2009 study on brain function

#1

anyone seen this?

it was a year long study, so we can reasonably dismiss adaptation symptoms.

(Duncan Kerridge) #2

Sponsored by

#3

ok, so what? If you’re claiming the study is biased you’re going to need to show the evidence rather than merely assert it. I have no idea if it’s biased or not.

(Duncan Kerridge) #4

I don’t know if the study is biased either, but when an organisation that promotes a low fat diet publishes a study that promotes a low fat diet I give it less weight than other studies. That and the wealth of anecdotal experience I’ve seen in the keto community that contradicts this finding.

#5

Right, so the question still stands in regard of this research.

Any piece of research can be biased or flawed, unless that can be proven it’s pointless to speculate.

I’m very wary of going down potentially conspiracy-theory rabbit holes. There are a lot of people who dismiss claims just because they don’t like big business or corporations or whatever. I don’t like them either, but that doesn’t automaticially invalidate the work

(Duncan Kerridge) #6

Agreed, but I feel it’s important to highlight who was behind any piece of research when considering it’s outcome. I didn’t say it was biased.

#7

I have nothing very useful to add here but I’m curious what non-saturated fats were used in the HF group (it might be in there - I skimmed…). Industrial seed oils are nasty, have a host of really serious problems associated with them (as bad as sugar, I think).

(Chan Cleland) #8

The lead author Grant Brinkworth is co-author of the 2017 CSIRO Low Carb Diet Book. In the paper they mention that because people were randomly assigned it was probably more socially difficult for the Low Carbers. They were eating the less socially acceptable diet without having chosen it. Can you imagine doing this diet without the strength of your convictions. That would have been stressful.

#9

Are you saying they didn’t stick to the diet?

(Chan Cleland) #10

No. Quote from study “In Western society, established
eating patterns and the most common traditional dietary
recommendations favor a high-carbohydrate dietary pattern,
4,5 with bread, pasta, rice, and fruit consumed in large
quantities. Therefore, the LCdiet being so far removed from
normal dietary habits may have created a significant challenge
for participants, leading to the possibility of food preoccupation,
social eating impairment, and dysphoria. Although,
in the short term, participants may have been able to meet the challenges presented by this dietary pattern,
over the longer term, it may have increased participant isolation,
leading to the negative impact on mood state that
may provide a possible explanation for the effects that were
observed. However, these social effects cannot be extrapolated
from the current data, and future studies addressing
this hypothesis are warranted.”

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

I didn’t see it in a cursory reading, but did the authors explain why the diet was calorie-restricted? One of the keys to eating keto is not to intentionally set a specific caloric intake level, but to allow the body to signal when it has had enough. I am cranky when I don’t get enough to eat, and I don’t think I would be any less cranky on a calorie-restricted LCHF diet than on a calorie-restricted standard HCLF diet. One of the things I love about this way of eating is not feeling hungry and still losing weight.

#12

are you sure? doesn’t a well formulated keto diet require working with a specific caloric intake?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #13

Absolutely not. The point of restricting carbohydrate is to minimize the secretion of insulin, so as to allow the body to mobilize its fat reserves. So you eat fat to satiety and allow the body to tell you when you’ve given it enough energy. If you restrict calories, the body goes into starvation mode, hoards fat, and lowers your metabolic rate to compensate for the reduced energy intake. (The exception is fasting, during which the body still mobilizes stored fat.)

The point is, you don’t set your caloric intake, your body does, and the level might be high or low, but your body will still burn stored fat. Gary Taubes mentions a study of the LCHF diet in one of his books that had a participant who, eating fat to satiety, daily ate between 3000 and 3500 calories, and still lost weight at the same rate as the others. Dr. Phinney says that most people, however, just naturally end up eating around 1800 calories a day during the adaptation phase (naturally, once you get close to your body’s natural lean weight, you have to get more of your energy from what you eat, because by that time you’ve burned off most of your stored fat).