Brief background: the notorious Ebbeling study of 2012 showed an apparent metabolic advantage of a ketogenic diet. After losing some weight, participants were assigned to low fat (LF), low GI, or ketogenic diets. As expected, energy expenditure (EE) declined in all groups after weight loss.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, fiber, insulin, Ketosis, microbe, microbiome, microbiota, muscle, TPMC
Tagged body composition, carbs, diet, empty calories, energy balance, fat, fiber, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, microbiota, Paleo, prebiotics, probiotics, processed food
…but it isn’t dead, imo, because that would be really hard to do. Like, seriously.
Wait, which “insulin hypothesis” was falsified? pic.twitter.com/31pOP9B6Ff
— Bill Lagakos (@CaloriesProper) May 11, 2016
side note: please consider the modern views of Taubes, Lustig, Gardner, Attia, and others on Carbs™. They’re less “Carbs-cause-obesity, keto-for-all, etc.,” and more thinking it might not be Carbs™ per se, but rather processed and refined foods. And #context… And I tend to agree at the moment (nuances and caveats are subject to change, as more evidence accumulates).
disclaimer: I haven’t seen the full text of Hall’s recent study, but that’s not really relevant to what I want to discuss. In other words, I don’t think the full text will provide any additional details on this particular point.
Tl;dr: this study was not designed to prove or disprove metabolic advantage or the insulin-obesity hypothesis.
It’s in the study design: four weeks of low fat followed by four weeks of low carb. We KNOW that weight loss slows over time (especially if calories are controlled, as they were in this study). It has to do with the order of treatments.
Weight loss-slowing over time in the Minnesota Experiment:
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Grains, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, Protein, sleep, Sun, TPMC
Tagged calories, carbs, diet, empty calories, energy balance, fiber, grains, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, leptin, nutrition, obesity, Paleo, processed food, protein, sugar, trans fat
The history of low fat diets is riddled with crappy low fat food-like products.
Food quality matters.
Free full article on Patreon! <- link
Take a group of obese people and assess insulin sensitivity however you like: some researchers demand nothing less than a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp (Gold Standard), others are OK with insulin levels during an oral glucose tolerance test.
Next, divide the people up based on this — there are a few ways you can do it. You can: take the top half vs. the bottom half (a method which includes everyone); take the top third vs. bottom third (excluding the middle third); take the top quarter vs. bottom quarter (excluding the middle 50%), etc.
THIS MATTERS because in referencing this topic, many people claim most obese are insulin resistant. They may be more insulin resistant than lean people, but even within obese people, there’s a spectrum, and the spectrum matters in this #context.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, fiber, insulin, Ketosis, Protein, Sugar
Tagged Atkins, body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, fat, insulin, ketogenic, nutrition, processed food, protein, sugar
Next time someone says VLC/keto is harmful or at least not helpful for fat loss because of a new rodent study, they’ll probably be wrong.
BOOKMARK THIS ONE GUYS.
Rodent studies on ketogenic diets or exogenous ketones are valuable and interesting in a variety of #contexts, although I’d argue that regulation of fat mass isn’t really one of ’em.
For starters, rodents aren’t particularly ketogenic – it’s rare to see ketones >1 after an overnight fast even in long-term ketoadapted mice. Also, many rodents gain weight until they die, whereas humans plateau and stay relatively weight-stable for their entire lives (at least historically, and I’m not talking about yo-yo dieting).
Skeletal muscle, on the other hand, seems more similarly regulated: keto isn’t muscle-sparing in either specie… most people, perhaps unwittingly, increase protein intake on keto, and THIS spares muscle (N.B. this is simply to spare muscle, whereas in non-keto dieters, it’s not uncommon to see increased muscle in the #context of high protein). That’s because carbs are more anabolic than fat. QED.
There’s just a fundamental difference in the way fat mass and appetite is regulated between the species. There are many similarities, which is why these studies are still valuable, but fat mass isn’t one of ‘em.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, pair-feeding, Protein, TPMC
Tagged Atkins, body composition, calories, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, energy expenditure, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, nutrition, obesity, protein
Brief background reading: amylin (according to Wikipedia)
In a study by Hollander on type II diabetics, the synthetic amylin
But it’s not all bad news; after viewing those relatively negative results (3 lb weight loss over the course of 1 year), another group of researchers led by Louis Aronne and Christian Weyer believed amylin had yet to be tested proper. So they designed a better study; it was shorter, used higher doses of pramlintide, and they enrolled obese yet non-diabetic patients (Aronne et al., 2007). They opted for higher doses of pramlintide (240 ug TID [three times per day]) because in dose-escalation studies, the incidence and severity of adverse drug reactions was consistently low at all doses tested.
They chose to study obese-er subjects (BMI 38, compared to 34 in the Hollander study) because obese subjects lose fat more readily than lean people, so if the study is designed to measure fat loss, then it is better to select a population of subjects where more fat loss is predicted. They selected non-diabetic subjects for a similar reason; diabetics must regularly inject insulin which promotes the accumulation of fat mass — this could counteract any fat reducing effects of pramlintide.
In other words, it was a more powerful and better designed study.
