If you haven't read either of Taubes's books, please do. I highly recommend Why We Get Fat[1]. It's a spectacular piece of scientific journalism. If that's too much for you, try one of his talks on the same topic[2].
When I first encountered the idea that we do not get fat from eating too much and that calories weren't responsible, I thought it ludicrous—the body can't disobey the laws of physics! Thermodynamics! But after seriously thinking about the idea, I realized Taubes was providing a far more complete understanding of metabolism. The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs on food. Yes, we can easily learn the caloric content of food, but that's largely irrelevant. What's important is how food affects the body, not its raw energy content. I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing.
I think the hormone theory of obesity is correct and I think these studies will prove it. But even if they show otherwise, this type of research is long overdue and we all stand to benefit from the results.
I've posted here about this before - I got involved with weight watchers through my two roomates as moral support for them, and have personally seen and been involved with many hundreds of people losing many thousands of punds - and keeping it off (that was over 10 years ago).
I've always thought of weight-loss like everything else we learn and do in life - start out simple and make it achievable while getting "beginner" results, then work your way up making it more and more complicated.
When you're 6 and learning to count, you are not taught differentiation and complex numbers.
When you're learning to surf, nobody would through you in at the world's biggest wave.
When you learn a new language, you don't learn the most complicated conjugations first.
Losing weight starts simply by reducing the amount of energy you're eating (calories) to a level lower than your body is using on a daily basis. I don't care if you eat raw sugar or fat, as long as you eat slightly less calories than your body is using for a prolonged period of time. (yes, you'll likely feel like shit if you eat raw sugar or fat, so I don't recommend it). Like you said, the body must obey the laws of thermodynamics. The longer you keep that up, the more weight you will lose.
I genuinely believe anything else at the "beginner" stage is noise and over complication. The mere fact so many books exist on the topic, and so many "new" theories come out each year is proof that it's too complicated for beginners.
Once you have some good "beginner results" and are losing weight consistently you will and start to move from morbidly obese to just obese down to a somewhat healthy range. THEN you can start making it more complicated, and start focusing on WHAT you're eating, not simply how much.
It's an advanced topic that isn't required for the basics. (just like you don't need complex numbers to count the number of marbles in your bag, or almost all other functions required in a normal adult life.)
I used to believe in the refined-carb/insulin hypothesis of Taubes, and I even lost weight on it, but I've ditched that model in favor of Stephan's more complete food reward hypothesis - the idea that more rewarding and palatable foods lead to increased calories ingested in certain individuals and hence lead to fat gain.
One approach to weight loss then is to lower the reward value of the diet. One way to do that is low carb, another way is low fat, another way is vegetarian, another way to use gentler cooking methods and less seasoning, the list goes on. But many successful diets that people have used are very well explained by food reward.
edit> I also believe calorie counting and intermittent fasting are very powerful tools used in conjunction with a reduced reward diet. Eating less calories with minimal hunger and losing fat is the holy grail, and these tools are helping me do that in a very effective way.
If you do the research yourself, you will quickly realize how the citation works when people are trying to sell you something. Scientific research is cited when it supports their statements, and is ignored when it counters their beliefs.
It's almost too easy to cite weak scientific studies to prove almost any belief you hold these days, in weight loss business.
Taubes is as good as Atkins - people and media love to hear and write about something different. I am sure the HN crowd already is aware of that. Despite the hate Stephan Guyenet has been receiving by Taubes fans, he does a great job at explaining why what Taubes is promoting isn't scientifically sound or absolute: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...
Saying that losing weight is about less calories in versus than calories out is like saying that flight is about developing more lift than your weight. Yes, that's the general principle, but it glosses over all the hard parts.
I strongly agree with part of this, and am reservedly skeptical about the rest. What I agree with is disputing "calories make us fat because thermodynamics". Yes, of course the laws of physics still apply, and energy in minus energy out has to equal stored energy... but there are all kinds of ways energy is entering and leaving the system.
I do think that calories eaten and expended are an important part of the equation - having seen some people lose weight through simply restricting portion size - but I am unconvinced that it is (or is not) typically the most important piece. I am convinced that "... because thermodynamics" is a poor argument for it being the only thing that matters.
