. If you want to spend $40 to be told to eat less and exercise more while learning what a misunderstood and viciously slandered genius AC is, then The Fat Loss Bible is the book for you.
The first chapter lays out the basis for AC’s belief that there is no metabolic advantage. It is a compendium of misread or misinterpreted studies, the famous “NINETEEN metabolic ward studies” AC mentions in his open letter to me. (There were only SEVENTEEN in the version of the book I read, but who’s counting?)
Here is what I propose to do. Since this chapter of this book is the foundation for AC’s bedrock belief in the non-existence of a metabolic advantage, I will go through it and in meticulous detail demonstrate just what a shaky foundation that is. But I will do it only if you – the readers of this blog – want me to. It will take a little time that could otherwise be spent in posting on the stuff I usually post on. You can vote with your comments. I’m not going to respond to any of these comments, but I will put them up and tally them. If the yeas outnumber the nays, I’ll do the critique.
My only worry is that AC is a pretty slippery fellow. One of the readers on his site asked why AC didn’t publish his book as a real, bound book instead of an ebook. AC responded that with the ebook he could change it at will and continue to add new material. Chapter One has gone from the 20 pages it was when I first looked at this book back in late August to 26 pages when I pulled it down a few days ago. So I may be trying to hit a moving target. But I do have a copy of the book as it exists right now and that’s what I will critique if the votes send me in that direction. If, for whatever bizarre reason, you happen to decide to drop forty bucks later on to purchase this book, you may find you bought a different book than the one I’ll dismember.
So, as they say in Chicago: vote early and vote often. Meanwhile I’ll be off dealing with all the comments that have been stacking up while this post was being written.
Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash
All I can say is Wow! I’m not unfamiliar with Colpo’s demeanor. He seems to scour the entire web for his name and if someone is actually disagreeing with him on anything, it’s a crusade to call that person and the forum/website stupid, character assasinators, and everything else you can imagine. Seeing some of his comments collected here together really make me concerned for the man. His responses, if these are accurate quotes, are out of all proportion to the questions and commends he’s responding to. His threats could actually be criminal. In general they give them impression that this guy is seriously deranged. If he can’t DISCUSS his theories with those who might disagree with him, but can only shout at them for being stupid simply because they hold a different opinion… I don’t know, but obviously he is not going to win other people to his argument if he can’t make it without shouting and calling people stupid, threatening to beat them up or worse… It’s sad because he’s obviously a smart guy but his fatal flaw is the lack of ability to doubt himself in any way, or the ability to listen to others when they might have a different take. Unfortunately, for people with this kind of attitude, you just can never get through to them. They simply are incapable of recognizing other people with different (but still valid) opinions exist. I think basically the best thing to do in such cases is to ignore them, for then they don’t have the fuel to flame the constant tirades that seem to be their raison d’etra. It’s funny how Colpo says to one detractor to “get a life” or “get a real job” or some such when it’s much more likely Colpo himself who spends half his day online looking for fights and writing scathing responses in order to protect his reputation – which at this point is firmly set in my mind as an immature, mean-spirited bully and not much else. Sad…
The quotes I posted are 100% accurate. I copied them directly from his website.
MRE
Dear Dr. Eades,
I’m not sure it’s bluff, but this guy does seem like he can get spiteful and resentful. I was thinking about buying his book because you mentioned that it was a good book and complemented the other one by the same title (which I have already purchased and read). I am currently reading Uffe’s book, from a library.
After reading his psychotic tirades, I’m not so sure I want to contribute to this man’s psychotic ego. I would personally stay away from him and let his followers believe whatever they want to. I did enjoy reading his paper on LDL-C, but I did not know he was such an unstable individual. I hope he doesn’t lose it one day and go look for you–from readin his posts, I’d worry.
It is good that you clear up your name, as he has definitely tried to make you look bad in his free book. Of course I am interested in reading about these studies that he claims back up his “no metabolic advantage exists” point of view. But please take precautions, who knows what the fate of someone so obsessive and psychotic could be.
Warm Regards,
Alex
I don’t follow AC but know his type. His outward rants are just a hidden PR stunt to get more notice, build up his credentials as an “authority” on fat loss and sell more ebooks. I’m sure he means well to help others but his methods are a complete turn off. The more he yells I am sure the less people will listen. I appreciate your smart and informative response. Plenty of us out here would just rather have honest answers and could care less about the rest of the internet stardom drama. Thank you for well thought out answers.
LowCarbMuscle is his forum? He sounds like he’s out of his mind with ” ‘roid rage.”
And that’s not all. I’m still on AC’s mailing list from the days gone by when I used to get his now defunct newsletter and this popped up yesterday:
MuscleHack.com Interview With Anthony Colpo
Dear Readers,
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mark McManus from MuscleHack.com. The interview covers such topics as:
The single most important ingredient for long-term fat loss and training success;
Why low-carbohydrate diets are not taken seriously by the health and medical establishment;
The fallacy of metabolic advantage dogma (MAD);
The blatant double-standard displayed by Michael Eades and his followers;
Anthony’s own training and supplementation.
The interview can be accessed simply by clicking the following link:
http://musclehack.com/
Cheers,
Anthony.
Disclaimer: If you are a politically correct pansy who takes deep offense when a grown man speaks his mind, or if you are a member of The Church of Latter Day Metabolic Advantage Believers, then you read the interview at your own risk. Neither the interviewer or interviewee are in any way responsible for any resulting nervous breakdowns or intra-cranial hemorrhages occurring in those who can’t handle information that clashes with their own deeply held beliefs
Criminey. There was a time when AC was a reasonable guy but those days are long past. His website that he used to have was quite good but he shut it down in a fit of pique when his readers didn’t pony up en masse to buy his book The Great Cholesterol Con when it was first published. He was really steamed about that.
Thanks Dr. Eades;
Solid post.
I did read Colpo’s first book, which was excellent, and I enjoyed his website before he took it down, however the final straw came when he started attacking you. Once that happened the bells went off for the last time and I don’t have any desire to see or hear anything that he writes in the future. Differences of opinion can be discussed without reverting to name-calling and swearing, although there may be a few people out there that have really earned their derogatory names. This is no longer an issue of whether there is or isn’t a metabolic advantage.
Dr. Mike:
Why even bother? Intelligent readers can tell the difference between emotion driven and thought driven writing.
I like your blog because, well basically, I’m lazy and it gives me a way into some biochemistry I’d otherwise have to study on my own and I really enjoy getting your take on studies that land in my inbox. If one lands there and I’m like “what the???” I pop over here and you’ve already taken it on.
I like that.
I also like it because it usually doesn’t get bogged down in this stuff.
Your argument on metabolic advantage speaks loudly. Without the insults and without the fonts.
This guy isn’t worth your time. I don’t really care to spend any further mental energy on him. If his book was so good, why did he have to resort to self-publishing?
People pay attention to village idiots and to ranters at Speaker’s Corner (in Hyde Park I think) as well. If he wants real attention maybe he should try pro-wrestling. People pay for that.
Dear Dr Mike,
Don’t pollute your blog by raking over the same ….. garbage. It’s just not worth it and you’ve got so much more of value to say. The personal attacks and prolixity Mr Colpo expends on mere quibbles is utterly boring. All he does is play the blame game. Funny thing: “colpo” in Italian means “blame” or “fault”. How often have you seen it in Italian opera? It’s in a lot!
Il colpo non e tuo.
All the Best,
Michael Richards
If you do dismember the book, AC will soon be hoisted by his own petard.
I vote yes.
Great post! It’s a ripper!
I for one would love to see you take on the metabolic ward studies, since it was my innocent query on that topic that led to this wild outburst from AC in the first place.
From reading his forum (where I was banned for not agreeing with him on training methods) it seems clear to me that this is a guy who reaches a conclusion first, and then goes about finding the data that supports his notions. (The same attitude that Taube’s book attacks as the recipe for sloppy science). Nobody much noticed that when he was attacking the lipid hypothesis, statins, etc., because we all agreed with him, and he was actually right. But when he gets into topics like strength training methods (he likes high volume), and particularly on the subject of 911 conspiracies (despite how incredible implausible they are, he absolutely believes in them), his positions are a lot weaker/stranger. On both of those topics, I could stretch credulity a bit and see how someone could take an inbetween, well maybe, sort of position, but to declare, absolutely, without a doubt, that HIT training is worthless, and that there is super secret uber shadow world government responsible for blowing up the world trade center from the inside, etc. etc., well, hmmm.. I dunno…
Dr. Eades,
Like a few others, I did purchase and read his “The Great Cholestrol Con”. It was very good, not quite as good as Dr. Malcolm Kendrick’s, but for a layperson Colpo did a fine job. Well researched and well written. His website as well was worth spending time at. Yet, when he took it down, it did come across much like the kid who brings the football to get a game going, but then goes home because no one passes to him!
That was then though and this is now. I cannot believe the vitriol spewing from him. It is almost shocking. I do not for a moment believe that it is some sort of act in order to drum up sales, but that he is in serious need of some psychiatric help. Unbelievable.
BTW Doc, thanks for the post. Worth the long read, trust me.
He’s a bright guy who is honestly trying to get the right answer to the question of whether a metabolic advantage exists; and his conclusions, based on his thorough examination of the relevant evidence, should be taken seriously (although not necessarily accepted).
I’ve just described, I think, both Dr. Eades and Anthony Colpo. It seems that Anthony has a hard time seeing his adversary in this light, but I hope Dr. Eades will not make the same mistake that Anthony does.
Great post, Doc.
As much as I enjoy seeing you take him down ( my favorite Irish saying: “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in?”), I echo the other posters who think it might be the better part of wisdom to leave a crazy man pretty much alone. This post has already pretty much exposed the man for what he is.
Best,
John
Until there is a multitude of specific studies on the possibility of a “metabolic advantage”. Both sides of the argument are just conjecture (you’ve even stated this yourself). I wonder why some people find it harder to believe that there may be a possibility that mitochondria handle fat differently then carbs and or protein (when it comes to the point of a set weight point for humans). Is it possible in a low-carb high fat environment that mitochondria can burn more of the energy off towards heat or energy production (maybe) (calories are there- there just not going to add to fat as much)? I think colpo is messing up the fact that you are not saying that a calorie is not a calorie. Just that it is possibly that because of how the human body handles fats in a low-carb environment- it may be possible that a body maintains a lower body fat in the face of a higher caloric intake because of how fats would be processed in the body. The high carb-low fat camp could also claim a sort of pseudo- metabolic advantage also- what about the studies where people had an intake of somewhere in the area of 2700 calories in the china study- and were invariably thin. Humans as a species have always been on the fat end. It makes sense that we would be fatter because of the enormous energy drain our brain had. Could you imagine being super thin and trying to go weeks without eating? High fat diets seem to undeniably allow the body to maintain a lower set point even with a variance in calories- (I am not saying however that I always find this optimal for longevity) – lets do more studies on this!
I’d leave him alone as well.
Your Blog has loads of great topics and to add a dissection of a publication from someone who appears to be struggling in the deep end of the pool would be more effort than it is worth.
Thanks for all the interesting ideas you present. The recent Jack Lalanne post has lead my wife to order part of his old B&W series for Christmas. 😉
Here’s a link on young girls who are Type I diabetics not taking insulin in order to lose or not put on weight. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21692426/ They are called ‘diabulimics’.
Thanks for the link. If people are cutting back on their insulin to lose weight, they are getting too much insulin to begin with.
This subject is worthy of a full blog.
Cheers–
MRE
Don’t deconstruct his book…you’re wrestling with a tar baby here.
I’ve never read Colpo before this post. People like that bore me to no end.
On the other hand, I would love to hear your take on the metabolic ward studies. I vote yes; but only if you avoid any further reference to Colpo’s tantrums.
Don’t bother with any further analysis. No time for rehashing this junk when there is other interesting stuff to learn. I had never heard of Colpo before this post and I don’t want to hear any more.
I’m glad you put this on your blog. It’s valuable to know. I have always enjoyed this website and the blogs because I learn so much from you and MD both. I have to say that it has also prompted me to buy extra copies of the books to give as gifts as well as being able to buy the books you review and recommend. This guy has shot himself in the foot by shutting down his blog and throwing a huge temper tantrum! After reading his words, why on earth would I want to support him and assist in his success?!
