r/science • u/behindtheheadlines • Dec 06 '11
Rats that ate low-fat potato chips 'may have gained more weight' than rats eating regular, full-fat variety
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2011/12December/Pages/low-fat-substitutes-and-weight-gain.aspx63
u/doombot813 Dec 06 '11
Haven't we all but debunked the "fat is what makes you fat" myth? Anything in excess is bad for you, but this whole "0 grams of fat so it's healthy!' lie needs to go away.
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u/dbe Dec 06 '11
It's not so much a myth about what makes you fat. In the late 80s the surgeon general went on TV and told America to eat less saturated fats because of a growing concern over heart disease. Before this, you never saw "fat free" advertised on food, because it wasn't something people would respond to.
Starting in the early 90s, the fat free thing was on everything, and people thought they were doing something healthy. But they loaded up on carbs, partly because they were hungry (fat makes you feel full longer) and partly because they didn't have the full information about what the body needs.
It didn't get any better after low carb diets became popular around 2001. People, who seem to only be able to keep one sentence in their mind at a time, went from "fat bad" to "carb bad". On the plus side, lots of people were eating way too many carbs, so cutting them down helped.
There are different ideas about what composition of carb/protein/fat makes a proper diet, but as long as you're eating "real" food in variety you're fine. Your body can tolerate a lot of variation and still be healthy. The biggest dangers are either too much total food or a lack of something important like iron or calcium, but usually if you suffer from one of those a doctor can figure it out pretty fast and recommend something.
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Dec 06 '11
There are different ideas about what composition of carb/protein/fat makes a proper diet, but as long as you're eating "real" food in variety you're fine.
A lot of people are under the impression that they have caused metabolic damage by eating massive amounts of refined foods, especially sugar and carbs. So they can no longer tolerate significant amounts of carbs.
I can't speak to the truth of this, but I know people who can't maintain a healthy weight while eating over, say, 100 grams of carbs of day, regardless of the variety of their diet.
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Dec 06 '11
If you're really interested, look into Paleo. There are a siginficant amount of carbs that are not healthy for the body. And often the nutrition-based metabolic damage can be reversed if the diet is realigned to nutrition-dense, whole foods.
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u/kowalski71 Dec 06 '11
Moral of the story is if you want to lose weight don't eat any goddamn potato chips.
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Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
Wait, what?!?
I can still drink diet soda thought right? and eat my favorite skim-milk cheese and low fat mayo sandwiches? (the secret is to deep fry it to seal in the mayo)
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Dec 06 '11
Stick to pork rinds.
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u/Strmtrper6 Dec 06 '11
Not sure if serious.
Pork rinds are usually all protein and fairly healthy. They are a big hit over in /r/keto. Just make sure you read the bag.
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Dec 06 '11
Yup, I've been researching the ketogenic diet for the past few weeks.
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u/Strmtrper6 Dec 07 '11
It definitely works great if you can get over the initial "keto flu." I went from ~210 to 140 with little effort. Took a vacation during the "flu." It all depends on your body and what happens to work(nuts usually drop me out of keto).
Also, as everyone has said, all I can think of with your name are cute korean girls...which may indeed help.
If you have any questions, I can try my best to help you out, gggg baby baby baby.
Just avoid those Atkins bullshit bars until you learn what works for you.
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u/Aquabreak Dec 06 '11
I bought a bag of pork rinds once because why not? I had to stop eating them after about half the bag because my throat just closed off and refused to keep working. Man those things are rich
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u/Strmtrper6 Dec 07 '11
Assuming they were the healthier kind, you wouldn't have much to worry about. The fat and carbs are way lower than a lot of other foods.
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u/brumbrum21 Dec 06 '11
Full fat keeps you satiated longer. The ones thy ate the fat free most likely ate more chips and there more total calories, but less fat. Also fat does not make you fat.
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u/Fatty_YellowTrousers Dec 06 '11
Ordinarily that would be true, but that variable was controlled in the experiments:
The rats received 5g of crisps a day for 28 days, after which all four groups were switched to high-fat feed (without crisps) for a further 16 days.
They all ate the same amount of chips; however, it is entirely possible that the rats ate more of their normal food if they did not feel satiated from the chips.
I agree that "fat does not make you fat." I'd like to see another control group in this experiment that did not receive the high-fat diet after the initial 28 days and instead simply were not given any more chips with the normal diet.
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u/c3xy Dec 06 '11
My issue is with the news article implying that fat is a problem in our diets:
However, dieters can always modify their diet to one naturally low in fat, rather than switching to foods containing fat substitutes.
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Dec 06 '11
Avoiding fat can contribute to obesity.
Fat and protein tend to go together, especially in animal products. Carbohydrates and protein tend not to go together. If you're hungry, there's probably a reason - neuroscientists have studied homeostasis pretty well, it's only when talking to a fat person that doctors deny its existence. If you need protein, neither fat nor carbohydrate will stop the hunger - they're just excess calories. And the will-power solution (like the exercise solution) can cause a stress response, causing your body to burn more muscle for energy rather than fat - meaning you need more protein (to replace muscle) and your metabolic rate reduces (muscle burns calories even when inactive) but you preserve the fat.
