Via Jimmy Moore, I see that Dr. Mercola doubled down with Ron Rosedale on the safe starches debate. It’s a debate, so sure, folks will take sides, no biggie. As a fan of the PHD, I’m on Paul Jaminet’s side of course.
But this is what caused my head to explode this morning … after a very lengthy and reasoned discussion, Dr. Mercola summed up his position re starches this way:
Raising blood glucose raises insulin, which increases insulin and leptin resistance.
No, no, no, no, no!!!!!
For any relatively healthy individual, it is most definitely NOT raising blood glucose and insulin via dietary starches per se. If it was, then 100% of Americans would be insulin and leptin resistant, and that is clearly not the case.
So what actually does cause insulin and leptin resistance is still some matter of speculation and more research needs to be done. I’m just a blogger (what do I know?), but I suspect that it is related to overloading your body with too many SAD foods (and their toxins) along with too few essential micronutrients. Essentially the system can only handle the overload to a point, and then things start to break down.
Why this happens to some and not to others is the interesting question to me. Perhaps insulin/leptin resistance kicks in at a certain level of overload (a la Gladwell’s chippers and smoking). Or maybe it's a matter of epigenetics … some of us may be predisposed to react to the SAD environment by packing on the pounds courtesy of what our parents ate before we were even conceived or what our mothers ate while we were in the womb.
Metabolic “derangement”
Of course, the LCers are saying, well, what if you’re not relatively healthy? Well, I’m definitely a met syn girl, and I think removing starches only addresses the symptoms, not the problems. Call me crazy, but I believe there’s a place for starches in my diet — as long as other things like nutrients and the right types of exercise are part of the program. And so far I seem to be doing just fine thank you.
To me, the idea of eliminating starches (safe or otherwise) is on a par with prophylactic mastectomy (removing your breasts to reduce your risk of breast cancer). Perhaps the right choice for some, but hardly something I’d recommend to the general population!
Anyways, the title of the post is a bit extreme, but it is incredibly discouraging to me that this is where we are in terms of understanding obesity. It’s really a tough time to be overweight, and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health, & food policy. And cats! 
Thanks for your response. My day job has kept me very busy lately and I don’t have the time to follow all the turnings and twistings of the so-called “safe starch” debate. But I, too, am in the Jaminets’ camp.
Did you respond to Mercola on his website about this? I mostly trust what he says, but if he’s off….
I’m going to let folks with far more credibility than I respond to Mercola if they so choose. I suspect it’s tilting at windmills.
I hear ya. I’ve followed Mercola for the past 16 years or so. I don’t agree with everything he says but he’s darn close.
I used to be a regular reader of his until nearly every blog post started ending in a pitch for something he sells! But I do like his peak 8 concept (even if he just re-tooled it from Phil Campbell’s sprint 8).
I too am over the sales pitch. Plus, most of his products are only affordable for other doctors and movie stars.
Sprint 8 is amazing, and you’re right again, it’s really Phil Campbell who is responsible for that. I watched the video with my adult son who though Mercola acted like a spoiled prissy brat. I had to agree. haha
Hi, I don’t follow PHD, but I agree with your comments on safe starches, I was diagnosed type 2 in 2004, was obese, also had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, I chose the dash diet, the complete opposite of what low carb is and what many believe a diabetic should do. I lost 150 have kept it off and have my diabetes is under control. For me the only starches that are not safe are any product made from refined white flour, white rice and products with a high added sugar content. Generally 60% of my calories are carbs and 20 % protein, 20% fats and it does not vary that much from day to day. I do agree that the SAD diet is a major factor for obesity but there are also a genetic and behavioral components in play. In my case diet, exercise and changes in my behavior (replacing bad habits with good) and accepting the fact that this change in diet and behavior was a permanent change for the rest of my life. All three components I believe has to be addressed to successfully lose and maintain a weight loss. It may be easier said than done but it is possible.
There is certainly something to the genetics question. In Christopher Gardner’s A to Z diet study at Stanford (where they compared Atkins, DASH, Ornish, and the Zone), there were very interesting variances within each arm of the diet … some folks did well on a specific diet, others did not. They wound up going back and doing some DNA testing, and their initial research suggests that people may be predisposed to do better on one and not the other. This is very preliminary, but it certainly does look like one size does not fill all as far as carbs go.
Glad you’ve found what works for you!
It’s very demoralizing to see these doctors — who presumably have knowledge of human physiology — perpetuating this particularly easily dispelled myth. One can forgive a Taubes or even a Sisson for this because it’s not their particular area of expertise or training. But Rosedale & Mercola? It is inexcusable.