You conduct yourselves as responsible, caring physicians and I have been very thankful for your posts, your dedication to this blog and to the people that you help. I have no doubt you are asked the same questions repeatedly and yet you have sources on this website to answer any of the questions we may have.
He sounds pathetic by demanding that people buy his book and calling names for not wanting to buy his book.
Wow!!! What an eye opener.
Don’t bother Dr. Mike. He isn’t worth the effort.
You know what is so aggravating about this bickering between you two? You are both basically saying the same thing and arguing over semantics. You are both saying that to lose weight, one must create an energy deficit. You, Dr. Mike, are saying that there is a couple of hundred kcals leeway with low carb because of glucogenesis (an effect that lessens as one becomes more fat adapted, BTW, and also vastly increases the needed intake of protein while it’s going on) and Anthony talks about it as a thermic effect that is essentially insignificant. All of the fighting is over 200 calories, give or take.
The low carb forums are absolutely full of people screaming “calories don’t count – just cut carbs!”, especially since Taubes’ book came out. Unfortunately, that is only true for the lucky few that automatically cut their intake when doing low carb, as you mentioned. Others, like myself, have to carefully monitor our intakes to make any headway, a fact I am just coming to terms with after being mislead by the “just need to cut the carbs” crowd for the last four years and getting nowhere (at least I wasn’t gaining).
All of this fighting in the low carb community is such a disservice because it muddies the waters on what we really need to do. It has broken into “camps” that take pot shots at each other while the rest of the world collectively yawns.
To be honest, I like Anthony’s book, as well as those by Lyle McDonald and Dr. Greg Ellis (though all of their books are vastly overpriced). Sure, they basically say “eat less, move more” but they say how to determine how much to eat and how much to move and how to avoid or deal with the metabolic adaptation that happens in calorie deficit due to falling leptin levels. I like your books because they point at how to be healthy, which is obviously the most important thing. I just didn’t get anywhere weight loss wise until I learned to estimate the correct Total Daily Energy Expenditure and started weighing everything I ate and calculating a true caloric intake amount(which sucks, but is necessary to reach my goal).
By the way, I am not sure about the reasoning that some people automatically cut their intake on low carb because of satiation. Based on some your earlier blogs, I have a little theory that I am playing around with.
Overweight people are usually leptin resistant, meaning they don’t see all of the leptin that is circulating in their blood, leading the brain to think there is less fat on their bodies than there really is. One of things that make us leptin resistant is high serum triglycerides, which block the leptin from crossing the blood brain barrier. Fructose intake appears to maybe be another factor (maybe it raises triglycerides too; I am not sure).
Some people, especially the very overweight, experience a dramatic drop in triglycerides when switching to a low carb diet. This, in turn, increases their leptin sensitivity. The brain sees more leptin and naturally decreases appetite and ramps up the metabolism to compensate. Hence, they can “eat all they want and lose weight”, because what they want is less than what they need to sustain the high body weight.
To me, these kind of things are the true metabolic advantage of low carb.
Hi Mike,
I vote yes (although, as you know I think the first form of metabolic advantage is a bit of an overstated red herring for most low carbers) and a secondary yes for a possible explanation as to why the low insulin/no weight gain doesn’t uniformly apply – ie there are many who have found that even in a low carb scenario excess calories do lead to difficulties (ie weight gain) on maintenance. Would this be solely that low carbing doesn’t lower insulin enough to prevent this or perhaps they are more susceptible to other mechanisms of transferring dietary fat to the cells?
My votes have nothing to do with Anthony, just a simple desire to know as much as possible about these topics.
As for AC I did for some time count it as a privilege to be a friend of his – although we never met in person, we did have a friendly online and email relationship involving the exchange of ideas and papers on low carb issues (mostly from him, although I recall with some regret it was me who introduced him to the work of Anssi Manninen (for which he thanked me) … who sadly is now also removed from AC’s Xmas card list). I was delighted to received gratis copies of all his books, including a draft copy of TGCC (I subsequently bought a hard copy) – as I know we are both of the view that this is a solid contribution to the debate although perhaps not as laugh out loud funny as Malcolm Kendrick’s version of the same name (I’m sure you also agree people should buy/read both). The electronic versions of his last two (TFLB and one on supplements – I can’t seem to view now, perhaps my failure to thank him has resulted in denial of access (?) – if so , another possible ‘advantage’ of publishing in this way … and again if so, after you publish this, I suspect such access will not be reinstated.
In any event, we separated over his removal of his web site material which was a really great resource, to which I was constantly referring people, and even before that his inclusion of 9/11 conspiracy material on that site (whether you have sympathy for this view or not, in my view it detracted from the impact of anything low carb related he had to say for the many who don’t … in much the same way as another site which combines low carb exaltations with fundamentalist Christianity). My question to him then (one that he is still being asked) was what did he see as the purpose of publishing the results of his considerable research, if it was not to help as many people as possible and to prevent them from falling for the massive pitfalls inherent in mainstream medical advice? Sadly, after providing a guiding light to so many, he now seems to think that some people don’t deserve to be helped … and even if this were true, it is an attitude which speaks more about Anthony, than it does about his potential audience.
To be fair, I’d also ask Gary Taubes a similar question – who does he see as his target audience for GCBC? I found the book hugely disappointing, not because I disagree with some points (it would be a strange world if we agreed on every detail) but that the book is so badly structured that it seems highly unlikely to make the sort of impact that I had long hoped it would. No doubt some of my expectations were/are unreasonable but I really do believe that perhaps after 5 years he is simply too close to the sheer volume of his research (for which he deserves great credit) to present a much more coherent message – something that would be much more widely read than by the already converted. Perhaps I am biased as my work involves the much more rigorous editing of video/film footage in order to present the necessarily much more concise end product demanded of visual media … but an independent objective editor (no probably not one employed by his publisher!) should/would have asked him some more challenging questions in this regard, and IMHO the book would/could have been so much better as a result.
Cheers,
Malcolm
Hi Malcolm–
I actually bought a copy of Anthony’s book before all this started. I purchased it through a pseudonym however because in observing how he was sinking deeper into vitriol I figured it wouldn’t take long for him to come after me personally. When that happened I knew I would respond, and I didn’t want him to be able to undo my ability to download the book I purchased.
I think people misunderstand Gary’s book. I think many people were looking for a diet book, which it is not. He set out to explore the status of nutritional research, which he found to be a shambles. He never intended to prescribe a specific diet for people to follow.
Cheers–
MRE
I agree that I enjoy the insight that Dr. Eades provides on these topics, but I think that anyone that deranged is not worth the time/effort.
I vote yes on you dissecting Colpo’s fat loss book. I don’t think you should stoop to his level and attack him personally, but I really want to learn the technical information you’ll present. I think it is very important. Do the critique, but do it in a professional, scientific way.
One more sad thing about Anthony: He believes 9/11 was an inside job. Seriously.
I also am interested in the deconstruction if his “holy grail”, the metabolic ward studies. So, yes, please, go ahead, if you can afford the time. Someone has to do it!
Hum, I am kind of torn, on one hand I want you to debunk AC’s “metabolic ward” studies that are the basis for his MAD attacks. On the other hand, there so many other topics that you are planning to post on, and your time is so precious. So I’d say don’t do it.
You have done a great job refuting his ramblings in an intelligent, rational, & civil manner. I feel sorry for AC, his “The Great Cholestrol Con” was great work, but his behavior is throwing muck on his own reputation.
So, I would like to see your take on the metabolic ward studies, but regardless of how fairly and objectively you treat them, you’ll just be fueling the fire. Therefore, I vote no.
Let him rant. It may be hard to listen to, but just let him stamp his feet and yell in the corner. He’s not going to stop if you keep responding. You’re looking at a very long and, ultimately, frustrating and unfulfilling way to spend the next few months. That’s no way to spend the holdays.
Do the one thing that he never does; Trust your readers to be smart enough to figure this exchange out for themselves.
No, don’t give the man or his book any more time or effort. I’d much rather have other topics discussed.
I really like the way you present topics, explaining them in an understandable way without making it so simple that we feel as though you’re talking down to us. Most of us have no knowledge of biochemistry, medicine, or other such topics, but you give us enough information, explained quite well, so we can grasp the gist of what you are presenting. Thanks.
Is it just me, or is the man’s tagline just REALLY ironic?
[“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”
Sir William Osler]
I used to have a lot of respect for Colpo’s thoroughness, though I was always a little shocked by the way he insulted people. It seems he has been going downhill for a while – becoming less and less thorough and more and more angry and egotistical. Knowing how certain foods affect my temperament, I am sure there has to be something wrong with him, perhaps biochemical.
My own personal experiences of the metabolic advantage mirror your clinical experience totally. I went through a phase of eating around 3,000 calories a day on a low carb diet as an experiment to help some health problems. I never gained a pound, I just sweated it all off (and felt much better in the process!). I knew I’d never be able to lose weight on this amount. The only kind of diet that lets me lose weight is a low carb diet, high carb just makes me cling on to my fat and feel cold. This is the part Colpo doesn’t or won’t get.
Though I’d personally love to read more on the studies, I think commenter Tom is right with his ‘tar baby’ analogy. Colpo is a terrier who won’t let go. He’ll drag you down and consume all your spare time for weeks on end because his ego is so bound up in being right all the time. LOL. I’ve met plenty of people like him on forums! I also think a lot of people who are on low carb diets already know there’s a metabolic advantage – because they’ve experienced it for themselves, they maybe don’t need anyone to prove it to them.
Wow. And they said Dr. Atkins was arrogant.
Dr. Eades, since you asked, I’d prefer if you didn’t dissect his stuff. It would be a shame to see you divert your energy from your usual informative stuff, and I don’t see what is served by even deigning to respond to him. The low-carb movement has enough opposition from the mainstream without us letting ourselves get embroiled in civil wars.
P.S. The Muscle Hack blog entry about Colpo linked to a post of mine that implied that low-carb meant you could eat all the steak and eggs you wanted. When I complained to the blog author that I never said any such thing, he removed the link.
Oh, but please! I have been dying to know about those “closed metabolic ward studies” for so long, but I don’t want to buy his book. It would be really educating to know ehy some studies show a metabolic advantage and some don’t. And you are at your best when you expose bad studies. Please?
Another no vote here. I’m sure there’s some educational value in addressing those particular studies, but for the most part it seems like the exercise will only serve to stoke the drama.
Excellent post doc.
I actually feel sorry for Anthony and I’m somewhat concerned about him. He’s a very smart guy and has all it takes to do excellent research, including the ability to think “outside the box”. However reading these rants and bursts of outrage, it appears to me that he should be taking equally good care of his sanity as he is taking of his abs. And I mean this neither as a joke nor an insult. It is not easy to maintain good mental stability in the situation he’s in , and with all those things he involves his mind in (and I happen to agree with many of those things, including 911 oddities, though his take on metabolic advantage is clearly not one of them). In his situation, it is easy to throw the mind off balance if not careful. If some such imbalance has occurred, I sincerely hope it will straighten out somehow over time.
I know a few people who actually simply believe much of what Anthony is saying on metabolic advantage (based on the trust established by his earlier book), so it might be a good thing to discuss in detail. So I vote yes.
Oh dear. I like Colpo and consider him a very conciencious person when he’s doing his research. It’s his debating style that needs revision. I come from a culture where this kind of “discussion” is commonplace, and it almost always leads to a complete breakdown of the conversation. Ad hominem attacks in the middle of an exchange of information never, never lead to anything good. The informational aspect is set aside and the insult aspect is the only thing people remember.
Being that he was educated in Australia, I’m mystified that he is not better versed in the laws of traditional debate. I expect this from Americans whose educations were rather neglected,or, as I’ve said, from those of my cultural background.
Dr Mike, please go ahead and review the metabolic ward clinical trials, not to refute Colpo or anyone else, but to see if they do or not point to a metabolic advantage.
Personally, it would be to my benefit to know what’s going on since I’ve become much stricter with my carb restriction and the weight is just melting off–no, I haven’t added any exercise yet!
There is no chance of a meaningful debate when you are giving Colpo’s book away for free on the net.