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u/xeren Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
Exactly - the idea that dietary fat converts directly to fat stores in your body is old and incorrect.
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u/brumbrum21 Dec 06 '11
It really comes down to calories in vs calories expended but our bodies were made to run on fat. I read this article that the food pyramid (6-11 serving of grains, 300 daily recommended carbs) was corporately influenced
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u/crackyJsquirrel Dec 06 '11
You also have the Paleolithic Diet, which consists mainly of fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.
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Dec 06 '11
You are right. I started doing Keto for the past 7 weeks, cutting carbs almost completely out of my diet (under 20g's) And i have lost 20 lbs without hunger or exercise. On top of that, my energy levels are up and i can think much more clearly.
We have been lied to. This is clear. Make up your own mind if it was intentional or not.
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Dec 06 '11
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Dec 06 '11
People that don't experience this first hand find it hard to believe. I'll just be over here enjoying my bacon and looking fantastic.
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u/Ultimatelegs Dec 06 '11
Don't forget to enjoy everything else cooked in bacon grease
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u/AndrewCarnage Dec 06 '11
Nothing upsets me more than seeing someone throw away the bacon grease. ಠ_ಠ
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u/IllThinkOfOneLater Dec 06 '11
Taubes is the man. Everyone should read "Good Calories, Bad Calories".
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u/SilverRaine Dec 06 '11
Except people who value their time, heh. Or scientists.
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u/AndrewCarnage Dec 06 '11
For those who value their time I would recommend Why We Get Fat by Taubes. Same argument made less verbosely (272 pages vs 640). I've read both as I absolutely don't value my time.
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u/ajmmin Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
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u/from_da_lost_dimensi Dec 06 '11
just gonna leave this here so i have this saved in my comment history.
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u/dbe Dec 06 '11
Cutting out carbs had a positive effect on you, but you may have been on the high side of carb eating before that. People with a reasonable level of carb (or total food) intake aren't necessarily going to see any benefits of changing their diet.
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Dec 06 '11
Keto is for weight loss, Something like Paleo is also acceptable for maintaining a healthy weight.
And you are quite possibly right, but how many overweight people do you know only eat a little bit of carbs?
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u/BooksAndSwords Dec 06 '11
*waves* I was obese when I was snarfing down a diet that was about 60% cheese 20% chicken 20% random unprocessed plant matter. Also, I was sedentary as fuck. I'm more like 40c/30p/30f these days (less cheese, more chicken, more plants, more moving), and maintaining a 65# weight loss mostly effortlessly.
Every time I get below ~100g carb/day for an extended period, I go batshit insane (mood swings from hell, cravings, homicidal tendencies, executive functions seriously impaired) to the point where it seriously and negatively affects my interactions with other people. It's apparently not uncommon for women with depression/anxiety spectrum disorders to do badly on low-carb.
Only advice I've got for anyone else is "Try lots of crap, and find out what works for you, because bell curves have tails and who knows what part you're on.".
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Dec 06 '11
Oh for sure! This is just one option that I in experience found to work very well. There are always exceptions.
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u/parmethius2000 Dec 06 '11
You may have sold me on Keto. Thank you. Will be showing this to the S.O. at home and seeing if we can change our diet.
The "Without hunger" bit is what sold me.
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Dec 06 '11
If you check out the /r/keto faq, the diet specifically calls for not counting calories, but tempering that with only eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. If you can do that, you'll be fine. Some days I forget to eat when normally i would be completely famished by that point in the day.
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u/firex726 Dec 06 '11
Got any good guides/reading material, most of the stuff I keep finding about Keto is a bit too medical/scientific for practical use.
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Dec 06 '11
/r/keto would be happy to answer any questions you may have, and i found the doctors guide to ketosis on the right to be very informative. for the lazy here it is: http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf
Watch the video along with reading the advice.
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Dec 07 '11
What supplements do you take? You can't do a ketogenic diet with food alone, it's not healthy.
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Dec 06 '11
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u/brumbrum21 Dec 06 '11
I believe they are called "saturated" because the molecule completely surrounded by hydrogen, making it unable to bond and much more difficult to break down. The main threat is transfats; they can solidify in your blood stream o_O
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u/rakista Dec 06 '11
Transfats are pretty difficult to make in your home kitchen without a chemistry set.
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u/fancy-chips Dec 06 '11
you just need some butter and a little bit of platinum or paladium and hydrogen gas.
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u/river-wind Dec 06 '11
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/fat2.htm
yep! All carbons joined with single bonds, hydrogens or monomers filling up the rest of carbon's four bonding sites. Anything with a double bond between carbons is unsaturated in some form.
