Do low fat diets make people fat?

[Pommie]

According to the NY Times, maybe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/...been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

A bit of a long read but very thought provoking.

What do you guys think?

Mike.

 

[Mr RB]

I didn't read the article Pommie but I doubt it. In years of bodybuilding I saw people (and did myself) use diets of low fat and low sugar to very effectively strip all the fat off their bodies. Of course some exercise helps!

People get fat because they eat more calories then they burn off. It's a bit like some of the over-unity energy arguments. The reality is pretty basic, it comes down to energy in (food calories) vs energy out (exercise) and there's no shaking the laws of physics.

 

[tcmtech]

I have been asked many times in my life what gym I go to to stay fit despite eating what I and as much as I do.

I tell them its just how I work. I have offered a number of people opportunities to come and help me do what I do and even pay them so that they could get exercise.

So far no one has ever shown up but everyone has given the reasons of, "I cant do that. Thats too much work."

If you want to know the secret to eating 4000 - 5000 calories a day of junk food it simple. Get off your fat ass and do some physical labor for more than 20 minutes a month.

 

[jpanhalt]

In answer to Pommie's specific question, no, low-fat diets do not make people fat. People become fat because they eat too much for the amount of energy they burn. The mix of foods they eat may affect things like the perception of hunger and nutritional well being, but that was not the question.

As you know, it is almost impossible to publish a negative result, until the positive has been accepted. In other words, you cannot publish a study showing that eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away, until someone else (usually several others) publish that eating an apple a day causes more frequent doctor visits. Such publication bias inevitably leads to "today's new medical discovery" and subsequent skepticism of all medical reports. I ,for one, am particularly skeptical of new medical discoveries reported in the newspapers.

The NY Times reports an interesting observation about cholesterol:

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ''That is very disconcerting,'' Willett says. ''It suggests that something else bad is happening.''

The "Framingham Study" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham_Heart_Study) is considered by many to be the seminal study on the effects of serum cholesterol on cardiovascular disease. What people don't pay much attention to is that of the two groups studied -- those who did not practice interventions to reduce their total serum cholesterol and those who did -- the death rates from all causes were not statistically different .* The study was initially set up as a two-tailed study (i.e, does cholesterol improve health or lead to earlier death), because such analysis is inherently more robust. The fact that no difference in death rates was observed was shocking to the original investigators, and they changed their analysis to focus only on cardiovascular death rates in order to prove their hypothesis. Such changes to a study after it is completed is a very slippery slope. Nobel Laureate Michael S. Brown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stuart_Brown) was one of the early critics of that change in analysis because it biased the results. Fortunately, his work on the actual metabolism of cholesterol led to quite useful discoveries, so now we recognize both "good" and "bad" cholesterol. Nevertheless, the public and politics are slow to change and we still have people preaching about the evils of "cholesterol." Somewhat ironically, there are proponents today of increasing "good" cholesterol by eating coconut oil to ward off the effects of Alzheimer's.

In sum, I remain skeptical of any report of a startling result, until I have seen the study design and the actual data. Even that may not be enough, as one never knows how much the published report has been distorted from what really was done to ensure continued funding for the investigators.

John

Edit: Just for clarification, that result was due to the fact that the death rate in the intervention group from other causes was higher. Tongue in cheek, if you get hit by a car while riding a bicycle 5 miles a day to reduce your cholesterol, your are still dead. Not so tongue in cheek, the people in the intervention group had a higher rate of suicide. Maybe cholesterol is an anti-depressant?

 

[ronsimpson]

My wife gets those 'lean meals' that help you loose.
I eat two of those for lunch and in two hours I am very hungry. I think they put something in those meals to make you hungry so you will eat more and need to buy more low cal food.

 

[strantor]

I didn't read the article, but I bet there's a psychological factor, wherein the dieter thinks "it's ok, I don't need to exercise as hard, because I'm not eating as much fat" and then proceeds to grossly misestimate how little calories they burn compared to what they eat. That, and probably they run from fat, into the open arms of carbs, which is almost as bad.

