15 ms·

Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

183 points by soupangel 11y ago

ars 11y ago
This is pretty astonishing research, not so much for the results, as for the methodology. Doing research on what people eat is VERY hard, it's very hard to get accurate data. Pairing people and having them eat identically is brilliant. I hope it's also scalable for longer term studies. By pairing people they are likely to give much more accurate reports about what they actually eat, and it allows direct comparisons.
- mseebach 11y ago
  It is very interesting. I wonder, however, if it's enough to isolate all relevant variables (this is peanut gallery speculation, I am not a scientist of any stripe)? The narrator explains that she is "an accident & emergency doctor [...]. Rushing around on my feet all day with strange working patterns". Never mind that the stress and adrenaline of such work must affect her body in some ways, she probably also moves quite a bit more than the average person. We're not told anything about her counterpart than her name, and that she's the same age and gender.
  - windexh8er 11y ago
    I've commented a bunch of time on gut microbiome before and I'll say it again here who may have not caught it. If this article is interesting check out "The Good Gut" by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, PhD. I've been experimenting with an ad hoc restorative process through ideas in the book and reading/research around a myriad of pro/prebiotics + diet change. For me the whole subject adds a lot of weight to the idea of "skinny fat" vs "fat". I'm glad we're in an age of companies like WellnessFX where I can objectively see the positive changes made by changes to a lifestyle... But, again, I can't stress enough how much great information and studies that have been broken down is in the book. No affiliation, but it's very powerful knowledge. $0.02. edit: "we're not in" to "we're in", whoops
    - OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
      I am in agreement about the microbiome and it's importance but I found the good gut to be a terrible book full of wild speculation and little facts to back them up. Many sections started with a few thin facts then the authors made jumps that didn't exactly connect to those facts in order to speculate as if that was a fact. I hope there is a better book out there on this topic or one coming soon.
      - windexh8er 11y ago
        Interesting. Do you have any specific examples you can remember? I read the book from the perspective that it wasn't verbatim research results, but example based results from their research. I found the connections between the test and result generally existed, although I would say the book got a bit muddy on reuse of a few key topic areas. It's definitely a dry book - it took me a while to get through as it didn't always hold my interest. That being said I agree that I hope there's more to come.
- npsimons 11y ago
  > Doing research on what people eat is VERY hard, it's very hard to get accurate data. AKA, don't bother with any studies with self-reported data. No one wants to admit it's their fault they got fat, but it always is.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    No one wants to admit it's their fault they got fat, but it always is. If that were the case then studies to find out why two people can eat the same thing and do the same amount of exercise yet one of them can end up fatter than the other wouldn't be necessary. It seems to be the case that, all external factors being equal, how fat you are can be determined by something outside of your control (genetics, gut microbes, etc). To that end, someone could be fat without it being their fault.
    - randlet 11y ago
      It's tough to hear but no matter what your genetics or internal flora are, being overweight is still your fault. It may not be "fair" that someone puts on less weight than someone else eating the same diet, but ultimately you're the one responsible for maintaining your own weight (by controlling what you put in your mouth) no matter what the state of your gut microbes. edit: not picking on you Onion2k...I end up commenting a lot on these stories because it really irks me when so many articles and people are looking for something external to blame for their weight problem. You may or may not be able to change your metabolism but you absolutely can change the number of calories you're consuming.
      - mightybyte 11y ago
        And to add to your point, you also can absolutely change the number of calories you're burning. Exercise (especially at high intensity) can make a huge difference.
      - nommm-nommm 11y ago
        http://news.discovery.com/animals/fat-pets-obesity-weight.htm http://news.discovery.com/animals/fat-pets-obesity-weight.ht... - Mammals that live near or with humans, from lab rats to pet pooches, have gotten fatter over recent decades. - Fatter lab animals are the hardest to explain, since their diet is tightly controlled and well documented. - Endocrine disruptors, pathogens or temperature changes might play a role and could also factor into human obesity http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23970219 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23970219 A study showed that transplanting gut bacteria from obese people into mice led to the animals gaining weight, while bacteria from lean people kept them slim. The findings were published in Science. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, Missouri, took gut bacteria from pairs of twins - one obese, one thin. The bacteria were then put into mice which had grown up in completely sterile environments and had no gut bacteria of their own. Mice with the obese twin's bacteria became heavier and put on more fat than mice given bacteria from a lean twin - and it was not down to the amount of food being eaten. --- Ok, so you may need 1300 calories a day to maintain an "ideal" bodyweight but The Minnesota Starvation Experiment shows that amount of food intake causes severe emotional stress and depression. So yeah
