11 ms·

This almost answers a question I've often wondered. Whenever I see research on calorie restriction, I wonder whether it's directly caused by eating fewer calor

by latch 9y ago

This almost answers a question I've often wondered. Whenever I see research on calorie restriction, I wonder whether it's directly caused by eating fewer calories, or indirectly caused by eating fewer bad things. For example, methionine, an essential amino acid, is linked to cancer growth. In other words, maybe we don't need to eat less calories, but less of specific nutrients. Anyways, this study seems focused on metabolic diseases and doesn't touch on cancer or longevity in general. So, if anyone has any thoughts, I'd like to know. It's been bugging me for a while.

wayn3 9y ago
some math: 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories. 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories. When metabolized, however, carbohydrates yield 5x the ATP proteins do. 1 gram of carbs is 5x as "rich in energy" as 1 gram of proteins. In spite of them being billed as equal. A tablespoon of sugar yields about as much energy as a pound of chicken breast. Then we go into fat. People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. "Diet" products that extract fat from milk products, like yoghurt, and replace them with sugar, which makes the product less calorically dense, nominally, literally makes people more fat - AND is billed as a diet alternative. Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. Everything. And this isn't arcane knowledge acquired from some hermit. Its literally on wikipedia. One click away. Google ATP, or adenosinetriphosphate, and read the whole page. you will know more about diet than most dieticians. When I talked to my physician about these things, initially, they didnt know those basic facts either. All the knowledge we've got about how to lose weight is buried and ignored by bullshit. Simple facts that, if applied, make people lose weight. Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. Its what Ive done.
- nailer 9y ago
  > People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It's funny to think people ever took this literally, although many still do. Broccoli, for example, doesn't directly end up as broccoli lining your veins. Humans have digestive systems.
  - pmilb 9y ago
    But fats are indeed broken down into fatty acids which can be stored as fat cells in your body.
- berdon 9y ago
  Do you have any sources for the calorie vs ATP information? I've recently been assuming this and I'd really like to read more in the direction of ATP based diets versus calorie based diets.
  - w0uld 9y ago
    The Wikipedia article OP mentioned is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate Both carbohydrates and fats have direct pathways to ATP. Protein does not. Protein must first go through gluconeogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
- latch 9y ago
  You're mixing two things, though my original question wasn't clear. You're talking about calorie restriction with respect to metabolic disease. This study seems to further support your view and, I don't disagree with you. I was asking about calorie restriction in terms of longevity. There's a growing body of science (and also wiki pages) that link reduced calories to an increase in media and maximum life span (via a reduction of various age-related diseases). Although the mechanism isn't known, this appears to go beyond weight.
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    I thought the mechanism was suspected to be mTor. And that eating a leucine deficient diet had similar effects as calorie restriction and fasting.
    - latch 9y ago
      Thanks! That helps (seems like methionine-restriction is related to all this too, after all). Maybe really stupid, but is it bio-chemically possible to create a amino acid analog that fulfills the good duties without the bad? What xylitol is for sugar, say.
- thedz 9y ago
  > Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. While I agree that for many people, restricting carbs is a far easier method of eating healthy while still feeling fully sated, stating that you can "literally eat until your stomach hurts" is false, misleading, and potentially destructive. 5000 calories of cream cheese or other caloric dense foods is, still, at the end of the day, 5000 calories. Caloric restriction isn't the only way to diet or eat healthy, but ignoring overall caloric intake (even rough estimates) while only focusing on "what" you eat is one of the biggest pitfalls I see.
  - rhinoceraptor 9y ago
    I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter, what matters is if a free living humans can eat a diet without too much effort. I don't think many people would want to (or even could) eat 5000 calories of cream cheese. But you probably could do it if you're eating ice cream and potato chips.
    - thedz 9y ago
      > I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter Ahem: > Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight.
  - tbv 9y ago
    The "a calorie is a calorie" approach to diet and health has been thoroughly debunked. Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. All things equal except the composition of their diet, the person on the HF diet will stay lean and feel consistently satiated, while the LF person will put on more fat and feel hungry far more frequently than the HF. IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- reese_john 9y ago