 

[Pommie]

For all those who didn't read the article, the main point is, to feel satiated (full) on a low fat diet requires you to eat more calories than you would on a medium of high fat diet. So, no, a low fat diet dosn't make you fat but you'll probably get fat if you eat one.

BTW, I don't disagree with any of the posts above, none of them disagree with the article.

Mike.

 

[jpanhalt]

I plead guilty. I did not read the whole article, nor am I going to do that. I did search on "hormone," "leptin," and "ghrelin." "Hormone" was mentioned only once, leptin and ghrelin not at all. One or both of them may be involved in the phenomenon.

Ghrelin has been dubbed the "hunger hormone." Leptin is the "satiation hormone." Here is the Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin One thought I had while daydreaming several years ago was whether anorexia might be an autoimmune disease. It has a strong female predominance, as do many such diseases. If the young women made antibodies to grehlin, to the cells that produce it, or to its receptors -- by analogy to diabetes -- it might explain some of their revulsion to food. Alternatively, an over production of leptin or an antibody that activates the leptin receptor could cause abnormal satiation.

Maybe someone looking for an FYP will develop an electronic sensor for one or both of those hormones.

John

 

[ronsimpson]

At my house there is a theme:
"I was such a good person I only ate X amount of calories so I will treat my self"
There goes a big bole of ice cream with nuts and hot fudge 30 minutes before bed time.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I'm not overweight, but I could stand to loose some. BMI is 25.4 or a tad overweight >=25 Stomach weight. It's tough having asthma and insulin dependent diabetes.

I don't like breakfast foods. I generally dont eat desserts with a meal. I have to stay away from foods with a high gycemic index. I generally don;t snack unless I get a craving for salt. I do stress eat. I like to eat when I'm hungry. I have a tendency to overeat at meals. I have a Pepsi bad habit. When it rains, my appetite plummets. Appitite is higher when it's cold. I don't get enough exercise.

I can take a diabetes drug that will cause me to loose weight because the drug slows gastric emptying and creates the illusion of fullness. Foods with grease or oil are not compatible with the injectable. I could easily throw-up. Recently, I haven't been disciplined enough to go back on it.

 

[Mr RB]

Sorry to hear about your condition K.I.S.S, that does sound "tough".

In response to Pommie's last post and that article I still call BS on it. I've done years of strict dieting with low-calorie foods and its actually HARD to get enough calories. Things like plain (no fat) rice and pasta, salads, no fat no sugar breakfast cereals etc you have to eat a ton of the stuff all day long to get enough calories. There's a reason bodybuilders have those big jaw muscles and its from chewing acres of low fat foods all day long trying to get enough calories.

Of course once you put some fats and sugars in your rice or cereal you suddenly get 2 to 3 times the calories from every mouthful, and now it's easy to get lots of calories and get fatter.

One thing about low calorie diets is that the body senses it's fell on tough times and hormonally reduces energy expenditure and increases fat storage which makes you feel lethargic and you end up sitting around a lot more. Bodybuilders get around this when they dieting to reduce fat by cycling their caories over 3 days; medium-low-very low calories each day. This fools the body and keeps energy levels and fat burning higher as if they had 3 or more days on very low calories they turn into slugs.

If you want to know about reducing bodyfat forget scientists and nutritionalists, they are way behind in the game. The absolute leading experts in the world on reducing human bodyfat levels are bodybuilders it's an important a part of the sport as the mucle building part!

Here's what you would look like with no fat (and your skin is like the rubber of a balloon);

**broken link removed**

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Forget scientists if you want to learn about reducing bodyfat. They don't know crap.

 

[tcmtech]

Forget scientists if you want to learn about reducing bodyfat. They don't know crap.

But at least they are not so muscle bound they cant reach their backsides to wipe after they take one!

