Interesting article about carb cutting vs calories
Replies
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janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
So the media editorialized and twisted facts to create a more clickbait-y headline?
Huh. First time I’ve ever heard of that happening.
Where's that visual chart? I know I have it stashed somewhere.
ETA: Found it!
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janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
Yes it does
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
Why are you on me about this? Im only commenting on what I read.
That's a quote from an article, not a study. And it's a completely different study than the one referenced in your OP. I don't think I'm "on you" as much as I'm confused as to what point you're making. For the Ludwig study, the one referenced in your OP, there is no indication that the "type" of carbohydrate played a role. If I misunderstood what you're trying to communicate, then I apologize.
I didnt say it was the ludwig study. Somebody else did. My study is from JAMA!8 -
jseams1234 wrote: »Dr. Ludwig is trying to sell a book. The thermogenic properties of food are already known and understood and typically only play a minor roll... but yes, not all calories are alike. Cutting carbs but staying in a calorie surplus would still cause weight gain. The article title is misleading...
This study isnt done by Ludwig.4 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
Yes it does
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
Why are you on me about this? Im only commenting on what I read.
That's a quote from an article, not a study. And it's a completely different study than the one referenced in your OP. I don't think I'm "on you" as much as I'm confused as to what point you're making. For the Ludwig study, the one referenced in your OP, there is no indication that the "type" of carbohydrate played a role. If I misunderstood what you're trying to communicate, then I apologize.
I didnt say it was the ludwig study. Somebody else did. My study is from JAMA!
As I said, I was confused. I missed that you were now talking about a completely different study, I'm not sure what relevance it has to the first. Apologies for my misunderstanding, it wasn't me being "on you," as much as it was me trying to understand.12 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
Yes it does
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
Why are you on me about this? Im only commenting on what I read.
That's a quote from an article, not a study. And it's a completely different study than the one referenced in your OP. I don't think I'm "on you" as much as I'm confused as to what point you're making. For the Ludwig study, the one referenced in your OP, there is no indication that the "type" of carbohydrate played a role. If I misunderstood what you're trying to communicate, then I apologize.
I didnt say it was the ludwig study. Somebody else did. My study is from JAMA!
This is a response to your OP, that study is Ludwig and it is published by the BMJ.
The study you brought up on the second page is the non-Ludwig one and it was published by JAMA.
When people are talking about Ludwig, they're talking about your OP. If you want to discuss a completely different study by different people with different findings, you may want to start a different thread.
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cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
Yes it does
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
Why are you on me about this? Im only commenting on what I read.
Maybe she's only commenting on what she's read. Why are you on her about being on you about this?
I think I'm just confused because I didn't realize when the OP began talking about a second study, one that has nothing to do with the one initially referenced. When OP was talking about the "type" of carbohydrate, I thought she was referring to the first study (where that doesn't seem to be a factor), not the second study.
Yeah, I can see how you got there. I would expect subsequent posts to be follow-ups on the original post, too, instead of changing the subject to a new study.
Takes all kinds, I guess.
Theres always one that has to put her 2 cents in... please get a life! This has nothing to do with u.
Someone posting in a public forum has nothing to do with me? OK. Good to know. I'll tuck that in my back pocket for later.
Anyway, do you have a link to the actual study you're talking about? Because this https://www.thestar.com/amp/life/health_wellness/2018/02/21/counting-calories-is-not-the-key-to-weight-loss-new-study-finds.html isn't a study.
If you read the article it does say it is from a study...yawn...ok Im done.
It's often more productive to consider the study itself than the media coverage of it. First, the media often don't accurately represent the findings -- either due to journalists not understanding the science or due to desire for more "clicks." Second, it's not unusual for people involved with the study to misrepresent what is actually demonstrated (as we see here with Ludwig telling the journalist that this shows low carbohydrate is a better choice for long-term weight control even though this study just lasted for 20 weeks).18 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »
Have you looked at the study itself or just the article summarizing it?
