Is a calorie always a calorie?
Over the past few weeks I’ve taken some heat in the comments section for my writing that weight loss or weight gain involves more than a simple accounting for calories. The entirety of mainstream medicine and nutrition believe that calories are the only thing that counts and that a low-carb diet is nothing more than a clever way to get people to cut calories. Weight loss on low-carb diets, so they say, occurs only because subjects following low-carb diets reduce their caloric intake. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie they say. But is it?
I could argue that this idea isn’t necessarily true because of a number of recent studies that have shown that subjects following low-carb diets actually lose more weight than their counterparts on low-fat, high carb diets despite the fact that the low-carbers consumed considerably more calories. But instead of going through these modern day studies, let’s go back and look at a couple of earlier famous studies to see what we can learn.
ANCEL KEYS STUDY
In 1944 Ancel Keys, Ph.D., decided to undertake a long-term study of starvation. It was apparent that WWII was going to be over soon and that much of Europe was starving. Although word of the mass starvation in concentration camps was just starting to filter out into the world, it was well known the Europeans, especially Eastern European, were not getting enough food. Keys wanted to do a study of starvation to see what really happened during the process so that at war’s end the victors would have a better idea of how to deal with the starving masses they were sure to encounter.
Key’s recruited 36 young male volunteers from the cadre of the conscientious objectors. These were healthy, normal weight men, most of whom were working for the Civilian Public Service (CPS), an entity created to provide jobs of national importance for conscientious objectors. The men responded to brochures and bulletins distributed in the various CPS barracks showing a photo of three French toddlers staring at empty bowls over the question: WILL YOU STARVE SO THAT THEY WILL BE BETTER FED?
The subjects came to the University of Minnesota where they were housed in the cavernous area underneath the football stadium for the course of the study. They were basically kept under lock and key for the study so that Keys and his colleagues could ensure compliance. At the start of the experiment the men were fed sumptuously for the first 12 weeks.
A full-time cook, two assistants and a dietitian monitored the food intake to the smallest fraction. According to The Great Starvation Experiment**, an excellent book about this famous study, during this lead-in phase the men ate well. A typical days food would include
a typical lunch… [that] consisted of fricasseed lamb with gravy, peas, and a carrot and raisin salad. For dinner…the men ate roast beef with gravy, whipped potatoes, tomato salad, and ice cream for dessert.
Although the three meals per day the men received added up to around 3,200 calories, which they were told approximated the normal American diet, the men said that they had never eaten better in their lives.
On day one of the starvation portion of the study, February 12, 1945, the rations were cut substantially.
The group shifted overnight from the three relatively generous meals of the control period to only two Spartan meals per day, a breakfast at 8:30 AM and supper at 5:00 PM.
The meals were designed to approximate the food available in European famine areas, with a heavy emphasis on potatoes, cabbage, and whole wheat bread. Meat was provided in quantities so small that most men would swear in later years that none was included at all.
One of the three dinners included the following:
SUPPER #2
185 grams of bean-and pea soup (made with 5 grams dried peas, 16 grams of dried beans, and 15 grams fresh ham)
255 grams macaroni and cheese (made with 130 grams wet macaroni, 12 grams lard, 108 grams skim milk, 2 grams flour, and 35 grams American cheese)
40 grams rutabagas
100 grams steamed potatoes
100 grams lettuce salad (80 grams lettuce, 10 grams vinegar, 10 grams sugar)
The relatively bulky 255 grams of macaroni made that particular meal an anticipated favorite among the volunteers. The wet macaroni served was roughly the amount required to fill a coffee mug about three-quarters full.
Over the twenty-four week starvation part of the study, the subjects not only lost a considerable percentage of their body weights, but suffered a number of problems as well. As the time wore on the men thought ceaselessly about food, they became lethargic, they were cold all the time, they became depressed, they developed bleeding disorders, their ankles became edematous, and some developed more serious psychological disorders.
Below is a photo of one of the young men in this study (the book shows multiple photographs – this one is typical of all the subjects). The first photo was taken a couple of years prior to the start of the study, the second is with about a month shy of the end of the experiment.
This young man suffered such psychological turmoil from the semi-starvation that he chopped off several fingers of his left hand a month or so after the bottom picture was taken.