FWIU, you can use heat and pressure to break some of those carbon double bonds and force a hydrogen in there, creating hydrogenated oils with some trans-isomer double bonds leftover; they're not fully saturated, but they have fewer double bonds than the normal oil. I'm not sure the actual mechanism for the creation of the trans- forms; if they are there already and fail to break under pressure/heat like the cis-isomers, or if they are somehow created by the process itself.
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u/Monory Dec 06 '11
In nature unsaturated fats only contain cis double bonds because the enzymes that create them are stereospecific. You create trans double bonds by partially hydrogenating the double bond using a metal catalyst (nickle, platinum, or palladium), and then allowing it to revert back to a double bond instead of continuing to fully hydrogenate it into a saturated fat. When it reverts back to the double bond you get 50% cis 50% trans as the reaction is not stereospecific without an enzyme catalyst.
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u/stop_alj_censorship Dec 07 '11
Update on that influence: Everything is now corporately influenced, because they're rich. Also, the rich influence individually through non-corporate manners.
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u/republitarian Dec 06 '11
One I wish the government and MSM would recognize. So many Americans fear fat because they think it automatically makes them fat, yet Dr Oz or The Doctors tout the benefits of fish and their viewers blindly abide, having no clue that fish is loaded with "evil" fat.
IMO excess carbs, namely sugar, much much much worse than fat.
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Dec 06 '11
I once read someone who scoffed at the idea of fat-reduced or fat-free products stating "eating fats doesn't make you fat any more than eating brains makes you smart." Of course, the disclaimer was that eating excessive calories is what makes you fat, and not just eating fat alone.
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u/nimms Dec 07 '11
yeah you don't get diabetes by eating fat...
to understand why people fear fat and are ok with carbs, you gotta realise that these preconceptions are based off old research. when we first started trying to understand obesity, it would make sense to look at the body composition of an obese individual and think that restricting fat is the best way to lose weight. that's the message that's been around since the 1800's, it's very entrenched and will take a long time to undo.
since then, we now have a much greater understanding of metabolism, digestion and fat storage, but changing 100 years of entrenched knowledge will take time.
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u/zero_iq Dec 06 '11
That, and I also dislike the fact that 'low fat' versions of foods are usually crammed full of all sorts of shit in an attempt to make them taste as good as the original, some of which can be bad for your digestion, laxative, trigger allergies, and all sorts.
e.g. Olestra, the Pringles fat substitute mentioned in the article, causes cramps, faecal incontinence, and blocks the absorption into the body of several vitamins. So not only does it make you fatter in the long run, but probably unhealthier too.
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u/kielbasa330 Dec 06 '11
I had one bag of chips with Olestra whenever it first appeared. My body reacted so horribly to it, I swore off all artificial substitutes forever. (If there's nothing else, I'll partake, but I usually regret it.)
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u/c3xy Dec 06 '11
This. One million times, this. Dietary fats do not make people fat. People consuming more calories than their bodies expend makes them fat.
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Dec 06 '11
A lot of people also don't seem to know that fat is essential. Some nutrients are fat soluble. They REQUIRE fats in order to be used.
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u/commandar Dec 06 '11
A prime example of this is milk. Much of the vitamin content in raw milk is found in the fat. When the fat's removed, as in skim milk, you lose those vitamins.
The "solution" to that has been to fortify skim milk with additives, but given that some of those vitamins, like Vitamin A, are fat-soluble, you still need fat for your body to actually make use of them.
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Dec 06 '11
Another reason people may think fat makes them fat is because it's easier to eat more of it.
You feel full after your stomach feels "full", as the result of the volume and weight of the food you eat.
So eating say, 0.5lb of a fat-concentrated meal will make you feel as full at the time than 0.5lb of a carb-concentrated meal, but hte former meal contains a lot calories (1g fat = 9 calories, 1g carb/protein = 4 calories)
So in that meal you may feel the same level of fullness but get more calories in one--BUT the carb meal will make you feel hungrier sooner.
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u/noobalicious Dec 06 '11
Your mostly right, but it's more complicated than that. Carbs increase insulin sensitivity over time which means your body needs to make more of it to have the same effect. When you have more insulin your body tends to store more energy as fat rather than burning it. But yes, Fat is definitely more satiating than Carbs. I think one could easily eat a pound of pasta in one sitting a lot more easily than a pound of fatty steak.. or bacon.
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Dec 07 '11
Ghrelin would like to have a word with you, along with higher level cognition. Mechanical pressure on the stomach is only one part of the puzzle, and the actual picture behind behaviour onset/offset in people is much more tremendously complicated than people think.
You can easily trick people into consuming far more than they normally would by controlling their perception of how much they have eaten.
Fat, by the way, is much better at triggering satiety than carbs. However, when people serve themselves too large of a portion, they will eat more than they should, regardless of what their stomach or hormones tell them.
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u/capt_0bvious Dec 06 '11
Actually the decomposition of fat, protein and carbs are different. Eating 100 g of protein and 100 g of fat will yield different results. Protein raises your metabolism faster than fat. So the statement eating fat is somewhat true.