Just the article summarizing it.
The study itself doesn't mention anything about that.
Yes it does
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
Why are you on me about this? Im only commenting on what I read.
Maybe she's only commenting on what she's read. Why are you on her about being on you about this?
I think I'm just confused because I didn't realize when the OP began talking about a second study, one that has nothing to do with the one initially referenced. When OP was talking about the "type" of carbohydrate, I thought she was referring to the first study (where that doesn't seem to be a factor), not the second study.
Yeah, I can see how you got there. I would expect subsequent posts to be follow-ups on the original post, too, instead of changing the subject to a new study.
Takes all kinds, I guess.
Theres always one that has to put her 2 cents in... please get a life! This has nothing to do with u.
Someone posting in a public forum has nothing to do with me? OK. Good to know. I'll tuck that in my back pocket for later.
Anyway, do you have a link to the actual study you're talking about? Because this https://www.thestar.com/amp/life/health_wellness/2018/02/21/counting-calories-is-not-the-key-to-weight-loss-new-study-finds.html isn't a study.
If you read the article it does say it is from a study...yawn...ok Im done.
But the article writers do not accurately report what the study actually says. That's what we're trying to tell you.17 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »https://www.thestar.com/amp/life/health_wellness/2018/02/21/counting-calories-is-not-the-key-to-weight-loss-new-study-finds.html
This is the link to the study I was talking about.
This is the actual study referenced in that article: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150?resultClick=1
Again, the study does not actually find what the news article claims it finds. The study finds that there is not a difference in weight change for those following a low fat diet vs. a low carb diet. From the journal article (not the news article):
"Total energy intake was not different between diet groups at baseline or at any subsequent time point (P ≥ .10 for all; Table 2). Despite not being instructed to follow a specific energy (kilocalorie) intake restriction, the mean reported energy intake reduction relative to baseline was approximately 500 to 600 kcal/d for both groups at each time point after randomization."
This means that the researchers didn't tell study participants to cut calories, but on average the study participants did wind up eating 500-600 calories less per day than they had before starting the diets in the study. This does not mean that all study participants were in a calorie deficit--it just means that on average they were reducing their calories by that much. We do not know how many participants were actually in a deficit or how large their deficit was.
Nothing about this study tells me that "counting calories is not the key to weight loss," as the news article's headline claims.20 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »jseams1234 wrote: »Dr. Ludwig is trying to sell a book. The thermogenic properties of food are already known and understood and typically only play a minor roll... but yes, not all calories are alike. Cutting carbs but staying in a calorie surplus would still cause weight gain. The article title is misleading...
This study isnt done by Ludwig.
My response was the 4th or 5th one to your original OP... which is about an article in the Chicago Tribune. Ludwig is quoted in that story. I'm referencing Ludwig from your OP.
A quote from the story you quoted in your OP:
“These findings show that all calories are not alike to the body, and that restricting carbohydrates may be a better strategy for long-term weight loss than restricting calories,” said study co-author Dr. David Ludwig, co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.
So.... what are you on about?
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I found a good discussion of the Ludwig study with details, and think I see where the comments about carb type is coming from (although to be honest I'm getting confused about which one is being referred to).
The Ludwig one compares diets with protein kept at 25% and carbs varying from 105 g at the lowest (which is interesting, because when the results came out differently than desired, I recall lots of low carb proponents claiming similar numbers weren't really "low carb" because not keto) to 205 g for the middle, and 305 g for the high.
The most fiber-rich and nutrient dense carbs tended to be eaten by all participants, for example grapes, spinach, orange, toasted lentil salad, blueberries.
The additional carbs the higher carb people ate included multigrain English muffin, strawberry fruit spread, orange juice, whole wheat sourdough bread, vanilla lowfat yogurt, rice, more bread, more vanilla yogurt, dried cranberries, macaroni.
Interestingly, the low carb group was given additional veg that the other groups were not given, specifically a salad at lunch.
