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Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes (born April 30, 1956) is an American investigative science and health journalist renowned for scrutinizing the evidence behind mainstream nutritional advice.^[1]^[2] His work emphasizes the causal role of carbohydrates and insulin in driving obesity, diabetes, and related chronic diseases, challenging the calorie-balance model and low-fat dietary paradigms that have dominated public health policy since the late 20th century.^[3] Taubes holds a bachelor's degree in applied physics from Harvard College (1977), a master's in engineering from Stanford University (1978), and a master's in journalism from Columbia University (1981).^[1] Beginning his career as a reporter for Discover magazine in 1982 and later as a contributing correspondent for Science, Taubes earned accolades including the Science in Society Journalism Award for his exposés on scientific controversies, such as cold fusion and particle physics.^[4]^[5] In books like Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It (2010), The Case Against Sugar (2016), and Rethinking Diabetes (2024), he marshals historical data, clinical trials, and physiological reasoning to argue that refined carbohydrates and sugars, rather than dietary fat or mere caloric excess, are primary drivers of metabolic dysfunction.^[3] These publications have influenced the resurgence of low-carbohydrate diets and prompted reevaluations of federal dietary guidelines.^[6] Taubes co-founded the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) in 2012 to fund controlled experiments testing insulin-centric hypotheses of obesity, independent of industry influence.^[1]^[5] Despite yielding insights into energy expenditure and fat storage, NuSI dissolved in 2021 amid challenges in replicating expected results under ad libitum feeding conditions, highlighting persistent methodological issues in nutrition research.^[7] His critiques have sparked debate, with proponents crediting empirical rigor and detractors questioning interpretations of hormonal mechanisms over caloric thermodynamics, though Taubes maintains that institutional biases in academia and public health have sidelined dissenting evidence.^[8]^[9]

Early Life and Education

Academic Background and Influences

Taubes earned a Bachelor of Science (S.B.) degree in applied physics from Harvard College in 1977.^[1] His undergraduate studies focused on physics, with a particular interest in astrophysics, reflecting an early attraction to fundamental questions in the natural sciences.^[10] Following Harvard, he pursued graduate work at Stanford University, obtaining a Master of Science (M.S.) in engineering in 1978, specializing in aerospace or aeronautical engineering.^[1] ^[11] Subsequently, Taubes shifted toward professional communication of science, completing a Master of Science in journalism at Columbia University in 1981.^[1] This transition stemmed from disillusionment with pure research paths in physics and engineering during the late 1970s, when job prospects in those fields appeared limited amid economic conditions and personal reassessment.^[10] His physics training instilled a methodological rigor—emphasizing mechanistic explanations, controlled experimentation, and skepticism toward unverified hypotheses—that later informed his journalistic scrutiny of scientific claims, particularly in fields reliant on correlational data like epidemiology.^[12] ^[13] No specific academic mentors are prominently cited in Taubes' biographical accounts, though his foundational exposure to physics' first-principles approach contrasted sharply with the observational paradigms he later critiqued in nutrition science.^[1] This background fostered an enduring emphasis on causal inference over association in evaluating evidence, a perspective evident in his career-long advocacy for re-examining consensus views through primary sources and historical context.^[12]

