
Large analysis finds that low-fat diets have low impact - cryoshon
http://www.nature.com/news/low-fat-diets-have-low-impact-1.18678
======
coloroadie
We need to eliminate the idea of the diet. The only way to lose weight and to
keep it off is to commit to a long term lifestyle change. Similar to how
recovering addicts continue to go to meetings years have they've gotten sober,
people need to make the same kind of commitment to their weight and general
health.

Disclosure: I lost nearly 100lbs 15 years ago. The most I gained back was 20
pounds. Never going back.

~~~
Retric
I _gained_ 100 lb in less than one year. Most of that showed up in 6 months.

That's the side nobody talks about. Losing a pound in a random week is easy.
Keeping a pound off for 15 years is much harder and I commend your resolve.

~~~
torrent-of-ions
If it's hard then you are doing it wrong. The point of the post you are
replying to is that people shouldn't "go on a diet" and spend weeks or months
not enjoying their life. Instead you should find a way to eat a normal amount
of food and enjoy it. Then you'll lose weight and never gain it back.

~~~
Retric
I don't mean hard as in will power. Rather, there is a huge trend to gain
weight as you age. [http://stateofobesity.org/obesity-by-
age/](http://stateofobesity.org/obesity-by-age/)

PS: The 65+ numbers seem to be better except morbidly obese people tend to die
young and weight loss is often a sign of a medical issue.

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narag
"No matter what the diet, the key to weight loss is to burn more calories than
are taken in. Fats contain more than twice as many calories per gram as
proteins or carbohydrates. It seemed logical, then, to reduce fat as a means
of reducing calories overall, says Hall."

Translation: we were wrong, but it was logical to be wrong and we still have
some other ways to be wrong, like the "all calories are equal" mantra to
replace old wrongs that we can't say anymore with a straight face.

~~~
Gibbon1
I call the logic behind 'burn more calories than taken in' the 'bucket with a
hole in the bottom' theory of metabolism and homeostasis.

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awjr
In summary, diets do not work (low fat or high fat). If you actually want to
reduce your weight it really does comes down to permanent lifestyle changes.

~~~
amelius
Low-carb diets do work.

~~~
sugarcube
They might just work because they make it easy to eat less - very simple rule
to follow that rules out most unhealthy snacking.

~~~
weego
When you look at ketogenic diets being used to control epilepsy you realise
there is likely more to it than just behavioural.

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adrianN
Key quote:

 _Dieters tend to adhere strictly to their diet in the beginning, but quickly
begin to revert to old habits, says Hall. By about six months, dieters have
often reached their lowest weight but are back to consuming nearly as many
calories as they did before they started dieting. From there, they start
putting the weight back on_

So the dieting works, as long as people stay on the diet. Eating less is still
a reliable way to weigh less. The hard part is keeping it up.

~~~
stdbrouw
If something is reliable but almost impossible to keep up, I wouldn't exactly
say that it "works". That's like saying to a student that they'll pass a
course if only they study hard enough, without giving any further study or
motivational advice. It's true but it's pointless.

~~~
adrianN
I just wonder how many research dollars we're going to spend if the advice
basically stays: "Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, don't eat more calories
than you expend and do moderate exercise a couple of times a week. If you're
overweight you shorten your life."

~~~
greggyb
Probably until it gets driven home to the type of people who read and comment
on studies like this that education alone is one of the worst interventions
for behavioral change.

Edit: proper emphasis - "that education is" => "that education alone"

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cryoshon
A pretty cool study, IMO. This finding plays directly into the oft-mentioned
HN biases against nutritional sciences.

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mhartl
_saturated fats are still thought to be associated with poor heart health_

When you remove the passive voice from this, you get something like "The
people who've been telling you _all_ fats are bad have been wrong for decades,
but they still think _saturated_ fats are bad." Why should we trust what these
people think? I'll have some whole pastured eggs cooked in grass-fed ghee,
thank you very much.

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dumbmatter
I eagerly await reading the next headline in 10 years:

"Even larger analysis finds that low-fat diets have low impact"

And then in 20 years:

"Large analysis finds that low-salt diets have low impact"

But I think I'll die before low-fat and low-salt foods stop being marketed,
since there never really was any good evidence for them in the first place...

~~~
torrent-of-ions
People seem to very readily believe that things which they enjoy are bad for
them. It's a funny thing. So the appeal of "low x" where x is something
generally nice will probably not go away.

~~~
vlehto
One of the most amazing is "r/nofap" in reddit.

Some dude said in TED talk that "We have no idea how porn affects brain. Porn
happened suddenly and now we don't even have a control group because everybody
is doing it." And with some logic this is good reason to stop masturbating
altogether.