This is all from the supplemental material in the study (a sample menu).7 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »https://www.thestar.com/amp/life/health_wellness/2018/02/21/counting-calories-is-not-the-key-to-weight-loss-new-study-finds.html
This is the link to the study I was talking about.
This discusses a study that found no difference between low fat and low carb. I thought it was a decent study, it was more about ways to create ad litem weight loss.4 -
Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life. This is my last post.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html24 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
For some reason this link doesnt want to work for me. Thats why I have been trying to find it and post it and then I ended up posting the wrong article. Such a mess!! Geesh...could only happen to me!😫
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cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life. This is my last post.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
You said previously that you weren't great with the scientific stuff. People are trying to help you better understand that the media doesn't present studies in a fully truthful way. They create headlines that grab attention, they twist the findings out of context and stretch them into areas that are just not applicable, and in some cases they just outright lie about it. Journalists are not generally any more science literate than the general public.
I've learned a lot from these forums over the years, but it is something that requires keeping an open mind about the tone of a post. Tone doesn't come across in text, and so it's not easy to catch nuances. Stick around, or don't, but this community is a great resource full of supportive and amazing people. If you are going to stick around, I recommend reading posts with Kermit the Frog's voice or Elmo.23 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
For some reason this link doesnt want to work for me. Thats why I have been trying to find it and post it and then I ended up posting the wrong article. Such a mess!! Geesh...could only happen to me!😫
This is the same article you originally posted. Are you trying to post a different one?
I don't see people "ridiculing" you. I see people trying to understand and explain the research that you wanted to discuss. For my part, I have a Ph.D.--not in biology, but doctoral training does teach you the basic structure of academic articles in most disciplines, and how to at least get a big picture idea of what they're saying. I also am a university faculty member, so I have access to scholarly articles. I see it as a service to others that I can read the original research and offer some explanation of what the findings seem to mean.25 -
cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
For some reason this link doesnt want to work for me. Thats why I have been trying to find it and post it and then I ended up posting the wrong article. Such a mess!! Geesh...could only happen to me!😫
This is the same article you originally posted. Are you trying to post a different one?
I don't see people "ridiculing" you. I see people trying to understand and explain the research that you wanted to discuss. For my part, I have a Ph.D.--not in biology, but doctoral training does teach you the basic structure of academic articles in most disciplines, and how to at least get a big picture idea of what they're saying. I also am a university faculty member, so I have access to scholarly articles. I see it as a service to others that I can read the original research and offer some explanation of what the findings seem to mean.
You, and others, are why I stick around on these boards so much.
I have a couple of degrees, but none in the sciences.
For a lot of the studies posted I have to put them aside and take a couple of hours in the evening to trawl through them and make notes. Then I read the comments from folk like you to clarify my interpretation of what I have read.
Thank you all you science folks for your patience in making the complex a little more simple for us non-science types.
Cheers, h.24 -
middlehaitch wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
For some reason this link doesnt want to work for me. Thats why I have been trying to find it and post it and then I ended up posting the wrong article. Such a mess!! Geesh...could only happen to me!😫
This is the same article you originally posted. Are you trying to post a different one?
I don't see people "ridiculing" you. I see people trying to understand and explain the research that you wanted to discuss. For my part, I have a Ph.D.--not in biology, but doctoral training does teach you the basic structure of academic articles in most disciplines, and how to at least get a big picture idea of what they're saying. I also am a university faculty member, so I have access to scholarly articles. I see it as a service to others that I can read the original research and offer some explanation of what the findings seem to mean.
You, and others, are why I stick around on these boards so much.
I have a couple of degrees, but none in the sciences.
For a lot of the studies posted I have to put them aside and take a couple of hours in the evening to trawl through them and make notes. Then I read the comments from folk like you to clarify my interpretation of what I have read.
Thank you all you science folks for your patience in making the complex a little more simple for us non-science types.