I thought I wanted to see the debate. But the more I thought about it, I don’t want to see a an ugly prizefight. I wanted to see a genteel display of boxing with the Marquis Of Queensbury rules. No chance, he will be bloody mad about the book.
Even though metabolic ward studies are endlessly fascinating and I would enjoy reading about them, I reluctantly vote no. Ancient internet wisdom says: Don’t feed the troll.
At least one Harvard researcher agrees with you:
“Harvard School of Public Health study may stand dieting wisdom on its head, after low-carbohydrate dieters lost more weight than low-fat dieters despite eating 25,000 extra calories over a 12-week study period…”
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/0310/20-lowcarb.html
Love your blog. Colpo is a nutter, an intelligent nutter, but a nutter nontheless.
Thanks so much for all you do.
Do not waste your time, Doc, on this fella. Post on other things.
I know I have a metabolic advantage. I can maintain on 1950 cals/day on 1200 cals/day on the ADA diet. I was always freezing during 35 years of low-fat high-carb diets, but am always toasty warm on LC. In fact, I’ve been able to turn down my thermostat to 20C (~68F) during the day and 17C (~63F) at night and save money on gas!
When I first followed PP in 2000, I added back carbs to ~50g ECC/day and would start gaining if I ate >1450 cals/day. This seemed like a great advantage over the high-carb diets I had been on, but 1450 cals just didn’t satisfy me enough to live like that forever, so I cut carbs back to 30ECC and added fat until I started gaining. Incidentally, ~1950 cals/day is what “normal” people my size are supposed to be able to eat, and with my yo-yo dieting history I never thought I would be able to eat that much. But I don’t have a “normal” reaction to carbs. I can only live like a “normal” person with no desire to binge if I eat a VLC diet (90% of my carbs come from vegetables & the rest from real foods).
It is possible that muscle-bound Colpo does not have get a metabolic advantage from eating low-carb. He may have as much data on himself showing that he loses and gains according to calorie-is-a-calorie theory as I have to prove that I do not lose and gain according to calorie-is-a-calorie theory.
I wouldn’t say a 300 calorie advantage is not a big deal – it can mean the difference between an effortlessly maintainable ideal weight, WOE & WOL and life as a carb-craving obese person.
I’m very interested in reading your further thoughts on metabolic advantage, but I don’t think that relating them to Colpo’s writings would be to your advantage or ours or his. JMHO though.
Yes. Dissect it.
If you’d like to do your Eades-eye view on metabolic ward studies, I’d be reading, as always.
No longer interested in anything about or by AC, however.
I say no critique. I have bought his books, and I am almost sorry I did now. Atkins got nuthin on him. I don’t see that his insults have any merit to them and I don’t think you have anything to prove or to gain from continuing to play your part in his psychodrama. Take the high road, Mike.
What works is what is important. For me, low carb works. It works for a lot of people. I am not climbing the walls with hunger like when I try to do low fat and I have lost and kept off 55lbs. You couldn’t pay me to go back to low fat.
Let him have his opinion and do what works for you.
Okay here are a few to try and win a book.
Because he’s Australian ?
What do you call a well balanced Australian.. a person with a chip on both shoulders.
Australians are living proof that Aboriginals mated with kangaroos.
Gadzooks lad please don’t let such an arse draw you in.
Bless him.
Any man who takes a photo of himself showing his abs (Darwinian sexual selection for sure) is assuredly a bit ‘soft in the head’ and takes himself(and his abs) far far too seriously.Emotionally about 17-19;at his age he’s developmentally arrested.
Are you sure he’s not related Art De Vany..another fella who gives himself as a shining example of what he apparently does not preach (!)
Don’t waste yr time on such tripe sunbeam..you have far better things to do and we the milling throng want you to enlighten us with your usual breadth of info.
While I respect the efforts that Mr. Colpo has made in some areas, it is fairly apparent that the psychological side effects of his sudden increase in money, media, and attention, have pretty much unhinged the fellow. He has become raving, messianic and paranoic, and his ongoing publicity against your name in particular is nearing the stalker level at this point. (To use his own words against him a bit, it’s obvious you are very important to him or he wouldn’t keep obsessing about you. ;-)) The man needs counseling, even more than he needs a good whack upside the head for his appalling treatment of others on the internet. I don’t know how people who behave like this succeed in any endeavor that uses other human beings instead of lab rats.
This does not seem unusual with very-sudden money/fame; the tendency to irrationality and hugely inflative egotism is infamous, with the poor behavior young celebrities often demonstrate being a prime public example. He is acting a lot like someone who suddenly starts believing their own over-hyped publicity.
The tragedy here is that aside from this one minor detail–well, and a good deal of personal character, years of experience, education, and other things he might be more than a tad behind you on–he does not appear to disagree with you on very much nutritionally except that one point. (The minor ‘Metabolic Advantage’ [‘dogma’, aka “MAD” as Colpo calls it]. I guess that makes all this frothing “MCS” — MAD Colpo Syndrome, heh. A bit Mad in both meanings of the term, I think!)
This being an issue of science and not religion, it can certainly stand to have a little variance in opinion and a bit more research (just to nail it down utterly, even if it’s already clear) before we start engraving it into stone. Or taking out massive, consistent, highly publicized attacks on legitimate researchers and physicians such as yourself.
All of his has ceased to seem like it has much to do with one detail point in a big science picture. Instead, it appears to be an issue of watching one man’s psychological stability dissolve and topple, in direct proportion to his financial and media success. It is tragic, for him, and for the subject at large. Aside from his astoundingly rude behavior toward nearly everyone with a brain, I have considered him one of the ‘good guys’ of nutrition writing up until now. I am sure the enemies of good nutrition are absolutely delighted to see the public circus resulting from this poor fellow going around the bend.
My 2c: I know you’re very busy, but I wish you would skim his book and if there is some point(s) you feel may not be well understood by the public at large, cover those. If there are others that are, but are made a big deal of in the book, perhaps a simple reference to where laymen can look for more info on that particular issue. It is very helpful on the internet to have decent references for supporting or refuting “popular claims”. There are not many people with the background of education and experience that you have for putting such responses or references together. As a layman, I appreciate that a lot.
But not enough to want you to wade through it tediously. There are better uses of your time I am sure.
“It was Ayn Rand who once said that the most noble and productive goal for a person to engage in was the pursuit of their own happiness.”
-Anthony Colpo
Do we really want to listen to a guy who quotes Ayn Rand?
Not to mention mismatching subject and personal pronoun.
Any respect I had for Colpo is completely lost. Sad to see his hubris get in the way of his work and eliminate him self from the already short supply of credible nutrition researchers out there in the world. He definitely stranded himself on an island that is just waiting to sink into the sea.
AC gives BITTER a whole new meaning!
I read the Fat Loss Bible and I think your summary is pretty funny and for me it is true as well. I just can’t do the analysis of the references. Even the formulas for eating right although not arduous are a bit much for me. Please go through AC’s book as it benefits everyone. Thanks.
I used to enjoy AC before he fell down the conspiracy rabbit hole and joined the tin foil hat brigade. Frankly he is no longer interesting enough to bother with, ignore him and he will continue to fade away on his own.
I vote no. Enough time has been spent on this nitwit, and I fear the extra attention will only make his behavior worse.
I would love to see you analyze the ‘metabolic ward’ studies that Colpo keeps referring to. He keeps mentioning them as if they were brought down from Heaven on golden tablets.
I used to read Colpo’s website but always cringed inwardly from his lack of civility toward his readers who commented/asked questions. I could never bring myself to recommend his website to anyone wanting to learn more about low carb theories because of othis, either. I bought Colpo’s Great Cholesterol Con book (the paper version) for about $25, but I never could finish it because of the very light, miniscule font as well as the dense amount of text on each page.
But when he removed his website while whining about how no one bought his book and his behavior toward his readers became even more uncivil, that was enough for me.
So as far as I am concerned, you have responded quite well to his venomous tantrums and unless you feel compelled, he is worth no more of your time and efforts. He seems to thrive on negative attention, so why indulge him?
Cheers,
Anna
Another no vote here.
Food for thought… I hate to see another person unfairly pulled into the tangle, but perhaps Regina Wilshire could elucidate the ward studies for us in her “Weight of the Evidence” blog.
As much as I would like to learn about the “metabolic ward” studies, I would rather learn about a new topic. I am sure there are more interesting things out there.
Dave
Maybe Colpo’s diet is too low on fat, and that affects his cognitive process. Ok cheap shot, sorry.
Follow up to Simon Fellows’ comment, why are we comparing Art DeVany to Colpo? Surely that’s a very grave insult to DeVany. I’m not sure I’ve read anything bad about him.
Dr. Eades, I say put his foot in his mouth… although as other readers suggest, it may not end there–he may find something else to argue about. If he’s proven wrong i public, well… that would be fun… as long as he doesn’t get violent and hurts someone.
Really enjoy your blog and your books! I’ve passed two along (extra copies that I bought–one in Spanish that went to Vallarta).
Cheers,
Alex
I would very much like to read your in depth discussion of AC’s 19 metabolic ward studies. Count this as an enthusiastic YES.
Ugh, ok, I’m a lurker and never post, but I have to put my 2c in. I’d like to hear about the metabolic ward studies, but no more about AC. After trying to read his responses to those poor people, my eyes started to fuzz out, I couldn’t take anymore. Maybe you should wait on it though till after the holidays. Maybe he’ll find some other chew toy to go on about.
When someone reverts to personal attacks, as Mr Colpo does, it means they have lost the argument… and they know it but just can’t bring themselves to admit it.
The metabolic advantage for me is certainly more than the 300 or so kcal you reference. I’m seeing at least a 500 kcal a day advantage. When I mentioned this to Mr. Colpo, and provided typical calorie breakdowns for my eating plan, he told me my experience was irrelevant because it happened outside of a metabolic ward study.
Personally, I’ve seen enough of Anthony Colpo, I don’t think he’s worth any more of your time. I’m actually surprised that you bothered to address him this time, I would have bet my house that you wouldn’t.
That having been said, I definitely WOULD like to see your analysis of these metabolic ward studies themselves. Please do that!
Gadzooks,
as the Fellows varlet would say. Fancy claiming my forebears mated with ‘roos! Makes me hopping mad just to think about it!
G’day,
Michael (Oz) Richards.
P.S. The gentlewomen among you may now avert their modest faces:
Why do Australians come so quickly? So that they can go down the pub and tell all their mates! (There are many more such Oz-bashing jokes.)
It is disappointing that Colpo feels the need to attack the very community of people who have been his strongest supporters–low-carbers! I don’t get his angle on this except perhaps to stir up a little controversy to try to boost book sales. I’ll be blogging about his more than erratic behavior at my blog very soon. And that will surely bring out the wrath of AC on me! EEEEK!
Hey Jimmy–
If he turns on you that will really be biting the hand that feeds him. You’ve interviewed him and given him facetime on your blog haven’t you?
Best–
Mike
I vote no on the dissection of the chapter, but a yes on a discussion of these metabolic ward studies.
I also vote yes on a post about cortisol. Dr. Schwarzbein devoted an entire chapter to it in her second book, but I’d like to get another take on it.
To expand on my previous response, I find Colpo’s manner to often be offensive, but I am able to separate the argument from the individual advancing it and the rhetoric used. I find many of Colpo’s arguments reasonably convincing, as do others.
I recognize that I don’t know everything and that my views will continue to change over time and I would very much like to see an intelligent discussion of the merits of Colpo’s arguments.
While I am not uneducated, I have not read all of the metabolic ward studies that Colpo mentions, nor am I certain that I would grasp all the nuances of the studies. I would love to have a critical eye, particularly one with your years of research and patient experience, analyze the papers.
If you come up with a convincing interpretation that is different than Colpo’s in any significant particular that is when I would hunt down that paper and, your interpretation and Colpo’s in hand, read it myself and see what sense I can make of it.
Thanks much for addressing this confusing issue. I am very sorry that there need be so many personal attacks, but we have to take the life that we have and not the one that we wish for.
I’m interested in the ward studies but would prefer not to hear anything else about AC.