The men in this study consumed macronutrients in the following amounts daily: protein 100 gm, fat 30 gm, and carbohydrate 225 gm. If you express these intakes as percentages, you come up with 25.5% protein, 17.2% fat and 57.3% carbohydrate.
Average energy intake of the subjects in the experiment: 1570 calories per day.
Now let’s look at another experiment conducted about 25 years later.
JOHN YUDKIN STUDY
In the late 1960s John Yudkin’s group at the University of London performed a study that is most interesting in view of the Keys’ semi-starvation study. (Click here to get the complete pdf of this study)
For about 15 years Dr. Yudkin and his team had been running a weight loss clinic out of the university hospital using a low-carb dietary approach. Despite the patients’ doing well on the program, he and his staff had received the same criticisms all of us have who treat obese patients by restricting carbohydrates. In addition, because of his academic standing and long list of scientific publications, Yudkin’s peers had given him heat over the fact that his diet didn’t provide enough of all the vitamins and minerals required for health. As a consequence, he decided to do a study to see if there was any substance to their fault-finding.
He recruited 11 subjects aged 21-51 years for his study. He and his staff evaluated the regular diets of these 11 subjects over a two week period. The volunteers were then instructed on the basics of low-carb dieting as it was done in the hospital clinic and followed for two weeks on this regimen. The goal of the study was to determine the dietary intake of the essential nutrients in the low-carb diet to see if there were inadequacies.
Here were the low-carb instructions:
The instructions relating to the low carbohydrate diet were identical to those given to patients attending a hospital overweight clinic under our supervision. Essentially, the subjects were asked to take between 10 and 20 oz milk daily (about 300-600 ml), and as much meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, margarine, cream and leafy vegetables as they wished. The amount of carbohydrate in other food was listed in “units” with each unit consisting of 5 g carbohydrate; the subjects were told to limit these foods to not more than 10 units (or 50 g) carbohydrate daily.
As the low-carb portion of the study was progressing, Yudkin and his staff evaluated not only the intake of these subjects, but their mental status as well.
In conformity with our experience with this diet during the last 15 years, none of our subjects complained of hunger or any other ill effects; on the other hand, several volunteered statements to the effect that they had increased feeling of well-being and decreased lassitude. The average intake of calories and of protein, fat, and carbohydrate for the 11 subjects…were remarkably similar to those obtained for the six subjects of the previous study. [Yudkin had published a study in The Lancet in 1960 looking at the caloric and macronutrient intake of subjects on low-carb diets.]
Here is the chart from Yudkin’s paper showing the caloric and macronutrient changes when the subjects shifted from their regular diet to the low-carbohydrate diet.
The macronutrient consumption was 83 grams of protein, 105 grams of fat and 67 grams of carbohydrate. Putting this into percentages of overall intake, we find that diet was 21.3% protein, 60.6% fat and 17.1% carbohydrate. The energy intake was 1560 calories per day, almost exactly the same as the Keys study described above.
And, remember, these people were given all the food they wanted to eat. They weren’t forced to drop their calories to 1560 per day – they did it spontaneously because they had eaten until sated.
Here is the data in tabular form.
As you can see, the big difference is in the carbohydrate intake and fat intake. They are just about the reverse of one another in the two studies.
Both studies provided between 1500 and 1600 kcal per day, but with huge differences in outcome. In the Key’s semi-starvation study (high-carb, low-fat) the subjects starved and obsessed on food constantly. In the Yudkin study (low-carb, high-fat), the subjects, who had no restriction on the amount of food they ate, volitionally consumed the same number of calories that the semi-starvation group did, yet reported that they had “an increases feeling of well-being.” Instead of lethargy and depression reported by the Keys subjects on their low-fat, high-carb 1570 calories, those on the same number of low-carb, high-fat calories experienced “decreased lassitude.”
Both groups of subjects were consuming the same number of calories, but one group starved while the other did just fine. One group had to be locked down to ensure they didn’t eat more than their alloted 1570 calories; the other group voluntarily dropped their intake to 1560 calories and felt great. What was the difference? Subjects in both groups ate the same number of calories.
Maybe, just maybe it’s not the number of calories that makes the difference, but the composition of the calories instead.
I know that I’m not truly comparing apples to apples with the Keys and the Yudkin studies. But the Yudkin study does 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.