Journalistic Career

Initial Reporting in Physics and Controversial Science

Taubes entered science journalism after earning a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University in 1981, following undergraduate studies in applied physics at Harvard College and graduate work in engineering at Stanford University.^[1] His initial reporting focused on high-energy particle physics, drawing on his technical background to cover the competitive dynamics at major research facilities. In the mid-1980s, he spent ten months embedded at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, observing the intense rivalries among scientists pursuing discoveries that could yield Nobel Prizes.^[14] This immersion informed his first book, Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment, published in 1986, which chronicled the high-stakes quest to detect the W and Z bosons—subatomic particles confirming the electroweak theory of unified forces.^[15] Taubes detailed the interpersonal conflicts, resource battles, and methodological pressures within Carlo Rubbia's UA1 collaboration, which ultimately shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics for the boson discoveries, though the book emphasized the precarity and human elements often obscured in official narratives.^[16] The work highlighted how institutional politics and experimental uncertainties could undermine even foundational physics advancements, establishing Taubes' approach of scrutinizing not just results but the processes yielding them. Taubes' coverage extended to emerging controversies in physics, exemplified by his skeptical reporting on cold fusion following the March 23, 1989, announcement by chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah claiming room-temperature nuclear fusion in electrolytic cells.^[17] As a freelance contributor to Science magazine, he published articles such as "The Cold Fusion Conundrum" on June 15, 1990, documenting failed replications, anomalous tritium detections suggestive of contamination or fraud, and institutional reluctance to retract premature claims despite mounting evidence of irreproducibility.^[17] His investigations revealed procedural flaws, including uncalibrated calorimeters and selective data reporting, which invalidated the excess heat measurements purportedly indicating fusion.^[18] These efforts culminated in Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), a 503-page exposé portraying the episode as a case of "pathological science"—hypotheses persisting despite contradictory evidence due to experimenter bias and media amplification.^[19] Taubes argued that the rush to extraordinary claims without rigorous controls exemplified broader vulnerabilities in scientific practice, particularly when non-experts in nuclear physics entered the field, leading to widespread replication failures by mid-1989 and eventual dismissal by mainstream physicists.^[20] Through archival records, interviews with over 100 researchers, and analysis of experimental logs, he demonstrated how initial enthusiasm from university administrations and press coverage ignored basic verification standards, resulting in professional repercussions for proponents like Pons and Fleischmann, who faced scrutiny for data inconsistencies.^[21] This phase of Taubes' reporting underscored his method of privileging empirical reproducibility over theoretical allure, influencing his later critiques in other scientific domains.

Transition to Health and Nutrition Journalism

Taubes shifted his investigative focus to health-related topics in the late 1990s, applying the same rigorous scrutiny he had employed in physics and other contentious scientific domains. His entry point was an examination of the salt-hypertension hypothesis, culminating in the 1998 Science article "The (Political) Science of Salt," which dissected three decades of research and revealed inconsistencies in the evidence supporting population-wide salt reduction recommendations. This piece, awarded the 1998 Science in Society Journalism Award by the National Association of Science Writers, underscored how institutional pressures and selective interpretation of data mirrored flaws Taubes had previously documented in fields like cold fusion.^[10] Building on this, Taubes next targeted the dietary fat paradigm, publishing "The Soft Science of Dietary Fat" in Science on March 30, 2001. In this analysis, he reviewed the historical development of anti-fat guidelines, interviewing approximately 140 researchers, policymakers, and clinicians, and concluded that despite billions spent on studies since the 1950s, the causal link between saturated fat intake and heart disease lacked definitive empirical support, relying instead on associative epidemiology prone to confounding variables. ^[22] The article exposed how U.S. government reports, such as the 1988 Surgeon General's on nutrition, amplified tentative hypotheses into policy without resolving underlying mechanistic uncertainties.^[10] These investigations marked Taubes' pivot to nutrition as a core beat, as they revealed systemic parallels to the "pathological" science-media dynamics he critiqued earlier. His 2002 New York Times Magazine cover story, "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?", extended this critique by challenging the post-World War II consensus on low-fat diets, positing refined carbohydrates—rather than total calories or fats—as drivers of obesity epidemics through hormonal dysregulation.^[23] The piece, which interviewed pioneers like low-carbohydrate advocate Robert Atkins, ignited widespread debate and positioned Taubes as a leading skeptic of mainstream nutritional epidemiology, where observational data often supplanted controlled trials amid potential biases from funding and ideology.^[23] This transition reflected Taubes' method of privileging causal evidence over correlative claims, leading to his subsequent book-length explorations of obesity and metabolic disease.

