Here's one that I'm sure AC would never accept, but it's interesting nonetheless......
Regina, I hope you don't mind.

Effects of a high-protein ketogenic diet on hunger, appetite, and weight loss in obese men feeding ad libitum

AJCN, January 2008, pp 44-55

Alexandra M Johnstone, Graham W Horgan, Sandra D Murison, David M Bremner and Gerald E Lobley

Background: Altering the macronutrient composition of the diet influences hunger and satiety. Studies have compared high- and low-protein diets, but there are few data on carbohydrate content and ketosis on motivation to eat and ad libitum intake.

Objective: We aimed to compare the hunger, appetite, and weight-loss responses to a high-protein, low-carbohydrate [(LC) ketogenic] and those to a high-protein, medium-carbohydrate [(MC) nonketogenic] diet in obese men feeding ad libitum.

Design: Seventeen obese men were studied in a residential trial; food was provided daily. Subjects were offered 2 high-protein (30% of energy) ad libitum diets, each for a 4-wk period—an LC (4% carbohydrate) ketogenic diet and an MC (35% carbohydrate) diet—randomized in a crossover design. Body weight was measured daily, and ketosis was monitored by analysis of plasma and urine samples. Hunger was assessed by using a computerized visual analogue system.

Results: Ad libitum energy intakes were lower with the LC diet than with the MC diet [P = 0.02; SE of the difference (SED): 0.27] at 7.25 and 7.95 MJ/d, respectively. Over the 4-wk period, hunger was significantly lower (P = 0.014; SED: 1.76) and weight loss was significantly greater (P = 0.006; SED: 0.62) with the LC diet (6.34 kg) than with the MC diet (4.35 kg). The LC diet induced ketosis with mean 3-hydroxybutyrate concentrations of 1.52 mmol/L in plasma (P = 0.036 from baseline; SED: 0.62) and 2.99 mmol/L in urine (P < 0.001 from baseline; SED: 0.36).

Conclusion: In the short term, high-protein, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets reduce hunger and lower food intake significantly more than do high-protein, medium-carbohydrate nonketogenic diets.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/87/1/44

LC = low-carb; MC = moderate-carb


baseline | after diet | total lost

Fat Mass
LC = 38.53kg - 33.39 - 5.14kg
MC = 38.85kg - 34.76 - 4.09kg
the low-carb dieters lost 2.3-pounds more fat mass
Total Body Water
LC = 50.78 - 49.83 - 0.95kg
MC = 50.51 - 50.27 - 0.24kg
the low-carb dieters lost 1.6-pounds more water

Edited to add:

I forgot to include LBM (which would account for differences in glycogen also)

LC = 69.49 - 68.29 - 1.2kg
MC = 69.33 - 69.07 - 0.26kg
low-carb group lost 2-pounds more of LBM (which includes glycogen)

------------------

So taken together, yes the LC group lost more water and LBM (glycogen), but also more fat mass when compared to the MC group.

Granted, this was ad libitum and not isocaloric, but the low carb group only consumed 167 less calories per day. This would only account for about 1.3 pounds of the 2.3 pounds difference. This means that 1 pound of the 2.3 pound diffence could be attributed to metabolic advantage.

Personally, I think it's more than that. I would invite anybody to reduce thier calories by 167 per day for 4 weeks and see how much they lose.

No of course not PB. CHO stimulates insulin, but the fat storage effect of insulin can be overwhelmed by fat burning (either bodyfat or dietary fat) hormones if calories are low enough. For example if someone ate fat and sugar in roughly equal amounts - so a lot of insulin and an extremely fat storage favourable hormonal environment from the food . Lots of calories from both the fat and carb and lots of insulin from the carb keen to store them. But they also ate few enough calories in total, that they were in energy deficit. Some of both the fat and carbs might just be burnt in supplying energy needs before it even had a chance to be stored, but even if it was all stored, more fat calories would have to be mobilized to provide energy needs than were being stored. And whenever their was a 'disagreement' between the fat storage effect of insulin and the fat mobilizing needs of the body, the body would just oblige by producing enough of fat mobilizing hormones to win the 'battle'. Energy needs prevail. Our hormonal system just like many other systems in the human body, is designed to keep us supplied with the energy we need. Otherwise we can't function.

In fact singling out the hormonal effect of different macronutrients as somehow more signifigant than the bodies ability to balance and if need be overwhelm those hormonal effects with enough of the required contrary hormones to ensure energy needs are met, is almost infantile.

It isn't just about carbohydrates ability to stimulate insulin. Our hormonal machinery is prodigiously powerful PB. And ultimately our energy needs take precedence. So you can be eating a lot a carbohydrate, and still losing bodyfat. It's not easy, because you are much hungrier when you eat the same calorie deficit with more carbs.