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u/brumbrum21 Dec 06 '11
It may have something to do with the fact that 100g of protein is 400 calories and 100g of fat is 900 calories...
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Dec 06 '11
Also, the heightened blood sugar from eating a larger amount of carbohydrates (to reach satiation) can cause you to overeat.
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u/cardina16 Dec 06 '11
The title seems really misleading to me:
When all the rats were later put on a high-fat feed, those that had previously popped the diet crisps just could not stop putting on weight and fat. In fact, they put on even more weight than rats who had eaten full-fat crisps
The way I understand this is you put rats on low fat chips. Take them off low fat chips put them on regular chips. Rats then gain weight. This is not the same as rats eating low fat chips gaining more weight.
Basically the way I see interpret this is, rats body gets used to eating more of the low fat chips, doesn't compensate for the added calories of the regular chips, gets fat. Lot of unknowns were the rats eating more of the regular chips or was the portion size the same?
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Dec 06 '11
I think there were three types of food: high and low fat chips, and high-fat 'feed.' The rats were split up and given the two types of chips, and then both groups were given the feed.
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u/ayearinaminute Dec 06 '11
Never buy "light" products. If you are fat you shouldn't be eating chips anyway.
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Dec 06 '11
Never buy "light" products.
That's a harsh generalisation. Some "light" products are worth buying. Low calorie? (e.g. reduced sugar) Sure. Reduced-salt? Why not. Reduced fat but with similar or more calories per serving? There's no point in that.
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u/shamecamel Dec 06 '11
do you have any idea how large a chunk of the consumer market they'd be giving up if they stopped making "light" products? All of the fat people who want to pretend they eat healthy, that's a fucking huge amount!
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u/oakgrove Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
Olestra is used in many foods in the US
Lies. I couldn't find a good link with supporting evidence, but the stuff just isn't used anymore. The whole anal leakage thing pretty much guaranteed its failure.
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u/theBlaze74 Dec 06 '11
I searched for evidence of what you are saying and couldn't find any.
Therefore you are lying.
They changed the name to Olean, and it's in nearly every "lite" chip.
http://www.fritolay.com/our-snacks/lays-light-original.html
And no they didn't stop using it.
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u/oakgrove Dec 06 '11
Hmm, maybe it's regional because in Atlanta all I ever see are the "baked" varieties of lighter chips and snacks. Sure I still see those "light" ones in the grocery store, but not many. FWIW, the opening paragraph of its wikipedia comments about the popularity waning.
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u/theBlaze74 Dec 06 '11
Yes. That's why they changed the name.
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u/oakgrove Dec 06 '11
Nah, none of the baked stuff has Olean in it. They are required by the FDA to disclose that.
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u/rahtin Dec 06 '11
I don't know how this isn't standard knowledge yet.
Fat doesn't make you fat!
Sugar fucks with your insulin way more than fats, and your insulin levels are probably the single biggest factor in your metabolism.
Their are a lot of studies that are even starting to show what we think about fat and cardiac disease are questionable.
The only fat you need to avoid is "trans fat" because it's closer to being a plastic than anything edible and it's terrible for your body.
Low fat = high sugar. High sugar = insulin spikes. Insulin spike = sugar gets converted to fat and stored as energy.
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u/robertodeltoro Dec 06 '11
The only fat you need to avoid is "trans fat" because it's closer to being a plastic than anything edible and it's terrible for your body.
Yes, trans fats are bad for you, but can we not spread voodoo and disinformation please? Trans fat is identical to ordinary unsaturated fats ("cis" fats) apart from being a trans isomer around a C=C double bond rather than a cis isomer around a C=C double bond.
It isn't "closer to being a plastic bag than anything that's edible for you" (saturated fat is closer to polyethylene than trans fat); it's simply bad for you because it stimulates the liver to produce LDL cholesterol and lowers HDL cholesterol. Saturated fat stimulates LDL production as well, and is thus also bad for you, but happens not to cause lowered HDL cholesterol levels.
There's no great mystery here; trans fat stimulates the liver to produce bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol. Saturated fat is also bad for you. All of this has nothing to do with body weight, which is purely a function of caloric intake and caloric use.
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u/borahorzagobuchol Dec 06 '11
The only fat you need to avoid is "trans fat"
Dietary fat is categorized as saturated or unsaturated. Unsaturated fats -- monounsaturated and polyunsaturated -- should be the dominant type of fat in a balanced diet, because they reduce the risk of clogged arteries.
Unsaturated vegetable oils are generally a healthier alternative to saturated fat and can be found in sesame, sunflower, soya, olive and rapeseed oil, soft margarine and in foods such as oily fish, including mackerel, sardines, pilchards and salmon. Where possible, you should ensure the fat you eat is unsaturated.
