Obesity Discussion Forums

[AntiCarb]

Hi everyone,

My name is Adam. I am a Yale University grad and the creator of a website about obesity science called Why Low Carb Diets Work. It is a (currently) non-commericial site dedicated to advancing an alternative theory about obesity. I thought people in this forum might find the site particularly useful and eye-opening. (If you want to find it, google lipophilia hypothesis)

Here is the gist:

Most people believe that excess calories make us fat. That is, when you boil any diet down, it must fundamentally be about eating less and exercising more. But this extremely obvious sounding idea turns out to be incorrect, and this is why so many of us have such a hard time losing weight and keeping it off.

Obesity is better understood as a problem of Fat Tissue Disregulation. As science writer Gary Taubes explains in his book, Good Calories Bad Calories, when factors cause us to store calories as fat, this causes us to overeat/be inactive. Changes to our caloric balance result from changes to our fat tissue. What this means is that our fat tissue essentially is in business for itself. (Yes, real life turns out to be that strange!) Unless the fat tissue is re-regulated, it will resist weight loss by stimulating appetite and/or slowing metabolism.

The fix seems to be low carb diets and other methods to control insulin. According to the other hypothesis, these diets work because they normalize insulin levels, thus allowing excess fat to escape the fat tissue.

Anyway, I would love to hear whether anyone else has heard of this idea; and I would obviously welcome any comments from the forum about it or about my site.

Thanks,

Adam

[Obesity Discussion]

Ah, the work of good ol' Gustav von Bergmann and Julius Bauer. It's a shame that more people weren't open to their alternative views back in the day for there to be more studies along these lines. Then again, Americans hated Germans back then which didn't help things.

I do strongly believe that creating a calorie deficit will lead to weight loss, but I also feel that in certain individuals there are certain genetic and/or local factors that may not be overcome by creating a calorie deficit.

Now, moving away from the hypothesis, I don't think fatty foods are as much of a problem with today's society as eating low quality carbs is....and those low quality carbs don't leave people feeling full, so they continue to eat more. I do feel that a big reason our society has gotten so much bigger (in the US anyway) is due to the increase in portion sizes/calorie intakes coupled with a reduction in physical activity.

[AntiCarb]

Wow, a Bergmann and Bauer reference! Excellent Seems like nearly everyone these days has forgotten about them (understandably, as you astutely pointed out).

Agree with you about the low quality carbs being the problem and the fatty foods not so much. (As Taubes points out in his book, according to the USDAs own #s, we actually eat less fat today than we did before the obesity epidemic. See the Aug 98 issue of Nutrition Today article Is Total Fat Consumption Really Decreasing?)

And, as you also mention, clearly we are eating more calories today and being more sedentary. The question I would ask is: what is cause, and what is effect?

The conventional wisdom is that a positive caloric balance causes fattening. Taubes alternative idea (that I have come to embrace) reverses cause and effect. It says that bad carbs and other factors in our environment that screw up our insulin levels (such as certain medications) cause us to gain extra fat in our fat tissue; and that this then causes the positive caloric balance. To paraphrase Bauer, the fat tissue is in business for itself. It will find calories to sustain itself, even at great cost to the organism, even stealing calories from muscles and organs. And if the fat tissue cannot find those calories (due to calorie restriction or over-exercise), it will stunt metabolism to maintain itself.

The distinction is important, I believe, because if this other idea is true, then telling people to exercise more to lose weight will not help because that does nothing to fix the fundamental problem, which are the factors driving us to make too much insulin.

Does that make any sense?

Thanks - great to discuss this with you!

Adam

[notobeseanymore]

My problem had nothing to do with my macronutrient balance, I was just eating too much of everything. I do not worry about my carbohydrate intake; I pay more attention to fiber, sodium, and overall calories. It works for me. Doesn't mean it will work for everyone. But I think calories, at least for most of us, are very important.

[Miranda]

There is no doubt that the low carb diet works for a lot of people. I myself tried the Atkins Diet - followed it religiously and dropped 20 lbs in a month, but I felt like crap the entire time and I hated having to drink my fiber on a daily basis!

I'm glad you clarified that it's "low quality carbs" that lead to weight gain. This I can totally agree with. But, for some people, don't rule out the "high carb" plan for weight loss. I'm following the Shintani plan and I love it! I feel like I have so much more energy. My blood pressure is down, my weight is coming off, and my skin looks great! I am careful to get in at least 50 grams of lowfat/fatfree protein each day (at my doctor's suggestion) and I try to keep my fat intake at 10% of my daily calories (as Shintani suggests). I am able to do this by "carbing out". For example, yesterday, 60% of my calories came from carbs, 32% from protein, and 8% from fats.

But, these are what I guess you would call "high quality" carbs - oatmeal, barley, wheat berries, potato, etc. and lots of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your study and I hope you are able to help lots of people!

[Steve]

The B.S. Detective: Bullsh*tter of the Day Oct 7th: Gary Taubes

[Obesity Discussion]

Originally Posted by Steve

The B.S. Detective: Bullsh*tter of the Day Oct 7th: Gary Taubes

Very interesting article that makes very valid points while trying to debunk the lipophilia hypothesis. Mr. Anticarb, what are your thoughts on this article?

[AntiCarb]

Interesting! Thanks for bringing this to my attention Steve. I obviously am very pro-Taubes and pro-lipophilia, but I absolutely agree with the premise that good science must be about ruthlessly trying to disprove what we think we know. This article claims that the carbohydrate hypothesis fails on many counts! And it is written by an M.D. with some serious credentials.

