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Debunking a "debunking" - Kresser on JRE
🕑 Added 2018-10-06 12:03:15 +0000 UTC Hey everyone,I'm working on a breakdown of the Kahn Kresser debate, hopefully I'll be done before everyone loses interest in it.
I was looking at some counter arguments and came across a video in which a youtuber "debunks" Chris's statement:
"There is no meta analysis of RCT's that shows that eating more sat fat will increase your risk of death.
Much of the debate was spent talking about saturated fat and cholesterol (unfortunately) and Kahn was being criticized for relying on epidemiology studies to make his point whereas Chris pointed out there are now meta analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials that show low carb diets, which should be higher in saturated fat, are beneficial for health and improve several biomarkers.
Chris goes on to say that, in contrast, there are no meta analyses of randomized control trials showing that saturated fat increases your risk of death. So, if Chris were wrong, it would be very easy to prove because you just need to find one paper that is a Meta Analysis of RCT's that shows higher mortality from higher saturated fat. So, the youtuber brought up
This study: "Effects on Coronary Heart Disease of Increasing Polyunsaturated Fat in Place of Saturated Fat: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials" the study shows less CHD events when you swap out saturated fat for poly unsaturated fat. So it seems to be exactly what we need to debunk Chris, but looking a little closer, not quite. See the attached comment (pic)
Here's the comment I put in response to this video:
At the least, this is a good lesson in how deceptive certain studies can be ...leading to people confidently citing such studies to "debunk" others.
On another note, I posted this comment to the JRE Kahn Kresser debate video as a majority of the comments are saying Rogan is biased towards Kresser:
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"A bunch of commenters are concerned that Joe Rogan is biased & favoring Chris Kresser in the debate (and he probably is a little biased towards low carb given the guests he's had on before.) However, the reason Rogan is constantly challenging Joel Kahn is probably because for at least 50 minutes Kahn does not address address the simple question: "What is wrong with this evidence (several RCT's) Chris points to showing that saturated fat is not a health issue?"
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1:03:44 Kresser mentions 2013, 2014 & 2018 Meta analyses of RCT's showing better health outcomes with low carb (higher saturated fat) diets.
・1:07:30 Kahn hasn't addressed this, Rogan says "Why are you dismissing this new evidence?"
・1:18:04 Still not addressed. After a long tangent, Rogan again redirects Kahn back to the initial question, saying "Please, what is wrong with what he said?"
・Watch the exchange from 1:39:36 〜 1:49:30. Rogan redirects Kahn to the initial question 7 more times, finally Rogan says "He (Kresser) is saying that the current science is showing that there is no negative consequence of saturated fat." Kahn responds with "That's BS, that's BS!" then goes on to say he hasn't read those studies but that they've have been discredited, ...but Kresser points out that he's talking about different studies.
Considering how many times Joe was challenging Joel it probably looked biased, but I think he was mostly irritated that it took him 50 minutes to get an answer to his question. Also one of the first points made in the talk was that epidemiology studies are not good pieces of evidence (explained 00:24:51)
But... Joel proceeded to cite several epidemiology studies to make his point and Joe asked him a few times "Why do you keep citing these?"
◆ After this, Kahn pointed out that Kresser was mistaken in saying that the total fat recommendations were changed in 2010. (From 1:51:00 onwards) Joe challenges Kresser here - "Is that a mistake Chris?" Chris said he didn't have the document right now, but Joe pressed on saying "Can we find it?" Chris said that this is a minor point and RCT's in favor of low carb high fat are more important than this point especially considering there are no RCT's showing saturated fat is deleterious to health. Joe then interrupts him saying "OK Let me stop you... I really think we should clarify this [point about saturated fat guidelines.]" Kahn explains what is on myplate.gov (which counters what Chris said), Joe asks Chris "Did you remember something from 2010 erroneously?" So, when appropriate, Joe was challenging Chris as well.
・At 1:58:00 Joe brings the topic back up and asks Chris if he found where he got that point about 2010 and Chris acknowledges that he got his information from a paper, not directly from the guidelines, so may have made an error ...so Joe stopped challenging him.”
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After writing these out, I have to admit I feel like my time would have been much better spent elsewhere. Maybe at some point I'll offer a tier on Patreon offering to debunk claims or something like that. Would anyone be interested in that?
Hope this was informative or at least interesting.
-Joseph
Comments
I tried to find your comment on the happy healthy vegan video but it is gone. It seems like you are making the case that an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiac events is less bad than death. Interesting commentary.
Craig Talbert
God bless you.
