Exercise away the plateau?

I have to admit it, I'm lazy as hell. I've never been all that keen on exercising, or when I was a kid, playing. Back then, I liked to stay inside and read instead.

One summer when I was in college, I did a summer program where I was a camp counselor glorified baby sitter for high school students. We were expected to stay in the dorm pretty much around the clock with the kids. The gym however, was an acceptable place to be if we weren't in the dorm. So I started going to the gym to get the hell away from the dorm and the kids. I exercised everyday almost for about two or three hours. I had never been to the gym so much in my life. Why did I do this? I'm sure you've heard of the 'freshman 15' where the new college student gains fifteen pounds from eating the crap that Sodexo (used to be called Sodexho), or some similar food service, serves. I had gained something like 90 pounds in the two years that I had been at school. I never thought I particularly stuffed my face. I simply ate until I wasn't hungry. Skinny people do that all the time and don't gain weight. Anyway, I was approaching 250 pounds, and this after I had been down to 163 pounds (after eating Atkins no less!), from a high of 270 pounds when I was in high school. Let's just say, I wasn't having any of it.

This is before I understood how low carb works, so in addition to going to the gym I cut back my food intake. I was hungry all summer, but I lost twenty-five pounds (which left me at about 225 pounds) and in the end found it easier to do the elliptical machine for nearly an hour. I also lifted weights too. The last time I went to the gym, which was just before school started for the fall, this skinny bitch approached me and told me that I ought not to lift weights until I had lost more weight. Really? People seem quite capable of poking into your personal business. I shut her up by telling her my doctor had told me to. Well, I didn't have a doctor, but most doctors would tell you that resistance training is beneficial, especially if you're overweight.

I stopped going to the gym because during my senior year, I barely had time to sleep, much less exercise. I did maintain my weight though, and I credit that to living in an apartment-style dorm and not eating at the cafeteria very often. I think Sodexo makes it a point to inject sugar, er, I mean High Fructose Corn Syrup, into all of their food. Typical fare was a burger with fries, or mystery meat with potatoes and some other vegetable. Don't get me wrong, if I had understood how low carb worked, I could have probably eaten there on it. I just didn't know at the time. Ignorance is not bliss.

When I graduated I stayed about 225 pounds for a while. Then I decided that I really wanted to lose some weight since I was going to Europe, so I started restricting calories and going to the gym again. I typically walked on the treadmill for an hour with it set to being inclined. I did lose another twenty pounds. After my trip, all the weight came right back the second I started eating until I was content. That's a great thing about low-carb. You can eat until you're not hungry, and you don't gain weight. The same could never be said when I wasn't doing low-carb.

Anyway, I was back at 220 pounds when I started this low carb journey back in May of last year. I'm currently at about 180 lbs, which I haven't weighed since before I went to college.

So what's the point of my story? About exercise. When I used to walk a lot, especially before my trip to Europe in 2009, I would be so sore. All the time. My legs used to feel like they were on fire the next day, especially if I skived off of walking for a few weeks and then started doing it again. (Maybe the pain is what made me not ever have the inclination to be a gym rat.) The first day after walking a few miles was always hell. And it often didn't get much better. I would think, 'I have been walking five miles every other day, shouldn't it get easier?'

Well, I've been stuck at 180 pounds for about a month now, and it's kinda annoying. I am 5'9" tall, and I think I probably ought to weigh 160 or maybe a little less. My BMI is currently 26.6, which is slightly overweight. I might ought to weigh 150, I'm not sure. I'd have to see when I get to 160. Anyway, I decided that I could do one of three things to break this plateau. I could try exercising, which I haven't done, because as I said at the beginning of this, I'm lazy as hell, not to mention I'm not masochistic. I don't like pain. The second thing I could do is cut out the diet coke and splenda sweetened kool-aid I drink, since artificial sweeteners could be a problem because they do raise insulin levels (I hate plain water, and I have cut back on the diet coke, you don't even want to know how much I used to drink). Or I could cut out the bit of dairy I eat (mostly cream or half and half) since I have read of other people who said dairy caused them to plateau. I decided I wanted to try exercising first. Walking is probably good for us, and I want to go backpacking in Europe again someday, so if I keep up being able to walk long distances, that would be a good thing.