Give me a little bit to examine some of this guys claims and compose a thoughtful response. I would like to think that I have an open enough mind to really LISTEN and consider what he is saying, but you all know my bias, so please keep that in mind.

Thanks! Will respond soon...

Adam

[pursuitofhappiness]

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Hi everyone,

My name is Adam. I am a Yale University grad and the creator of a website about obesity science called Why Low Carb Diets Work. It is a (currently) non-commericial site dedicated to advancing an alternative theory about obesity. I thought people in this forum might find the site particularly useful and eye-opening. (If you want to find it, google lipophilia hypothesis)

Here is the gist:

Most people believe that excess calories make us fat. That is, when you boil any diet down, it must fundamentally be about eating less and exercising more. But this extremely obvious sounding idea turns out to be incorrect, and this is why so many of us have such a hard time losing weight and keeping it off.

Obesity is better understood as a problem of Fat Tissue Disregulation. As science writer Gary Taubes explains in his book, Good Calories Bad Calories, when factors cause us to store calories as fat, this causes us to overeat/be inactive. Changes to our caloric balance result from changes to our fat tissue. What this means is that our fat tissue essentially is in business for itself. (Yes, real life turns out to be that strange!) Unless the fat tissue is re-regulated, it will resist weight loss by stimulating appetite and/or slowing metabolism.

The fix seems to be low carb diets and other methods to control insulin. According to the other hypothesis, these diets work because they normalize insulin levels, thus allowing excess fat to escape the fat tissue.

Anyway, I would love to hear whether anyone else has heard of this idea; and I would obviously welcome any comments from the forum about it or about my site.

Thanks,

Adam

ok allot of science and history involved in this conversation, (wasn't real good at those subjects LOL) thats cool but doesn't it all just come down to we all just need to work more eat better?

150 years ago everyone for the most part had hard labor work,

allot of work from every abled body in the family was put into just getting dinner on the table.

the thought of a place you actually had to pay for to work out would have probably made them fall to the ground laughing.

I'm just starting to lose weight, but so far I'm more for not counting every calorie, and instead just working out, building muscle, walking more, and trying to eat foods that our natural, home cooked, and low in salt.

Ive taking ODA's advice in a previous thread on drinking lots of water.

Heres a question for you college fellows,

was diabetes even around back then, was there any reports of people getting diabetes?

I always wondered that, as a diabetic myself I wonder if i would still have diabetes if i never had the foods we regularly eat on a regular basis today.

coke, white bread ,cookies, cakes, candy ect......

[AntiCarb]

Hi Pursuit (and everyone else),

First of all, apologies in advance for the length of this post. I got carried away! Feel free to skip or browse it

In response to your post, Pursuit, yes, it seems obvious that eating better is essential The question is... what does better mean?

Most of us (me included) were brought up believing that the balanced diet is healthiest. Essentially this boils down to: stay away from salt, fat, sugar... eat a lot of fiber, fruits + veggies... control calories, exercise more. It is difficult to overstate the power of the faith we have in these ideas. We (and our doctors) are as likely to question them as we are to question the idea that the earth revolves around the sun.

But when you look at the actual science conducted, unbelievably, almost all of these ideas completely fall apart (except for the stay away from sugar part). I cannot go into all the details here because a) I do not remember every study and b) it would take 500 pgs. But if you want a taste of what I am talking about, check out Taubes article called The (Political) Science of Salt. It is available for free at junkscience.com. Basically, the article is a New Yorker style piece that thoroughly shreds the studies that led us to believe that dietary salt causes high blood pressure.

In any event, getting back to the article Steve referred us to... the author (Krieger) seeks to test 4 predictions of the lipophilia hypothesis:

Prediction 1. An inverse relationship between carbohydrate intake and body fat loss during food restriction, independent of energy intake

Prediction 2. A positive association between insulin levels and body weight gain

Prediction 3. Fructose, a carbohydrate that generates very little change in blood sugar and very little insulin secretion, should result in less fat gain than glucose

Prediction 4. Fat overfeeding, without additional carbohydrate, should not result in weight gain since insulin secretion is not increased .
Krieger cites a bunch of studies he says show that these predictions are incorrect and that, therefore, the carbohydrate hypothesis must be incorrect. To do a deep analysis of all of his points would take a long time and no doubt bore everyone in the forum to death. I suggest, if you really think he has a point, read both Kriegers essay (and the studies he cites) and read Taubes Good Calories Bad Calories. Make up your own mind.

I will, however, take this time to beat up on one of Kriegers points:

He says (of prediction #2, that insulin and bodyweight gain associate)
...
This is another prediction that fails to hold true. The majority of prospective studies on this fail to show an association between baseline insulin levels and future weight gain in adult. This includes both fasting and postprandial insulin levels. There is some evidence that the relationship may be biphasic; in one study, there was a positive correlation between fasting insulin and weight gain during the first 3.7 years of weight gain, but then there was a negative correlation during the subsequent 3.3 years of weight gain. Regardless, it is clear that prediction 2 does not hold most of the time.
....

I have not read the studies that Krieger cites. But I have found evidence on my own that DOES support this proposition, and I have compiled it on my website. Since I am not yet allowed to link to my site (because I am new to the forum), I will simply reprint what I wrote below:

.......

