Are low fat diets dead?

[Steve]

I recently heard some proactive defenses of the low fat diet.

These pretty much boiled down to:

1. Studies "debunking" low fat diets did not look at truly
low fat diets.
--------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Low fat diets are diets where 10% or fewer calories are from
fat. Participants were not sufficiently monitored to ensure
compliance.

2. Most Americans never went on low fat diets
-------------------------------------------------------------
----------

3. # 1 from the previous paragraph.

4. People just added low fat foods to their diets without
taking other foods out. I heard this at a conference from
Jeff Novick, head of the Pritikin centers. He had many
graphs from research he did ( I don't have citations )
showing that during the low fat craze people just added
more food ( low fat) to their usual diets. Interestingly,
he said people did something similar in the hey day of low
carb diets. They just ate more.

5. Not all low fat diets are equal
-----------------------------------------------------

6. Low fat diets should have been composed of high bulk (
naturally high in water and fiber together ) unprocessed
foods. This would have kept calorie counts down and taken
advantage of it being very difficult for a human body to
convert excess carbohydrate calories into fat.

These arguments piqued my interest and I decided to google
around on "low fat".

Almost every hit was some anecdotal account or pop
journalist interpretation of studies that show that "low fat
diet do not work".

I only found one site that explained low fat diets (
fatfree.com ).

I am wondering if this is just due to the low fat diet going
out of fashion before the web became really big and/or the
low fat dieters out there are simply not putting up low fat
diet sites?

Your opinion?

[monty1945]

It depends upon what you mean by "low fat." If there are only
trace amounts of lipids in the diet, but the diet is
sufficient and has no problematic foods, then you will replace
the arachidonic acid in your body with Mead acid, which is
very important to do for long term health. However, the major
problem seems to be that it's not very tasty or satisfying,
and you might eat too much calorically-dense foods. I suggest
you eat very low lipid foods, with the exception of cheese,
dark chocolate, and eggs, and then add coconut oil or butter
to the items to make them more satisfying, such as putting a
little butter or coconut oil on a no-fat cookie. Just don't
cook dairy, and only boil eggs. Shredded coconut might enhance
the diet as well - I grind up shredded coconut very fine and
put it on all kinds of things. Small amounts of nutritional
yeast is good for intake of trace minerals and B vitamins.

[monty1945]

As biologist Ray Peat pointed out, the old animal studies
showed clearly that fat free diets resulted in hardly any
cancer. Basically, without dietary PUFAs, there is very little
cancer risk.

You can read more about the relevant evidence, along with some
essays I wrote on this and related subjects, at my free site:

http://groups.msn.com/TheScientificDebateForum-

[Ron Peters]

On Aug 15, 1:36 pm, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently heard some proactive defenses of the low
> fat diet.

> These pretty much boiled down to:

> 1. Studies "debunking" low fat diets did not look at truly
> low fat diets.

> Low fat diets are diets where 10% or fewer calories are from
> fat. Participants were not sufficiently monitored to ensure
> compliance.

That's actually a very low fat diet. A low fat diet contains
30% or fewer fat calories.

> 2. Most Americans never went on low fat diets

Without reading the nutrition labels, one doesn't know what
they are eating.

> I only found one site that explained low fat diets (
> fatfree.com ).

Too many ads, no explanation, but recipes look interesting.

> I am wondering if this is just due to the low fat diet going
> out of fashion before the web became really big and/or the
> low fat dieters out there are simply not putting up low fat
> diet sites?

Very low fat diets don't seem to be necessary for reducing
CVD or diabetes as long as trans fats and saturated fats
are kept low.

--
Ron

[Susan]

x-no-archive: yes

Jim Chinnis wrote:

> "Difficult?"
> --

If that was an IQ test, the OP just flunked.

Nothing is stored as fat more quickly or efficiently than
carbohydrate.

