

Gary Taubes: This Is Why Half the Country Has Prediabetes - Ford Brewer MD MPH (PrevMed Health)
10 snips Jul 25, 2025
Gary Taubes, a renowned science journalist and author, dives deep into the complexities of diabetes management and nutritional science. He discusses the historical misconceptions surrounding dietary guidelines and the shift towards recognizing the benefits of ketogenic diets. Taubes challenges popular dietary dogmas, particularly about saturated fats and carbohydrates, while critiquing the resistance from health professionals to adopting low-carb approaches. He also sheds light on how financial interests have shaped the nutritional narrative, urging listeners to rethink their understanding of obesity and diabetes.
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Insulin’s Powerful Role and Carb Balancing
- Insulin lowers blood sugar so effectively it can cause fatal hypoglycemia if overdosed.
- This led to carbohydrate-rich diets to balance insulin treatment, despite carbohydrate metabolism issues in diabetes.
Medicine’s Rush vs Science’s Pace
- Medicine often locks into treatment ideas quickly due to patient urgency, sacrificing rigorous science.
- This causes long-term commitment to potentially flawed hypotheses, similar to the COVID response.
Tasting Urine to Treat Diabetes
- Early diabetes diagnosis involved tasting urine to detect sugar.
- 19th-century treatment with an animal-based ketogenic diet helped patients live longer pre-insulin.