Posted on 12/14/2012 6:41:08 PM PST by neverdem
The energy in–energy out hypothesis is not set in stone, argues Gary Taubes. It is time to test hormonal theories about why we get fat.
“It is better to know nothing,” wrote French physiologist Claude Bernard in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), “than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek.”
Embracing a fixed idea is one of the main dangers in the evolution of any scientific discipline. Ideally, errors will be uncovered in the trial-by-fire of rigorous testing and the science will right itself. In rare cases, however, an entire discipline can be based on a fundamental flaw.
As a science journalist turned science historian, I have written at length about how and why this may have happened in obesity research. I have suggested that the discipline may be a house of cards — as, by extension, may much research into the chronic diseases associated with obesity, such as diabetes.
Before the Second World War, European investigators believed that obesity was a hormonal or regulatory disorder. Gustav von Bergmann, a German authority on internal medicine, proposed this hypothesis in the early 1900s.
The theory evaporated with the war. After the lingua franca of science switched from German to English, the German-language literature on obesity was rarely cited...
---snip--
NuSI aims to fund and facilitate the trials necessary to rigorously test the competing hypotheses, beginning with inpatient feeding studies that will rigidly control dietary interventions for participants so that we know unambiguously the effects of macronutrients — protein, fat and carbohydrates — on weight and body fat. These studies will be done by independent, sceptical researchers. This may be an idealistic dream, but we have committed ourselves to the effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Here’s a good site:
www.marksdailyapple.com
I think he's suggesting that obesity is a function, at least for the vast majority of people, of the total number of calories consumed vs. the total number of calories burned. If so, he's correct. If you burn more energy than you consume, you will lose weight. If you exercise regularly, you will burn even more calories than by only employing calorie restriction. Pretty simple, really. Although the people out there touting the latest diet fad, while selling their latest diet book, will vehemently disagree, the macronutrient ratio is not all that important. What really matters is total energy consumed vs. total energy burned.
Also, a calorie is a measure of the amount of energy. This is how a calorie is defined. As such, a calorie will always be the same. When your body metabolizes fat, amino acids or carbohydrates, different pathways are used for each and the efficiencies will not be the same for each process. Even so, a calorie is always a calorie.
Taubes has made a good living demonizing one macronutrient over another. That may be an effective way to sell books, and earn lecture fees, but it doesn't offer much for those looking for something other than assumptions being presented as facts. Taubes touts the Atkins diet, but Atkins is really nothing more than a low calorie diet in disguise. Taubes also seems intent on denying the basic thermodynamic perspective. Taubes isn't a scientist. If he were, he'd know that calories are the bottom line.
Everyone should start with William Banting’s Letter on Corpulence, and then take it from there...if you’re trying to lose meaningful weight. This has been out there for years, but sometimes we just have to look in our own backyard for the answer.
Ciao!
I think your diet sounds healthy - because it is all home-cooked foods. With some regular exercise - not a huge amount - but daily.
Take away and store bought snacks are very fattening, and without as much nourishment as needed. They are the opposite of your good hand-made breads and hearty pans of meat and vegetable dishes. I also think you eat meals, rather than filling up by grazing all day.
-——The carbohydrate content of the diet must be rectified to restore health.———
My own experimentation with myself tends to verify this statement. Carbohydrate consumption levels influence my numbers. The numbers are in fact indicative of feeling well.
Eat carbs in excess, get indigestion, awake at 3:00 am and sleep poorly. (all carbs are equal except potatoes, and they are more equal)
Eat more fats than none, moderate carbs, no indigestion, sleep all night.
The latter course along with exercise controls or reduces weight and the general feeling of well being
“(lower Calories )+ (exercise) =weight loss”
Works every time its tried!
Today I’m having bacon, eggs and cheese biscuits. I’ll ride 25 miles to burn it off!
If you ride at 15 mi/h you will burn about 750 cal. At 20 it will be about 1000. Running seems to be about 100 cal/mile at any speed.
I’m assuming that some people burn a larger percent of the calories they consume.
I wonder if a study has been done that carefully measured calories in and calories pooped out to try to figure out what is happening. By comparing this to their diets, we may see some patterns.
