[codahale]

Taubes breezily dismisses the Hall paper, which is, methodologically speaking, pretty conclusive. If you're curious about the paper and its implications for Taubes's obesity-insulin hypothesis, I'd recommend these two blog posts by Stephan Guyenet, an obesity researcher:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-new-human-tr...

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2015/08/more-thoughts-...

[3pt14159]

I wouldn't dismiss the controversy just yet. Although the obesity-insulin hypothesis ignores other hormones and factors such as leptin, glucagon, and ghrelin; as well as other factors to nutrition, like how insulin spikes contribute to muscle growth, it is pretty effective at predicting heart disease and diabetes and reduction in not just carbohydrates but also starches / free sugars is almost universally agreed to provide long term health benefits.