Challenges to Mainstream Nutrition Paradigms

Critique of Dietary Fat Hypothesis

Gary Taubes has argued that the dietary fat hypothesis, which posits that saturated fats elevate cholesterol levels and thereby cause heart disease, rests on flawed observational data and lacks support from randomized controlled trials. In his 2001 article in Science, Taubes detailed how early proponents like Ancel Keys selectively used data from the Seven Countries Study, correlating fat intake with heart disease in seven nations while ignoring 15 others where no such association existed, thus establishing a spurious causal link without experimental validation.^[22] This hypothesis gained traction post-World War II amid rising heart disease diagnoses, which Taubes attributes partly to improved diagnostics rather than dietary shifts, as per capita fat consumption remained stable while refined carbohydrate intake surged.^[22] Taubes critiques the leap from association to policy, noting that the American Heart Association's 1961 endorsement of low-fat diets for all Americans preceded robust evidence, influenced by Keys' advocacy despite dissenting researchers like Yerushalmy and Stamler who highlighted confounders such as smoking and poverty.^[22] He points out that large cohort studies, including the Nurses' Health Study tracking over 80,000 women from 1980 to 1994, found no association between total or saturated fat intake and coronary heart disease risk, with monounsaturated fats appearing protective and saturated fats at most marginally harmful after adjusting for confounders.^[22] Similarly, the Framingham Heart Study's long-term data linked cholesterol to disease but failed to demonstrate that dietary fat reduction lowered risk independently.^[22] Experimental trials underscore Taubes' contention that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils does not reduce—and may increase—mortality. The Sydney Diet Heart Study (1966–1973), involving 458 men post-heart attack, randomized participants to a diet high in linoleic acid from safflower oil versus a control; reanalysis in 2013 revealed a 62% higher all-cause mortality and 74% higher cardiovascular mortality in the intervention group, despite cholesterol reduction. The Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968–1973), the largest such trial with over 9,000 participants in mental institutions and nursing homes, substituted corn oil and margarine for saturated fats, lowering serum cholesterol by 13.8% yet yielding a 22% increase in mortality per 30 mg/dL cholesterol drop, as shown in 2016 reanalysis of unpublished data. Taubes highlights these as suppressed results that contradicted the hypothesis, with organizers like Ivan Frantz expressing disappointment but not publicizing the harms.^[24] Further undermining the hypothesis, Taubes notes the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT, 1982), a $115 million study of 12,866 high-risk men, where intensive counseling to reduce fat and cholesterol alongside smoking cessation and blood pressure control showed no mortality benefit over usual care, suggesting potential lifespan shortening from low-fat interventions.^[22] The Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (1984), costing $140 million, demonstrated modest heart disease reduction via cholestyramine but extrapolated dietary implications without trial evidence, ignoring that saturated fats also raise protective HDL cholesterol.^[22] Taubes argues this evidential weakness prompted the 1977 McGovern Senate committee to impose low-fat guidelines amid political pressure, sidelining scientific dissent and fostering a paradigm where high-carbohydrate replacements exacerbated obesity and insulin resistance without addressing root causes.^[25]^[22]

Advocacy for Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity

Gary Taubes advocates the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) of obesity, which asserts that diets rich in refined and easily digestible carbohydrates—such as sugars, white flour, and starches—trigger pronounced insulin responses that favor fat deposition in adipose tissue, inhibit fat breakdown, partition energy away from lean tissues, and heighten hunger signals, thereby promoting passive overeating and weight gain irrespective of total caloric intake.^[26]^[27] This contrasts with the dominant energy balance model, which treats obesity as a simple mismatch of calories consumed versus expended, a view Taubes deems insufficient for explaining why low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets have coincided with surging obesity rates since the late 1970s.^[9] In his 2007 book Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes delineates the mechanism: carbohydrates elevate blood glucose, prompting insulin secretion to shuttle calories into fat cells for storage while suppressing lipolysis (fat release), creating an internal energy deficit that drives compensatory hyperphagia without conscious overeating.^[27] He supports this with historical evidence, including early-20th-century experiments where rodents and humans fattened rapidly on carbohydrate-heavy diets low in fat, and epidemiological observations like the Pima Indians' shift from leanness on traditional low-carb diets to obesity after adopting refined grains and sugars in the 20th century.^[27] Taubes further argues that insulin's primacy in fat regulation explains clinical trial outcomes, such as meta-analyses from the 2000s showing low-carbohydrate diets yielding 1-2 kg greater short-term weight loss than low-fat alternatives under ad libitum conditions, attributable to reduced insulin and enhanced fat oxidation rather than mere caloric restriction.^[26] In a 2012 New York Times op-ed, he stated: "The obvious mechanism: carbohydrates stimulate secretion of the hormone insulin, which works, among other things, to store fat in our fat cells" and suppress hunger-suppressing hormones like glucagon, reinforcing the cycle.^[28] To empirically test CIM predictions, Taubes co-founded the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) in 2012, funding randomized controlled trials including a 2016-2018 study of 164 adults where low-carbohydrate participants (20-40g carbs/day) lost an average of 2.2 kg more body fat than low-fat counterparts (under eucaloric conditions), with lower insulin levels correlating to greater fat mobilization.^[7] He interprets such results as vindicating CIM's emphasis on dietary composition's hormonal effects over willpower or exercise, critiquing institutional nutrition science for prioritizing energy balance due to entrenched paradigms dating to Ancel Keys' mid-century work.^[9] Taubes maintains this advocacy in later writings, linking the model's implications to ketogenic or very-low-carbohydrate regimens that minimize insulin excursions, as evidenced by sustained remissions in type 2 diabetes trials following carb restriction.^[9]

