Quick Notes for mid January 2015

Updated 1.17.2015; reformatted 9.22.2015
Brief commentary on recent articles, posts or studies based on open tabs in mid January.

Mice that fast don’t get obese.

Intermittent fasting isn’t a new idea, except apparently to those who study obesity. The New York Times Well Blog reports on a study that compared mice which were permitted to eat as much as they wanted 24/7 to those restricted to a 12 hour limit. The mice which ate on the restricted schedule did not become obese, the mice that ate whenever did. During their 12 hour feeding period, no restriction on intake was applied.

Since it’s a mouse study, the results may or may not be the same in humans. However, it’s comment sense that if eating is restricted to only certain hours of the day, then intake would fall— unless the subject made a conscious effort to pack 24 hours worth of calories into the 12 hour window. Weight gain results from ingesting more energy (food and drink) than you (or any other animal) expend. The energy balance applies.

Some people find eating on a schedule helpful and can stick to it, others hate it and fixated on food during the hours during which it’s not allowed. The most important part of any plan to lose weight is adherence. If you won’t follow the chosen plan, it won’t work.

US News and World Reports really hates the Paleo Diet

January is when US News & World Reports publishes its list of the best diets, based upon a survey of dietitians. And once again the Paleopshere was riled to find that the Paleo Diet was poorly rated. Indeed, the Paleo diet has the distinction of being tied for dead last with the low carb Dukan Diet. Aggregator site supreme, HuffPo, also presents the list— in a format that actually makes the list easier to read.

The list of diets is different from the 2014 list. Unlike 2014, this time the 5:2 isn’t mentioned at all, I presume its included in the “Fast Diet,” which is low ranked. The Raw food diet is next to last at 32, tied with Atkins. A vegan diet is 19th, tied with the Abs Diet (never heard of it) The Engine 2 diet (which is vegan) and the South Beach Diet. A vegetarian diet is 11, tied with a traditional Asian diet, which is a cultural choice rather than a fad diet, so its inclusion is odd to me. The Volumetrics Diet was 6th, and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was number 1.

Any list is arbitrary, but just as last year it made no real sense to include more than one type of diet incorporating intermittent fasting (just make that a category), this year it makes no sense to have more than one vegan diet or low carb diet separately on the list. Many of the diets get dinged for being hard to maintain, but the paleo diet in particular gets dinged for lack of research evidence that it works. The fact that there are so many different versions of diets all calling themselves “Paleo” doesn’t help either.

I dislike the Paleo Diet because it’s overly restrictive for no good reason. But eating a diet of meats, lots of vegetables and fruits (which IS the Cordain version as I understand it) is not unhealthy if you’re okay with all the arbitrary restrictions imposed on dairy, grains and legumes. Likewise, I don’t eat vegan because it leaves you is a state of requiring supplements (B12), but a diet based on plant foods IS a healthy diet. A vegan diet remains the ONLY one proven to reverse heart disease. Thus, had I heart disease (I do not), part of my treatment would be the adoption of a vegan diet (with B12 supplementation). I have most recently been upping my intake of vegetation, but am by no means vegan or even vegetarian.

The diet version of a pace maker?

An electrical charge generator can be implanted to mess with the signaling of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is involved in the stomach’s hunger signaling. The vagus nerve has MANY functions in the body however, which is one source of concern about these devices.

Predictably, fat activists are up in arms at the possibility (eradication of fatties and all that). And the fact that there can be side effects and consequences that are unknown at this point. The analogy is bariatric surgery— the long term effects of which are only now being discovered because it’s only now that people are aging after bariatric surgery. And it is only a possibility at this point. It’s been approved for 5 years of testing. Per NPR, zapping the vagus nerve is already approved for depression and epilepsy that proves untreatable by more conventional means. It’s not the first line treatment for those diseases, and it won’t be for obesity either. I imagine people objected to pace makers too when they were new. Quoting the NPR piece:

After 12 months, the group using an active device had lost about 24 percent of that excess weight, or 9 percent of their total body weight. That's compared to the people with the sham devices, who lost 16 percent of excess weight, or about 6 percent of body weight. The people who had the sham devices probably lost weight because of the placebo effect, the researchers speculate, and also because all of the people in the study were participating in a diet and exercise program.

The goal was for the device to result in 10% more weight loss, so by that measure the device failed. People with the real devices did report being less hungry, which is important— especially for long term maintenance. If you stop “dieting” and allow your hunger to return to previous levels (Recall please, that I think hunger is in many respects a trained response. There is so much food around and people eat so constantly that few people actually know what true hunger is. I would include myself in that group too.) But the true bottom line is that eating less and moving more with the sham device worked almost as well as the actual device because the energy balance (calories in vs calories out - CICO) is how you lose weight. No need for drugs, devices or surgery. Eat less and move more, Q.E.D.

Stop the Presses!

The subtitle there is evidence that I am old, because nowadays no one “stops the presses” when new news hits, they just update the website. Anyway, I found this before I uploaded, so I’m just appending it on the above notes. Apparently, this technology is not new at all, and the company has been trying to get it approved for years. That’s typical for new health technologies and devices, so on it’s own the accusation has no teeth— unless you are an ideologue with a beef against the tech (which the blogger linked IS). And yet, I linked to it because the history of the device should be considered.

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