- leshow 11y ago
  Except it doesn't in the realm of weight gain/loss. People's metabolisms vary by a wide margin, we could both eat exactly the same and I could lose weight, while you gain.
  - pietjepuk88 11y ago
    Of course no two persons are exactly the same, so your statement about gain/loss is true no matter what. However, I just want to say that a wide margin is only about ~10%, or two tablespoons of peanut butter for a typical "doing nothing" metabolism. This is assuming roughly the same physique and exercise pattern [1]. People differ, but in my experience the influence of genes is overestimated quite often. Of course, top athletes can burn through 2-3 times what a desk-worker might burn through. And I think the small number I mentioned above also tells that you can slowly but steadily put on quite some weight, by eating every day just one slice of bread more than you need. [1] https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/ https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-peo...
    - leshow 11y ago
      Examine.com is a great resource. I coach myself and other bodybuilders/figure athletes on the side, consider this anecdotal. Working with the extremes of muscle mass I've found that it can affect metabolism a great deal. Simply by the fact that you have so much more weight to carry around/maintain. For example, I maintain weight at 205lb @ 5'7" (relatively) lean at 3500 kcal, for a competition I have to be ~170lb, my maintenance intake at that weight is closer to 2000kcal. Note that exercise also increases closer to a competition, so that 2000kcal maintenance is with higher activity levels than offseason.
    - Shorel 11y ago
      > Of course no two persons are exactly the same With this research, it's seems possible to make two persons to react the same to most food, by making their microbiotic flora the same.
flashm 11y ago
Michael Moseley and the BBC are doing some great work challenging the status quo recently, especially with diet. If you're able to access iPlayer where you are, the programme he did on fasting is well worth a watch if you have an hour spare.
- dylan62 11y ago
  I have a lot of time for Michael Moseley, but recently his "Trust me, I'm a Doctor" TV show has been falling into the same traps as the medical establishment, making concrete claims based on the flimsiest of evidence. In a recent show one of the presenters (admittedly not Moseley) claims "The good news is that we have shown that Olive oil really is good for us", which was a ridiculous claim based on the evidence presented.
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    Yes, it seems the more mainstream the program the more they feel they need to simplify it.
- monkeyshelli 11y ago
  Do you mean "Eat, Fast and Live Longer"(https://vimeo.com/103656060 https://vimeo.com/103656060)? If so, it was great. Totally changed my view on fasting (I now-a-days do 16h fast/day).
tomp 11y ago
> For Leila, the results were very different. Whereas pasta was "bad" for me, it was fine for her. Yoghurt was good for me, but bad for her, and our responses to bread and butter were also complete opposites. (Note: "bad" and "good" above refers to "high-GI" and "low-GI", respectively.) Another interesting anecdotal observation from my acquaintances: our relationships with food differ significantly. While some people simply like to eat (like myself - I find great pleasure in food and seemingly can't ever get enough), others simply don't find such enjoyment in eating - food tastes good for them, but not particularly amazing, and they don't seem to perceive the same amount of Freudian pleasure from the feeling of fullness. Interestingly, this seems to correlate highly (and again, anecdotally) with our life-long struggles with weight - the first group has to be conscious not to eat too much (and put on too much weight), while the second group consists of mainly skinny individuals, some of whom struggle putting on weight. So the "goodness" and "badness" of food might have completely different base levels across population!
- ksec 11y ago
  I guess the saying, everybody is different applies here. I still remember the days when I could eat 3 - 4 pound of beef, along side with mesh potato, or 12 inch Pizza, or whole bucket ( 10pcs ) KFC, per meal! And these meals would come with Coke as well. in Tea time i will eat Ice Cream, eat lots of yogurt etc. I dont do lots of sports, may be once a week maximum. Otherwise I just sit down playing World of Warcraft or watching TV. All while I don't gain 1 pound of weight! I had a VERY hard time gaining weight when I was in the age of 16 - 22. I even tried those weight gainer and protein. And does't work Now that i am a lot older, trying to lose some weight, I find out a lot of these theories simply don't make sense when i was younger. If you are what you eat, then I was definitely eating 4000+ calories per day and not getting Fat. I think, everybody has a different body type that reacts differently.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    As someone who cooks for a 17 year old who trains for and plays rugby quite seriously the sheer amount of food an active teenager can consume is quite staggering.
jankor 11y ago
The full study is much more interesting: "We devised a machine-learning algorithm that integrates blood parameters, dietary habits, anthropometrics, physical activity, and gut microbiota measured in this cohort and showed that it accurately predicts personalized postprandial glycemic response to real-life meals." http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf
- mbubb 11y ago