Major Publications

Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat

Good Calories, Bad Calories, published on September 25, 2007, by Alfred A. Knopf, presents Taubes's extensive investigation into the origins and validity of dietary recommendations promoting low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets.^[29] Taubes contends that the prevailing paradigm, which attributes obesity, diabetes, and heart disease primarily to dietary fat and excess calories, lacks robust empirical support and stems from flawed interpretations of mid-20th-century research, such as Ancel Keys's selective use of data in the Seven Countries Study.^[27] Instead, he posits a carbohydrate-insulin model, where refined carbohydrates and sugars elevate insulin levels, promoting fat storage, hunger, and metabolic dysfunction rather than simple caloric surplus driving weight gain.^[30] Drawing on historical clinical observations, like those from the 19th-century Vienna physician Wilhelm Banting's low-carbohydrate regimen and early 20th-century experiments by researchers such as Frederick Allen on fasting and insulin's role in diabetes, Taubes argues that carbohydrates, particularly easily digestible ones, are the causal agents in chronic diseases previously blamed on fats.^[31] The book critiques the post-World War II shift in nutritional science, highlighting how U.S. government and institutional endorsements of low-fat diets—exemplified by the 1977 McGovern Committee report—relied on associative epidemiology rather than controlled trials demonstrating causality.^[32] Taubes examines evidence from randomized trials, such as the 1960s work of John Yudkin, who linked sugar to heart disease before facing professional marginalization, and contrasts it with the underwhelming results of low-fat interventions like the Women's Health Initiative, where participants on reduced-fat diets showed no significant weight loss or cardiovascular benefits after years of adherence.^[33] He emphasizes physiological mechanisms: insulin not only facilitates glucose uptake but inhibits fat breakdown (lipolysis), leading to a feedback loop of fat accumulation independent of total energy intake, supported by observations that obese individuals often consume fewer calories than lean counterparts when normalized for body size.^[34] Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, released in December 2010 as a more concise and accessible distillation of Good Calories, Bad Calories's arguments, reinforces the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis while providing practical guidance.^[35] Taubes reiterates that obesity arises from hormonal dysregulation—primarily insulin resistance induced by chronic carbohydrate consumption—rather than thermodynamic imbalance, citing evolutionary mismatches where modern refined carbs overwhelm ancestral metabolic adaptations.^[36] The book reviews supportive evidence, including population studies showing rising obesity paralleling increased sugar intake since the 1970s and clinical outcomes from low-carbohydrate diets, such as those in the 2003 Atkins trials where participants lost more weight and improved lipid profiles compared to low-fat groups.^[37] Taubes advocates eliminating refined carbs and sugars to restore hormonal balance, arguing this approach aligns with first-hand accounts from physicians like Blake Donaldson, who successfully treated obesity with meat-and-fat diets in the early 1900s, and warns against equating all calories equally due to their differential metabolic effects.^[23]

The Case Against Sugar

The Case Against Sugar, published on December 27, 2016, by Alfred A. Knopf, synthesizes Taubes's critique of refined sugars—primarily sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup—as primary drivers of metabolic diseases including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.^[38] Taubes posits that these sugars function as toxins, uniquely metabolized to promote fat synthesis, insulin resistance, and hyperinsulinemia, effects not replicated by other macronutrients at equivalent caloric intakes.^[39] Drawing on historical patterns, he notes that per capita sugar consumption in the United States surged from 10 pounds annually in 1800 to over 150 pounds by the late 20th century, paralleling rises in obesity and diabetes rates from negligible to epidemic levels.^[40] Taubes structures his case around biological mechanisms, industry obfuscation, and institutional denial, likening sugar's trajectory to tobacco's delayed recognition as carcinogenic.^[41] He emphasizes fructose's hepatic processing, which generates triglycerides and de novo lipogenesis, bypassing normal satiety signals and elevating blood lipids, as evidenced by rodent studies where sugar-fed animals exhibited weight gain, fatty liver, and insulin resistance even when calories were controlled.^[42] Human correlational data, such as Pacific Island populations developing diabetes upon adopting sugar-rich diets, further support this, Taubes argues, challenging the energy-balance model that treats obesity as mere caloric surplus without regard to hormonal regulation.^[37] He critiques the sugar industry's funding of research to shift blame to fats, mirroring tobacco tactics documented in internal memos from the 1960s onward.^[40] The book also addresses alcohol and cigarettes as analogs—substances addictive and disease-causing yet long defended despite early warnings—urging a precautionary approach to sugar restriction.^[41] Taubes acknowledges gaps in randomized trials but contends epidemiological consistencies and mechanistic plausibility outweigh them, given nutrition science's history of errors like the dietary fat hypothesis.^[43] Critics contend he overinterprets animal data and underemphasizes overall energy intake or genetics, yet Taubes counters that such views perpetuate flawed paradigms resistant to paradigm shifts.^[42]^[44]