"When Leibel had participants in one study drink formulas with the same number of calories but hugely different proportions of fat and carbohydrates, he saw no difference in the amount of energy they burned."
The study by Leibel mentioned in the article would seem to suggest that various sources of energy affect the body equally.
> I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing.
> The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs on food.
This and other "the human body is immune from the effects of thermodynamics" arguments are... well, wrong. Otherwise there is a breakthrough in physics waiting to be found and potential unlimited energy.
As someone who has tracked their calories every single day for over two years. Every meal. Every piece of food that enters my mouth. How does my body not run on calories? I meticulously calculated, tracked, and adjusted my macros to a point where I have a hard number at which I know what % of fat I'll lose, over a specific period of time.
For me the answer is simple. If I eat 2500 calories a day of vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs and fruit I have trouble finishing it all. If I eat 2500 calories with grains and sugar included I'm starving at the end of the day and it takes every ounce of will power not to eat 3000 calories. It might well be calories in, calories out but what I eat makes it dramatically harder or easier to regulate the calories in.
This is true to an extent for me as well, but nuts are extremely calorie dense. I think I could easily eat more than 3k calories of nuts in a day if just ate as many as I wanted.
There's a table at the bottom of the article that contains the tl;dr about the scientific studies referenced. All are still underway, there are no published results yet.
How is that buried? The whole article is about the process behind generating the hypotheses for the studies, the trouble in getting them funded, and how eventually a billionaire bankrolled them himself. It's not about their results, and in fact never even gives any preliminary results from any of them.
Fascinating that the core study the article focuses on is using strictly male subjects. I thought this had been a controversial approach[1] for quite some time now - yet they still claim the study's main goal is "doing it right."
It is controlling for variables. They are trying to determine the role of macronutrients on food partitioning and, ultimately, weight. One can argue they should have used all women instead, but I think the challenge there is women have a more varied hormonal environment due to menstruation[1], which, again, adds a variable. As I understand it, fat partitioning appears capable of change during menstruation.
Of course, then we run into a problem that the results may not apply to women. Nutrition science sucks.
After 150 comments have been made, maybe 6 people will stop to read this. But I feel compelled to contribute a bit of what I've learned about obesity.
I was the medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for 10 years, working with thousands of obese patients.
The most important lesson is that obesity is a disease, and each obese person has a different disease. Each case requires a unique treatment approach. "Cookie-cutter" methods won't cut it.
I'm convinced that obesity is the most complex disease the art and science of medicine has ever faced. I can't even begin to describe the mind-boggling complexity of the situation.
A minimalist outline: factor in participation of the endocrine system (insulin resistance, role of cortisol, thyroid, reproductive hormones), the immune system products promoting obesity, as well as adverse inflammatory effects of adiposity contributing to metabolic disarray, and the brain's functional role in metabolism involving highly intertwined connections of neuronal circuits regulating metabolism and sleep/circadian rhythms. And so I could go on for gigabytes on these subjects, even before citing the enormous list of references.
Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needles, huge haystack.
Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needle, huge haystack.
A few years ago it was mentioned at a conference that at the time over 250 human genes (and their peptide products) had been identified to play a role in obesity. Considering the multitude of known and potential gene/environment interactions, what simple "cause and effect" paradigm could we glean?
So yes, many obese patients respond favorably to low CHO, high N diets.
Altering PUFA intake to approximate a 1:1 intake of N3 and N6 EFA in adequate amounts is warranted. Elimination of physiologically incompatible trans-fatty acids in the diet is absolutely necessary. Mono-unsaturated or saturated fats within calorie constraints are not usually an issue. Behavioral approaches are always indicated.
Just remember, each of us is different, our systems are inherently quirky, and tremendous variation is common. The above general rules are fine to start with, but be prepared, understand the "reality paradox": exceptions are the rule and not the exception.
Interesting and quite dense post - I had some trouble with the terminology so, for the other five people reading this.. CHO = carbon hydrogen oxygen (ie carbohydrates), N = nitrogen (ie proteins & purines)? This was hard to figure out from google alone but seems to make sense..
Also, PUFA = Polyunsaturated Faty Acids, EFA = Essential Fatty Acids. n3/n6 are more commonly (less precisely?) known as omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids.
