
Hard Science About Diet - yaddayadda
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/what-makes-us-fat
======
bollockitis
If you haven't read either of Taubes's books, please do. I highly recommend
Why We Get Fat[1]. It's a spectacular piece of scientific journalism. If
that's too much for you, try one of his talks on the same topic[2].

When I first encountered the idea that we do not get fat from eating too much
and that calories weren't responsible, I thought it ludicrous—the body can't
disobey the laws of physics! Thermodynamics! But after seriously thinking
about the idea, I realized Taubes was providing a far more complete
understanding of metabolism. The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs
on food. Yes, we can easily learn the caloric content of food, but that's
largely irrelevant. What's important is how food affects the body, not its raw
energy content. I see this misconception time and time again, especially among
smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine,
often ignoring the whole biology thing.

I think the hormone theory of obesity is correct and I think these studies
will prove it. But even if they show otherwise, this type of research is long
overdue and we all stand to benefit from the results.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259](http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259)

[2]: [http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0](http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0)

~~~
grecy
I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with you.

I've posted here about this before - I got involved with weight watchers
through my two roomates as moral support for them, and have personally seen
and been involved with many hundreds of people losing many thousands of punds
- and keeping it off (that was over 10 years ago).

I've always thought of weight-loss like everything else we learn and do in
life - start out simple and make it achievable while getting "beginner"
results, then work your way up making it more and more complicated.

When you're 6 and learning to count, you are not taught differentiation and
complex numbers.

When you're learning to surf, nobody would through you in at the world's
biggest wave.

When you learn a new language, you don't learn the most complicated
conjugations first.

Losing weight starts simply by reducing the amount of energy you're eating
(calories) to a level lower than your body is using on a daily basis. I don't
care if you eat raw sugar or fat, as long as you eat slightly less calories
than your body is using for a prolonged period of time. (yes, you'll likely
feel like shit if you eat raw sugar or fat, so I don't recommend it). Like you
said, the body must obey the laws of thermodynamics. The longer you keep that
up, the more weight you will lose.

I genuinely believe anything else at the "beginner" stage is noise and over
complication. The mere fact so many books exist on the topic, and so many
"new" theories come out each year is proof that it's too complicated for
beginners.

Once you have some good "beginner results" and are losing weight consistently
you will and start to move from morbidly obese to just obese down to a
somewhat healthy range. THEN you can start making it more complicated, and
start focusing on WHAT you're eating, not simply how much.

It's an advanced topic that isn't required for the basics. (just like you
don't need complex numbers to count the number of marbles in your bag, or
almost all other functions required in a normal adult life.)

~~~
rsync
Thank you. May I take this one step further ?

The _very_ first step is exercise. Walk. Do some yoga or martial arts.
Resistance training (weights).

There is very little point in discussing or pursuing any of this in the
absence of daily, vigorous exercise.

~~~
rayiner
Exercise is important for fitness, but it's really irrelevant for weight loss.
For a male, running burns about 100 net calories per mile:
[http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-
ar...](http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-
really-burning?page=single) (depending on weight). To achieve a weight loss of
one pound per week, you have to run five miles a day every day. If you're out
of shape, that'll take an hour a day, every day, time you almost certainly
don't have.

Exercising your way to weight loss is an incredibly inefficient use of time.
And telling people that they shouldn't even try to lose weight until they can
fit in daily exercise into a schedule that's already full is needlessly
setting them up for failure.

~~~
runamok
> time you almost certainly don't have.

As a runner for the past 23 years, you really, really do have a whole hour a
day to dedicate to moving.

I assure you that your body will fall apart sooner than later if you dedicate
no time to keeping it strong and limber.

I'd also say consumption is closer to 120 calories per mile. 3600 calories per
lb. of fat so ~30 miles = 1 lb. I usually advise 5 times a week x 3 miles as a
beginner program (after a moderate buildup of walk/run and less days per
week). So every two weeks our subject would lose 1 lb. That's 26 lbs. in a
year.

Assuming these are 12 minute miles (which is just a bit faster than a walk),
12 x 15 miles = 3 hours a week. That is really a bare minimum of activity. If
people start doing this at age 25 or so instead of trying to start at 45 when
they are 60 lbs heavier than they should be it's not too difficult.