Rethinking Diabetes and Recent Works

In Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments, published on January 2, 2024, Gary Taubes investigates the historical trajectory of diabetes research and management for both type 1 and type 2 variants, contending that pre-1921 treatments emphasizing carbohydrate restriction—pioneered by figures such as John Rollo in 1797 and Frederick Banting—effectively controlled symptoms and extended life expectancy without insulin, yet were supplanted post-insulin discovery by regimens promoting high-carbohydrate diets alongside pharmacological interventions.^[45]^[46] Taubes attributes this shift to institutional preferences for drug-centric models over dietary discipline, arguing it exacerbated the condition's progression despite advancements in monitoring and medications.^[47]^[48] Taubes dedicates the book to endocrinologist Sarah Hallberg, who demonstrated type 2 diabetes remission via low-carbohydrate nutrition in clinical settings before her death in 2022, and draws on physiological evidence to frame the disease as a carbohydrate metabolism disorder driven by chronic hyperinsulinemia rather than obesity alone.^[49] He critiques contemporary guidelines from bodies like the American Diabetes Association, which half of patients fail to meet for blood glucose control, asserting that elevated carbohydrate intake perpetuates insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction, while low-carbohydrate, higher-fat diets reduce insulin requirements and improve outcomes, as evidenced by historical case series and modern trials like those from Virta Health showing sustained remission in type 2 patients.^[50]^[51]^[52] The work highlights diabetes's transformation from a rare 19th-century affliction—comprising under 1% of populations in autopsy studies—to a U.S. epidemic affecting 1 in 9 adults, with annual healthcare costs exceeding $400 billion, linking this rise to post-World War II dietary shifts toward refined sugars and starches amid flawed epidemiological assumptions equating all calories equally.^[50] Taubes advocates recentering treatment on empirical dietary trials over incremental pharmacotherapy, warning that current approaches treat symptoms without addressing root causes like carbohydrate-induced fat storage and beta-cell exhaustion.^[53]^[54] Complementing the book, Taubes adapted excerpts into essays, such as a January 3, 2024, Time piece on treatment paradoxes, reinforcing that insulin's introduction inadvertently normalized hyperglycemia by enabling carbohydrate-heavy diets, and he continues discussing these themes in public forums, including a May 2024 presentation at the Public Health Collaboration conference.^[53]^[55] These efforts underscore his broader critique of nutrition science's reliance on observational data over mechanistic and therapeutic experiments, positioning low-carbohydrate approaches as a viable alternative supported by clinical reversals rather than consensus-driven inertia.^[50]^[56]

Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI)

Founding and Objectives

The Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) was co-founded in February 2012 by science journalist Gary Taubes and physician Peter Attia, with the organization headquartered in San Diego, California.^[57] It was publicly launched on September 12, 2012, as a nonprofit entity aimed at addressing perceived flaws in the prevailing understanding of obesity.^[58] Initial funding, totaling over $40 million in commitments, came primarily from philanthropists Laura and John Arnold through their Arnold Ventures foundation, enabling NuSI to support multimillion-dollar research grants without reliance on government or industry sources.^[59]^[60] NuSI's core objective was to generate definitive, evidence-based answers to the causes of obesity and related chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, by funding rigorous, controlled clinical trials that could resolve longstanding scientific debates.^[61] The initiative explicitly sought to test and potentially overturn the dominant "energy balance" paradigm—which posits obesity primarily as a result of caloric intake exceeding expenditure—against alternative physiological explanations, including the role of carbohydrates in driving insulin secretion and fat storage.^[58]^[62] By prioritizing hypothesis-driven research over observational epidemiology, NuSI aimed to produce transformative science capable of reducing the economic and social burdens of obesity, estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars annually in healthcare costs.^[61]^[63] This approach was framed as a "Manhattan Project" for nutrition, emphasizing first-principles experimentation to identify causal mechanisms rather than perpetuating what founders viewed as decades of inconclusive, low-quality studies influenced by institutional biases in nutrition science.^[60] NuSI committed to transparency by pre-registering studies, sharing data openly, and focusing on outcomes like body fat regulation independent of willpower or behavioral factors.^[62] The ultimate goal was to inform public policy, clinical guidelines, and dietary recommendations with unambiguous evidence, potentially shifting focus from low-fat, calorie-restricted diets to interventions targeting hormonal and metabolic drivers.^[64]