Cheers, h.
Aww, shucks. Thank you! *blushes*
You may be giving me a little too much credit; I have a bachelor's degree in biology, but my master's and Ph.D are in sociology. I've also been teaching first-year college writing and research skills for several years. So that means I have a good grasp on how to find and read academic work in general, and enough understanding of the natural sciences to make some sense of biological and medical research. But I certainly can't understand it in as much detail as someone with advanced training in the natural sciences could.10 -
Thanks for the study link. Saved me the bother of trying to find it myselfjanejellyroll wrote: »"These findings show that all calories are not alike to the body, and that restricting carbohydrates may be a better strategy for long-term weight loss than restricting calories," said study co-author Dr. David Ludwig, co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital."
I would be cautious.
Also, the article states that the low carbohydrate group exercised more than the other groups. It's not a mystery to figure out how they burned more calories, is it?
For those interested in the study itself, I think this is it: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4583
A few points on the internal validity of the study that bugged me (study design, analysis and such)
I would have loved to see the statistical significance analysis of the pre-weightloss characteristics. Especially for the numbers I highlighted in yellow, but there's absolutely no information whether there's a statistical difference in the randomized groups. But some of those number differences did surprise me...
What further surprised me, was the result:P value shows a statistical significance for the three groups, but the CI of the high and moderate carb diets don't (0 is included in the range, meaning that the effective result can be anywhere above or below, meaning you can't draw conclusions from that). So if we take the number for the high carb group −19 (−104 to 66), this means that the average energy expenditure decreased by 19kcal/day. The confidence interval, however, tells me that the effective value can be anywhere from an 104kcal/day decrease or even a 66kcal/day increase.
However, what irritates me the most, is this sentence at the bottom of table 3:All the numbers are from the unadjusted models, meaning known counfounders are still doing their work confounding. As per the statistical analysis section they also ran the numbers in an adjusted model but haven't provided those that I can see. I'd love to see them... But I guess, they would show something significantly different.
Or did I misunderstand something fundamental in those numbers? I'm only learning the fine art of interpreting study results.
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cartersmom06 wrote: »cartersmom06 wrote: »Ok so I reread my post and it seems I did click on the wrong link. Sorry for the confusion. I still dont think I should have been ridiculed though by some posters for making a mistake. Some people on here are very rude and think they Know it all! I was almost going to delete my mfp account for some comments but decided to stay because I love the app, just not some of the people in the community...but I guess that happens with social media. I wont be posting any longer because I dont need the backlash. Its detrimental to my weight loss success and I dont need the negativity in my life.
Anyways THIS is the article i was referring to:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/11/20/all-calories-are-not-alike-cutting-carbs-instead-of-calories-keeps-weight-off-study-says.html
For some reason this link doesnt want to work for me. Thats why I have been trying to find it and post it and then I ended up posting the wrong article. Such a mess!! Geesh...could only happen to me!😫
You posted articles that discussed two different studies, but they were both interesting studies worth discussing (even if the first one was that Ludwig one and Ludwig isn't trustworthy in many of our opinions). People only got confused because it wasn't clear the second one was a different study (I think because you didn't realize you'd posted two). No biggie -- a little confusion all cleared up.3 -
Back to the OP,
Many long term low carbers have had a similar experience to what Ludwig found. I'm one. I'm also someone who was developing insulin resistance and those people, as has been seen in other studies, do tend to lose a bit easier on a low carb diet. Nothing Earth shattering, but there was an unexpected ease and speed to losing.
In my experience (low carb/keto for 3.5+ yrs) I lost slightly faster than expected at my caloric intake. I also maintain at a higher caloric level than what my age and activity level would predict. I can slowly lose at 2000 kcal a day whereas if that was higher carb, I would be maintaining or very slowly gaining.
This isn't a universal truth for everyone. There are plenty of low carbers who lose exactly as the CICO model would predict. They are often the metabolically healthy. It's just a nice little benefit for some of us who choose to eat low carb for satiety and taste preferences or for health reasons.
