Do Carbohydrates Turn into Fat?

Insel, Turner & Ross,  copyright 2010

20

Comments

I must admit to being pretty skeptical of extrapolating the results of overfeeding carbs to normal weight folk. A quick Google search turned up a more recent piece on 60 Minutes from 2012 with one of the researchers in the above piece (Jean Marc Shwarz) telling Sanja Gupta re fructose that "we know that if you look at specific types of fat in the blood there is huge proportion maybe 30% to 40% of that fat in some condition can come from that sugar." Gupta: "So if people say are you sure sugar gets turned into fat, you say yes?" Shwarz: "Here it is ... it becomes very obvious that fructose was a powerful way to stimulate the conversion of sugar to fat."

See cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403958n
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carbsane said…
Damn ... I just lost a long response to this. Going to recompose offline and repost :(
carbsane said…
Crap ... now I'm going to turn this into a blog post ;-)
John Smith said…
I would like to see a study that features subjects who are totally sedentary for years at a time, cause low carbers and paleos won't move to save their lives, house could be burning down around them and they're still sitting there thinking "I ain't moving, moving is for suckers."
30BaD diet is not just bananas -- that's just a name. It's essentially a repackaged version of Douglas Graham's fruitarian 80/10/10.

Now are we talking about never seeing fat leaders or fat disciples?

http://www.30bananasadaycult.com/deleted-thread-harouts-weight-gain-on-801010-diet/

Yeah. There's probably a reason why we don't see much of them around those parts. Truth is somewhere in the middle, but some of these kids do wreck their body composition and metabolic states consuming just fruit.

One could have a look at the disaster stories over at 30BananasADaySucks.com.
I've posted a comment and it awaits moderation. I eagerly await your thoughts or input from others.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
careful editing?

> specific types of fat in the blood

reading from the above image it could be that with massive overfeeding on fructose, the free fatty acids and triglicerides IN THE BLOOD could reach high proportion, but we're talking 30% of what, a gram of fat that normally

If one eats very high carbohydrate for a very long time so lipolysis is reduced and DNL up-regulates, then shove a massive bolus of fructose in, sure a high proportion of the blood borne fats could transiently come from that fructose.

But as soon as that insulin comes down a bit ...
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carbsane said…
Yep, that's part of what my blog post tomorrow will cover.
carbsane said…
I have NO idea why such findings would blow Schwarz' mind. He's been studying this using this technique for around 20 years now.



As to weight (fat) gain or loss? Let's say we're talking a liberal value of 10g of synthesized palmitate ... at an energy cost of roughly 25% of the carb energy. So you've burned calories to make the fat. Or you can eat 10g fat (that's like 2t butter) or not eat it. Meanwhile if you look back at the Jequier paper from a few posts ago, if you overeat, carb oxidation increases to burn off around 25% of excesses while lipid oxidation falls off.
carbsane said…
Posted. Yeah, I'm aware there are people who don't do well on 30BAD, I've just never seen someone get fat on raw vegan which is really what the Durian Rider group is.

Don Matesz wife is a tiny woman. She did a raw experiment and spoke of eating 8 bananas for one meal!! I couldn't eat that many physically I don't think. She lost more weight after losing some going from paleo to vegan. As far as I know she's now eating more cooked again, but still vegan.



It is possible to eat high fat vegan if someone wants to slather everything in olive oil and such. I think it would be very difficult to get fat eating 80-10-10 without some sort of force feeding.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
Recalling Dr Sievenpiper's interview on superhuman radio he said that there is no evidence that dietary fructose causes weight gain in comparison with equal caloric intake from other carbohydrates, by the way Kade are you eating something like the Mcdougall diet? It sounded like it from a previous comment - if so how's it going?
This is why I directed you to the links, Evelyn.

There are quite a few who do find significant weight gain or experience unhealthy shifts in body composition, as was the case with that young fellow named Harout.

What I will agree with: it's much harder to gain weight in general on 80-10-10, even with the occasional overfeeding. Also that it's tougher to spot as many overweight people in that camp when compared to other dietary camps, even when we consider the unsuccessful folk from 30BaD.
Yes, it could be considered McDougall-esuqe. I think my present--largely vegetarian--approach does share some major overlaps with what's prescribed by McDougall. I consume quite a bit of vegetables, tubers, grains, beans and some seeds, but I also consume a substantial amount of fruit--these foods would form my staple. In addition, I'll have dairy, shellfish and eggs but in small quantities. Mind you, I've done this before for a good three years without any real problems.