Dr. Mike,
I vote no, don’t give him any more attention. (I think he likes it)
I would much rather hear your comments on a CKD type of diet like the new “TNT Diet” rather than AC’s low-calorie more excercise type diet.
Thanks,
Dan
If you think an analysis of the metabolic ward studies is worthwhile in its own right, then by all means bring it on. But AC doesn’t deserve any more of your valuable time.
I thought the most telling quote, referenced in one of the comments:
“The blatant double-standard displayed by Michael Eades and his followers…” Am I now a “follower”? I don’t remember signing on.
It appears to me Mr. Colpo suffers from a messiah complex. No need to get involved in religious wars.
Don’t let it get to you. We had a bout with Anthony on our message forum and he’s like a rabid dog frothing at the mouth. The thing that pops into my mind is steroid induced rage.
Art DeVany rocks. I would think there would be more light (though less heat) in an analysis of DeVany’s ideas than of Colpo’s.
Of DeVany’s blog, no less than Nassim Taleb (author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan) wrote,
“Of all the blogs I’ve read in the past couple of years, I can certify that yours has been the most consequential for me.”
“I am at my best. I don’t work out much anymore (I lift once a week on average) but cutting all carbs (outside of ancestral food) changed me. I am better condition than when I used to ride 100 miles a week.
Ciao,
Nassim”
DeVany’s no Colpo, and his take on “Evolutionary Fitness” is very close to what the Eades’ recommend…their posted meals look almost identical.
You have finally soured me on ever buying anything this classless primate writes. I had his book on my “wish list” for Amazon (and I have just removed it so that no one I know will buy it for me either).
There was a time when I would read TheOmnivore and enjoy it a bit (even then I had to cram every sentence through a mental sieve in order to remove the vitriol and egotism and get to the meat of the IDEAS that this self-proclaimed genius was trying to share). To his credit, he does have some great ideas. However, even back then I boggled when I read some of his responses to reasonable, thinking people–some of them respected doctors and scientists. Where is the disconnect with this man that he feels he cannot share ideas in a detached non-personal sort of way without getting into an adolescent flame-war? Why can he not simply disagree with someone and walk away? Why is it that he is so invested in being Mr. Right Vision that he is willing to make himself look like some drunken teenage macaque banging away on the keys in Myspace? Is he convinced that every disagreement is an automatic assault on his honor?
Of course you don’t have the answers any more than I do, but they are nevertheless the “real” questions. As far as I am concerned, his demeanor is the main thing which undermines his credibility. With him a reader can be a Disciple who follows his every word or a moron deserving only of contempt. no middle. He lost me for good now.
hey doc,
i vote “yes” because i’d be interested in your analysis, but not because i think colpo needs to be bludgeoned any further. AC was handled pretty well on the low-carber forum by a group of laymen (i’m proud to say that i may be one of those he “thanks” for motivating him to write his “bible”).
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=353657
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=270965
here’s my challenge to AC:
eat a very-low carb ketogenic diet including 6000kcal/day for two weeks and that same vlk diet on 1000kcal/day for another week (average ~4,333kcal/day for the 3 weeks). if physical activity is maintained at a very low level there calorie deficit is extremely unlikely.
would you gain, lose, or maintain weight? if colpo is right, weight loss or maintenance would be impossible.
I would love to see the metabolic ward studies addressed, I think regardless of his book, addressing those studies is very important. Also, I wonder why there isn’t a metabolic ward study confirming this advantage? It would be good for someone to do.
There are a number of metabolic ward studies confirming the metabolic advantage.
MRE
Dr Mike,
I am glad to see so many “goofball followers” have come to your defence – not that you need the support as your response has more than adequately countered AC’s hysterically delivered and unmeasured charges. I hate to give AC the oxygen of publicity, but here goes….
Me thinks he doth protest too much! Reading AC’s postings you get the sense that he is very angry. Extreme outward anger is often a sign of some deep inner turmoil. I wonder if and what his deeper problem is?
AC’s language, use of expletives and general insults (“DERANGED F*CKWIT”, “move out of your Mum’s home, get a job, throw away your gay porn collection, and get a goddamn life…you little bed-wetting pissant”), mask much of what he says that has any value. I remember when I was about 7 one of the biggest insults you could throw at someone was to call them ‘gay’. It is curious to hear an adult use such language – not least because society has largely moved on. Even his threats of violence are comically rooted in some childish belief that might is right.
In contrast, your composure has resulted in another greatly informative Eadsian blog entry. Please keep up the good work.
I vote ‘Nay’. Don’t feed the troll.
Besides, I’d rather read the much-awaited blog about structural differences between carnivores and herbivores.
Yeah and since we take requests now, I’d also second Dan Harrington about CKD’s such as TNT Diet and Anabolic Diet.
Thanks for the outstanding blog, Dr. Eades.
Hi Dr Mike,
Good on you for handling Colpo’s disgusting uncalled-for attacks so well. You have my respect.
My vote is no. Like you said, it’ll be like trying to hit a moving target – a waste of time. I’d very much prefer you address the other matters on that long list you’ve built up 🙂
-Insomniac
Metabolic ward studies feel to me like ‘simplified’ physics and math problems where there are a lot of assumptions are made and annoying variables ignored so the problem is simple enough for the students to solve or the researches to study.
For people living in the real world with money, time, social and emotional variables, a metabolic ward is a far stretch from reality.
At first, I had a really good laugh this morning reading AC’s open “tantrum” to you.
But his responses are truly sad, funny/entertaining but still disturbingly sad and worrying.
I like a bit of “personal touch” in scientific debates to spice things up but his whole attitude is more of a “scientific touch”, if any, in a personal debate.
Anyway it is working for him somehow, I had no idea who he is but now I do. But I don’t want to know more.
I am afraid I am a “free-loader” when I say go for it.
Another gullible blog reader.
PS. I just found out that you had a background in civil engineering. And Gary Taubes has one in physics.
That explains a lot of things and I mean that in a good way.
Both of you tend to explain things in clear and logically sequential steps, not very doctor like.
I am still waiting for someone to actually refute or debate Mr. Taubes GCBC logic without having to resort to the old and tired “So and so studies have shown…”.
Mike,
Well done. As you know since he bit my butt in the process as well, I did a little blog on him too – from an exercise perspective. http://www.slowburn.typepad.com
I vote yes on a short and sweet dissection of his inability to read research papers.
“I think people misunderstand Gary’s book. I think many people were looking for a diet book, which it is not. He set out to explore the status of nutritional research, which he found to be a shambles. He never intended to prescribe a specific diet for people to follow.”
Hi Mike,
Probably not the place to get into it but I certainly wasn’t looking for a diet book – I was looking (as you say) for an expansion of Gary’s ideas on the (diabolical) “status of nutritional research” – following on from his articles on fat and salt which focused on the startling lack of evidence behind the supposedly rigorously researched mainstream views in each case. I think Gary was (and perhaps still is) uniquely placed as an award winning, independent and therefore objective science journalist to expose the appalling reality … but sadly given the way the book is put together I doubt very few but the already converted will make it past the first 150 pages or so, and if that is the case I think we will all be disappointed by the minimal impact it will have … when at least in my expectations it promised so much. While it hasn’t been published or launched here (and despite my misgivings, I really hope it will be) – some indication of this lack of impact is that there has yet to be a single mention of the book or its message from any Australian media outlet.
Cheers,
Malcolm
I think the Taubes book is a great resource for the history of dietary science. And I think it will take a while before it takes hold. There is no doubt that it is dense and information packed and not for the casual reader. But I think it’s invaluable for someone really interested in learning how we got to the situation we’re in where everyone badmouths dietary fat in a knee jerk reaction.
Cheers–
MRE
I vote yes. And if he threatens you or anyone else, you can always save the files and contact a lawyer or law enforcement, as those kinds of things tend to be illegal. Not that I’m a cynic, but you can just tell it is only a matter of time with certain types of people, with or without a civil response.
I vote no. The best revenge on someone like this is ignoring him. Attention whores such as Colpo HATE that.
I vote no. I don’t want to hear about Colpo anymore.
AC subscribes to the Ann Coulter school of marketing. ANY publicity is good publicity.
I’ll vote yes to both the metabolic ward studies and a dissection (vivisection?) of ACs book.
Not because of any desire to heighten the drama but simply for the education.
Just a funny thought—what would Copernicus’s comments box look like if he could have had a blog?
“There are a number of metabolic ward studies confirming the metabolic advantage.”
Are they available online? I’d love to see them!
Hi Sherrie–
I have them in hard copy. I’ll see if any of them can be gotten online without a university affiliation and let everyone know.
BTW, roamed through your blog and found a lot of good info there. Keep it up.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi Dr Eades,
I would actually like to see your take on the Metabolic Ward Studies too. I used to quite like AC and frequented his site, but he completely lost me when he did the rant to yourself on the forum. I was considering buying his fat-loss bible but after that episode, I removed the site from my favourites and will never go back, nor buy the book. In my view this behaviour is even worse than what I have read about the way Ancel Keys slammed and insulted every hypothesis that disagreed with his own and just look at what a disaster that has been for human kind. How that man ever slept at night is beyond me, just look at the damage his theories are doing to diabetics to this day. We just don’t need any more of that ego-driven stuff in nutritional science ever again, in my view it simply stymies the real truth becoming known, which is of course what the perpetrator wants!
I am a living example of insulin not allowing you to lose weight, my carbs are well below 30g per day and not a pound can I lose even when I drop calories to 1200 per day. However I am working to reduce the insulin dose to as low to zero as possible. I have come down from 130 units per day to 40 units. At the higher dose I stacked on even more weight, but fortunately lost that once I had achieved much lower doses, I believe the higher doses made me even more insulin resistant. One of the things that really helped with this process was very slow weight training (only once or twice per week) here in the UK it is Kaiser strength training that is very similar to Fred Hahns’ in fact he pointed me to the right place in London. 6 days per week of aerobic type training for 1 hour did nothing for my IR at all, its fantastic to be free of having to do that, I came to hate it. I have come to the conclusion that I will have to come off the insulin to lose any weight. I would like to hear your take on the type 1 diabulemics, if you ever get the time. Keep up the good work, your blog is a life-saver as well as an information highway.
Glenice
Hi Glenice–
Just FYI the physiological dose (the amount a normal non-diabetic pancreas makes and releases daily) of insulin is about 30 units. So at 40 U you are still operating at a self-induced hyperinsulinemic level. Self-induced is probably not the best way to put it because that implies that it’s your fault, which it isn’t. I understand that you have to take that dose to maintain your blood sugar in the normal range. But as you work your way down to the 30 U level, I think you’ll start to see some real changes in your ability to lose weight.
BTW, have you read Dr. Richard Bernstein’s Diabetic Solution book? I believe it is the single best book out there on the treatment of diabetes. I recommend that anyone with the disorder get it and read it ASAP. The book has many strategies to lower insulin levels while still achieving blood sugar control.
Best–
MRE
Dr.
Please do not waste your time. Those of us who read you are already aware of your knowledge of the subject.
You should at least address some of the metabolic ward studies. A complete and thorough dissection of the book is in my opinion not necessary, but the most cited studies should be looked at and commented on. Giving the references of ward studies that show a metabolic advantage should be also made.
As for ACs personality, he confirms my prejudice against weight pushers, I’ve yet to see one who has not a problem with his self image.
I would love to hear your take on the metabolic ward studies & I vote yes. Perhaps if it’s a close vote a compromise would be to discuss the subject without referencing AC? I personally don’t have any problem with it if you do though..you have the right to self-defense.
Mike,
I’m gonna vote for passing on Colpo. While I would dearly love to see a him eviscerated as only you can do and only he deserves, I’m of the opinion that strategy demands correct action. The smart sadist doesn’t beat a masochist, because that’s essentially giving in. While I don’t think you are a sadist or he is a masochist, he does have books to sell and a limited platform to sell them from. By critiquing, you lease your audience, even if most are not interested, to someone who’s only real motivation for attacking you (or anyone else) is attention seeking. Better to be the smart sadist and ignore him, rather than giving in and giving him the thrashing correction he really wants.
That’s my take.
I vote no, you have wasted way too much effort on this guy already. Your first instinct to ignore was was a good one.