This of course doesn't work out. Regular guy is going to get pretty
irresistible urge at some point. And that's instrumental for it too. Because
relapses enforce your quilt and wallowing in quilt is part of the appeal.
Another part is "competing in faith", they have no-fap clocks there too.

Some people do the similar guilt tripping with food and exercise. I hear lot
of: "It's bad to drink after workout. You reset your hard work." Also some
people seem to think that chips and anything "organic" balance each other out.

~~~
torrent-of-ions
Well there are also people on there who really do have a problem to the point
of addiction. It absolutely can negatively effect your sex life and even your
entire life. What I see on there is more that people like to accept that a
panacea exists to improve their entire life. It's a nice thing to believe, but
it's rarely true.

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redrummr
Lurked for months, finally registered in order to post the following opinion:
when somebody is very obviously overweight, they got that way by eating and
exercising abnormally. To get healthy, sometimes the best route is, then, to
eat and exercise abnormally.

'Lifestyle change' is in order -- agreed -- but it's honestly a lot easier
when you push harder. For some people anyway.

It's like smoking. Sometimes just quitting cold turkey works better than
continuing to reward yourself with a cigarette.

My brother lost 70kg in 2 years by hitting the treadmill for an hour a day.
He's now just 70kg, and still runs for an hour a day. The extreme worked for
him (he doesn't under-eat).

The first bite of food in a day starts the pangs for more, so sometimes
delaying works really well. If you hit the gym for 90 mins (including commute,
let's say) and cook instead of getting fast food, and get 7-8 hours of sleep,
suddenly the time you have to stuff your face is drastically reduced. That's
one benefit of doing stuff other than sitting.

What you do has a lot more of an impact on your diet than the actual food. You
won't feel like eating a 500-calorie chocolate bar when you can see the
spectre of 500-calorie-burning you sweating tonight at the gym.

------
garyclarke27
Low carb high fat diet is easier to follow because one doesn't feel hungry.
The problem is carbs are everywhere and often hidden in sauces etc, so it
takes immense will power to sustain unless you're a hermit. Intermittent
fasting also definitlyworks and has significant health benefits,butter in
coffee mct oil - ideas promoted by David Asprey Bullet proof executive -
helps. Ignorent nonsense opinions on saturated fats still promoted as factual,
even in this article, saturated anaimal fats such as grass feed butter are
much much healthier than vegetable oils, unsaturated oilds degrade easily and
become poisonous easily esp at high temp, olive oil and coconut oil are the
only ones safe. Most oils have to much Omega 6 wich is danngerous for health.

~~~
DanBC
From the article:

> And although there was a slight benefit to higher-fat diets that were also
> low in carbohydrates, Hall says that this difference — which is about 1
> kilogram — is clinically meaningless.

It's frustrating that the low-carb people keep saying "all the science was
bollocks, and low carb is the way to go", but then ignore the science that
says that low carb might not be the way to go after all.

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5partan
To be more specific, they talk about low-fat, moderate-carbs and moderate-
protein, processed and toxic food. In that case it doesn't matter if it's low-
fat or not. Drinking all day coke ore eating all day fruit are both low-fat.
Guess what, there is a difference.

~~~
astrange
What's so great about fruit? I bet people just think it's healthy because it's
in the phrase "fruits and vegetables". You're not going to get scurvy or colds
or anything if you go without.

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VLM
> "No one knows for sure why this strategy failed"

We've launched the Hubble but the general public is still reading horoscopes,
there's gonna be a reality vs culture disagreement.

Completely ignoring the psychological impact. You are fat you suck you are a
lower class loser you should be made to suffer we should all shame you now go
cry in a corner and eat horrible tasting unsatisfying high carb / low fat
special diet food, oh look high carb makes you even fatter well being fat is
the modern witchcraft trial so you deserve your pain and suffering you suck
now die young you need will power. You will crave and suffer and you should
enjoy it because thats what your kind deserves, craving and pain. That's
traditional neopuritan original sin dietary advice as pounded into us for
decades, in a nutshell. Personally I think its a complete load of crap, and
medical science has advanced beyond it but culture still hasn't.

Compare that with the psychological impact of: its not your fault, there was a
major scientific and marketing screw up and high carb actually makes you very
fat, aren't steaks tasty and savory and luxurious and aren't salads yummy now
enjoy your low carb diet. Tastes great, doesn't it? Life should be without
cravings and suffering, isn't it awesome not to feel bad? And oh my god does
it piss people off that you're losing weight without neopuritan suffering,
like they want to slap you so you can feel the pain you deserve as a loser
fatty subhuman how dare you climb out of the lobster pot, its a sin to say you
don't belong in purgatory how dare you blaspheme against the holy authorities.
They can't feel good unless they see you suffer. That's before you try to get
between an addict and his corn syrup fix, then the freak out really gets
started. You think you've seen alcoholics and nicotine addicts rationalize,
you haven't really seen anything until you get between a sugar addict and his
corn syrup.

This is before we get into the staggering secondary effects of high carb
making people lethargic and tired whereas low carb subjectively feels like
being on energy drinks all the time, and that leads to a lot of bro-science
about protein magically melting away fat, when reality is high carb leads to
laying on the couch two hours later watching TV while snacking feeling
exhausted and low carb leads to playing with the kids in the park or going on
a hike an hour later and feeling energized. Sure you are the same 800 calories
but two hours later the high carb guy is eating a 400 calorie snack while
laying exhausted on a couch watching TV and the low carb guy is exercising
burning 50 calories per hour on a hiking trail ... its not magic that protein
and fat seems to melt fat off a body.

