A leading obesity researcher, G. A. Bray, has written his analysis of Gary Taubes's book Good Calories, Bad Calories in the current issue of the journal Obesity Reviews.
I previously wrote about the Taubes book, and Taubes generously answered questions on this site.
Bray admits that the book "has much useful information and is well worth reading." But he obviously doesn't buy its main premise: that it's carbohydrates, not fat, that cause heart disease and are driving the current obesity "epidemic."
Obviously, he's entitled to his opinion, but I find some of his logic a bit strange. For example, he says, "However, some of the conclusions that the author reaches are not consistent with current concepts about obesity."
Well, duh, to put it bluntly.
The point of the book is to challenge current concepts about obesity and heart disease and to get people thinking about new ways to look at these problems. Bray, like a lot of doctors, seems to think that anyone who doesn't have an M.D. is incapable of independent thought and should simply parrot the opinions of the current leaders in the field.
Yet it's often people who propose something that contradicts "current dogma" who are the ones who in the long run contribute the most to science.
Simply continuing down the same path as everyone else also does advance science in little dribs and drabs. But it's the creative thinkers who say, "Wait a minute. What if this currently popular idea is all wrong? What if we need to look at the problem in a new way?" who are responsible for major advances.
When I read Bray's comment, I imagined a 16th journal reviewing the recent work of Copernicus, who proposed that the earth circled the sun. "This book has much useful information," the reviewer might write in Latin, "However, some of the conclusions that the author reaches are not consistent with current eclesiastical concepts that the earth is the center of the universe."
In fact, such was the position of the church. But today we think of the 16th century church leaders as being as misguided as the people trying to turn lead into gold, and Copernicus is highly respected.
When I was in college, my professors ridiculed a scientist named Lynn Margulis, who supported the view that mitochondria, the organelles within cells that produce energy for the cell, had evolved from bacteria that had invaded single-cell organisms. "Some woman thinks that mitochondria evolved from bacteria," they said, and we all had a good laugh.
But now almost everyone agrees that she was right.
When I was in college, my professors also ridiculed the idea of continental drift, or plate techtonics. But now almost everyone accepts that theory.
Richard Bernstein, who has type 1 diabetes, was heading rapidly toward death when he discovered that he could control his diabetes a lot better if he omitted most carbohydrates from his diet. At the time "current concepts about diabetes," as endorsed by the American Diabetes Association, were that the best diet for someone with diabetes was low in fat and high in starch.