  > The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. > Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. Its what Ive done. I'm sorry but your post is not supported by the research at all. The process which turns carbs into fat is called de novo lipogenesis and is extremely rare in humans. It only happens when your glycogen stores are full AND after masssive overfeed of carbohydrates(500 grams+) for days. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/707.long http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/707.long Hellerstein, 2001 the addition of excess carbohydrate energy to a mixed diet so that total energy intake exceeded total energy expenditure (TEE) increased body fat stores, but not by conversion of the carbohydrate to fat. Instead, the oxidation of dietary fat was suppressed and fat storage thereby increased. [...] Thus, de novo lipogenesis does become a quantitatively major pathway when carbohydrate energy intake exceeds TEE, but this circumstance is unusual in daily life. Also, calorie restriction is not "bs".Protein is more satisfying, spares lean mass and has a larger TEF(thermic effect of food), which makes it great for fat loss. A carb restricted diet is usually high in protein, since carbs are typically replaced by meat, cheese etc and that is a confounding factor. The point is that low-carb diets are not good because they are low in carbs, rather they work well because they are high in protein. In fact, when studies control for protein i.e the protein content is the same for the low and higher carb groups, the fat loss is the pretty much the same. See Johnston CS et. al (2006)
  - irishcoffee 9y ago
    Two 20 oz coca cola drinks get you to 130g. [0] I am thinking you're underestimating just how "rare" 500g of carbs make their way into peoples diets every day, for years. [0]http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/coca-cola/ http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c... edit: 20oz, not 16
- josephv 9y ago
  >>Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. That's what Trump's saying! /hide Down-vote me, but any vote is a good vote.
- aantix 9y ago
  Your facts aren't even being supported by the NuSI experiments, (Gary Taubes's own initiative). The NuSI experiments were suppose to prove the insulin hypothesis but showed no metabolic advantage for low carb/high protein/fat diets. The one advantage the low carb diet does appear to have is satiety; fats just leave you simply feeling fuller longer. But there's nothing metabolically magical about them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0&t=674s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0&t=674s The low fat/high carb group actually gained a longer-term metabolic advantage vs the low carbers..
- taneq 9y ago
  > Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. Citation? > Everything. Citation? No really. I think 90% of the fitness press is truthy BS designed to sell more memberships, but you're making big calls here. > Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. Having lost 15+ kg using caloric restriction, and kept it off for the past 5+ years, based on my own anecdata I'm inclined to disagree. I don't eat meat, though, so maybe my caloric restriction also reduces carbs enough?
- lol-nonsense 9y ago
  > Then we go into fat. People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. This is so wrong and stupid, it hurts. Look up "de novo lipogenesis" that's the process that converts sugar into fat. The efficiency of it in humans is less than 5%. So before you go wailing about a conspiracy, examine your own flawed facts. The fat you eat is the fat you wear. That's why all low fat vegans are slim and in excellent health. Take care!
- huhhi 9y ago
  Your post is nonsense. De novo lipogenesis is not efficient in humans; sugar doesn't metabolized into fat. But fat is readily stored in adipose tissue. That's why meat eaters are fat and sick while low fat vegans are of superior health.
sjcsjc 9y ago
(Everything in this response is my interpretation of the research I've seen. Some of it is my guesswork with no evidence). Good question. It seems that having some period of starvation that is beneficial. Overall calorie intake is less relevant. Decreased overall caloric intake may actually be bad (can't find a link for this at the moment). Benefits appear to include decreased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, possible decreased cancer risk, and decreased risk of neurological disease. Also longer life expectancy in some animals, as yet unproven in humans. Even fasting for short periods regularly appears to be beneficial [5] Three main reasons - autophagy, ketosis and decreased inflammation. Autophagy, a kind of intracellular recycling operation, is increased by, inter alia, starvation [1]. It seems likely that most of the benefits of fasting derive from this. Valter Longo is a key researcher into this. Of particular interest to me is his work on fasting coupled with chemotherapy. [2] Ketosis occurs when all your glucose and glycogen (a polymer of glucose) are used up, and you burn fat instead. Mark Mattson is a key researcher into this. Ketosis appears to have a neuroprotective action [3] Decreased inflammation - chronic inflammation appears to be a cause of all sorts of problems, and fasting appears to decrease it. [4] is a good general review [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831538/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831538/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608686/ [3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017308001045 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017308... [4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413113005032 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413113... [5] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861319 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861319 Use sci-hub for paywalled papers.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Awesome post, thank you. I'll have to come back and read the articles you linked when I have more time. I started following a ketogenic diet in January of this year. I cap myself at 20g of net carbs per day, and my goal is to get 80% of my caloric intake from fats. I've lost 50 pounds so far (318 to 268), and have naturally drifted toward intermittent fasting as my hunger has decreased so significantly I don't have the urge to eat at all.

