I think the snarky response would be that "in dieting unproven criticism of published scientific studies is no substitute for research."
I think it's fine to come up with such criticism as long as it leads to looking at and questioning the result and defining further studies, but......
One of my hobbies is history and archaeology. It's what I studied mostly in college (computing was just a hobby). One of the fascinating things is that diets where the primary calories come from carbs is associated in the archaeological record with both more dental problems (due to changes in the bacterial flora of the mouth) and shorter life expectancy than are lower carb diets.
So a diet where your main sources of calories are essentially a curdled milk, and dried fish with butter, and where your primary source of carbs (and use of grain) is from beer has a longer life expectancy, and a much lower dental problem rate than a diet where grains and breads are the primary source of calories.
One of the interesting things you can watch in the Scandinavian archaeological record is that during the conversion, grain production went up, life expectancy went down,and dental caries became far more common. Moreover the spread is sufficiently high that it cannot be accounted for by infant mortality. Average life expectancy at birth in the Viking Age (according to Else Roesdahl) was approx 45, though this probably did not include infanticides which poses some selection problem. But in France at the same time it was 20. Moreover the average life expectancy at age 20 in France at the time was only 35.
This doesn't mean that there weren't other factors involved such as changing standards of hygiene, or population changes that might not have had some impact. However I don't think one can say that diet had nothing to do with it.
Has anyone researched this and documented a correlation? I'm doubtful of your claims, and given your opening line, it's ironic that you go on to compare observations from your hobby against statements made by a doctor with 60 years of research behind him. His criticism is not unproven, there's no substantiation for that claim at all.
But you also make an interesting observation, if it has a basis in fact. It would seem to contradict the research of the Okinawan diet, which is almost exclusively plant-based, and 85% of calories are carb-derived.
Actually, a huge amount of archaeological research goes into trying to determine how we can tell what people ate from their bones, teeth, etc. The amount of information that can be gathered is pretty substantial. For example:
1) Tooth decay rates are still the largest indications of eating a carb-based diet. These are often also used as markers for cereal agriculture, naturally enough.
2) Societies that consume excessive quantities of milk develop bone abnormalities associated with anemia, because cow's milk interferes with absorbtion of iron.
3) Societies that consume lots of fish have bones that show up as a few centuries older when run through carbon dates. This is true both for consumption of salt-water and fresh-water fish.
The doctor is right about some things. A calorie is a calorie when you are looking at weight loss. A calorie in or out s a calorie in or out. But a lot of things impact how much energy we burn, and when we are hungry and these range from when and how long we sleep[1] to what we eat.[2]
Overly simplistic/reductionist approaches don't work.[3] Chemistry is not applied quantum physics even though our understanding of chemistry is informed by quantum physics. If you are trying to help people diet, arguing that calories are what you directly control rather than the end-game is just a recipe for misery.
[2] For example, the effects of what we eat on insulin production are well understood, but also there are effects of insulin production on appetite that are getting more attention now. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16933179 for example.
I think it's fine to come up with such criticism as long as it leads to looking at and questioning the result and defining further studies, but......
One of my hobbies is history and archaeology. It's what I studied mostly in college (computing was just a hobby). One of the fascinating things is that diets where the primary calories come from carbs is associated in the archaeological record with both more dental problems (due to changes in the bacterial flora of the mouth) and shorter life expectancy than are lower carb diets.
So a diet where your main sources of calories are essentially a curdled milk, and dried fish with butter, and where your primary source of carbs (and use of grain) is from beer has a longer life expectancy, and a much lower dental problem rate than a diet where grains and breads are the primary source of calories.
One of the interesting things you can watch in the Scandinavian archaeological record is that during the conversion, grain production went up, life expectancy went down,and dental caries became far more common. Moreover the spread is sufficiently high that it cannot be accounted for by infant mortality. Average life expectancy at birth in the Viking Age (according to Else Roesdahl) was approx 45, though this probably did not include infanticides which poses some selection problem. But in France at the same time it was 20. Moreover the average life expectancy at age 20 in France at the time was only 35.
This doesn't mean that there weren't other factors involved such as changing standards of hygiene, or population changes that might not have had some impact. However I don't think one can say that diet had nothing to do with it.