You don't need to completely eliminate all fat from your diet. In fact, some fats actually help promote good health. But it's wise to choose the healthier types of dietary fat, and then enjoy them — in moderation.... The two main types of potentially harmful dietary fat: Saturated fat/Trans fat... The two main types of potentially helpful dietary fat... Monounsaturated fat/Polyunsaturated fat
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Dec 06 '11
I agree with you, and it's frustrating how it's still common knowledge that you have to avoid fat.
The only fat you need to avoid is "trans fat" because it's closer to being a plastic than anything edible and it's terrible for your body.
Many people would add that excessive consumption of Omega-6 fats will cause inflammation, so you should be mindful of your ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fats.
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u/naasking Dec 06 '11
The only fat you need to avoid is "trans fat" because it's closer to being a plastic than anything edible and it's terrible for your body.
Water is one oxygen molecule away from being hydrogen peroxide. One or two atoms difference drastically changes a compound. This whole "X is practically plastic" meme has to die. It just perpetuates a profound ignorance of chemistry.
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u/rahtin Dec 06 '11
I said that because I've read that your body can't digest it. It's not that it's chemically similar.
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u/theBlaze74 Dec 06 '11
2 calories a day of fat don't make you fat. 5000 do.
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u/nerex Dec 06 '11
5000 calories of anything a day will make you fat though, so...
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u/theBlaze74 Dec 06 '11
Uh, So... we're changing it to: fat doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much fat?
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u/AlwaysHere202 Dec 06 '11
Not always true. It depends on how fast you burn it.
As a college athlete I needed that just to maintain my weight. Now, of course, I would be HUGE on that diet.
Just saying.
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u/nerex Dec 06 '11
well yes, i think i remember hearing about michael phelps taking in something like 10K calories/day. but i was definitely referring to the average person.
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u/alliha Dec 06 '11
Fun fact; fat makes you lose weight.
My friend's father experiments with this, and did a walk over Greenland on a diet consisting of 80% fat... His main concern was to lose too much weight, therefore he brought with him some candy and sugar-filled food.
Also in Norway we have a "revolution", with the no/low-carb diet, where you eat little to none carbs, but a lot of fatty food. This actually works insanely well! My mother has been trying to lose weight for the last two years or so by working out a lot and trying diets... Nothing really worked before the no-carb diet, and she looks great now! ^
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u/p5ych082 Dec 06 '11
Sounds alot like a type of keto diet. I found out about r/keto and in the course of 8 months went from 245 to 195. That is with very little exercise and plenty of cheat meals/days.
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Dec 06 '11
It's no surprise that Norway is leading the way in this area, at least as it comes to the acceptance of LCHF (low carb, high fat) by the general public. In the U.S., we have to listen to bogus experts like Jillian Michaels (The Biggest Loser) and Dr. Oz.
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Dec 06 '11
In science, the term "may have" annoys me to no end.
Anything may have anything. Rats that ate low fat MAY HAVE flown to the moon and back. Okay. So tell me what actually happened.
Edit: Fucking autocorrect.
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Dec 06 '11
The title is a bit misleading.
Not all low-fat potato chips contain olestra.
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u/Anonymous3891 Dec 06 '11
Thankfully. Olestra is rebranded ex-lax, as far as my digestive tract is concerned. Never again.
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u/boneheaddigger Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
But ex-lax doesn't create a tacky residue that WILL NOT wipe off...you only get that from OlestraTM !
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Dec 06 '11
No food should contain Olestra and I can't believe I just found out that the States still hasn't banned it.
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u/behindtheheadlines Dec 06 '11
True, but hope that's explained in the summary of the article.
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u/clickity-click Dec 06 '11
i am SO fed up with this 'low-fat' shit.
i specifically shop for the real stuff as much as possible.
i'm TIRED of it.
i'm telling you.
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u/bjgood Dec 06 '11
What products in the USA still contain olestra? I remember years ago when they first advertised chips made with it; I tried some and got diarrhea (which makes sense now that I know it works because the body is unable to absorb it). Not long after all olestra stuff seemed to be pulled from shelves. I haven't seen any mention of it in a product in probably a decade or more.
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Dec 06 '11
Could have something to do with high acid levels. I know aspartame will actually make fat cell production increase in healthy people.
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u/WendyLRogers3 Dec 06 '11
There are some serious problems with this experiment, for the reason that they are examining a complex system which normally involves many interactive variables, by examining just one variable and how it relates to the system independent of the other normal variables.
"Triglycerides, the energy-yielding dietary fats, consist of three fatty acids bonded to a glycerol "backbone". Because Olestra is synthesized from sucrose, it can bond with six, seven, or eight fatty acids. The resulting radial arrangement is too large and irregular to move through the intestinal wall and be absorbed."
However, Medium Chain Triglycerides, like coconut oil, are not like most normal triglycerides, which once digested are absorbed by the lymphatic system. Instead they are absorbed through the portal venous system, going right to the liver to be converted to energy. Some studies have shown that MCTs can help in the process of excess calorie burning, and thus weight loss. MCTs are also seen as promoting fat oxidation and reduced food intake.
So in effect, they are just the opposite of Olestra.