Rapid weight gain results from overeating and under exercising; weight loss results from calorie deprivation and exercise. At least, so says the Caloric Balance Hypotehsis

The Lipophilia Hypothesis, on the other hand, says that the real problem is the over-secretion of insulin. Metabolic/hormonal factors mess up the regulation of our fat tissue, and this causes us to gain or lose weight. What happens with calories (e.g. our appetite and activity levels) result from these fundamental changes in the fat tissue.If rapid weight gain shows a correlation with insulin levels, it would suggest that Lipophilia is right.


So let's look at evidence. Does insulin really associate closely with rapid weight gain?


Here are four articles plucked randomly from cyberspace that confirm this. (And surely dozens if not hundreds more articles could also do the job.)


1. 'Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction -- a randomized trial.'[1]


Rather than getting into the details of this study, which aren't necessarily important to our purpose, let's focus on this quote from the results section:

"For each diet, decreasing levels of... insulin were significantly associated with the weight loss."

Hmm. This would seem to support the notion that insulin plays a key role in governing fat regulation.


2. 'Fasting hyperinsulinemia is a predictor of increased body weight and obesity in Pima Indian children.'[2]


Here's a quote from the abstract:

"Hyperinsulinemia is commonly associated with obesity... fasting hyperinsulinemia [excess insulin] may be a risk factor for the development of obesity in young children."

So again, this study reinforces the point that insulin associates with rapid weight gain.


3. 'Insulin, body mass index, and cardiovascular risk factors in premenopausal women.'[3]


Here's a quote from the abstract:

"This study assessed the relationship between insulin, glucose, body mass index and cardiovascular risk factors in a sample of 489 white premenopausal women... these data confirm the previous findings of a strong association between insulin and CHD risk factors."

A primary CHD (Cardiovascular Heart Disease) risk factor is obesity. So this study again tells us that insulin has a strong association with obesity.


4. 'Acute post challenge hyperinsulinemia predicts weight gain: a prospective study.'[4]
Here's a quote from the abstract:

"A high first phase insulin response to intravenous glucose is a risk factor for long term weight gain."

We also get this nice quote:

"Obesity is associated with... high fasting and postprandial serum insulin levels."

This idea that insulin levels and obesity associate certainly wouldn't surprise most researchers in public health. It's not really controversial. But WHY does this association exist? If obesity is all about calories -- if "overeating" and "lack of activity" make us fat -- then why on earth would this hormone insulin be so closely linked with weight gain? Furthermore, why do insulin levels predict risk for other 'CHD risk factors' like diabetes, arthrosclerosis, etc?


This neat and robust correlation between insulin and rapid weight gain is an elephant in the room.


Our health authorities tell us again and again and again and again that overeating and inactivity will make us fat. But the science tells us again and again and again and again that insulin -- a hormone, not gluttonous or slothful behavior -- governs how much fat we accumulate in our fat tissue. Insulin is lipogenic. It literally makes you fat!

[Obesity Discussion]

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Hi Pursuit (and everyone else),

First of all, apologies in advance for the length of this post. I got carried away! Feel free to skip or browse it

In response to your post, Pursuit, yes, it seems obvious that eating better is essential The question is... what does better mean?

Most of us (me included) were brought up believing that the balanced diet is healthiest. Essentially this boils down to: stay away from salt, fat, sugar... eat a lot of fiber, fruits + veggies... control calories, exercise more. It is difficult to overstate the power of the faith we have in these ideas. We (and our doctors) are as likely to question them as we are to question the idea that the earth revolves around the sun.

But when you look at the actual science conducted, unbelievably, almost all of these ideas completely fall apart (except for the stay away from sugar part). I cannot go into all the details here because a) I do not remember every study and b) it would take 500 pgs. But if you want a taste of what I am talking about, check out Taubes article called The (Political) Science of Salt. It is available for free at junkscience.com. Basically, the article is a New Yorker style piece that thoroughly shreds the studies that led us to believe that dietary salt causes high blood pressure.

In any event, getting back to the article Steve referred us to... the author (Krieger) seeks to test 4 predictions of the lipophilia hypothesis:

Prediction 1. An inverse relationship between carbohydrate intake and body fat loss during food restriction, independent of energy intake

Prediction 2. A positive association between insulin levels and body weight gain

Prediction 3. Fructose, a carbohydrate that generates very little change in blood sugar and very little insulin secretion, should result in less fat gain than glucose

Prediction 4. Fat overfeeding, without additional carbohydrate, should not result in weight gain since insulin secretion is not increased .
Krieger cites a bunch of studies he says show that these predictions are incorrect and that, therefore, the carbohydrate hypothesis must be incorrect. To do a deep analysis of all of his points would take a long time and no doubt bore everyone in the forum to death. I suggest, if you really think he has a point, read both Kriegers essay (and the studies he cites) and read Taubes Good Calories Bad Calories. Make up your own mind.

I will, however, take this time to beat up on one of Kriegers points:

He says (of prediction #2, that insulin and bodyweight gain associate)
...
This is another prediction that fails to hold true. The majority of prospective studies on this fail to show an association between baseline insulin levels and future weight gain in adult. This includes both fasting and postprandial insulin levels. There is some evidence that the relationship may be biphasic; in one study, there was a positive correlation between fasting insulin and weight gain during the first 3.7 years of weight gain, but then there was a negative correlation during the subsequent 3.3 years of weight gain. Regardless, it is clear that prediction 2 does not hold most of the time.
....

