[Keith_McClary]

British Medical Journal editorial
Are some diets “mass murder”?
15 December 2014
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')eading these books and consulting some of the original studies has been a sobering experience. The successful attempt to reduce fat in the diet of Americans and others around the world has been a global, uncontrolled experiment, which like all experiments may well have led to bad outcomes. What’s more, it has initiated a further set of uncontrolled global experiments that are continuing. Teicholz has done a remarkable job in analysing how weak science, strong personalities, vested interests, and political expediency have initiated this series of experiments.3 She quotes Nancy Harmon Jenkins, author of the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook and one of the founders of Oldways, as saying, “The food world is particularly prey to consumption, because so much money is made on food and so much depends on talk and especially the opinions of experts.”31 It’s surely time for better science and for humility among experts.

[WildRose]

I've found that cutting out sugar from my diet as much as possible, controlling portions (especially of carbs - just small amounts of pasta, rice, bread, etc.), and a good amount of exercise works for me. Hiking is my mainstay for exercise these days, including a bit of hill work and stairs in our river valley. I do need to do some overall toning though, so my plan is to start swimming again regularly to tone up better. Getting older certainly has its challenges!

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', 'I')'ve found that cutting out sugar from my diet as much as possible, controlling portions (especially of carbs - just small amounts of pasta, rice, bread, etc.), and a good amount of exercise works for me. Hiking is my mainstay for exercise these days, including a bit of hill work and stairs in our river valley. I do need to do some overall toning though, so my plan is to start swimming again regularly to tone up better. Getting older certainly has its challenges!

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', 'I')'ve found that cutting out sugar from my diet as much as possible, controlling portions (especially of carbs - just small amounts of pasta, rice, bread, etc.), and a good amount of exercise works for me. Hiking is my mainstay for exercise these days, including a bit of hill work and stairs in our river valley. I do need to do some overall toning though, so my plan is to start swimming again regularly to tone up better. Getting older certainly has its challenges!

[Tanada]

Harvard metastudy has confirmed that carbohydrate intake is the largest factor in weight loss of people who eat real food. Diets based on meal replacement shakes or quick fix diet pills to suppress appetite were excluded.

Many more details at link below quote.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')size=150]Cut out carbs, not fat if you want to lose weight, Harvard study finds[/size]
A study of more than 60,000 dieters finds those who cut back on bread, pasta and potatoes lost more weight than those who cut back on butter and cheese.

The analysis of 53 studies, involving 67,000 dieters found who cut back on fat were two and a half pounds heavier after a year than those who embraced a “low carb” approach.

For decades, there has been debate over the merits of a low fat diet, which was endorsed as the best route to weight loss in the 1970s.

Now major research, published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, backs a low carbohydrate approach as a more effective diet.

The study by Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health looked at all previous studies from clinical trials that compared the effect of low-fat diets versus other approaches, at least one year later.

[AgentR11]

As an addenda, it really is calories in vs calories out. People simply eat so many carbs that they are in a hyper caloric diet, even while thinking they aren't overeating. A soda, an orange juice, a bag of chips; are huge amounts of calories that provide no sense of fullness, and very little hunger suppression; chips are usually so salted that they completely overpower that hungry/not-hungry until you're in the 1000-2000 kcal range of chips. When people eat a higher fat, lower carb thing, they stay not-hungry for longer; reducing calorie intake, even though the individual food item is more calorie dense.

A lot of studies also get overwhelmed by the impact of hypo-caloric diets; in that, if you eat a hypo caloric diet, you can eat the most hideously bad food sources and still have benchmark numbers that look quite awesome. So someone concocts a hi-carb weight loss program; and tests it at -250 kcal, hypocaloric; and poof, everyone that complies ends up losing a little weight, having great lipid numbers, and blood sugar improvements. But it wasn't the carb ratio that did it; it was the modest calorie deficit, simply because it creates a situation where all the metabolically active bits, had somewhere to go and be metabolized, as opposed to building up signfiicant fat stores.

So when you look at the studies they surveyed, you'll see the ones claiming this or that diet are great (buy my book), tend to include studies that involved hypo-caloric conditions.

There are of course other factors involved, but they are only visible if you survey studies that are isocaloric with consequently no weight change; which is hard, because folks want to know what diet will help them lose weight.

Final note: low-carb diet absolutely does not imply high-protein diet. Humans (without hormone/anabolic supplements) have a fairly low cap on the amount of protein they can put to use; and past that, it just gets turned into really expensive sugar. Somewhere around the perversely unit'ed 1g/lb of bodyweight. (1.8g / kg for sane people), past that, its a complete waste. And for normal activity levels its barely even half that level before its pointless.

Low carb diets are all about butter, cream, nuts, oils, and fats. Not giant slabs of red meat.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ow carb diets are being studied for cancer treatment as well because cancer cells can not use ketones, they only use glucose.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s an addenda, it really is calories in vs calories out. People simply eat so many carbs that they are in a hyper caloric diet, even while thinking they aren't overeating.