Yet the calories would have been the same.
So, I’ll say it again. It’s not simply a matter of calories, and anyone who says it is should perhaps give the issue a little more thought.
** Gary Taubes’ new book Good Calories, Bad Calories devotes a couple of pages to this semi-starvation study as well.
I find it interesting that I have not found a Wiki page for John Yudkin, but Ancel Keys has one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys
Protein Power and you also fail to have a Wiki page, and have a passing mention in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbohydrate_diet
Despite how it is bemoaned by so many, Wiki is a widely-used resource. Colbert coined a term, wikiality, to describe this agreed upon reality (one of The Word segments, I can hunt it down if you are unfamiliar with it). Interesting how wikiality reflects reality by failing to recognize the countless years of research low-carb proponents have wasted successfully arguing the same position over and over again, and yet failing to get its due.
Ah, that’s me. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.
Maybe someone should put up a Wiki page – I can’t see myself ever doing it.
Cheers–
MRE
How do those afflicted with “a calorie is a calorie” blindness deal with gasoline, I wonder? Gasoline should make me fat if a calorie is a calorie. They must have to follow with “…if from a generally accepted food.” But then they’re arguing our point: the body differentiates between substances, a calorimeter does not.
Sorry, idle musings.
Thank you for telling me about this. I’ve been contemplating a 1500 calorie diet as a way of extending lifespan, reducing damage by reducing metabolism, but have been worried about buying more life at the sacrifice of the quality of that life. I’m glad to know that low carbohydrate/high fat dieting can give me what I want without leaving me hungry.
Hi Lochlyn–
Glad you found the site. Keep me posted on your progress. There is much more to life extension than merely restricting calories. One of these days I’ll do a post on the caloric restriction of rodents showing how the macronutrient that is most severely restricted in caloric restriction studies is carbohydrate.
Cheers–
MRE
[...] a few days ago the always right on Dr. Michael Eades posted a fantastic piece comparing the Ansel Keys starvation study to the Yudkin low Carb study. [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe entirety of mainstream medicine and nutrition believe that calories are the only thing that counts and that a low-carb diet is nothing more than a clever way to get people to cut calories. Weight loss on low-carb diets, so they say, … [...]
Dr. Mike,
You have aroused the beast!!!
http://www.lowcarbmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5415#post5415
Andy
Hi Andy–
I have aroused the pipsqueak, more like.
A while back Anthony Colpo sent me a complimentary copy of his book on cholesterol. Until then, I didn’t really know who Anthony Colpo was. I checked out his website, which I found to be filled with a lot of good information, but I was put off by the vitriol that he aimed at anyone who disagreed with him. It seemed that people would write asking reasonable questions to someone holding himself out to be an expert. Mr. Colpo would then reply to them in an unbelievably hostile way. The poor person who wrote the comment would try to say he/she was sorry for provoking the great and powerful Colpo, whereupon his response would be even more nasty. The commenter would finally get angry and give back whereupon said reader would be banned from commenting on the site. I see from his treatment of Fred Hahn and mrfreddy in the above link that his modus operandi continues. I suspect that it’s all part of his shtick, and that he uses it much as a child does pitching a tantrum to gain attention.
Mr. Colpo reminds me of a friend of mine of whom it is said: he is often wrong, but never uncertain. I can attribute this pigheaded certainty of Mr. Colpo’s to his youth and immaturity; I would assume that as he is beaten around by life as he grows older he will be a little less certain and, I hope, a lot more tolerant. Until then, I don’t want to have anything to do with him. And I certainly won’t respond to his inane attacks on me. If he can’t understand what I was trying to say in the post in question, then it’s not up to me to be responsible for his education.
I daresay that I have substantially more readers of this blog than does Anthony Colpo of his site and his books, and I have never felt the need to belittle or ban anyone who wrote to me asking a question or making a comment. In fact, of all the comments I have received since starting this blog, I have deleted without publishing only two. And those were two that attacked other commenters in what I felt was a hostile fashion. There is far too little civility in today’s world, and I try to do my part to contribute. I’ve always believed in civility in my personal encounters and in my online encounters and try to stay true to my beliefs. Wallowing around in the mud with Anthony Colpo would definitely not add to the world’s supply of civility, so I won’t rise to the bait.
