Calories

Processed foods, calories and nutrients: Americans’alarming diet

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If you’re like the average American, more than half of your diet is filled with processed foods. Many of these foods are full of added sugar and fat and contribute to overweight and obesity. This matters for cancer prevention, because obesity is linked to higher risk, and a healthy diet links to lower risk for many common cancers, as well as other chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

A study published recently reports alarming results on how much of the super processed foods Americans are eating, and how that affects nutrition, calories and the overall healthfulness of our nation’s diet.

The researchers established three categories for describing various levels of food processing: Unprocessed or minimally processed foods (like vegetables, beans, milk, pasta), other foods (cheese, pickled foods, nut butters for example), and ultra-processed foods (like soft drinks, cookies, salty snacks, french fries). Then, using diet data from over 9,000 participants in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), they compared the diets high in ultra-processed foods to diets with more unprocessed and minimally processed foods. They looked at calories, nutrients and overall diet quality at different levels of processed food consumption.

The study found that on average:

  • more than one-half of calories came from ultra-processed foods
  • less than one-third of calories were from unprocessed or minimally processed foods
  • about 12 percent of calories came from the other foods category.

The more ultra-processed foods Americans ate, the less protein, fiber, vitamins A, C, D and E, potassium and calcium they got. And they had more added sugars, saturated fat and overall carbohydrates in their diets.

Conversely, those with higher amounts of unprocessed/minimally processed foods and fewer ultra-processed foods had overall higher diet quality, with more nutrients like fiber, potassium and vitamin C, and less added sugars and saturated fat.

This study makes it clear that these ultra-processed foods, even with some nutrient fortification, cannot deliver the many healthful components of minimally processed foods. And they add a load of extra calories with little to no nutrient value. The occasional fries, chips and candy can fit into a healthy diet, but if they become staples, your health will suffer and you’ll be at higher risk for weight gain and other chronic diseases.

Stop counting calories and focus on whole foods to lose weight and get healthier, says scientist

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Forget about calories and focus on ingredients to lose weight, Dr. Tim Spector told Insider.

Ultra-processed foods can be less satisfying than whole foods, causing us to overeat.

People should eat fewer ultra-processed foods (UPFs) instead of counting calories to lose weight and improve their health, according to epidemiologist Dr. Tim Spector.

A calorie deficit is required for weight loss, but Spector said that calorie tracking is inaccurate because labels are often incorrect, and people will naturally consume fewer calories if they prioritize eating whole foods without any artificial ingredients.

“We’ve got to stop talking about calories,” Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, UK, said. “Ultra-processed food is the enemy.”

Spector is the author of best-selling book, “Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food is Wrong.”

Lots of foods are processed in some way, such as oats, yogurt, or flour. But UPFs are generally mass-produced in a factory and contain additives such as colors and preservatives to maintain taste or texture, which have been linked to various health problems. Examples of UPFs include packaged cakes and cookies, and bags of chips.

Research suggests that more than half of the foods consumed in high income countries are UPFs.

A small 2019 study from the National Institutes of Health found that diets high in UPFs led people to eat on average 500 more calories a day and gain more weight when compared with those eating fresh food, as Insider’s Hilary Brueck reported. Scientists aren’t sure why this happened, but they think there may be something unique about how our hormones interact with processed foods.

UPFs have also been linked to people dying earlier and a higher risk of heart disease, according to a 2020 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, as Brueck and Insider’s Gabby Landsverk reported.

‘It’s a myth that calories are useful’

Spector believes that the biggest myth damaging people’s health is that calories are useful. Their importance is “vastly overblown” and we should be more concerned with the ingredients in food, he said.

“We all have very different metabolic needs so you can’t rely on how someone else did on some calorie-controlled diet or stick to some totally arbitrary 2,000 calories for women, it’s complete rubbish,” he said.

