Obesity

A recent article gives another win for eating a whole food, plant-based, keto, low carb, or any reasonable restrictive diet.

• Hall Kevin D, Ayuketah Alexis, Brychta Robert, et al. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metabolism. May 16, 2019;0(0). doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008.

Despite the ultra-processed and unprocessed diets being matched for daily presented calories, sugar, fat, fiber, and macronutrients, people consumed more calories when exposed to the ultra-processed diet as compared to the unprocessed diet. Furthermore, people gained weight on the ultra-processed diet and lost weight on the unprocessed diet. Limiting consumption of ultra-processed food may be an effective strategy for obesity prevention and treatment.

This is another reason for there being no hope in the obesity epidemic, since food, beverage, restaurant, grocery, (and many farming) industries make their money from the foods folks should avoid. It’s a battle between capitalism and obesity.

Reducing Carbohydrates and Increasing Fat Intake Increases Metabolism

Yes, carbs are bad. That doesn’t mean that fat is good, but instead that fat is key to satiety. So lowest fat = highest hunger.

• Ebbeling Cara B, Feldman Henry A, Klein Gloria L, et al. Effects of a low carbohydrate diet on energy expenditure during weight loss maintenance: randomized trial. BMJ. November 14, 2018;363:k4583. doi:10.1136/bmj.k4583.

They found that:

• “overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms.”
• “after five months on the diet, their bodies burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet, suggesting that restricting carb intake could help people maintain their weight loss more easily.”
• “Those on the low-carb diet burned 209 to 278 more calories per day than those on the high-carb diet, a difference that would lead to an estimated 22-pound weight loss over three years if researchers weren’t intervening to maintain weight.”
• “the effect was even larger for those who produced high levels of insulin in response to carbohydrates478 more calories a day on the low-carb diet than they did on the high-carb diet.”

It is going to take concentrated behavior change to revert the tide of increasing obesity in the population. The question is, will that happen?