  Thank you for the link - the study is very interesting to read. I have been bumbling around for a while trying to see what fits for me and there have been counter-intuitive things that seem to work. This study makes me think of that. Part of diet is finding what works to keep things in balance, cravings and spikes might indicate the diet is not working. As an example - initially starting dieting, I stayed away from fruit as a vehicle of carbs. Over the past two weeks I have allowed myself bananas, apples, melon and berries as breakfast and afternoon snack. This appears to not 'spike' me as I would have thought but gives me stability. Night snacking is a killer for me and I have been able to get by with a cup of tea around 2200 with a single biscuit. Its just been 2 weeks but these two little cheats actually seem to give the diet some stability - for now anyway. This study is really useful for me.
  - ozy123 11y ago
    What are you using to monitor spikes? Trying to locate something that would give continuous readings rather than manual testing after every meal.
    - rdancer 11y ago
      Would continuous glucose monitoring devices used by diabetics be suitable?
- wdewind 11y ago
  This is a great study, for nutritional science I am very impressed with the methodology. It's very large and very thorough. It should be heavily noted that the goal of the study is not to create algorithms for healthy people, but for diabetic and pre-diabetic populations. The only well supported long term consequences of post-prandial high glycemic response in otherwise healthy people is an increased psychological urge to eat. Outside of that, the importance of insulin levels in healthy people is extremely overhyped. These machine learning algorithms are cool, and may be useful for diabetic people, but for the general population monitoring your insulin levels is a waste of time.
gadders 11y ago
This happens in pigs and other livestock. Animals are specifically bred for their Feed Conversion Efficiency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio). I don't see why something similar couldn't happen in people as well.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Well, something similar shouldn't happen in people because eugenics is considered to not be a particularly good idea.
  - diskcat 11y ago
    it's actually a pretty good idea. who wouldn't want to be born with excellent immune system, strong and tall, smart and attractive?
    - anonyfox 11y ago
      You need the ugly to actually realize beauty. If everyone is beautiful, the word "beautiful" wouldn't make any sense. You could argue that this would be a solution to many discrimination issues today if everyone is beautiful, strong, tall, ... . Mhh. Interesting thought.
      - VLM 11y ago
        HN is mostly young people who only associate with young people; if you can get past whatever vestigial respect for elders remains as a cultural value, most people will agree that old people are a pretty good source of ugly. Especially pre-modern medicine, ravages of outdoor labor and warfare... We arguably do live in a world where all 20 year old women are beautiful, and the 90 year old women are somewhat less so.
      - restalis 11y ago
        As you realized, beauty is relative (to ugliness). I can't quite grasp how you missed this relative aspect by going further with your assumption of "everyone is beautiful". People will always find distinctions and there always will be a scale of beauty (or whatever else).
tomhoward 11y ago
The report makes no mention of any inclusion of genetics or epigenetics (environmentally-influenced gene expression) in this study. It would be a shame if that were excluded as a factor worth investigating, as research I've seen elsewhere indicates that it is [1]. The notion that the gut microbiome is a major factor in metabolism and health is now widely known and accepted, but it just raises the next question: what is the cause of variance in the health of the microbiome? A good diet and supplementation with good microbes (probiotics, ferments, etc) is part of it, but the body itself also needs to do its part to create an environment that is fertile and hospitable for beneficial microbes, and inhospitable for harmful ones. This requires a well-functioning immune system, correct enzyme activity, oxygenation, pH, optimal function of all the organs, to name just some of the factors in the vastly complex system that is the mammalian body. Genetics and epigenetics play a key role in this system, and you'd hope to see this being included as a part of a study like this. [1] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-epigenetics-our-gut-microbiome-and-the-environment-interact-to-change-our-lives/ https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-epigen...
Shivetya 11y ago
Interesting results. While I understand the microbes do affect how we process foods does our diet affect how they work? As in, if long term she eats grapes then perhaps either the microbes in her changed or the microbes themselves adopted a new behavior. So the idea is, put a group of people on a strict diet long enough to affect which microbes they have and the exposure of the microbes to the diet. Then take three different directions from there and monitor how it all works out.
- restalis 11y ago
  I'm not that versed in the subject, but my (dilettante) guess is that our own behavior may affect the fauna of our digestive microbes by consuming spicy food, alcohol, having nicotine in blood, or through other unhealthy habits.
  - nsxwolf 11y ago
    Spicy food is unhealthy?
    - restalis 11y ago
      There is a lot to be said about spicy. In a few words, "spicy" is not really a taste like sweat, bitter, salty, and acid are. Spicy is actually the sensation of the inflamed taste buds. (But there are condiments that are inducing only this inflamed sensation without actually causing it.) This chemically-induced inflammatory effect is deadly for many bacteria. This sanitizing effect was one of the main reasons why the hot and wet south Asia developed so many spiced dishes in their traditional cuisine. (In Europe they used alcohol for the same effect.) So although spicy will not harm you (directly, in the long term), it will kill some of your symbiotic pals!
musha68k 11y ago