I walked two miles yesterday. This after not walking, much less exercising, in months. I'm not sore today. I suspect it's the low carb diet, which reduces inflammation. (Inflammation causes pain, particularly in the joints). It's pretty amazing actually. I'm hoping this breaks the plateau. I'll let you know.

Low Carb Diet Side Effects: How to deal with them

Salt and fat are very important on a low carb diet.

If you've being doing low carb for a while, you may have heard of people saying that they had a "bad reaction", or suffered "side effects" on the diet. One of the most obnoxious side effects constantly stated is that you'll get bad breath. The press likes this one, as if bad breath was the worst thing that you could have happen to you. Personally, I never had a problem with this, nor did any of my family members who went low carb. Maybe we were just lucky? Anyway, the side effects people encounter are probably from them either not getting enough fat, from not getting enough salt, or from going on and off the diet regularly (see my post about how your body makes enzymes and hormones based on what you've eaten recently). Or maybe a combination of all of that. So, what to do about these unpleasant "side effects"?

First and foremost, throw your fear of fat out the window. You don't want a lot of protein. You want fat, mostly saturated animal fat. It's best to avoid synthetic, man-made vegetable fat. Eating a low-carb, low-fat, high protein diet will make you sick. They call it "rabbit starvation" because rabbits are such lean meat, you'll die if that's all you have to eat.

Some things that can happen while on a low carb diet are tachycardia (racing heart). What can cause this? Low blood pressure. Eating a low carb diet lowers your blood pressure, and if you have low blood pressure already, you know that you sometimes get a fast heart beat. The mum-in-law has low blood pressure, and she sometimes gets a racing heart. She says that it's because your heart needs to get that blood pumped around your body somehow, even if it has to beat faster to do it. It's usually nothing to worry about, although I would suggest seeing a doctor just to be sure.** Something that may help this, is to increase your salt intake. Salt intake does raise your blood pressure slightly (between 1 and 6 mg/Hg) and it may be enough to avoid the side effect of low blood pressure. In fact, increasing your salt intake on the low carb diet, especially in the beginning, can prevent you from losing too much salt from losing too much water. You retain water when you eat carbohydrates (chemically speaking, water is required for their metabolism, and they're made of water, hence the 'hydrate' part). That leads to the point that if you eat a high carbohydrate meal once or twice a week, you will gain water weight, sometimes crazily so. This is not because you've eaten too much per se, it's because you're retaining water. It can take a week or two of eating low carb again to lose the water weight.

Another cause of low blood pressure may be if you're on medication for your high blood pressure, and you go on a low carb diet, well, you may need to have your doctor adjust your blood pressure medicine down to compensate.

I personally (and I know this is anecdotal) do so much better on a low carb diet when it comes to my heart. I have a hard time getting enough potassium when I eat the standard American diet, and I once wound up in the emergency room with sinus arrhythmia, my heart was stopping momentarily, literally skipping beats. Needless to say, it scared the hell out of me. The doctors told me that my potassium was low. I don't get sinus arrhythmia on the low carb diet. Probably because red meat is a great source of potassium. I also noticed that my heart doesn't beat as "hard" as it used to when I would lay down to go to sleep. I used to be able to feel it beating loudly, and it doesn't make so much noise any more. My pulse is normal, it just seems like it's working more efficiently or something. And again, this is all anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt (pun intended).

**Please note, that if you are having problems, especially to do with your heart, see a doctor. Have blood tests, get hooked up to an EKG and make sure you don't have an underlying medical condition.

McRunner Eats McDonald's for a Month

The news is going nuts over a guy preparing to run a marathon, by get this, eating only McDonald's for the month before. He's raising money for Ronald McDonald house. I immediately thought of Fat Head. Especially in response to some of the comments this guy is getting. People are complete sheeple. They believe anything they're fed.

I think some of the militant vegans are upset.

What I don't get about that last article I linked to, is people say they get sick off McDonald's. I think that's codswallop and/or all in their head. I worked at McDonald's in high school and ate plenty of it, and it never made me sick. The stores that I worked at were very strict on cleanliness. They were probably cleaner than your kitchen at home. If this guy does well in the marathon, it will probably give some vegans a heart attack.

The Cholesterol Lie: They'll never let it go

If you've read anything by Uffe Ravnskov, you'll know that cholesterol does not cause heart disease. So, when I read this article this evening, I thought, they'll never let it go will they?