This time, it's working out fine in the sense that no unpleasant developments have taken place. I was similarly well-off consuming a rather meat heavy diet as well, although it was easier on the digestive system and skin healing was superior, but those are superficial concerns in my book. My health markers have also remained somewhat similar across the board with both dietary approaches. I reverted back to this eating approach primarily because it has helped reduce the food bill without seriously compromising quality. Heh.
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The reason people lose weight on a raw vegan is that it is very hard to get sufficient calories eating raw food. That is on a raw diet you will in calorie deficit. That is also why raw food is difficult to maintain longterm.
Yes, you read some crazy things. I suspect that none of us move nearly enough. It might be that we evolved to burn around 4000 calories a day, which we can only achieve by moving a lot more than we do now.
Lighthouse Keeper said…
Thats good Kade, when I left the navy I did a seven month cycling camping tour eating virtually pure McDougall style - very satisfying way of eating and plenty of dry weight food for more remote areas. Based on rice, oats, pasta beans and lentils and bread when I could get it, soaking the beans overnight and slow cooking in a vacuum flask during the day. When that tour ended I resumed bodybuilding threw in intermittent fasting and started eating anything again.
Nice to hear that; you've certainly had your share of adventures. The McDougall approach--as a basic template at the very least--makes for rather satisfying menus. It's a shame that legumes get bashed so often in certain parts when they form a very substantial and nutritious part of a dietary plan.
carbsane said…
It's quite interesting how many in the LC community (I would challenge that this applies to most in paleo who seem to especially disdain "cardio" despite quite a few being endurance athletes) specifically boast how they don't exercise.
carbsane said…
Even cooked, I believe that on average vegetarian calories are less efficient than animal calories.
eulerandothers said…
'Alas, we still become fatter if we overeat carbohydrate.' Isn't that true if you overeat anything?
I think it's a difference of degrees. Say we do have someone over consuming carbohydrate. Yes, they won't be burning fat. Yes, the excess fat calories will get deposited. But how many grams are we talking? Not all that much, I'd hope, if someone tries something along these lines. It's probably not wise to combine high carbohydrate feeding with moderate or even high levels of fat.
Hmm. Yeah, I'd say that you've got a point on the lean mass to protein factor. I think it's an unsung factor in these disaster stories. I've noticed that before they gain weight, they do end up dropping a lot, the bulk of that drop is usually muscle, so one can already guess where the metabolism is headed down the road.


Your comment did make me curious about something. We've always talked about how percentages can be misleading. Now I don't think that 10% has to be painfully austere if the individual is generally consuming a decent amount of calories. 10-15% fat from a 2000 calorie diet should be fine, don't you think?


In my opinion most of these VLF (mostly vegan sort) disaster stories involve individuals becoming obsessed with a regimen. They often get into some rather warped forms of hypocaloric eating while maintaining the same ratios which results in essential levels of protein and fat being sacrificed. It stands to reason that if someone's consuming a crash caloric intake of 1200 calories, then a larger portion of that diet should be comprised of protein and fat than the typical 80-10-10 fare.
Diana Moon said…
Kade, Losing fat and not getting fat in the first place are two totally different things. It's best never to get fat in the first place and that is accomplished by not overeating anything. But when you get fat, tracking the carbohydrate/fat industrial complex is essential.

"Flatt: A person can burn 150 to 250 grams of fat per day if carbohydrate
intake is restricted to 50 grams or less. That is roughly one-third to
one-half a pound of fat per day."

This, from Dr. "Carbs Are Not Easily Converted into Bodyfat" himself!!

http://fatnews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/carbohydrates-are-not-easily-converted-into-body-fat

Anecdotally, I have never known a person to overeat protein 24/7 day in, day out, although I suppose anything is possible, (just as anecdotally).
Yes, we already agree on that without dispute from my end.
Paleo Huntress said…
That's an odd thing to say when every paleo book includes fitness as part of the lifestyle.
Jane Karlsson said…
May I offer a reply?



The energy is used for maintenance and repair. Your body is supposed to go through cycles of synthesis and breakdown, and disease is caused by failure of this cycling. Maintenance-and-repair needs micronutrients, and if you eat refined carbs all your life it will eventually fail.