It helps to consider the total hormonal environment, of which the hormonal effect of carbohydrate is but one component. Bear in mind that the total hormonal environment is not just the sum total of the hormonal effects of the various macronutrients. It's also a function of where on the energy deficit/equilibrium/surplus spectrum your total calorie intake lies.

PB it's not "either" carbohydrate stimulating insulin, ''or" calories in general determining the total hormonal environment. It's both, and a lot more probably too, a lot of which we probably don't even begin to understand.

Stuart

Oops Oops Oops....double post

Nyah, if you haven't got anything to contribute except puerile sarcasm, it might be better if you just didn't participate . The rules of this forum clearly prohibit such behaviour. By all means disagree with me - as forcefully as you like (I love an interesting debate, as long as it doesn't get personal), but the kind of comment you made is not relevant.

But let's just assume that you said it in all seriousness, not just in sarcasm.
I'm an avid lowcarber and see not reason to ever change. Not just moderate carbs, low carb. Part of the enthusiasm I feel for this dietary approach is to understand just what the mechanisms are that make it such an effective optimizer of health and bodycomp.

That said, there are many interesting and worthwhile things about GCBC IMHO. I'm sure a great deal of the five years Gary Taubes spent researching it was spent on the worthwhile stuff, so that bit of your comment is clearly a bit innaccurate. And the time he spent on the stuff that I believe is misleading and incorrect, he should surely be commended for as well. I've no doubt whatsoever he was doing his level best to call it as he saw it. So there is really no need at all to criticize him for 'wasting five years of research'. I'm sure when the truth is finally revealed one way or another and it turns out that he was indeed mistaken, he won't regret a moment of it. Just better informed finally. And if it turns out that he was right all along he will feel justly proud. That's the way science unfolds Nyah. Even if you do get it wrong, if you've done your research with a genuine desire to turn over a few pebbles on the vast beach of ignorance as best and sincerely as you can, you haven't 'wasted your time' at all.

Stuart

All of the data I've reviewed - which includes both metabolic ward studies and free living subjects - leaves the door open that a metabolic advantage may exist. As I've told Anthony "I leave the door open to the possibility" of a metabolic advantage because the research to prove/disprove its existence is INCOMPLETE at this point in time.

My reason - there do exist metabolic ward studies showing a greater fat loss when particular nutrients (micronutrients or substrates, not macronutrients per se) are manipulated - which may tell us something about the content needed in a low-carb diet to see effect; a recent study did find greater fat loss in a low-carb consuming group (it's outside AC's date range requirement though); and to date, particular study designs have not been followed which would better answer the question (until those are done, no one can say with certainty that a metabolic advantage exists or is fantasy).

So I leave the door open.

As far as hard science is concerned, the door may still be open. As far as I am concerned, I am convinced. Personal experience and the GCBC chapter on unconventional diets were more than enough for me.

It took quite a long time to figure out HOW aspirin worked. Most people didn't (and still don't) care how it worked, they just knew that it did. Sure, that wont satisfy the hard core researchers and it really is helpful to know the actual mechanisms involved....but not being a researcher, I don't have to care about every tiny detail

I know that, for me anyway, on low carb I am more satisfied, have lower blood pressure, feel better, and can actually EAT without gaining weight. To me, that IS quite an advantage. I don't have to know every single biological interaction in order to benefit any more than I have to know how to rebuild a car engine in order to take a drive.

"...Werner speculated that his obese subjects must have typically been eating 4000-5000 calories a day before he set about experimentally reducing them. But if that is true, why don't obese patients regularly lose weight on a 2700 or 2800 calorie balanced diets, and why have clinicians always believed it necessary to semi-starve them with 1200-1500 calories, or even feed them very low calorie diets of 800 calories or less to achieve any significant weight loss? Something else is going on here, and it has nothing to do with calories." - Gary Taubes, Good Calories Bad Calories.

Yeah, I have come to the conclusion I am at or just below that point "be careful what you wish for you may get it."

I think ill have to get over the fear of eating less calories than comfortable every day for a few months. With the coming of Spring I will be increasing my general activity somewhat. If my body must maintain at 165 or 170lb at least I can make it a lean 165 like when I was a 20 yo

Some 'health experts' say you should weigh what you did at 19 all your life-- not sure I agree?

Sounds reasonable to me Regina. And even if and when the door closes on that possibiltiy, it wouldn't stop me, (and in my view shouldn't stop anyone else) restricting carbohydrate for both health and bodycomp. If someone (and the corroborrating research that confirms it) does manage to remove the door completely, it's wonderful news indeed.

I also can't help thinking underneath all his bizarre antics, Anthony Colpo probably feels the same way. He's surely observed the dynamic nature of scientific endeavour (in this field alone) for long enough to realize that the door to the possibility of metabolic advantage of Low Carb isn't locked shut yet.

And:


I agree.

