335 replies to this topic

[DukeNukem]

Just saw this today on Science Daily.

Low-carbohydrate Diet Burns More Excess Liver Fat Than Low-calorie Diet, Clinical Study Finds
The average weight loss for the low-calorie dieters was about 5 pounds after two weeks, while the low-carbohydrate dieters lost about 9½ pounds on average.

The different diets produced other differences in glucose metabolism. For example, people on a low-calorie diet got about 40 percent of their glucose from glycogen, which comes from ingested carbohydrates and is stored in the liver until the body needs it.

The low-carbohydrate dieters, however, got only 20 percent of their glucose from glycogen. Instead of dipping into their reserve of glycogen, these subjects burned liver fat for energy.
http://www.scienceda...90120074631.htm

Note that in the study above, the low-carb, high-fat diet had double the fat loss, even though it was NOT calorie restricted -- people could eat as much as they want, and they still lost more fat than the low-fat, cal-restricted group. No surprise here at all to anyone who's ready Good Calories, Bad Calories.

IMO, if we're going to find the General Theory of Dietary Nutrition (a joke, but you hopefully get my meaning), it will not be a diet pulled out of someone's ass like The Zone or Ornish diet, it will be a diet that has logic behind it. This is why I like the paleo diet -- there's a very good, logical reason why this is the diet that might be The One. And that single reason, that no other diet has working for it, is: evolution.

Now then, that doesn't mean that evolution got everything perfect, but it's a damn good starting point. Any diet that doesn't base itself off of evolution needs to find its own Holy Grail of consistent logic that it can point to as The Reason We Should Care.

The next step for a diet, after basing itself on a highly logical starting point, is to then have supporting science to show it's healthy and sustainable. The paleo diet seems to be in the lead here, too. In fact, the paleo dietary life style, which includes periodic fasting, is also healthy for us -- almost certainly because it happened so often when food was short, that genetically we expect to fast, and benefit from it.

As an aside, humanoids evolved eating meat. And most likely our pre-humanoid ancestors benefited from the energy abundance of meat, too:

Edited by DukeNukem, 20 January 2009 - 09:36 PM.

[Shepard]

I actually thought this was pretty impressive and posted the abstract earlier in the keto thread, but reading the full text it's not quite as shiny as it looked. The low-carb dieters were still consuming significantly fewer Calories per day than the low-Calorie group.

[DukeNukem]

I actually thought this was pretty impressive and posted the abstract earlier in the keto thread, but reading the full text it's not quite as shiny as it looked. The low-carb dieters were still consuming significantly fewer Calories per day than the low-Calorie group.

By design, or just because they weren't hungry? I couldn't find the actual abstract on Pubmed.

[Shepard]

By design, or just because they weren't hungry? I couldn't find the actual abstract on Pubmed.

The low-carb group was advised on how to eat (<20g carbs/day) and to keep a food diary for one week. The second week they had frozen foods prepared for them based on their tracked intake. The researchers apparently didn't take into account the satiating effect of low-carb diets. Total intake ended up being just shy of ~500 Calories per day less than the low-Cal group.

They do reference an older study that showed similar changes in substrate oxidation with better control for intake.

BTW, here is the abstract that the article mentions.

Edited by shepard, 20 January 2009 - 11:05 PM.

[DukeNukem]

Total intake ended up being just shy of ~500 Calories per day less than the low-Cal group.

Wow. So the low-carb group ate fewer cals, yet were apparently satiated.

Someone should start another thread titled: Carbs = hunger. ;-)

[Shepard]

Wow. So the low-carb group ate fewer cals, yet were apparently satiated.

Someone should start another thread titled: Carbs = hunger. ;-)

This is why I take ephedrine with my Fruity Pebbles.

[rwac]

Total intake ended up being just shy of ~500 Calories per day less than the low-Cal group.

Wow. So the low-carb group ate fewer cals, yet were apparently satiated.

Someone should start another thread titled: Carbs = hunger. ;-)

I thought that was common knowledge.
I personally eat way more if I'm eating high carb, it's definitely not as satisfying.

[bgwowk]

Re the paleo diet being justified by evolution:

I wish it were as simple as to look at what our common distant ancestors ate as a guideline for an optimum diet, but it's not that simple for many reasons. First, evolution has been moving too fast for that. The invention of agriculture has already caused evolutionary changes in food metabolism in much of the world's population. People with ancestors who have been farming for millennia, such as Europeans, respond to foods like grain and milk differently than people with recent hunter-gather ancestry. That's why indigenous peoples of the Americas suffer problems with obesity and diabetes in the modern world disproportionately compared to people with agrarian ancestry. People who can remain slim with little effort while eating ad libitum in modern societies can no longer be considered evolutionary products of paleolithic hunter-gatherers. They are something else. People with long agrarian ancestry who subjected themselves to a REAL paleolithic diet, complete with feast-and-famine epochs, might not even survive it.

More seriously, there is a conceptual problem with the evolution argument for diet optimization. Evolution optimizes for reproduction, not longevity, and has done it's optimization subject to pressures and constraints that in many cases no longer exist in the modern world. People don't die of the same things they did centuries ago, and certainly not the same things that hunter-gatherers did. What needs to happen inside the body to live as long as possible in this century is not the same as what would have been necessary 50,000 years ago, even if we had the metabolism of cavemen, which most people don't.

It's wisest to just avoid ancestral arguments about how to eat, and focus on cause-and-effect relationships between food and desired health outcomes.

Edited by bgwowk, 21 January 2009 - 12:58 AM.

[stephen_b]

The researchers apparently didn't take into account the satiating effect of low-carb diets.

The study is less controlled since the number of calories were not the same over different diets, but in another way it's more realistic since that's what happens on a low carb diet.

I weighed 175 with a BMI of about 26.2. After going on a low carb diet, I was down to 150 after about 3-4 weeks, with my previously high triglycerides having plummeted.

It will be interesting to see what the combination of normalized vitamin D levels and recent generous coconut oil intake will have done to my 42 mg/dl HDL.

StephenB

[senseix]

The researchers apparently didn't take into account the satiating effect of low-carb diets.

The study is less controlled since the number of calories were not the same over different diets, but in another way it's more realistic since that's what happens on a low carb diet.

I weighed 175 with a BMI of about 26.2. After going on a low carb diet, I was down to 150 after about 3-4 weeks, with my previously high triglycerides having plummeted.

It will be interesting to see what the combination of normalized vitamin D levels and recent generous coconut oil intake will have done to my 42 mg/dl HDL.

StephenB

WOW you lost alot of weight pretty quick, impressive.

[Shepard]

The study is less controlled since the number of calories were not the same over different diets, but in another way it's more realistic since that's what happens on a low carb diet.

Yeah, but what good is that to the person that is okay with tracking Calories consistently?

[zoolander]

Wow. So the low-carb group ate fewer cals, yet were apparently satiated.

Someone should start another thread titled: Carbs = hunger. ;-)

I just wrote a very large document/white paper about this. Diets high in protein are often ad libitum and produce a lower energy intake and greater weight loss (fat mass) when compared to hypocaloric diets high in carbohydrates. It's important to note that the macronutrient that replaces carbohydrates is often a lot more satiating than the carbohydrate itself and therefore is an important contributor to weight loss and control of energy balance

[wydell]

I agree. Evolution is not the best argument. For example, our ancestors did not take Alt -711 or any one of the hundred supplements that Duke takes, but does that mean Duke should not take these supplements?


Just because our ancestors did not eat a certain food or take a certain supplement does not mean that we should not take them. I am sure that there are many substances that our ancestors did not ingest that might be good for us.

With that said, I tend to like many aspects of a paleo oriented diet.

Re the paleo diet being justified by evolution:

I wish it were as simple as to look at what our common distant ancestors ate as a guideline for an optimum diet, but it's not that simple for many reasons. First, evolution has been moving too fast for that. The invention of agriculture has already caused evolutionary changes in food metabolism in much of the world's population. People with ancestors who have been farming for millennia, such as Europeans, respond to foods like grain and milk differently than people with recent hunter-gather ancestry. That's why indigenous peoples of the Americas suffer problems with obesity and diabetes in the modern world disproportionately compared to people with agrarian ancestry. People who can remain slim with little effort while eating ad libitum in modern societies can no longer be considered evolutionary products of paleolithic hunter-gatherers. They are something else. People with long agrarian ancestry who subjected themselves to a REAL paleolithic diet, complete with feast-and-famine epochs, might not even survive it.

More seriously, there is a conceptual problem with the evolution argument for diet optimization. Evolution optimizes for reproduction, not longevity, and has done it's optimization subject to pressures and constraints that in many cases no longer exist in the modern world. People don't die of the same things they did centuries ago, and certainly not the same things that hunter-gatherers did. What needs to happen inside the body to live as long as possible in this century is not the same as what would have been necessary 50,000 years ago, even if we had the metabolism of cavemen, which most people don't.

It's wisest to just avoid ancestral arguments about how to eat, and focus on cause-and-effect relationships between food and desired health outcomes.

Edited by wydell, 21 January 2009 - 04:09 AM.

[DukeNukem]

I agree. Evolution is not the best argument. For example, our ancestors did not take Alt -711 or any one of the hundred supplements that Duke takes, but does that mean Duke should not take these supplements?

Just because our ancestors did not eat a certain food or take a certain supplement does not mean that we should not take them. I am sure that there are many substances that our ancestors did not ingest that might be good for us.

With that said, I tend to like many aspects of a paleo oriented diet.

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have. And, as a starting point, we can improve it with modern knowledge and options, like taking supplements. Does anyone know of a better diet to use as a starting point?

[zoolander]

Note that there are other aspects of our life apart from diet and exercise that do not represent the paleo/neo lifetsyle. I'm talking about air quality, cooking techniques, absorption of toxins through the skin, increased chemical load and so on. Therefore, as Duke has mentioned or suggested, the paleo diet seems to be the ost logical option that we have re. diet and lifestyle. I have no issue in using supplements and taking advantages of the recent science on the health promoting effects of functional foods.

[Prometheus]

I agree. Evolution is not the best argument. For example, our ancestors did not take Alt -711 or any one of the hundred supplements that Duke takes, but does that mean Duke should not take these supplements?

Just because our ancestors did not eat a certain food or take a certain supplement does not mean that we should not take them. I am sure that there are many substances that our ancestors did not ingest that might be good for us.

With that said, I tend to like many aspects of a paleo oriented diet.

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have. And, as a starting point, we can improve it with modern knowledge and options, like taking supplements. Does anyone know of a better diet to use as a starting point?

Nope. (put on your best Arnie voice and say the following like Conan ala "crush the enemy, see him driven before you, ...")

- Avoid all sugar and processed foods. Avoid all bread, pasta, rice, filo and any wheat-based foods. Eat all meats and green salads in abundance. Same with nuts but be careful of cashews. Be generous in the use of cold pressed olive oil. Eat fruit only occasionally. Have at least one whey protein isolate beverage a day. Never eat after 8pm. Don't panic about the decreased frequency of bowel movements - remember its 60% bacteria.

[rwac]

Same with nuts but be careful of cashews.

Whats the problem with cashews ?

Edited by rwac, 21 January 2009 - 05:30 AM.

[Forever21]

Paleos say its toxin.

[Prometheus]

Paleos say its toxin.

High in carbs you goose

[Forever21]

Audette doesn't allow cashews since they contain a toxin and are not paleo. Neanderthin that is. With Cordain, only limited.

[nowayout]

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have. And, as a starting point, we can improve it with modern knowledge and options, like taking supplements. Does anyone know of a better diet to use as a starting point?

Nope. (put on your best Arnie voice and say the following like Conan ala "crush the enemy, see him driven before you, ...")

- Avoid all sugar and processed foods. Avoid all bread, pasta, rice, filo and any wheat-based foods. Eat all meats and green salads in abundance. Same with nuts but be careful of cashews. Be generous in the use of cold pressed olive oil. Eat fruit only occasionally. Have at least one whey protein isolate beverage a day. Never eat after 8pm. Don't panic about the decreased frequency of bowel movements - remember its 60% bacteria.

What are the evolutionary or paleo justifications of whey beverages, apart from the fact that they smell of carrion (which I guess would have been in the paleo diet). Same question for olive oil, and for not eating after 8pm? Also, about the fruit, if I were a hungry ancestor in Africa coming across a marula or fig tree carrying fruit, I would stay around and gorge myself on fruit for several weeks as they ripened.

[TheFountain]

The title is incorrect. Insulin = aging would be more accurate for the argument of the thread.

Not all carbs have the same effect on blood sugar and thereby cause the same insulin release.

So carbs = aging is an inaccurate generalization. Carbs do not equal aging but I suspect that your beliefs may have you thinking that they do.

actually, carbs = aging is probably a decent generalization. all carbs increase insulin, and those that don't do it as much (fructose) act on other deleterious pathways. though some (like berries) are probably still worth it due to high nutrient content.

to be more accurate... i guess one would have to qualify that certain carbs are less aging than others.

No, we still need to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy carbs. Healthy carbs raise insulin very slowly which is not enough to cause a spike that would lead to increased glycation and subsequent fat storage. Even mark sisson, one of the health nuts whose views the OP espouses encourages consumption of whole grains and differentiates largely between healthy and processed carbs. Also flavanoids in whole grains help to reduce Homoglobin Glycation.

Edited by TheFountain, 21 January 2009 - 12:38 PM.

[DukeNukem]

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have. And, as a starting point, we can improve it with modern knowledge and options, like taking supplements. Does anyone know of a better diet to use as a starting point?

Nope. (put on your best Arnie voice and say the following like Conan ala "crush the enemy, see him driven before you, ...")

- Avoid all sugar and processed foods. Avoid all bread, pasta, rice, filo and any wheat-based foods. Eat all meats and green salads in abundance. Same with nuts but be careful of cashews. Be generous in the use of cold pressed olive oil. Eat fruit only occasionally. Have at least one whey protein isolate beverage a day. Never eat after 8pm. Don't panic about the decreased frequency of bowel movements - remember its 60% bacteria.

What are the evolutionary or paleo justifications of whey beverages, apart from the fact that they smell of carrion (which I guess would have been in the paleo diet). Same question for olive oil, and for not eating after 8pm? Also, about the fruit, if I were a hungry ancestor in Africa coming across a marula or fig tree carrying fruit, I would stay around and gorge myself on fruit for several weeks as they ripened.

I think whey, olive oil and wine, among others, are post-paleo improvements. Solid science seems to back these. In effect, they are supplements, not foods.

[kismet]

Does anyone know of a better diet to use as a starting point?

How about CR? (independent pf macro-nutrient ratios you choose,be it healthy zonish semi-vegetarian or something else)
Although you and I (and many other people) are probably too much into training to sacrifice that much for questionable, albeit certainly non-zero, benefits.

Edited by kismet, 21 January 2009 - 03:52 PM.

[bgwowk]

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have.

If the evolutionary angle were the most logical starting point, then people of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian ancestry should adopt as a starting point the diet of their agrarian ancestors for the past 8000 years (regular meals of grains, meat, dairy). They do not have the evolutionary history of hunter-gatherers. If evidence suggests that *some* aspects of hunter-gatherer diets are actually healthier than the agrarian diets people have evolved to eat, then forget evolution. Eat what is believed to be healthiest. Evolution is irrelevant. If evolution were relevant, paleo diets would actually not be the starting point for most people.

[nowayout]

As I said, the evolutionary angle is, IMO, the most logical starting point we currently have.

If the evolutionary angle were the most logical starting point, then people of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian ancestry should adopt as a starting point the diet of their agrarian ancestors for the past 8000 years (regular meals of grains, meat, dairy). They do not have the evolutionary history of hunter-gatherers. If evidence suggests that *some* aspects of hunter-gatherer diets are actually healthier than the agrarian diets people have evolved to eat, then forget evolution. Eat what is believed to be healthiest. Evolution is irrelevant. If evolution were relevant, paleo diets would actually not be the starting point for most people.

I agree. There is no evidence, as far as I am aware, that evolution necessarily selects for longevity. In fact, there is experimental evidence that evolution may, under certain conditions, make lifespans shorter. In fact, in most species one would expect evolution to be blind to survival after child-rearing age, and under challenging or rapidly changing environmental conditions a shorter reproductive cycle, which tends to have detrimental side effects on lifespan, would normally confer evolutionary advantages in adaptability. In social apes such as homo sapiens, one might argue that having grandmothers around carries an evolutionary advantage, which may provide some partial explanation for human longevity, as well as the relatively longer female lifespan, but one must also remember that through most of history, people became grandmothers before the age of 40.