For example, while a croissant is generally fewer calories than avocado and eggs on sourdough toast, the latter has a higher nutritional value and will keep you fuller for longer due to the fiber, protein, and healthy fats.

Whole foods can keep you fuller than ultra-processed foods

Spector said calorie-counting drives people to eat more UPFs because they will seek out low calorie versions of food.

Brands remove fat and sugar from foods to reduce the number of calories, and sometimes add chemicals and sweeteners to ensure they are still palatable.

Research shows people can end up overeating low-calorie but highly processed foods which aren’t always as satiating, which can lead to weight gain.

Whole foods are more satiating than UPFs because they are usually higher in fiber and protein, so they release energy slowly and keep people full, making them less likely to reach for more food soon after, Spector said.

Nick Shaw, a bodybuilder, personal trainer and diet coach at RP Strength previously told Insider that he encourages people to prioritize whole foods when losing weight, even if less nutritious foods have the same calories and macros.

“The best idea is to use food quality as a means to easier control your food quantity,” he said. “If you stick to mostly whole food choices like lean proteins (eg. chicken breast), lots of vegetables, healthy fats, and then some healthy carbs (eg. sweet potato or whole grains) you will feel more full, have fewer cravings, and you can still hit your food quantities needed to help with fat loss.”

Avoid foods with more than 10 ingredients

While some foods are technically processed, they aren’t ultra-processed and can fit into a healthy diet and don’t need to be avoided. These include canned fruit, frozen vegetables, and yogurt, Spector said.

To work out whether a food is ultra-processed, look at the ingredients list and see how long it is — if a food has more than 10 ingredients, it might not be a great choice.

See how many names you recognize, too — if you see something you wouldn’t have in your kitchen cupboard, it’s best to steer clear, Spector said.

The 5 Necessities of an Effective Weight Loss Diet for People With Diabetes

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weight loss for people with diabetes

This is not just another general “eat salad and completely avoid carbs” article. I’m tired of seeing generalized diet information that, to be brutally honest, is pointless and inapplicable to most people’s lives. This article is aimed to help the diabetic community focus on and prioritize what works.

Weight loss is science, not magic or voodoo or luck. There is a specific set of requirements needed to lose weight efficiently as a person with diabetes (type 1 or type 2). Yes, you may have heard of your friend’s cousin’s mother doing a no carb detox cleansing bath scrub to lose belly fat who lost 10 pounds, but I highly encourage you to check in with that person who does every fad diet possible in a few weeks or months. Chances are they gained the weight back and then some.

That’s because while some diets cause people to lose weight initially, they don’t employ the basic principles of continued effective weight loss. Whether it’s water weight loss, weight loss from severe calorie deficit, or avoidance of food, a lot of diets promise and sometimes produce acute results — that is temporary or short term results.

From helping hundreds of diabetics lose weight on social media, I was nicknamed the “T1D Fat Loss Coach” and now help people with all kinds of diabetes and chronic illnesses get on effective diets.

I have a 3 “E” rule for an effective diet before you continue on in this article. A diet must be all three of the following for you for it to be effective:

  1. Easy to adhere to long term
  2. Enjoyable or at least not miserable and affecting quality of life (socially or mood related)
  3. Effective in producing results long term (any diet change can produce short term results)

So, in deciding on a diet, make sure you have these rules in mind. These next five components of a diet will determine your success.

Optimal Weight Loss Blood Sugar

Blood sugar management is more important than exercise and diet combined for weight loss. Why? Because chasing blood sugars involves ruining your diet and training effectiveness.

You can’t optimally lose fat, build lean muscle, or get a healthier physique while mismanaging your blood sugars.

