In an HN discussion thread yesterday[1], there were some who argued that all calories are equal insofar as obesity, diabetes, etc is concerned. That idea has b

In an HN discussion thread yesterday[1], there were some who argued that all calories are equal insofar as obesity, diabetes, etc is concerned. That idea has been largely discredited, as the NYT article on "Fed Up" explains. Here's a snippet: At Harvard Medical School, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology whose research was cited by experts in the film, said that the long-held idea that we get fat solely because we consume more calories than we expend is based on outdated science. He has studied the effects that different foods have on weight gain and said that it is true that 100 calories of fat, protein and carbohydrates are the same in a thermodynamic sense, in that they release the same amount of energy when exposed to a Bunsen burner in a lab. But in a complex organism like a human being, he said, these foods influence satiety, metabolic rate, brain activity, blood sugar and the hormones that store fat in very different ways. Studies also show that calories from different foods are not absorbed the same. When people eat high-fiber foods like nuts and some vegetables, for example, only about three-quarters of the calories they contain are absorbed. The rest are excreted from the body unused. So the calories listed on their labels are not what the body is actually getting. “The implicit suggestion is that there are no bad calories, just bad people eating too much,” Dr. Mozaffarian said. “But the evidence is very clear that not all calories are created equal as far as weight gain and obesity. If you’re focusing on calories, you can easily be misguided.” [1] Nestlé Wants to Sell You Both Sugary Snacks and Diabetes Pills https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658835