The war on fat

[slkinsey]

The suggestion that we may one day have a pill that enables us to eat what we like without worrying about the consequences is an example of how unlikely it is a solution will be found.

What's so unlikely about that? Certainly, an effective psychoactive drug -- a nutritional Prozac -- that limits the propensity to overeat is easy to imagine.

That's a pipe dream. I don't see how a pill, if possible, could solve anything.

It's not a pipe dream at all. There are already psychoactive drugs that have been shown to result in moderate weight loss due to reduced consumption of calories as a side effect. The mechanism for hunger and eating is largely regulated by the brain, nervous system and bloodstream. I see no reason whatsoever that a drug could not be developed that acted to suppress the mechanism in the brain that makes us want to (over) eat. In my experience, consistently eating beyond the point of satiety is often a significant part of the problem for people with weight issues. I know it is for me. This is something that could definitely be affected with drug treatment.

[mjc]

In case anyone missed it, the only proven diet for weight loss is... wait for it... to consume less calories than you burn.  In other words, eat less and exercise more.

Actually this is not entirely true, research seems to indicate (at least the research that atkin's used to present) that the composition of your diet influences if you lose or gain weight. You can eat the same number of calories on an atkin's diet that you can on a high protein or high carb diet and you will lose more weight on the atkin's diet.

[slkinsey]

And it seems a fundamental madness to research such a pill when we haven't even solved the problem of world hunger.

The fundamental issue of world hunger is massive overpopulation, particularly in "starvation areas" of the world that are not and never will be able to sustain human populations approaching the size they do now. Only when this problem is tackled -- and I have little confidence that it will be any time soon -- will it be reasonable to speak of "solving the problem of world hunger."

[Fat Guy]

There's no incompatibility between notions of personal responsibility and a pharmacological approach to psychological problems. It is an abdication of personal responsibility for a depressed person to take Wellbutrin under a doctor's supervision? Of course not. That person deserves praise for taking the personal initiative to solve a problem via an effective means. Maybe a century of psychotherapy would have solved the problem without the aid of drugs. Maybe just "sucking it up" would have been the solution advocated by people 50 years ago. But now we know that these drugs have a place and they've made the lives of millions of responsible, good people better. What could possibly be bad about that?

[slkinsey]

In case anyone missed it, the only proven diet for weight loss is... wait for it... to consume less calories than you burn.  In other words, eat less and exercise more.

Actually this is not entirely true, research seems to indicate (at least the research that atkin's used to present) that the composition of your diet influences if you lose or gain weight. You can eat the same number of calories on an atkin's diet that you can on a high protein or high carb diet and you will lose more weight on the atkin's diet.

I don't believe it. Show me the research. And I mean real research, not something done by a low carb diet clinic or quoted from an Atkins book.

[mjc]

The suggestion that we may one day have a pill that enables us to eat what we like without worrying about the consequences is an example of how unlikely it is a solution will be found.

What's so unlikely about that? Certainly, an effective psychoactive drug -- a nutritional Prozac -- that limits the propensity to overeat is easy to imagine.

That's a pipe dream. I don't see how a pill, if possible, could solve anything.

It's not a pipe dream at all. There are already psychoactive drugs that have been shown to result in moderate weight loss due to reduced consumption of calories as a side effect. The mechanism for hunger and eating is largely regulated by the brain, nervous system and bloodstream. I see no reason whatsoever that a drug could not be developed that acted to suppress the mechanism in the brain that makes us want to (over) eat. In my experience, consistently eating beyond the point of satiety is often a significant part of the problem for people with weight issues. I know it is for me. This is something that could definitely be affected with drug treatment.

I completely agree. The gastric bypass is an example of a more invasive surgical technique that seeks to decrease food intake. Someday when the brain mechanisms are better understood there will be safe and effective medications that will increase satiety to eliminate overeating.

p.s. this summer i'm doing a research project that seeks to better elucidate the satiety centers of the brain

[Fat Guy]

The fundamental issue of world hunger is massive overpopulation

There's plenty of food-production capacity. The fundamental issues of world hunger are incompetent government, poverty, and inadequate (sometimes intentionally so) distribution.

[Fat Guy]

In case anyone missed it, the only proven diet for weight loss is... wait for it... to consume less calories than you burn.  In other words, eat less and exercise more.

Actually this is not entirely true, research seems to indicate (at least the research that atkin's used to present) that the composition of your diet influences if you lose or gain weight. You can eat the same number of calories on an atkin's diet that you can on a high protein or high carb diet and you will lose more weight on the atkin's diet.