So, this is the last I’ll say on the Colpo situation. That is other than to point out that Ancel Keys published the Seven Countries Study, not the Six Countries Study. Once I can write off to a typo, twice to…?
Cheers–
MRE
wow, sorry I brought him up… but I really am curious about those metabolic ward studies.
it’s interesting how you and Loren Cordain can remain friends whilst you have publicly announced many times your opinion that he is quite wrong on saturated fats.
Why couldn’t that, cough, cough, gentleman from down under, simply say something like “I am sorry, but I disagree with Dr. Eade’s interpretation of the available data” and leave it at that? Instead, he pumps out reams of hostility and vitriol. Oh yeah, he’s got a book to sell, right, right.
Anyway, feel free not to comment further, or even not publish this comment, if you prefer.
Hi mrfreddy–
If all my friends had exactly the same opinions I do about everything, the world would be a pretty dull place. Loren and I have discussed both in person and via email our respective stands on the saturated fat issue. We’ve simply agreed to disagree. He trashed low-carb diets in the very book that I gave him a cover blurb for. Friends can disagree and still be friends.
I often compare the medical literature to the bible. There is basically one bible and many different sects that interpret it many different ways. The vast volume of medical literature is the same. And just as one or two bible verses can’t represent the entire bible – though many sects hang their hats on those one or two verses – one or two medical studies don’t necessarily represent the truth of the medial literature.
Certain people I know believe they are seekers of the truth, which is good. But then once they find what they believe is the truth, they become as dogmatic and doctrinaire as all the people they attack for believing differently.
Metabolic ward studies are valuable for determining certain things. They are of less value in determining how to apply their lessons to the population at large. For the last several decades the recommendation has been to reduce calories, and where has it gotten us? We’re fatter than ever and type II diabetes is at epidemic proportions.
Better be careful, mrfreddy, of disagreeing with me on anything or you run the risk of being banned.
Cheers–
MRE
Ancel Keys “six countries study” is the name given to an article more properly entitled “Atherosclerosis: a new problem in public health. Journal of Mount Sinai Hospital, 1953; 20: 118-139″ In this study Keys selected 6 countries and presented a correlation between fat intake and coronary mortality. Of course, if he had chosen from the other 16 countries who had comparable data at the time then no case could have been made. This was the basis for his later, slightly expanded, and more well known “Seven Countries Study.”
Colpo, a bit of an ass, I concede, made no typo on this matter. His open letter to you can never be accused of being tactful or polite, but he does raise points regarding your work and assertions that you do not address. I was disappointed to find your reply nothing more that pop psychology condensed into an ad hominum attack. I’m also real pleased to learn that you have more readers than him. I do wonder, though, how that is relevant to anything other than a 5 year old’s pissing contest?
First, I’m sure Colpo was referring to the Seven Countries Study, which is by far the most famous. If he were referring to the earlier study, then I apologize.
Just because Colpo or you or anyone else raises questions about my work doesn’t mean that I have to leap through my rear end backwards to address them within the next 24 hours. I’ll do it on my schedule not on that of the very rude Mr. Colpo or yours. And I’m sure I have more readers than he (not him, ‘he’ is the correct form in this case because the verb ‘has’ is understood. I’ve noticed that both you and Anthony have a little trouble using correct grammar, something I’m usually too polite to point out, but I’ve made an exception in this case.), which probably results from the fact that I’m not a doctrinaire, dogmatic, ill-mannered twit who treats his readers as if they’re morons. And that I’ve had about 25 years of experience in the trenches taking care of patients that many others haven’t had.
Cheers–
MRE
Excuse me, sir, but to my knowledge this is the first time that we have ever corresponded. I do not know with whom you have me confused, but it seems to me that your response is more vitriolic than my words require. Yes, I did make a grammatical error in the above post. I also misspelled hominem, though you didn’t get me on that one. I’m so glad that you made an exception to your usual “politeness” to chastise me. I hope that it made you feel better as you must be having a hard day.
I don’t recall ever asking you to leap on any schedule. I also don’t appreciate that you left the first sentence of your reply to me (First, I’m sure Colpo…) in non-italics indicating that it was part of my post. It was not.