This post was a good laugh, but there is no need to stoke AC’s ego and self-importance anymore. As well, he would probably sue you if you disclosed the contents of the first chapter of his Bible – better off kept secret.
My vote is yes.
I’ve actually bought AC book and am reading it. There’s a lot of good info inside and I give credit where credit is due.
Now, on the metabolic ward studies and no difference. I’ve been thinking about this topic for a bit and on why there might be a difference between real world observations and ward studies if we would pretend a hypothetical situation that everyone who is noticing a metabolic advantage is truly counting calories properly. Which unfortunately is simply *not* true.
However, for some people the MAD is apparently so large, that the difference is substantial.
Why then do these people never show up in metabolic ward studies?
Quite simply: they are outliers. It’s a minority for whom this metabolic advantage is noticeable. These people skew the big picture. Anyone who’s doing a statistical analysis will remove the outliers and end up with people for whom there is *no* difference.
A personal observation: i’ve certainly noticed the MAD back in 2002 when I had dropped 5kg on a moderate carb diet (85 to 80kg) in 5 months, but then dropped a whopping 8kg in just 6 weeks on a VLC-diet. Unfortunately at the time I never tracked calories.
Now I *do* count calories and have been doing so for the past 3 years, I barely notice a difference between VLC and LC re fat loss. However, there seems to be a MAD in existance. When I go VLC, I’m craving carbs as if there’s no tomorrow and as a result have experienced multiple errr overfeeding days. Which in result has cranked up maintenance really high. Much higher than when eating moderate carb. But better fat loss..hell NO! Just higher mtn.
IF you decide to look furhter into this matter.. a very critical difference is how eating food makes you feel. Are you feeling warm or cold after eating carbs? If cold, then you might feel warmer on a VLC diet than on a LC /MC/HC diet. A very interesting shift has happened in the past 6 months: not just protein, but also carbs make me feel warm. Even more important : carbs also finally satiate me.
I guess that as of that ‘moment’ very low carbing was no longer offering a real metabolic advantage to me.
But WHY this happens? I’m figuring that B-vitamins also play a very important role here. I’ve started supplementing with fatsoluble B1 around the time.
Interesting, no?
Interesting, yes. And people with MA (which, BTW, isn’t something that one has or doesn’t have; it’s a matter of physics) do show up in metabolic ward studies. They only time they don’t is when metabolic ward studies showing no MA are handpicked or misinterpreted to substantiate a bias.
I think you should definitely address the “Golden Tablet” ward studies that AC claims prove you wrong, but keeping the AC content to a minimum would be a good thing.
it doesn’t matter what you post, he will have an answer, and there will be no end. what would be great is if you two could have a civil debate with formal rules where you could point and counterpoint exactly where you think each other are going wrong in your interpretation of the studies. (um, i realize this is not likely to happen.)
it’s obvious colpo has anger and ego issues. he wants to be taken as a serious researcher/expert, but doesn’t want to follow any rules of decorum. he considers himself some kind of rebel who has to fight to save the people, but he’s just putting more and more people off. i hope he realizes he’s only hurting his own career. it’s kinda sad to see someone self destruct a promising career.
good luck with whatever you choose to do dr mike!
Dr. Mike, I’m voting with “Rick” above. By all means, post on the metabolic ward studies, but let the AC thing go. I understand you had to defend yourself against his diabtribes, but you did that handily already and your time is way too valuable to do any more dueling with this guy. Maybe Gary T will pick up the cudgels next time.
Best Regards,
Wil
I vote no.
Though I am currently reading the FLB and have read the TGCC (which I loved), I have been questioning parts of the FLB. Though I agree with a lot of it, also. I don’t want to wasting your time with this as it would turn into a little feud. I do think you would have the self control to cut it off but it would probably also waste my time since I don’t have the control to stop wasting my time reading it. I’m going to finish the FLB, then start Taubes book. Probably won’t read any more from AC, I’m sure I can find more civilized people to read.
I do have a question about something in his books that I would like to ask you about. Maybe worthy of a post or maybe not. Its about consuming carbs during and post workouts, since he says they don’t raise insulin levels and help restore glycogen in the muscles. Is this correct? I don’t see myself having time to research the actual studies he probably mentioned until well into next year.
I started trying this a little bit before I had double hernia surgery. It didn’t seem to cause me any problems as far as weight gain. I was doing all cardio. Now, that I’m allowed to start exercising again I was going to split between riding and weight training and was wondering about the carb question. Just wondering if there are damaging effects from doing this.
Hi Joe–
I have actually come around to Anthony’s way of thinking on the post-workout carbs issue. Dr. McCleary, who wrote The Brain Trust Program, is a workout fanatic and a low-carb fanatic. He and I have discussed this issue a lot over the past year or so. The papers I had read looked at growth hormone release post workout, and it appeared that consuming carbs would pretty much shut that off. But growth hormone is not the only thing of importance. Immediately post workout people are at their most insulin sensitive so they can tolerate a carb load. The insulin stores the carbs as glycogen and drives the amino acids into the cells, so, on the whole, post workout carbs are probably a good thing. But, I have to voice this caveat: my change of mind came about by discussions with Dr. McCleary, who detailed for me the gist of the various papers on the subject. I haven’t myself actually read the papers he referred to. I have the utmost confidence in Larry’s ability to interpret these papers correctly, but I haven’t laid eyes on them yet. I have too many other things to read, and those are low on my interest scale.
I probably should read the papers and go back and reread the growth hormone papers and do a post on the whole shebang.
Best–
MRE
Nay.
Yes, I have interviewed him and even featured his books on my blog, too, Dr. Mike. Unfortunately, he has changed this year and I’ve asked him to explain why the sudden turnaround. I’ll be writing a post about this controversy he has stirred up and hope he is at least honest enough with himself to tell us all why. THANK YOU for your follow-up on this and I appreciate your contributions to the low-carb cause.
Hi Jimmy–
Good luck. I doubt that he will respond. At least with anything fit to print in a G-rated blog.
Cheers–
Mike
I say don’t bother. He really isn’t worth any more of your time.
p.s. I started to read that “They’re All MAD” crap and couldn’t get past the name calling, disrespect, and blatant attempts to get people to buy his “Fat Loss Bible.”
Yeah, I know. A lot of ‘this guy is full of crap. Buy The Fat Loss Bible to find out why.’
Michael, I would very much appreciate it if you were to produce a summary of well conducted research which has sought to find out and explain whether there is a metabolic advantage or not between low carb and high carb diets.
It seems to me that Anthony has carefully looked at metabolic ward / free living studies and come to the decision that these have not proven that a metabolic advantage has been demonstrated. I appreciate that any metabolic advantage in calories, assuming that this phenomenon does exist, may be too small to be recognisable once the inevitable errors in dealing with human behaviour and scientific method are accounted for.
This does not necessarily mean that metabolic advantage does not exist, only that more sensitive studies are needed to prove the theory.
I am disappointed that Anthony chose to respond to your posts in such an offensive way. I am delighted that you have chosen a polite and measured response.
What many people lose sight of is that high carb eating is damaging lives. This is particularly so for those with glucose metabolism disorders. For the benefit of the people who are looking for scientific validation of restricted carbohydrate diets we need to be able to discuss differences in opinions, experiences and research papers with respect, compassion and objectivity.
Those of you with type one, type two, metabolic syndrome and more body fat than they would perhaps prefer may be interested in the course at http://www.dsolve.com.
Low carbers need to cooperate with each other to help get the message of the benefits weight and blood sugar normalisation over to the people that need it.
I agree. Low-carbers – and that group includes Anthony Colpo and me – have much more in common than we have issues that divide us. I’m sure that I agree with Anthony (and he with me) on many more ideas than we disagree on. When you get right down to it, the argument over the existence of a metabolic advantage is a pretty minor deal. That’s why it took me so long to write this post. I’m a big-tent kind of guy, and I believe that more people will be helped if low-carbers present a united front than if we squabble amongst ourselves. But his attacks on me over a really trivial issue have been unremitting, so I felt the need to respond.
You wrote:
Anthony carefully chose the metabolic ward studies that confirm his bias, disregarded all free living studies as being invalid, misinterpreted the studies that did not confirm his bias, and left the other metabolic ward studies showing a metabolic advantage out of his analysis.
I roamed through it a bit, and it looks like you have a nice site. The only quibble I had with it was the advertisement for The Fat Loss Bible. 🙂
Cheers–
MRE
Weren’t most metabolic ward studies done on metabolically “normal” people – college students, inmates or people in the service who never had weight problems?
Many, but not all.
I vote No.
For the sole reason that Colpo and his ilk irritate me, I want you to do the thing which will irritate him the most. Ignore him.
Best regards and thanks for all of your excellent posts.
Sorry, he’s an ill-mannered child. Please spare us and allow his parents to give him the attention he so desperately seeks.
Dr. Eades, don´t distract people from the real issue here. I have been reading all the comments and nobody brought up something to support the MAD theory, besides more and more rubbish on how rude Colpo is, which of course, doesn´t prove your writings are right.
Point out why the metabolic ward studies present in The Fat Loss Bible are useless and why we should believe your ideas.
And what, pray tell, are the ‘real issues’ I’m distracting people from? I’ll count your vote as a yea.
Not worth the time and effort.
I’m glad you’ve changed your mind on the ‘no carbs post WO because of GH” issue.
I must say that post-WO carbs did me in for a long time , in the sense that they would make me overeat.
And actually the best moment to eat carbs is
– at night, just like Faigain states in his Natural Hormone Enhancement book
– during a workout when insulin sensitivity is actually at its’ peak and where the carbs will prevent excess cortisol production.
It’s excess cortisol output rather than lack of performance that made me change my ways. And while actually endurance seems to increase on a VLC approach, absolute strength decreases.
Why not have the best of both worlds and eat low carb most of the time, but avoid excess cortisol and stimulate muscle growth (or retention in a deficit) and add carbs.
This has also been one huge stumbling block for people who both work out and ‘live the LC vida’ as they are so brainwashed by thinking ‘carbs are evil’ . They are not evil per sé. Excess carbs are evil.
Michael,
Don’t waste your time with that idiot. He shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as serious researchers.
I vote yes. I agree with Malcolm that it’s good to know as much as possible about these topics and it sounds to me like there are studies on both sides of the fence.
over on anthony’s forum, someone known as bugsy (wink, wink!) asked AC why he was getting so worked up over such a trivial issue. He seems to feel that you and your MAD co-conspirators are somehow misleading vast hordes of gullible dieters from reaching their goals of true leaness… and that it’s up to that sole guardian of truth, AC, himself, to slay you and your fellow giants of deception… or something like that. And that that two hour Zeitgeist film, about the great 911 conspiracy (I think, I couldn’t see spending two hours to watch that crap) has something to do with all of this?? Anyway, there’s so much that’s wrongheaded about his postion, I almost don’t know where to start. For one, your advice on how to get lean, diet wise, is almost exactly the same as his. Cut carbs, and if you stall for a long time, cut calories. So what if there’s a metabolic advantage? It’s an interesting side issue at best, really.
Sounds like bugsy (wink, wink!) might get himself banned for life if he doesn’t watch it.
And as to the film Zeitgeist…I’m a total moron. I got it confused with Zelig, the Woody Allen movie, and I couldn’t understand the relevance. Now it’s all clear to me.
Cheers–
MRE
Yes, please dissect it.
AC: ” . . . besides coming on to this forum and sounding like a nagging, serial whining spouse?”
I suspect he has some issues with women as well . . .
You think maybe?
I also vote not to bother with the argument. What could possibly come of it? Would anyone change their minds? Would any new information be discovered? Or would it just elicit more personal attacks and invective?
He reminds me a lot of Kevin Trudeau. He wrote a couple of ‘best sellers’ about health secrets “THEY” don’t want you to know about. Almost every page is just a reference to sign up for his website (For a nominal fee, of course!). Way to stir up a controversy, get a lot of people shaking with fear/rage/paranoia, then cash in!
And as soon as he mentioned the movie ‘Zeitgeist,’ I became skeptical. I’ve had this discussion with others. IMHO, the only value Zeitgeist has is demonstrating the power of hypnosis. There’s a reason the movie starts with like 20 minutes of flashing lights, hypnotic patterns, and ominous music before getting into any ‘information’ (Such as it is). People who watch the whole thing buy into the mis-information and conspiracy theories (All of which are pretty much re-hashed theories that have been discredited many times before). People who skip over that ‘intro’ generally see through them and aren’t impressed.
