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There is a lot of evidence that high fat low carbohydrate diets, also know as fasting diets have enormous health benefits, completely at odds with the dietary r

There is a lot of evidence that high fat low carbohydrate diets, also know as fasting diets have enormous health benefits, completely at odds with the dietary recommendation here https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary-guidelines https://www.choosemyplate.gov/dietary-guidelines is one of the drivers of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome which in includes heart disease and high blood pressure

cageface 8y ago
Calorie restrictions in general are healthy. You can accomplish the same things with high carb diets provided you eat unprocessed complex carbs and reduce total calories.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Studies show that calorie restriction and fasting are actually different - during calorie restriction your body reduces energy consumption and metabolism, and while you can lose weight, it's proven hard to stick to and most people put that weight back on. Fasting OTOH actually increases your metabolic rate [1], stimulates HGH production [4, 5], your brain switches to primarily consuming ketones instead of glucose and your body begins consuming damaged proteins via autophagy. Interestingly enough, studies show weight lost during fasting is better kept off than the equivalent loss with calorie restriction. Your body also resets what it considers 'low' levels of insulin, leptin, etc which can reverse Type II [2, 3]. That can't happen as effectively if you eat. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710 [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337 [5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426
  - cageface 8y ago
    Yeah I understand that they are different but it's also true that restricting calories overall and losing weight is beneficial no matter what diet you use to do it. So the question is which of the many diets that can do this is the best for your long term health.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      The thing is calorie restriction usually leads to full weight re-gain, usually quickly [1, 2], potentially leading to a worse body composition after the diet. The same is not true of fasting [2] - speculatively due to the effect of HGH during fasting which is known to change body composition, reducing fat percentage and increasing lean muscle mass. HGH production is not meaningfully increased by calorie restriction - it's pulsatile and regulated by the presence of any food intake at all almost no matter how small. Further, there's a string of evidence that alternate day fasting yields substantially improved biomarkers of health (triglycerides, insulin, etc) even if total caloric intake averaged over the two days remains the same (i.e. every second day you eat 2x what you need) and weight does not change. Weight watchers is an abject failure by their own metrics in a study they published. Their calorie restricted diets are less effective than doing nothing, but being generous, they work for 0.2% of participants who have clearly demonstrated an intent to change their bodies [3]. On the other hand, eat nothing for 36 hours and you're down 1 pound of fat, and it's not likely to come back. That's what all that talk of yoyo dieting is, and a case can be made that its why the Minnesota Starvation Experiment led to such bad outcomes. They weren't fasting, they were eating a reduced calorie diet - they may have been much better off eating nothing. Contrast that outcome to this, albeit single data point, of a man who ate nothing for 382 days, felt great, wasn't hungry (?!) and lost 275lbs AND kept it all off 5 years later [4]. What I'm getting at here is the science is leaning towards what you're saying not being correct - that how often you eat may be more important than how much, that your body reacts very differently to 6 snacks a day than it does to 1 giant meal every 2 days even if the caloric content is the same. And further that people just aren't built for long-term calorie restriction and to recommend something like that isn't productive. [1] https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-fails-9dc18fe9cf23 https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-fails-... [2] https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote-weight-regain/ https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote-... [3] https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/ https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/ [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/pos... (Each of these should link through to NCBI papers)

cageface 8y ago

Calorie restrictions in general are healthy. You can accomplish the same things with high carb diets provided you eat unprocessed complex carbs and reduce total calories.

arcticbull 8y ago
Studies show that calorie restriction and fasting are actually different - during calorie restriction your body reduces energy consumption and metabolism, and while you can lose weight, it's proven hard to stick to and most people put that weight back on. Fasting OTOH actually increases your metabolic rate [1], stimulates HGH production [4, 5], your brain switches to primarily consuming ketones instead of glucose and your body begins consuming damaged proteins via autophagy. Interestingly enough, studies show weight lost during fasting is better kept off than the equivalent loss with calorie restriction. Your body also resets what it considers 'low' levels of insulin, leptin, etc which can reverse Type II [2, 3]. That can't happen as effectively if you eat. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16051710 [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1548337 [5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3127426
- cageface 8y ago
  Yeah I understand that they are different but it's also true that restricting calories overall and losing weight is beneficial no matter what diet you use to do it. So the question is which of the many diets that can do this is the best for your long term health.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    The thing is calorie restriction usually leads to full weight re-gain, usually quickly [1, 2], potentially leading to a worse body composition after the diet. The same is not true of fasting [2] - speculatively due to the effect of HGH during fasting which is known to change body composition, reducing fat percentage and increasing lean muscle mass. HGH production is not meaningfully increased by calorie restriction - it's pulsatile and regulated by the presence of any food intake at all almost no matter how small. Further, there's a string of evidence that alternate day fasting yields substantially improved biomarkers of health (triglycerides, insulin, etc) even if total caloric intake averaged over the two days remains the same (i.e. every second day you eat 2x what you need) and weight does not change. Weight watchers is an abject failure by their own metrics in a study they published. Their calorie restricted diets are less effective than doing nothing, but being generous, they work for 0.2% of participants who have clearly demonstrated an intent to change their bodies [3]. On the other hand, eat nothing for 36 hours and you're down 1 pound of fat, and it's not likely to come back. That's what all that talk of yoyo dieting is, and a case can be made that its why the Minnesota Starvation Experiment led to such bad outcomes. They weren't fasting, they were eating a reduced calorie diet - they may have been much better off eating nothing. Contrast that outcome to this, albeit single data point, of a man who ate nothing for 382 days, felt great, wasn't hungry (?!) and lost 275lbs AND kept it all off 5 years later [4]. What I'm getting at here is the science is leaning towards what you're saying not being correct - that how often you eat may be more important than how much, that your body reacts very differently to 6 snacks a day than it does to 1 giant meal every 2 days even if the caloric content is the same. And further that people just aren't built for long-term calorie restriction and to recommend something like that isn't productive. [1] https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-fails-9dc18fe9cf23 https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-fails-... [2] https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote-weight-regain/ https://alivebynature.com/fast-weight-loss-does-not-promote-... [3] https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/ https://fatfu.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/weight-watchers/ [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/pos... (Each of these should link through to NCBI papers)