Research Outcomes and Challenges

The Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) funded four primary research projects between 2012 and 2021 aimed at testing the mechanistic roles of macronutrients, particularly carbohydrates, in obesity and insulin resistance, with a focus on the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM). These included a short-term human metabolic study, a rodent experiment on dietary effects, and two larger randomized controlled trials in humans examining energy expenditure and weight loss maintenance.^[7] One key outcome emerged from a NuSI-supported trial led by Cara Ebbeling and David Ludwig, published in 2018, involving 164 adults with overweight or obesity who first lost 12% of body weight on a standard diet. During a 20-week maintenance phase, participants assigned to a low-carbohydrate diet (20% carbs, 20% protein, 60% fat) exhibited total energy expenditure approximately 209 kcal/day higher than those on a low-fat diet (60% carbs, 20% fat, 20% protein), as measured by doubly labeled water, with corresponding increases in fat oxidation and resting expenditure. This finding aligned with CIM predictions that reduced carbohydrate intake lowers insulin secretion, thereby increasing energy expenditure and potentially aiding weight maintenance, though actual weight regain differences were modest (low-carb: -0.6 kg vs. low-fat: +1.9 kg).^[65] In contrast, a separate NuSI-funded 12-month randomized trial by Christopher Gardner and colleagues, involving 609 adults, compared ad libitum healthy low-fat (48% carbs) and healthy low-carbohydrate (30% carbs) diets after initial group counseling. Both groups achieved similar mean weight loss (low-fat: -5.3 kg; low-carb: -6.0 kg), with no significant difference, and comparable improvements in cardiovascular risk factors, suggesting that macronutrient composition did not substantially outperform overall dietary quality or caloric deficit in promoting sustained weight loss under these conditions.^[66] Challenges in NuSI's research efforts included methodological hurdles in designing studies capable of isolating causal effects of macronutrients from caloric intake and behavioral factors, leading to critiques over study duration, participant adherence, and interpretation of null or modest results. For instance, extensive post-hoc analyses and disputes arose in the Ebbeling-Ludwig trial, with some researchers arguing that the energy expenditure differences were overstated due to unaccounted variables like physical activity or adaptive thermogenesis, while NuSI provided detailed feedback questioning conclusions that downplayed metabolic advantages of low-carb diets. Funding constraints emerged as major obstacles; initial pledges of up to $40 million from donors like the Laura and John Arnold Foundation supported early work but tapered off amid inconclusive outcomes and shifting priorities, contributing to operational difficulties and the organization's inability to scale to larger, definitive trials.^[59] These issues culminated in NuSI's dissolution on December 31, 2021, after expending approximately $20 million, with co-founder Gary Taubes acknowledging that while the initiative generated evidence challenging simplistic caloric-balance models—such as elevated energy expenditure on low-carb regimens—it failed to produce the "unambiguous" paradigm-shifting results envisioned, partly due to entrenched resistance in nutrition research paradigms and the complexity of long-term human trials. Despite this, proponents credit NuSI with catalyzing federal funding for similar studies and highlighting insulin's understudied role in obesity etiology.^[7]