The brain gets maintenance-and-repair too, and this means you can't continue eating beyond what you need, because the thought will make you feel ill. Yes I know this means you can't get fat unless you have micronutrient deficiencies. This is what I believe.
Diana Moon said…
We are all just winging it.
eulerandothers said…
If you overeat protein, and you're a human consumer of cooked prepared foods, you're eating fat. The protein would have to be some very unusual food choices to be fat-free:

egg whites, soy protein isolate....gelatin, etc. Raw frog legs (I suggest boiling them.), deli chicken breasts, skinless, roasted, and fat-free. When you get into fat-free dairy stuff (cheeses, milk, etc.), you start pulling in carbs, too.


Overeating protein would be quite a challenge.
eulerandothers said…
' excessive intake of fructose (not an apple, but guzzling fructose sweetened beverages, which some do) alters essential hepatic function, and contributes to DNL.'

I'm reading it differently. It seems to me, just from what is given, that the liver handles fructose differently. Not that essential hepatic function changes. The liver doesn't change. There wasn't excessive intake of fructose, just intake of fructose. The liver handles fructose differently than it does glucose. (What else does it handle differently?)

Fructose and alcohol came out even when converted to fat (less than 5% converted to fat).
eulerandothers said…
'A high rate of DNL has been documented in humans only under conditions of massive carbohydrate overfeeding - for example, 5,000-6,000 calories per day for more than a week.'

Where's that study?

Carbohydrate is only 4 calories per gram (as is protein), and eating fat-free carbohydrates to make it true carbohydrate overfeeding = basically, soda or juice - or sugar water, if you want to keep it simple! A 12-oz can or bottle of grape soda is 160 calories. Doesn't sound like much, but you can drink it.

A cup of boiled kidney beans doesn't have fat but has 40 grams of carbs, and just 219 calories. Add those in, but I'm guessing that people don't eat a LOT of boiled kidney beans - 10 cups is only going to give you 2,190 calories and you're not even half way to the calorie target given. And it's going to be eliminated from your 'carbohydrate diet' because it also has protein. So, scratch that.

How about a cup of jam? That's fat-free but still only 278 calories in a cup, if you ate a cupful of jam. Jelly beans (12 oz) = 1260 calories of fat-free carbohydrate. So, look for something made of sugar added to water, or sugar hardened into something marked fat-free (no-fat sugar candies) and make sure there is no protein there.

You CAN make a diet of high carbohydrate, fat-free foods, but you're most likely going to get the most bang for your buck by drinking them because drinking a soda or drinking juice is easier than eating massive amounts of jelly beans. Drink soda and eat jelly beans all day and you're there. But do it for more than a week every day if you want to be an n=1 experiment. No pulling in protein and fat along with those carbs!
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Here http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/48/2/240.full.pdf
eulerandothers said…
Thanks. I did see that study but didn't recognize it as being the one and only.

Gave it a quick read and was surprised to read:

'We (6, 7) and others (5) demonstrated that humans cam (sic) ingest relatively large amounts ofcarbohydrate with- out initiating de novo lipid synthesis at rates exceeding concomitant fat oxidation.'
Paleo Huntress said…
According to the study, this occurred in subjects who consumed a low-carb, high fat (but non-ketogenic) diet for 5 days and depleted muscle glycogen with exercise.

In a similar study, (Am J Clin Nutr (1988) 48: 240-247) subjects consumed a low-carb, high fat diet for 5 days and then consumed 700 to 900 grams of carbohydrate per day over a five day period. During the first 24 hours, with a carbohydrate intake of 700 grams and a fat intake of 60 grams per day, there was a fat gain of only 7 grams. (Indicating that the body continued to use fat for fuel during this time period). In the second 24 hours, with an intake of 800 grams of carbohydrate and a fat intake of 97 grams, there was a fat gain of 127 grams indicating that the body had shifted out of ‘fat burning’ mode as muscle glycogen stores became full.

Yes, carbohydrate gets stored as fat. There are only a very few, short-lied instances where that effect is mediated.
carbsane said…
I have never understood the logic behind what I'll call, for lack of a better word, the "liver hypothesis". That somehow if the liver is involved in metabolizing something it is bad. Lustig uses this fact to equate sugar and alcohol because ... the liver is involved so the metabolic pathways are exactly the same??!! This is also one of Paul Jaminet's tenets in PHD but in another chapter, yet he goes on to discuss how the liver metabolizes MCTs.
carbsane said…
It is rare for glycogen to be topped off, and unless one is eating around the clock in chronic excess, glycogen would be used.