Susan

[Steve]

On Aug 15, 6:05 pm, Jim Chinnis <jchin...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote in part:
>
> >1. Low fat diets should have been composed of high bulk (
> > naturally high in water and fiber together )
> > unprocessed foods. This would have kept calorie counts
> > down and taken advantage of it being very difficult for
> > a human body to convert excess carbohydrate calories
> > into fat.
>
> "Difficult?"
> --
> Jim Chinnis Warrenton, Virginia, USA jchin...@alum.mit.edu

I didn't want to get technical, since the question in my
original post was about the near absence of low fat diet sites
on the web and in other popular media as compared to other
diets, but usenet being usenet. Well here is what I mean. Care
to comment on my original question?

J Clin Invest. 1995 December; 96(6): 2735-2743. Short-term
alterations in carbohydrate energy intake in humans. Striking
effects on hepatic glucose production, de novo lipogenesis,
lipolysis, and whole-body fuel selection.

Summary: Excess carbohydrates are not significantly converted
to fat by the liver. When excess carbohydrates are taken in,
carbohydrate oxidation increases, fat oxidation decreases.
Even with a 50% excess in calories in carbohydrates "absolute
hepatic DNL accounted for < 5g fatty acids synthesized per
day" It would take 3 months eating excess carbohydrates to
make a single pound of fat.

Am J Clin Nutr. 1995 Jul;62(1):19-29. Fat and carbohydrate
overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage.

Summary: Excess dietary fat leads to greater fat accumulation
than does excess dietary carbohydrate, and the difference was
greatest early in the overfeeding period."Carbohydrate
overfeeding produced progressive increases in carbohydrate
oxidation and total energy expenditure resulting in 75-85% of
excess energy being stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had
minimal effects on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure,
leading to storage of 90-95% of excess energy."

[Steve]

On Aug 15, 8:12 pm, Susan <neverm...@nomail.com> wrote:
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> Jim Chinnis wrote:
> > "Difficult?"
> > --
>
> If that was an IQ test, the OP just flunked.
>
> Nothing is stored as fat more quickly or efficiently than
> carbohydrate.
>
> Susan

In my life experience those who label people as idiots without
bothering with details, such as what they actually said, let
alone the reasons for it, say much more about the level of
their own learning and depth of thoughtfulness than the people
the label.

FYI, could be wrong, but http://groups.google.com/group/sci.m-
ed.nutrition/browse_frm/thread/15f5aeec261e43a2/4eb1f815e98e5-
0ef?hl=en#4eb1f815e98e50ef

BTW, that is not what my original post was about, if you had
bothered to read it before commenting.

- the "idiot" OP

[Ron Peters]

On Aug 18, 7:40 am, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I didn't want to get technical, since the question in my
> original post was about the near absence of low fat diet
> sites on the web and in other popular media as compared to
> other diets, but usenet being usenet. Well here is what I
> mean. Care to comment on my original question?

> J Clin Invest. 1995 December; 96(6): 2735-2743. Short-term
> alterations in carbohydrate energy intake in humans.
> Striking effects on hepatic glucose production, de novo
> lipogenesis, lipolysis, and whole-body fuel selection.

> Summary: Excess carbohydrates are not significantly
> converted to fat by the liver. When excess carbohydrates are
> taken in, carbohydrate oxidation increases, fat oxidation
> decreases. Even with a 50% excess in calories in
> carbohydrates "absolute hepatic DNL accounted for < 5g fatty
> acids synthesized per day" It would take 3 months eating
> excess carbohydrates to make a single pound of fat.

> Am J Clin Nutr. 1995 Jul;62(1):19-29. Fat and carbohydrate
> overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage.

> Summary: Excess dietary fat leads to greater fat
> accumulation than does excess dietary carbohydrate, and the
> difference was greatest early in the overfeeding
> period."Carbohydrate overfeeding produced progressive
> increases in carbohydrate oxidation and total energy
> expenditure resulting in 75-85% of excess energy being
> stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had minimal effects
> on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure, leading to
> storage of 90-95% of excess energy."

