Debunking food, fat, and fitness myths

[rachelmanija]

I would like your best recs for in-depth articles, studies, or books on the most cutting-edge current knowledge about nutrition, body weight, and health.

I am NOT interested in basic articles about very well-known ideas like fat will kill you, carbs will kill you, meat will kill you, anything your grandma wouldn't recognize as food such as everything but cabbage and turnips will kill you, etc.

I am also NOT interested in articles with a primarily political bent (i.e., "pushing diets on women is based on sexism/capitalism not science;") I agree with that, but I'm looking for stuff where the meat is science and the politics is the side dish rather than the reverse.

I'm looking for more in-depth, up-to-date information on topics including but not limited to...

- Do we actually know anything about nutrition, given the every-five-year swings between "eggs are cardioprotective/eggs are a heart attack on a plate," "fat is the Devil/carbs are the Devil," etc? If so, what is it and how do we know it?

- What is the actual science on grains (and no, I don't mean Wheat Belly)?

- What is the best and most cutting-edge knowledge on gaining strength?

- What is the actual science on the causes of Type 2 diabetes, why its prevalence has risen so much, and its association with obesity?

- What is the actual knowledge of the diet and health of "cavemen?"

- What is the actual science on being fat, thin, and in-between in terms of health? For instance, is it better to be fat and active than "normal weight" and sedentary? (I know the answer but I'm looking for something that goes into this in-depth.)

- What is the deal with "calorie reduction makes you healthier and live longer" vs. "dieting is bad for you?"

I'm already familiar with Michael Pollan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Mark's Daily Apple, Diet Cults, Body of Truth, and The Starvation Experiment. And lots more but those are the things I get recced a lot already.

Comments

[ewt]

Hello, I am here from silveradept's post.

I think most of the things I was going to say have been covered, but where people talk about the glycaemic index, it might be interesting to look at the insulin index of foods. This has only been calculated for a smallish number of foods yet (and measuring insulin is more expensive than measuring glucose and, notably, much harder to do at home -- which means you can't easily construct your own, personalised insulin index the way you theoretically could for a glycaemic index) but has some interesting bits in; sorry, I am using my phone and do not have the link to hand, will try to come back from a big computer.

I would also add that a lot of the animal studies are... not great? I mean, if we are testing stuff on mice who are obese because of a specific genetic mutation, it might not apply to humans (who can't be assumed to have that genetic mutation).

Oh, another thing I remembered...

[ewt]

Ozone pollution and insulin resistance:
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/64/3/1011

I think there are probably other things around, along the lines of oxidative stress and insulin resistance.