------
geoffc
For me the answer is simple. If I eat 2500 calories a day of vegetables, nuts,
meat, eggs and fruit I have trouble finishing it all. If I eat 2500 calories
with grains and sugar included I'm starving at the end of the day and it takes
every ounce of will power not to eat 3000 calories. It might well be calories
in, calories out but what I eat makes it dramatically harder or easier to
regulate the calories in.

~~~
learc83
This is true to an extent for me as well, but nuts are extremely calorie
dense. I think I could easily eat more than 3k calories of nuts in a day if
just ate as many as I wanted.

------
dangerlibrary
Holy crap, talk about burying the lede.

There's a table at the bottom of the article that contains the tl;dr about the
scientific studies referenced. All are still underway, there are no published
results yet.

~~~
droopyEyelids
More of a bait and switch. I had to read like 5 paragraphs before I realized I
better start skimming to see when they got back to that study.

------
alainv
Fascinating that the core study the article focuses on is using strictly male
subjects. I thought this had been a controversial approach[1] for quite some
time now - yet they still claim the study's main goal is "doing it right."

[1]: [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-
exerci...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exercise-
science-doesnt-know-about-women/)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
It is controlling for variables. They are trying to determine the role of
macronutrients on food partitioning and, ultimately, weight. One can argue
they should have used all women instead, but I think the challenge there is
women have a more varied hormonal environment due to menstruation[1], which,
again, adds a variable. As I understand it, fat partitioning appears capable
of change during menstruation.

Of course, then we run into a problem that the results may not apply to women.
Nutrition science sucks.

1\. [http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-
hypothesi...](http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesis-
insulting-joke.html)

------
jrapdx3
After 150 comments have been made, maybe 6 people will stop to read this. But
I feel compelled to contribute a bit of what I've learned about obesity.

I was the medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for 10 years,
working with thousands of obese patients.

The most important lesson is that obesity is a disease, and each obese person
has a different disease. Each case requires a unique treatment approach.
"Cookie-cutter" methods won't cut it.

I'm convinced that obesity is the most complex disease the art and science of
medicine has ever faced. I can't even begin to describe the mind-boggling
complexity of the situation.

A minimalist outline: factor in participation of the endocrine system (insulin
resistance, role of cortisol, thyroid, reproductive hormones), the immune
system products promoting obesity, as well as adverse inflammatory effects of
adiposity contributing to metabolic disarray, and the brain's functional role
in metabolism involving highly intertwined connections of neuronal circuits
regulating metabolism and sleep/circadian rhythms. And so I could go on for
gigabytes on these subjects, even before citing the enormous list of
references.

Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are
interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are
the solutions to obesity. Small needles, huge haystack.

Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are
interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are
the solutions to obesity. Small needle, huge haystack.

A few years ago it was mentioned at a conference that at the time over 250
human genes (and their peptide products) had been identified to play a role in
obesity. Considering the multitude of known and potential gene/environment
interactions, what simple "cause and effect" paradigm could we glean?

So yes, many obese patients respond favorably to low CHO, high N diets.
Altering PUFA intake to approximate a 1:1 intake of N3 and N6 EFA in adequate
amounts is warranted. Elimination of physiologically incompatible trans-fatty
acids in the diet is absolutely necessary. Mono-unsaturated or saturated fats
within calorie constraints are not usually an issue. Behavioral approaches are
always indicated.

Just remember, each of us is different, our systems are inherently quirky, and
tremendous variation is common. The above general rules are fine to start
with, but be prepared, understand the "reality paradox": exceptions are the
rule and not the exception.

~~~
benjvi
Interesting and quite dense post - I had some trouble with the terminology so,
for the other five people reading this.. CHO = carbon hydrogen oxygen (ie
carbohydrates), N = nitrogen (ie proteins & purines)? This was hard to figure
out from google alone but seems to make sense..

Also, PUFA = Polyunsaturated Faty Acids, EFA = Essential Fatty Acids. n3/n6
are more commonly (less precisely?) known as omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids.

From my personal, anecdotal experience the first intervention has been
effective (and this seems to accord with the received recommendations wrt
better health outcomes for those eating more vegetables and fish). But how
clear are we on the outcomes of these simple and broadly applicable
interventions have been made clear and concrete so far? The first goal for the
science should surely be to end the debate on the proliferation "diseases of
civilisation" which, to my understanding, we should be able to do by proving a
difference in outcomes for these interventions and correlating them to the
dietary shifts of the last 30 years

~~~
jrapdx3
Sorry, should have been more explicit, but you've correctly deciphered all the
obscure abbreviations.

