Tag Archives: energy balance

Coffee and cigars, the breakfast of champions

Posted on November 16, 2012 | 82 comments

Or more specifically, caffeine and nicotine… or really just nicotine.  Today is about the lesser of two evils: nicotine, Mother Nature’s little helper (the other evil being cigarettes [not coffee]).  This curious little molecule is an anti-inflammatory memory boosting appetite suppressant.  If it didn’t screw with the reward mechanisms in your brain, it’d be a vitamin. Part 1.  Cigarettes, nicotine, and metabolic function Exhibit A: Activation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway ameliorates obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance  (Wang et al., 2011) translation: “nicotine is good for mice.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, Energy balance, smoking

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Exenatide and tapeworms, Op. 116

Posted on October 29, 2012 | 1 comment

The great Dr. Schoeller can polish a turd like no other.  Dale Schoeller’s claim to fame is his extensive work on one of the best ways to measure total energy expenditure in free-living individuals: doubly-labeled water.  In doubly-labeled water, subjects drink stable isotope-labeled water; instead of hydrogen + oxygen = H20, the stable isotope-labeled water is deuterium + oxygen-18 = D218O.  Deuterium is excreted just like hydrogen, in water as urine & sweat.  Oxygen-18 is excreted just like oxygen, in water and carbon dioxide.  So the subjects lose deuterium & oxygen-18 in water at equal rates, but only oxygen-18 in carbon dioxide; so this technique basically measures carbon dioxide production, which is proportional to energy expenditure.  Clever. 

Being that Schoeller practically invented the technique, his interpretation of these total energy expenditure data are not flawed, but that’s not where he went astray.

Alterations in energy balance following exenatide administration (Bradley et al., 2012)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, insulin

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Metabolic rate per se

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 comment

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Admittedly, the effect of diet on metabolic rate is small (i.e. statistically non-significant in most cases), but its incredible consistency across space and time suggest it could be true.  And given the difficulty of maintaining a reduced body weight after dieting, it might even be important.  The following studies are examples of widely differing subject populations in various metabolic conditions; yet the effects of diet on metabolic rate exhibit a phenomenal degree of similarity.

disclaimer: I don’t know what’s more important – metabolic rate per se, the diet behind it, or the resulting hormonal adaptations.  All of the diets that are associated with a higher metabolic rate are also predicted to result in lower insulin levels and higher fat oxidation.  Thus, we are left with a triumvirate of diet, hormonal milieu, and energy expenditure… all of which are important for body composition and quality of life.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, Exercise, insulin, Protein

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[ketogenic] elite artistic gymnasts

Posted on October 12, 2012 | 6 comments

Before you say anything, “elite artistic gymnasts” could probably beat you in a race running backwards.  (with you running forwards.)  They are elite athletes.  And given a sufficient keto-adaptation period, they perform better sans carbs.

Ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts  (Paoli et al., 2012)

This study looked at body composition and various performance measures before and after 30 days of a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (“VLCKD,” < 25 grams of carbohydrate per day) or a normal diet (“WD,” > 250 grams of carbs per day).  25 grams of carbs is very very low, less than Atkins and Kwasniewski.  On the other hand, 41% protein is pretty high.

Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, Exercise, insulin, Ketosis, Protein, TPMC

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Protein bar takedown, part III (or V)

Posted on October 6, 2012 | 4 comments

No more pretense or cute backstory; I just like reviewing ingredient profiles of protein bars.  It’s a hobby of mine:
Candy in disguise, Op. 73 (circa April 2012)
Decepticon Promicor (soluble corn fiber), Op. 81 (June 2012)
Candy in disguise II, Op. 87 (July 2012)
Protein bar round-up, take II (September 2012)

See?

This is a review of Netrition’s “highest rated” bars.  Important notes about this category: these are not necessarily “new” protein bars, or even the bars everyone buy (“best sellers”).  They are the bars everyone who votes like the most.  They’re not the healthiest either… but some come close.   Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, fiber, gluten, Protein, Sugar, Uncategorized

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Missing: 300 kcal… AGAIN!

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 6 comments

Or, the curious perils of crappy sleep, part II: calorie-thieving gnomes.

