From Vox: "We’ve long blamed carbs for making us fat. What if that's wrong?"

#1

Slightly dismaying article here, at least at first glance; I’d appreciate people’s thoughts.

I quote:

'Hall and his colleagues confined 17 overweight and obese patients to the hospital for two months, where they measured their every movement and carefully controlled what they were eating. (Diet researchers call this the “gold standard,” since it was an extremely well-controlled experiment, with all food provided, and it used the best technologies for measuring energy expenditure and body composition.)

For the first month of the study, participants were put on a baseline diet, which was designed to be similar to what they reported they were eating outside the hospital, including lots of sugary carbohydrates. For the second month, the participants got the same amount of calories and protein as they did in the first month of the study, but this time they ramped up the amount of fat in their food and got far fewer carbs.’

Result - no difference in weight loss between the two groups. The article goes on:

‘“In this case,” Hall said, “we saw daily insulin secretion drop substantially within the first week and stay at a low level. But we only saw a small transient increase in energy expenditure during the first couple of weeks of the [low-carb] diet, and that essentially vanished by the end of the study.”
…
“According to the insulin-carbohydrate model, we should have seen an acceleration in the rate of body fat loss when insulin secretion was cut by 50 percent,”’

Question: is this actually what the “insulin-carbohydrate model” would predict? To my mind, since the two groups were fed the same number of calories, I would not expect any difference in weight loss. I’ve always thought that keto weight loss results from reduced desire for food as the fat-adapted keto-er derives energy from stored reserves. Since the participants in this study were not allowed reduce their food consumption, I wouldn’t have expected them to lose weight. Am I wrong?

#2

this has been talked to death already. the study design is flawed, the obese lost more the first few months than the subsequent. this is to be expected

the red herring is the “gold standard” line. there may be a gold standard, but this study can be more accurately describe as “turd” standard

#3

Ah, sorry about that. I thought it was new – it’s dated today. My mistake.

(Ken) #4

On a restricted calorie diet, on any macro you will still lose weight. On a Carb based one glycogen depletion will take a little longer to achieve. The problem is that it’s not as effective as far as metabolic derangement, as the body attempts to sustain it’s condition every time you eat carbs. Due to this, adherence is much more difficult, and once the restriction ends the body easily adapts back into lipogenesis. I did this many times when I was younger, following the low fat, complex Carb type cuts used by bodybuilders.

A lipolytic, fat based diet is easier to adhere to, as it quickly gets rid of detrimental lipogenic adaptations, enables a more normal leptin response, and is more healthy and natural. It’s much easier to adhere to, not only as a diet but as a lifestyle.

Yes, CICO is relevant in both for fat loss, but a deficit is harder to sustain when eating carbs. Following a fat based pattern basically allows the body to regulate itself during Maintenance, but once adapted, caloric restriction may be required for additional fat loss. That’s why people use fasting to break stalls.

(Liz ) #5

I don’t use fasting to reduce caloric intake to break stalls, I use fasting to push down my basal metabolic rate to allow my body access to fat locked up in my fat cells by high insulin.

EDITED TO ADD: I meant push down my basal insulin rate.

(Adam Kirby) #6

Here’s another great one by Vox.

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(Jeannie Oliver) #7

I haven’t seen the Vox article or the study, but there is a lot of information missing here. The main point that is not addressed: Obesity results from long-term AND SUSTAINED exposure to insulin–in other words, at what time of day does one eats, and how often during the day. Since we secrete insulin in response to ANY food (carb, protein or fat), how often we eat is as important as what and how much. That is why Dr. Jason Fung recommends restricting eating to no more than 8 hours a day to maintain health–not a difficult thing to do.

If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you read his book The Obesity Code (available at most libraries or online as an audiobook or Kindle in addition to paperback). Or his blog at IDMprogram.com.

(Eric Clément) #8

Also this study was only done within 2 months and they were only feed the “Low Carb” diet for 1 month these people didn’t even get fat adapted. The’ll do anything to try and disprove this.

(Lonnie Hedley) #9

I’ve read one of these. Author has a degree in Economics. Not that you need to be a nutritionist, but the source is lacking credibility.

(Consensus is Politics) #10

Wha?? If they do it correctly, how then can they tailor the results to show the results that the funder wants to see?

(Consensus is Politics) #11

From the article…

“But the new study was sponsored and run by employees of Virta Health, a company selling lifestyle counseling on ketogenic diets for Type 2 diabetics. Virta, as well as other proponents of keto for diabetes, claims the diet can “reverse” diabetes — and that’s going to a step too far.”

But they showed the evidence of this. The article even called it “impressive results”.

Then later, they make claims with no evidence, just hearsay…

“… but staying on keto for a long time may lead to kidney stones, high cholesterol, constipation, slowed growth (in young people), and bone fractures.”

Show me the science. Dont make claims you cant back up. If I were to claim Keto cured my diabetes, I can show you by date, every step of the way, where my BG levels improved, my HbA1c improved to being considered “non-diabetic” and the fact that I’m not going back to eating carbs means I dont need to worry about that disease again. So, yes, I’m cured!
[queue up Ludwigs 5th]

(Lonnie Hedley) #12

You didn’t mention the part about how you need to be able to go back to eating carbs without a response to prove you’re cured.

#13

The part that made me laugh out loud was:
“When I recently asked Hall what this research tells us about weight loss with the ketogenic diet, he said simply: ‘The idea is that low-carb, ketogenic diets cause your body to burn way more calories, resulting in a lot of weight loss, even if you eat more than you were eating before. But our studies, as well as many others, demonstrate nothing of the sort.’”
That tells me that either the author misquoted Hall from the NIH, or Hall is a moron.

(Consensus is Politics) #14

Look closer. I did. In a roundabout way.

(Consensus is Politics) #15

I don’t know who this Hall is. But if I were a betting man, I’d wager on both being true.

(Lonnie Hedley) #16

Oh, well I was being less roundabout because I thought that part was ridiculous. Carry on. :blush:

(Mike Glasbrener) #17

There’s so much wrong with the study… That said, I bet their conclusions would be totally different if they did lol carb first then low fat…

(Carolus Holman) #18

Remember if something works, and it’s free, and easy the Diet companies and pharma industry is going to try like hell to discredit it. They want us fat, they want us dependent, they want your money. The creation and promotion of foods that cause disease, and subsequent treatments, think diabetes meds, are a multi billion dollar industry. The whole machine will collapse if Keto WOE gains too much momentum. These idiot doctors, pharma, and food companies are running scared.

#19

My understanding from Dr. Fung’s interviews in 2017 is that fat does NOT spike insulin, only carbs and protein do.

This is why fatty coffee/tea is a satisfying and delicious assistant for intermittent fasting and extended fasting for many of us. :slight_smile: I generally use 2-4 tablespoons of a combo of coconut oil and butter and heavy white cream in my coffee on fasting days, and on non-fasting days (because randomness is key) I have much less fat in my coffee and instead have it in the form of tasty food. My measurements since last summer have consistently shown body recomposition progress - so that’s working for me.

(Dr. Fung does point out though that if one is aiming to fast for autophagy, it needs to be along the lines of water/teas/broth without fat).

(Joel) #20

Not sure about the students in this study, but I lost almost 20 pounds in 6 weeks by following the keto diet. You HAVE to read labels and look for all those hidden carbs and blood sugar-spiking culprits like Maltodextrin. I stopped reading online articles too. The only thing I have read, other than this forum, is the Ketogenic Bible. It is a must read.