You obviously missed my point about readership numbers. It does not make any difference to me how many readers you have because that has absolutely zero bearing on the quality of your information. Oprah has a much larger audience than Stephen Hawking. So? Repeatedly pointing it out just makes you look childish.
During the time that it took you to moderate my comment Colpo added an additional (perhaps unnecessarily rude) reply on his site, basically saying the same things that I did, particularly mentioning the 6 countries study. I guess you owe him an apology, or you could just leave it at the half-hearted one from above.
If you ever do decide to debate the issues that Colpo has raised I will be very interested in reading your reply. I might even be convinced, but if it’s just more attacks and self-aggrandizement then my opinion won’t be changed in the slightest.
Sorry about non-italicizing the first line of my response.
My point was that just because someone publishes an ‘open letter’ to me on his/her website doesn’t mean that I have to jump to and respond to it immediately or even ever. I don’t ever read Anthony Colpo’s website or chat room or whatever it is, and would never have even seen his ‘open letter’ to me had someone not commented on this blog and included a link for it.
I’m sure that there are dozens of blogs out there that castigate me for one reason or another and it doesn’t really bother me. And I don’t feel compelled to defend myself to any of these attacks. I write my posts and answer my comments on those posts as my schedule allows, not as demanded by someone else who has a beef with my opinions.
I’ve got blog posts lined out for the next couple of weeks, and, unless something arises in the medical literature that is important enough to make me veer from my schedule, I plan to publish accordingly. You and Colpo and his other sycophants (you may not be one of his sycophants, and if you’re not, then don’t take offense) may view this as my way of avoiding the issue because I don’t want to join the fray. And I don’t really care.
I’ll get around to dealing with his incorrect (in my view) opinions in due course, but it will be on my schedule, not his. And on my website, not his.
Readership is the currency of the blogosphere. If a blogger has something worthwhile to say and can say it coherently (in other words, provides value), then that blogger usually builds readership. If not, then he/she doesn’t. Colpo has been at it a lot longer than I and has a much smaller readership. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.
Cheers–
MRE
I hope you’ll not bother with Colpo. His impressive credentials notwithstanding (that darn ‘sarcasm’ key was on again!), he’s unarmed if it comes to a debate.
I look forward to your articles. He’ll add the exclamation points and sell it as INDEPENDENT! RESEARCH! later.
Hi seyont–
Let’s not be too hard on Anthony. I’m not concerned that he has no credentials. Credentials don’t make one smart, they only prove that one went through some kind of formal educational regimen. I’ve met many people with credentials out the wazoo who were dumb as oxes. Smartness doesn’t come packaged in a bunch of educational merit badges. I love it that Colpo is an autodidact; I wish there were more out there. It’s usually the autodidacts who aren’t shackled by the biases of the mainstreamers who educated them.
In certain fields, however, autodidacts, irrespective of how smart and well read they are, lack a particular dimension that can only come from experience that they can’t get because they don’t have the credentials. Law and medicine jump to mind. I’m sure that there are self-trained legal scholars out there who can recite the law chapter and verse and debate all the finer points with the best legal minds of the day. But because they aren’t really lawyers (although they know way more than most real lawyers do) they can’t practice law. And because they haven’t had the day to day experience of toiling in the vineyards of the legal system and seeing how it really works other than on a theoretical level, they’re missing what it takes to temper their theories with the reality of how things really work. It’s the same with medicine. No matter how much book smarts a person has, he/she can’t develop the sense of how those book smarts apply in taking care of real patients. One can read in the medical literature about how subjects responded to treatment provided by someone else, but there is no substitute for hands-on care of patients in being able to discern theory from reality.
My problem with Colpo isn’t his lack of credentials; it’s his lack of manners. He is apparently unable to carry on a cordial conversation with anyone with whom he disagrees. He has a lock on the truth, and anyone who doesn’t see it his way is an idiot. I avoid those kind of people in person to person interactions and I try to avoid them in cyber interactions.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. E
You need not post this comment. I am not sure that any purpose will be served to continue this topic. Yet I appreciate your comments re: Colpo. I respect his work and have bought his books.
Many of us who read your blog are trying to figure out how to talk with our friends and our doctors about these heretical notions. You have credentials and expertise and your position is still ignored. We readers must fend for ourselves in the medical system that discounts any contribution from the great unwashed. Lives are at stake. Sometimes a revolutionary’s only tool is outrage. I try to be outraged with civility. In the long run I think doctors will be the ones most furious when they realize that they have been duped.
