6 ms·

As a practicing Endocrinologist I will go out on a limb and say excess carbohydrates are the problem leading to obesity. Sugar (or sucrose) is a particular prob

As a practicing Endocrinologist I will go out on a limb and say excess carbohydrates are the problem leading to obesity. Sugar (or sucrose) is a particular problem as it will stimulate insulin release from the pancreas. Insulin promotes storage of glucose and I am convinced, the growth of fat cells. I have seen patients lose a tremendous amount of weight (34 lbs over 7 months) and lower blood glucose and their amount of diabetes medication simply through cutting out sugar and flour. They also reduced their overall carbohydrate intake. I presented the data at our annual Endocrinology conference recently. https://endo.confex.com/endo/2013endo/webprogram/Paper9044.html https://endo.confex.com/endo/2013endo/webprogram/Paper9044.h...

jurassic 13y ago
If anyone is interested in trying this diet, there's a good support community at reddit.com/r/keto
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  I've lost 12 kg over 2 months of keto, so I endorse this :). Since then I returned to eating what I used to eat, but with less bread and pretty much 0 sugar (I got used to artificial sweetener and diet coke) and so far (4 months) I'm able to maintain my weight (with +/- 1kg variation). One thing I noticed while on keto is that it reduced my appetite a bit.
eightpersimmons 13y ago
This doesn't address what I think was one of the most interesting points in the article - weight gain is present even in lab animals with strictly monitored diets. The implication being, of course, that this isn't the whole story, and we are doing ourselves a disservice by chalking up everything to diet. (I don't mean to say you are wrong about this fact by any means - I'm not any kind of expert, and you sound very convincing.)
- boneheadmed 13y ago
  I did read that point and find it perplexing. I would like to see hard data about that. For instance is the general diet for laboratory rats now the same as it was 50 years ago? But also, if you have a look at my abstract, it does point to another potential cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans (but naturally not the lab animals) - food addiction. The patients in this study were also successful (presumably) because they were actively involved in a 12 step program for food addiction. On a personal note, I lost 30 lbs over 6 months by pretty much eliminating sucrose from my diet and also consuming a lower amount of carbohydrates (120 - 180 grams per day).
  - glenra 13y ago
    > I did read that point and find it perplexing. The "fat virus" theory would perfectly explain it. If some of our co-evolved viruses and bacteria have been making us more prone to accumulate fat and it's contagious, the lab animals caught it too. So their metabolism slows down to allow them to accumulate weight on the same diet that used to be merely sufficient for sustenance. On a personal note: I also lost 30 pounds over 6 months once. I did it by simply counting calories (hacker's diet). And I kept the weight off for about a year. But then I gained it all back and then some within the next few years. Most people can lose weight on most diets in the short term; the real trick is losing a significant amount of weight and keeping it off in the long term. Although some people manage to do it, it's not many. How to reliably lose weight and keep it off is still basically an unsolved problem.
    - svdad 13y ago
      No, it isn't. Unless you're saying you gained weight again while still eating the same diet, you solved the problem, you just failed at implementing the solution.
      - glenra 13y ago
        A diet people consistently can't keep to doesn't constitute a solution to the problem. It's also worth noting that people who have gained a bunch of weight and lost it have a slower metabolism than people who stayed at the same weight. The Hacker's Diet - being based on calories in/calories out - did not account for this factor. The claim it made was that you could lose weight by keeping a calorie deficit for a while, then once you've lost enough weight you could stop the deficit, go back to basically eating at the level you did before and still stay at the new weight. Which doesn't work. Dieting seems to work because your body takes a long while to adapt to new conditions. Eventually you get hungrier and less active; progress tends to stop and reverse whether or not you keep "trying". Temporarily losing weight is "a solved problem". But losing weight without reducing metabolism and thereby making yourself more likely to gain weight in the future, is not.
magnusson 13y ago
As a practicing internet commenter I will go out on a limb and say that's nonsense. Sugar tends to promote overeating because it makes foods highly palatable and rewarding to eat, but it doesn't cause fat gain independently of an energy surplus. See Surwit et al, Metabolic and behavioral effects of a high-sucrose diet during weight loss. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871 Obese women consuming a hypocaloric diet with 71% of their daily energy as carbohydrate and 43% of it as sucrose had no trouble losing fat. "Results showed that a high sucrose content in a hypoenergetic, low-fat diet did not adversely affect weight loss, metabolism, plasma lipids, or emotional affect." Moreover, all carbohydrates, as well as protein, stimulate insulin release, and insulin is not in itself problematic: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319 Reducing carbohydrate intake can be an effective weight loss method, but that doesn't mean that carbohydrates intake is uniquely responsible for obesity to begin with. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... All of the world's longest-lived populations consume carbohydrate as their primary macronutrient.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  No one serious is saying it is uniquely responsible. Just that the more sugar and starch eaten, the less time the body can stay in fat-burning mode, which is well known. Perhaps the obese-hypercaloric would have lost more with less sugar. All the other variables and laws of physics still apply.
  - aaxe 13y ago
    > Just that the more sugar and starch eaten, the less time the body can stay in fat-burning mode This is 100% bullshit.
    - mixmastamyk 13y ago
      Eagerly awaiting further erudite explanation...

