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> It found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. After five months on th

by dnhz 8y ago

> It found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. After five months on the diet, their bodies burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet Is it healthy in the long term to increase metabolism like this? Animal studies strongly suggest that calorie restriction is beneficial to longevity, and there is anecdotal evidence in humans (e.g. Okinawans). A higher resting metabolism means more aerobic respiration, which generates reactive oxygen species, which damages cells. Better to go the hard way and simply eat less.

JPKab 8y ago
It's not that low carb high fat increases from healthy levels, but rather that high carb diets slow down from healthy levels. But still a very interesting point you make.
hammock 8y ago
From a much broader, evolutionary or theory-of-life perspective.. eating less would a be a step backwards, towards eating nothing - not existing, or pure entropic. Every advance in the development of life is a fight against entropic death- as organisms move farther and farther from this, there will be increasing forces of nature fighting in the opposite direction - that is a sign you are moving in the RIGHT direction.
- fulafel 8y ago
  In mammals at least, smaller organisms have higher metabolic rate. But getting smaller is also developing towards "not existing" :)
  - hammock 8y ago
    Good point. I was struggling with the idea that lower metabolism might mean higher efficiency (like when we started cooking food). And being Paleo/carb restricting could be seen as a step back too! Maybe we should continue eating processed, insulin spiking, gut destroying foods and see how our body adapts next? (That's not sarcastic, just a proposal) How is our body adapting currently? (Diabetes is not an adaptation)
    - someone454 8y ago
      My take is that lower metabolism is just a lower ‘power saver’ mode for the body, and, like a computer, results in slower ‘processing ‘
- bvxvbxbxb 8y ago
  Being sedentary leads to a host of maladies, while constantly doing bootcamps, overtraining, pro sports or cross-continental marathons causes enormous oxidative stress, tissue damage and more risks of premature wear, cancer and aging... so there's a happy medium for a healthy, good quality of and longer life. Also, between catabolic processes that destroy the body to keep it going and binge eating, there's a happy amount of fasting and cutting calories to a sustainable amount... lipogenesis, ULDLs, and VLDLs generally aren't good.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Please cite your evidence that constantly doing boot camps increases cancer risk.
danbolt 8y ago
I'm not an expert in this, but the historical Okinawa diet doesn't have as much in simple carbohydrates compared to other lifestyles[1]. I think calorie intake is a notable aspect like you mentioned, but eating foods with a higher satiety strikes me as making a larger impact as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet
- someone454 8y ago
  Nor do the Inuit people. And until yhe introduction of the Western diet, they had very little cardiovascular disease.
bad_user 8y ago
It depends on the medical problems the individual is facing. Overweight people have the problem of a low metabolism due to diets. Which is why diets stop working. So in them, no, a low metabolism isn’t OK, especially because that low metabolism isn’t correlated with hunger signals. Speaking of animal studies there’s also this idea that in nature everything is cyclical. You’ve got periods of feasting and you’ve got periods of famine. Eating less all the time is probably not good for longevity.
- nradov 8y ago
  Diets don't cause low metabolism, except in the sense that when you lose weight it takes fewer calories to keep the remaining smaller amount of tissue alive. So as you lose weight, in order to continue losing weight at the same rate you have to keep cutting calories even further.
  - taeric 8y ago
    Doesn't that go in the face of this study? That is, this study seems to claim that what you eat can impact your metabolism.
  - zentropia 8y ago
    No. With a diet the metabolism go much slower. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the-biggest-loser-metabolism-is-slower-and-weight-is-back-up/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the...
  - bad_user 8y ago
    That the "basal metabolic rate" slows down when dieting is shown by many studies on diet. The weight loss isn't linear and slows down over time, in about 6 months or so, even if the caloric deficit is sustained. Not only that, but the basal metabolic rate stays low even after people start eating normally again. Here's a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842775 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842775 Here's another one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23535105 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23535105 Another interesting finding is what happened with the Biggest Loser contestants: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the-biggest-loser-metabolism-is-slower-and-weight-is-back-up/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the... That group on average burned 2607 before the competition, but only about 2000 calories after the competition, even if they continued to do plenty of exercise afterwards. They also regained much of that lost weight. Thin people shouldn't be giving dieting advice, because the obvious confounder is having a well functioning metabolism, whereas overweight people don't ;-) This is made worse by doctors doing it for the same reasons as everybody else. Until they get fat themselves, realizing only afterwards that gluttony wasn't the problem after all.
nradov 8y ago
Some of the best things in life involved expending a lot of calories. Even if calorie restriction "works" in the sense of slightly extending human lifespan (and there's no real evidence for that yet) it's hard to see that as a net improvement. I've seen videos of people who are actually trying long term calorie restriction to live longer and they look terrible.
- Shorel 8y ago
  This is about restricting carbohydrates, not all calories.
chmike 8y ago
I'm also worried about the increased fat diet that could clog the arteries.
- stefs 8y ago
  simplified: this, again, is a misconception - fat doesn't per se clog the arteries. LDL (bad) to HDL (good) cholesterol levels do that, which are influenced by a lot of factors, like smoking, alcohol, certain kinds of fats and simple carbs (sugar).
- gnulinux 8y ago
  There is no evidence fats clog arteries.
- Shorel 8y ago
  Steve Jobs used to worry about that. It lead to very unhealthy habits.
Shorel 8y ago
You can do both. Eat mainly fat and eat less calories. As anecdotal evidence that's the Inuit diet.
- malmsteen 8y ago
  The point was questionning if we should look for increased metabolism or not.