There is a new book out called "Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ" by Giulia Enders: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781771641494 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/97817716... I can't recommend it enough as it is both entertaining and packed with comprehensive information on a taboo topic (hint: you are "the borg";) Interview with Giulia Enders on "Gut": http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s
jv22222 11y ago
Does anyone know where/what that continuous glucose monitor that gets implanted is?
- speedkills 11y ago
  Dexcom makes one. It isn't a permanent implant though, as mentioned in the article it is good for a week.
MrJagil 11y ago
I have a very high metabolism. Some envy me, others find me too skinny. What troubles me though, is that I don't have weight as a heuristic in regards to my health. I sometimes worry, as everything else is quite ambiguous. Energy levels depend on sunlight, sleep and so on. How often I fall sick is equally dependant too many variables for it to be a reliable indicator. I would love for something like this to be reliable/easy/cheap so I have something I can turn to when I feel uneasy about my health.
adajos 11y ago
Very interesting. Startup idea: stool sample testing and custom diet design via a mobile app. I call "not it" for the stool testing part. I'll work on the mobile app instead.
- pimlottc 11y ago
  You mean like Smart Pipe? https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ
- mywittyname 11y ago
  They could create a probe that attaches via a lightning adapter for the stool sampling part. You sound like a great candidate to be the team lead on that project.
xyzzy4 11y ago
Well the biggest reason people put on weight is because they don't understand how calories work from a lack of education, which is why poor people and immigrants generally become the most overweight. People who don't speak English well won't run into scientific articles that talk about calories, so they aren't even thinking about the subject.
- anu7df 11y ago
  Most people don't understand calories as it relates to their food intake. However lack of education has very little to do with it. Just look at all the comments in this thread. The things that can be said to be true are: Thermodynamics is correct.. People consuming same amount of food may end up absorbing different calories from it. They also may burn calories at slightly different rates. This is all very helpful but not a plan to control weight. Poor people (anecdotal) have less time to cook healthy meals and hence end up eating calorie dense fast food. PS: edit . typo. Grammer. Phone..
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - leshow 11y ago
    I would assume education would cover differences in individual metabolism, so you'd know if you were gaining weight to consume less food.
pfalke 11y ago
Could a similar approach work to find the impact of foods on other health factors (sleep quality, digestion, ...) in a personal experiment? I picture logging my coffee consumption (or even all foods + sports etc) and sleep over a few weeks, then using machine learning to find a possible relationship. I'd appreciate any links to OSS projects/commercial apps that work on this.
BeowulfCluster 11y ago
This is interesting, but people shouldn't be misled. Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. There was a very highly cited paper in the NEJM where they studied a group of people who believed they were "diet resistant" using a new technique--doubly labeled water--to determine how much they were really eating and exercising. Every single person in the study--every last one of them--lied to the doctors about how many calories he or she was eating. http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 The last paragraph says: "In conclusion, all the obese subjects we studied who had a history of self-reported diet resistance had appropriate energy expenditure, but they misreported their actual food intake and physical activity." In other words: "Fatties gonna fat."
- jrcii 11y ago
  >Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. Funny you should say that when this was just published today: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-broken/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-br...
  - elwesties 11y ago
    Regardless of the unit eating less will make you lose weight.
  - artimaeis 11y ago
    If I read that article correctly it seemed to be pointing out that sometimes calories are literally mislabeled. That is - a sandwich from a vendor may be labeled as 400 kcal but actually it turns out it was closer to 500 kcal. Casey Neistat did a special for the NYT a couple of years ago about this very problem [1]. The ArsTechnica article you linked did go into other things - but there's definitely a difficulty in dealing with things where labels say one thing and can be 10-15% wrong pretty easily. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective....
DonaldFisk 11y ago
On an individual level the study shows why some people are more prone to weight gain than others. But there's been an epidemic of obesity over the past few decades, and there's no reason to believe people's gut flora changed over that period. Even if it did, there must have been an underlying cause. What has undoubtedly changed are people's lifestyles: (1) Less smoking. (This is a good thing, but it has resulted in weight gain.) (2) More driving and less walking/bicycling. (3) Children playing games on computers instead of outside. (4) More sitting at desks, and less moving about, at work. (5) More eating out. and probably a few other factors.
- therealdrag0 11y ago
  Yep. Lifestyle change without dietary change. I'm M27 6' 150lbs and mostly sedentary; calorie recommendations for me are 2300+. Last time I counted my calories I was eating closer to 1600. My weight is maintained and I experience no lack of energy compared to peers. I think people over estimate the amount of food they "need" and over estimate how many calories are burned for x-amount of activity.
- Shorel 11y ago
  The amount of fat free and fructose sweetened food I just saw in the supermarket today seems to be a factor too.

