Raoul
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Raoul has not written any posts yet.
I think Chris is probably taking Taubes a bit literally (and I agree with the revenue-cost analogy), but I like http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html , which he linked to in Part 1. There's quite a lot in it about insulin (too much for me to summarize here), but I've copied a couple of particularly relevant paragraphs below. Obviously if you can see any issues with them then I would be interested in hearing them.
"The idea of fat gain in insulin-treated diabetics (argument #3) is not as airtight as it might at first seem. On average, diabetics do gain fat when they initiate insulin therapy using short-acting insulins. This is partially because insulin keeps... (read more)
Then it's a good example, and I'm with you that your weight is determined by more than whether you have the willpower to say "today I'm going to exercise and not eat too much". (Though most researchers probably agree with Taubes on this: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2013/01/comment-in-nature.html .)
I think Stephan on Whole Health Source does a good job of refuting Taubes' claims on the particular importance of insulin resulting from carbohydrate consumption (I can't remember specific posts, but I think there are several others in addition to the one Chris linked to), but it might be that I would think otherwise if I were a bit more knowledgeable. He had some sort of falling out with Taubes at some point, and, like Taubes, he has a theory about what causes obesity (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/brief-response-to-taubess-food-rewad.html) and is presumably disproportionately likely to interpret evidence in ways that support his theory.