by dnhz 8y ago

JPKab 8y ago

It's not that low carb high fat increases from healthy levels, but rather that high carb diets slow down from healthy levels. But still a very interesting point you make.

hammock 8y ago

From a much broader, evolutionary or theory-of-life perspective.. eating less would a be a step backwards, towards eating nothing - not existing, or pure entropic. Every advance in the development of life is a fight against entropic death- as organisms move farther and farther from this, there will be increasing forces of nature fighting in the opposite direction - that is a sign you are moving in the RIGHT direction.

fulafel 8y ago
In mammals at least, smaller organisms have higher metabolic rate. But getting smaller is also developing towards "not existing" :)
- hammock 8y ago
  Good point. I was struggling with the idea that lower metabolism might mean higher efficiency (like when we started cooking food). And being Paleo/carb restricting could be seen as a step back too! Maybe we should continue eating processed, insulin spiking, gut destroying foods and see how our body adapts next? (That's not sarcastic, just a proposal) How is our body adapting currently? (Diabetes is not an adaptation)
  - someone454 8y ago
    My take is that lower metabolism is just a lower ‘power saver’ mode for the body, and, like a computer, results in slower ‘processing ‘
bvxvbxbxb 8y ago
Being sedentary leads to a host of maladies, while constantly doing bootcamps, overtraining, pro sports or cross-continental marathons causes enormous oxidative stress, tissue damage and more risks of premature wear, cancer and aging... so there's a happy medium for a healthy, good quality of and longer life. Also, between catabolic processes that destroy the body to keep it going and binge eating, there's a happy amount of fasting and cutting calories to a sustainable amount... lipogenesis, ULDLs, and VLDLs generally aren't good.
- nradov 8y ago
  Please cite your evidence that constantly doing boot camps increases cancer risk.

danbolt 8y ago

I'm not an expert in this, but the historical Okinawa diet doesn't have as much in simple carbohydrates compared to other lifestyles[1]. I think calorie intake is a notable aspect like you mentioned, but eating foods with a higher satiety strikes me as making a larger impact as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet

someone454 8y ago
Nor do the Inuit people. And until yhe introduction of the Western diet, they had very little cardiovascular disease.

bad_user 8y ago

It depends on the medical problems the individual is facing. Overweight people have the problem of a low metabolism due to diets. Which is why diets stop working. So in them, no, a low metabolism isn’t OK, especially because that low metabolism isn’t correlated with hunger signals. Speaking of animal studies there’s also this idea that in nature everything is cyclical. You’ve got periods of feasting and you’ve got periods of famine. Eating less all the time is probably not good for longevity.

nradov 8y ago
Diets don't cause low metabolism, except in the sense that when you lose weight it takes fewer calories to keep the remaining smaller amount of tissue alive. So as you lose weight, in order to continue losing weight at the same rate you have to keep cutting calories even further.
- taeric 8y ago
  Doesn't that go in the face of this study? That is, this study seems to claim that what you eat can impact your metabolism.
- zentropia 8y ago
  No. With a diet the metabolism go much slower. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the-biggest-loser-metabolism-is-slower-and-weight-is-back-up/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the...
- bad_user 8y ago
  That the "basal metabolic rate" slows down when dieting is shown by many studies on diet. The weight loss isn't linear and slows down over time, in about 6 months or so, even if the caloric deficit is sustained. Not only that, but the basal metabolic rate stays low even after people start eating normally again. Here's a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842775 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842775 Here's another one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23535105 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23535105 Another interesting finding is what happened with the Biggest Loser contestants: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the-biggest-loser-metabolism-is-slower-and-weight-is-back-up/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the... That group on average burned 2607 before the competition, but only about 2000 calories after the competition, even if they continued to do plenty of exercise afterwards. They also regained much of that lost weight. Thin people shouldn't be giving dieting advice, because the obvious confounder is having a well functioning metabolism, whereas overweight people don't ;-) This is made worse by doctors doing it for the same reasons as everybody else. Until they get fat themselves, realizing only afterwards that gluttony wasn't the problem after all.

nradov 8y ago

Some of the best things in life involved expending a lot of calories. Even if calorie restriction "works" in the sense of slightly extending human lifespan (and there's no real evidence for that yet) it's hard to see that as a net improvement. I've seen videos of people who are actually trying long term calorie restriction to live longer and they look terrible.

Shorel 8y ago
This is about restricting carbohydrates, not all calories.

chmike 8y ago

I'm also worried about the increased fat diet that could clog the arteries.

stefs 8y ago
simplified: this, again, is a misconception - fat doesn't per se clog the arteries. LDL (bad) to HDL (good) cholesterol levels do that, which are influenced by a lot of factors, like smoking, alcohol, certain kinds of fats and simple carbs (sugar).
gnulinux 8y ago
There is no evidence fats clog arteries.
Shorel 8y ago
Steve Jobs used to worry about that. It lead to very unhealthy habits.

Shorel 8y ago

You can do both. Eat mainly fat and eat less calories. As anecdotal evidence that's the Inuit diet.

malmsteen 8y ago
The point was questionning if we should look for increased metabolism or not.