Fat Alone, Not Where It Sits, May Be Key to Heart Problems

"That challenges the widely adopted notion that not all obesity is alike, with so-called apple-shaped people, who carry fat mainly in their midsections, facing a bigger risk for heart problems than those whose excess fat is carried on the hips or elsewhere.

Not so, say the researchers behind the new study. When it comes to obesity and heart disease, no excess fat is good fat, regardless of where it ends up, their analysis has found.

"Society has accepted the idea that if you carry more weight around the middle, your risk of heart disease is higher," said Dr. Emanuele Di Angelantonio, the study's co-author and a lecturer in medical screening at the University of Cambridge in England. "But actually this study shows that it doesn't matter where your fat is located. If you're overweight you're at risk, full stop."...

They also found that tracking a person's blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as well as monitoring their history of diabetes, appeared to be best way to assess heart disease risk. When such indicators were readily available, they noted, adding in BMI and waist measurement information did not improve risk diagnosis..."

So, basically they do mention that diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease. What causes diabetes? Elevated blood sugar over a prolonged period of time that causes insulin resistance. What causes elevated blood sugar? Eating carbohydrates. Bleeding simple, and yet they're like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. Forget testing for cholesterol. It's irrelevant! Test for blood glucose levels instead. That would give a better idea of whether someone is healthy or not.

If you are overweight, then you probably have elevated blood sugar and/or are insulin resistant. In fact, I'm not sure that it's possible to be overweight and NOT be insulin resistant. Hence why being obese is associated with cardiovascular disease, because every time your blood sugar is elevated, you are damaging your internal organs. Yes, you read that right. Every time you drink a Coca-Cola, every time you eat a piece of chocolate cake, you are DAMAGING YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS. In fact, even if you are not overweight and even if your insulin works well and it brings your blood sugar down quickly, it is probably never quick enough to completely avoid the damage that is done. Add this up over days and years, and you have cardiovascular disease. Not to mention all the other disease of civilization, like cancer. If you damage your cells repeatedly, they repair or regenerate themselves. If your cells are required to do this frequently, the cells regenerate quickly, leading to high cell turnover, leading eventually to a cell that doesn't regenerate in the right way, which leads to cancer.

The good thing is, your cells will repair themselves if given a chance. The bad news? You can never go back to eating the way you did if you want to remain healthy. You have to ask yourself what is more important. The slice of chocolate cake or your health? Death is inevitable. Health is your choice.

The Misconception of Natural Sweeteners

Lots of things are natural, meaning they occur in nature. Arsenic, cyanide, uranium, deadly nightshade. That doesn't mean you'd want to eat them, or even come into contact with some of them. I don't know how many articles I have read decrying the evils of High Fructose Corn Syrup, and yet saying that regular sugar is fine. Now, I'm not saying that HFCS is the same as sugar, it's not, by a long shot, however, neither of them are good for your health. Other naturally occurring sugars are no better, like honey. Sugar is sugar, and the glucose spikes your blood sugar while the fructose portion damages your liver and raises your triglyceride levels. That includes the fructose in fruit.

We have articles in newspapers like this one, since it's Valentine's day:

"But let's not make fructose the only bad guy here. The real problem is our consumption of all added sugar. Naturally occurring sugars like fructose, found in fruit, and lactose, found in milk, are valuable nutrients."

Overall, this article is better than most, but still has some problems. It fails in that it differentiates the fructose in fruit from the fructose in HFCS. There's not one iota of a difference, with perhaps the exception that if you ate a piece of fruit you might get less than if you ate something laden with HFCS. The problem is, our modern fruit has been bred to be bigger and sweeter. The sweeter it is, the more fructose is in it. Also, the fructose found in sucrose (table sugar) is also the same to your cells.

The problem is, they can't let go of the notion, that "everybody knows it's common knowledge" notion, that fruit is good for you. Five hundred years ago everyone knew the earth was flat too, and the center of the universe to boot. We all know what happened to Galileo when he dared to suggest otherwise.

"Does this research mean that eating fruit will increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes? Absolutely not."

That statement may be blatantly false, considering the study out of New Zealand that I wrote about last week, that I might add no American media picked up (good thing I didn't hold my breath).

Another newspaper article, also acts like natural sweeteners aren't a problem:

"While the massive amount of high-fructose corn syrup consumed by many people isn't a great choice, a more moderate amount of natural sweeteners can be a wonderful complement to a healthy diet."