jurassic 13y ago

If anyone is interested in trying this diet, there's a good support community at reddit.com/r/keto

TeMPOraL 13y ago
I've lost 12 kg over 2 months of keto, so I endorse this :). Since then I returned to eating what I used to eat, but with less bread and pretty much 0 sugar (I got used to artificial sweetener and diet coke) and so far (4 months) I'm able to maintain my weight (with +/- 1kg variation). One thing I noticed while on keto is that it reduced my appetite a bit.

eightpersimmons 13y ago

This doesn't address what I think was one of the most interesting points in the article - weight gain is present even in lab animals with strictly monitored diets. The implication being, of course, that this isn't the whole story, and we are doing ourselves a disservice by chalking up everything to diet. (I don't mean to say you are wrong about this fact by any means - I'm not any kind of expert, and you sound very convincing.)

boneheadmed 13y ago
I did read that point and find it perplexing. I would like to see hard data about that. For instance is the general diet for laboratory rats now the same as it was 50 years ago? But also, if you have a look at my abstract, it does point to another potential cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans (but naturally not the lab animals) - food addiction. The patients in this study were also successful (presumably) because they were actively involved in a 12 step program for food addiction. On a personal note, I lost 30 lbs over 6 months by pretty much eliminating sucrose from my diet and also consuming a lower amount of carbohydrates (120 - 180 grams per day).
- glenra 13y ago
  > I did read that point and find it perplexing. The "fat virus" theory would perfectly explain it. If some of our co-evolved viruses and bacteria have been making us more prone to accumulate fat and it's contagious, the lab animals caught it too. So their metabolism slows down to allow them to accumulate weight on the same diet that used to be merely sufficient for sustenance. On a personal note: I also lost 30 pounds over 6 months once. I did it by simply counting calories (hacker's diet). And I kept the weight off for about a year. But then I gained it all back and then some within the next few years. Most people can lose weight on most diets in the short term; the real trick is losing a significant amount of weight and keeping it off in the long term. Although some people manage to do it, it's not many. How to reliably lose weight and keep it off is still basically an unsolved problem.
  - svdad 13y ago
    No, it isn't. Unless you're saying you gained weight again while still eating the same diet, you solved the problem, you just failed at implementing the solution.
    - glenra 13y ago
      A diet people consistently can't keep to doesn't constitute a solution to the problem. It's also worth noting that people who have gained a bunch of weight and lost it have a slower metabolism than people who stayed at the same weight. The Hacker's Diet - being based on calories in/calories out - did not account for this factor. The claim it made was that you could lose weight by keeping a calorie deficit for a while, then once you've lost enough weight you could stop the deficit, go back to basically eating at the level you did before and still stay at the new weight. Which doesn't work. Dieting seems to work because your body takes a long while to adapt to new conditions. Eventually you get hungrier and less active; progress tends to stop and reverse whether or not you keep "trying". Temporarily losing weight is "a solved problem". But losing weight without reducing metabolism and thereby making yourself more likely to gain weight in the future, is not.

magnusson 13y ago

As a practicing internet commenter I will go out on a limb and say that's nonsense. Sugar tends to promote overeating because it makes foods highly palatable and rewarding to eat, but it doesn't cause fat gain independently of an energy surplus. See Surwit et al, Metabolic and behavioral effects of a high-sucrose diet during weight loss. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871 Obese women consuming a hypocaloric diet with 71% of their daily energy as carbohydrate and 43% of it as sucrose had no trouble losing fat. "Results showed that a high sucrose content in a hypoenergetic, low-fat diet did not adversely affect weight loss, metabolism, plasma lipids, or emotional affect." Moreover, all carbohydrates, as well as protein, stimulate insulin release, and insulin is not in itself problematic: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319 http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319 Reducing carbohydrate intake can be an effective weight loss method, but that doesn't mean that carbohydrates intake is uniquely responsible for obesity to begin with. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... All of the world's longest-lived populations consume carbohydrate as their primary macronutrient.

mixmastamyk 13y ago
No one serious is saying it is uniquely responsible. Just that the more sugar and starch eaten, the less time the body can stay in fat-burning mode, which is well known. Perhaps the obese-hypercaloric would have lost more with less sugar. All the other variables and laws of physics still apply.
- aaxe 13y ago
  > Just that the more sugar and starch eaten, the less time the body can stay in fat-burning mode This is 100% bullshit.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    Eagerly awaiting further erudite explanation...