183 points by soupangel 11y ago

ars 11y ago

This is pretty astonishing research, not so much for the results, as for the methodology. Doing research on what people eat is VERY hard, it's very hard to get accurate data. Pairing people and having them eat identically is brilliant. I hope it's also scalable for longer term studies. By pairing people they are likely to give much more accurate reports about what they actually eat, and it allows direct comparisons.

mseebach 11y ago
It is very interesting. I wonder, however, if it's enough to isolate all relevant variables (this is peanut gallery speculation, I am not a scientist of any stripe)? The narrator explains that she is "an accident & emergency doctor [...]. Rushing around on my feet all day with strange working patterns". Never mind that the stress and adrenaline of such work must affect her body in some ways, she probably also moves quite a bit more than the average person. We're not told anything about her counterpart than her name, and that she's the same age and gender.
- windexh8er 11y ago
  I've commented a bunch of time on gut microbiome before and I'll say it again here who may have not caught it. If this article is interesting check out "The Good Gut" by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, PhD. I've been experimenting with an ad hoc restorative process through ideas in the book and reading/research around a myriad of pro/prebiotics + diet change. For me the whole subject adds a lot of weight to the idea of "skinny fat" vs "fat". I'm glad we're in an age of companies like WellnessFX where I can objectively see the positive changes made by changes to a lifestyle... But, again, I can't stress enough how much great information and studies that have been broken down is in the book. No affiliation, but it's very powerful knowledge. $0.02. edit: "we're not in" to "we're in", whoops
  - OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
    I am in agreement about the microbiome and it's importance but I found the good gut to be a terrible book full of wild speculation and little facts to back them up. Many sections started with a few thin facts then the authors made jumps that didn't exactly connect to those facts in order to speculate as if that was a fact. I hope there is a better book out there on this topic or one coming soon.
    - windexh8er 11y ago
      Interesting. Do you have any specific examples you can remember? I read the book from the perspective that it wasn't verbatim research results, but example based results from their research. I found the connections between the test and result generally existed, although I would say the book got a bit muddy on reuse of a few key topic areas. It's definitely a dry book - it took me a while to get through as it didn't always hold my interest. That being said I agree that I hope there's more to come.
npsimons 11y ago
> Doing research on what people eat is VERY hard, it's very hard to get accurate data. AKA, don't bother with any studies with self-reported data. No one wants to admit it's their fault they got fat, but it always is.
- onion2k 11y ago
  No one wants to admit it's their fault they got fat, but it always is. If that were the case then studies to find out why two people can eat the same thing and do the same amount of exercise yet one of them can end up fatter than the other wouldn't be necessary. It seems to be the case that, all external factors being equal, how fat you are can be determined by something outside of your control (genetics, gut microbes, etc). To that end, someone could be fat without it being their fault.
  - randlet 11y ago
    It's tough to hear but no matter what your genetics or internal flora are, being overweight is still your fault. It may not be "fair" that someone puts on less weight than someone else eating the same diet, but ultimately you're the one responsible for maintaining your own weight (by controlling what you put in your mouth) no matter what the state of your gut microbes. edit: not picking on you Onion2k...I end up commenting a lot on these stories because it really irks me when so many articles and people are looking for something external to blame for their weight problem. You may or may not be able to change your metabolism but you absolutely can change the number of calories you're consuming.
    - mightybyte 11y ago
      And to add to your point, you also can absolutely change the number of calories you're burning. Exercise (especially at high intensity) can make a huge difference.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      http://news.discovery.com/animals/fat-pets-obesity-weight.htm http://news.discovery.com/animals/fat-pets-obesity-weight.ht... - Mammals that live near or with humans, from lab rats to pet pooches, have gotten fatter over recent decades. - Fatter lab animals are the hardest to explain, since their diet is tightly controlled and well documented. - Endocrine disruptors, pathogens or temperature changes might play a role and could also factor into human obesity http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23970219 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23970219 A study showed that transplanting gut bacteria from obese people into mice led to the animals gaining weight, while bacteria from lean people kept them slim. The findings were published in Science. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, Missouri, took gut bacteria from pairs of twins - one obese, one thin. The bacteria were then put into mice which had grown up in completely sterile environments and had no gut bacteria of their own. Mice with the obese twin's bacteria became heavier and put on more fat than mice given bacteria from a lean twin - and it was not down to the amount of food being eaten. --- Ok, so you may need 1300 calories a day to maintain an "ideal" bodyweight but The Minnesota Starvation Experiment shows that amount of food intake causes severe emotional stress and depression. So yeah
leshow 11y ago
Except it doesn't in the realm of weight gain/loss. People's metabolisms vary by a wide margin, we could both eat exactly the same and I could lose weight, while you gain.
- pietjepuk88 11y ago
  Of course no two persons are exactly the same, so your statement about gain/loss is true no matter what. However, I just want to say that a wide margin is only about ~10%, or two tablespoons of peanut butter for a typical "doing nothing" metabolism. This is assuming roughly the same physique and exercise pattern [1]. People differ, but in my experience the influence of genes is overestimated quite often. Of course, top athletes can burn through 2-3 times what a desk-worker might burn through. And I think the small number I mentioned above also tells that you can slowly but steadily put on quite some weight, by eating every day just one slice of bread more than you need. [1] https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/ https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-peo...
  - leshow 11y ago
    Examine.com is a great resource. I coach myself and other bodybuilders/figure athletes on the side, consider this anecdotal. Working with the extremes of muscle mass I've found that it can affect metabolism a great deal. Simply by the fact that you have so much more weight to carry around/maintain. For example, I maintain weight at 205lb @ 5'7" (relatively) lean at 3500 kcal, for a competition I have to be ~170lb, my maintenance intake at that weight is closer to 2000kcal. Note that exercise also increases closer to a competition, so that 2000kcal maintenance is with higher activity levels than offseason.
  - Shorel 11y ago
    > Of course no two persons are exactly the same With this research, it's seems possible to make two persons to react the same to most food, by making their microbiotic flora the same.