I have not read the studies that Krieger cites. But I have found evidence on my own that DOES support this proposition, and I have compiled it on my website. Since I am not yet allowed to link to my site (because I am new to the forum), I will simply reprint what I wrote below:

.......

Rapid weight gain results from overeating and under exercising; weight loss results from calorie deprivation and exercise. At least, so says the Caloric Balance Hypotehsis

The Lipophilia Hypothesis, on the other hand, says that the real problem is the over-secretion of insulin. Metabolic/hormonal factors mess up the regulation of our fat tissue, and this causes us to gain or lose weight. What happens with calories (e.g. our appetite and activity levels) result from these fundamental changes in the fat tissue.If rapid weight gain shows a correlation with insulin levels, it would suggest that Lipophilia is right.


So let's look at evidence. Does insulin really associate closely with rapid weight gain?


Here are four articles plucked randomly from cyberspace that confirm this. (And surely dozens if not hundreds more articles could also do the job.)


1. 'Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction -- a randomized trial.'[1]


Rather than getting into the details of this study, which aren't necessarily important to our purpose, let's focus on this quote from the results section:

"For each diet, decreasing levels of... insulin were significantly associated with the weight loss."

Hmm. This would seem to support the notion that insulin plays a key role in governing fat regulation.


2. 'Fasting hyperinsulinemia is a predictor of increased body weight and obesity in Pima Indian children.'[2]


Here's a quote from the abstract:

"Hyperinsulinemia is commonly associated with obesity... fasting hyperinsulinemia [excess insulin] may be a risk factor for the development of obesity in young children."

So again, this study reinforces the point that insulin associates with rapid weight gain.


3. 'Insulin, body mass index, and cardiovascular risk factors in premenopausal women.'[3]


Here's a quote from the abstract:

"This study assessed the relationship between insulin, glucose, body mass index and cardiovascular risk factors in a sample of 489 white premenopausal women... these data confirm the previous findings of a strong association between insulin and CHD risk factors."

A primary CHD (Cardiovascular Heart Disease) risk factor is obesity. So this study again tells us that insulin has a strong association with obesity.


4. 'Acute post challenge hyperinsulinemia predicts weight gain: a prospective study.'[4]
Here's a quote from the abstract:

"A high first phase insulin response to intravenous glucose is a risk factor for long term weight gain."

We also get this nice quote:

"Obesity is associated with... high fasting and postprandial serum insulin levels."

This idea that insulin levels and obesity associate certainly wouldn't surprise most researchers in public health. It's not really controversial. But WHY does this association exist? If obesity is all about calories -- if "overeating" and "lack of activity" make us fat -- then why on earth would this hormone insulin be so closely linked with weight gain? Furthermore, why do insulin levels predict risk for other 'CHD risk factors' like diabetes, arthrosclerosis, etc?


This neat and robust correlation between insulin and rapid weight gain is an elephant in the room.


Our health authorities tell us again and again and again and again that overeating and inactivity will make us fat. But the science tells us again and again and again and again that insulin -- a hormone, not gluttonous or slothful behavior -- governs how much fat we accumulate in our fat tissue. Insulin is lipogenic. It literally makes you fat!

You mention a lack of actual science when it comes to calorie deficits benefiting weight loss, but yet you didn't read any of the scientific studies that refute your claims didn't cite any science evidence when posting up your responses. Do you have any quality scientific studies to back up your claims?

The website you posted, junkscience is very biased, and I wouldn't put any stock in information posted on that website.

You do know the founder/owner of junkscience has financial and organizational ties to big oil companies and big tobacco companies? That website is basically a lobbyist website. I have a hard time taking seriously a website that claims 2nd hand cigarette smoke isn't as bad as people makes it out to be.

[Fluffymomma]

Too much to read, Anti. I lost my interest but I will say that I became fat because of lack of exercise, no portion control, I ate what I wanted and I like to drink beer. I joined WW to help w/the food part and cut the alcohol out an easy 85%. And I added exercise. Not much, but I am moving.

[AntiCarb]

Hi there,

Thanks for your response and for the challenges. You raise excellent points. Let me try to address them. Again, I apologize for the lengths of these posts, but I believe you and the other people in this forum deserve lots of proof from someone like me who wants to make these controversial claims...

Re: junkscience - I had no idea that they were a lobbyist website! Yikes. I do know that Taubes is not taking $ from interest groups - he is in it for the debate - and he did not write that piece for junkscience. He wrote it for Science magazine (1998), a reputable publication. I linked to junkscience b/c they posted the full article.

Re: challenging Kriegers studies... I am not claiming to have refuted his points. But my suspicion (of course) is that his arguments are dubious. Consider this study, which he throws out to support the idea that insulin and weight gain do not coincide: The Entero-Insular Axis and Adipose Tissue Related Factors in the Prediction of Weight Gain in Humans. This is Kriegers main evidence to attack the idea that insulin and weight gain coincide. First of all, all you can see from the link is the abstract, which only tells us that:

[This] review focuses on relationship between hormonal and biochemical markers (insulin, insulin-like growth factors, gastrointestinal hormones, leptin, adiponectin, resistin, inflammatory proteins and cytokines) and weight gain in prospective studies. The complex relationships displayed by these hormonal factors with future weight gain in humans are critically reviewed and integrative models are proposed.