Good finds. A Danish study in Ugeskr Laeger. 2000 Sep
4;162(36): 4794-9. by Dich J, Grunnet N, Lammert O, Faber P,
Bj=F8rnsbo KS, Larsen LO, Neese RA, Hellerstein MC, Quistorff
B. states: "Ten pairs of normal young men were overfed by 5 MJ
per day for 21 days with either a carbohydrate-rich or a
fat-rich diet (C- and F- group). The two subjects of a pair
were requested to follow each other throughout the day to
ensure similar physical activity. The increase in body weight
and fat mass were not significantly different between the C-
and the F-group. Heat production during sleep did not change
during overfeeding. The accumulated faecal loss of energy, dry
matter, carbohydrate and protein was significantly higher in
the C- than in the F-group. Hepatic de novo lipogenesis was
212 g per 21 days in the C-group and was too low to be
determined in the F-group. Whole body de novo lipogenesis was
positive in six of the ten subjects in the C- group (mean: 332
g per 21 days). It is concluded that the increase in body
weight and fat mass during overfeeding of isocaloric amounts
of diets rich in carbohydrate or in fat was not significantly
different, and that surplus of carbohydrate seemed to be
converted to fat both by hepatic and extrahepatic de novo
lipogenesis."

Although the DNL (fatty acid production) was twice as large,
it doesn't give a mechanism for rapid weight gain. The second
article you quote shows reduced weight gain per excess calorie
consumption for a high carbohydrate diet compared to a high
fat diet, but does the body have another mechanism for
eliminating calories on a very high carbohydrate diet? I
assume that the liver has limited capability for holding large
amounts of glycogen.

Since DNL is low even in the high carbohydrate diet, a normal
diet is going to accumulate fatty acids in the ratios that
they are consumed.

--
Ron

DNL =3D de novo lipogenesis

[Szczepan B]

"Steve"
>
> Summary: Excess carbohydrates are not significantly
> converted to fat by the liver. When excess carbohydrates are
> taken in, carbohydrate oxidation increases, fat oxidation
> decreases. Even with a 50% excess in calories in
> carbohydrates "absolute hepatic DNL accounted for < 5g fatty
> acids synthesized per day" It would take 3 months eating
> excess carbohydrates to make a single pound of fat.

Why pigs are different?
>
> Am J Clin Nutr. 1995 Jul;62(1):19-29. Fat and carbohydrate
> overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage.
>
> Summary: leads to greater fat accumulation than does excess
> dietary carbohydrate, and the difference was greatest early
> in the overfeeding period."Carbohydrate overfeeding produced
> progressive increases in carbohydrate oxidation and total
> energy expenditure resulting in 75-85% of excess energy
> being stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had minimal
> effects on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure,
> leading to storage of 90-95% of excess energy."

They do not know that we can digest only 150g of fats per day.
The excess dietary fat pass thru. Easy to check. S*

[Szczepan B]

"Ron Peterson" <
>
>Although the DNL (fatty acid production) was twice as
>large, it
doesn't give a mechanism for rapid weight gain. The second
article you quote shows reduced weight gain per excess calorie
consumption for a high carbohydrate diet compared to a high
fat diet, but does the body have another mechanism for
eliminating calories on a very high carbohydrate diet? I
assume that the liver has limited capability for holding large
amounts of glycogen.

The liver has the capability proportional for the size. The
size do not change from day to day. So such studies (few weeks
on healthy pople) have no sense.

[Ron Peters]

On Aug 19, 4:20 am, "Szczepan Bialek" <sz.bia...@wp.pl> wrote:
> "Steve"

> > Summary: Excess carbohydrates are not significantly
> > converted to fat by the liver. When excess carbohydrates
> > are taken in, carbohydrate oxidation increases, fat
> > oxidation decreases. Even with a 50% excess in calories in
> > carbohydrates "absolute hepatic DNL accounted for < 5g
> > fatty acids synthesized per day" It would take 3 months
> > eating excess carbohydrates to make a single pound of fat.

> Why pigs are different?

Pigs aren't different. Increasing their fat in their diet
increases the amount of fat deposits in the body.

> They do not know that we can digest only 150g of fats per
> day. The excess dietary fat pass thru. Easy to check.

I couldn't find any reference to a maximum digestion of 150 g
of fats per day. One overfeeding experiment was able to cause
a gain of 54 g per day of fat on average. Another study showed
80% efficiency on an intake of 133 g/day.