What exactly is their idea of "moderation"? Eating 100 lbs of sugar a year versus the current 150+? Taubes wrote about this in "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and it seems from some reports by doctors who were in Africa and other colonial places a hundred years ago that a sugar intake of approximately 60 lbs was the cut off point of "too much". After consumption rose above that level, and after a time frame of about 20 years consuming such levels, they saw diabetes and metabolic syndrome begin to develop, along with all the other western diseases that go along with them. And really, it might be that a lower consumption just means it takes longer to develop metabolic problems in some people, or maybe even in most people. I doubt seriously the authors of these news articles imagine that we really might need to restrict our sugar intake to a minuscule amount to avoid developing disease.

The first article I cited did have a great line in it:

"If we really looked like what we eat, most Americans would look like kernels of corn."

There's the truth if I ever read it.

Fructose and Fetal Harm

Via a comment on Fat Head:

A commenter on Fat Head left a link to this article, from New Zealand that fructose may affect the development of female children. Sucrose (table sugar) is half fructose, and High Fructose Corn Syrup is more than half fructose, depending on the mixture. And I need not point out that HFCS is in just about everything that's manufactured or processed. They slip it into the most innocuous places. Fructose also occurs in fruit, something that a lot of doctors push people, especially diabetics, to eat (detrimentally to their health I might add).

A lot of pregnant women may think that because they're not overweight, or they don't have gestational diabetes, that it's okay if they consume large quantities of sugar or fruit. They often use the fallacy that because we've been consuming sugar for a long time, it's not a problem. The thing is, we've not been consuming sugar or fruit in the quantities we do for very long. Sugar consumption in the past thirty years has skyrocketed to 150+ lbs per person per year in the States, whereas in the 19th century sugar consumption was only in the 15 to 20 lb range per year before 1850. And even just fifty years ago, most people only ate fruit when it was in season, which in most parts of the world is a limited time frame. I'm sure with the powers-that-be and doctors pushing fruit consumption, that it has also risen.

Is fructose safe?

"In the study, where rats were fed diets high in fructose during pregnancy and lactation, the sugar was found to change key metabolic hormone levels in both foetuses and new born offspring...

The fact that we saw no obvious weight gain implies that women may be unaware that their diet could be compromising the development of their fetus."

They don't say what metabolic hormones are affected specifically, but I'm thinking insulin is probably one of them. Now, I also read a study not too long ago that female rat offspring were also affected by maternal dietary salt restriction. Another thing that the doctors push on us, lower your salt intake they say! Salt restriction in the mother made the female offspring insulin resistant with increased adiposity (fat). The male offspring were not so affected. Does this mean that there would be nothing to worry about with males then?

I doubt it seriously. I read that in indigenous populations, such as the Pima, female hormones somehow protect women from getting diabetes, at least for a while. However, they get very obese instead. Eventually they get diabetes, but not before getting fat. It is theorized that the fat protects them from diabetes as long as their bodies can continue to convert excess sugar in the blood to fat and store it. Now, the men don't necessarily get as fat as the women, but they have an increased incidence in developing diabetes.

I'm glad to see that a news organization actually published something that goes against the party line. I guess they don't grow much corn or sugar in New Zealand. I'm waiting for one of the American news organizations to pick this up, but I won't hold my breath. Asphyxiation is no way to die.

Parrot: "I'm a doctor!"

Are writers incapable of researching stuff before parroting what they're told? Are editors? I hope some are, but it seems like the majority aren't.

For example, this article from US News states that eating too much sodium leads to high blood pressure. Except it doesn't. A dietary reduction in salt can lead to a whopping 1.1 to 5 mmHg at *most*, if you believe meta-analysis. I'm completely underwhelmed. Most high blood pressure is genetic and diet has very little to do with it. If your blood pressure is high you need medication. That's about the only thing you'll hear me say that you need medicine for.

From the article:
"As a family doctor, I've observed that more and more of my practice is devoted to preventing and treating nutrition-related disorders such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. So I had hoped that the new dietary guidelines would provide me with concrete strategies for helping change my patients' eating habits for the better."

Why don't these doctors do some research instead of relying on Big Brother, er, I mean the government to tell them what to tell their patients? I guess they're too busy to read anything. Or to think for themselves. I find all kinds of interesting information simply searching Science Direct or even google. If they'd recommend to their patients to eat low-carb or paleo, most of their patients' health problems would improve and/or resolve themselves. In fact, I'd bet money on it. I'd even bet a million dollars. I could definitely use a million bucks.