I don't believe it. Show me the research. And I mean real research, not something done by a low carb diet clinic or quoted from an Atkins book.

Even if it's true, it doesn't affect the calorie-is-a-calorie axiom. We know that everybody's metabolism is different. At best, the Atkins approach alters the body's metabolism. But that doesn't mean the body lines up the fat calories and the carb calories in a bite of food and says, okay, you get burned this way and you get burned that way. Rather, by throwing the body into ketosis, the Atkins diet may (arguably) change the metabolism overall. That you get knocked out of ketosis by consuming carbs doesn't mean the body treats the carb calories differently. It just means the metabolic "trick" of the Atkins diet stops working if your carb intake rises above a certain level.

[mjc]

In case anyone missed it, the only proven diet for weight loss is... wait for it... to consume less calories than you burn.  In other words, eat less and exercise more.

Actually this is not entirely true, research seems to indicate (at least the research that atkin's used to present) that the composition of your diet influences if you lose or gain weight. You can eat the same number of calories on an atkin's diet that you can on a high protein or high carb diet and you will lose more weight on the atkin's diet.

I don't believe it. Show me the research. And I mean real research, not something done by a low carb diet clinic or quoted from an Atkins book.

Even if it's true, it doesn't affect the calorie-is-a-calorie axiom. We know that everybody's metabolism is different. At best, the Atkins approach alters the body's metabolism. But that doesn't mean the body lines up the fat calories and the carb calories in a bite of food and says, okay, you get burned this way and you get burned that way. Rather, by throwing the body into ketosis, the Atkins diet may (arguably) change the metabolism overall. That you get knocked out of ketosis by consuming carbs doesn't mean the body treats the carb calories differently. It just means the metabolic "trick" of the Atkins diet stops working if your carb intake rises above a certain level.

yeah I mean a calorie still is a calorie, and you have to burn more calories than you take in too lose weight, but what you eat does influence how well they are burned (I'll look for some data to support that).

And yes the body most certainly does, figuratively speaking, line of the calories from carbs and fats and says you go this way and you go that way. The calories from fat are are stored as gylcerol based fatty acids and the caloires in carbs are from glucose, which the body handles differently.

Edited June 30, 2003 by mjc (log)

[slkinsey]

The fundamental issue of world hunger is massive overpopulation

There's plenty of food-production capacity. The fundamental issues of world hunger are incompetent government, poverty, and inadequate (sometimes intentionally so) distribution.

Well... yes. But IMO the fundamental issue underlying it all is overpopulation. I mean, we certainly could plow under every spare patch of land, bulldoze the rainforests and whatnot to raise wheat, corn, etc. and feed the world. But there is some question, in my mind anyway, as to whether or not that is such a great idea. Personally, I think we're paying the price for that kind of thing too much already.

[Fat Guy]

The calories from fat are are stored as gylcerol based fatty acids and the caloires in carbs are from glucose, which the body handles differently

You're outside the bounds of what I know about, so I'll defer to scientific sources here.

[slkinsey]

And yes the body most certainly does, figuratively speaking, line of the calories from carbs and fats and says you go this way and you go that way.  The calories from fat are are stored as gylcerol based fatty acids and the caloires in carbs are from glucose, which the body handles differently.

No. This is a mistake. The body does not handle the calories any differently. It may handle some of the other stuff differently, but in terms of weight loss and weight gain, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

People can argue whether or not it is fundamentally better for one's health to get most of one's calories from fat or carbohydrates or protein, but that is a completely different discussion. I don't think anyone would argue that the body will process 100 calories of fat differently from 100 calories of protein. They are two completely different things and the body will break them down into different things and use those end products for different things. But the 100 calories of metabolic energy are 100 calories of metabolic energy no matter what they are made of. If you take in too many calories of fat, you will gain just as much weight as you would from taking in the same amount of extra calories from carbohydrates.

The one caveat to the above is that calories which are stored in a complex form may take more metabolic energy to break down into usable components than the equivalent number of calories in a simpler form. This is to say that it may take 5 calories of metabolic effort to process 100 calories of food X while it takes only 1 calorie of metabolic effort to process 100 calories of food Y. This equation may or may not favor fat (I am inclined to think not), but I imagine that any such effect is very slight.