To Jane's response, the energy is used for maintenance and repair. If a very sedentary person maintains on 2000 cal/day, roughly 1500 of that is basal expenditure = 375g carbs which is 25 slices of bread.
carbsane said…
The Schwarz study I've been discussing in the other thread is an example of overeating carbohydrate -- the participants were supposed to replace 25% "complex carbs" with their sweetened beverages. But what happened is they "overate" carbs because they didn't compensate. But this meant they stored more fat.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
People eating the SAD or SED have muscle & liver glycogen stores permanently topped-up to nearly full, except for just after waking up after a night's sleep.
carbsane said…
800 grams of carbohydrate. Nobody eats that way except guys like Michael Phelps. This was massive overfeeding to upregulate DNL ... just as Hellerstein stated in the inset. Context is everything. The kind of carb "overfeeding" in the Western diet does not elicit a quantitatively significant conversion of carb to fat. I suspect that most of this DNL was accomplished in skeletal muscle and some in fat tissue, with very little (percent-wise) in the liver. Nobody can know for sure based on this study where body composition was not assessed.
carbsane said…
I'm not sure that is true Nigel. Our bodies can "train" our glycogen it seems. I can't put my finger on it at the moment, but I recall a study where folks engaged in intermittent fasting where after some time (a week or so if memory serves) the glycogen was no longer depleted and replenished as in the first few days. The glycogen was conserved while the participants "dipped" into fat stores for energy during the fasts (but, of course, they filled those fat stores during the feeds). I'm putting numbers here for explanation only, I don't recall the exacts. But let's use an extreme and say glycogen would normally cycle between 80% down to 20% ... what happened in that study was more like it cycling between 75% to 50% .
eulerandothers said…
Paleo Huntress, you and Nigel are referring to the same study.

I was stumped by the reference to: high rate of DNL only under conditions of massive overfeeding of carbohydrate. This study makes no reference to DNL, yet I spent a lot of time looking at it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14045336
OBSERVATIONS ON THE RESPIRATORY QUOTIENTS AND WEIGHT GAIN OF MAN AFTER EATING LARGE QUANTITIES OF CARBOHYDRATE.
PASSMORE R, SWINDELLS YE.

The meals were white bread, jam and tinned fruit, with tea and sugar to drink. The participants were encouraged to eat as much as they possibly could. Physical activity was monitored and measured - the participants were sedentary except when their respiratory quotients were measured while they walked on a treadmill. They were monitored and confined to the lab during the experiment. They even slept on camp beds in the laboratory.

Without picking apart the study (I already tried and somehow lost my post), let's just say the results were underwhelming. The authors even finally made themselves subjects and pigged out on carbs with the intention of gaining weight. Yeah, after 8 days, one gained real weight and the other didn't.

They said, ' the capacity of the carbohydrate store in the human body may be greater than has been generally considered. Perhaps the conversion into fat may take place slowly and only after an interval which may be many hours or even days.'

'Although we have no positive evidence to support this conclusion, we think it most likely that an excess of carbohydrate taken in the diet is first stored as glycogen, predominantly in the muscles, and only slowly converted into fat.'

Remember, their experiment took place in a lab, with an 'eat carbs in excess' (not just excess - eat until you can't eat any more!) and their experiment took place back in 1963. Also, bread, jam and sugar tea - that's what I call a carb-heavy meal!
Nigel Kinbrum said…
I accept that under certain conditions (e.g. IF'ing), things could be different. However...

People eating the SAD or SED aren't IF'ing. They're more like constantly grazing.
eulerandothers said…
Imagine that you overeat protein. Every day, you have your measured meals that are calibrated to maintain your weight - and you're monitored and restricted to a metabolic chamber, etc. Given that most meals are not purely one macronutrient category but mixed macronutrients, what if you just ate the same peanut butter and jelly sandwiches 4 times a day and got baseline measurements of weight for a week or so, with caloric intake calibrated to your maintenance levels. And you didn't exercise - you just read and watched DVDs and slept with some walking that was monitored. Then you were given 1000 calories of lean, skinless, boiled chicken breast, plain unflavored gelatine in a drink and scrambled egg whites (mix and match those delicious choices!) You had to eat 1000 calories-worth, measured, of those foods, in addition to your already calibrated monitored mixed meals. Do that for another week or so, Would you gain weight?

Then, could I say, 'Still, we become fatter if we overeat protein.' Oh, please, say that someone has done this simple experiment... or that someone will. Because if you do that with fat (9 calories a gram makes it pretty easy), you're pretty much describing delicious food, frequent restaurant meals, etc.! I think I've already lived that experiment personally.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
800g of carbs is "only" 3,200kcals. If someone gets the "munchies" after a night on the town, a large pile of Maccy D's, fries, shakes, pizza etc could probably mount up to 800g of carbs.
Diana Moon said…
Fair enough euler - I should have been less grandiose. If the liver becomes adapted to metabolizing fructose, that does not alter essential hepatic function - but I say it does put the liver under a stress that it has not adapted to - and never will: metabolizing lots of fructose before, during, and after lots of fat.



