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I think this is a great example (well, counter-example) of how screwed up nutritional research has been. We spent the last 30 years trying to shoe-horn the low-

I think this is a great example (well, counter-example) of how screwed up nutritional research has been. We spent the last 30 years trying to shoe-horn the low-fat-low-cholesterol-is-everything, when we had no idea how the body works. It is great to see research like this happening. I've followed nutrition for a long time as I've dealt with chronic weight problems, and things have gotten much more interesting (read: less parroting of the "party line" and more new research) in the last 5-8 years. It's unfortunate that so much time was lost, because it takes 10-15 years to go from mice to people. Now if we could only get some experiments with decent controls, so we can actually learn something.

cromulent 14y ago
This research has been around for 30 years. There was one case in the 70's where obese adults were given controlled calculated diets in a hospital and one of them gained weight anyway as her gut flora was so good at extracting nutrients. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/05/10/3212802.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/05/10/3212802.ht... Edit: Here's another link I found in one of my old comments from a week or two ago: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183312 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183312
- draven 14y ago
  Could it be that varied diets could prevent us (our intestinal bacteria) from getting too good at digesting a specific diet then?
- crusso 14y ago
  Yeah, and Atkins was talking about the insulin response in the 1970's... but he was mostly ignored (if not ridiculed) by the research community. The GP was entirely correct in stating that nutrition research has been "screwed up".
yummyfajitas 14y ago
It isn't screwed up. In broad strokes, we understand very well. Calories in - calories out = weight gain. This has been demonstrated in thousands of lab studies. That's about 85%. Now we are just figuring out details and special cases.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  Exactly, that's 85% Someone with a (big enough) caloric deficit will lose weight, sooner or later Someone with a (big enough) caloric surplus will gain weight. Big enough is because the body will adapt its metabolism to small (and one shot) caloric surpluses/deficits. But what happens beyond that is very interesting. And so beyond the 'food pyramid' and "conventional knowledge" it's not funny. Oh and by the way, protein diets (usually) work. Why? Caloric deficit (of course) promoted by modified hunger sensation (that's another piece of the puzzle).
  - tomwalker 14y ago
    I suppose it is diminishing returns on research investment.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    Losing weight is immaterial. Keeping weight off is what matters, and pretty much every study for the last 100 years has shown reducing calories does not keep weight off. Just the opposite: reducing calories invariably leads to a gain of 5-7%.
    - raverbashing 14y ago
      "and pretty much every study for the last 100 years has shown reducing calories does not keep weight off." That is possible if it's a small reduction of calories and you're not very far off your ideal weight. Otherwise is a thermodynamical impossibility. And yes, losing weight is one problem, keeping it off is a different matter.
      - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
        It is not thermodynamicly impossible because your body is not a fixed system. It can (and does) regulate energy usage based on how much energy it is receiving, what kind of energy it is receiving, what the environment is (primarily reflected through cortisol and stress), etc. all of these intertwine, making it nearly impossible to look at calories alone to measure, well, much of anything. Reducing calories causes the body to reduce its calorie usage and starts pumping hormones that cause fat to be retained and your desire to eat to increase, until the hormonal system forces an "override" where you have to eat more. Sure, there are some people who manage to overcome the hormonal override, but they are by far the exception and not the rule, and any weight loss program that tries to override the body's built-in protections against starvation (which go back who knows how long and exist in pretty much any animal) is a recipe for failure. The keys to the whole hormone cycle are insulin and leptin. Any successful weight loss regimine will have to address those hormones, which calorie reduction "inflames" rather than "pacifies".
ams6110 14y ago
I think most of medicine is like this. We really haven't advanced much beyond witch-doctory in a lot of therapies... we've found things that seem to help, by experimentation, but in a lot of cases we really don't understand why.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  I've been digging deep into to biochemistry of the energy cycle this year and I'm actually impressed at how much we know. What I'm disappointed by is how little of that knowledge has worked it's way into the 60s and 70s diet dogma that "nutritionists" blanketed our country with.

cromulent 14y ago

This research has been around for 30 years. There was one case in the 70's where obese adults were given controlled calculated diets in a hospital and one of them gained weight anyway as her gut flora was so good at extracting nutrients. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/05/10/3212802.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/05/10/3212802.ht... Edit: Here's another link I found in one of my old comments from a week or two ago: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183312 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17183312

draven 14y ago
Could it be that varied diets could prevent us (our intestinal bacteria) from getting too good at digesting a specific diet then?
crusso 14y ago
Yeah, and Atkins was talking about the insulin response in the 1970's... but he was mostly ignored (if not ridiculed) by the research community. The GP was entirely correct in stating that nutrition research has been "screwed up".

yummyfajitas 14y ago

It isn't screwed up. In broad strokes, we understand very well. Calories in - calories out = weight gain. This has been demonstrated in thousands of lab studies. That's about 85%. Now we are just figuring out details and special cases.

raverbashing 14y ago
Exactly, that's 85% Someone with a (big enough) caloric deficit will lose weight, sooner or later Someone with a (big enough) caloric surplus will gain weight. Big enough is because the body will adapt its metabolism to small (and one shot) caloric surpluses/deficits. But what happens beyond that is very interesting. And so beyond the 'food pyramid' and "conventional knowledge" it's not funny. Oh and by the way, protein diets (usually) work. Why? Caloric deficit (of course) promoted by modified hunger sensation (that's another piece of the puzzle).
- tomwalker 14y ago
  I suppose it is diminishing returns on research investment.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Losing weight is immaterial. Keeping weight off is what matters, and pretty much every study for the last 100 years has shown reducing calories does not keep weight off. Just the opposite: reducing calories invariably leads to a gain of 5-7%.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    "and pretty much every study for the last 100 years has shown reducing calories does not keep weight off." That is possible if it's a small reduction of calories and you're not very far off your ideal weight. Otherwise is a thermodynamical impossibility. And yes, losing weight is one problem, keeping it off is a different matter.
    - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
      It is not thermodynamicly impossible because your body is not a fixed system. It can (and does) regulate energy usage based on how much energy it is receiving, what kind of energy it is receiving, what the environment is (primarily reflected through cortisol and stress), etc. all of these intertwine, making it nearly impossible to look at calories alone to measure, well, much of anything. Reducing calories causes the body to reduce its calorie usage and starts pumping hormones that cause fat to be retained and your desire to eat to increase, until the hormonal system forces an "override" where you have to eat more. Sure, there are some people who manage to overcome the hormonal override, but they are by far the exception and not the rule, and any weight loss program that tries to override the body's built-in protections against starvation (which go back who knows how long and exist in pretty much any animal) is a recipe for failure. The keys to the whole hormone cycle are insulin and leptin. Any successful weight loss regimine will have to address those hormones, which calorie reduction "inflames" rather than "pacifies".

ams6110 14y ago

I think most of medicine is like this. We really haven't advanced much beyond witch-doctory in a lot of therapies... we've found things that seem to help, by experimentation, but in a lot of cases we really don't understand why.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I've been digging deep into to biochemistry of the energy cycle this year and I'm actually impressed at how much we know. What I'm disappointed by is how little of that knowledge has worked it's way into the 60s and 70s diet dogma that "nutritionists" blanketed our country with.