From my personal, anecdotal experience the first intervention has been effective (and this seems to accord with the received recommendations wrt better health outcomes for those eating more vegetables and fish). But how clear are we on the outcomes of these simple and broadly applicable interventions have been made clear and concrete so far? The first goal for the science should surely be to end the debate on the proliferation "diseases of civilisation" which, to my understanding, we should be able to do by proving a difference in outcomes for these interventions and correlating them to the dietary shifts of the last 30 years
It seems to me that you're forgetting a very important cause to obesity. The marketing campaigns led by big corporations such as Mac Donald's, Coca Cola and so on...
Also what about non processed food ? I react very differently to raw vegies from anything with additional stuff (even simple sauce). It turns the food into a pleasure instead of a need and the additives sugarcoat-trick my brain into eating more.
We need new rigorously controlled experimental studies to tease out the causation patterns suggested by correlations observed in observational studies of human diet. The way to test a causal hypothesis is always, at bottom, to do a controlled experiment.[1] So we will tease out the effects of diet on different people by finding experimental volunteers and subjecting the volunteers to controlled diets, such as those planned for some of the experiments described in this interesting article.
This is very difficult to do, as almost all human beings eat when they feel like eating WHAT they feel like eating. Earlier human experiments on effects of diet in the 1970s actually required the experiment subjects to live in the laboratory long-term, and to have every gram of everything they ate during the experiment measured exactly by experiment team assistants. Even at that, those experiments came up with few clear conclusions, perhaps because the experiments weren't lengthy enough or didn't include enough subjects for strong inferences. Now the experimenting begins again. Whether the currently hotly debated hypotheses about human diet win or lose, it's important to put the hypotheses to the test of a rigorous experimental study to advance human knowledge.
The body likely has ways of losing weight that are faster than simply eating itself (burning fat)
Not all weight is fat
Metabolic efficiency varies, including by calorie type
Much of the chemical energy output in the body is involved in actually repairing or replacing, not only in expanding the volume of fat reserves or even muscle.
It's all a thermodynamically-limited bunch of processes but thermodynamics is a limit rather than a driver of energy transformations.
Calorie REDUCTIONS don't guarantee weight loss because obviously the body can choose to expend less energy. And if the term CALORIE DEFICIT is used, it is not justifiably used because science currently can't determine the necessary level of granularity since energy, weight, and measurable metabolic output/activity all change in response to factors other than the ones which are thermodynamically relevant, and this makes thermodynamic equations/measurement of human dieing problematic. Essentially the system is kind of a 'black box' and some of the relevant inputs and outputs in the thermodynamic equation are 'inside' that mathematical 'black-box.'
Edits for spelling
Oh and a slightly less vague explanation can be expounded onto the concept of energy transformation to explain why it wouldn't always correlate with a weight change...combining or dividing molecules.
What if your body doesn't have enough energy to go through the processes of burning a fuel source (or the necessarily mistake or vitamins, or other nutrients...)
I think modern food marketing should get more scrutiny here. Aside from the 24/7 food ads with Photoshopped hamburgers, there are the new, more caloric, more addictive products. Starbucks, for example, has replaced the traditional American coffee and donut with a latte and pastry combo that has twice as many calories or more. You can't sell low-calorie coffee with creamer and sugar (~50 cals) for as much as you can sell a latte (~200 cals).
I have a hard time believing the new theories that fat is not that bad and sugar is the evil. I used to have a diet with plenty of beef and pork meat. Then I went to live for a couple of months in Singapore, and there I ate noodles. LOADS of them, because I loved them. The result was that I lost a lot of weight.
In my experience what gets me fat is meat, and what makes me lose weight is eating less meat and more pasta and rice. But I suppose it varies per person.
It isn't glucose or lactose that make you fat, it is the presence of fructose or sucrose in the absence of water soluble fibre that fuck up your insulin levels because you don't have the lipids to resist the shock.
Beef is incredibly energy dense, and yes it can lead to weight gain, but most people have their beef with sugary tomato paste / ketchup and a side of Coca Cola.