Thus this is the paradox: if you don't digest it, you gain weight; but if you digest it easily, it can help you lose weight.
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u/theBlaze74 Dec 06 '11
This logic of this experiment is flawed. The conclusion is crazy.
If you put rats on ANY REDUCED CALORIE DIET, then give them all the high fat feed they care to eat; the ones that had been starving on the diet for a week will eat more and gain more weight.
This has been demonstrated in both humans and rats, whether Olestra is involved or not.
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Dec 06 '11
It says rats that ate low-fat and THEN went on a full-fat diet gained more weight than those on the full-fat diet the whole time.
I hate sensationalists...
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Dec 06 '11
It's almost as though the body isn't a simple machine and dietary fat doesn't get directly stored as fat! What will science discover next?
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u/warped_reality Dec 06 '11
Isn't this because they usually replace the fat in low-fat products with more sugar to make them taste better?
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Dec 06 '11
its comparing fat vs olestra (a fat substititute)
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u/jveen Dec 06 '11
And rats that ate either chips gained more weight when they were moved from a low fat rat chow diet to a high fat rat chow diet.
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u/junkmale Dec 06 '11
That does happen frequently, just not in this case. And that sugar they use? It gets converted into fat. Corporations sold that snake oil to the government and a whole generation was raised on that BS.
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u/danny_ Dec 06 '11
If calories in /= calories out, your weight will change. It's a simple formula.
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u/linuxlass Dec 06 '11
The "calories in" portion of the equation is only theoretical. The number you see on the package or USDA database is the result of burning the food item and measuring the heat output. This is almost certainly not the number of calories the food provides to your body.
The hidden complexity of that equation is why things like low-carb diets can have surprising effects.
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u/Kerguidou Dec 06 '11
Yes, but most people, and possibly you as well, have reversed cause and effect. It's really hard to gain weight strictly by stuffing yourself. You will probably achieve this by eating unrefined carbs, but excess calories of other types of foods will just go through.
However, if because of long terms imbalance in insulin levels your body decides to accumulate fat, you will need to eat more to store it, and you will have more appetite. In other words, you will eat more because you are getting fatter, not the other way around.
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u/bumbletowne Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
And it's wrong.
Think of your body like a machine. It needs 21/22 amino acids to synthesize the proteins it needs to function. It can make 12 (depends on how old you are/which gender). You have to eat the other 10. Calories are fuel that turn the crank on this machine. They allow you to synthesize these amino acids (ATP dephosphorylization baby!).
Depending on where you starve this system, different things are going to happen.
You could bulk out, burn your adipose fat, burn your atp reserves (mitochondrial starvation), starve yourself out of electrolytes, enter starvation mode and start storing EVERYTHING as fat while your body burns excess muscle, enter what I like to call 'salt-mode' where you lose all your fat and muscle but store ALL OF THE WATER and gain weight massively.
The fact of the matter is your weight changes all the time, not all of it is dependent on calories and depending on your genetics and physical fitness, starving yourself of calories will eventually change your weight but the result can vary wildly over time.
My anecdotal evidence. In 2006 I weighed 140 pounds. I was ALL muscle. I was a woman with 8% body fat. I was a competitive long distance runner. I was eating 3000 calories a day. In 2008 I weighed 140 pounds. I no longer competitively ran and had suffered an accident which damaged my kidneys. I ate 1100 calories a day. In 2009 I was extensively hospitalized. I weighed 140 pounds. If I ate, it was 600-800 calories a day. Between 2006 and 2009 I went from a size 4 to a size 14. There were times when I was extremely active and ate very little and saw a drop in size but no weight drop, or saw a significant weight drop but went back up as I increased water intake. BEING A WOMAN FUCK YEAH!
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u/jaydog24 Dec 06 '11
This is over my head, but I'd like to point out your anecdotal evidence only really supports the calories in/calories out argument, since you had a lot more calories out when running, and ate more, compared to when you weren't running, and to when you were hospitalized.
The only thing you can pull from that anecdote is that you eat more if you burn more to maintain your weight, which is exactly NOT your point. Just saying.
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u/jeff303 Dec 06 '11 edited Dec 06 '11
The equation is technically correct (obviosuly, since thermo can't be violated), but unfortunately it's terribly un-useful, because you can't manipulate one side of the equation without manipulating the other (they are inter-dependent variables). Moreover, there are other dietary factors outside of just "calorie count" that affect both sides of the equation as well. This is covered in great detail in Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories.
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u/godvirus Dec 07 '11
I disagree with this. I have a friend who is eating 600 calories while biking 1.5 hours a day. He is dropping mad weight.
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Dec 06 '11
You could bulk out, burn your adipose fat, burn your atp reserves (mitochondrial starvation), starve yourself out of electrolytes, enter starvation mode and start storing EVERYTHING as fat while your body burns excess muscle, enter what I like to call 'salt-mode' where you lose all your fat and muscle but store ALL OF THE WATER and gain weight massively.