When your sugars are low, you are likely to (or at least more at risk to):

  • Overeat to correct lows
  • Overcompensate the overeating with medication that could lead to another low
  • Experience another low in the next 24-48 hours (“lows beget lows”)
  • Reduce intensity of exercise
  • Experience increased hunger and cravings which can be hard to fight

When your blood sugars are high, you are likely to (or at least more at risk to):

  • Overtreat with insulin which could lead to another low
  • Reduce nutrient absorption necessary to increase or preserve lean muscle mass
  • Decrease effectiveness of a workout
  • Experience a false sense of scale weight loss when in reality, you could be losing lean tissue which means reducing your metabolic rate and storing more body fat

In order to improve your metabolic rate and your body’s fat burning capability/processes, blood sugar management has to be a priority. In order to reduce cravings and hypo and hyperglycemic events that negatively affect diet and training, blood sugar management must be a main priority that isn’t overlooked.

Talk to your endocrinologist and diabetes management team as you decide on what the best approach is in conjunction with your changing diet and exercise habits. Then, you can get into specifics on calories and the makeup of those calories for fat loss optimization.

Specifying Calorie Intake

In order for you to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit — that means burning more calories than you take in. You can do this by eating less, burning more calories through activity, or, ideally, a combination of both.

But first, you have to determine what is the appropriate number of calories you should be intaking based on your personal stats and goals. But can’t I just eat “healthy” and lose weight? You can and leave it to chance but even if you eat healthy foods in the wrong quantities, you will gain weight.

There is no universal fix to an individual problem.

That means what works for me doesn’t optimally work for your mom or for you. Specificity is optimal. To figure out how many calories you need to consume, you can find any TDEE calculator online like this one. This determines your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or the calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight.

IIFYM TDEE calculator

Now if you want to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit which means you need to eat less than what you expend daily. My personal, general rule of thumb is:

  • If you want to lose 5 lbs/2 kg or less, subtract 250 calories from your TDEE
  • If you want to lose 5-15 lbs/2-7 kg, subtract 500 calories from your TDEE
  • If you want to lose over 20 lbs/10 kg, subtract up to 750 calories from your TDEE

This is a general rule that has helped hundreds of my type 1 and type 2 online weight loss clients lose between 5-60 lbs/2-25 kg but always be sure to consult your doctor before starting a new diet and training program.

Once you have your daily caloric limits, you can be more specific and determine your macronutrient goals.

Identifying Your Ideal Macro Balance

Calories determine weight change, but macronutrient balance determines the kind of weight change. Macronutrients are your proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

  • Protein has 4 calories per gram
  • Carbs have 4 calories per gram
  • Fat has 9 calories per gram

Why is macronutrient balance important? Take two people eating a 1500 calorie diet based on the advice above. Person A is eating 90% fat, 5% carbs, and 5% protein while person B is eating a balanced macronutrient diet of 35% protein, 30% carbs, and 35% fat. Who will get better results?

Person A is eating far too little protein and far too much fat. Higher protein diets are effective in helping people lose body fat, reduce hunger and cravings, and manage blood sugars. That little protein intake would increase risk of lean muscle loss which is the exact opposite goal. High protein diets are also proven to not be dangerous or harmful to the kidneys as long as there is no pre existing kidney damage.

That high of fat intake might make person A more hungry too as fat is more calorie dense meaning less total food intake. More hunger = more of a chance to fall off the diet when faced with opportunity to cheat.

The goal is to preserve or even build lean muscle while losing body fat. Losing muscle decreases your metabolic rate and lowers your body’s ability to burn fat. Keeping your protein around 30-40% of your total caloric intake is key for long term fat loss.

What about carbs?

Given that protein is 30-40%, carbs I leave up to my clients’ personal preference. Some people choose a moderate carb intake, some choose a lower carb intake, and some even choose to follow a ketogenic approach.

I personally don’t care as long as you are managing your sugars, eating the right protein amount, and hitting around your decided macronutrient intakes.

In terms of pure weight loss science, hundreds of studies have compared low-carb, high-fat diets to high-carb, low-fat diets and found no significant difference in weight loss when calories and protein are equated.