Maybe they're scared? Taubes said in Why we get fat that no doctor was ever sued for recommending a low fat diet. I guess the acceptable killing of patients via the low fat nonsense is preferable to a lawsuit.

Insulin Resistance and Response

I've spent my day reading all about insulin resistance and insulin response. It's a very fascinating subject.

What prompted this was that I saw arguments on some forums that insulin has a short half-life, therefore it cannot have an adverse impact on tissue. I think that this is quite frankly, codswallop. Not because it's been proven one way or the other, but because the amount of time (or exposure) is not the only thing that determines damage. Frequency is just as important to take into consideration. Temporary high blood sugar spikes could possibly damage your internal organs. If it happens once, it might not be a problem, but when it happens repeatedly every day, over the course of time, it would come as no surprise if organ damage developed. Insulin does indeed have a short half-life, it is estimated to be between 9 and 16 minutes in humans.

However, this does not mean that insulin does it's job in this amount of time, nor does it mean that insulin is reduced completely in that amount of time. By definition, a half life is the amount of time it takes half of the thing in question to decay. Because it is always half, if you understand basic math, you will realize that it's exponential as to how long it takes for something to be cleared completely¹ from a system.

The math is for n, the number of half lives elapsed, the percentage remaining is 100/(2^n). This does not tell you how much is left after n cycles, the quantity being dependent upon the initial amount produced or in the case of insulin, secreted. It takes five half-lives for complete decay to be achieved. This means that after a meal insulin is in your blood at higher than basal levels for at least 45 to 75 minutes based on the 9 to 16 minute half-life. However, in real life, it may be much longer. Insulin remained elevated in subjects after a meal for more than 120 minutes in this study. If you are eating high carb meals with snacks in-between, how often do you think your insulin levels are elevated?

In a healthy person, perhaps this isn't enough time to do damage, even with frequency (although I doubt it, which may be why almost everyone becomes insulin resistant at some point, even if it's when they're old). However, a lot of people become insulin resistant when young. Insulin resistance means that your cells are unable to use the glucose in your blood. Insulin secretion will continue in waves so long as glucose levels in the blood are raised. If glucose levels remain elevated long enough, your pancreas' β-cells may lose their ability to produce enough glucose and this is by definition diabetes.

So is it just carbs? Not completely. If you are insulin resistant, and trying to lose weight, one reason why it's very important to make sure that on a low carb or paleo diet that a good quantity of your diet is from fat, is because protein can cause an insulin response just like carbohydrates. So get the 'low fat' crap out of your head! One study showed that consuming a steak could cause plasma insulin levels to rise nearly 100 pmol/l above fasting levels, whereas cod fillet only caused a rise of 50 pmol/l. This may very well be because steak has about twice the protein as cod fillet. According to caloriecount.about.com, one ounce of steak has between 7.7 and 8.6g of protein (depending upon the type of steak). The same amount of cod fillet has 4.8g of protein. The study's authors say the difference in insulin response could also be attributed to carnosine, a dipeptide which is found in beef but not cod. Regardless, lean meat can cause an insulin response.

Keep in mind that protein is vital for rebuilding muscles, and if you're weightlifting you may need more than someone who's not.

Now, what do all these studies mean? Not a damned thing if you ask me. Honestly, the people funding the study influence the results. The data can really be interpreted to mean anything. And I do mean anything. We now know that cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease, but rather inflammation and homocysteine probably do. And yet there are dozens of studies about the nefarious effects of cholesterol, most of them poorly done, and the data manipulated to say what the researchers wanted to be said.

So, what causes insulin resistance? It seems no one is very sure, and there may be multiple causes. Some say it's chronically elevated insulin due to elevated blood glucose from over consumption of carbohydrates. Some of it is probably genetic. Whatever causes it, eating low carb or paleo is beneficial, as it reduces inflammation and makes insulin resistance unlikely. Indeed, though it is anecdotal, many people have noticed improved glucose tolerance after eating low carb for a long time.


¹ Insulin is never completely cleared from our system. We secrete insulin in small amounts every few minutes, even when we haven't eaten.

Low-Carb Nut Based Cereal Recipe

I have the best recipe ever for cereal, and it's so easy to make. I found it by accident when trying to make cookies. I suggest finding raw whole milk to eat with it. The more fat in the milk, the slower the lactose is absorbed by your body.