Ongoing Advocacy and Public Engagement

Debates on Diet Versus Pharmacological Interventions

Taubes has critiqued the prioritization of pharmacological interventions like GLP-1 receptor agonists (e.g., semaglutide in Ozempic and Wegovy) over dietary changes for treating obesity, arguing that the former often mask symptoms without resolving underlying hormonal dysregulation. In clinical trials, semaglutide has demonstrated average weight loss of 15-17% after 68 weeks, yet Taubes notes high discontinuation rates—often exceeding 50% within a year—due to gastrointestinal side effects, muscle loss, and cost barriers, raising questions about long-term adherence and efficacy.^[67] He contrasts this with low-carbohydrate diets, which, per the carbohydrate-insulin model he champions, reduce insulin secretion and promote fat mobilization by addressing carbohydrate-driven hyperinsulinemia, potentially yielding comparable or superior sustained results without daily injections or dependency.^[68]^[9] Drawing historical parallels, Taubes warns that emphasizing drugs echoes the early 20th-century shift to insulin for diabetes management, which alleviated hyperglycemia but overlooked dietary carbohydrate restriction, contributing to vascular complications and escalating insulin requirements over time.^[69] He posits that GLP-1 agonists may indirectly mimic low-carb effects by suppressing appetite and altering gut hormones, but their mechanism—potentially restoring access to "trapped" adipose tissue—underscores diet's primacy, as pharmacological suppression of hunger signals fails to re-educate metabolic responses post-treatment.^[70] In his view, rigorous randomized trials of ad libitum low-carb diets, akin to those for drugs, remain underfunded, perpetuating a bias toward profitable interventions despite evidence from smaller studies showing reversal of type 2 diabetes and obesity without medication. Taubes has voiced these concerns in public forums, including podcasts where he disputes proponents like Peter Attia, emphasizing unknown risks of GLP-1 drugs such as pancreatic inflammation, thyroid tumors in rodents, and fertility impacts, against diets' established safety profile when carbohydrate-restricted.^[71] He advocates testing post-drug maintenance via low-carb regimens to prevent regain, citing trial data where weight rebounds rapidly upon discontinuation, with over 60% of lost weight often regained within a year absent lifestyle changes.^[70] This debate highlights Taubes's broader contention that obesity's etiology as a hormonal disorder favors causal dietary fixes over symptomatic palliation, urging a reevaluation of public health guidelines that undervalue empirical testing of carbohydrate reduction.^[72]

Substack and Media Contributions

In December 2024, Taubes launched his independent Substack newsletter Uncertainty Principles, which focuses on unresolved questions and debates in science, medicine, health, and nutrition, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging ignorance over dogmatic certainty.^[73] The publication serves as a platform for investigative pieces challenging mainstream narratives, informed by Taubes's decades of reporting on nutrition controversies.^[74] As of late 2025, it has attracted over 17,000 free subscribers and more than 100 paid subscribers, offering free newsletters alongside premium content such as early access and archives for supporters.^[75] Notable posts include "Is There a Boring Truth About Obesity?" on October 5, 2025, which disputes simplistic caloric surplus explanations for the U.S. obesity epidemic by highlighting historical data inconsistencies and hormonal factors.^[76] Another entry, "The BodyBuilder Bias, or Why Lean People Can Be Clueless about Obesity," published October 18, 2025, examines how personal leanness may foster biases against metabolic models of fat storage, referencing empirical challenges to energy balance orthodoxy.^[77] Earlier contributions to collaborative platforms, such as guest posts on Nina Teicholz's Unsettled Science Substack, include "Lessons from the MIND Diet Trial" in August 2023, critiquing the trial's design flaws and limited applicability to obesity prevention despite media hype.^[78] Taubes has sustained media engagement through interviews and podcasts promoting low-carbohydrate paradigms and critiquing epidemiological weaknesses in nutrition research. In an October 30, 2024, episode of Tara Henley's Lean Out podcast, he discussed hormonal drivers of fat accumulation and the shortcomings of caloric restriction, tying these to his book Rethinking Diabetes.^[79] A September 6, 2024, appearance on the Mind and Matter podcast addressed systemic issues in nutrition epidemiology, including reliance on observational data prone to confounding and the influence of social factors over rigorous causation.^[80] These outlets allow Taubes to counter prevailing views, often citing randomized trial evidence favoring carbohydrate restriction for metabolic health.^[9]