--
Ron

[Steve]

On Aug 18, 12:08 pm, Ron Peterson <r...@shell.core.com> wrote:
> On Aug 18, 7:40 am, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Good finds. A Danish study in Ugeskr Laeger. 2000 Sep
> 4;162(36): 4794-9. by Dich J, Grunnet N, Lammert O, Faber P,
> Bj=F8rnsbo KS, Larsen LO, Neese RA, Hellerstein MC,
> Quistorff B. states: "Ten pairs of normal young men were
> overfed by 5 MJ per day for 21 days with either a
> carbohydrate-rich or a fat-rich diet (C- and F- group). The
> two subjects of a pair were requested to follow each other
> throughout the day to ensure similar physical activity. The
> increase in body weight and fat mass were not significantly
> different between the C- and the F-group. Heat production
> during sleep did not change during overfeeding. The
> accumulated faecal loss of energy, dry matter, carbohydrate
> and protein was significantly higher in the C- than in the
> F-group. Hepatic de novo lipogenesis was 212 g per 21 days
> in the C-group and was too low to be determined in the
> F-group. Whole body de novo lipogenesis was positive in six
> of the ten subjects in the C- group (mean: 332 g per 21
> days). It is concluded that the increase in body weight and
> fat mass during overfeeding of isocaloric amounts of diets
> rich in carbohydrate or in fat was not significantly
> different, and that surplus of carbohydrate seemed to be
> converted to fat both by hepatic and extrahepatic de novo
> lipogenesis."

Good find yourself. One study doesn't mean anything, but this
makes sense with my personal experience and what I hear from
other people. No matter what magic trick diet you are on (
low carb or low fat ) if you eat too many calories, you will
gain weight.

My tastes naturally go towards low fat meals ....about 15%,
but I count calories. It lets me eat what I want and control
my weight.

[Ron Peters]

On Aug 19, 6:45 pm, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My tastes naturally go towards low fat meals ....about 15%,
> but I count calories. It lets me eat what I want and control
> my weight.

I am basically trying to cut my consumption of saturated and
trans fats, while slightly increasing PUFA. I think that my
total fat consumption is less than 50 g/day but probably more
than 30 g/day. I was able to drop my weight 20 lbs and don't
think that I need to go lower immediately. My spouse is up a
little from her normal weight because she was eating close to
the same portion size I was. She has cut back her portion size
and stopped gaining.

--
Ron

[Szczepan B]

"Ron Peterson" <ron@shell.core.com>wrote
news:1187561139.067364.33610@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 19, 4:20 am, "Szczepan Bialek"
> <sz.bia...@wp.pl> wrote:
>> "Steve"
>
>> > Summary: When excess carbohydrates are taken in,
>> > carbohydrate oxidation increases, fat oxidation
>> > decreases. Even with a 50% excess in calories in
>> > carbohydrates "absolute hepatic DNL accounted for < 5g
>> > fatty acids synthesized per day" It would take 3
>> > months eating excess carbohydrates to make a single
>> > pound of fat.
>
>> Why pigs are different?
>
> Pigs aren't different. Increasing their fat in their diet
> increases the amount of fat deposits in the body.

" Excess carbohydrates are not significantly converted to fat
by the liver." Before WW2 pigs were feed without fats and pork
fat was 6 fingers thick.

>> They do not know that we can digest only 150g of fats per
>> day. The excess dietary fat pass thru. Easy to check.
>
> I couldn't find any reference to a maximum digestion of 150
> g of fats per day. One overfeeding experiment was able to
> cause a gain of 54 g per day of fat on average. Another
> study showed 80% efficiency on an intake of 133 g/day.

You are taking about todays study. The most valuable were done
in XIX century. In that time was also found that the high fat
diet is most effective in weight losss. S*

[Szczepan B]

"Steve"
>
>Good find yourself. One study doesn't mean anything, but
>this makes
sense with my personal experience and what I hear from other
people. No matter what magic trick diet you are on ( low
carb or low fat ) if you eat too many calories, you will
gain weight.

>My tastes naturally go towards low fat meals ....about
>15%, but I
count calories. It lets me eat what I want and control
my weight.