Who knows what this study found, why it found what it found, who conducted it, how they conducted it, and so forth. It is the ONLY evidence Krieger uses to try to falsify the proposition that, in his words A positive association between baseline insulin levels and future body weight gain.

Conversely, Taubes (and I to a much more minor extent) has cited literally hundreds of studies to support his arguments and challenge the standard line that Calories Count.

Since you want actually scientific evidence (and who could blame you!), let me cite a few well-known studies that (I believe) seriously challenge the notion that calories count. I will use studies to suggest 4 ideas:

1) overeating calories does NOT lead to weight gain.
2) lack of exercise does NOT lead to weight gain.
3) exercising more does NOT lead to weight loss.
4) eat fewer calories does NOT lead to weight loss.

1) A famous U of Vermont overfeeding study conducted in the 1960s strongly suggests that overeating calories does NOT lead to weight gain. Consider this quote from my website (hopefully I can soon start linking instead of quoting directly and taking up space!):

...In chapter 16 (pages 272 to 291), Taubes describes a study conducted at the University of Vermont in the 1960s, in which state prisoners were put on a regimen of 'forced gluttony.' At first, they ate 4,000 calories a day, then 5,000, and finally 10,000. Some subjects fattened more than others. But when the experiment ended, "all the subjects 'lost weight readily... and with the same alacrity... as that with which obese patients typically return to their usual weights after semi starvation diets."[6]

Taubes also lists several other studies that demonstrate the same idea; namely, that when you force fatty foods and excess calories into peoples' stomachs (and into animals' stomachs), you may be able to artificially cause some weight gain at first. But inevitably metabolism will compensate. And usually, when the forced gluttony ends, subjects return to their previous weights.

2. Re: whether inactivity CAUSES weight gain. Again, there is evidence that it does NOT. from my site again...

"Contribution of a sedentary lifestyle and inactivity to the etiology of overweight and obesity: Current evidence and research issues."


This is from a roundtable consensus statement published in November 1999, in which scientists assessed data from a variety of "ecological, cross sectional, and prospective studies that have assessed physical activity and dietary intake and the relationship to body weight."


The researchers don't exactly offer a glowing endorsement of the idea that burning calories via exercise prevents weight gain or that inactivity causes it. Consider this nugget:

"There is some evidence that a high proportion of dietary fat and low levels of physical activity may increase the likelihood of weight gain. However, even the most comprehensive studies are unable to account for more than a small proportion of the... variance in weight gain, so it is difficult to easily assess their relative importance."[1]

In the conclusion, the authors reiterate that inactivity is associated with obesity but the data are too weak to say what's causing what.


That passage may sound a little dry. But think about what it's saying! We've had a hypothesis for over 50 years that being inactive -- sitting on the couch -- will make you fat and that, conversely, going to the gym every day and burning calories is going to make you thin. But these authors tell us that, when you look at the actual data, we cannot find proof that physical inactivity causes obesity.

3. regarding exercise and weight loss: here is another excerpt from my site...

what can the evidence about obesity and exercise tell us?

1. Here is a great article on the subject: 'Why exercise won't make you thin' from Time Magazine.[1]

"'In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,' says Eric Ravussin, Chair in Diabetes and Metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn't as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser -- or for that matter, from magazines like this one. The basic problem is that while it is true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder." (bold added)

4. And re: calorie restriction leading to weight loss. one last excerpt from my site...

studies demonstrate time and again that low calorie diets and very low calorie diets fail to lead to weight loss -- and indeed can actually lead to weight gain in subjects who are desperate to lose weight. check out Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories, chapter 15, pages 252 to 257.[5] You will get to read about:

• Ancel Keys' starvation experiments on conscientious objectors.
• Experiments done by researchers like Frank Evans, George Bray, Jules Hirsch, and Albert Stunkard, which all demonstrate convincingly that calorie restriction doesn't make you thinner; it just makes you hungry.

[AntiCarb]

Extra note to Fluffy (if you are still reading!),

I am not a doctor or nutritionist, but I would urge you to please take the time to read about this alternative hypothesis. If it is true, then eating less/exercising more would NOT be the answer; the answer would be fixing problems at the level of the fat tissue.

[notobeseanymore]

In my case, eating excess calories led to weight gain. Reducing my caloric intake without greatly changing the macronutrient balance led to weight loss. My experience blows these theories out of the water, or at least would be what people might call "the exception to the rule" if they're not ready to let go of these hypotheses yet.

[Obesity Discussion]

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Re: junkscience - I had no idea that they were a lobbyist website! Yikes. I do know that Taubes is not taking $ from interest groups - he is in it for the debate - and he did not write that piece for junkscience. He wrote it for Science magazine (1998), a reputable publication. I linked to junkscience b/c they posted the full article.

Yes, stay away from Junkscience!

Just curious, how do you really know that Taubes doesn't take money from interest groups? I'm not saying that he does, but you have no way of proving he truly does not.

There are a lot of anti-Taubes people out there no doubt. I did see a an article about him a while back that gave him flack for being overweight himself and not practicing what he preached. He looks slim in some pictures, and others not so much. Maybe he has Oprah yo-yo syndrome.