~~~
kasdkljqweqwkj
I dont even know where to start with this wall of text.

There's a lot of fat people self-persecuting to find a reason to be upset.
More to the point, medical science still says that being fat lowers your life
span, and you seem to be implying there is even an iota of truth to the Health
At Every Size nonsense being spewed for fat justification and medical science
denial. If I stood a room with 10 fat people selected at random 9 would have
no willpower, and one MIGHT have a condition warranting their weight. In fact,
being fat IS your fault even with a condition, because you are not being
considerate of your personal needs, or overindulging in dopamine releasing
delicious carbs because you're a fiend.

High carbs don't make you fat, just like low carbs don't make you fat.
Avoiding carbs altogether eliminates many bad foods that make you fat, and as
a by product causes you to lose weight. Weight loss is strictly calories in vs
calories out, and always will be. Want to lose weight? Have some self control
and eat less - its that simple. How do you explain the average weight of an
Asian person being much lower than ours, and they consume a considerable
amount of carbs?

You have a lot of sources to cite regarding carbs. A LOT. When I was
bodybuilding I ate 400g of carbs a day - more than your average fat person,
and felt like I had more energy to do things than when I was on a 100g of
carbs a day cut.

I'm pretty sure you actually have no idea what you're talking about. Quit
trying to rationalize being fat and do something about it.

~~~
chrisdbaldwin
I'm pretty sure you actually have no idea what you're talking about.

------
dschiptsov
_Processed_ fat?

There is absolutely no problem within population with cultures traditionally
relying heavily on _fresh /unprocessed_ (0-day fresh chicken/mutton) meat diet
(Kashmir, Ladakh, Pakistan, etc).

~~~
Sharlin
Heavy? The per-capita meat consumption in Pakistan is five to ten times less
than in the West.

~~~
dschiptsov
That means nothing. What is important is what are traditional everyday dishes
and how they cook them. Hint: everything that was brought 0-day fresh in the
morning has been sold/eaten till night. The cooking is also quite simple - no
overheating, mostly boiled (different kinds of curries, to get maximum value
for a money spent).

Perhaps, before conducting studies one has to understand cooking. That
overheated fat is not the same as slowly boiled fat, that pure butter has
nothing in common with margarine, and no one knows what kind of shit
corporations and fastfood joints are using to save costs while processing junk
food.

Tribal/traditional foods tells you what is good and what is bad (and most
economically efficient for given location) without any crappy studies.

There is also Chinese/Thai tradition in cooking of not overboiling foods,
which, it seems, has a substantial impact on health in the long run.

And to hire a professional cook in the research team is a good idea.)

~~~
Sharlin
> That means nothing.

That's an empty claim without evidence.

~~~
dschiptsov
I've explained my logic.

One doesn't have to be a machine learning expert to notice the correlation
between health issues and overconsumption of processed/junk foods. Traditional
foods, on the contrary, are evolved, so causation is not in the base
ingredients, but in processing and substitutes.

~~~
Sharlin
One sees what one wants to see. There's also a correlation of consumption of
_any_ meat and health issues. I don't claim to know what is the real causation
here, but presumably it's more complicated than "processed==bad", especially
as "processed" has no good definition and is mostly used as a fnord to make
people uncomfortable.

~~~
dschiptsov
>There's also a correlation of consumption of any meat and health issues.

Nope. Meat is just an evolutionary adaptation which allows the human race to
inhabit northern regions.

There are obviously some crosscultural differences in comsumption of meat, but
there are no replicable studies that meat eaters of, say, Japan, Middle East,
Greece, Georgia or Nepal are worse off than strict vegetarians of India.

This adaptation happened, perhaps, at Homo Erectus time, so, do not worry,
everything is already OK.

What we never had in our long past are supplements and substitutes. One should
look here.

~~~
pd1
We also never in our long past lived past 60.

~~~
dschiptsov
I should have put supplements in double quotes.