Edited June 30, 2003 by slkinsey (log)

[Stone]

And yes the body most certainly does, figuratively speaking, line of the calories from carbs and fats and says you go this way and you go that way.  The calories from fat are are stored as gylcerol based fatty acids and the caloires in carbs are from glucose, which the body handles differently.

No. This is a mistake. The body does not handle the calories any differently. It may handle some of the other stuff differently, but in terms of weight loss and weight gain, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

This was where I was off. Yes, I think that a calorie is a calorie. And sitting back saying that "if you put 2,000 caliories in and burn 2,500, you're going to lose weight" is certainly true. But in the real world, that doesn't have much meaning. They type of food you put in (as well as the amount) effects your metabolism and how you're going to burn your calories.

And, by the way Mr. Campbell, fat people are still pretty funny.

Edited June 30, 2003 by Stone (log)

[mjc]

And yes the body most certainly does, figuratively speaking, line of the calories from carbs and fats and says you go this way and you go that way.  The calories from fat are are stored as gylcerol based fatty acids and the caloires in carbs are from glucose, which the body handles differently.

No. This is a mistake. The body does not handle the calories any differently. It may handle some of the other stuff differently, but in terms of weight loss and weight gain, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

People can argue whether or not it is fundamentally better for one's health to get most of one's calories from fat or carbohydrates or protein, but that is a completely different discussion. I don't think anyone would argue that the body will process 100 calories of fat differently from 100 calories of protein. They are two completely different things and the body will break them down into different things and use those end products for different things. But the 100 calories of metabolic energy are 100 calories of metabolic energy no matter what they are made of. If you take in too many calories of fat, you will gain just as much weight as you would from taking in the same amount of extra calories from carbohydrates.

So a calorie is simply a measure of energy (as was already said). Therefore food does not actually contain calories, but contains molecules that have the potential to be used for energy, and we call this form of energy the Calorie. That being said, what I said was not a mistake, because as the body has different mechanisms for processing molecules, the calories from fat are generated by one process and those from carbs by a different one.

In terms of weight loss and weight gain, if you have the caloric equivilents of anything, of course its the same. If your body stores "100 calories" then it doesn't matter what its made of. But as I suggested before it does indeed seem to make a different as to whether it does store it. As stone says, what you eat effects your metabolism of it.

Edited June 30, 2003 by mjc (log)

[Fat Guy]

They type of food you put in (as well as the amount) effects your metabolism and how you're going to burn your calories.

Maybe. I don't think this has been proven. It is, however, the hypothesis upon which the Atkins approach is based.

[Stone]

Yeah, and cigarettes haven't been proven to cause cancer. I think the concept goes beyond Atkins, but I'm obviously not in my area of expertise. (Don't ask, I'm still trying to figure it out.)

[corvus]

I don't believe it.  Show me the research.  And I mean real research, not something done by a low carb diet clinic or quoted from an Atkins book.

Here's a page full of research which supports low-carb eating:

Low Carb Research: Low carb diets

I'm a low-carber myself, but I'm not trying to lose weight (5'10, 150lbs). I eat like this for my health, and that I lost 20 pounds of fat very easily was a bonus. I continue to eat this way because I think it is healthier. I've had no problem keeping the weight off and keeping my health perfect. I never feel deprived because I'm eating great foods everyday. I can get more into it if anyone is interested.

[slkinsey]

In terms of weight loss and weight gain, if you have the caloric equivilents of anything, of course its the same.  If your body stores "100 calories" then it doesn't matter what its made of.  But as I suggested before it does indeed seem to make a different as to whether it does store it.  As stone says, what you eat effects your metabolism of it.

That makes no sense at all. Your body has a metabolic need for a certain number of calories per day. It will burn those calories. Any calories consumed in addition to that number will be stored as fat. What is so hard to understand about this?

Now... look... it is certainly a fact that certain calories become available more quickly than others. If I take in 100 calories of glucose together with 100 calories of fat, it seems fairly certain that my body will use the 100 glucose calories faster than the 100 fat calories. But so what? I mean, let's say that your body burns 2,000 calories per day. Let us further say that you have already consumed 1,900 calories on a given day, at which point you eat 100 calories of glucose and 100 calories of protein. It is pretty much a given that the 100 glucose calories will be converted into metabolic energy faster than the 100 calories of protein. Therefore, the 100 protein calories would be the "extra" calories and would be stored as fat whereas the 100 glucose calories would be burnt up as the last part of your body's daily requirement. Do you see how nonsensical this is? It doesn't matter what order you ate the calories in, only that you ate too many. What matters is the sum total of the calories you took in that day.