flashm 11y ago

Michael Moseley and the BBC are doing some great work challenging the status quo recently, especially with diet. If you're able to access iPlayer where you are, the programme he did on fasting is well worth a watch if you have an hour spare.

dylan62 11y ago
I have a lot of time for Michael Moseley, but recently his "Trust me, I'm a Doctor" TV show has been falling into the same traps as the medical establishment, making concrete claims based on the flimsiest of evidence. In a recent show one of the presenters (admittedly not Moseley) claims "The good news is that we have shown that Olive oil really is good for us", which was a ridiculous claim based on the evidence presented.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  Yes, it seems the more mainstream the program the more they feel they need to simplify it.
monkeyshelli 11y ago
Do you mean "Eat, Fast and Live Longer"(https://vimeo.com/103656060 https://vimeo.com/103656060)? If so, it was great. Totally changed my view on fasting (I now-a-days do 16h fast/day).

tomp 11y ago

> For Leila, the results were very different. Whereas pasta was "bad" for me, it was fine for her. Yoghurt was good for me, but bad for her, and our responses to bread and butter were also complete opposites. (Note: "bad" and "good" above refers to "high-GI" and "low-GI", respectively.) Another interesting anecdotal observation from my acquaintances: our relationships with food differ significantly. While some people simply like to eat (like myself - I find great pleasure in food and seemingly can't ever get enough), others simply don't find such enjoyment in eating - food tastes good for them, but not particularly amazing, and they don't seem to perceive the same amount of Freudian pleasure from the feeling of fullness. Interestingly, this seems to correlate highly (and again, anecdotally) with our life-long struggles with weight - the first group has to be conscious not to eat too much (and put on too much weight), while the second group consists of mainly skinny individuals, some of whom struggle putting on weight. So the "goodness" and "badness" of food might have completely different base levels across population!

ksec 11y ago
I guess the saying, everybody is different applies here. I still remember the days when I could eat 3 - 4 pound of beef, along side with mesh potato, or 12 inch Pizza, or whole bucket ( 10pcs ) KFC, per meal! And these meals would come with Coke as well. in Tea time i will eat Ice Cream, eat lots of yogurt etc. I dont do lots of sports, may be once a week maximum. Otherwise I just sit down playing World of Warcraft or watching TV. All while I don't gain 1 pound of weight! I had a VERY hard time gaining weight when I was in the age of 16 - 22. I even tried those weight gainer and protein. And does't work Now that i am a lot older, trying to lose some weight, I find out a lot of these theories simply don't make sense when i was younger. If you are what you eat, then I was definitely eating 4000+ calories per day and not getting Fat. I think, everybody has a different body type that reacts differently.
- arethuza 11y ago
  As someone who cooks for a 17 year old who trains for and plays rugby quite seriously the sheer amount of food an active teenager can consume is quite staggering.