I think some might be mixing Ludwig up with Lustig. One is more sensational than the other, IMO.14 -
Back to the OP,
Many long term low carbers have had a similar experience to what Ludwig found. I'm one. I'm also someone who was developing insulin resistance and those people, as has been seen in other studies, do tend to lose a bit easier on a low carb diet. Nothing Earth shattering, but there was an unexpected ease and speed to losing.
In my experience (low carb/keto for 3.5+ yrs) I lost slightly faster than expected at my caloric intake. I also maintain at a higher caloric level than what my age and activity level would predict. I can slowly lose at 2000 kcal a day whereas if that was higher carb, I would be maintaining or very slowly gaining.
This isn't a universal truth for everyone. There are plenty of low carbers who lose exactly as the CICO model would predict. They are often the metabolically healthy. It's just a nice little benefit for some of us who choose to eat low carb for satiety and taste preferences or for health reasons.
I think some might be mixing Ludwig up with Lustig. One is more sensational than the other, IMO.
I think the study participant characteristics actually underline your point. Those assigned to the low carb group had, on average, higher fasting insulin than those in the other two groups. Isn't a sign of insulin resistance the fact that the body produces more insulin to try and counter balance the lower effect? So if there was a higher percentage of IR in the low carb group, then it would make sense that it had a disproportional effect on the result.
ETA: reason why I would have loved to see the statistical analysis / significance for the numbers provided on the study participant characteristics.
It also raises the point on how the randomization was carried out. Because including more people with IR in the low carb group would have caused a serious bias.8 -
I think some might be mixing Ludwig up with Lustig. One is more sensational than the other, IMO.
From his website: "Forget everything you’ve been taught about dieting. In Always Hungry?, renowned endocrinologist Dr. David Ludwig explains why traditional diets don’t work, and presents a radical new plan to help you lose weight without hunger, improve your health, and feel great."
"Forget calories."
"Using natural, slowly digesting foods in the correct ratios allows the fat cells to open up and release excess, pent-up calories for use by the rest of the body."
"The goal in Phase 1 is to calm down fat cells and take the body out of starvation mode."
Source: https://www.drdavidludwig.com/
Lustig may be more sensational, but Ludwig is making a good bid. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't mixing them up. I am not sure how to "calm down" a fat cell, but I managed to lose 40+ pounds without ever thinking about the emotional state of my cells.
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This is a very interesting and fair discussion of the study: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/16/18096633/keto-low-carb-diet
One comment worth noting:Stanford researcher Christopher Gardner, who was not involved in the research, told me he thought it was an “elegant study,” with results worth paying attention to. “It shows how in the long run [a low-carb diet] can promote or inhibit the maintenance of that weight loss.”
But Gardner also noted that the findings may not yet be applicable to most people.
In most diet studies, where people aren’t fed every calorie by researchers, the low-carb diet performs about the same as other diets when it comes to weight loss. In other words, when you just ask people to stick to a low-carb diet for weight loss, they lose about the same amount of weight as people following higher-carb diets. This isn’t a knock on the study, but on the fact that researchers don’t yet know how to get people to follow any diet over the long term, unless they’re feeding them.
“If you prove a mechanism works but you can’t get people to do it,” Gardner added, “it won’t help.”
And this is a possible problem with the study:Kevin Hall, an obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health who has studied low-carb diets, pointed out that the researchers used a technique called doubly labeled water to measure calorie burn before and throughout the study. This involves giving study participants a sample of water that contains (or is “labeled with”) forms of the elements deuterium and oxygen-18. Since they’re not normally found in the body, researchers can determine a person’s metabolic rate — how much energy they’re burning each day — by tracking how quickly they’re expelled through urine sampling.
Doubly labeled water is the gold-standard way of measuring energy expenditure in “free-living” subjects, i.e., people who aren’t in a metabolic chamber. But there’s a problem with the way it was used in this paper, Hall said.