I think your questions point to the gist of the matter: obesity is not a
simple problem to understand or to solve.

There certainly is evidence that obesity is a "disease of civilisation". Over
the last 5 or 6 decades the real prevalence of obesity, diabetes, depression,
autoimmune disorders have sharply risen in concert in the industrialized
world, but far less so in third world nations.

While many hypotheses have been put forward, the reasons remain a mystery. It
seems possible, even likely, the issues surrounding obesity will not be
settled in my lifetime.

------
scotty79
I read some time ago that there are only three dietary advices for general
population backed by science:

    
    
      1. Eat food.
      2. Not too much.
      3. Mostly plants.
    
    

I wonder if anything changed since then.

~~~
agumonkey
Also what about non processed food ? I react very differently to raw vegies
from anything with additional stuff (even simple sauce). It turns the food
into a pleasure instead of a need and the additives sugarcoat-trick my brain
into eating more.

~~~
orasis
The above is from Michael Pollan. The "Eat Food" refers to eat real food that
is identifiable as such. Basically if it has over 4 ingredients listed on the
label, its probably not "real food".

------
tokenadult
We need new rigorously controlled experimental studies to tease out the
causation patterns suggested by correlations observed in observational studies
of human diet. The way to test a causal hypothesis is always, at bottom, to do
a controlled experiment.[1] So we will tease out the effects of diet on
different people by finding experimental volunteers and subjecting the
volunteers to controlled diets, such as those planned for some of the
experiments described in this interesting article.

This is very difficult to do, as almost all human beings eat when they feel
like eating WHAT they feel like eating. Earlier human experiments on effects
of diet in the 1970s actually required the experiment subjects to live in the
laboratory long-term, and to have every gram of everything they ate during the
experiment measured exactly by experiment team assistants. Even at that, those
experiments came up with few clear conclusions, perhaps because the
experiments weren't lengthy enough or didn't include enough subjects for
strong inferences. Now the experimenting begins again. Whether the currently
hotly debated hypotheses about human diet win or lose, it's important to put
the hypotheses to the test of a rigorous experimental study to advance human
knowledge.

[1]
[http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz](http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz)

------
ajcarpy2005
The body likely has ways of losing weight that are faster than simply eating
itself (burning fat)

Not all weight is fat

Metabolic efficiency varies, including by calorie type

Much of the chemical energy output in the body is involved in actually
repairing or replacing, not only in expanding the volume of fat reserves or
even muscle.

It's all a thermodynamically-limited bunch of processes but thermodynamics is
a limit rather than a driver of energy transformations.

Calorie REDUCTIONS don't guarantee weight loss because obviously the body can
choose to expend less energy. And if the term CALORIE DEFICIT is used, it is
not justifiably used because science currently can't determine the necessary
level of granularity since energy, weight, and measurable metabolic
output/activity all change in response to factors other than the ones which
are thermodynamically relevant, and this makes thermodynamic
equations/measurement of human dieing problematic. Essentially the system is
kind of a 'black box' and some of the relevant inputs and outputs in the
thermodynamic equation are 'inside' that mathematical 'black-box.'

Edits for spelling

Oh and a slightly less vague explanation can be expounded onto the concept of
energy transformation to explain why it wouldn't always correlate with a
weight change...combining or dividing molecules.

What if your body doesn't have enough energy to go through the processes of
burning a fuel source (or the necessarily mistake or vitamins, or other
nutrients...)

------
rayiner
I think modern food marketing should get more scrutiny here. Aside from the
24/7 food ads with Photoshopped hamburgers, there are the new, more caloric,
more addictive products. Starbucks, for example, has replaced the traditional
American coffee and donut with a latte and pastry combo that has twice as many
calories or more. You can't sell low-calorie coffee with creamer and sugar
(~50 cals) for as much as you can sell a latte (~200 cals).

------
Al-Khwarizmi
I have a hard time believing the new theories that fat is not that bad and
sugar is the evil. I used to have a diet with plenty of beef and pork meat.
Then I went to live for a couple of months in Singapore, and there I ate
noodles. LOADS of them, because I loved them. The result was that I lost a lot
of weight.