Who cares about him? Let’s move on to things that are much more interesting.
Dr. Mike,
I look forward to reading your blog every morning, you have so much good and interesting information. Your book literaly saved my life a few years back. I gave copies of it to my friends and family. You’ve helped so many people you’ll never know. This AC bloke is just a junk yard dog at the end of his chain. Don’t waste your valuable time responding to his horse s**t.
Cheers,
George
Glad to hear you’ve done so well, George. Keep it up. I’ll put you down as a ‘nea’.’
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Mike:
You mentioned Pennington’s work which would seem to implicate a faulty metabolism much more than the amount of food that is eaten. You seem to advocate the theory that our low carb diet is essentially a low calorie diet in disguise. The fact that a reduction in appetite associates with weight loss does not mean that this is the fundamental cause.
Pennington observed two facts which are instructive here: First, appetite is always controlled and regulated by the energy demands of the body, both in lean and obese individuals. Second, when individuals consciously attempt to eat less, their metabolism and energy expenditure decrease as well. According to Pennington, “the adipose tissue amasses fat calories in a normal manner after meals but it doesn’t release those calories fast enough to satisfy the needs of the cells between meals.”
I believe Pennington would say that you are mistakenly assuming that the energy or caloric requirement of your patients is the amount of calories they can consume without gaining weight. In reality, as long as these individuals have this metabolic defect and their cells are not receiving the full benefit of the calories they consume, their tissues will always be conserving energy and so expending less than they otherwise might. The cells will be semi-starved even if the person does not appear to be. If these people will restrain their desire to eat, they will only exacerbate the problem.
It’s been my experience throughout weight loss and continuing into maintenance, that fat intake has to be maintained or even increased, regardless of calories. Pennington held that one should rely on the appetite and carefully control carbohydrates (even to the point of zero carbohydrates) in order to increase the fat in adipose tissue which will increase the rate at which the fat calories are released back into the bloodstream in order to compensate for the metabolic defect.
This theory seems to explain this “metabolic advantage” much better and perhaps a better term might be a “metabolic restoration” because this results in a resetting of the body’s equilibrium where “the flow of fat calories out of the adipose tissue again matches the flow of calories in.”
This matches my experience and appears much more natural than a voluntary restriction of calories. If the ratio of fat, protein and carbohydrate is correct to the metabolism then one should be able to eat to satiety and still decrease or maintain weight. A person eats less because their appetite is reduced by the increased availability of fat calories in circulation, not because they are eating less.
Regards,
Charles
Hi Charles–
You’ve basically restated the thesis of Gary Taubes’ book. I believe he and Pennington are correct.
The problem that the a-calorie-is-a-calorie people have is that they seem to think that calories in and calories out are independent variables, which simply isn’t true. They think that if you simply cut calories you will lose weight, and that if you cut calories by 3500 kcal over a week’s time, you’ll lose a pound of fat. Which would be true if calories in and calories out were independent variables, but they’re not.
It has been shown in numerous studies that when people cut calories they also cut the amount of energy expenditure. Same when they increase calories – they increase energy expenditure. On a low-carb diet people seem to be able to cut calories better without decreasing their energy expenditure than they can cutting calories on higher carb diets, which is where the metabolic advantage comes from.
Cheers–
MRE
Alas, last night I forgot to vote I was so annoyed.
I vote yes to dissection of the actual studies, firm NO to giving this classless hack any more attention than he has already been given.
I’m kind of torn on the carbs after exercise question for myself. I started drinking Endurox or organic chocolate milk (which has the same carb:protein ratio but costs less and comes conveniently premixed in heat-stable 8 oz servings) after hockey games (i.e. 45 minutes of hard interval skating) or heavy lifting on the recommendation of a coach and while I did feel better faster afterwards my weight loss — which had been almost terrifyingly fast to that point due mostly to my activity level — ground to a complete halt and I started to have trouble maintaining my lower weight, even after halving the serving. I had a little better luck by supplementing strictly *while* exercising (well, y’know. On the bench between shifts), but not by much. I would still plan to supplement if I’m in a tournament situation or similar where there might be 2 or more games in a day, or maybe if I felt particularly worn down heading into the gym, but otherwise I think it works out better for me to have a solid low-carb meal after a workout.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is enough biological variability that nothing works for everyone.
Cheers–
MRE
Yes. I’d like to hear your take on these metabolic ward studies. Particularly since AC’s whole argument hinges upon them.
Dr. Eades,
I enjoy your blog. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts as to what a “low level” of insulin is quantitatively. In other words, how low does the level need to be in one’s system to facilitate weight loss? How long do you need to have a low level of insulin circulating for it to start working?
I am a type 1 diabetic with metabolic syndrome and type 2 in my family. Compared to other type 1’s I require a very high amount of insulin. I am an “apple” shape and qualify as overweight but not obese. Trying to lose weight is a very frustrating process because I don’t think I ever hit that low level of circulating insulin and I’m physically adding the insulin myself. Even on a very low carb diet, the amount of insulin I pump in is very high and I need to bolus even for a 0 carb meal. Yet I can’t stop doing it or my sugars will go sky-high (see the previous comment on diabulemia). For myself, I sure can’t figure out the solution.
Hi Dee–
Sounds to me like you need to work with a good diabetologist who understands how to do what you’re trying to do. Dr. Bernstein sees patients but he lives in New York. I know that he sees patients who come from afar then manages them over the phone. Or you may need to look around for someone near you who can help you.
As I mentioned earlier 30 units of insulin is how much the pancreas makes and releases daily in an average person. If you are overweight, you are taking too much insulin. But I do understand your problem of not wanting your sugars to go up. A diet high in fat with a moderate amount of protein (you’ll have to cover the protein with insulin) and very few carbs should do the trick. And you can add into the mix a little resistance exercise, which will help you lower your insulin doses even more by making you more insulin sensitive. But do all this with the supervision of your physician.
Good luck.
MRE
How studies can be dissected is educating for those of us who don’t have the experience or skills to do it ourselves as yet. Like many readers, i bought and enjoyed his TGCC book and am saddened by his aggression. Yes to the dissection, no to anything that prolongs the argument etc with AC, life is too short etc
BTW, although I’m NOT a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, I was made to watch this video by an acquaintance, and for the life of me, can’t rencocile what i see with the events of that tragic day. Can anyone explain it please??
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=49f_1172526096
Interesting. I can’t explain it, but I don’t necessarily trust anything I see on video.
Wow, just found a great argument on Dr. Briffa’s blog about low carbs and diabetes.
” Dr Bernstein, Dr Mary Vernon, and Dr Mike Eades are all getting excellent results with diabetics.”
What slogging of insults going on over there in the comments section.
http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2007/10/03/why-is-the-dietary-advice-given-to-diabetics-so-often-so-woefully-inadequate/
What a cat fight. I hate getting into those kinds of things. In fact, I hate even reading about them.
Cheers–
MRE
Please don’t give the guy any more satisfaction. No more mentions, ever.
As much as I would like you to dissect his arguements, I will have to admit that it would be a total waste of your time and effort.
And to think I bought his book before yours.
Maybe you can request a refund. 😉
Dr. Eades, I’m afraid that you have no choice. If you don’t debunk Colpo’s metabolic studies, there will always be a doubt about your work. It’s like a boxer that is avoiding another boxer for a championship match. His people will always be calling you a liar and charlatan, thus tainting the excellent reputation you have built over decades.
Come on Doc, we know you can do it, all you have to do is put your mind to it!
It’s not a matter of whether or not I can. It is a matter of whether everyone wants to read the meticulous going through it all or not. Debunking them is easy. But even when they’re debunked thoroughly Colpo and his acolytes will refuse to believe it.
I’m interested in the studies, but not in talking anymore about AC. I vote yes.
Fantastic post, great science as usual. I’d love to hear about the studies, but let’s not talk about AC any more. If he really had any solid science, he would not feel the need to express anger over this issue, which is simply one of weighing the available evidence. So let’s stick to the science by all means, and let AC boil away in his own dogma.
Hey Dave–
Thanks for the vote. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you via email. Are you checking you gmail acct?
Best–
MRE
Just to follow up – it surprises me how angry personal trainer types get over this issue of exercise and fat loss. I think they’d be relieved to find that the link between these is tenuous at best, since I’m sure many of their clients get frustrated with lack of progress and quit. Not only is that bad for business, it’s bad for the clients’ health, since not only are they not going to lose the fat, they’re also not going to reap the other health benefits of exercise. Setting realistic exercise goals would, I think, lead to greater client retention, and of course improve the health of those people. Seems like everybody wins, but I guess the strength of dogmatic belief prevails over rational thought.
Or maybe it’s the carbs . . . 🙂
Yeah, maybe it’s the carbs.
Dr. Eades, com on! Want to know what are the ‘real issues’ you are distracting people from?
The real issue is that the metabolic advantage of low-carb vs .high-carb diets, at isocaloric levels, is insignificant, if there is any at all.
I’ll take this as a vote in favor of debunking.
ME: No substantive discussion of their work; no intelligent criticism; simply a dismissal because their work contradicts what Anthony believes with all his heart to be true.
AC: (From his disclaimer in the e-mail I received) Neither the interviewer or interviewee are in any way responsible for any resulting nervous breakdowns or intra-cranial hemorrhages occurring in those who can’t handle information that clashes with their own deeply held beliefs.
Quite possibly AC is already suffering from his own intra-cranial hemorrhage, hence all the vitriol of late. Heck, the only thing he can come up with in the MuscleHack interview is that you are a meanie who picks on women. It’s truly laughable.
As interested as I’d be in having you pick apart the chapter in his book, I think it’s time to move on to other more interesting stuff. As others have said, he’s already gotten too much attention as it is and it’s feeding the legend in his own mind syndrome that he’s so clearly suffering from. (Sheesh, I’d forgotten his fondness for 9-11 conspiracies as it’s been quite while since he’s sent around e-mails flogging that particular horse.)
My advice – Colpo, or anyone with an attitude like the one he expresses, is begging for attention, in an entirely negative (and unhealthy) way. Just ignore him. You don’t need to defend yourself or your ideas against that kind of behaviour. The guy’s immaturity speaks for itself.
I, for one, would like to see a refutation of Colpo’s book.
Yea to metabolic ward studies – I’m genuinely interested.
AC’s going to continue to wage his private war against you and yours regardless. Interesting what some people choose to spend time on.
Please don’t waste the time. I vote no on the dissection.
Dr. Eades,
I vote no – at least in the current context. Giving an adolescent brat like Colpo more publicity (albeit indirectly) on your blog is exactly what he’d want – more fuel for the fire, as it were. A cursory read through the comments so far show that more than a few of your readers wish that you outline the flaws behind the metabolic ward studies, so you should do so – but without mentioning (or bashing) Colpo in the least. There’s no winning these kinds of Internet pi$$ing matches and your life will be much better off without giving Colpo another thought. I think the majority of your readers are sufficiently capable thinkers and can decide for themselves on the strength of your (and Colpo’s) arguments without all the ad-hominem back and forth.
I wonder if Dr. Kendrick would consider a run-in with Anthony Colpo to be a risk factor for CVD?
Always enjoy reading your insights and offerings.
I guess Dr. Kendrick would consider it a risk factor only if it stressed him. I think it’s amusing and not at all stressful.
Cheers–
MRE
Yikes! What is with this guy? I bought his book, but I am liking him less all the time.
Anthony………chill!
“Hi Sherrie–
I have them in hard copy. I’ll see if any of them can be gotten online without a university affiliation and let everyone know.
BTW, roamed through your blog and found a lot of good info there. Keep it up.
Cheers–
MRE”
Hello Dr Eades
That would be really good if possible. Colpo seems so strong minded in regards to these metabolic ward studies it would be good to see if he has good reason there and is rude out of being jaded or if he is simply being rude for the publicity, being close minded or both.
But also, from a low carb perspective it would be interesting as well so would make good subject material.