When people have just lost weight, or their diets are shifting, doubly labeled water is less reliable. In their original study protocol — or statement of intent before the study was done — the researchers addressed that: They said they would use the measure taken before the run-in weight-loss phase as their baseline. People would be weight stable then, and Hall said, “That’s where doubly labeled water has been validated.”
But the researchers changed that endpoint because of an error, and instead made their baseline the beginning of the diet randomization — a change they disclosed in the study, to their credit.
The change, however, “introduced noise into that measurement,” Hall said. Because people had already lost weight and their diets were changing, doubly labeled water might be a less reliable way to estimate energy expenditure. “And they don’t report in the study what their data would look like if they used the pre-weight loss measurement.”
Hall took the pre-weight loss measurements, which were reported in the study, and ran the numbers himself for a presentation at the recent Obesity Week conference. He found the effect of calorie burn on the low-carb diet would have been much smaller had they used that measure as their baseline: fewer than 100 extra calories per day difference between the low-carb and high-carb diet groups, an effect that may not be statistically significant.11 -
In the end, the best weight-loss diet is the one you can stick to. For me it works out that a low carb diet allows me to cut calories without being hungry all the time, but there are people who do just as well on high carb diets, vegetarian diets, etc. I think low-carb/ketogenic diets should be studied closer for therapeutic reasons, but for weight loss, whatever helps YOU cut calories with less pain is the best diet.4
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10 -
ladyreva78 wrote: »Back to the OP,
Many long term low carbers have had a similar experience to what Ludwig found. I'm one. I'm also someone who was developing insulin resistance and those people, as has been seen in other studies, do tend to lose a bit easier on a low carb diet. Nothing Earth shattering, but there was an unexpected ease and speed to losing.
In my experience (low carb/keto for 3.5+ yrs) I lost slightly faster than expected at my caloric intake. I also maintain at a higher caloric level than what my age and activity level would predict. I can slowly lose at 2000 kcal a day whereas if that was higher carb, I would be maintaining or very slowly gaining.
This isn't a universal truth for everyone. There are plenty of low carbers who lose exactly as the CICO model would predict. They are often the metabolically healthy. It's just a nice little benefit for some of us who choose to eat low carb for satiety and taste preferences or for health reasons.
I think some might be mixing Ludwig up with Lustig. One is more sensational than the other, IMO.
I think the study participant characteristics actually underline your point. Those assigned to the low carb group had, on average, higher fasting insulin than those in the other two groups. Isn't a sign of insulin resistance the fact that the body produces more insulin to try and counter balance the lower effect? So if there was a higher percentage of IR in the low carb group, then it would make sense that it had a disproportional effect on the result.
ETA: reason why I would have loved to see the statistical analysis / significance for the numbers provided on the study participant characteristics.
It also raises the point on how the randomization was carried out. Because including more people with IR in the low carb group would have caused a serious bias.
I don't believe that there were more with IR in the LCHF group, just that those with IR tended to be able to eat more calories than anticipated. I'd have to read it again.
But yes, those with IR do tend to benefit most from LCHF. Those with a healthy metabolism tend to have more diet flexibility. I think including those with IR in all groups is realistic - those with IR do not just eat LCHF.0 -
This is a very interesting and fair discussion of the study: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/16/18096633/keto-low-carb-diet
One comment worth noting:Stanford researcher Christopher Gardner, who was not involved in the research, told me he thought it was an “elegant study,” with results worth paying attention to. “It shows how in the long run [a low-carb diet] can promote or inhibit the maintenance of that weight loss.”
But Gardner also noted that the findings may not yet be applicable to most people.
In most diet studies, where people aren’t fed every calorie by researchers, the low-carb diet performs about the same as other diets when it comes to weight loss. In other words, when you just ask people to stick to a low-carb diet for weight loss, they lose about the same amount of weight as people following higher-carb diets. This isn’t a knock on the study, but on the fact that researchers don’t yet know how to get people to follow any diet over the long term, unless they’re feeding them.