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Re: challenging Kriegers studies... I am not claiming to have refuted his points. But my suspicion (of course) is that his arguments are dubious. Consider this study, which he throws out to support the idea that insulin and weight gain do not coincide: The Entero-Insular Axis and Adipose Tissue Related Factors in the Prediction of Weight Gain in Humans. This is Kriegers main evidence to attack the idea that insulin and weight gain coincide. First of all, all you can see from the link is the abstract, which only tells us that:

[This] review focuses on relationship between hormonal and biochemical markers (insulin, insulin-like growth factors, gastrointestinal hormones, leptin, adiponectin, resistin, inflammatory proteins and cytokines) and weight gain in prospective studies. The complex relationships displayed by these hormonal factors with future weight gain in humans are critically reviewed and integrative models are proposed.

Who knows what this study found, why it found what it found, who conducted it, how they conducted it, and so forth. It is the ONLY evidence Krieger uses to try to falsify the proposition that, in his words A positive association between baseline insulin levels and future body weight gain.

Well, to answer your question, the study was conducted by the Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, Faculté de Médecine et des Sciences de la Santé, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. The study was done by Dr. Andre Carpenter among others

Dr. Carpentier is an endocrinologist and Assistant Professor in the Division of Endocrinology of the Department of medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke since July 2001. After his training in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Université de Sherbrooke, Dr Carpentier completed his training in lipidology at the Sherbrooke Clinical research Centre, at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal and the Lipid Research Centre of the Université Laval. Dr. Carpentier was the recipient of a Fellowship of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International (NY, 1997 to 1999) and of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Medical Research Council of Canada (1999 to 2001) to complete a four year training in research on lipid metabolism and the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes at University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr Gary F. Lewis. A pure product of the canadian medical education system, Dr Carpentier is a New Investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research since his return to the Université de Sherbrooke in July 2001.
The focus of Dr Carpentier’s work is the investigation of the abnormalities of post-prandial free fatty acids metabolism very early in the natural history of Type 2 diabetes. Dr Carpentier is currently testing the hypothesis that free fatty acids storage in the adipose tissue during the post-prandial period is impaired in healthy subjects at a very high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Such anomaly, if present, could contribute to the development of insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion, the two essential pathophysiologic features of type 2 diabetes. Dr Carpentier uses sophisticated integrated physiology methods to study in vivo lipid metabolism both in humans and in animal models. He actively collaborates with many members of the Metabolic Imaging Centre of the Université de Sherbrooke and of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry of the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke to develop innovative in vivo non-invasive investigation techniques using positron emission tomography and stable isotopic methods to further our understanding of energy substrate metabolism during the postprandial period in humans. Dr Carpentier’s work is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Diabetes Association (grant in honor of the late Marion L. Munro) and by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (New Opportunities Grant).
.

Dr. Carpentier

Before you question a study and cast doubt on it, you should spend some time reading it.

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Conversely, Taubes (and I to a much more minor extent) has cited literally hundreds of studies to support his arguments and challenge the standard line that Calories Count.

Since you want actually scientific evidence (and who could blame you!), let me cite a few well-known studies that (I believe) seriously challenge the notion that calories count. I will use studies to suggest 4 ideas:

1) overeating calories does NOT lead to weight gain.
2) lack of exercise does NOT lead to weight gain.
3) exercising more does NOT lead to weight loss.
4) eat fewer calories does NOT lead to weight loss.

1) A famous U of Vermont overfeeding study conducted in the 1960s strongly suggests that overeating calories does NOT lead to weight gain. Consider this quote from my website (hopefully I can soon start linking instead of quoting directly and taking up space!):

...In chapter 16 (pages 272 to 291), Taubes describes a study conducted at the University of Vermont in the 1960s, in which state prisoners were put on a regimen of 'forced gluttony.' At first, they ate 4,000 calories a day, then 5,000, and finally 10,000. Some subjects fattened more than others. But when the experiment ended, "all the subjects 'lost weight readily... and with the same alacrity... as that with which obese patients typically return to their usual weights after semi starvation diets."[6]

Well, the prisoners had starting weights between 135 and 185 lbs, of all different shapes/sizes/metabolic rates. It would make sense that some subjects fattened more than others.

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Taubes also lists several other studies that demonstrate the same idea; namely, that when you force fatty foods and excess calories into peoples' stomachs (and into animals' stomachs), you may be able to artificially cause some weight gain at first. But inevitably metabolism will compensate. And usually, when the forced gluttony ends, subjects return to their previous weights.

Of course the body will try to compensate when you make drastic changes to it, this should not be a surprise. What do you mean weight gain at first is artificial? As in it's not real? Fake?

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

2. Re: whether inactivity CAUSES weight gain. Again, there is evidence that it does NOT. from my site again...

"Contribution of a sedentary lifestyle and inactivity to the etiology of overweight and obesity: Current evidence and research issues."


This is from a roundtable consensus statement published in November 1999, in which scientists assessed data from a variety of "ecological, cross sectional, and prospective studies that have assessed physical activity and dietary intake and the relationship to body weight."


The researchers don't exactly offer a glowing endorsement of the idea that burning calories via exercise prevents weight gain or that inactivity causes it. Consider this nugget:

"There is some evidence that a high proportion of dietary fat and low levels of physical activity may increase the likelihood of weight gain. However, even the most comprehensive studies are unable to account for more than a small proportion of the... variance in weight gain, so it is difficult to easily assess their relative importance."[1]

In the conclusion, the authors reiterate that inactivity is associated with obesity but the data are too weak to say what's causing what.