And thanks I am glad you liked it 🙂
Dr. Eades,
Thanks so much for your fantastic blog, which I routinely enjoy reading. I’ve learned a lot here!
My vote: Please don’t bother picking apart Colpo’s book. There are so many other interesting things to discuss, I’m sure!
Thanks sincerely for letting me have a vote,
Ty
It’s fine by me if you want to talk about the ward studies, but ditto the request for no more mentions of AC, ever. All you’ll do is make him an even bigger legend in his own mind.
I vote “no”, although I certainly understand if you chose to do so. I’d prefer to read entries on the Low Carb Library, or the carnivorous diet.
I seriously doubt that we need further discussion on the metabolic advantage of low-carb food – at least in this forum – or did we already forget that the wrong food when eaten is stored and made inaccessible as fat because of the action of insulin?
Think of low-carb food as the energy equivalent of striking a match to light up the tail of a horse. Step aside and watch the energy unleashed from the adipose tissue.
Door Number Three is sounding good–I’ll cast my vote there. The studies would be interesting–but AC mentions are not appealing.
Although I will always respect your willingness to “stand up to a bully” and put in a good fight for what you believe in, I would say that it is probably best to turn the other cheek in this instance. Your credibility on the matter far exceeds his, and no matter how much scientific evidence you provide, he will respond with self-serving, alpha-male rhetoric. There really is no chance of winning this fight. In my mind, and likely that of many intelligent readers of this blog, your presentation of the evidence and willingness to consider alternative positions place you in a position far above that of this bombastic attention-seeker.
So, while I would very much enjoy hearing your continuation on the science of the metabolic advantage, I think it would be best done in your normal style without mention of those who choose to childishly lambast your reputation.
I’m sorry that my comment is not related to Anthony Colpo, but I don’t know how to contact you for your thoughts about this recent discovery regarding nitrates:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071112172140.htm
Many thanks!
Hi Monty–
I’ve read the press reports on this study, but I’ve been too busy to pull the actual paper. I don’t feel competent to discuss in intelligently until I’ve read it through.
Best–
MRE
I vote yes, not because I want to add to Mr. Colpo’s sense of self-importance, but because I’m always keen to learn as much as I can from someone who actually comprehends the data etc., and who can therefore shed light on it in a way that helps me to understand its relevance better.
I hope it’s not too late to vote yea. I don’t see what’s so controversal about an intellectual discussion of a book. It doesn’t need to be personal. Thank you for offering to do the work.
i already voted “yes” for looking into these studies that form the center of ACs creed and i still do so. But after having read his newest rant in his forum i am completely convinced that it is absolutely futile to try to have an open-minded discussion with AC. Therefore, i second other voices here to leave the dispute with AC behind and concentrate on the arguments.
Why waste any more of your time wrangling with AC. He knows he’s right and nothing you say is going to make any difference. I know you’re right, so there you go.
I vote no. This is enough of a response.
My first impression of Anthony Colpo was that he was a young man with a serious anger management problem and possibly unhinged. I agreed with what he said about low-fat and I have to admit it was somewhat gratified to see low-fat vilified in such strong terms. My own experience with a return to health on the Atkins diet produced some very angry feelings about the medical profession without much of an outlet.
I’m now regretting buying his book as it’s clear that he is a mixed blessing at best and my initial analysis of him was correct. 🙁
There’s other, more important issues to consider than metobolic advantage. My grandmother died of a heart attack and she struggled in her last year with Type 2 diabetes with occasional blood sugars over 300. My grandfather died of heart attack at a younger age than his father, despite being on the “heart healthy” (low fat) diet that I remember so well from my childhood.
I suspect I will also probably lose my Aunt and Dad in the next two decades to heart disease. Both my Aunt and Dad have been seriously overweight (apple shaped) for most of their adult lives. (And my Aunt is a nutritionist!!!) Both are seeped in the low-fat prevents heart disease paradigm and worry, ironically, about my chances of heart disease.
The faster we can get out the message that the villain is empty sugar and starch calories, not fat, the happier I will be.
As a long time lurker, I vote for discussion of the evidence without the personality conflicts (although understandable on your part). I have enjoyed your blog immensely and have recently bought your PP books, so you should expect a large royalty check coming your way soon 🙂
Hi Steve–
Thanks for buying the books. I hope you enjoy them. I’m trying to decide what to do with the royalty money.
Cheers–
MRE
Doc-
Spot on as always. You handled this perfectly.
Robb
Dr Mike:
Sorry for digressing, but I couldn’t resist commenting on Steve P.’s comment and your response on having to think long and hard on what you will spend your royalty money on.
Most brain-celled challenged people comment that we can’t believe a word you (Atkins, Taubes, McCleary) are saying because you’re just trying to sell your book. However, they (collectively) are spending millions of dollars MONTHLY paying to go to weight watchers/jenny craig/bernstein clinic or paying for a gym club, millions of dollars buying that packaged crap from Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and what other weight loss companies ad nauseum produce, among other things.
Sorry about the rant.
And I forgot to vote. I say No to dissecting the person’s, who shall remain unnamed, material. I agree that we shouldn’t feed the troll. Blogging on stuff that you consider important will keep everyone happy, however if you feel you can afford the time then it’s your call.
Hi Hellistile–
I have long ago gotten beyond the you’re-just-trying-to-sell-a-diet-book mantra. What the people who mouth that don’t seem to understand is that we don’t just wake up one day and decide to make up a diet and then write a book about it. We have spent years in medical practice fiddling and diddling with the diets of thousands of patients, and in the process have come up with a general diet that works for a whole lot of people. Only then did we decide to write on it. And what we wrote about is the very program we managed our patients on.
When you’re an author and you go around making the circuit of radio and TV talk shows, you do it because the publisher sends you. And – at least in our case – we genuinely believe in what we preach.
Didn’t you vote already? Or are you taking my admonition to vote early and vote often to heart?
Cheers–
MRE
I would LOVE to see you analyze the studies. I would love to see you refute whatever arguments AC makes in that chapter of his book, but only as a means to open up arguments, counter-arguments, and so forth. That is, as a possible source of rhetorical starting points.
Many of the points he makes in between his emotional outbursts do seem reasonable, as he presents them, so I would be grateful for any informed, dispassionate discussion of them.
I’m not interested in more comment or info on AC personally, unless something truly new were uncovered. I think we have enough on that front. In fact, I feel it would be inappropriate to say any unkind words about him. He’s unwell. I feel compassion for him and hope that he gets help.
I’m torn. While I know you can never convince someone like Colpo, there are many unanswered questions concerning metabolic advantage or as I prefer to call it, differential metabolism. For example, if I read you correctly, you are saying that low carb which I will define as less than 50 carbs per day doesn’t necessarily cause weight loss, but it will not allow weight gain due to low insulin levels preventing the storage of fat. The rest is lost as heat. This seems like an easy theory to test. If a person is fed a high fat, low carb diet of a certain calorie level, you should find more energy lost as heat than if the same person is fed high carb, low fat diet. This could be done ascross over design. I did mention an example of that in my comment about Karl-Popper-Metabolic-Advantage-and-the-c57bl6-Mouse where identical twins were fed different diets and no energy difference was observed, but as you noted it was unpublished research. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction in that on the one hand, you and (Gary Taubes) cite examples of overfeeding of 4000 calories and greater with minimal weight gain and then on the other hand (you) state that metabolic advantage is small, e.g. 200 kcal for a 2000kcal diet.
It occurs to me that part of Colpo’s problem is that he has not treated patients and helped them to lose weight. One of the main points of the Taubes book is that the people who proposed and forced into dogma the low fat hypothesis had little or no clinical experience treating obese patients. You made this point also. Gary also makes the point that most of the biochemistry supporting low carb is basically unknown to the nutritional community while the biochemists are so buried in their research as to not realize it consequences. This make Gary (and you) the true scientists combining research from different field into applied science. Whoops that actually probably makes you into engineers.
While I believe in metabolic advantage on an intuitive level, I haven’t seen it in my life. I have to vote yes, because it’s too important a subject to be glossed over. This goes to one of the main problems with the low fat hypothesis which is that it was never give a sound physiological basis. However, low carb is given a more sound basis by using the hormonal processes of insulin and glucagon among others.
P.S. Thanks for the time and space to ramble. This also seems like a way to determine the number of actively involved readers of your blog.
Hi Mark–
It’s good to hear from you. You’re always welcome to ‘ramble’ on this blog.
You wrote:
I’m talking about two different things here. First, the metabolic advantage as I use the term means the excess calories that get chewed up on a low-carb diet in the gluconeogenic efforts required to convert protein to glucose. There is plenty of glucose coming in on a low-calorie, high-carb diet so that this conversion doesn’t have to be made. When you look at the calories consumed in this process it comes out to be somewhere between a few and a few hundred.
The other situation has been described for at least 100 years in the literature with the term luxus consumption. This means simply the body’s wasting of food energy when it has more than enough. The situation occurs with both high-carb and low-carb diets high in calories. But in the high-carb diets there is more of a tendency for some of those excess calories to get added as fat since elevated insulin levels promote fat storage. In low-carb diets where insulin levels are low, fat accumulation is much less prevalent. In fact, in my experience it doesn’t happen much at all.
Hope this clears things up. If not, I guess I ought to write a longer post on the subject.
Best–
MRE
I get the impression that people like AC are mentally hard wired to regard those who do not agree with them as antagonists. It’s a personality disorder of sorts. They just have to be in the right.
I don’t know if there’s a sure connection but it seems likely that much of the animosity expressed in the scientific, political, and religious arenas may stem from this sort of attitude. Again, it’s not necessarily the result of upbringing but rather a manifestation of an inborn character trait. For an interesting discussion of this phenomenon, Google “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” by Richard Hofstadter.
Several years ago I attempted to discuss the metabolic advantage phenomenon with AC. His two responses were polite but dismissive. And it was apparent he did not read my first e-mail in its entirety.
The evidence I cited was Dr. Penelope J. Greene’s comparison study of three dietary configurations. Anthony said, “Greene’s study still involved free-living subjects, not subjects
confined to a metabolic ward in whom food consumption could be observed
first-hand. I can give you food to take home and eat, but how do I know you
ate it all, or that you ate other non-study food? The only way to
replicate tightly-controlled metabolic ward conditions is to, well, conduct
a study under tightly-controlled metabolic ward conditions…”
Dr. Greene’s study attracted considerable attention in October, 2003 because the results were striking and unequivocal. Unfortunately, further research did not materialize due to lack of funding. For more information on this Google “Harvard Gazette: Harvard researcher finds dieters eat more, lose …”
Hi Dave–
I think you’re right about the personality disorder. Plus, as Benjamin Franklin pointed out in his autobiography, it’s a whole lot easier to admit you’re wrong when you aren’t so obstinately positive of your own opinion. If you say, ‘in my opinion…’ or ‘until I see something that contradicts it, I believe…’ it’s much easier to admit you were wrong. But when you come on as AC does with the ‘I am right on this subject. Everyone else is a fool. Anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot. I’m smarter than every one else because I read more than anyone else’ it makes it really, really tough to admit that you might have been wrong.
I heard Penny Greene present the data from this study. And I spoke with her at length about it afterward. The meticulousness with which she conducted it makes it at least as valid, if not more so, than many metabolic ward studies. It was incredible the lengths she went to to record the consumption of her subjects, including taking them there food herself when there came a major snowstorm that prevented many of them from coming to the study facility to get it themselves.
Cheers–
MRE
Mike, my vote on dissecting the chapter of Colpo’s book would be a solid ‘no, please don’t bother.’ When someone is looking so relentlessly for attention, GIVING him attention isn’t likely to resolve anything. And I agree with the person who commented that your efforts aren’t likely to change Colpo’s mind, nor sway any of his supporters who aren’t inclined to keep an open mind. By the same token, people who have a broader perspective and a firm grip on the real world don’t need additonal reinforcement.
I’m also the lucky girl who gets to sift through all the fallout on the forum side of the website whenever AC perceives that he’s being attacked. He’s tried to join and start flame wars twice–I finally had to ban his IP address so he wouldn’t slip through. I’d just as soon his behavior not continue–carrying his general attitude and the flame wars he starts on his own forum over into the PP forums doesn’t advance any knowlege except that he’s an immature spotlight chaser whose 15 minutes of fame keep getting renewed by people who rise to his bait.