“If you prove a mechanism works but you can’t get people to do it,” Gardner added, “it won’t help.”
And this is a possible problem with the study:Kevin Hall, an obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health who has studied low-carb diets, pointed out that the researchers used a technique called doubly labeled water to measure calorie burn before and throughout the study. This involves giving study participants a sample of water that contains (or is “labeled with”) forms of the elements deuterium and oxygen-18. Since they’re not normally found in the body, researchers can determine a person’s metabolic rate — how much energy they’re burning each day — by tracking how quickly they’re expelled through urine sampling.
Doubly labeled water is the gold-standard way of measuring energy expenditure in “free-living” subjects, i.e., people who aren’t in a metabolic chamber. But there’s a problem with the way it was used in this paper, Hall said.
When people have just lost weight, or their diets are shifting, doubly labeled water is less reliable. In their original study protocol — or statement of intent before the study was done — the researchers addressed that: They said they would use the measure taken before the run-in weight-loss phase as their baseline. People would be weight stable then, and Hall said, “That’s where doubly labeled water has been validated.”
But the researchers changed that endpoint because of an error, and instead made their baseline the beginning of the diet randomization — a change they disclosed in the study, to their credit.
The change, however, “introduced noise into that measurement,” Hall said. Because people had already lost weight and their diets were changing, doubly labeled water might be a less reliable way to estimate energy expenditure. “And they don’t report in the study what their data would look like if they used the pre-weight loss measurement.”
Hall took the pre-weight loss measurements, which were reported in the study, and ran the numbers himself for a presentation at the recent Obesity Week conference. He found the effect of calorie burn on the low-carb diet would have been much smaller had they used that measure as their baseline: fewer than 100 extra calories per day difference between the low-carb and high-carb diet groups, an effect that may not be statistically significant.
I understand Hall's objection, but didn't the study measure how much food/energy that they were giving the participants so they could keep the participants within 2kg of their weight? If the DLW was way off, they would have gained or lost rather than maintained.
Even if there is only a 100kcal advantage, which is almost statistically insignificant, that could potentially help people lose weight, or maintain, in the long run, especially those with IR. If there is a possible chance of some weight control advantages for some, it's good for people to know their options. JMO7 -
We will have to see if the results are able to be reproduced, especially without the problem noted. (My suspicion is that this may not occur, and that Ludwig was trying to achieve a particular result.) As for weight control advantages, the studies that test RL advantages over a period of time haven't found that there is one.5
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My thoughts...... What can people maintain. Low carb, outside a few people, is hard to maintain for MOST people. 100cals? Not much for me, but someone who maintains on 1200-1500 cals? Could be a lot to them.1
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I should add to my last comment that I think what's sustainable is individual and people vary. Some may find low carb more sustainable, whereas others would find it far harder to sustain and some other way of eating more sustainable.
I eat kind of low carb (the Ludwig low carb group is at a lower carb percentage than I am, although a similar gram number to what I often eat when eating at a deficit) and that works for me. I think I would find keto hard to sustain because it requires me to basically cut out foods I like and consider healthful (I really missed fruit, would find it hard to avoid pasta and beans and lentils and potatoes/sweet potatoes over time, since I enjoy those foods and find them filling). I also think the idea (Ludwig's hobbyhorse, same with Taubes and others) that carbs are responsible for weight gain and low carb the better approach for all makes no sense given what we know about diets all over the world AND given what we know about how Americans actually ate when supposedly cutting down on fat (hint: we didn't). The so-called SAD (which was never how I ate anyway) is not distinctive because of carb content, but because of the overall mix of foods and that includes a high fat content (and generally nutrient poor sources of carbs and fat on average). The reason it's not nutritionally insufficient is that foods are fortified and that people eat such large amounts.7
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