There may be some instances where clients with insulin resistance or hormonal issues (Type 2, PCOS, Hashimotos, post menopause, etc.) might be encouraged to be on the lower side of carb intake but, for the most part, it is a personal choice.

Carbs and fats usually have an inverse relationship — if one is higher the other is lower. If your protein intake is at 30% and you decide you want to do a moderate carb approach at 30% carbs, then you know your fat intake will be 40% (the remainder).

Some of my preferred macro percentages with my clients are:

  • Low-carb: 40% protein/20% carbs/40% fat
  • Moderate carb: 35% protein/30% carbs/35% fat
  • Moderate carb, high activity level: 40% protein/30% carbs/30% fat

These are just a few of the many possibilities and strategies to elicit fat loss. Simply download a calorie counting app like My Fitness Pal to track these numbers discussed above.

Navigating My Way Through a Food Heavy Culture

Food Choices

It is not necessarily the choices of food that affect us as much as the quantities of food in terms of weight gain and weight loss, directly speaking. Indirectly, food choice can be a major indicator of adherence to a diet.

Eating processed foods is shown to decrease satiety (feeling of fullness), increase cravings, and increase guilt. These repercussions of not eating healthy can slow or even reverse progress. I like to take an 80/20 approach with my diabetic clientele and myself.

80% of the food eaten should be whole foods. 20% can be your personal indulgent. That means if you are alloted 1500 calories a day, 20%, or 300 calories, can come from your craving foods. I believe this helps people cheat within the diet so they stay on track for longer and get far better results than being extremely strict.

An interesting note, a Kansas state nutrition professor ate twinkies and protein shakes for 10 weeks and lost 27lbs/12kg and improved his metabolic profile in the process. He wanted to show that quantity of food is extremely important when it comes to weight loss. Obviously, I don’t recommend doing this and neither does he, so please don’t replicate his experiment.

Meal Timing & Frequency

One of the biggest myths in the dieting world is having to eat every two hours to “stoke the metabolic fire.” There is no metabolic fire or fire inside of your body — I promise. Daily macronutrient & caloric totals matter most not meal timing or frequency. When you add diabetes to the mix, that’s when these variables become more relevant.

Meal timing prior to cardio or exercise can determine if you are going to have a great workout or diabetic emergency. Both hypo- & hyperglycemia can ruin a workout so timing meals according to your activity level can greatly improve blood sugar management, which indirectly improves your ability to adhere to your diet and training.

Meal frequency is a personal preference but some people with diabetes find it easier to minimize glucose variability with smaller, more frequent meals. Ultimately, that is your decision. Whatever fits into your lifestyle best is what you should do.

Effective Weight Loss With Diabetes

Blood sugar management, proper caloric intake, and macronutrient balance will help you lose body fat long term, the right way. There are tons of advanced strategies I’ve used to help people with diabetes transform their bodies but all progress stems from these basic principles. Yes, it takes some work. Yes, you have to type some stuff and do some math. Yes, it takes conscious, daily effort just like diabetes management. But, in doing so, your body will thank you.

How to burn 250 calories while you slouch at your desk.

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It’s 11 a.m. in the office, and I’m freezing. There are goosebumps on my arms as I clutch my coffee.

But who said burning calories was easy?

Meet the Cold Shoulder, a calorie-burning vest developed by NASA scientist Wayne B. Hayes. Though the vest hit the market in 2013, sales recently spiked. So, I decided to try this hot trend.

The back-ordered vest — which is available for $150 at coldsh.com — has pockets filled with six ice packs. The company claims you’ll burn an average of 250 calories per hour trying to stay warm.

How to burn 250 calories while you slouch at your desk
It takes up to eight hours to freeze the cold packs. When you strap on the vest, it warms up to a brisk 32 degrees.As your body uses energy to heat up, it’s burning calories, too, so the vest works your system even harder. It’s a safer alternative to cryotherapy, in which you’re subjected to subzero temperatures in a chamber to burn calories.