Hi Marilyn–
I have nothing against Anthony Colpo except for his lack of manners. I’m all for his (or anyone else’s) actively promoting a low-carb lifestyle. It doesn’t bother me that we have a difference of opinion on the calorie issue (although it obviously bothers him a lot); I don’t agree with anyone (including MD) on everything.
Cheers–
MRE
[...] beskrivs på Michael R. Eades blogg blev försökspersoner som sattes i ett kontrollerat försök att leva på en låg-fettdiet medans [...]
by the by, on carbs and fatty liver, from the BBC today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7006191.stm
Hi Neil–
This was the first thing I put up in the little ‘News Headlines’ section of our website today. I’ve been watching this problem develop for a long time.
Best–
MRE
” This was the first thing I put up in the little ‘News Headlines’ section of our website today. I’ve been watching this problem develop for a long time.”
Must confess I usually bypass the Homepage and go straight to your blog. My mistake!!!!
Though I’ve been reading your blog for a few months, I’ve never noticed the News Section.
Age related Macular Degeneration??
Hi Neil–
I’m not as diligent as I should be putting stuff up there everyday, but I try to most of the time.
Cheers–
MRE
A calorie is a calorie..? Please!
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/9
Precisely.
Hi, Dr. Eades. I agree with your take on Anthony Colpo. I tried to correspond with him a while back, simply asking for his take on intermittent fasting. He promptly attacked and belittled me like some kind of idiot. I think he has serious mental problems and should seek immediate help for them. His extremely limited diet might be a factor in these problems.
It’s absurd to say that a calorie is a calorie, because protein stimulates about 3-5 times more thermogenesis than carbs and 8-15 times more than fat. Most people eat low protein – about 10-15% of calories. So, increasing protein to 20-30% will clearly provide a metabolic advantage whether it replaces carbs or fat. As noted by Richard Feinman and Eugene Fine, “A calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics. In actuality, the thermodynamic value of each fatty acid, amino acid, and carbohydrate molecule would vary considerably.
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/9
I found Anthony Colpo’s abusive rants to be a turn-off years ago, but he does provide quality information if you avoid his online comments that are full of hostility and vitriol.
Hi Bruce–
Not only does he provide quality information, he sometimes provides misinformation. Mark Twain once said: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” That’s how I feel about a lot of Colpo’s information. If some is good and some is bad, the problem becomes telling which is which.
I’m surprised you didn’t get banned from his site or have the parts of your comments that he couldn’t explain away edited out. I’ve had people write me telling me that they commented on his site and had their comments edited by him in such a way that they looked like idiots, then he attacked them. There was no way they could really fight back because he would edit out any valid arguments they had then accuse them of being stupid.
I’ll leave it to the mental health experts to determine whether or not he has a serious problem. If you take a look at the photo of him that is circulating around, the one where he is lifting his shirt and showing off his washboard abs, note where the light switches are on the wall behind him in relation to his shoulder height. If light switches in Australia are set at the same height they are in the US, this picture might explain a lot.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi, Dr. Eades,
I’ve never commented on his site, because I’ve seen how he treats people who disagree with him. I sent him a polite email years ago when he was still running the Omnivore site, asking if he’d heard of intermittent fasting. His site made no mention of it. He attacked me like a mad dog, which seems to be his modus operandi when someone brings up something he disagrees with or doesn’t know about – or if he’s in a bad mood (which is almost always).
I don’t doubt this, looking at how he “debated” Cordain through a middle-man, without being in direct contact or even mentioning the word “debate.” This seems to be how he treats all people, unless they just bow down and worship at his feet. AC once attacked a guy because he wrote an unfavorable review for his book on Amazon. He wrote page after page, belittling this man (Smetannikov), rather than use his time more productively. Like you said, there is a reason Colpo never got as popular as say, Jimmy Moore, or you. He treats people like garbage unless they follow him like sycophants and has severe mental imbalances.
http://www.thegreatcholesterolcon.com/Smetannikov.html
I didn’t notice that before, but you could be right. He does have a serious axe to grind and a chip on his shoulder the size of Australia. I have talked with several people who were turned off by his presentation at the Omnivore. I already knew all the stuff he was saying, about the cholesterol and saturated fat theory being nonsense. At least he helped some people, but he cut off his nose to spite his face by removing his website content. After working for years on it, he just takes his toys and goes home because his book didn’t take off like a rocket. Maybe if he calmed down and put his content back up, the book would sell. Very few people would buy a book from some guy with a one-page internet ad and a chat group. He needs a blog or regularly updated website like Mercola and you have, IMO.