Noodles are actually very simple to make: Flour, touch of salt, and an egg. No fructose or sucrose. So of course you weren't getting fat because your insulin levels were still in check and you weren't craving too many calories per day. Also, I don't know about Singapore, but in North America sugar is added all over the place. Even something simple like BBQ sauce has more sugar per serving than something like an apple or a banana. And again, no water soluble fibre.
I don't believe its necessary for all the experiments to last that long. Its possible to have shorter more controlled experiments to gain insight to health benefits of particular diets.
For example...
A British group of volunteers were locked in a zoo and were allowed to eat up to 5 kilos of raw fruit and vegetables per day - but only raw fruit and vegetables.
"Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day."
"The prescribed menu was:
- safe to eat raw;
- met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and
- provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500 for men,"
"Overall, the cholesterol levels dropped 23%, an amount usually achieved only through anti-cholesterol drugs statins.
The group's average blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 - almost hypertensive - to 122/76. Though it was not intended to be a weight loss diet, they dropped 4.4kg (9.7lbs), on average."
Two striking things about dieting. Firstly its a matter of calories in vs calories burnt. Stop eating and you'll lose weight so it's mostly down to your controls, conscious or unconscious. Secondly everyone starts at about 8 lbs at age 0 and ends up about 140lbs at age 18 give or take 50% and that's not down to conscious planning - the unconscious bits of the brain make kids hungry if they need food and to not eat and run around if they have too much. And the mechanisms are powerful - no kids remain at 20 lbs because they choose to. When adults get obese its seldom because they choose too but because the unconscious bit goes wonky. I think the US mostly due to sugary food and not much exercise. It's interesting if you look at the book 'French Women Don't Get Fat' that it's mostly a recipe book but her actual story was she went from France to the US for a year or so, hit the sugary snacks and piled on the pounds and then on her return her dad was horrified so she dropped the snacks and the weight went. So a mix of factors there.
First, you must isolate a human being in such a way you can account for every single calorie incoming and outgoing. Incoming calories are relatively easy to measure, but for outgoing you have to at least measure:
- How much heat is produced by the body (how much energy is expended keeping the room at the same temperature)
- How many calories did the body use to warm sweat and pee: collect every single drop of sweat and pee, measure its volume and temperature as soon as it leaves the body, compare to temperature of water ingested.
- Collect every single particle of stool leaving the body, measure temperature, weight and calorie content.
Only after you have a human being isolated in a way all calories in = calories out, then you can test the "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" hypothesis. Before then, anybody with such a claim is just blurting out junk science.
"Gardner's study stems from his previous research, which suggests a diet's effectiveness may be due to how insulin-resistant the dieter is at the outset."
What if it also depends on the subject's microbiota, which would be impacted by a number of things including the (unwanted) consumption of residual antibiotics in meats.
Seems like the more we find out, the more questions there are.
What about calorie counting? I think the best way to lose some fat is to add up the sum of the calories of what you're eating, as the day goes by. In time, this will create an ability to know which foods are too rich and which are ok. Also, they allow management of appetite/hunger by allocating the rest of the calories for the rest of time. I personally found it much easier to eat on a budget of 1200 or 1400 calories a day than following a regime that forbids some kinds of foods or aims to make food less palatable. I lost 30 pounds that way and was able to keep my new weight in the following 5 years. I used an iPhone App for actual counting and calorie database lookups. Also, physical activities can be tracked and added up to the daily budget. If I walk for 2 hours, then I can have an extra meal, if I want to take it.
TL;DR Calorie counting makes for mindful eating and changes habits, without suffering.
If you were only 30 pounds overweight then you probably didn't have the types of problems that most Americans have: metabolic disorder / obesity / diabetes. To fix this problem requires not just a reduction in calories, but a repair of the insulin levels and an increase in water soluble fibre for lipid production.
Am I missing something? Is there any actual information in this article beyond
* Science in general and nutritional science specifically may or may not be sketchy (And this is news?),
* There are at least three ongoing, very interesting, apparently well-designed studies exploring the topic, with an emphasis on ongoing, and
* These three studies are the children of a researcher who lost weight when he changed his diet, an Enron billionaire, and Gary Taubes, a science journalist with a history of being very, very partisan. (No, really, go read Bad Science and then track down Polywater by Felix Franks---different scientific episodes, but with roughly similar hoo-ha involved; I'm talking about the style of the two discussions.
