Did you hear? From the New York Times last week: Diabetes Study Ends Early With a Surprising Result. Thus far there's been some of the usual responses from the low carb community, and I expect more to come. For starters, the writer is Gina Kolata, a woman reviled by Gary Taubes and thus his adoring fans, so we'll get the usual round up of Gina doesn't get it that low carb is the bestest and only way to treat diabetes ... duh!! Let's look a bit closer, shall we?
First, keep in mind this study has not been published up, so we're dealing with press releases and quotes here. Secondly, ending the study early makes it sound quite a bit more dire than what we know to have happened. The study was apparently to last 13 years (odd duration, that), but was ended at 11 years because no differences were seen between the study and control groups over that time. Sounds prudent, because likely they looked at the numbers and probably concluded that there would need to be an unfathomable number of incidents/deaths in the remaining two years to alter the results. Save the money. Good.