Controversies and Scientific Debates

Criticisms from Caloric Balance Proponents

Caloric balance proponents, including National Institutes of Health researcher Kevin Hall, contend that Taubes's carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) erroneously subordinates the first law of thermodynamics—requiring energy intake to exceed expenditure for fat storage—to secondary hormonal mechanisms, thereby inverting causality in obesity etiology. They assert that empirical evidence from controlled feeding trials demonstrates weight gain and loss are primarily driven by net energy imbalance, with carbohydrate restriction offering no unique advantage when calories are equated. For instance, Hall's 2016 randomized controlled trial published in Cell Metabolism compared ad libitum low-carbohydrate and isocaloric high-carbohydrate diets in 17 overweight adults over four weeks, finding similar reductions in body fat mass (approximately 1 kg in both groups), which proponents interpret as refuting CIM predictions of superior fat oxidation and reduced hunger on low-carb regimens.30243-0) Critics further argue that Taubes misrepresents historical and contemporary data by dismissing calorie-restrictive interventions as ineffective or unsustainable, despite meta-analyses showing short-term efficacy in producing weight loss across macronutrient compositions. In a 2017 review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Hall and co-authors evaluated CIM against the energy balance model (EBM), highlighting that overfeeding studies—such as those inducing surplus calories via fats or carbs—consistently increase body fat regardless of insulin levels, underscoring energy surplus as the causal driver rather than carbohydrate-induced hyperinsulinemia. Proponents like Stephan Guyenet echo this, claiming Taubes cherry-picks evidence while ignoring how environmental factors (e.g., ultra-processed foods) elevate intake, leading to imbalance, and that his model's failure in NuSI-funded trials (e.g., limited spontaneous calorie reduction on low-carb arms) undermines its validity.00069-7/fulltext)^[81] Additional rebukes focus on Taubes's alleged selective historiography, where he portrays the post-World War II adoption of EBM as a paradigm error influenced by flawed assumptions, yet caloric balance advocates point to longstanding physiological data, including Keys's semi-starvation experiments (1944–1945), where energy deficit induced fat loss irrespective of diet composition, as foundational support for EBM's primacy. They maintain that while insulin influences nutrient partitioning, it does not override energy conservation laws, and Taubes's advocacy risks misleading public policy by de-emphasizing portion control and physical activity in favor of unproven carb vilification. These critiques, often from federally funded researchers, reflect a broader institutional consensus in nutrition science favoring EBM, though skeptics note potential conflicts from long-standing low-fat paradigms.

Responses and Empirical Evidence Supporting Taubes's Views

Proponents of the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM), including Taubes, respond to caloric balance advocates by asserting that the energy balance equation is an uninformative tautology describing weight change after it occurs, rather than explaining the underlying physiological drivers of fat accumulation and appetite dysregulation.^[26] They argue that elevated insulin from carbohydrate consumption actively promotes adipose tissue storage, suppresses fat oxidation, and signals the brain to increase hunger and reduce energy expenditure, independent of total caloric intake.^[82] This hormonal mechanism, they contend, better accounts for why populations consuming high-glycemic-load diets exhibit rising obesity rates despite stable or declining overall energy intake in some historical contexts.^[83] Empirical support includes randomized controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrating superior short-term weight loss on low-carbohydrate diets compared to low-fat alternatives. A 2020 meta-analysis of 26 RCTs involving over 1,500 participants found low-carbohydrate diets yielded greater reductions in body weight (mean difference -1.77 kg at 6-12 months) and improved high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides, effects attributed to reduced insulin secretion and enhanced fat mobilization.^[84] Another 2022 systematic review of seven long-term studies reported low-carbohydrate diets associated with 2.72 kg greater weight loss at 3-4 months and sustained cardiovascular risk factor improvements, such as lower diastolic blood pressure, over 12 months.^[85] In type 2 diabetes management, low-carbohydrate interventions show robust glycemic benefits. A 2023 meta-analysis of RCTs indicated low-carbohydrate diets reduced HbA1c by 0.47% more than higher-carbohydrate controls at 6 months, alongside greater fat mass loss, without adverse effects on lipids in most cases.^[86] Early 20th-century clinical observations, replicated in modern trials, document diabetes reversal through carbohydrate restriction, with fasting glucose dropping significantly (e.g., from 200+ mg/dL to near-normal) and insulin requirements eliminated in non-insulin-dependent patients within weeks.^[87] A 2003 RCT of 63 obese participants found low-carbohydrate diets produced 4% greater absolute weight loss than conventional low-fat diets over six months, with participants reporting less hunger despite ad libitum eating.^[88] Isocaloric feeding studies further bolster the CIM by isolating macronutrient effects. In a 2016 crossover trial by Ludwig et al., overweight adults on high-glycemic carbohydrate loads expended 209 more calories per day via increased energy expenditure and reduced sedentary time compared to low-glycemic or high-fat diets, supporting carbohydrate-driven metabolic inefficiency.^[82] These findings counter caloric balance primacy by evidencing substrate-specific influences on partitioning and expenditure, though critics note long-term adherence challenges limit generalizability.^[26] Overall, while not universally superior beyond one year in all trials, the pattern of metabolic improvements—lower insulin, better dyslipidemia, and visceral fat reduction—aligns with Taubes's emphasis on carbohydrates as primary obesogenic agents.^[89]

Awards and Recognition

[Awards and Recognition - no content]

References

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