In part I of the Crappy Sleep series, we discussed, among other things, the malevolent metabolic effects of the most utterly abnormal sleep structure (28-hour days, 6.5 hours of sleep per night [~5.6 hours / 24 hours], and dim lighting during the days).  In this study, the sleep was disrupted to a physiologically relevant degree for two weeks: 8.5 vs. 5.5 hours per night; in a cross-over study.

In part I of Missing calories, we discussed the effects of 3 different diets on metabolic rate after weight loss.  In this study, energy balance was assessed during 2 different sleep regimens in dieters in a CROSS-OVER STUDY.  If you haven’t guessed it, I believe a well-designed and executed cross-over study is superior, necessary, and essential for most metabolism-related studies.

Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity   (Nedeltcheva et al., 2010)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, Protein, TPMC

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Corn. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Posted on September 30, 2012 | 3 comments

Utterly.  Shocked.  is how I feel gazing upon the ingredients listed on one particular popular snack food.  And it isn’t one of those fancy gourmet all-natural whole food snacks, it is a classic that is probably in the kitchen of every child-wielding household.

Corn, corn oil, and salt.  And salt doesn’t even count, so it might just as well have said corn and corn oil, which could be summarized as “corn.”  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the reigning champion of snack food sorcery, the red-headed stepchild (no offense) of international superpower PepsiCo… Fritos.  Using only corn, the wizards of Frito-Lay are turning this:into this:

and that’s without the use of trans fat, gluten, artificial additives, dairy, msg, onions, or soy.  They’re Kosher too.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Fructose, gluten, Grains, Sugar, Trans fat

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BPA

Posted on September 28, 2012 | 1 comment

Though they won’t kill you [instantly], environmental and dietary xenoestrogens warrant a bit of attention, especially considering their theoretical mechanism of action is, among other things, augmenting insulin secretion.  This is of particular importance given the growing body of evidence of a causal role for insulin hypersecretion in the obesity epidemic (see Barbara Corkey’s 2011 Banting Lecture for an overview).

And this is the SECOND time this year BPA has made headlines.

BPA. Looks like some kind of medieval weapon or something.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, empty calories, Energy balance, insulin, Sugar, TPMC

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Soda vs. childhood obesity

Posted on September 24, 2012 | 11 comments

What happens if you give skinny kids a can of fully sugared regular soda to drink every day for a year?

What happens if you take the soda away from overweight kids for a year?

The answer to these two questions should be a definitive user’s guide to the question: how bad is soda for my children?   And we got those answers this week.

 

A set of powerful studies were recently published, the likes of which I thought we’d never see.  It’s unethical to assign anyone to start smoking so we can properly study the effects of cigarettes; and before today, I would’ve thought it unethical to assign young children to start drinking fully sugared regular soda.  And not just one or two cans…  over 350.  For the 4 year olds the first study, by the end of the trial they had been on soda for almost a third of their life… during a critical period of development.  Ethics schmethics.  Hopefully this study will never be repeated.

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11 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, empty calories, Energy balance, Sugar, TPMC

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Why diets fail, Op. 106

Posted on September 21, 2012 | 1 comment

Correction: diets don’t fail, dieters do.  And don’t take that the wrong way; adhering to a restrictive diet is one of the most difficult tasks for ANYone; thus, the obesity epidemic.  Some recent insights into diet-induced weight loss success, or lack thereof, have shed a new light on why some dieters adhere and others don’t.

In Insulin resistance, I discussed how insulin sensitivity may influence how well someone responds to a diet.  In brief, insulin resistant obese people do much better on low carb than low fat in a closely controlled clinical setting.  If you’re one of the lucky few insulin sensitive obese people, then simply reducing calories works.  Unfortunately, however, most obese are insulin resistant.

When it comes to devising a weight loss strategy, I’m willing to cut every corner and use every trick in the book to achieve success.  Data in this new analysis came from Chris Gardner’s notorious A to Z study, where patients were given diet books and told to have at it.  It was the weakest intervention in the history of diet studies, but it is exactly what everyone who wants to lose weight does.  And just like in Gardner’s study, most people fail.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, insulin, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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