If it is true that some people can eat all day and not gain weight and others gain weight if they eat the same and gain a lot, then we should be able to find the calories somewhere.
If the thin people are burning it off with an elevated metabolism, we should see a higher average body temperature and more CO2 in their breath.
No matter what people say, those calories have to go somewhere. They don’t just disappear.
Conversely, those calories do not just appear by osmosis or photosynthesis in morbidly obese individuals. The caloric intake exists to maintain the obesity.
Yep, but I like to stay ahead of the game. Can’t run. Artificial knee and hip. Long story... Riding is fantastic for me. 5’4”,120.
I’m starting to think I have gluten issues. I FReeped you a while ago about sourdough help and you suggested I seek local advice because there are so many environmental factors. Well, I couldn’t find local help so I’m giving it another try on my own. Wish me luck!
/johnny
Unbleached white flour and filtered water. It has taken and every 12 hours after it bubbles up and falls I remove half and add back. I’m going to slowly convert it to whole wheat and oats when it’s really tangy. I just started the starter three days ago, so I have awhile before that stage. In a couple of days I will start making crackers with the starter I remove. I’m a great cook, but I must use recipes for baking. That’s science, which was my worst subject!
I'll have an alternative starter recipe for you, but it won't really work until early summer.
Another alternative for you might be a pre-ferment or hold-back method. It's what I use here since this area has black mold which kills any long-term starter. When I make a recipe of dough (I'll give you mine if you like), I hold back 180 grams of dough and save it in a cool spot and add it to the next batch.
johnny
WTH does that mean?
Are you talking about anabolism or catabolism?
My opinion is that there are a few too many variables for a simple "formula" or heuristic to be universally applicable.
Including, for example:
Age of person
Gender of person
Body fat percentage of person
Time-dependent mapping (to childhood) of body-fat percentage of person
Time-dependent mapping (to childhood) of exercise history of person
Past diet of person (chronic sweet tooth different from healthy eater)
Type, duration, and frequency of exercise protocol
Toxic load, including lyme disease, mold, solvents
Calories consumed currently
Composition of diet currently (carb%, protein%, fat%)
Types of carbs consumed
Timing and size of meals, absolute and in relation to exercise
I think it will be found that one's profile of exercise vs. food (timing, duration, frequency of both) will have a LOT to do with epigenetics which determine how one handles food; and that it will be found that *drastic* but consistent changes to one's exercise and diet can re-set the epigenetics from "fatty" to "lean mean fighting machine" over time: requiring only titanium willpower and consistency; but that, as with so much else, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" and eating healthy with a history of exercise throughout childhood and adolescence will make it MUCH harder to gain weight later in life.
Cheers!
btt
I hope not: if they do, some enterprising businessman will grind you up and sell you as weight-loss pills, and we'd lose a great FReeper. :-(
Seriously -- see my post #57, there's likely an interplay of diet (calories + type of food, exericse, and genes).
Just the kind of thing you can't hone in on with a mass statistical study of the kind funding moieties tend to love.
NO cheers, unfortunately.
If you have a certain amount of fat, then your body will respond differently physiologically to a certain food intake, or to a certain exercise, than someone else.
And one other thing about Atkins -- some people like to use Eskimos as an example of how people can eat high-fat, high-protein all the time without cardiovascular consequences (I think Taubes mentioned a study with a couple of people living on an Eskimo-type diet without getting scurvy, and which tracked their blood lipid profiles as well). One thing I have wondered is whether anyone as controlled for
a) ambient temperature (while at the MN State Fair I saw a presentation by some Arctic or Antarctic explorers who explained that they have to eat 5,000 calories A DAY to stay alive or they would freeze to death: the only way to get those calories in a form compact enough to bring along is to eat a pound or more of butter every day. They had a contest to see who could eat a stick of butter the fastest...)
b) race, somewhat correlated with the above, as Negros seem to be more associated with equatorial climes than polar; and also because their higher melanin content makes it harder for them to synthesize vitamin D with exposure to sunlight, whereas there is not enough direct sunlight for much of the year in higher latitudes. And vitamin D is being found to be important in a gazillion cellular processes, why not look to see if it is involved in metabolism as well?
Cheers!
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