If you "want" eat animal products when you eat 30% (minimum)
calories from fat. Below this you must eat mainly plant
products. S*

[Tc]

On Aug 15, 10:47 pm, monty1...@lycos.com wrote:
> As biologist Ray Peat pointed out, the old animal studies
> showed clearly that fat free diets resulted in hardly any
> cancer. Basically, without dietary PUFAs, there is very
> little cancer risk.
>
> You can read more about the relevant evidence, along with
> some essays I wrote on this and related subjects, at my
> free site:
>
> http://groups.msn.com/TheScientificDebateForum-

Fat free diets also result in death. Moron.

[Tc]

On Aug 15, 1:36 pm, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently heard some proactive defenses of the low
> fat diet.
>
> These pretty much boiled down to:
>
> 1. Studies "debunking" low fat diets did not look at truly
> low fat diets. -----------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------=
--=AD---------------------------
> Low fat diets are diets where 10% or fewer calories are from
> fat. Participants were not sufficiently monitored to ensure
> compliance.
>
> 2. Most Americans never went on low fat diets
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------
>
> 1. # 1 from the previous paragraph.
>
> 2. People just added low fat foods to their diets without
> taking other foods out. I heard this at a conference
> from Jeff Novick, head of the Pritikin centers. He had
> many graphs from research he did ( I don't have
> citations ) showing that during the low fat craze people
> just added more food ( low fat) to their usual diets.
> Interestingly, he said people did something similar in
> the hey day of low carb diets. They just ate more.
>
> 3. Not all low fat diets are equal
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> 1. Low fat diets should have been composed of high bulk (
> naturally high in water and fiber together ) unprocessed
> foods. This would have kept calorie counts down and
> taken advantage of it being very difficult for a human
> body to convert excess carbohydrate calories into fat.
>
> These arguments piqued my interest and I decided to google
> around on "low fat".
>
> Almost every hit was some anecdotal account or pop
> journalist interpretation of studies that show that "low
> fat diet do not work".
>
> I only found one site that explained low fat diets (
> fatfree.com ).
>
> I am wondering if this is just due to the low fat diet going
> out of fashion before the web became really big and/or the
> low fat dieters out there are simply not putting up low fat
> diet sites?
>
> Your opinion?

The concept of low fat diets comes from the whole bogus
calorie bullshit. The idea is that fat contains more energy (9
calories) per gram and carbs contain 4 cal per gram, therefore
politicians and ag dept researchers thought that they could
sell more grains by trumpeting the magical weight loss
paradigm of eating less fat and more carbs. But more than 95%
of those restricting calories by restricting fats fail to lose
and appreciable weight and/or to keep it off.

Low fat diets have never worked and they never will. The only
practical approach to real weight loss is to cut refined and
manufactured carbs and manufactured foods in general and eat
real meat and real veggies that contain real nutrition.

[Steve]

On Aug 20, 3:31 am, "Szczepan Bialek" <sz.bia...@wp.pl> wrote:
> "Steve"

> If you "want" eat animal products when you eat 30% (minimum)
> calories from fat. Below this you must eat mainly plant
> products. S*

Well even before the carb vs fat wars any grandmother would
tell you that you want to eat things other than just animal
products. The Ornish as well as the Pritikin diets are very
low fat, yet both allow some fish and dairy products.

[Ron Peters]

On Aug 21, 8:08 pm, Steve <veganstir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 20, 3:31 am, "Szczepan Bialek"
> <sz.bia...@wp.pl> wrote:

> > "Steve" If you "want" eat animal products when you eat
> > 30% (minimum) calories from fat. Below this you must eat
> > mainly plant products. S*

> Well even before the carb vs fat wars any grandmother would
> tell you that you want to eat things other than just animal
> products. The Ornish as well as the Pritikin diets are very
> low fat, yet both allow some fish and dairy products.

With average consumption of fat at 100 g/day, even 50 g/day
would be a significant reduction of fat consumption and that
can be done by choosing leaner cuts of meat and using reduced
fat dairy products.

Most of the harm from eating fat comes from saturated fat, so
low fat diets are now being modified into low saturated fat
diets making fish a preferred source of protein.

--
Ron