Is it really about insulin?

(German Ketonian) #1

This review of studies says, insulin levels are unimportant for both weight gain or loss…

Opinions anyone? Does this fly in the face of the hormone hypothesis of obesity?

#2

The 6 meals never gave insulin a chance to drop in between eating.

(Maha) #3

I can’t read the whole article, because it seems to be poorly written and opinionated. The underlying question is do carbs alone cause obesity (the question in the article) by raising insulin (your question). The basic answer is no, carbs alone won’t do this, and even the doctors a lot of us follow say this. There are other factors, many other contributing factors, to consider, and even those will vary from person to person. The converse underlying questions is, will cutting carbs make you lose fat by lowering insulin. Carbs alone won’t do this. However, raising or lowering insulin accounts for such a large part of gaining or getting rid of fat, that that is why we are so focused on it. So in absolute terms, the answer is no. In ‘is it good enough for me’ terms, yes. As a living example, cutting carbs did in fact reduce my fat. Are there other ways I could lower my fat? No doubt, but cutting carbs as the first line was the easiest, healthiest and quickest route. I hate articles like this. It’s like Gary Fetke in Australia being accused of successfully treating TD2 with healthy foods. WTF? Why articles are written to contradict what so many of us who follow this lifestyle find to be self evident is beyond me.

(Sarah Slancauskas) #4

I heard a podcast interview with the scientist who did this study. He seemed to be genuine and unbiased and expected a very different result to the one they got. It certainly put a question in my mind!

(Ron) #5

Don’t you think maybe this has something to do with his performance?:thinking::roll_eyes:

The latest trial to compare these two eating patterns – ironically funded by Taubes’ own NuSI organisation – indicates this is not true.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

Ah, yes, Kevin Hall’s study. As Gary Taubes admits, he and Hall had quite a fight about how the study was going to be conducted, and what exactly it was intended to prove. I remember reading the abstract, and I wasn’t impressed.

There are various critiques of it around. You can check out Mike Eades’s take on www.proteinpower.com (you’ll have to go back several years; Hall’s study came out a while ago), as well as his critique of remarks by Hall about a more recent study in which he was a researcher. Some of his remarks directly contradicted the conclusions put forth by the principal investigator.

My impression of Hall is that his mind is made up and he doesn’t want to be confused by the facts, but that may just be me.

#7

I think there have been a few gurus who’ve pointed out differences in the amount on carbs in various diets across different cultures. There have been countries with diets high in carbs yet low in insulin resistance.

Carbs as a solo agent, aren’t the culprit. Processed foods, sugar, and manufactured fats are the real villains. Our consumption of these have increased dramatically over the past 50 years. Put another way, my great grandma wouldn’t recognize a Twinkie.

For people who are metabolically deranged, this conversation is academic. Regardless of cause, the fix is less refutable- get insulin levels lower.

#8

Even if we went along with everything he says, and assumed that we are all successful here because we just eat less calories because we are full up with fat and protein… would it matter? The key thing surely is that we have found a highly sustainable, apparently healthy way to lose weight and improve our health, regardless of the mechanism.

(Alec) #9

Sorry, just read the first line, written by a dietician. Enough read, no point in wasting my time. Dietitian credibility subterranean.

(Omar) #10

whoever made this study is lucky he is not talking to me face to face. :joy:

(Ken) #11

It’s really about the insulin-glucagon balance, and understanding the detrimental hormonal adaptations that cause chronic lipogenesis, and the lipolytic patterns required to reverse it and restore balance.

(Karen) #12

But what if you’re not deranged?

#13

This is just my experience, Karen, so take it as an n=1 but I’m maybe not alone.
I came to keto not deranged. In fact, I was and am pretty healthy with good weight and blood markers, and have exercised my whole life. So, not deranged.
For me, all the fat and none of the carbs could not satisfy me and I found myself eating a lot (a lot!) more on keto. I never got the appetite control described and it just worked way better for me to eat more carbs and I’m actually not in ketosis anymore (blood testing) BUT my appetite is better, my weight is dropping (just a few lbs is all I wanted), my satiety is way higher and my workouts are much, much stronger.

I suspect I never “needed” keto in the first place and this spot I’m in now - about 50-70 net grams per day so mostly keto foods, is a lot healthier for me.

I just wanted to toss this out there in case it helps anyone else. I did a further n=1 for a week I went off keto but low low carbs and I lost weight every day (.2,.4 , .6 not a lot but it was moving that direction and added up to about 3 lbs over the week). I went back to keto (and my body bounced RIGHT back into ketosis with no problem because I was strict for over 5 months and fat adapted) and the scale went up in those same, small increments every single day of that week. Almost exactly the opposite way it was doing when I added the carbs.

All this to say I think keto behaves differently on non-metabolically-deranged individuals, or at least it did on me.

(Karen) #14

I totally buy that too low calorie is not useful. But have been stuck for so long on fat keto. Was gluten sensitive so haven’t had wheat forever, but need to shake up this plateau.

K

(Doug) #15

4 weeks is not long enough to get people truly fat-adpated, often. This was just a pilot study - later ones hopefully would run for much longer. Not sure what all NuSi is doing now, but some stuff is still going on.

Right on. :slightly_smiling_face: