All Calories are Created Equal? Your Gut Microbes Don't Think So (msn.com) 91
"For years scientists have believed that when it comes to weight gain, all calories are created equal," the Washington Post reported last month.
"But an intriguing new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that's not true. The body appears to react differently to calories ingested from high-fiber whole foods vs. ultra-processed junk foods." The reason? Cheap processed foods are more quickly absorbed in your upper gastrointestinal tract, which means more calories for your body and fewer for your gut microbiome, which is located near the end of your digestive tract. But when we eat high-fiber foods, they aren't absorbed as easily, so they make the full journey down your digestive tract to your large intestine, where the trillions of bacteria that make up your gut microbiome are waiting. By eating a fiber-rich diet, you are not just feeding yourself, but also your intestinal microbes, which, the new research shows, effectively reduces your calorie intake.
The study reveals that inside all of us, our gut microbes are in a tug of war with our bodies for calories, said Karen D. Corbin, an investigator at the AdventHealth Translational Research Institute of Metabolism and Diabetes in Orlando and the lead author of the study.
The closely-tracked study participants ate foods "like crispy puffed rice cereal, white bread, American cheese, ground beef, cheese puffs, vanilla wafers, cold cuts and other processed meats, and sugary snacks and fruit juices." Then they switched to the "microbiome enhancer diet," with foods like "oats, beans, lentils, chickpeas, brown rice, quinoa and other whole grains" (plus fruits, nuts and vegetables).
Despite getting "the same amount of calories and similar amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates," the Post reports that "On average, they lost 217 calories a day on the fiber-rich diet, about 116 more calories than they lost on the processed-food diet."
"But an intriguing new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that's not true. The body appears to react differently to calories ingested from high-fiber whole foods vs. ultra-processed junk foods." The reason? Cheap processed foods are more quickly absorbed in your upper gastrointestinal tract, which means more calories for your body and fewer for your gut microbiome, which is located near the end of your digestive tract. But when we eat high-fiber foods, they aren't absorbed as easily, so they make the full journey down your digestive tract to your large intestine, where the trillions of bacteria that make up your gut microbiome are waiting. By eating a fiber-rich diet, you are not just feeding yourself, but also your intestinal microbes, which, the new research shows, effectively reduces your calorie intake.
The study reveals that inside all of us, our gut microbes are in a tug of war with our bodies for calories, said Karen D. Corbin, an investigator at the AdventHealth Translational Research Institute of Metabolism and Diabetes in Orlando and the lead author of the study.
The closely-tracked study participants ate foods "like crispy puffed rice cereal, white bread, American cheese, ground beef, cheese puffs, vanilla wafers, cold cuts and other processed meats, and sugary snacks and fruit juices." Then they switched to the "microbiome enhancer diet," with foods like "oats, beans, lentils, chickpeas, brown rice, quinoa and other whole grains" (plus fruits, nuts and vegetables).
Despite getting "the same amount of calories and similar amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates," the Post reports that "On average, they lost 217 calories a day on the fiber-rich diet, about 116 more calories than they lost on the processed-food diet."
Old news is so exciting (Score:2)
It has been a while since I had first started the Atkins diet back in the '90s. I thought this was all well understood back then. Is there something new here I missed?
Re:Old news is so exciting (Score:5, Informative)
It has been known for decades. When it is said "For years scientists have believed that when it comes to weight gain, all calories are created equal" what the author means is that the author is ignorant. Scientists have NOT believed this and have not said so. The glycemic index was conceived in 1980! Not that Atkins used it because Atkins believe the diet needed to be simpler yet.
Of course, the same thing has been said on /. forever, and for the same reasons.
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Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health Paperback – September 23, 2008
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Ca... [amazon.com]
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Are you deliberately trying to get those webpages blown to next Tuesday? You're spamming on a webpage where a bunch of security auditors and pentesters (aka "hackers") spend their time and they loathe spam and spammers.
I can only assume you're linking your opponents because nobody who has their faculties together would spam people like that with their own page. Unless they're looking for a free pentest and DDoS.
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Summing up:
I can eat about 30 grams less processed food per day and get the same effect as living on rabbit food.
That's what? One Oreo less? I can live with that!
Re:Old news is so exciting (Score:5, Informative)
That's what? One Oreo less? I can live with that!
That's harder than you might think, especially that while YOU might be able to, the general population cannot.
Personally, I look at it as "ease of satiation". IE "How quickly do you stop eating naturally, without having to force yourself."
So you flip it around - if you eat the "rabbit food", you not only can eat 30 grams MORE, leading to more satiation, but the foods themselves fill you up faster, leading to you eating less naturally. Without hunger pangs that have you going back for that extra oreo - five times over in many cases.
Take something as simple as oranges vs orange juice. I eat a single orange and I'm filled for a while. That's around 45 calories.
Meanwhile it takes 3 oranges to make 1 cup of orange juice, 111 calories with a worse glycemic index, and I can slam that back and be back for more within minutes.
It also doesn't need to be "rabbit food" - hell, if you consider processed rabbit feed, your oreos are closer to rabbit food than the menu stuff they mentioned, which cooked right can be extremely tasty.
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Your pancreas sure notices. Drinking the straight juice goes much more directly into your bloodstream, leading to a huge spike in blood sugar, which the pancreas cannot keep up with, overworking it badly and overworking or killing off insulin producing cells, which never come back. Next time they are damaged or you have even fewer of them so the rest have to work even harder. That directly causes diabetes.
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What you're missing if you actually eat the orange(and I'm not talking anything crazy like eating the rind), is that you're eating a lot more fiber with it. All the pulp that is filtered out of like 90% of OJ? That's dietary fiber. It helps stimulate feelings of fullness (satiation), and thus reduce hunger pains. The act of peeling the orange also burns calories and slows you down. Hell, having to chew, to masticate, slows things down and burns calories.
I'm a little unusual in that I can straight up dr
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If you don't notice a difference then you're not paying attention. Eating an actual orange gives you a whole bunch of fiber along with the sugary juice. That fiber slows digestion of the sugary juices versus straight orange juice that spikes your blood sugar.
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100 g carrots corresponds to (7%) 7 g carbohydrates.
100 g cooked potatoes corresponds to (17%) 17 g carbohydrates.
100 g dark chocolate corresponds to (34%) 34 g carbohydrates.
And now we have to take microbes into consideration.
Re: Old news is so exciting (Score:2)
Oreos will make you feel sick before they make you feel full. They are not really food at all, just a carrier for refined sugar that it's too easy to get addicted too.
Humanity evolved to eat whatever was available, but we never evolved to handle highly refined sugar.
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It has been a while since I had first started the Atkins diet back in the '90s. I thought this was all well understood back then. Is there something new here I missed?
Robert Atkins published his book "Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution" in 1972: https://www.atkins.com/our-sto... [atkins.com]. I remember listening to his show on the radio. He was called a quack back then for his beliefs about proper dieting but eventually other doctors came around. It's just ignorant to suggest this is a recent discovery
Re: Old news is so exciting (Score:2)
Do we forget things easily though?
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Yet more evidence in favour... (Score:1)
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Unless your goal is to efficiently feed yourself and not the microbes. Just eat less of the easily-absorbed food. I guess I now know which food to send to the "starving children in Africa".
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And how out-of-touch you are with many of the reasons (not just greed) processed food came to exist, and why it will continue to exist until everyone is smart, rich, and childless.
Ok.. (Score:3)
So I feed my gut microbes .. then what? They get fat and die? Replicate? Get shat out, or absorbed? I'm not saying it's a bad idea (quite interesting actually) btw .. just want to get an opinion from all the experts here on slashdot.
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Re:Ok.. (Score:4, Informative)
I would say it's more of a partial explanation than an incorrect one. If your gut microbes digest some of the calories (and then come out as feces), that will reduce your own caloric intake somewhat.
Other parts of the explanation are probably that your body responds differently to foods with high glycemic index (foods that make your blood sugar spike quickly): you generate more LDL cholesterol, you store some of the "extra" sugar as fat, and for whatever reason, your body has an inflammatory response to the sugar spike. If you digest the food more slowly, your blood sugar stays more stable, and you don't get those side effects of high blood sugar.
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So I feed my gut microbes .. then what? They get fat and die?
They produce a lot of gas and then get shat out in your feces. Note that a significant amount of your feces is gut bacteria, not components of food that you ingested.
Re:Ok.. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a whole lot of emerging research on the connection between the brain and the gut biome. There are now theories that this connection influences things such as brain function, diseases, various hormone balances, etc. If indeed any of that is true, then there would be a case to be made for ensuring the health of said biome through the foods we eat.
https://www.health.harvard.edu... [harvard.edu]
Not news... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm nearly 40 and remember my mother telling me 30 years ago about eating good calories versus empty calories. Chips, soda, processed stuff. A lot of it can most certainly be described as empty calories.
This may be news to a teenager or poorly educated adult but many of us know eating whole foods and things that are less processed are better for you.
Re: Not news... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think you may confuse ignorance for apathy. Living a life on whole foods isn't really worth living in my opinion. The balance most of us a re looking for is how much bad stuff can we have, and still be able to manage the negative side-effects (weight gain, risk of heart attack). If we are managing our diets based on calories, this information is useful to us. Perhaps I need a 1500 Calorie diet of tasty food, versus a 2000 Calorie diet of rabbit food.
Also the distinction between "whole foods" and "ultra pr
Re: Not news... (Score:2)
Whole food includes all the good things though. Meat, fish, butter, eggs, fresh herbs and veggies.
Bad stuff is the mince meat with weird fillers, pasta sauce that's really just red colored sugar syrup, cookies that are lab created abominations, bread that's just sugar and water magically given texture.
Are you seriously telling me you would prefer a subway hidden-sugar sandwich with synthetic meatballs to a ribeye steak fried in butter with green beans and broccoli? The last one is real food that won't cause
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I think you give the average person far too much credit.
I'm always surprised at the lack of nutritional knowledge of people.
Well sure! Let's just look at Slashdot users. Just about all of us were taught the food pyramid in school. The problem is it's bunk and very bad nutrition advice. So bad in fact that it was taken out of the U.S. curriculum in 2011. But old habits die hard and most people don't reexamine it. Even if one did want to find out more, bad information and marketing FUD is everywhere. To say nothing about the various scams that companies pull with food labels. And there's probably some apathy in there too..
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What this study suggests is different. namely that calories ingested are not the same as calories available to your body, because if the gut microbes get to the food first, they take some of it for themselves.
And yet... (Score:3)
No... you're still missing the point. 1 calorie of fats != 1 calorie of sugars or proteins in our bodies. Only in a "bomb calorimeter" is 1 calorie = 1 calorie, where you combust it. If our body combusted stuff it might be important, but it's just a measure of the energy inside something. Not how much energy is inside that we'll extract, nor how our body uses that energy.
Switch from mostly carbs to mostly fats and proteins, but same calories. You'll feel VERY different, if you can even manage it. Go t
nothing new (Score:1)
There is probably nothing new here. It has been known for a LOOONG time that calories ingested with fiber are absorbed more slowly. This study is apparently claiming that they are absorbed so much more slowly that gut bacteria eat them faster than we do, and faster enough that it makes a significant difference in total absorbed, which I very much doubt.
The more likely real difference that results from absorption rate is that you get hungry again sooner from food that is absorbed faster.
"Nature" is full of
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... so where does the energy the bacteria come from?
You appear to be the sort of person who invests in perpetual motion machines.
Re:nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
Gut bacteria can burn calories that we can't (or often don't). Like uh oligosaccharides.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
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Whaaaa??? (Score:3, Informative)
"For years scientists have believed that when it comes to weight gain, all calories are created equal," the Washington Post reported last month.
I've literally never heard a scientist say that, even a scientist in a completely irrelevant field.
The rest of the article was fine, but the opening line looks like something a clueless editor slapped on thinking the article needed a better tag.
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"For years scientists have believed that when it comes to weight gain, all calories are created equal," the Washington Post reported last month.
I've literally never heard a scientist say that, even a scientist in a completely irrelevant field.
The rest of the article was fine, but the opening line looks like something a clueless editor slapped on thinking the article needed a better tag.
And to be clear, it's dumb reporting like that which causes people to think "oh, scientists and doctors are so reductive and don't take a holistic view of our bodies, so I'll listen to that person on TikTok and detox by drinking borax [globalnews.ca]".
Re: Whaaaa??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can I testify to numerous social media posts saying it's all just calories in / calories out, using the authority of deductive science to support them, while ridiculing anyone who challenges the "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" meme as woo-woo mystics?
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Can I testify to numerous social media posts saying it's all just calories in / calories out, using the authority of deductive science to support them, while ridiculing anyone who challenges the "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" meme as woo-woo mystics?
No, because that's not the same thing.
1) Calories in vs calories out is basic thermodynamics, you can't get away from that. Of course, that doesn't mean that calories in mouth, our body is not a calorimeter and doesn't absorb everything the same. But in general, if intervention X causes weight loss it's because there were fewer calories in. This is a useful fact to remember when some diet plan is claiming that if you follow them you can eat all the dessert you want and still lose weight.
2) That doesn't mean
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1) Calories in vs calories out is basic thermodynamics, you can't get away from that. Of course, that doesn't mean that calories in mouth,
That's exactly what it means.
3) The study does nothing to contradict calories in / calories out,
It doesn't do anything to contradict your redefinition of calories in.
Overall, I stand by my post that the tag is a terrible misframing both of what scientists think, but of what the story actually says as well.
Overall, there seems to be little point to your post.
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1) Calories in vs calories out is basic thermodynamics, you can't get away from that. Of course, that doesn't mean that calories in mouth,
That's exactly what it means.
That's what it means to a limit. Calories in vs calories out is a very good approximation of how body mass changes, but it's not exact solution, and I've never heard scientists suggest otherwise.
3) The study does nothing to contradict calories in / calories out,
It doesn't do anything to contradict your redefinition of calories in.
No. I mean it literally doesn't do anything to contradict any meaningful definition.
The study did not establish that eating high fibre calories led to less weight than highly processed foods, that [theconversation.com] has been known [theconversation.com] for years [nih.gov].
What this study did was uncover some of the mechanisms behind that well known scientific fact.
I
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+1 agree. I've received dozens of "a calorie is a calorie" and "calories in calories out controls weight loss" responses on both this site and soylentnews in various discussions over the years.
Replying to those statements with both anecdotal non-evidence and published peer reviewed evidence has not been particularly effective. The beliefs seem to be quite strongly held.
Re: Whaaaa??? (Score:3)
Can I testify to numerous social media posts saying it's all just calories in / calories out
They're right.
"Well aKchUaLlY 3000 calories of beans turns into 2900 calories and farts"
OK. Your problem is the 6000 calories of pizza and beer. But go ahead, eat a 6000 calorie high fiber diet and melt the pounds away if that's how you think it works. It's the calories, numbnuts.
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A naive "calories in = calories out" is not entirely wrong, except it ignores some things:
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For years, scientists have believe that all calories are a unit of energy. -- Now, THAT is a true statement.
But I've never heard someone say all people gain / lose weight at the same rate based on their caloric intake.
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The rest of the article was fine, but the opening line looks like something a clueless editor slapped on thinking the article needed a better tag.
Not true at all, you are just seeing it from a different perspective. Once you see the whole perspective, you will see...
Look back at ANY Slashdot article that covers nutrition in any manner. What you will see is a small horde of people who INSIST that losing weight is merely a 'discipline' problem. Which is merely another restatement of 'all calories are equal'.
Now that you have the whole perspective, do you want to dial back the rhetoric about never hearing people claim things (although to be fair, you di
Truthy woo (Score:3, Insightful)
This study is very stupid (Score:4, Informative)
It says: "On average, they (people who ate unprocessed food) lost 217 calories a day on the fiber-rich diet, about 116 more calories than they lost on the processed-food diet."
So... first let's address the obvious curveball: they only lost 116 calories LESS.
Second, the second not-so-obvious curveball, yet obvious nonetheless: counting calories of processed food is certainly easier than unprocessed. You can mostly estimate calories of fruit, nuts, lentils, peas... They have much more empty space, and even their weight is a bad measure because they vary wildly. Processed food is very predictable nutritionally. The 116-calorie difference is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless.
At least certainly not as meaningful as: you want to lose weight? JUst calculate for less calories than you consume naturally OR naturally+with complementary exercise on your routine.
Exercise is, for the most part, complementary, you don't really need it for a diet. You need it for other health reasons. Although some say exercise will make you burn specific calories better, it may also have an adverse psychological effect of making you crave more calories. And trust me, a diet is hard by itself already, you don't want to try and get thin on the handicap of craving for EVEN MORE calories than you already wrongly do if you're overweight. Diet first, exercise when you've attained your weight target.
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You you are saying that a study that went to the lengths of testing how much energy was in their shits and used a whole-room calorimeter to measure output energy could not accurately assess the amount of energy in the food they were eating?
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are you telling me the shits can be measured properly when fiber shit is so different from the other? And that the measurement actually means anything when you can't measure absorved cals when you don't have an accurate number for intake cals?
Or that all the energy was expended as heat? Worse even, are you telling me you can actually measure a person's body energy accurately, even in an hermetically-closed room by heat alone, when it's pretty much impossible to hermetically seal every nook and cranny, and e
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It says: "On average, they (people who ate unprocessed food) lost 217 calories a day on the fiber-rich diet, about 116 more calories than they lost on the processed-food diet."
So... first let's address the obvious curveball: they only lost 116 calories LESS.
To drop 1lb you need to lose 3500 calories, so that's ~0.7lbs over the 22 day study.
They also didn't feel any more hungry, which is very significant.
Second, the second not-so-obvious curveball, yet obvious nonetheless: counting calories of processed food is certainly easier than unprocessed. You can mostly estimate calories of fruit, nuts, lentils, peas... They have much more empty space, and even their weight is a bad measure because they vary wildly. Processed food is very predictable nutritionally.
Few people are willing to rigorously count calories, but more importantly, people don't eat because their calculator tells them to, they eat because they're hungry. If trying to lose weight you're much better off having a bigger error bar as you calorie count with high fibre non-processed foods.
The 116-calorie difference is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless.
That probably doesn't extend indefinitely, but 116 per day is very
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So... first let's address the obvious curveball: they only lost 116 calories LESS.
Not all numbers are equal. When dealing with big numbers, small numbers appear to be insignificant... and yet: "One Calorie is Equivalent to One Gram of TNT in Terms of Energy"
The idea of discounting 116 grams of TNT as insignificant seems...
Nevermind. I don't care anymore. Have a nice day.
100 calories a day (Score:2, Funny)
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100 calories is a third of a hamburger. Something doesn't add up here.
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What's with using MS Start for TFA? (Score:1)
TFA is noted as being from The Washington Post, but the link is to Microsoft Start -- how about we not do that here.
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Direct link to article in The Washington Post: Are all calories created equal? Your gut microbes don’t think so. [washingtonpost.com]
To skip The Washington Post's paywall (Score:3)
The Washington Post is not in my current subscription bundle. I have found Microsoft Start useful to skip its paywall. Would it be more useful for Slashdot to provide both a direct link for subscribers and a Microsoft Start link for non-subscribers every time it posts a story that cites a WP article?
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Sure, I get that, though I seem to be able to read the WP just fine, using FF + uBlock Origin ...
Would help if human nutritionists talked to some a (Score:5, Informative)
Gross Energy = all the calories in something
Digestible Energy = all the calories in something minus the calories not absorbed during digestion
Metabolizable energy = digestible energy minus calories re-excreted in the urine
Net Energy = metabolizable energy minus calories lost due to heat production as a result of metabolism
Net Energy of X = calories spent on a. Specific metabolic purpose (growth, maintenance, milk production, fetal growth, etc) which all sum to the net energy above
Human nutrition has largely ignored this when calculating caloric density in human foods for nutritional labels for convenience. In animal nutrition, because we are much more focused on costs, we have been measuring these and using them for feed formulation for livestock for decades. As you move from GE to NE, the accuracy of your requirement and provisioning increase, meaning less waste and more money saved.
Reminds me of an online argument (Score:4, Insightful)
I said that obesity is poorly understood and that losing weight is really hard
I got bombarded with responses like, "It's easy. Eat less, move more. You're an idiot"
I tried to point out that statistically, obesity is less curable than cancer, and the insults got more hateful
It's nice to see research is finally uncovering some of the secrets
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These aren't secrets. And weightloss isn't easy. But it is simple. If you eat more kcal than you need per day, the excess is stored as fat.
Eating less kcal than you want to might be troublesome, but the body will count kcal even if you don't. It also doesn't care what special day it is, how badly you feel over some event, or what you think you deserve.
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These aren't secrets. And weightloss isn't easy. But it is simple. If you eat more kcal than you need per day, the excess is stored as fat.
Eating less kcal than you want to might be troublesome, but the body will count kcal even if you don't. It also doesn't care what special day it is, how badly you feel over some event, or what you think you deserve.
Telling someone to lose weight by eating less is kinda like telling someone to run a 3hr marathon by running 4:15 km splits.
Technically true, but otherwise useless.
There's a ton of factors determine how much we eat, and will power isn't necessarily one of the bigger ones. There's genetics, social cues, emotional state, types of food, health, sleep patterns, etc, etc.
Weight loss might involve a lot of lifestyle changes that have relatively little to do with food.
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There's a ton of factors determine how much we eat, and will power isn't necessarily one of the bigger ones. There's genetics, social cues, emotional state, types of food, health, sleep patterns, etc, etc.
Weight loss might involve a lot of lifestyle changes that have relatively little to do with food.
Like I said, the body doesn't care about any of those. You're trying to distance yourself from responsibility that everyone has; how much kcal do I consume today. Only children dependent on their parents don't have this responsibility(yet).
The only valid argument you can have that I would accept is 'Fuck off, I like the freedom to eat what I want in whatever quantity, when I want to.'
Sure, I had such a mindset once, and it came along with a much higher BMI.
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There's a ton of factors determine how much we eat, and will power isn't necessarily one of the bigger ones. There's genetics, social cues, emotional state, types of food, health, sleep patterns, etc, etc.
Weight loss might involve a lot of lifestyle changes that have relatively little to do with food.
Like I said, the body doesn't care about any of those. You're trying to distance yourself from responsibility that everyone has; how much kcal do I consume today. Only children dependent on their parents don't have this responsibility(yet).
The only valid argument you can have that I would accept is 'Fuck off, I like the freedom to eat what I want in whatever quantity, when I want to.'
Sure, I had such a mindset once, and it came along with a much higher BMI.
Fine, go out and run a 3 hour marathon. I just told you how to do it, and lots of other people have done it, but I'm pretty sure if you go out and try tomorrow it's going to end very, very, poorly. You might respond 'Fuck off, I like the freedom to run at whatever pace I want to.', but I'm guessing that will be after your realize you simply can't hold that 4:15 pace.
How you do actually run a 3 hour marathon is though some combination of genetics, eating habits, and training. The precise amount of modificati
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Fine, go out and run a 3 hour marathon. I just told you how to do it, and lots of other people have done it, but I'm pretty sure if you go out and try tomorrow it's going to end very, very, poorly. You might respond 'Fuck off, I like the freedom to run at whatever pace I want to.', but I'm guessing that will be after your realize you simply can't hold that 4:15 pace..
So stay fat. I really don't care about your false equivalence here, and your body will still count kcal ;)
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Fine, go out and run a 3 hour marathon. I just told you how to do it, and lots of other people have done it, but I'm pretty sure if you go out and try tomorrow it's going to end very, very, poorly. You might respond 'Fuck off, I like the freedom to run at whatever pace I want to.', but I'm guessing that will be after your realize you simply can't hold that 4:15 pace..
So stay fat. I really don't care about your false equivalence here, and your body will still count kcal ;)
Just to be clear I have run a 3 hour marathon, and although I'm definitely heavier than other runners who achieve that standard I'm certainly not fat nor am I unwilling to put in the effort to maintain my body's physique.
And the equivalence isn't perfect, but the point almost is. Calories in vs calories out explains why someone is fat, but it doesn't tell them how to achieve a calorie deficit without spending all of their willpower in an effort to eat less. Telling them to simply eat less is like telling a
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You're right of course that lifestyle, social cues, emotions, sleep should be part of your health goals, including fat loss.
Where this research is helpful is in identifying which foods you should wean yourself off of.
"Wean" because the highly processed, sweetened/salted foods are addictive--and lifestyle, social cues, emotions, and sleep strengthen you to fight that addiction.
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You're right of course that lifestyle, social cues, emotions, sleep should be part of your health goals, including fat loss.
Agreed.
Where this research is helpful is in identifying which foods you should wean yourself off of.
"Wean" because the highly processed, sweetened/salted foods are addictive--and lifestyle, social cues, emotions, and sleep strengthen you to fight that addiction.
Not quite.
Lots of research has already identified which foods to wean yourself off of. This research confirms that high-fibre is better than low fibre but that's not new, what it does is tell us some of why high-fibre is better.
This is really good information as it may help researchers better understand weight loss & gain, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the opening line of the article.
Not fully (Score:2)
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It's nice to see research is finally uncovering some of the secrets
The general public doesn't want to understand anything. Many individuals already understood what you were saying. Some of us from direct experience. Even with this being scientifically explained, you will still receive the same reactions to your statements. Look at the anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers. This is no different.
misery (Score:2)
Despite getting "the same amount of calories and similar amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates," the Post reports that "On average, they lost 217 calories a day on the fiber-rich diet, about 116 more calories than they lost on the processed-food diet."
And were significantly more miserable
If they wanted to feed the lower gut bacteria (which I presume is beneficial) they may have been able to find a more targeted approach. If they just wanted to cut calories there are other ways
Oh my (Score:2)
Eating oats and salads is different from filling up with olive oil?
Who would have thought.
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Eating oats and salads is different from filling up with olive oil?
Who would have thought.
Not everyone [wikipedia.org].
Ho hum (Score:1)
Ho hum. Debate rages on. Me, I lost 30 lbs (15% of my body weight) using an elimination diet: I eliminated food from my diet. In other words, eating less and avoiding high calorie foods that have no redeeming social value.
I have kept that weight off for years. How? Same diet.
Losing weight is not easy. Keeping it off is even harder. It's not so much will power as being willing to change your habits, and actually wanting to. Same thing for, for example, quitting smoking, alcohol, or crack.