 

[strantor]

Not to detract, I am slightly jealous, but I think of those guys like mack trucks with a juice box for a fuel tank. How long do you think they would last if they ran out of food? could they pass out & die if locked in an elevator for too long?

 

[tcmtech]

Not to detract, I am slightly jealous, but I think of those guys like mack trucks with a juice box for a fuel tank. How long do you think they would last if they ran out of food? could they pass out & die if locked in an elevator for too long?

Yep thats sort of how they go.

I remember back in my school days a few buddys were in to weight lifting and body building big time. Sure the could bench press a small car 1 - 2 times but man take em out hauling hay and my 120# mother could out work them!

I thought of them as being more like dragsters. Big burst of power for a few seconds while showing off but a little girl on a bike could out distance them in a few minutes!

 

[Mr RB]

They don't stay in that condition long as it's counter productive to building muscle. They do that for competition, it's a display thing not a functional thing.

But even for when they have very low bodyfat the bulk of short term energy comes from blood glucose (what you just ate) and short-medium term energy comes from stored muscle glycogen which they have a lot of. Fat storage is used for long term low grade energy, it's more used to fuel things like walking for hours or healing while resting and sleeping.

My apologies to Pommie for taking the thread off topic but it seems every couple of years some scientist or nutrition guy puts out some new theory on fat loss (like he's got the secret) but nobody ever asks the real experts in the field... Probably because they look scary.

 

[Sceadwian]

For all those who didn't read the article, the main point is, to feel satiated (full) on a low fat diet requires you to eat more calories than you would on a medium of high fat diet. So, no, a low fat diet dosn't make you fat but you'll probably get fat if you eat one.

That conclusion is absolutely incorrect. The fact that people gained weight on a low fat diet doesn't mean low fat diets cause people to be fat. That's the absolute worst kind of correlation. Improper correlation of results with cause is the worst kind of junk science possible, and it's in the media all over the place.

It does make sense that the sense of not feeling full causes some people to eat more, however what is causing them to gain weight is NOT the low fat diet, it is their lack of will power and failure to exercise sufficiently to burn off the additional calories.

You know why people get fat? Because they're too busy thinking about food rather than doing something that is burning the calories to get rid of the excess energy they're using.
I probably burn half my caloric intake through my fingers online in a given day =)

 

[Pommie]

Interestingly, Sweden seems to agree. Well, with the general Fat is good, Carbs are bad thought process.

https://healthimpactnews.com/2013/s...ogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/

Mike.

 

[Brian Griffin]

A little fat in the diet is OK, actually. Our body needs that anyway. I may not be expert in human anatomy and biology, but I have been exposed about those for a few years during my undergraduate studies.

 

[jpanhalt]

1) There is no such thing as an "independent" Swedish Council...

The switch in dietary advice followed the publication of a two-year study by the independent Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment. The committee reviewed 16,000 studies published through May 31, 2013.

Nothing is independent. All such organizations depend on funding, and as we all know from global warming, if you don't play along, you don't get funds. That is not meant to be a criticism of Swedish science. It is universal. For example, it is well know that the Framingham Heart Study was biased from its beginning.

2) It is almost impossible to publish negative results. Maybe the Swedes needed something to spark more interest and funding?

3) The study advocates saturated fats over unsaturated ones. That should be an interesting debate.

4) It's a meta-analysis of 16,000 papers published before May, 2013. I would love to see how carefully those 16,000 experimental designs were assessed and melded. Meta-anaylis is not completely worthless, but it shares more than its first four letters with metaphysics.

John

 

[Pommie]

Nothing is independent. All such organizations depend on funding, and as we all know from global warming, if you don't play along, you don't get funds. That is not meant to be a criticism of Swedish science. It is universal. For example, it is well know that the Framingham Heart Study was biased from its beginning.
John

However, they are not "playing along", quite the opposite, they are questioning a world held belief!

Mike.