For a century, this concept of “energy balance” ranged from an initial focus on calorie counting in the early 1900s to a low-fat diet in the late 1900s (for the most energy-dense nutrients). Has dominated the prevention and treatment of obesity. A recent focus has been on reducing the consumption of modern processed foods that are high in fat and sugar.
But if this theory is correct, it is difficult to match the facts. After more than 30 years of increase, US calorie consumption has been flat or declining since 2000, the new analysis concludes. However, obesity rates have increased by more than a third since then, reaching a staggering 42 percent of today’s population. This paradox cannot be easily explained in our sedentary lifestyle. In fact, Americans have become a little more physically active in the last two decades.
But what if the focus on calorie and energy balance is simply wrong and the cause and effect are reversed? Writing for the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition This week, my co-authors, researchers, doctors, public health professionals, and I argue that overeating is not the main cause of obesity. Instead, the process of gaining weight causes us to overeat..
This is another model of obesity, the carbohydrate-insulin model. This theory is based on the obesity level of processed, fast-digesting carbohydrates that flooded our diet during the low-fat diet boom, including white bread, white rice, cooked breakfast cereals, potato products, and sweet foods. Condemn the rise. It is assumed that consumption of these carbohydrates causes insulin levels to rise too high, producing changes in other hormones that program our body to store excess fat.
Seen this way, obesity is not a problem of overeating, but a problem of calorie distribution. There are too many calories from each meal sucked up by adipose tissue, and too few calories remain in the blood to meet the body’s energy needs. As a result, our brain makes us feel hungry immediately after eating to supplement those isolated calories. If you ignore hunger and try to limit calories, your body saves energy by slowing down your metabolism. In this sense, obesity is starving among many.
According to this theory, simply reducing calories does not work in the long run because it does not address the underlying predisposition to store excess fat caused by hormones and other biological effects. Instead, the focus should be on reducing postprandial blood glucose and insulin spikes with a high-fat diet low in processed carbohydrates. In this way, you can induce adipose tissue to release accumulated calories and reduce hunger. Weight loss occurs without the need for calorie restriction, increasing the chances of long-term success.
So is the carb-insulin model more correct than the idea of energy balance? Unfortunately, it’s still unclear. The definitive research needed to resolve this dispute has never been done. This is because the alternative paradigm of obesity is not taken seriously.
In addition to this week’s new treatise, two academic papers aim to build a carbohydrate-insulin model from the available scientific evidence. Still, there are more than 12 treatises from critics claiming to disprove the model based on weak evidence, such as small short-term trials of less than two weeks.
On the other hand, despite investing in many major low-fat diet trials (virtually none show any benefit to the main results), the government’s National Institutes of Health has a single long-term in a similar range. We have not yet funded a low carb trial. This was not a fair contest of ideas.
One of the reasons for this resistance may be cultural. For centuries, obesity has been regarded as a personality deficiency. Despite decades of research on the genetic and biological effects on body weight, obese people are more stigmatized than people with most other chronic illnesses, as if their weight is their fault. I keep getting dressed.
The idea of energy balance implicitly contributes to these stereotypes by blaming overeating for lack of self-control. The new energy-balanced version highlights the major reward centers in the brain that promote food intake, but in any case, obese people resist seducing food for conscious or subconscious reasons. It is believed that it cannot be done. But if the alternative paradigm is right, the deeply rooted notion of obesity is simply wrong.
Scientists should be skeptical. However, if variations of the same approach continue to fail and the rate of obesity continues to increase, it is important that new ideas are encouraged rather than suppressed. He then explored various ways to solve the uncontrollable problem of obesity, with type 2 diabetes, a weight-related complication, costing only about $ 1 billion a day, and the underlying symptom that overeating is a symptom. You need to be open to the concept. It is not the cause.