So, no, what the calories are made out does not make a difference as to whether of not one's body stores those calories. The only thing that makes a difference as to whether or not one's body stores extra calories is whether or not there are any extra calories to store. If there are extra calories, the body will store them. It really is that simple. To believe otherwise, you would have to believe that 2,000 calories of carbohydrates are somehow different from 2,000 calories of fat are somehow different from 2,000 calories of protein on a caloric basis. This is untrue on its face, despite the fact that people are making zillions of dollars telling people that one or more of them is weight loss magic while one or more of them is weight loss hell.

Look... I'm not arguing that the food in which the calories are contained has no effect on health, or even that it has no effect on weight loss/gain. There are plenty of reasons why certain foods can be beneficial for weight loss, even though weight loss always inevitably comes down to a calorie deficit. What I am saying is that calorie for calorie there is no difference in terms of weight gain. Atkins and all those guys may say that their super magic method changes the metabolism and does blah blah blah... and maybe it does. But the fact is that, if you follow the Atkins diet and consume more calories than you burn over time, you will gain weight. It is not clear to me, and I have never seen it proven, that any of these special diets succeeds in fundamentally changing the human metabolism so that it burns significantly more calories on a daily basis.

[slkinsey]

I don't believe it.  Show me the research.  And I mean real research, not something done by a low carb diet clinic or quoted from an Atkins book.

Here's a page full of research which supports low-carb eating:

Low Carb Research: Low carb diets

Results of some of those studies:

A Randomized Trial of a Low-Carbohydrate Diet for Obesity

Conclusions: The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss (absolute difference, approximately 4 percent) than did the conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. The low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease. Adherence was poor and attrition was high in both groups...

A Low-Carbohydrate as Compared with a Low-Fat Diet in Severe Obesity

Conclusions Severely obese subjects with a high prevalence of diabetes or the metabolic syndrome lost more weight during six months on a carbohydrate-restricted diet than on a calorie- and fat-restricted diet, with a relative improvement in insulin sensitivity and triglyceride levels, even after adjustment for the amount of weight lost. This finding should be interpreted with caution, given the small magnitude of overall and between-group differences in weight loss in these markedly obese subjects and the short duration of the study. Future studies evaluating long-term cardiovascular outcomes are needed before a carbohydrate-restricted diet can be endorsed.

Atkins' Dieters Lose More and Improve Lipids Over Conventional Dieters

Atkins' dieters lost twice as much weight during the first six months of the study. However, over the next six months, dieters on both plans tended to regain weight, and there was no statistical weight difference between the groups at one year.

"A calorie is still a calorie, whether the calorie comes from fat, carbohydrates or protein," Klein says. "But it might be that certain types of calories are more filling than others and result in an overall decrease in total calorie intake."

It is not clear whether or not the studies were controlled so that the caloric intake was the same across all groups.

I could go on... but let me just say that these studies are not exactly ringing endorsements for low-carbohydrate diets. Furthermore, they do nothing to demonstrate that the body processes calories that come from fat and protein fundamentally differently from calories that come from carbohydrates in terms of weight loss/gain.

Edited June 30, 2003 by slkinsey (log)

[pim]

When you suddenly deprive your body of food, our body goes into starvation mode--as in use as little fuel as possible, thanks to our evolutionary instinct to stay alive.  And when a diet fails, as it inevitably will, your body is now inundated with excess calories, but it's still in starvation burn-as-little-as-I-can-get-away-with mode.  And you know where this ends.

It's not entirely clear to me that the whole "starvation mode" thing has ever been scientifically substantiated. It has always struck me as a hypothesis that some diet people came up with to explain why it is hard to lose weight and why rebound weight gain is so common after overly strict dieting.

I beg to differ. Kindly see Keys A, Brozek J. Henschel A, Mickelsen O. Taylor HL. Human starvation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1951.

Or this abstract from an NIH workshop: http://www.healthy.net/asp/templates/artic...article&ID=1675

Incidentally Ancel Keys had a pretty big contribution to the food world. You know K-rations? Yes, that "K" is from this Keys.

Edited June 30, 2003 by pim (log)

[Fat Guy]

Do you see how nonsensical this is?  It doesn't matter what order you ate the calories in, only that you ate too many.  What matters is the sum total of the calories you took in that day.