>NuSI's starting assumption, in other words, is that bad science got us into the state of confusion and ignorance we're in. Now Taubes and Attia want to see if good science can get us out.
NuSI's approach to test long-standing food science assumptions.
[+] [-] bollockitis|11 years ago|reply
When I first encountered the idea that we do not get fat from eating too much and that calories weren't responsible, I thought it ludicrous—the body can't disobey the laws of physics! Thermodynamics! But after seriously thinking about the idea, I realized Taubes was providing a far more complete understanding of metabolism. The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs on food. Yes, we can easily learn the caloric content of food, but that's largely irrelevant. What's important is how food affects the body, not its raw energy content. I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing.
I think the hormone theory of obesity is correct and I think these studies will prove it. But even if they show otherwise, this type of research is long overdue and we all stand to benefit from the results.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259
[2]: http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0
[+] [-] grecy|11 years ago|reply
I've posted here about this before - I got involved with weight watchers through my two roomates as moral support for them, and have personally seen and been involved with many hundreds of people losing many thousands of punds - and keeping it off (that was over 10 years ago).
I've always thought of weight-loss like everything else we learn and do in life - start out simple and make it achievable while getting "beginner" results, then work your way up making it more and more complicated.
When you're 6 and learning to count, you are not taught differentiation and complex numbers.
When you're learning to surf, nobody would through you in at the world's biggest wave.
When you learn a new language, you don't learn the most complicated conjugations first.
Losing weight starts simply by reducing the amount of energy you're eating (calories) to a level lower than your body is using on a daily basis. I don't care if you eat raw sugar or fat, as long as you eat slightly less calories than your body is using for a prolonged period of time. (yes, you'll likely feel like shit if you eat raw sugar or fat, so I don't recommend it). Like you said, the body must obey the laws of thermodynamics. The longer you keep that up, the more weight you will lose.
I genuinely believe anything else at the "beginner" stage is noise and over complication. The mere fact so many books exist on the topic, and so many "new" theories come out each year is proof that it's too complicated for beginners.
Once you have some good "beginner results" and are losing weight consistently you will and start to move from morbidly obese to just obese down to a somewhat healthy range. THEN you can start making it more complicated, and start focusing on WHAT you're eating, not simply how much.
It's an advanced topic that isn't required for the basics. (just like you don't need complex numbers to count the number of marbles in your bag, or almost all other functions required in a normal adult life.)
[+] [-] rmobin|11 years ago|reply
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/brief-response...
I used to believe in the refined-carb/insulin hypothesis of Taubes, and I even lost weight on it, but I've ditched that model in favor of Stephan's more complete food reward hypothesis - the idea that more rewarding and palatable foods lead to increased calories ingested in certain individuals and hence lead to fat gain.
One approach to weight loss then is to lower the reward value of the diet. One way to do that is low carb, another way is low fat, another way is vegetarian, another way to use gentler cooking methods and less seasoning, the list goes on. But many successful diets that people have used are very well explained by food reward.
edit> I also believe calorie counting and intermittent fasting are very powerful tools used in conjunction with a reduced reward diet. Eating less calories with minimal hunger and losing fat is the holy grail, and these tools are helping me do that in a very effective way.
[+] [-] asadkn|11 years ago|reply
It's almost too easy to cite weak scientific studies to prove almost any belief you hold these days, in weight loss business.
Taubes is as good as Atkins - people and media love to hear and write about something different. I am sure the HN crowd already is aware of that. Despite the hate Stephan Guyenet has been receiving by Taubes fans, he does a great job at explaining why what Taubes is promoting isn't scientifically sound or absolute: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...
For everyone who enjoy making references to Insulin without context, considering it an absolute storage hormone, here's a gem: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=711
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dllthomas|11 years ago|reply
I do think that calories eaten and expended are an important part of the equation - having seen some people lose weight through simply restricting portion size - but I am unconvinced that it is (or is not) typically the most important piece. I am convinced that "... because thermodynamics" is a poor argument for it being the only thing that matters.
[+] [-] CloudKernel|11 years ago|reply
The study by Leibel mentioned in the article would seem to suggest that various sources of energy affect the body equally.