by latch 9y ago

wayn3 9y ago

some math: 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories. 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories. When metabolized, however, carbohydrates yield 5x the ATP proteins do. 1 gram of carbs is 5x as "rich in energy" as 1 gram of proteins. In spite of them being billed as equal. A tablespoon of sugar yields about as much energy as a pound of chicken breast. Then we go into fat. People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. "Diet" products that extract fat from milk products, like yoghurt, and replace them with sugar, which makes the product less calorically dense, nominally, literally makes people more fat - AND is billed as a diet alternative. Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. Everything. And this isn't arcane knowledge acquired from some hermit. Its literally on wikipedia. One click away. Google ATP, or adenosinetriphosphate, and read the whole page. you will know more about diet than most dieticians. When I talked to my physician about these things, initially, they didnt know those basic facts either. All the knowledge we've got about how to lose weight is buried and ignored by bullshit. Simple facts that, if applied, make people lose weight. Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. Its what Ive done.

nailer 9y ago
> People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It's funny to think people ever took this literally, although many still do. Broccoli, for example, doesn't directly end up as broccoli lining your veins. Humans have digestive systems.
- pmilb 9y ago
  But fats are indeed broken down into fatty acids which can be stored as fat cells in your body.
berdon 9y ago
Do you have any sources for the calorie vs ATP information? I've recently been assuming this and I'd really like to read more in the direction of ATP based diets versus calorie based diets.
- w0uld 9y ago
  The Wikipedia article OP mentioned is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate Both carbohydrates and fats have direct pathways to ATP. Protein does not. Protein must first go through gluconeogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis
latch 9y ago
You're mixing two things, though my original question wasn't clear. You're talking about calorie restriction with respect to metabolic disease. This study seems to further support your view and, I don't disagree with you. I was asking about calorie restriction in terms of longevity. There's a growing body of science (and also wiki pages) that link reduced calories to an increase in media and maximum life span (via a reduction of various age-related diseases). Although the mechanism isn't known, this appears to go beyond weight.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  I thought the mechanism was suspected to be mTor. And that eating a leucine deficient diet had similar effects as calorie restriction and fasting.
  - latch 9y ago
    Thanks! That helps (seems like methionine-restriction is related to all this too, after all). Maybe really stupid, but is it bio-chemically possible to create a amino acid analog that fulfills the good duties without the bad? What xylitol is for sugar, say.
thedz 9y ago
> Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. While I agree that for many people, restricting carbs is a far easier method of eating healthy while still feeling fully sated, stating that you can "literally eat until your stomach hurts" is false, misleading, and potentially destructive. 5000 calories of cream cheese or other caloric dense foods is, still, at the end of the day, 5000 calories. Caloric restriction isn't the only way to diet or eat healthy, but ignoring overall caloric intake (even rough estimates) while only focusing on "what" you eat is one of the biggest pitfalls I see.
- rhinoceraptor 9y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter, what matters is if a free living humans can eat a diet without too much effort. I don't think many people would want to (or even could) eat 5000 calories of cream cheese. But you probably could do it if you're eating ice cream and potato chips.
  - thedz 9y ago
    > I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter Ahem: > Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight.
- tbv 9y ago
  The "a calorie is a calorie" approach to diet and health has been thoroughly debunked. Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. All things equal except the composition of their diet, the person on the HF diet will stay lean and feel consistently satiated, while the LF person will put on more fat and feel hungry far more frequently than the HF. IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
reese_john 9y ago
> The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. > Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. Its what Ive done. I'm sorry but your post is not supported by the research at all. The process which turns carbs into fat is called de novo lipogenesis and is extremely rare in humans. It only happens when your glycogen stores are full AND after masssive overfeed of carbohydrates(500 grams+) for days. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/707.long http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/707.long Hellerstein, 2001 the addition of excess carbohydrate energy to a mixed diet so that total energy intake exceeded total energy expenditure (TEE) increased body fat stores, but not by conversion of the carbohydrate to fat. Instead, the oxidation of dietary fat was suppressed and fat storage thereby increased. [...] Thus, de novo lipogenesis does become a quantitatively major pathway when carbohydrate energy intake exceeds TEE, but this circumstance is unusual in daily life. Also, calorie restriction is not "bs".Protein is more satisfying, spares lean mass and has a larger TEF(thermic effect of food), which makes it great for fat loss. A carb restricted diet is usually high in protein, since carbs are typically replaced by meat, cheese etc and that is a confounding factor. The point is that low-carb diets are not good because they are low in carbs, rather they work well because they are high in protein. In fact, when studies control for protein i.e the protein content is the same for the low and higher carb groups, the fat loss is the pretty much the same. See Johnston CS et. al (2006)
- irishcoffee 9y ago
  Two 20 oz coca cola drinks get you to 130g. [0] I am thinking you're underestimating just how "rare" 500g of carbs make their way into peoples diets every day, for years. [0]http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/coca-cola/ http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c... edit: 20oz, not 16
josephv 9y ago
>>Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. That's what Trump's saying! /hide Down-vote me, but any vote is a good vote.
aantix 9y ago
Your facts aren't even being supported by the NuSI experiments, (Gary Taubes's own initiative). The NuSI experiments were suppose to prove the insulin hypothesis but showed no metabolic advantage for low carb/high protein/fat diets. The one advantage the low carb diet does appear to have is satiety; fats just leave you simply feeling fuller longer. But there's nothing metabolically magical about them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0&t=674s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0&t=674s The low fat/high carb group actually gained a longer-term metabolic advantage vs the low carbers..
taneq 9y ago
> Everything. the. media. says. is. wrong. Citation? > Everything. Citation? No really. I think 90% of the fitness press is truthy BS designed to sell more memberships, but you're making big calls here. > Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. Having lost 15+ kg using caloric restriction, and kept it off for the past 5+ years, based on my own anecdata I'm inclined to disagree. I don't eat meat, though, so maybe my caloric restriction also reduces carbs enough?
lol-nonsense 9y ago
> Then we go into fat. People think fat makes them fat. The truth is, ingested fat can not be turned into bodyfat directly. It is way easier for the body to turn carbs into fat than it is to turn fat into fat. This is so wrong and stupid, it hurts. Look up "de novo lipogenesis" that's the process that converts sugar into fat. The efficiency of it in humans is less than 5%. So before you go wailing about a conspiracy, examine your own flawed facts. The fat you eat is the fat you wear. That's why all low fat vegans are slim and in excellent health. Take care!
huhhi 9y ago
Your post is nonsense. De novo lipogenesis is not efficient in humans; sugar doesn't metabolized into fat. But fat is readily stored in adipose tissue. That's why meat eaters are fat and sick while low fat vegans are of superior health.