jankor 11y ago

The full study is much more interesting: "We devised a machine-learning algorithm that integrates blood parameters, dietary habits, anthropometrics, physical activity, and gut microbiota measured in this cohort and showed that it accurately predicts personalized postprandial glycemic response to real-life meals." http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf

mbubb 11y ago
Thank you for the link - the study is very interesting to read. I have been bumbling around for a while trying to see what fits for me and there have been counter-intuitive things that seem to work. This study makes me think of that. Part of diet is finding what works to keep things in balance, cravings and spikes might indicate the diet is not working. As an example - initially starting dieting, I stayed away from fruit as a vehicle of carbs. Over the past two weeks I have allowed myself bananas, apples, melon and berries as breakfast and afternoon snack. This appears to not 'spike' me as I would have thought but gives me stability. Night snacking is a killer for me and I have been able to get by with a cup of tea around 2200 with a single biscuit. Its just been 2 weeks but these two little cheats actually seem to give the diet some stability - for now anyway. This study is really useful for me.
- ozy123 11y ago
  What are you using to monitor spikes? Trying to locate something that would give continuous readings rather than manual testing after every meal.
  - rdancer 11y ago
    Would continuous glucose monitoring devices used by diabetics be suitable?
wdewind 11y ago
This is a great study, for nutritional science I am very impressed with the methodology. It's very large and very thorough. It should be heavily noted that the goal of the study is not to create algorithms for healthy people, but for diabetic and pre-diabetic populations. The only well supported long term consequences of post-prandial high glycemic response in otherwise healthy people is an increased psychological urge to eat. Outside of that, the importance of insulin levels in healthy people is extremely overhyped. These machine learning algorithms are cool, and may be useful for diabetic people, but for the general population monitoring your insulin levels is a waste of time.

gadders 11y ago

This happens in pigs and other livestock. Animals are specifically bred for their Feed Conversion Efficiency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio). I don't see why something similar couldn't happen in people as well.

mattlutze 11y ago
Well, something similar shouldn't happen in people because eugenics is considered to not be a particularly good idea.
- diskcat 11y ago
  it's actually a pretty good idea. who wouldn't want to be born with excellent immune system, strong and tall, smart and attractive?
  - anonyfox 11y ago
    You need the ugly to actually realize beauty. If everyone is beautiful, the word "beautiful" wouldn't make any sense. You could argue that this would be a solution to many discrimination issues today if everyone is beautiful, strong, tall, ... . Mhh. Interesting thought.
    - VLM 11y ago
      HN is mostly young people who only associate with young people; if you can get past whatever vestigial respect for elders remains as a cultural value, most people will agree that old people are a pretty good source of ugly. Especially pre-modern medicine, ravages of outdoor labor and warfare... We arguably do live in a world where all 20 year old women are beautiful, and the 90 year old women are somewhat less so.
    - restalis 11y ago
      As you realized, beauty is relative (to ugliness). I can't quite grasp how you missed this relative aspect by going further with your assumption of "everyone is beautiful". People will always find distinctions and there always will be a scale of beauty (or whatever else).

tomhoward 11y ago

The report makes no mention of any inclusion of genetics or epigenetics (environmentally-influenced gene expression) in this study. It would be a shame if that were excluded as a factor worth investigating, as research I've seen elsewhere indicates that it is [1]. The notion that the gut microbiome is a major factor in metabolism and health is now widely known and accepted, but it just raises the next question: what is the cause of variance in the health of the microbiome? A good diet and supplementation with good microbes (probiotics, ferments, etc) is part of it, but the body itself also needs to do its part to create an environment that is fertile and hospitable for beneficial microbes, and inhospitable for harmful ones. This requires a well-functioning immune system, correct enzyme activity, oxygenation, pH, optimal function of all the organs, to name just some of the factors in the vastly complex system that is the mammalian body. Genetics and epigenetics play a key role in this system, and you'd hope to see this being included as a part of a study like this. [1] https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-epigenetics-our-gut-microbiome-and-the-environment-interact-to-change-our-lives/ https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-epigen...

Shivetya 11y ago

Interesting results. While I understand the microbes do affect how we process foods does our diet affect how they work? As in, if long term she eats grapes then perhaps either the microbes in her changed or the microbes themselves adopted a new behavior. So the idea is, put a group of people on a strict diet long enough to affect which microbes they have and the exposure of the microbes to the diet. Then take three different directions from there and monitor how it all works out.

restalis 11y ago
I'm not that versed in the subject, but my (dilettante) guess is that our own behavior may affect the fauna of our digestive microbes by consuming spicy food, alcohol, having nicotine in blood, or through other unhealthy habits.
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  Spicy food is unhealthy?
  - restalis 11y ago
    There is a lot to be said about spicy. In a few words, "spicy" is not really a taste like sweat, bitter, salty, and acid are. Spicy is actually the sensation of the inflamed taste buds. (But there are condiments that are inducing only this inflamed sensation without actually causing it.) This chemically-induced inflammatory effect is deadly for many bacteria. This sanitizing effect was one of the main reasons why the hot and wet south Asia developed so many spiced dishes in their traditional cuisine. (In Europe they used alcohol for the same effect.) So although spicy will not harm you (directly, in the long term), it will kill some of your symbiotic pals!

musha68k 11y ago

There is a new book out called "Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ" by Giulia Enders: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781771641494 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/97817716... I can't recommend it enough as it is both entertaining and packed with comprehensive information on a taboo topic (hint: you are "the borg";) Interview with Giulia Enders on "Gut": http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s

jv22222 11y ago

Does anyone know where/what that continuous glucose monitor that gets implanted is?

speedkills 11y ago
Dexcom makes one. It isn't a permanent implant though, as mentioned in the article it is good for a week.