Five minutes into wearing it, I catch a chill I can’t shake. An hour in, I’m ravenous like I’ve gone for a long run.

Luckily, the legal disclaimer with the vest recommends not wearing it for more than 90 minutes at a time. So, I whip it off and down a huge cup of creamy soup.

I power through the second hour, but I can’t get myself to put it on the next day. Hayes explains that if you eat an extra 500 calories, it cancels out your daily chill sessions. So, all of my shivering isn’t making up for the rich, warm foods I’m craving.

I think I’ll stick to staying warm and eating healthy.

How Sugar Affects the Body: New Study Looks Beyond Calories

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That’s what scientists have concluded from a first-of-its-kind diet study involving overweight kids

Fat was the food villain these past few decades but sugar is quickly muscling in to take its place. As rates of sugar-related disorders such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease climb, many experts believe that when Americans rid themselves of fat, they simply replaced it with sugar in all its forms.

But proving that the rise of the chronic diseases was actually linked to higher sugar consumption is a challenge. Dr. Robert Lustig, from the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who has made a name for himself publishing books and research addressing the question of sugar’s effects on the body, wanted clearer answers. Now, in a paper published Tuesday, he and his colleagues believe they have come up with the definitive evidence that sugar, as Lustig says, “is toxic.”

In most lab studies, the doses of sugar that scientists test are quite high; they want to see what the effect is quickly and, depending on the research, they may not have time to wait to study the more gradual effects that might emerge. And in studies where people reduce the amount of sugar they eat, for instance, those people end up eating fewer calories overall, so it’s difficult to know whether any changes are due to the removal of sugar or to the drop in calories.

Lustig and his colleagues think they’ve produced the “hard and fast data that sugar is toxic irrespective of its calories and irrespective of weight.”

Lustig’s confidence comes from the unique study, described in Obesity, of 43 Hispanic or African-American children aged eight to 18 years old. He collected detailed food questionnaires from each of the adolescents to get an idea of the average amount of calories they ate per day, then designed a special menu for each of them for nine days that matched the total numbers of calories they would normally eat. The only difference in the nine-day diet was that most of the sugar the children ate was replaced by starch — the overall number of calories remained the same. The children weighed themselves daily, and if they were losing weight, they were told to eat more of the provided food in order to keep their weight the same throughout the study.

“Everything got better,” says Lustig. Some of the children went from being insulin resistant, a precursor state to developing diabetes, in which the body’s insulin levels can no longer keep up with the pace of breaking down sugar that’s coming in from the diet, to insulin sensitive.

“We took chicken teriyaki out, and put turkey hot dogs in. We took sweetened yogurt out, and put baked potato chips in. We took pastries out and put bagels in,” says Lustig. “So there was no change in [the children’s] weight and no change in calories.”

After nine days of having their total dietary sugar reduced to 10% of their daily calories, however, they showed improvements in all of these measures. Overall, their fasting blood sugar levels dropped by 53%, along with the amount of insulin their bodies produced since insulin is normally needed to break down carbohydrates and sugars. Their triglyceride and LDL levels also declined and, most importantly, they showed less fat in their liver.

Because some of the children lost weight, to convince themselves that the effects weren’t due to the small amount of weight that some of the children lost, Lustig and his team compared those who lost weight to those who didn’t during the study, and found similar improvements in both groups.

“Up until now, there have been a lot of correlation studies linking sugar and metabolic syndrome,” says Lustig. “This is causation.”

The diet he provided the children isn’t considered ideal from a health perspective — starches are still a considerable source of calories and can contribute to weight gain. But Lustig relied on the starches to prove a point in a scientific study — that the effect sugar has on the body goes beyond anything connected to its calories and to weight. “I’m not suggesting in any way, shape or form that we gave them healthy food,” he says. “We gave them crappy food, shitty food, processed food — and they still got better. Imagine how much even better they would have gotten if we didn’t substitute and took the sugar out. Then they would have gotten even better yet. That’s the point.”