That passage may sound a little dry. But think about what it's saying! We've had a hypothesis for over 50 years that being inactive -- sitting on the couch -- will make you fat and that, conversely, going to the gym every day and burning calories is going to make you thin. But these authors tell us that, when you look at the actual data, we cannot find proof that physical inactivity causes obesity.

Exercise does burn calories, and does increase metabolisms, however if you eat too much food and exercise, sure you're still going to gain weight. To say inactivity alone causes weight gain is naive, however there is definitely a consensus that lack of exercise contributes to the increase in obesity...think about it, less exercise = increased calorie surplus or a lower calorie deficit. This point does not seem very relevant with that in mind. The amount of people who rely on exercise alone for weight loss is so minimal.

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

3. regarding exercise and weight loss: here is another excerpt from my site...

what can the evidence about obesity and exercise tell us?

1. Here is a great article on the subject: 'Why exercise won't make you thin' from Time Magazine.[1]

"'In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,' says Eric Ravussin, Chair in Diabetes and Metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn't as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser -- or for that matter, from magazines like this one. The basic problem is that while it is true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder." (bold added)

That article was a joke. I had some comments on it when it first came out:

So this person complains that they exercise consistently and they don't lose weight, therefore exercise is ineffective in losing weight.

Well duh, you're eating too many calories. How is this so hard to figure out.

It doesn't help that they haven't found something they enjoy doing for cardio, which makes the process even worse.

Some other astonishing conclusions....

gee, I exercised, therefore I ate more food. Well duh! You're going to have more of an appetite because you worked out.

How can you make the placebo people fill out what they eat for a weight loss study on a card every day and they see all that they're eating, of course they'll be more apt to cut back. That's part of the beauty of counting calories. This is a flawed study and of course they advertise it.

They also mentioned the people in the study didn't lose SIGNIFICANTLY more weight than the placebo weight who did lose weight themselves....what's significant by the authors book? What are the numbers?

This author makes it out like sitting around all day but getting an hour to 90 minutes of exercise is worse than just being slightly active throughout the day in general. B.S. You're not getting your heart rate up by just being active all day.

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

4. And re: calorie restriction leading to weight loss. one last excerpt from my site...

studies demonstrate time and again that low calorie diets and very low calorie diets fail to lead to weight loss -- and indeed can actually lead to weight gain in subjects who are desperate to lose weight. check out Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories, chapter 15, pages 252 to 257.[5] You will get to read about:

• Ancel Keys' starvation experiments on conscientious objectors.
• Experiments done by researchers like Frank Evans, George Bray, Jules Hirsch, and Albert Stunkard, which all demonstrate convincingly that calorie restriction doesn't make you thinner; it just makes you hungry.

Well of course starvation can lead to weight gain when your body goes into starvation mode. If you aren't familiar with starvation mode then you should look it up. To use starvation mode as a reason for why calorie reductions to lose weight don't work is just plain silly. No medical professional is telling people to starve themselves on purpose to lose weight.


I do appreciate your enthusiastic posting on this issue, but I still have yet to see you post a link or study to a credible scientific study, just references to them. Instead of mentioning experiments and studies, can you post links to the studies (without making dozens of references back to your website).

[AntiCarb]

Originally Posted by notobeseanymore

In my case, eating excess calories led to weight gain. Reducing my caloric intake without greatly changing the macronutrient balance led to weight loss. My experience blows these theories out of the water, or at least would be what people might call "the exception to the rule" if they're not ready to let go of these hypotheses yet.

Hi there,

You make a compelling case. I might suggest, however, two things:

1) An anomalous data point does not a theory destroy (although it IS up to defends of that theory - like me -to somehow explain your evidence in the framework of the hypothesis)

2) Anyone who reduces calorie intake will likely change several things about diet/lifestyle simultaneously. Maybe the calorie restriction did the trick, like you said. Or maybe, in restricting calories, you ALSO restricted carbs and sugar. After all, most of the extra cals we eat (and that we cut out when on diets) are carbs and sugar: e.g. soft drinks, candy, desserts, pasta, etc.

In other words, lets say you eat in a ratio, say, of 60%carbs/20%protein/20%fat - before and during your diet. If you cut calories, then 60% of the calories you cut will be from carbs. So if you were eating 3000 cals/day before, and now you are eating 2000 cals/day, that means you have cut 600 cals worth of carbs from your diet - even w/o changing ratios of macornutrients.

According to the lipophilia hypothesis (which I believe), it would totally make sense, then, that someone who cut 600 cals of carbs a day would see a benefit.

[notobeseanymore]

Originally Posted by AntiCarb

Hi there,

You make a compelling case. I might suggest, however, two things:

1) An anomalous data point does not a theory destroy (although it IS up to defends of that theory - like me -to somehow explain your evidence in the framework of the hypothesis)

2) Anyone who reduces calorie intake will likely change several things about diet/lifestyle simultaneously. Maybe the calorie restriction did the trick, like you said. Or maybe, in restricting calories, you ALSO restricted carbs and sugar. After all, most of the extra cals we eat (and that we cut out when on diets) are carbs and sugar: e.g. soft drinks, candy, desserts, pasta, etc.

In other words, lets say you eat in a ratio, say, of 60%carbs/20%protein/20%fat - before and during your diet. If you cut calories, then 60% of the calories you cut will be from carbs. So if you were eating 3000 cals/day before, and now you are eating 2000 cals/day, that means you have cut 600 cals worth of carbs from your diet - even w/o changing ratios of macornutrients.