Dissect studies, theories, news articles that interest you, absolutely.
But please don’t give AC another 15 minutes of fame in the process; his 15 minutes should have been up a long time ago.
Hell yes. When you get done with him there won’t be anything left but a nine pound frown.
Nice allusion.
From what I can tell, it seems that the two of you agree that if weight loss stalls on a low carb diet, cutting calories within the context of that low carb diet is likely to break the stall. Colpo’s saying that insulin doesn’t cause weight gain, though, is mindboggling; weight loss through pancreactomy (is that the right word? Just guessing) or weight gain through insulin injection is probably as consistently repeatable a result as exists in medicine.
As for the the World Trade Center conspiracy thing, even if the video’s for real, even if the odds of a mistaken report turning out to be correct five or ten minutes later are vanishingly small, there is an infinity of vanishingly small possibilities to choose from, and the odds of some number of those things happening is probably extremely high.
I say let Colpo go back up the mountain and chisel out a few more stone tablets.
Go ahead and dissect the data if you are so inclined. But stick to that only and ignore the personal attacks. They are beneath your notice and addressing them only serve to validate them in some ways.
Pretend you are actually having a disagreement on a minor point with a respected colleague. It will serve to present your point of view, and highlight by contrast, the inappropriateness of AC’s conduct.
That would probably annoy him more than anything else you can do, and detractors can’t take your lack of response as some sort of proof they are right, as they surely would.
I used to frequent his website frequently back when it wasn’t just one big advert for his book. But when he shut down his website in a fit of pique, I was very put off. I decided to wait to buy his book. Then the strange tin foils post on his mailing list escalated. And I read a couple of his postings on some forums and became convinced he was unhinged. That book is permanently off my list now.
The thing is us laymen do not (for the most part) have the time, interest and expertise to interpret studies on our own. We must rely on other people to do that for us. The press has proven totally unreliable, and the papers’ own abstract are often biased to an extreme. This leaves only people like you and Gary Taubes to light the way, so to speak, and guide us through the morass of misinformation. That requires trust and credibility. When AC acts the way he does he loses all credibility. Not only is the childishness off putting in the extreme, but his obstinate refusal to consider any other point of view but his own makes him unreliable as a guide, and no better than Ancel Keys or the Pharmaceutical pocket researchers. History has shown that good science and great egos are incompatible.
Mike,
I’d like to see a post on your strategies when a has patient come to you and says, “This diet isn’t working.” What’s your first step?
Beyond looking at macronutrient content of the diet, how do you address overconsumption of calories?
Also, what is your experience with people not losing fat because they’re “not eating enough.” Have you found this to be a common reality or a rarity?
People can debate the science forever, but your practical perspective is really what most of us can benefit from.
If the majority want it, I’d certainly be interested in your take on “the metabolic ward studies.” But it might be a better use of your time to present how you’ve dealt with the calorie issue as a physician/weight loss expert.
Thanks and best wishes,
Adam
Hey Adam–
I thought you were gone until Dec. 1. That’s what your blog says.
You’ve brought up some good ideas. I’ll put together a post on the very things you mentioned, i.e., our strategy when patients stop losing weight.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers–
Mike
I think commenter Susan had it right: it will never end with a guy like this. Even when you precisely and definitely defuse his arguments, he will respond with ad hominem, diversions, non sequiturs, etc., and then you’ll then have to respond to those problems, and so on. I would hate to see you waste your valuable embarking on that kind of journey without end.
If you aim is to refute Mr. Colpo’s facts, then by all means do so. If, however, you aim is to refute Mr. Colpo, do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time. IME, it’s not worth it.
Don’t address him by name. The guy is injecting humongous amounts of steroids. The blind, blithering rage, the bizarre idea that scientific issues can be settled by the taking off of shirts — he sounds like every other Gold’s Gym hulk just back from Tijuana with a fresh stash.
If he weren’t in Australia I would fear for your safety.
Please do the critic Mike!!!
I vote yes – for no other reason than to add to the information pool.
I can’t help thinking about all the damage AC is doing to his HPA-axis (just finished Malcolm Kendrick’s book) with his seemingly constant hysterical outbursts. If they’re any indication of the way he behaves on a day-to-day basis he must be chronically stressed and probably on the way to giving himself premature heart disease…..how ironic.
Although I would love to read your rebuttle, my vote has to be: don’t waste your time.
I had a lot of time for Anthony during his Omnivore days & still do to some extent although we did disagree on the whole metabolic advantage thing. In the begining he was all for Atkins until he took on the metabolic advantage of low carb stuff in Atkins book & he totally went nuts about it. I could see where he was coming from though as he was talking about low carbing & muscle building quite a different thing from us mere mortals who don’t give a fig for being ripped & carring around a six pack or in Anthony’s case a seriously great slab!! really fit bodies for me any way are great to look at but hey I don’t want one. His beef with Dr Atkins while he was still with us was that he wasn’t trim taut & terrific so what would he know. I did try to tell Anthony that some of us don’t care about ripped bodies other than as eye candy but he seems to think it equates with good health so if you aren’t all brimming with fantastic muscle structure then you aren’t healthy! He just could see that some of us just don’t want to look like that but are still interested in the other health benefits low carb bestowes upon us – low blood pressure, no diabetic conditions, improved heath markers for not contracting cancer etc. Oh well if you feel like giving us more information on the whole thing then please do so but do it for the information’s sake & not to debunk or prove Anthony wrong as that sort of slanging match just makes all of us a bit tired & probably much less informed if we just stick to the facts! cheers & thanks for your dedication to the health of us all.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DWwB5MYTr64
Shame on me, but I couldn’t resist.
Absolutely hilarious. I should post it for all to see. In fact, I will.
Thanks for sending.
Cheers–
MRE
After all the other comments, I am reluctant to add anything, but this post was extremely valuable, not because I care about AC or what he has to say, but because within it you explained why weight loss on low-carb can be slow or non-existent and why one can eat a high-fat diet and not gain weight. I’m not complaining that I’ve lost 30 lbs since Feb. ’06, and once it’s lost, the weight stays off, but I’ve about 20 more I’d like to lose, and your explanation helped me understand why it’s not coming off readily. Now I have no excuse for not creating that caloric deficit!
I read AC’s Great Cholesterol Con, by the way, and while I appreciated his passion for the subject and the amount of time he put into gathering studies, the writing was definitely that of an amateur who needed the help of an editor.
Please doc, don’t waste your energy.
Yeah, I used to read his Omnivore blogs, but after he started flip-flopping – yeah I remember how he went into great detail about how switching from a low fat to low carb diet practically saved his health, then one day he found the glory of reduced calorie diets again…(“it’s only calories that really count”….)…
doc, don’t waste your time. I think he’s scary with true sociopathic, narcissistic tendencies. I’ve been watching enough Forensics shows and court tv and Law and Order Criminal Intent, to recognize another perp when I see one.
He’s turned into one scary dude.
If you think an exegesis of AC’s work will add to the scientific literature, then do it. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort. You are never going to convince the madman nor any of his followers, so I’d hate to see you waste your time.
I know I’m never going to persuade AC or his idiot followers, but that’s not the reason for doing the critique. It’s for the other people who have sense enough to understand it.
Love–
Daddo
I vote no. This guy is crazy. It’s so obvious he’s trying to promote his book because he mentions it in almost every other sentance on everything he types about. Don’t let him shamelessly promote his book by disguising it as a “debate”. I’d never even heard of this guy until reading about him on your blog.
Love all your articles Dr. Mike! Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Angie.
Don’t bother dealing with AC. He does have some admirable talents,
his book “The cholesterol Con” was well researched, his original site “omnivore” site was good if a little over the top.
Somewhere he has “lost the plot” and is now beyond reason.
Slight (and tardy) correction to Michael Richard’s Italian, but which yields an even better analysis of AC’s character:
“Colpo” in Italian means a hit, a blow or a strike or similar action.
(The Italian noun for blame or fault is “colpa.”)
Fred Hahn is correct people, Anthony Colpo is a true jerk who is in it ONLY for himself. This is coming from his biggest supporter- me Razwell. It took me a while to see it, but he did it to me too. No one is safe from Anthony Colpo turning on them
Hi Dr. Eades,
I realize my reading of all this is months from it’s origin, but…..
I would be curious to see if any of Anthony’s book is gleaned from Ellington Darden, Ph.D.’s work.
See his website http://www.drdarden.com and check Amazon for the over 2 dozen books he’s authored. Much information on his website as well.
Hi Dr. Eades
Good news.
I think Anthony Colpo owes you money, $20,000 to be exact. Colpo does not understand that obesity is extremely complex, unbelieveably so. He does not understand there are literally dozens of variables affecting it. There’s genetics, stress, food quality, pathogens, symbiotes, toxins to name a few.
You can use the experiment with mice Dr. Eades to refute Anthony Colpo’s calories are everything claims. Researchers took obese mice and extraced gut flora from them and transplanted transplanted it into thin mice. Genetics amoung the mice were identical, and so a controlled variable. Food was also a controlled variable – all mice ate the same foods and got exactly the same calories each day. The thin transplanted mice became fat. Thin controlled mice remained thin.
This experiment shows that intestinal flora are one of the variables affecting obesity, and it shows that there are circumstances where you can get results ranging from thin to obese WITH ABSOLUTELY ZERO MODULATION OF CALORIES.
I’d like to publicly show just how Anthony Colpo’s information is a distortion of the facts, or he is just plain ignorant . That Fat Loss Bible is pure unadulterated crap. The book is nothing more than a peddling of the misinformation that “calories are everything” . Colpo is WRONG about calories being everything and we now have even more experimental proof. Calories are only one variable amoung many, many.
P.S. To anyone new to this thread: I am Razwell, “Razzi” , Anthony Colpo’s former biggest syncophant (I was so misled and foolish). So for me to say this, it means something big time. Don’t fall for what I did people, Anthony Colpo is an internet charlatan making a lot of money off of the gullible.
You or Fred Hahn are more than welcome to refute Colpo with this and try to claim your prize . The only request I have is that you tell him who it came from 😉 😉
Take Care, Dr. Eades
Razwell
Hey Razwell
You track him down (he seems to have vanished from the face of the earth) and collect, and I’ll split it with you.
Dr Eades, how do you counter the ward studies? Anthiny did dissect one of your claims from a study you used information from, and he correctly showed how you ignored the true results (both in totality of the study and with individuals, ) and used a speculative measurement of Kilo calories that the author’s of the study put in as an aside. Their conclusion was the opposite of yours: no metabolic effect in weight loss, yet you stated the opposite. It was my mistake to take what you said hook line and sinker without looking deeper, and I won’t do that with Anthony either. He does however make some good points based on controlled studies, which I have not seen refuted or countered by the low carb promoters, of which I had been also, until the futility of the diet, and Antony’s clear evidence, based on real controlled studies showed. Now to be fair, I don’t like all the name calling, You must admit, you have done your share also from what I have read on your Blog. If you are so sure of your science, please give us the CONTROLLED dietary studies (I.E Ward Studies, ) That prove what you are saying in any significant way. As Anthony stated and showed in a Ward study, there is a slight thermogenic effect with increased protein consumption, but NO significant reduction in calories. This question could be settled easily, ( maybe it already has, by the already published Ward Studies.) You and like minded low carb promoters could pay for a ANOTHER Controlled Ward Study by a reputable institution, with over sight from skeptics, and settle this once and for all. Like the ” healthy” Vegetarians I see, who are paunchy and over weight, you and other low carb people display the same body type. Why if there is a metabolic difference? Could it be, that the great determiner is after all calories in vs calories burned, and not the wishful thinking of so many that want to eat as much as they want and still lose weight?That is the conclusion I am coming to. Paleo/Low Carb SOUNDED great, but I fear, I didn’t look at the real science that has already been done
Years ago, when Colpo wrote his book, I spent a good deal of time countering his arguments. In fact, I did it over the space of two long posts that you and read here and here.
https:undefinedundefinedwww.medrxiv.orgundefinedcontentundefined10.1101undefined2020.10.27.20220202v9
Link doesn’t work