Volek vs Aragon in 2013

Blast from the Past: Volek vs Aragon

Published 9.19.2016
I came across this "debate" between Jeff Volek and Alan Aragon the other day, and made a few notes and observations while watching it. It wasn't truly a debate, really it was just two back to back presentations. Nor is it new, as the event took place in 2013. It was, however, new to me.

The topic under debate was whether or not a diet low in carbohydrates (low carb) is the best diet for athletes. Volek thinks yes, Aragon thinks no. Perhaps it became more of a debate in the question and answer period, but if their was one, it wasn't taped and disseminated.

Volek went first. These are not comprehensive notes, but rather a compilation of my thoughts while listening.

Volek thinks carbs are optional for athletes.
He starts off wit the false claim that our ancestors didn’t eat a lot of carbohydrates. That is a demonstrably false statement.
High carb diets do NOT cause metabolic syndrome (met-syn) in the absence of calorie EXCESS.
His opinion is that insulin resistance is caused by carb intolerance, but gives little evidence for this claim.
NO. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not reversed on a low carb diet unless it’s a calorie restricted diet. T2D can be managed with a low carb diet NOT reversed.
At least he admits that fat is easily stored.
Claims that running without glycogen (so-called fat adapted) means athletes won’t “hit the wall.” If this were true, then serious athletes (who will do most anything to achieve their goals) would be overwhelmingly low carb. They are not because Volek's statement is false.
Being keto-adapted (used to being in the state of ketosis) is not necessary for fat stores to be accessed during long duration aerobics. Once glycogen is used up, the body gets its energy from fat.
He’s a Taubesian regarding the action of insulin.
Claims there no one definition of low carb diet. Low carb means however many carbs you can eat and still be in ketosis.
Is carb tolerance even a real thing?
So-called "nutritional ketosis" (a phrase Volek made up) starts at a blood level of .5 millimole (mmol) to about 3 mmol. Ketoacidosis is when blood ketones >10 mmol and is extremely dangerous. Ketoacidosis is a worry for type one diabetics.
Ketones can alter epigenetics— which ought to scare the crap out of him, but does not. These were animal data.
Ketones are anti-oxidants??
And of course, ketones ~~will be~~ is a supplement— but I don’t think that went as planned.
Apparently Phinney’s work was 30 years ago, but no one uses it. Because it. didn’t. work.
This was funny. Volek claims being in ketosis didn’t affect their performance— in other words, did not improve it. So why suffer through a low carb diet if you don’t have to?
The subjects were cyclists, and in ketosis they used fat not glycogen for fuel, but didn’t do any better. Again… so why the eff do it?
If you don’t have carbs to use as fuel, yes you have to use fat. Again, this happens without ketosis. Has he never read a physiology text?
Lean body mass gain is due to protein not low carb— BUT at least he admits he cherry picked the data to high responders.
Invokes Tim Noakes who reversed course to low carb high fat (LCHF), and who is under investigation for giving out nutritional advice on the internet.
Are there any athletes doing this? He claims yes— in the ultra-endurance world, but all of this is anecdotal.
Ketosis increases arachidonic acid (AA) in the body. He claims that in ketosis less of AA gets oxidized— oxidized AA causes inflammation.
Thinks that might shorten recovery time (which again is related to protein intake I think).

Alan Aragon prepared a much more rigorously sourced presentation. He also came prepared to address the cherry picked results Volek noted.

Unlike Volek, Aragon defines both a low carb (LC) diet and a ketogenic diet (KD) definitively. A KD has less than 50 g carbs pr day and a LC diet has 50-150g carbs.
Points out that very often protein levels are not matched when diets are compared. That’s what Hall’s NuSi* funded study did— and in that apples to apples comparison LC was not better than a low fat diet. And earlier studies showed the same thing. Match protein, and LC loses.
There is a study that showed that people who are insulin resistant (IR) do better on LCHF — but the study wasn’t replicated.
The Phinney study Volek cited was in 1983 (Volek) he counters with 1981 that looked at obese subjects, not athletes. For those on LC their endurance dropped. This suggests that Volek's ideas aren't just useless, they could be harmful to performance.
Then goes back to the 1983 diet, which was NOT a weight loss (calorie restricted) diet— only 5 subjects, 2 of which had SIGNIFICANT DECLINES in endurance. Granted, that meant the 3 either stayed the same or increased (2 subject had increased performance), but that's some serious cherry picking!!
But wait— even for those whose endurance increased, their sprint capacity declined — which is, after all, how most races end. Hard to argue their performance wasn’t affected.
Quoted a lot more evidence, where Volek’s stance was as a researcher in the field.
He goes through the Blue Zones, which are observational studies. The longest lived human populations eat mostly plants (and higher carb) and LEGUMES (aka BEANS) which are 50-60+% carbohydrate.
All five zones eat grains and LEGUMES— NONE follow low carb… Correlation does not mean causation… but carbs are NOT the bad guys.
He then points to East Africa athletes who dominate ultra-endurance running. A typical diet is 3194 cals; 76% plants based, with 23% fat and 64.3% carbs.
Aragon basically got cut off because he ran out of time. The last minute or so of the video are his slides of all his references.

Were I scoring the debate, I give the win to Aragon definitively. Volek didn't make a very strong case, and then Aragon completely destroyed his main piece of evidence supporting his position. Go ahead and eat low carb if that's what you enjoy, but don't think that it will improve your athletic performance.

*Nutritional Science Initiative Founded by Gary Taubes and funded by a former hedge fund guy. NuSi's purpose is to show that Taubes alternative hypothesis for obesity is correct. NuSi's studies to date have failed utterly to do that. In fact, they have done the opposite.
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Blast from the Past: Volek vs Aragon

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