I don’t know the reason he took down his Omnivore site – I came to it late and found it to be filled with pretty good stuff. I also liked his book The Great Cholesterol Con, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the Kendrick book of the same title. I don’t have any idea why he has such a chip on his shoulder.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi Dr. Eeades,
“I don’t know the reason he took down his Omnivore site – I came to it late and found it to be filled with pretty good stuff. I also liked his book The Great Cholesterol Con, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the Kendrick book of the same title.”
Here is an article on Active Low-Carber with Anthony’s rant explaining why he shut down the Omnivore, basically insulting most of his readers and whining about poor book sales. As if the readers were obligated to read his book. I’ve never seen Mercola or you or anyone else post such a lame message like this. He probably alienated most of the mature readers who would have bought his book while appealing to the losers who like to see him cut people down like Howard Stern or Don Imus. Although, even they have more class than Colpo.
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=301765
I find myself agreeing with a lot of comments on Colpo in the thread. “That guy is and always was crazy.” “I like his message but he tends to be very angry and emotional at times.” “I can’t imagine that removing his website will help book sales.” He shot himself in the foot, because not every reader ran out and bought his book the first month. So, he shut down the site. It would appear to me that the poor book sales are a consequence of the kind of people that he was appealing to, his presentation, and his personality. Offending 3 out of 4 people is no way to sell books. He appealed to the lowest common denominator.
Hi Bruce–
Anthony didn’t sell a lot of books because there aren’t all that many people who read his site. That’s not a hack at his site on my part; it’s simply the truth. If he had sold a book to everyone on his site, he wouldn’t have sold enough books to make the writing of one worthwhile. It takes a pretty good media campaign to sell a book by an unknown author, which to the world at large, Anthony is. My first book had a large marketing campaign behind it fronted by a large mainstream publisher and I went on a 20 city book tour and the book still didn’t sell very well. The non-fiction book business is a tricky business that requires a lot of luck to make a bestseller. It took over two years before Protein Power hit the bestseller list, and that was with me (and MD) promoting it constantly.
I agree with you that Anthony’s best bet would have been to continue with his website and let sales of the book accumulate over time. If he had hung in there until sales reached the level of about 10,000 books as did Ray Audette he could have gotten a contract from a mainstream publisher along with a handsome advance. And Ray Audette reached the 10,000 level by continuous self promotion before the days when everyone had websites.
Cheers–
MRE
Outstanding analysis and amazing job of extracting the truth from old studies and explaining it for dummies.
I can imagine that it can be very frustrating for you when you dig up the proof, state it simply and elegantly and wait for the idiots in power and the majority to reject and outright set aside. But please keep it up for our sake.
Now I know why I was on a Weight watchers diet eating about 1400 calories feeling hungry all the time, miserable and weak vs. the low carb 40gram 2100 calories now that I seem to average without hunger pangs, normal BMI weight and diabetes under control. I did not believe in my dreams six months ago that this was possible.
I guess everyone of us needs their own epiphany … direct learning not from books or hearsay but by direct experience. The tide is changing though slowing and subtly … low carb is not so weird anymore and too many success stories and too many living proofs and role models (us) out there. I think this sea change is going to happen … one person at time.. because it is true and it will prevail. Hopefully, the truth prevails fast enough before we kill ourselves as a people with obesity and diabetes.
Hi Guru–
Thanks for the kind words. I, too, believe things are changing slowly but surely. Too bad we’ve had to experience the obesity and diabetes epidemics before most people got a clue.
Cheers–
MRE
I am not sure if protein has or should be connect to weather and climate conditions?
Would you need more protein if you live in Snowy country like Sweden or in South Africa? http://www.ucme.se/vader/
Although I’m not 100 percent certain, I don’t think protein requirements are a function of the climate.