In my experience what gets me fat is meat, and what makes me lose weight is
eating less meat and more pasta and rice. But I suppose it varies per person.

~~~
3pt14159
It isn't glucose or lactose that make you fat, it is the presence of fructose
or sucrose in the absence of water soluble fibre that fuck up your insulin
levels because you don't have the lipids to resist the shock.

Beef is incredibly energy dense, and yes it can lead to weight gain, but most
people have their beef with sugary tomato paste / ketchup and a side of Coca
Cola.

Noodles are actually very simple to make: Flour, touch of salt, and an egg. No
fructose or sucrose. So of course you weren't getting fat because your insulin
levels were still in check and you weren't craving too many calories per day.
Also, I don't know about Singapore, but in North America sugar is added all
over the place. Even something simple like BBQ sauce has more sugar per
serving than something like an apple or a banana. And again, no water soluble
fibre.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
In my case I never ate much coke or ketchup, neither after nor before going to
Singapore. I'm from Spain and the most typical way to have beef is together
with homemade fries.

I suppose the kind of carbohydrates is everything: noodles and cereal good,
sucrose bad... so that makes me wonder if the studies mentioned in the article
might be too US-centric. Probably many Americans could lose weight by
replacing the sugary coke and ketchup with more fat, so "high fat, low carb"
may be a good advice for them. But in Spain where coke and ketchup aren't so
widespread (some people have them, of course, but probably not even 10% as
much as in the US) most people would do better to replace their fatty beef
with carbs in noodle, pasta or rice form...

------
honhon
I don't believe its necessary for all the experiments to last that long. Its
possible to have shorter more controlled experiments to gain insight to health
benefits of particular diets.

For example...

A British group of volunteers were locked in a zoo and were allowed to eat up
to 5 kilos of raw fruit and vegetables per day - but only raw fruit and
vegetables.

"Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to
five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day."

"The prescribed menu was:

\- safe to eat raw; \- met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and \-
provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500
for men,"

"Overall, the cholesterol levels dropped 23%, an amount usually achieved only
through anti-cholesterol drugs statins.

The group's average blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 - almost
hypertensive - to 122/76\. Though it was not intended to be a weight loss
diet, they dropped 4.4kg (9.7lbs), on average."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw)
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm)

------
scarygliders
Reading the comments so far, it's interesting how much people's ire gets
raised on this topic.

Also, have a look at this, originally written/published, it seems, in 1958:
[http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm](http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm)

Makes for a fascinating read, and it amazes me how close it gets to what's
currently being put forward now (high fat low carb == good).

------
tim333
Two striking things about dieting. Firstly its a matter of calories in vs
calories burnt. Stop eating and you'll lose weight so it's mostly down to your
controls, conscious or unconscious. Secondly everyone starts at about 8 lbs at
age 0 and ends up about 140lbs at age 18 give or take 50% and that's not down
to conscious planning - the unconscious bits of the brain make kids hungry if
they need food and to not eat and run around if they have too much. And the
mechanisms are powerful - no kids remain at 20 lbs because they choose to.
When adults get obese its seldom because they choose too but because the
unconscious bit goes wonky. I think the US mostly due to sugary food and not
much exercise. It's interesting if you look at the book 'French Women Don't
Get Fat' that it's mostly a recipe book but her actual story was she went from
France to the US for a year or so, hit the sugary snacks and piled on the
pounds and then on her return her dad was horrified so she dropped the snacks
and the weight went. So a mix of factors there.

~~~
vpeters25
Hypothesis: "Stop eating and you'll lose weight"

How do you scientifically prove this?

First, you must isolate a human being in such a way you can account for every
single calorie incoming and outgoing. Incoming calories are relatively easy to
measure, but for outgoing you have to at least measure:

\- How much heat is produced by the body (how much energy is expended keeping
the room at the same temperature) \- How many calories did the body use to
warm sweat and pee: collect every single drop of sweat and pee, measure its
volume and temperature as soon as it leaves the body, compare to temperature
of water ingested. \- Collect every single particle of stool leaving the body,
measure temperature, weight and calorie content.

Only after you have a human being isolated in a way all calories in = calories
out, then you can test the "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" hypothesis.
Before then, anybody with such a claim is just blurting out junk science.

~~~
refurb
You know there are ways to measure metabolic rate right? I don't have the
study in front of me but there was an interesting paper that shows upon
caloric restriction metabolism can drop 20-30% as the body attempts to hold
onto calories.

I'm not sure why calories in = calories out is such a heretical statement on
HN. It's a well establish fact. Of course the calories out can adapt to
reduced calories in, but the fact remains, if you eat fewer calories than you
burn, you will lose weight.