Not everyone is convinced that the results definitely prove sugar, and not weight loss, is the culprit, however. Susan Roberts, professor of Nutrition, USDA Nutrition Center at Tufts University notes that because some of the children lost weight, it’s still possible that shedding the pounds helped their metabolic measures to improve. She also points out that the children self-reported their initial diet, which can often be inaccurate. “We know that a healthy diet and weight loss cause good metabolic changes, and although this study tries to attribute its effects to low fructose, in fact it is impossible to do that because of the study design.”

Some experts are concerned for other reasons. They’re worried that the findings may shift attention away from what they consider to be the more fundamental issue — that overall, we’re eating too much. “Too much calorie intake is still the biggest problem,” says Dr. Mark Corkins, professor of pediatrics at University of Tennessee Health Science Center and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on nutrition. He notes that the study involved children who were obese already and consuming too many calories. “It’s an important study, and the facts coming out of it are very important. It means we need to look at sugars, and at the type of sugars and sugar intake. But I worry that people are going to hang everything on this when we still need to reduce consumption.”

Lustig hopes that won’t happen as more data emerges that details how sugar is altering the body in unhealthy ways outside of its caloric contribution. That wasn’t the subject of the current paper, but he promises follow up studies based on this work that will address that. This study does hint however, at what might be happening. While there has been a lot of attention on the presence of belly fat and its connection to metabolic syndrome, the fact that the children saw improvements in the amount of fat in their liver suggests that might be an important way that sugar is contributing to chronic disease. Obese children and those with diabetes often suffer from fatty liver, a condition normally associated with alcohol abuse but increasingly common among non-drinkers who gain excessive amounts of weight.

This new view of sugar could change the advice that doctors and government health officials give about eating the sweet stuff. Lustig’s hope is that the information is considered as the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalizes its latest Dietary Guidelines, expected by the end of the year, which delineate recommendations for what, and how much of different types of foods and nutrients Americans should eat.

New study shows that varying walking pace burns more calories.

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Engineering researchers have found that walking at varying speeds can burn up to 20 percent more calories compared to maintaining a steady pace. The study is one of the first to measure the metabolic cost, or calories burned, of changing walking speeds.
By conducting walking experiments in Ohio State’s Movement Lab (pictured), researchers Manoj Srinivasan (left) and Nidhi Seethapathi found that walking at varying speeds can burn up to 20 percent more calories versus maintaining a steady pace.

Looking for a simple way to burn more calories while walking? Change up your pace.

In a study published in the September 2015 issue of the journal Biology Letters, engineering researchers at The Ohio State University found that walking at varying speeds can burn up to 20 percent more calories compared to maintaining a steady pace.

The study is one of the first to measure the metabolic cost, or calories burned, of changing walking speeds.

“Most of the existing literature has been on constant-speed walking. This study is a big missing piece,” said Manoj Srinivasan, co-author of the study and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Measuring the metabolic cost of changing speeds is very important because people don’t live their lives on treadmills and do not walk at constant speeds. We found that changing speeds can increase the cost of walking substantially.”

Their results show that by using traditional methods, people may be underestimating the number of calories burned while walking in daily life or playing sports. The very act of changing speeds burns energy, Srinivasan explained, but that cost is not generally accounted for in calorie-burning estimations. The researchers found that up to eight percent of the energy we use during normal daily walking could be due to the energy needed to start and stop walking.

“Walking at any speed costs some energy, but when you’re changing the speed, you’re pressing the gas pedal, so to speak. Changing the kinetic energy of the person requires more work from the legs and that process certainly burns more energy,” explained Nidhi Seethapathi, first author of the study and doctoral fellow in mechanical engineering.