Stuart

Gee Stuart, thanks for inviting me out. The point is that you seem to place greater weight on your personal beliefs than on the research of Gary Taubes when you disagree with him. You have made a lot of definite statements of your beliefs but I haven't seen anything like the evidence from you that Gary has supplied. Endlessly repeating the same thing does not constitute proof.
Nyah Levi

Writing a huge book which contains a lot of misinterpretations of the available evidence doesn't constitute proof either Nyah. And I'm not the only one that thinks Gary Taubes falls very short of proving anything. Besides, even if I was, it would still be a valid opinion, as is yours. Perhaps it would help to read up on the philosophy of science? This 'tribe' or 'crowd' mentality you are stooping to is very unhelpful. Gary Taubes has written an often very persuasive book and is to be commended for the effort he has put into it. Anything more than that is just personal opinion.

I'm actually basing my opinion mostly on what Mike Eades seems to think of the possibility of metabolic advantage existing and its signigigance even if it does. And he has put incalculably more time into practicing low carb medicine and carefully observing the results of that practice, than Gary spent in researching and writing his book.

But in any case, its not a 'time spent' competition anyway. I'm sure you have personally compelling reasons for choosing to accept Gary Taube's opinions, as Gary himself has his reasons for expressing them. That should be enough Nyah.

Stuart

so stuart, the person in your example eats “a lot” of fat and sugar in equal amounts, and the sugar stimulates “a lot” of insulin, but the total calories are low and they’re in energy deficit. how does one eat “a lot” of fat and sugar and keep calories low, stuart? perhaps you have the answer to this entire obesity thing; eat a lot, but keep calories low.

unfortunately, stuart, more fat calories do not have to be mobilized to provide energy. if they did, energy-restricted diets would work fantastically and there’d be little to discuss. in vivo, hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance work together to create a condition in which the overproduction of insulin keeps fat in the fat depots. in people with this metabolic defect, insulin is almost always circulating at levels high enough to keep fat immobilized (and may be accompanied by high blood glucose, which in turn triggers the release of more insulin). the “battle” between the fat mobilizing hormones and insulin is invariably won by insulin; when insulin is present the fat mobilizing hormones (glucagon, growth hormone, etc) are suppressed. from GCBC (p. 390):
this is the problem stuart, and as taubes would say, it’s not controversial (i.e. it’s basic biochemistry, stuart).


infantile is a probably a better way to describe your notions of the human endocrine system stuart.

if you have the metabolic defect discussed above, no you can’t eat “a lot” of CHO and still lose body fat. our hormonal machinery may be prodigiously powerful, stuart, but it hasn’t evolved to deal with the amount of unrefined CHO it’s been subjected to in the last 100 years or so. energy needs do take precedence, but that doesn’t necessitate the burning of stored fat for fuel. in the majority of the overweight and obese, energy is present in the fat, but is unavailable. the consequences of this metabolic defect are either hunger or reduced activity or both.

again, stuart, this is basic biochemistry, a lot of which we do understand (at least some of us), and it is CHO stimulating insulin that determines the hormonal environment in regards to fat storage.

[QUOTE=pbowersso stuart, the person in your example eats “a lot” of fat and sugar in equal amounts, and the sugar stimulates “a lot” of insulin, but the total calories are low and they’re in energy deficit. how does one eat “a lot” of fat and sugar and keep calories low, stuart? perhaps you have the answer to this entire obesity thing; eat a lot, but keep calories low.[/QUOTE]

By eating equal amounts (or thereabouts) of fat and carb, but total calories more than their energy requirements. Why is that so difficult to understand?
And as for having the answer to the whole obesity thing, the best approach already exists. Restrict carbohydrate and in so doing naturally eat fewer calories and if you are lucky you will get into energy deficit and burn bodyfat.



Actually energy restricted diets do work fantasically for bodyfat burning, if they are restricted enough. But without carbohydrate restriction as well hunger levels are so onerous, that most people find them impossible. You can't just lock people up and put them into energy deficit on a high carb diet, Pb. They'd lose weight, but you'd be put in a criminal jail.




Needing to let off a bit of steam Pb?. Try deep breaths. Let's try to keep it civilized, there's a good fellow!.




No Pb, you are mistaken IMHO. There may indeed be a small minority of people who are by definition obese who suffer from the metabolic disorder you describe. But most obese people become obese because they eat more fatty carby food energy than they are burning. I've never seen any evidence that humans become obese by just eating a lot of carboydrate. Only when they also eat a lot of fat does the insulin that the carbohydrate releases result in a lot of stored bodyfat. Basic biochemistry is also very clear that excess carbohydrate is not converted easily to bodyfat. But in the prescence of fat the carbs will be burnt, and the fat stored by the plentiful insulin. So a carb driven high insulin environment in the context of an energy surplus will result in very rapid bodyfat gain in completely healthy people. In those same healthy obese people bodyfat will be mobilized if an energy deficit is established, whether the dietary calories that are one side of that energy deficit equation are mostly carbs or not. Remember the carb contribution (through insulin) to the total hormonal environment is only a part of it. If the body needs energy, and incoming calories are insufficient to meet those demands, the body will release sufficient fat mobilization hormones to do the job. In other words, even though enough insulin is released to deal with the dietary carbs, insulin is not the only hormone in a healthy human body's bag of tricks.