[Tanada]

I agree with much of what you wrote, but there is little evidence a high protein diet gets turned into sugar. What actually happens in most cases is your metabolism gets slammed with a combination of lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, organic acids and organic alcohols plus minerals in any meal you eat. Organic acids like Vitamin C and Vinegar are in theory 3 kcal per gram, but if you are Vitamin C deficient it gets absorbed and if you are in surplus it gets purged by your kidneys into your bladder. Vinegar is on the other hand absorbed almost instantly by your mitochondria and metabolized into CO2 and H2O. Next on your metabolic priority list are organic alcohols because they can do damage to your cells, some of your cells like those in your brain can absorb organic alcohols and use O2 to convert them into Pyruvate and then metabolize them to CO2 and H2O but the process removes oxygen from brain tissue giving you the feeling of being drunk. Other cells in the liver and kidneys can use Ethanol as the starting point for gluconeogenesis and use it to manufacture glucose and/or glycogen storage. In fact it is so much of a poison that your liver will shut down all of its other filtering tasks to remove ethanol as rapidly as possible, which is why you have to keep drinking to get and stay drunk for more than about 40 minutes, the liver clears out about 70 percent of the ethanol before it can effect your brain.

Once you take care of the organic acids and alcohols your body works through the protein. The first thing it does is circulate protein so that any cells than need to repair or grow have a supply to do so. Your skin, hair and nails are all complexes of protein that are constantly growing and your muscle tissue wears out and has to be rebuilt constantly. However once your cells all have adequate protein for their needs you liver looks at the surplus in your circulation and compares that to your then current blood sugar demand. If you have adequate blood sugar and your glycogen stores are not deeply depleted your liver does not turn protein into sugar because doing so is very metabolically expensive. Instead your liver will strip the Amine groups off the excess protein converting the amine groups into Urea and the protein into metabolizable fragments that your cells will then rapidly convert into energy, CO2 and H2O. Protein doe not lead to high blood sugar no matter how much you eat, but if you have a low water intake it can lead to kidney problems from all the resulting Urea and free amines the kidneys have to filter out of your blood.

After all those things are consumed your cellular metabolism moves on to carbohydrates.

Also the whole concept of calories in calories out is far to simplistic, that is like saying a room is crowded because there are too many people in it. It doesn't tell you anything about WHY there are too many people in the crowded room or WHY your fat cells are storing so many lipids. It has also been shown in dozens of studies that a hypocaloric diet results in a slower metabolism because your cells are only willing to give up lipids under the correct hormonal conditions. If your insulin is high for any reason at all your metabolism slows significantly on a hypocaloric diet. If your insulin is low your metabolism only slows by a small amount because your fat cells will easily release lipids to provide energy. The reason low carb diets work better is they reduce the insulin levels in the blood stream and that in turn promotes lipid release and burning by your cellular metabolism.

[davep]

I've never looked in detail at high protein diets, as they're meant to be dangerous (stripping muscle tissue, including heart muscle). That's why low-carb diets tend to be more high-lipid rather than high-protein, apparently.

I was aware that ethanol was metabolised before carbs, but didn't know much about the rest (so thanks!).

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s an addenda, it really is calories in vs calories out. People simply eat so many carbs that they are in a hyper caloric diet, even while thinking they aren't overeating.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')asically, my response to the "ketone" folks, is that, in/out is still ruling, but they are failing to calculate "out" correctly. Thermodynamics rules this equation at the macro level. Humans are not magic.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')'ve never looked in detail at high protein diets, as they're meant to be dangerous (stripping muscle tissue, including heart muscle). That's why low-carb diets tend to be more high-lipid rather than high-protein, apparently.

I was aware that ethanol was metabolised before carbs, but didn't know much about the rest (so thanks!).

[davep]

Interesting. Still, even if it isn't a metabolic dead-end the point still stands that it can and does get excreted. The point was that not all usable calories are inevitably used.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')asically, my response to the "ketone" folks, is that, in/out is still ruling, but they are failing to calculate "out" correctly. Thermodynamics rules this equation at the macro level. Humans are not magic.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')nteresting. Still, even if it isn't a metabolic dead-end the point still stands that it can and does get excreted. The point was that not all usable calories are inevitably used.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')asically, my response to the "ketone" folks, is that, in/out is still ruling, but they are failing to calculate "out" correctly. Thermodynamics rules this equation at the macro level. Humans are not magic.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')nteresting. Still, even if it isn't a metabolic dead-end the point still stands that it can and does get excreted. The point was that not all usable calories are inevitably used.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'T')he problem is that a large number of the people who quote the calories in / calories out mantra do so as part of dietary advice based solely on calories consumed, which is a hugely reductionist and ultimately incorrect approach.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I')nteresting. Still, even if it isn't a metabolic dead-end the point still stands that it can and does get excreted. The point was that not all usable calories are inevitably used.