[+] [-] ilovecomputers|11 years ago|reply
Like the people behind Soylent?
[+] [-] icelancer|11 years ago|reply
This and other "the human body is immune from the effects of thermodynamics" arguments are... well, wrong. Otherwise there is a breakthrough in physics waiting to be found and potential unlimited energy.
[+] [-] EC1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoffc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] learc83|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangerlibrary|11 years ago|reply
There's a table at the bottom of the article that contains the tl;dr about the scientific studies referenced. All are still underway, there are no published results yet.
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdminhbg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alainv|11 years ago|reply
[1]: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exerci...
[+] [-] SoftwareMaven|11 years ago|reply
Of course, then we run into a problem that the results may not apply to women. Nutrition science sucks.
1. http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesi...
[+] [-] jrapdx3|11 years ago|reply
I was the medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for 10 years, working with thousands of obese patients.
The most important lesson is that obesity is a disease, and each obese person has a different disease. Each case requires a unique treatment approach. "Cookie-cutter" methods won't cut it.
I'm convinced that obesity is the most complex disease the art and science of medicine has ever faced. I can't even begin to describe the mind-boggling complexity of the situation.
A minimalist outline: factor in participation of the endocrine system (insulin resistance, role of cortisol, thyroid, reproductive hormones), the immune system products promoting obesity, as well as adverse inflammatory effects of adiposity contributing to metabolic disarray, and the brain's functional role in metabolism involving highly intertwined connections of neuronal circuits regulating metabolism and sleep/circadian rhythms. And so I could go on for gigabytes on these subjects, even before citing the enormous list of references.
Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needles, huge haystack.
Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needle, huge haystack.
A few years ago it was mentioned at a conference that at the time over 250 human genes (and their peptide products) had been identified to play a role in obesity. Considering the multitude of known and potential gene/environment interactions, what simple "cause and effect" paradigm could we glean?
So yes, many obese patients respond favorably to low CHO, high N diets. Altering PUFA intake to approximate a 1:1 intake of N3 and N6 EFA in adequate amounts is warranted. Elimination of physiologically incompatible trans-fatty acids in the diet is absolutely necessary. Mono-unsaturated or saturated fats within calorie constraints are not usually an issue. Behavioral approaches are always indicated.
Just remember, each of us is different, our systems are inherently quirky, and tremendous variation is common. The above general rules are fine to start with, but be prepared, understand the "reality paradox": exceptions are the rule and not the exception.
[+] [-] benjvi|11 years ago|reply
Also, PUFA = Polyunsaturated Faty Acids, EFA = Essential Fatty Acids. n3/n6 are more commonly (less precisely?) known as omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids.
From my personal, anecdotal experience the first intervention has been effective (and this seems to accord with the received recommendations wrt better health outcomes for those eating more vegetables and fish). But how clear are we on the outcomes of these simple and broadly applicable interventions have been made clear and concrete so far? The first goal for the science should surely be to end the debate on the proliferation "diseases of civilisation" which, to my understanding, we should be able to do by proving a difference in outcomes for these interventions and correlating them to the dietary shifts of the last 30 years
[+] [-] yodsanklai|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
This is very difficult to do, as almost all human beings eat when they feel like eating WHAT they feel like eating. Earlier human experiments on effects of diet in the 1970s actually required the experiment subjects to live in the laboratory long-term, and to have every gram of everything they ate during the experiment measured exactly by experiment team assistants. Even at that, those experiments came up with few clear conclusions, perhaps because the experiments weren't lengthy enough or didn't include enough subjects for strong inferences. Now the experimenting begins again. Whether the currently hotly debated hypotheses about human diet win or lose, it's important to put the hypotheses to the test of a rigorous experimental study to advance human knowledge.
[1] http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz
[+] [-] ajcarpy2005|11 years ago|reply
Not all weight is fat
Metabolic efficiency varies, including by calorie type
Much of the chemical energy output in the body is involved in actually repairing or replacing, not only in expanding the volume of fat reserves or even muscle.
It's all a thermodynamically-limited bunch of processes but thermodynamics is a limit rather than a driver of energy transformations.