~~~
vpeters25
> if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight

The laws of thermodynamics are a established fact, but somehow concluding that
ingesting less energy will somehow cause you to lose weight is the same kind
of logic fallacy that would lead you to fill your car with only half a tank of
gas expecting to get twice the mileage.

~~~
refurb
You changed what I said. I did not say "ingesting less calories will cause you
to lose weight", I said "ingesting less calories than you _burn_ will cause
you to lose weight".

------
clumsysmurf
"Gardner's study stems from his previous research, which suggests a diet's
effectiveness may be due to how insulin-resistant the dieter is at the
outset."

What if it also depends on the subject's microbiota, which would be impacted
by a number of things including the (unwanted) consumption of residual
antibiotics in meats.

Seems like the more we find out, the more questions there are.

~~~
zt
I'm actually a participant in the Gardner study -- they're testing for a ton
of other factors, including microbiota.

------
visarga
What about calorie counting? I think the best way to lose some fat is to add
up the sum of the calories of what you're eating, as the day goes by. In time,
this will create an ability to know which foods are too rich and which are ok.
Also, they allow management of appetite/hunger by allocating the rest of the
calories for the rest of time. I personally found it much easier to eat on a
budget of 1200 or 1400 calories a day than following a regime that forbids
some kinds of foods or aims to make food less palatable. I lost 30 pounds that
way and was able to keep my new weight in the following 5 years. I used an
iPhone App for actual counting and calorie database lookups. Also, physical
activities can be tracked and added up to the daily budget. If I walk for 2
hours, then I can have an extra meal, if I want to take it.

TL;DR Calorie counting makes for mindful eating and changes habits, without
suffering.

~~~
3pt14159
If you were only 30 pounds overweight then you probably didn't have the types
of problems that most Americans have: metabolic disorder / obesity / diabetes.
To fix this problem requires not just a reduction in calories, but a repair of
the insulin levels and an increase in water soluble fibre for lipid
production.

------
mcguire
Am I missing something? Is there any actual information in this article beyond

* Science in general and nutritional science specifically may or may not be sketchy (And this is news?),

* There are at least three ongoing, very interesting, apparently well-designed studies exploring the topic, with an emphasis on _ongoing_ , and

* These three studies are the children of a researcher who lost weight when he changed his diet, an Enron billionaire, and Gary Taubes, a science journalist with a history of being very, very partisan. (No, really, go read _Bad Science_ and then track down _Polywater_ by Felix Franks---different scientific episodes, but with roughly similar hoo-ha involved; I'm talking about the _style_ of the two discussions.

------
poolcircle
I firmly believe in the saying, "You get sick because of what's eating you and
not being of what you are eating".

------
yaddayadda
>NuSI's starting assumption, in other words, is that bad science got us into
the state of confusion and ignorance we're in. Now Taubes and Attia want to
see if good science can get us out.

NuSI's approach to test long-standing food science assumptions.

------
wdewind
This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I
feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly
complex. Yes, maybe there is some amount of optimization you can do with your
diet, but the simple fact is that there is a not a single study in the history
of science which has been able to demonstrate eating at a caloric deficit and
gaining weight. Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much.

From the practical standpoint of actually trying to lose weight/get people to
lose weight, the challenges in nutrition are almost entirely around compliance
(how to ensure someone sticks with the program) rather than substance (what
people put in their bodies). Most people know, within reasonable terms, how to
eat healthily. It may not be the most optimal way possible (perhaps keto or
some other diet is), but if we spent more time studying how to teach
compliance I think we'd be making a lot more progress towards stopping
obesity.

~~~
bollockitis
> This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I
> feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly
> complex. Yes, maybe there is some amount of optimization you can do with
> your diet, but the simple fact is that there is a not a single study in the
> history of science which has been able to demonstrate eating at a caloric
> deficit and gaining weight. Show me an obese person not eating significantly
> too much.