Also, consider how evolution might affect longevity in the modern U.S. It seems that the kind of diet that nowadays makes young males taller and stronger, and thus better able to compete for mates and reproduce, is the same diet that will start killing them early. If this were to go on for long enough, it seems possible that evolution will select in favor of those having these unhealthy tastes in food, the side effect of which may well be shorter lifespans. There is no evidence that things would have necessarily been different in paleolithic times.

On the other hand, I know lots of old people in Spain who grew up on a mixture of famine, hard exercise and a mediterranean diet high in bread and grains and low in meat, definitely very non-paleo, who are all short and would have had difficulty competing for mates in modern western society, but who keep on living forever.

Edited by andre, 21 January 2009 - 06:52 PM.

[Mind]

Dr. Wowk, the argument paleo dieters use is that homo sapiens lived as hunter gatherers for at least an order of magnitude longer than they have lived as grain eaters, and thus evolved longer under those conditions. I have no doubt there has been some adaptation since then (some that might even confer more longevity) however, the basic metabolic processes are conserved across species and thus must be of some importance. Example: life extension through CR is similar through most organisms that have been tested. Intermittent fasting has also been shown to increase health parameters in many species.

From my layman's view, and from an evolutionary perspective, the carbs/insulin/IGF pathway, seems to say grow, grow, grow, and reproduce quickly. Take glucose out of the equation and our highly conserved (through almost all species) metabolic system seems to instruct, don't grow too fast, there might not be a lot of food around, need to live longer in order to reproduce.

On the other hand, I know lots of old people in Spain who grew up on a mixture of famine, hard exercise and a mediterranean diet high in bread and grains and low in meat, definitely very non-paleo, who are all short and would have had difficulty competing for mates in modern western society, but who keep on living forever.

This would seem to confirm the evolutionary perspective. The mix of exercise and famine produce longer lived organisms. If they had over-eaten on grains their entire life, I doubt they would be so long lived. Just look at the way-out-of-control obesity epidemic in the U.S. for what happens to people when they sit around and eat grains (and grain-based foods) all day.

I agree with Dr. Wowk that science should lead the way and new experimental evidence not based on evolutionary programming should take precedence, if it confers longevity. In fact we are going to completely leave our evolution in the dust as we develop methods to live indefinitely. However in this moment in time, I think it would imprudent to ignore our evolved longevity pathways.

[eternaltraveler]

I tend to think the primary benefit of a low carb diet is the increase in satiation for a given caloric intake, thus those on low carb diets tend to eat less calories.

This is by no means insignificant. It is much harder to eat fewer calories on a high carb diet when food is plentifully available, however epidemilogical evidence is suggestive that those that eat fewer calories regardless of macronutrient source are generally healthful.

I myself am on a relatively low carb diet (something like 30 grams/day) because I am surrounded by food, and though I may have the willpower to eat less even on a high carb diet, why would I put myself through needless hunger.

[Mind]

The guest for the upcoming Sunday Evening Update (January 25th, Josh Mitteldorf) says:

Many people try to live healthy lives by avoiding man-made products and chemicals. Organic foods are a favorite, and the "paleo diet" (raw fruits, nuts and meats) represents this philosophy carried to its logical conclusion. The thinking is that humans evolved in a certain environment, and we are optimized by natural selection for the life style and the foods that were common in our evolutionary history. The flaw in this argument is that aging is not a failure of the body's protective systems, but a form of programmed self-destruction. So if we tune the body to function "optimally", it will also destroy itself right on cue, like a well-oiled machine.

For this reason, I have turned away from "natural" approaches to life extension and embraced cutting-edge medical science. The most powerful intervention to improve health and extend life is calorie restriction. It works by turning on an adaptation which evolved aeons before humans, for the purpose of protecting whole species from extinction during famine. When the body senses dietary stress, survival mechanisms are up-regulated and the trigger for self-destruction is delayed. This may also be true, to a lesser extent, about other environmental stressors. See hormesis (Footnote 3).

I would say yes, the paleo diet (AND the CRON lifestyle) will still lead to death, however, the point is to optimize health (which both diets do) so as to live long enough to take advantage of true breakthroughs in "medical science".

[Forever21]

Discussion on carbs/paleo

http://www.imminst.o...&...t=3024&st=0