sjcsjc 9y ago

(Everything in this response is my interpretation of the research I've seen. Some of it is my guesswork with no evidence). Good question. It seems that having some period of starvation that is beneficial. Overall calorie intake is less relevant. Decreased overall caloric intake may actually be bad (can't find a link for this at the moment). Benefits appear to include decreased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, possible decreased cancer risk, and decreased risk of neurological disease. Also longer life expectancy in some animals, as yet unproven in humans. Even fasting for short periods regularly appears to be beneficial [5] Three main reasons - autophagy, ketosis and decreased inflammation. Autophagy, a kind of intracellular recycling operation, is increased by, inter alia, starvation [1]. It seems likely that most of the benefits of fasting derive from this. Valter Longo is a key researcher into this. Of particular interest to me is his work on fasting coupled with chemotherapy. [2] Ketosis occurs when all your glucose and glycogen (a polymer of glucose) are used up, and you burn fat instead. Mark Mattson is a key researcher into this. Ketosis appears to have a neuroprotective action [3] Decreased inflammation - chronic inflammation appears to be a cause of all sorts of problems, and fasting appears to decrease it. [4] is a good general review [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831538/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831538/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608686/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3608686/ [3] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017308001045 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165017308... [4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413113005032 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413113... [5] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861319 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861319 Use sci-hub for paywalled papers.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
Awesome post, thank you. I'll have to come back and read the articles you linked when I have more time. I started following a ketogenic diet in January of this year. I cap myself at 20g of net carbs per day, and my goal is to get 80% of my caloric intake from fats. I've lost 50 pounds so far (318 to 268), and have naturally drifted toward intermittent fasting as my hunger has decreased so significantly I don't have the urge to eat at all.