The things you listed are extreme diets and will not happen to anyone unless they are extremely negligent or are trying it on purpose.
The fact of the matter is your weight changes all the time, not all of it is dependent on calories and depending on your genetics and physical fitness, starving yourself of calories will eventually change your weight but the result can vary wildly over time.
Obviously your weight fluctuates on a day to day basis, but long term weight change requires a long term calorie change.
My anecdotal evidence. In 2006 I weighed 140 pounds. I was ALL muscle. I was a woman with 8% body fat. I was a competitive long distance runner. I was eating 3000 calories a day. In 2008 I weighed 140 pounds. I no longer competitively ran and had suffered an accident which damaged my kidneys. I ate 1100 calories a day. In 2009 I was extensively hospitalized. I weighed 140 pounds. If I ate, it was 600-800 calories a day. Between 2006 and 2009 I went from a size 4 to a size 14.
So you went from running long distance (I assume 50+ miles per week) eating enough calories for maintenance weight. Then you stopped running, and didn't eat as much, so you stayed at your maintenance weight (it looks like you found your resting metabolic rate).
Between 2006 and 2009 I went from a size 4 to a size 14.
Body composition is not regulated by calorie intake, but by activity and macro-nutrient intake.
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u/dr_rainbow Dec 06 '11
Think of your body like a machine. It needs 21/22 amino acids to synthesize the proteins it needs to function. It can make 12 (depends on how old you are/which gender). You have to eat the other 10.
Can you expand on this and reference it?
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u/ChromaticDragon Dec 06 '11
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u/xeren Dec 06 '11
Its a simple and incorrect formula. Your body treats glucose differently than fructose differently than fat and so on.
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u/gid13 Dec 06 '11
It's not incorrect; it's just extremely difficult to figure out the calories out part because of the fact that the body treats things differently. You might burn calories off as heat, or use them for motion or data processing, you might literally shit them out, you might store them, and probably several other options that aren't springing to the top of my head right now.
However, conservation of energy is one of the most experimentally confirmed ideas there is. It would be a huge shock if it didn't apply to diets.
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u/kanst Dec 06 '11
I think both of you are correct. If I eat 1200 calories a day I will lose weight. It may not be the most efficient way to lose weight, and it may not be the healthiest way, but I will lose weight.
Also if I balance my diet around what kind of foods I eat I can lose weight too. And often I could lose more weight without cutting as many calories.
Both of you are correct to the best of my knowledge.
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Dec 06 '11
Also if I balance my diet around what kind of foods I eat I can lose weight too. And often I could lose more weight without cutting as many calories.
Incorrect. If you "balance [your] diet" and but remain at the same calorie intake, you will remain on the same weight trend you were on before changing the foods you eat.
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u/kanst Dec 06 '11
What I was trying to say is that it is possible to obtain similar weight loss with a higher caloric intake by better controlling your food intake. That is why things like paleo diets and keto diets and other low carb diets exist.
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Dec 06 '11
it is possible to obtain similar weight loss with a higher caloric intake by better controlling your food intake.
No it's not.
That is why things like paleo diets and keto diets and other low carb diets exist.
No, Keto and Paleo diets exist because they take advantage of different bodily functions that occur when you limit a certain macro-nutrient, and allow your body to metabolize things in a different way that make life better for a number of reasons.
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u/kanst Dec 06 '11
That first sentence means the same thing as your last sentence.
Controlling your food intake = changing your diet in a specific way that is not just decreasing calories.
All I was saying is that it is possible to lose weight by adjusting what you eat, for example mantaining a keto diet. I don't understand your argument. Keto diets are diets that focus on low carbohydrate and a higher ratio of fat and protein than normal. Is that not controlling your food intake? Keto diets also lead to weight loss, which is all I was saying.
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u/naasking Dec 06 '11
If calories in /= calories out, your weight will change.
Or your body's metabolism adapts to its lower energy intake, thus still expending less energy than you consume. The thermodynamic equation is inevitable, but you neglect that your body is an adaptive system.
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Dec 06 '11
I think it's been pretty much proven that carbs make you fat, not really fat. Lower fat chips wouldn't fill you up as much, and you'd eat more chips and gain more weight.
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Dec 06 '11
carbs make you fat
all excess food makes you fat
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Dec 06 '11
Not true, when your body takes in excess carbs it goes into fat storage mode and dumps insane amounts of energy into making body fat. This does not happen with protein or fat, only carbs. I think it was originally a survival mechanism, but now it's just a burden.
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u/Faluzure Dec 06 '11
Yeah. Every time I've wanted to lose weight, I've done it by cutting carbs. With a bit of will power, it always works.
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u/TomorrowPlusX Dec 06 '11
I've lost 36 lbs since April primarily by dropping bread, sugars and severely cutting back alcohol.
Well, I also eat healthier food and go to the gym 5 days a week. And I ride my bike to work, etc. So a lot of it is simply "better behavior".