The researchers measured the cost of changing walking speeds by having people change their walking pace on a treadmill while its speed remained steady. Participants alternated between walking quickly to move to the front of the treadmill belt, or slowly to move to the back of the treadmill (watch a video demonstration). Prior experiments by other researchers changed the treadmill speed directly, which, it turns out, makes such experiments not applicable to real-world walking, Srinivasan explained. When the treadmill speed is changing, the treadmill itself is doing some of the work, instead of the person walking.

The study also confirmed the researchers’ prediction that people walk slower when covering shorter distances and increase their pace as distance increases. This finding could have implications for the field of physical therapy and rehabilitation, where measuring the speed it takes to cover a certain distance is used as an indicator of a patient’s progress.

“What we’ve shown is the distance over which you make them walk matters,” said Seethapathi. “You’ll get different walking speeds for different distances. Some people have been measuring these speeds with relatively short distances, which our results suggest, might be systematically underestimating progress.”

For more tips on how to burn more calories when walking, Srinivasan, who leads the Movement Lab at Ohio State, offers some simple advice: walk in a way that feels unnatural.

“How do you walk in a manner that burns more energy? Just do weird things. Walk with a backpack, walk with weights on your legs. Walk for a while, then stop and repeat that. Walk in a curve as opposed to a straight line,” he said.

Calories, not protein, contribute to increased body fat.

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New data show that consuming more calories accounts for increases in body fat, regardless of dietary composition.

“As obesity develops, a number of metabolic changes occur, which may not completely reverse when weight is lost,” George A. Bray, MD, of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “These differences may reflect differences in the way individuals handle the food they eat each day both during weight gain and weight loss.”

Between 2005 and 2007, Bray and colleagues randomly assigned 25 men and women aged 18 to 35 years with BMIs ranging from 19 to 30 to a diet containing 5% protein (low protein), 15% protein (normal protein) or 25% protein (high protein). During the last 8 weeks of the participants’ 10- to 12-week stay in an inpatient metabolic unit, the researchers increased participants’ caloric intake by approximately 40%, corresponding to an extra 954 kcal per day (95% CI, 884-1,022).

At 3.16 kg (95% CI, 1.88-4.44), weight gain in the low-protein group was approximately half that of the normal-protein (6.05 kg; 95% CI, 4.84-7.26) and high-protein groups (6.51 kg; 95% CI, 5.23-7.79), according to study results. Further, the rate of weight gain was significantly less for participants on the low-protein diet (P<.001). However, increases in body fat, which represented from 50% to more than 90% of excess stored calories, were similar among all diet groups.

During the overeating period, participants in the low-protein group experienced a 0.7-kg decrease in lean body mass, whereas the normal-protein and high-protein groups experienced increases of 2.87 kg and 3.18 kg, respectively. Similarly, resting energy expenditure increased significantly in the normal- and high-protein groups when compared with the low-protein group (P<.001) — outcomes that were strongly associated with protein intake, the researchers said.

“Weight gain when eating a low protein diet (5% of energy from protein) was blunted compared with weight gain when eating a normal protein diet (15% of energy from protein) with the same number of extra calories,” the researchers wrote. “Calories alone, however, contributed to the increase in body fat. In contrast, protein contributed to the changes in energy expenditure and lean body mass, but not to the increase in fat.”

In an accompanying editorial, Zhaoping Li, MD, PhD, and David Heber, MD, PhD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, highlighted the potential implications of these findings, especially in light of the low-protein aspect of the Western diet.

“Policymakers and primary care physicians need to understand the role of the Western diet in promoting overweight and obesity,” Li and Heber wrote. “Because this diet increases the risks of overnutrition through fat deposition beyond that detected by BMI, the method used to assess the current obesity epidemic and the magnitude of the obesity epidemic may have been underestimated. Clinicians should consider assessing a patient’s overall fatness rather than simply measuring body weight or BMI and concentrate on the potential complications of excess fat accumulation.”

Source:Endocrine Today.