And perhaps the problem is that you seem to want to see being overweight as an automatic indication of some metabolic disorder, whereas in by far the majority of cases it is simply a result of (as you mention, but then miss the point of IMO) constantly available, increasingly delicious, increasingly convenient, fatty carby food - precisely the kind of food that millions of years of evolution have expressly designed the human body to store bodyfat on when eaten to energy excess. And carbs make you want to eat more of the fatty carby food, so it's a very vicious weight gain circle. One way of stepping out of that circle for a healthy person is to restrict carbohydrate. And if they reduce total calories, which is practically automatic on a low carb dietary approach, they'll lose bodyfat. If they don't reduce total calories, they won't go on gaining bodyfat usually (and certainly at a reduced rate), but they won't lose any either.

The actually metabolically disordered people will indeed have to reduce total calories and carbs even more than they would if (to use your words) they didn't have constantly elevated insulin levels. But PB, although they are indeed very unfortunate people, and restricting carbs is definitely an even more important dietary intervention for bringing down elevated insulin and hopefully restoring some of their lost insulin sensitivity, low carb won't necessarily fix the problem either. It's of course the most effective dietary approach known, but sometimes disordered metabolisms are beyond the help of carbohydrate restriction alone.

In most healthy obese people, consistently restricting carbohydrate (and as more bodyfat is lost, conciously augmenting the natural calorie restricting ability of low carb) will be sufficient to realize and maintain bodycomp goals.

PB, you are quite mistaken if you think that cho stimulated insulin is the only determinant of total bodyfat storage/mobilization hormonal environment. It is an important player, but not the only one. That's why for very self disciplined people low fat high carb diets result in bodyfat loss if an energy deficit is established. They're not healthy, and they're definitely very difficult, but they can and often do work - precisely because of the basic biochemistry you got wrong.

Btw. please watch yourself with the 'infantile' type comments. They are entirely unnecessary . I know you are doing your best, but keep it clean, for the sake of the forum if not your own integrity.

Stuart.

go back and look where i borrowed the word infantile from stuart. if you don't appreciate the ad hominem attacks you can be fairly certain no one else does either.

Boy I must've missed the whole point of that book, because I didn't think it existed to prove anything at all. By definition he'd have to be doing his OWN science, research and replications and more in order to prove even the first thing, let alone an entire concept-set. I thought its primary purpose was a review of "often marginalized and unknown" existing history and research and a little media, to educate readers in areas that existing education has often left out entirely. At that, I thought he did a fabulous job.

There is no field of science and almost no study that cannot be interpreted according to the person describing it or the context it is placed within. Given that right now, the entire edifice of Medical Expertise(tm) has clearly failed abysmally "as a group" to make most stuff in these areas sensible except why we should take more expensive drugs, I don't fault any one human being for not having every answer or potentially being wrong about a few things. Since the 'group' of consensus science is clearly not working, that leaves individuals to put pieces together in their own way, whether they are researchers themselves or interested laymen.

Official academic advanced medical education has been pointedly *wrong* about a few MAJOR issues in heart disease and obesity for a long time. So if one single pretty smart guy who studied something a few years and then wrote a compiled summary of research and perspective he found the most compelling, has some areas where his interpretation varies or is questioned by some, this hardly even seems comparable to the train wreck that the actual medical industry has become when dealing with heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

I think Taubes has done the whole world a great service with his book frankly. I doubt that book or any other book of that magnitude and detail is going to be innately perfect, but I'm hugely grateful for his writing it in the first place.

He's given a lot of people a *lot* of information we certainly wouldn't have gotten elsewhere--and if some of that "interpretation" of a few of the science studies merits argument, ok. Simply giving us the chance to HAVE a few arguments about it, still leaves most folks who waded into it, vastly better educated about the subject overall than they were to begin with.

Best,
PJ

Vey well said. I think the point of the book was to describe the process by which the "experts" arrived at their conclusions about nutrition, and to show by using the SAME studies how different conclusions can (should!!) be reached.

I've read a lot, but the first Atkins book was a real eye opener for me. I had no clue until I read that book that there was a genuine scientific basis for his diet. I feel this book is as ground breaking or more. You may not come to all the same conclusions as Gary Taubes, but you come out of a reading of this book with a whole lot more information on which to base your beliefs.