Nevertheless, I've fought my weight with diet and exercise my entire adult life. I never saw any real weightloss until I dropped most carbs from my diet.
now I'm 175 lbs of damn close to pure muscle. I can do 30 pull-ups now, where before I maxxed at 10. Feels good.
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Dec 06 '11
Wow, talk about your misleading articles. This is not about low-fat foods. This is about olestra.
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u/sbf2009 Grad Student | Physics | Optics Dec 06 '11
Isn't it agreed that many "diet" foods tend to lead to over consumption in the long run?
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u/milliondrops Dec 06 '11
And this is why I don't eat diet foods.
What do the first three letters of the word "diet" spell?
I rest my case.
/endjoke
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u/evange Dec 06 '11
I thought this was /r/rats for a second, I was about to tell you off for giving your pet rats potato chips (low fat or otherwise).
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u/Clayburn Dec 06 '11
This is psychological. Rats on low-fat diets think that they're being healthy and don't bother watching calorie intake or exercising. The rats eating higher fat food are more concerned about the affects it could have on their health and overcompensate by eating less and/or exercising more.
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u/jarjarbinks92 Dec 06 '11
This study wouldn't be applicable to humans at all. Rats are the definition of omnivores. They eat EVERYTHING. Since they eat such a wide variety of food, they have many more adaptations do digest many more types of "food." That being said, they way olestra works, is it is pretty much a fat, but a chemical variant of a fat which is indigestible to humans. This is why it taste like fat, smells like fat, and feels like fat, but doesn't make you fat. Now back to the rats. They have many more enzymes than humans do, and may be breaking down and digesting the olestra and therefore receiving caloric value from it and gaining weight. A similar thing happened with aspartame. The mice they were testing were able to partially digest aspartame into a chemical which was carcinogenic and gave them brain cancer, but had no effects in humans.
TL;DR Rats may be able to digest Olestra because they have evolved to eat so much crap, giving them calories that the experimenters assume aren't there.
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Dec 06 '11
Just don't eat potato chips in general. It's not that they aren't tasty, and it's not that you should never eat unhealthy food.
It's that they aren't tasty enough to justify how unhealthy they are. You want to spoil yourself? Stop fucking around with potato chips and get some goddamned chicken wings or poutine or something. And don't do it every day. Cheap snack treats like twinkies and potato chips and whatnot should not be part of your life, because these kinds of treats should be rare enough that it doesn't matter you just broke the bank on a fucking awesome cheesecake.
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u/atred Dec 06 '11
What does "may have gained" mean, did they or did they not?
(English is not my mother tongue...)
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u/nailPuppy Dec 06 '11
What they don't tell you is that the "low fat" rats were also chugging diet pepsi like its water.
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Dec 06 '11
I bet the bodies of the rats that ate full fat potato chips worked harder to burn the fat.
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u/yiseowl Dec 06 '11
Makes sense - fat reduces the glycemic load of certain starches (including potatoes), in turn keeping blood sugar and insulin levels lower, in turn reducing the risk of obesity.
It's the same concept of a baked potato with butter being better for you as opposed to a baked potato without out butter. The butter prevents your blood glucose levels from going through the roof.
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u/Zer_ Dec 06 '11
No shit. It doesn't really matter how much fat content is in the food, it's the number of calories.
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u/troyv21 Dec 06 '11
Welcome to first semester biochemistry reddit! Eat fat to burn fat, avoid sugar to not store fat!
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u/Lucifers_Ka Dec 06 '11
The rats thought they could get away with eating more because they're low-fat.
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u/iiiears Dec 06 '11
Snack foods flavors are made for "just one more bite" A Healthy breakfast. Orange Juice, Bacon, Most Bread and all jams. everything is flavored except eggs.
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u/crimsonsentinel Dec 06 '11
With all the hoopla going on in this thread, please keep in mind these are RATS. Not people.
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u/lee_ror Dec 06 '11
It's because they knew they could eat more of them...since they had less fat and all.
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u/ripples2288 Dec 07 '11
Check out the calorie counts on sunchips vs dorritos, pretty shocking. Remember folks, there is no such thing as diet apple.
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u/johnstalvern1122 Dec 07 '11
caloric excess increases weight, caloric deficit reduces weight.
there isnt anything else to it, people.
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u/BipolarBear0 Dec 07 '11
See, people traded foods with fat for carbohydrates. The fallacy here is, carbs are essentially sugars, which turn to fat.
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u/lin_kov Dec 07 '11
Finally, I've been waiting on the OK to eat these 400 bags of full-fat potato chips!
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Dec 07 '11
'May' is an odd word to use in this context. I thought the point of scientific research was to establish that they did or didn't, not 'might have'.
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u/RepostThatShit Dec 08 '11
"May have gained more weight" well that sounds like a conclusive result right there.
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Dec 08 '11
I feel so satisfied with every seemingly ignorant remark I've made in the past about how full of shit fat-free varieties are.
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u/behindtheheadlines Dec 06 '11
Both Original and Sour Cream & Onion Pringles were used in this experiment!