After 16 weeks, pramlintide-treated subjects lost an average of 3.6 kg (~8 lbs), or about half a pound per week. 30% of patients lost over 15 pounds (1 lb/wk)! Importantly, the weight loss didn’t appear to have reached a plateau by week 16, so it would have most likely continued along a similar trajectory had the study been longer. There were no side effects, and a battery of psychological evaluations showed that the patients receiving pramlintide felt it was easier to control their appetite and BW, they didn’t mind the daily injections, and overall well-being increased. At the very least, these evaluations meant the subjects weren’t losing weight because of nausea or malaise. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, liver, microbiome, muscle, pair-feeding, Protein, TPMC
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbohydrates, carbs, diet, energy balance, energy expenditure, insulin, ketogenic, ketosis, nutrition, obesity, protein
1st Generation: ketone salts. Only problem is the huge dose of salt limits how much you can take without adverse effects… but these are the ones on the market.
2nd Generation: ketone esters.
Advantage: no salt, and probably “slow-release.”
Disadvantage: gonna be WAY more expensive than the salts (which are still pretty expensive).
I wouldn’t assume too many similarities between nutritional ketosis, starvation ketosis, & ketone supps #context https://t.co/A38iAs7PSj
— Bill Lagakos (@CaloriesProper) March 2, 2016
~40 grams of (R)-3-hydroxybutyl (R)-3-hydroxybutyrate (a ketone ester) (from Clarke et al., 2013):
They did this thrice daily, so some people were getting up to 170 grams.
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY GRAMS
[keep that number in mind]
Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, coconut, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fiber, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, microbiota, muscle, TPMC
Tagged Atkins, carbs, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, leptin, microbiota, muscle, nutrition, protein
1. net muscle growth = synthesis – breakdown
2. need =/= optimization
3. #context
I’m totally cool with keto, honestly! but still don’t really like seeing stuff like the above graphic and people interpreting it to mean “KETO IS MUSCLE-SPARING.”
Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, diet, Dietary fat, fat, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, sleep
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, energy balance, exercise, ketogenic, ketosis, nutrition, protein, sleep
Warning: this post isn’t #Paleo Certified™. It’s more about convenience, choosing the lesser evil.
Quest Nutrition
For the most part, the new bars have basically copied Quest’s
Disclaimer #1: I’m a whole foods guy. Not really #Paleo™, but when it comes to people’s actual lifestyles, I recognize convenience is a huge factor… and selecting the lesser evil is frequently the best option — eg, you can store a couple LC protein bars in your office, car, etc.; not so much with hard-boiled eggs or other protein-rich foods… and these options are WAY better than many other snacks or “fast-foods” out there.
Disclaimer #2: yeah, I keep a few of these bars in my office, just in case…
Quest recently switched from isomaltosaccharides to soluble corn fibre (SCF), which will likely impact GI effects. YMMV! Isomaltosaccharides are cool, but I’m not prepared to say they’re superior to SCF for everyone, in every #context (personally, for the ‘biome, I prefer brassicas, alliums, the gristly bits, galactooligosaccharides, et al.).
[it’d awesome if Bi2Muno
In these n00bs to the protein bar market, some of the biggest differentiating factors are cost, net carbs, ratio of fibre to sugar alcohols, flavor profiles, etc.
With no further ado, here are the newcomers:
[or just skip to the chart at the bottom]
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, fiber, insulin, Ketosis, microbiome, microbiota, muscle, Protein
Tagged carbs, diet, fiber, GOS, insulin, inulin, ketogenic, microbiota, muscle, nutrition, Paleo, prebiotics, processed food, protein
So the theory goes: high carb meal -> blood glucose spike -> insulin spikes a little too hard -> hypoglycemia -> hunger, so you eat to replenish blood glucose.
In the original theory of hangry
1) symptoms of hypoglycemia rarely correlate with actual hypoglycemia;
2) many episodes of actual hypoglycemia are asymptomatic; and
3) hunger isn’t even one of the main symptoms of hypoglycemia.
Tl;dr: hangry might be a real phenomenon, but there are little/no data to support it, and much to the contrary.
The low carb brigade says “LCHF = no hangry.”
Turns out, the same can be said by the high carb brigade (in some contexts), so does it really matter? (see below)
What we know: obese insulin resistant patients undergo a spontaneous reduction in appetite upon initiating a carbohydrate-restricted diet. FACT (P<0.05). Low carb, high protein meals also induce more satiety than high carb meals in acute scenarios…
Imho, hunger and satiety are complicated biological phenomena that can’t be so easily simplified into cute concepts like “hangry.”
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, empty calories, Energy balance, insulin, Protein
Tagged carbohydrates, carbs, insulin, ketogenic, ketosis, nutrition, protein
“Examination of acute shifts in energy balance by selectively reducing calorie intake from one macronutrient.”
Intro (1/2): please don’t read this study with the media headlines in your mind. Don’t even pay any attention to the study’s title, abstract, intro, and discussion. In no way did this study put low carb proper on the chopping block, regardless of what you’ve seen online or elsewhere. Mmmkay?
Intro (2/2): if you want a lesson (or refresher) in Advanced Nutrition, check out the Supplemental Information: in formulating his mathematical models, Dr. Hall seemingly reviewed every single biochemical pathway and physiological variable ever invented. Read it, for science. Really.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, pair-feeding, Protein
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, fat, insulin, ketogenic, ketosis, nutrition, obesity, protein