Tiptoe through the Tulips!

[diogenes]

An interesting article by Matt Ridley in today's Times on the muddle over deciding whether sugar or fat diets leads to obesity. I liked his statement: " Scientists are performing a screeching U-turn on dietary advice, away from demonising fats and towards carbohydrates. In the case of obesity, they cannot quite bring themselves to admit it. They want to tell us not to eat sugars, yet won't exonerate fat. This is typical of science (but not of me as one of them I hope - my insertion) When paradigms break, you rarely hear scientists say "we were wrong"!. They tiptoe away from their previous position" (hoping no-one notices - my insertion). Yet this has been a costly mistake". 

Relevant to thyroid diagnosis and treatment, do you think? Perhaps I can hear tiptoeing in recent papers I've read. When the BTA/BTF guidelines oh-so-subtley change (though "really we haven't changed merely clarified our previous correct stance") the millennium will arrive.

[dolphin5]

It's good to hear a hint of optimism - thank you!  Your work is helping in this shift, I'm sure. Keep it coming!

[SilverAvocado]

Hehe, this is a good observation. I (used to be) a sociologist, and had a friend studying controversies in physics. In reality none of it was as clean and rational as we might like to believe. People getting ostracised and kicked out of learned societies and not getting published, etc, is actually common. 

I think it is Karl Popper who talked about how big changes in scientific understandings can only really happen as the old guard actually die, scientists don't change their position (which in practice would often mean to admit all their own best work, that established themselves in their jobs and reputation, was on the wrong path). Tiptoeing is probably an improvement on that! 

[Roadrunnergreg]

I believe they now cannot avoid the truth staring them in the face, I guess it was an easy conclusion decades ago that fat people emphasis on the word fat, not overweight, that fat caused fat people, after all looking at the phrase fat people indicates it doesn't it... But now their realising because of the epidemic of diabetes and one of its key problems is staying slim and getting fat. So now and logically their emphasis is that fat doesn't make you fat, insulin does, it's the fat storage hormone via the liver. So diets that are HIGH GLYCEMIC without calorie restriction too, becoming overweight is inevitable, so LOW GLYCEMIC DIETS are the way to go, to lose weight. A Glycemic Index of 55 or less works for weight loss, fat and meat have a GI of around 45 umm