Try explaining this to people when it comes to money. How often do you hear someone who gets a $100 windfall say "I'm going to spend this $100 on a new CD player"? Well, dummy, money is fungible. You are spending $100, not "this" $100. You could put that $100 in your bank account, take out another $100, and buy the same thing -- and at the end of the day your wealth and possessions would be at exactly the same level.

[Stone]

Do you see how nonsensical this is?  It doesn't matter what order you ate the calories in, only that you ate too many.  What matters is the sum total of the calories you took in that day.

Try explaining this to people when it comes to money. How often do you hear someone who gets a $100 windfall say "I'm going to spend this $100 on a new CD player"? Well, dummy, money is fungible. You are spending $100, not "this" $100. You could put that $100 in your bank account, take out another $100, and buy the same thing -- and at the end of the day your wealth and possessions would be at exactly the same level.

You're joking, aren't you?

[Fat Guy]

Money is fungible. One dollar can be used in place of another.

Just like calories.

[Stone]

Yes, but I think those people are saying, "hey, I've got an extra $100, I'll spend it on a stereo." I don't think they're concerned about whether the $100 goes into their account first.

A better example for you would be those who say "I'm not supporting terrorism because I only give money to the non-terrorist wing of Hamas."

[mjc]

In terms of weight loss and weight gain, if you have the caloric equivilents of anything, of course its the same.  If your body stores "100 calories" then it doesn't matter what its made of.  But as I suggested before it does indeed seem to make a different as to whether it does store it.  As stone says, what you eat effects your metabolism of it.

That makes no sense at all. Your body has a metabolic need for a certain number of calories per day. It will burn those calories. Any calories consumed in addition to that number will be stored as fat. What is so hard to understand about this?

Now... look... it is certainly a fact that certain calories become available more quickly than others. If I take in 100 calories of glucose together with 100 calories of fat, it seems fairly certain that my body will use the 100 glucose calories faster than the 100 fat calories. But so what? I mean, let's say that your body burns 2,000 calories per day. Let us further say that you have already consumed 1,900 calories on a given day, at which point you eat 100 calories of glucose and 100 calories of protein. It is pretty much a given that the 100 glucose calories will be converted into metabolic energy faster than the 100 calories of protein. Therefore, the 100 protein calories would be the "extra" calories and would be stored as fat whereas the 100 glucose calories would be burnt up as the last part of your body's daily requirement. Do you see how nonsensical this is? It doesn't matter what order you ate the calories in, only that you ate too many. What matters is the sum total of the calories you took in that day.

So, no, what the calories are made out does not make a difference as to whether of not one's body stores those calories. The only thing that makes a difference as to whether or not one's body stores extra calories is whether or not there are any extra calories to store. If there are extra calories, the body will store them. It really is that simple. To believe otherwise, you would have to believe that 2,000 calories of carbohydrates are somehow different from 2,000 calories of fat are somehow different from 2,000 calories of protein on a caloric basis. This is untrue on its face, despite the fact that people are making zillions of dollars telling people that one or more of them is weight loss magic while one or more of them is weight loss hell.

Look... I'm not arguing that the food in which the calories are contained has no effect on health, or even that it has no effect on weight loss/gain. There are plenty of reasons why certain foods can be beneficial for weight loss, even though weight loss always inevitably comes down to a calorie deficit. What I am saying is that calorie for calorie there is no difference in terms of weight gain. Atkins and all those guys may say that their super magic method changes the metabolism and does blah blah blah... and maybe it does. But the fact is that, if you follow the Atkins diet and consume more calories than you burn over time, you will gain weight. It is not clear to me, and I have never seen it proven, that any of these special diets succeeds in fundamentally changing the human metabolism so that it burns significantly more calories on a daily basis.

Ok, I think I now see why we are having this miscommunication. Again I agree with you about how this concept of calories work. If you take in more than you use, then you keep them. Ok, but excess calories that are stored in the form of carbohydrates and proteins do not suddenly turn in to fat. In fact, excess carbohydrates will be stored as carbohydrates and excess protein as protein (amino acids) up until your stores become too full. The conversion of proteins and carbohydrates to fat after that is imperfect and costs energy. We can look at it another way, and I'll give you some exact numbers (from McGilvery Biochemistry):

fat is turned into fat with 95% effeciency.

carbohydrates are turned into fat with 77% efficiency.

proteins are turned into fat with 30-50% efficiency.

So If I take in an excess of calories that means that the source DOES determine how much fat I lay down. If I take in all of my excess in protein, then only 50% of it will become fat.

So Yes it does matter what you eat.

Edited June 30, 2003 by mjc (log)