Low Carb Cereal

1 c. butter (softened)
1 c. splenda (not packets, but bagged kind)
3/4 tsp molasses
3/4 c. peanut butter

1 c. chocolate or vanilla whey protein powder
1/2 c. flax seed meal
1 c. almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

In a Kitchen Aid mixer (or similar) beat butter until creamy. Add splenda, molasses and peanut butter. Beat on medium until mixed.

Add in dry ingredients. Beat on medium again until mixed, scrape sides of bowl with a spatula.

On a baking sheet that has sides, put a piece of parchment paper. Make sure it covers the surface. Spread the mixture onto the parchment paper with a knife, it should be about 1/4 inch deep. Bake at 375 degrees for about fifteen minutes, or until brown on top. Let cool and cut into small 1/4 inch squares. Best refrigerated and served cold with raw whole milk on it. Everyone here agrees it's really good.

You can also use different types of nuts, like ground hazelnuts, or all flax seed meal, but I've found you might get a slightly different consistency, it might be more or less crumbly. We've tried it different ways and it's all good. You can also use almond butter instead of peanut butter.

We've also found if you leave it sitting out to cool for a few hours before cutting it, that it stays together better and is less crumbly.

Exercising your way to health or death?

Forty years ago, your parents or grandparents would have told you that exercise was bad for you. It wears out your joints and puts unnecessary strain on your body. Currently the CDC suggests 300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity each week plus weight training for "greater health benefits." That's three hundred minutes of you wearing your body out every week. And if you do more than that, they say "you'll gain even more health benefits."

Now, do you think they have specific data on this? Of course not. But they'll tell you it's a good idea anyway, and in fact tout it as a way to prevent heart disease. Wait for it though, because I found this, written for heart month, from the newspaper the Asheville Citizen-Times and I found it amusing in it's glorious contradiction:

"A key contributor to heart disease is lack of exercise — again, a factor that seems to affect busy women as they juggle jobs, kids, homes and community work and fail to make time for their own good health, Palmer said. And obesity is a critical factor, because “the more you weigh, the harder your heart has to work to give your body nutrients,” she said." [emphasis mine]

So, their first premise is that if you work your heart harder (by exercise) that you'll be healthier, but if your heart has to work harder because you're overweight or obese, that's bad. Can we say cognitive dissonance? Of course, being obese is associated with heart disease, but the primary reason for CHD isn't because your heart has to work harder, it's probably inflammation. However, I doubt having your heart work harder, either via strenuous exercise or by being obese, is very good for it.

I'm not saying that some activity isn't good, especially walking, but these people are advocating that an already busy person, who is not sitting at home watching television all day, should try to fit exercising into their already busy schedule. And that just creates more stress because they think it's a character flaw that they've gained weight and blame it on not getting to the gym. I think that makes about as much sense as telling a diabetic they should eat more fruit. Oh, wait. They do that too.

I tried to find some studies to either backup what they're saying or refute it, but it doesn't seem like any have really been done, at least with exercise alone. I would imagine to find out if exercise were beneficial, that you would take two very large groups of healthy men and women and have one group exercise and the other not. Then you'd find out if one group lived longer than the other. Most of the studies I've seen however, are in patients who already have CHD, are part of Statin drug trials, or part of a diet trial. There is no controlling for variables, they test multiple things at once, and that is not science. It's quackery is what it is.

There are multiple possibilities for why exercise could be beneficial, or not. One might be if carbohydrates cause heart disease by creating inflammation, and if you consume carbohydrates and exercise, you may burn off the carbohydrates before they can have an effect on your tissues, if you're a person who can burn them off. Most people who are obese have a problem metabolizing carbohydrates, so this probably wouldn't work for them. Or maybe if you never eat carbohydrates, you would have no need to exercise very much, and you would still live just as long as someone who ate carbohydrates and exercised. These are things that could be tested.

We should know so much more by now about what it is that is killing us, but we don't, and we won't. The food industry benefits from people eating their processed, expensive junk food and the pharmaceutical companies reap the benefits of people winding up on maintenance medication from such diets. To a lesser extent the fitness industry benefits from this too, as people try in vain to exercise to lose the weight they gain (exercise makes you hungry) by eating the "recommended diet". And the newspapers? They benefit by advertising dollars from the previous three industries to push what they want to be said.