MrJagil 11y ago

I have a very high metabolism. Some envy me, others find me too skinny. What troubles me though, is that I don't have weight as a heuristic in regards to my health. I sometimes worry, as everything else is quite ambiguous. Energy levels depend on sunlight, sleep and so on. How often I fall sick is equally dependant too many variables for it to be a reliable indicator. I would love for something like this to be reliable/easy/cheap so I have something I can turn to when I feel uneasy about my health.

adajos 11y ago

Very interesting. Startup idea: stool sample testing and custom diet design via a mobile app. I call "not it" for the stool testing part. I'll work on the mobile app instead.

pimlottc 11y ago
You mean like Smart Pipe? https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ
mywittyname 11y ago
They could create a probe that attaches via a lightning adapter for the stool sampling part. You sound like a great candidate to be the team lead on that project.

xyzzy4 11y ago

Well the biggest reason people put on weight is because they don't understand how calories work from a lack of education, which is why poor people and immigrants generally become the most overweight. People who don't speak English well won't run into scientific articles that talk about calories, so they aren't even thinking about the subject.

anu7df 11y ago
Most people don't understand calories as it relates to their food intake. However lack of education has very little to do with it. Just look at all the comments in this thread. The things that can be said to be true are: Thermodynamics is correct.. People consuming same amount of food may end up absorbing different calories from it. They also may burn calories at slightly different rates. This is all very helpful but not a plan to control weight. Poor people (anecdotal) have less time to cook healthy meals and hence end up eating calorie dense fast food. PS: edit . typo. Grammer. Phone..
- deleted 11y ago
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- leshow 11y ago
  I would assume education would cover differences in individual metabolism, so you'd know if you were gaining weight to consume less food.

pfalke 11y ago

Could a similar approach work to find the impact of foods on other health factors (sleep quality, digestion, ...) in a personal experiment? I picture logging my coffee consumption (or even all foods + sports etc) and sleep over a few weeks, then using machine learning to find a possible relationship. I'd appreciate any links to OSS projects/commercial apps that work on this.

BeowulfCluster 11y ago

This is interesting, but people shouldn't be misled. Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. There was a very highly cited paper in the NEJM where they studied a group of people who believed they were "diet resistant" using a new technique--doubly labeled water--to determine how much they were really eating and exercising. Every single person in the study--every last one of them--lied to the doctors about how many calories he or she was eating. http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 The last paragraph says: "In conclusion, all the obese subjects we studied who had a history of self-reported diet resistance had appropriate energy expenditure, but they misreported their actual food intake and physical activity." In other words: "Fatties gonna fat."

jrcii 11y ago
>Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. Funny you should say that when this was just published today: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-broken/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-br...
- elwesties 11y ago
  Regardless of the unit eating less will make you lose weight.
- artimaeis 11y ago
  If I read that article correctly it seemed to be pointing out that sometimes calories are literally mislabeled. That is - a sandwich from a vendor may be labeled as 400 kcal but actually it turns out it was closer to 500 kcal. Casey Neistat did a special for the NYT a couple of years ago about this very problem [1]. The ArsTechnica article you linked did go into other things - but there's definitely a difficulty in dealing with things where labels say one thing and can be 10-15% wrong pretty easily. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective....

DonaldFisk 11y ago

On an individual level the study shows why some people are more prone to weight gain than others. But there's been an epidemic of obesity over the past few decades, and there's no reason to believe people's gut flora changed over that period. Even if it did, there must have been an underlying cause. What has undoubtedly changed are people's lifestyles: (1) Less smoking. (This is a good thing, but it has resulted in weight gain.) (2) More driving and less walking/bicycling. (3) Children playing games on computers instead of outside. (4) More sitting at desks, and less moving about, at work. (5) More eating out. and probably a few other factors.

therealdrag0 11y ago
Yep. Lifestyle change without dietary change. I'm M27 6' 150lbs and mostly sedentary; calorie recommendations for me are 2300+. Last time I counted my calories I was eating closer to 1600. My weight is maintained and I experience no lack of energy compared to peers. I think people over estimate the amount of food they "need" and over estimate how many calories are burned for x-amount of activity.
Shorel 11y ago
The amount of fat free and fructose sweetened food I just saw in the supermarket today seems to be a factor too.