Challenges in Nutritional Epidemiology Studies and Confounding Variables

Doctors and scientists have been studying how our diet affects our health since the 18th century. But despite technological advancements and varying hypotheses over the years, there’s a chance that the wisdom of the 1700s might be more accurate than more recent beliefs on how food contributes to our overall health. 

Gary Taubes is an investigative health science journalist and the author of books like Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments and Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. For decades, he’s studied the history of diabetes and obesity research and found instance after instance of faulty science that’s led to some of the most widely accepted beliefs about metabolic health.

Gary and Greg deep dive into the centuries-long history of diabetes and obesity research, including some of the major moments and breakthroughs like the discovery of insulin. They also discuss what makes some science bad science, modern misconceptions about obesity and its causes, and the surprising impact WWII had on obesity research. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

What is an allegiance bias?

38:59: It's the first hypothesis that tends to have such an advantage over all those that follow. That the others have to then try and replace that, and then more and more people buy into that first hypothesis and believe it, and they base their treatments on it, and they write papers and textbooks about it. They've become more and more biased. I was just speaking to a nutritionist 80-year-old tremendous nutritionist the other day who used the phrase allegiance bias. So you develop an allegiance to what you believe, to the technologies you're using, to the therapies you're giving, and to what your colleagues believe. And all of these reasons are why scientists are supposed to express hypotheses with such humility. You get an idea of what's working and what's not, and you voice it with incredible humility because the worst thing that can happen is that it be wrong and be embraced. And it's the easiest thing to have.

Rethinking conventional wisdom in health

01:09:16: The internet took away the gatekeepers. So for anyone who's suffering from obesity or diabetes, if the conventional wisdom works for you, then you're fine, right? You eat a little less, you exercise, and you don't live with obesity anymore—end of story. You don't need blood sugar medications, but if you've tried the conventional wisdom, as I think most people do, and it fails, then you start looking for alternatives.

What makes a good scientist?

24:34: When you do an experiment, you learn how you screwed up if you're a good scientist because, by definition, you're always doing something no one's ever done before because it's boring to do stuff that people have done before. So you're always doing something new. You're always working at the limits of what your apparatus or your observational equipment can do. And 99 times out of 100, you're going to screw up that first time out, and then you're going to learn how you screw up and you're going to fix it. And you iterate your way toward what you hope is truth.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• CERN
• Bradford Hill criteria
• John Rollo
• Elliott P. Joslin
• Oskar Minkowski
• Ancel Keys
• Carl von Noorden
• Gustav von Bergmann
• Julius Bauer
• Louis Harry Newburgh
• Jeffrey M. Friedman 
• Atkins
• Eric Westman 
• Virta Health
• Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, and the Transformation of Illness by Chris Feudtner

Guest Profile:

• Professional Website

His Work:

• Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments
• Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
• Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health 
• The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice of Low-Carb/High-Fat Eating
• The Case Against Sugar
• Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion 
• Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment 
• What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie (New York Times Magazine)