Calorie REDUCTIONS don't guarantee weight loss because obviously the body can choose to expend less energy. And if the term CALORIE DEFICIT is used, it is not justifiably used because science currently can't determine the necessary level of granularity since energy, weight, and measurable metabolic output/activity all change in response to factors other than the ones which are thermodynamically relevant, and this makes thermodynamic equations/measurement of human dieing problematic. Essentially the system is kind of a 'black box' and some of the relevant inputs and outputs in the thermodynamic equation are 'inside' that mathematical 'black-box.'
Edits for spelling
Oh and a slightly less vague explanation can be expounded onto the concept of energy transformation to explain why it wouldn't always correlate with a weight change...combining or dividing molecules.
What if your body doesn't have enough energy to go through the processes of burning a fuel source (or the necessarily mistake or vitamins, or other nutrients...)
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|11 years ago|reply
In my experience what gets me fat is meat, and what makes me lose weight is eating less meat and more pasta and rice. But I suppose it varies per person.
[+] [-] 3pt14159|11 years ago|reply
Beef is incredibly energy dense, and yes it can lead to weight gain, but most people have their beef with sugary tomato paste / ketchup and a side of Coca Cola.
Noodles are actually very simple to make: Flour, touch of salt, and an egg. No fructose or sucrose. So of course you weren't getting fat because your insulin levels were still in check and you weren't craving too many calories per day. Also, I don't know about Singapore, but in North America sugar is added all over the place. Even something simple like BBQ sauce has more sugar per serving than something like an apple or a banana. And again, no water soluble fibre.
[+] [-] honhon|11 years ago|reply
For example...
A British group of volunteers were locked in a zoo and were allowed to eat up to 5 kilos of raw fruit and vegetables per day - but only raw fruit and vegetables.
"Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day."
"The prescribed menu was:
- safe to eat raw; - met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and - provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500 for men,"
"Overall, the cholesterol levels dropped 23%, an amount usually achieved only through anti-cholesterol drugs statins.
The group's average blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 - almost hypertensive - to 122/76. Though it was not intended to be a weight loss diet, they dropped 4.4kg (9.7lbs), on average."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm
[+] [-] scarygliders|11 years ago|reply
Also, have a look at this, originally written/published, it seems, in 1958: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm
Makes for a fascinating read, and it amazes me how close it gets to what's currently being put forward now (high fat low carb == good).
[+] [-] tim333|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vpeters25|11 years ago|reply
How do you scientifically prove this?
First, you must isolate a human being in such a way you can account for every single calorie incoming and outgoing. Incoming calories are relatively easy to measure, but for outgoing you have to at least measure:
- How much heat is produced by the body (how much energy is expended keeping the room at the same temperature) - How many calories did the body use to warm sweat and pee: collect every single drop of sweat and pee, measure its volume and temperature as soon as it leaves the body, compare to temperature of water ingested. - Collect every single particle of stool leaving the body, measure temperature, weight and calorie content.
Only after you have a human being isolated in a way all calories in = calories out, then you can test the "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" hypothesis. Before then, anybody with such a claim is just blurting out junk science.
[+] [-] clumsysmurf|11 years ago|reply
What if it also depends on the subject's microbiota, which would be impacted by a number of things including the (unwanted) consumption of residual antibiotics in meats.
Seems like the more we find out, the more questions there are.
[+] [-] zt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangerlibrary|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] visarga|11 years ago|reply
TL;DR Calorie counting makes for mindful eating and changes habits, without suffering.
[+] [-] 3pt14159|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mcguire|11 years ago|reply
* Science in general and nutritional science specifically may or may not be sketchy (And this is news?),
* There are at least three ongoing, very interesting, apparently well-designed studies exploring the topic, with an emphasis on ongoing, and
* These three studies are the children of a researcher who lost weight when he changed his diet, an Enron billionaire, and Gary Taubes, a science journalist with a history of being very, very partisan. (No, really, go read Bad Science and then track down Polywater by Felix Franks---different scientific episodes, but with roughly similar hoo-ha involved; I'm talking about the style of the two discussions.
[+] [-] poolcircle|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yaddayadda|11 years ago|reply
NuSI's approach to test long-standing food science assumptions.