According to the lipophilia hypothesis (which I believe), it would totally make sense, then, that someone who cut 600 cals of carbs a day would see a benefit.

Personally I don't buy into the "carbs are evil" philosophy. I also did not eat a whole lot of "bad" carbs before I started to lose weight. I continue to ignore the carbohydrate content of pretty much everything I eat. I look at sodium, fiber, and overall calories instead. This isn't just ME that this works for, either. I didn't come up with this system all by myself. I read up on other peoples' experiences and chose what appeared to work for people who had both A.) lost as much (or more than) as I needed to lose and B.) had successfully kept it off (so far).

There is a lot of B.S. floating around there about weight loss. Personally I am not arrogant enough to tell anyone that what they're trying is total crap and that my way is the best or only way to do it, but I also am not going to stand by and have someone tell me that calories don't matter when my experience...and that of many many others...have shown that that is at worst patently false and at best an oversimplification.

Personally I don't see how someone is going to go wrong with portion control and a sensible diet consisting mainly of lean meats, legumes, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit with a small amount of fat...because you DO actually need some fat in a healthy diet.

You can pound my experience with "maybes" all you like to try to make it fit into your hypothesis but at the end of the day, I lost almost half my body weight by not eliminating or even greatly reducing the carbs in my diet.

[AntiCarb]

Hello, this is a response to the Admin, who raises (again) some very good points. I appreciate the back and forth. By the way, I apologize for all the referencing to my site... I thought, since I had already written about these issues, that it would be helpful. it was not meant to be advertorial.

yes, you need and deserve LOTS of proof to even begin to think about accepting any of these claims. I would like to address each of your points. Until this forum allows me to link to studies directly (once I reach 10 posts), however, I would ask if we could put a pin in this topic, so I dont get carpal tunnel from typing so much!

I will say that the ultimate debate here (about whether calories count) stems from the First Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that:

Energy Stored in the Body = Calories In - Calories Out

We all are taught that Calories In and Calories Out are what matters in the equation. ( You can see the USDA and NIH websites, which say as much) We assume this EQ is telling us:

Energy Stored in the Body <= Calories In - Calories Out

In other words, Calorie Changes control Changes in Energy Stored.

So when you Overeat (raise Cals In) and Fail To Exercise (lower Cals Out), the right side of the EQ gets bigger; hence you get fat. When you Eat Less (lower Cals In) and Exercise More (raise Cals Out), the right side of the EQ gets smaller; hence you get thinner. All diets are based on this idea. This equation is why we all think that Calories Count.

But there is another way of looking at the EQ. Change in energy balance must EQUAL change in calorie balance, but there is no arrow of casuality. The EQ could ∆ust as easily tell us THIS:

Energy Stored in the Body => Calories In - Calories Out

In other words, changes in the energy stores (i.e. the fat tissue) CAUSE changes in calorie balance. in this view, overeating/inactivity are consequences of a primary defect in energy storage. Yes, the obese will still ultimately Eat More and/or Exericse Less. But in this view, this change in calorie balance is a downstream effect.

The defect is caused by excess insulin/blood sugar, which screws up the fat tissue, causing us to store more triglycerides as fat than we would normally. This out of control fat tissue - much like a tumor - then (per Bauers terminology) lives for itself and drives us to eat more / exercise less. To fix the weight problem, we must FIRST fix the problem of excess triglycerides in the fat tissue; only then can we lose weight.

[AntiCarb]

Originally Posted by notobeseanymore

Personally I don't buy into the "carbs are evil" philosophy. I also did not eat a whole lot of "bad" carbs before I started to lose weight. I continue to ignore the carbohydrate content of pretty much everything I eat. I look at sodium, fiber, and overall calories instead. This isn't just ME that this works for, either. I didn't come up with this system all by myself. I read up on other peoples' experiences and chose what appeared to work for people who had both A.) lost as much (or more than) as I needed to lose and B.) had successfully kept it off (so far).

There is a lot of B.S. floating around there about weight loss. Personally I am not arrogant enough to tell anyone that what they're trying is total crap and that my way is the best or only way to do it, but I also am not going to stand by and have someone tell me that calories don't matter when my experience...and that of many many others...have shown that that is at worst patently false and at best an oversimplification.

Personally I don't see how someone is going to go wrong with portion control and a sensible diet consisting mainly of lean meats, legumes, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit with a small amount of fat...because you DO actually need some fat in a healthy diet.

You can pound my experience with "maybes" all you like to try to make it fit into your hypothesis but at the end of the day, I lost almost half my body weight by not eliminating or even greatly reducing the carbs in my diet.

Hi there,

First of all, I am in no way trying to diminsh what you have accomplished (which is awesome) or try to tell others what to do. I am not a doctor or nutritionist or any kind of authority. I have ∆ust read some really interesting ideas that no one seems to be paying attention to, and they seem like good valid important ideas.

You are also right to be skeptical of ANYONE who writes about the cause of weight loss (including/especially me). Lot of B.S. floating around does not even BEGIN to describe it.

Nevertheless, I would argue that the Law of Thermodynamics (as it pertains to whether calories count or not) CAN INDEED be looked at two ways and not ∆ust one. And I believe that the other way of looking at the Energy Balance Equation does a much better ∆ob of explaining the evidence we see in the real world. And that this other way implicates carbs, not calories, in obesity.