Taubes would say that an obese person eats too much precisely because he is
fat, not the reverse. The arrow of causality has been flipped. His body is
demanding increased caloric intake (via insulin, leptin, and ghrelin) to
maintain fat stores. Those fat stores can't be liberated when insulin levels
remain high. If this hypothetical obese person keeps eating carbs and has
become insulin resistant, those fat stores aren't going anywhere without a
fight. A calorie restricted diet will help some, as less food produces less
insulin, but it's far easier to restrict insulinogenic foods. This allows the
fat stores to be utilized, and weight loss is the natural result.

It sounds counterintuitive at first, but this theory states that the human
body knows how to maintain caloric intake. That's what hunger is for. But it
can only do this if we allow the endocrine system to function normally.

Before dismissing the idea, listen to Taubes's talk:
[http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0](http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0)

~~~
wdewind
But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content, he
or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't
disagree with that. There may be ways to lose weight more quickly, but my
point is that the challenge here is how to make people who are on terrible
diets consistently stick to _any_ decent diet with a caloric defecit, not the
_optimal_ diet. If someone can't comply with a low carb diet it quite frankly
doesn't matter if it's more optimal that a high carb (though I disagree with
Taubes generally and think his analysis misses the forest for the trees).

~~~
bollockitis
> But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content,
> he or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't
> disagree with that.

A low-carb diet doesn't have to be intentionally low calorie. That's the
point. Eating very low carb allows the body to adjust hunger levels to match
existing fat stores. If you're fat and you allow your body to do its job, you
won't be as hungry because you have plenty of energy stored up and the body is
eager to use it. In other words, we've evolved to survive times of plenty and
times of famine, and our modern diet with extremely high carb intake throws
this system out of whack.

Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose weight
this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's fat
regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie, causing
insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an easy diet to
follow and it might even be counterproductive.

This is the theory anyway. This queston has been posted to Taubes many times
over though, and he himself can explain it a lot better than I can. If you're
interested in the topic, this is definitely worth a read:
[http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-
thoughts-...](http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-thoughts-and-
thought-experiments-on-the-calorie-issue/)

~~~
wdewind
> Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose
> weight this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's
> fat regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie,
> causing insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an
> easy diet to follow and it might even be counterproductive.

This is based on a false dichotomy of dieting sustainably low carb or
unsustainably starving yourself.

Let's say we have someone who is 6' and 260lbs. To get to that state you need
to consistently eat a diet of around 4000 calories. If that person eats 2000
calories of ANYTHING for the rest of their life, which should be completely
sustainable, they will not only lose the weight (down to about 180 lbs), they
will keep it off.

On the other hand, if that person continues to eat 4000 calories but they
change their diet entirely to a ketogenic diet, guess what: they will still be
fat.

The point is that when we are dealing with the 30% of Americans who are now
obese, the low hanging fruit is in simply eating less. There may or may not be
a suboptimization in macronutrient composition, I'm not saying that's
definitely wrong. I'm just saying there's more low hanging fruit than that.

------
dang
If anyone can find a sentence from the article that would make a more
descriptive title, we can change it. This is one case where subtitles and the
opening paragraph both fail us.

~~~
yincrash
"FINALLY: HARD SCIENCE ABOUT DIET"

~~~
dang
That doesn't seem to be a sentence from the article. The idea here is to use
the article's own words.

~~~
yincrash
This is the heading above the table describing the studies they are running.

~~~
dang
You're quite right. My apologies.

I changed the title to that, but I fear the term "hard science" here is
provocative enough to spark a tedious flamewar, as if the topic weren't enough
already. So if anyone can find a more neutral description in the article, we
might change it again.

------
yarou
I think it's important to note that every individual is different. I'm
surprised that gene therapy has not made any inroads into weight loss
management and diabetes/hypertension prevention. In an ideal world, diet and
exercise should be tailored to your genetic makeup, instead of the "one size
fits all" brute force approach.

~~~
tbrownaw
You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake. You are an ugly bag of mostly
water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone else.

Diet and exercise should be tailored to _what actually works_ (as should
everything else; feedback loops are awesome). You don't find out what works
uniquely for you by having some expert guess based on what your DNA makes very
slightly more likely, you find out by trying and seeing if and how your
results differ from what's typical or what you expected.

~~~
gwern
> You are an ugly bag of mostly water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone
> else.

And yet, BMI is highly heritable
([http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritabili...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritability+twin&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C21))
so the 'mostly' is a pretty key qualifier.

~~~
hackinthebochs
The question is are you inheriting genes or memes?

~~~
realitygrill
Or bacteria?