Repeat: this is NOT eating an apple or two. More like, eating an apple pie a la mode - after the cheeseburger and fries. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Diana Moon said…
Binge to you - SAD to many. Lots of Americans regularly eat a cheeseburger, fries, dessert, washed down by a fructose-sweetened soda. That is the OE in a nutshell; it is the Bray overeating study in overdrive. Lots of LBM, lots of fat. Most of the fat people that I see (esp. but not exclusively black) seem to have a nice heavy bone structure, and a lot of LBM under the lard. So SAD isn't a total loss.
Diana Moon said…
Euler - I have often wondered about this myself. It seems that all the studies add up to protein = preservation of, or increase of, LBM. The Bray over feeding study (yes, I realize I am being tiresome about it) indicated that the more protein was the larger share of the overfeeding, the more LBM added - and fattening. The higher carb overfeeding resulted in loss of LBM, and fattening. So I wondered if just overfeeding pure protein (echhh, but anything for science) would result in more LBM....w/out strength training. Genes would of course play a part- but I wonder the same thing.
eulerandothers said…
' but I say it does put the liver under a stress that it has not adapted to - and never will:'

What the liver has problems with, and modern bodies have problems with, is a lifestyle that features overfeeding (fat, protein, carbs, alcohol adding up to more calories than the maintenance level of calories for a body). It starts and it ends there for me, with too many calories.

That's a problem for liver, heart, lungs, digestive system, etc. I will echo your words (if I may): overfeeding does things you won't like to your body because your body can't adapt to overfeeding, and it never will! It's a modern problem. We stare at it (on a plate, in the refrigerator). There's no time machine that can land you back in the 60s so you could be shocked to buy a hamburger at a soda fountain and it would be smaller than a quarter pounder, Or order a drink and have it come in a smaller glass than you ever see today (I'm still shocked when I am in Europe and I'm served a martini in what seems to me to be a baby-size glass, the equivalent of a cocktail sippy cup!)

The liver does fine, until you load your diet with calories. Then you gain weight. Then your liver doesn't do so fine.
eulerandothers said…
A Big Mac and Large Fries is something I've often logged into fitday.com because I love that combo. Of the 1063 calories in just that, a little more than half comes from total fat. Carbohydrate is 427.9 calories for that combination of luscious fatty, salty food and tangy sauce. Mmmm. Love it. But I'd have to eat 7 Extra Value Meals (that particular combo) to get 2996 calories of carbs.

I could eat a whole 14 inch Pizza Hut Cheese pizza and it would be 2943 calories. This whole pizza (thick crust) sounds like the way to go, but the carb calories are 1260, with 1175 calories of fat.

How about having a shake? A 22 fl. oz. McDonald's McCafe Chocolate Shake is 870 calories. 220 calories come from total fat, while 568 calories come from carbohydrates. (142 grams times 4). And I can drink those carbs!

If you're talking about drinking a 12 oz shake, having a whole pizza for yourself, and eating maybe two Extra value Big Mac combo meals, now you're talkin' carbs. When they legalize marijuana, maybe. Until then, it just sounds like too much....

A whole pizza (1260) + 2 extra value meals (428+428) + 12 oz chocolate shake (568) = 2684 calories of carbohydrate. However, you're dragging in a ton of fat with that, so your caloric intake is going to be substantial. 5,939 total calories for your munchies session. Behold the power of fat.
carbsane said…
Thanks for this listing euler. It demonstrates nicely how the SAD and many SAD foods that are tagged as "carbs" are really calorie bombs thanks to the associated fat. Another way to look at this is that 8000 carb calories = 50 cups white rice, or 28 20oz bottles of Coke, or 64 8-9" bananas, or 80 cups of dice white potatoes ... I could go on but I think the point has been made.
Diana Moon said…
I haven't read Paleo stuff in a while, but that accords with my memory. Maybe things have changed, but as I recall, Paleo writers recommended attempting as much as possible to replicate the conditions of Paleolithic era, which would be: lifting heavy stuff, etc., as well as endurance (what we call "cardio"). I can't remember who said what, but I do remember that.



This stuff was probably in THE PALEOLITHIC PRESCRIPTION, by Melvin Konner. Konner was one of the originators of Paleo, but he wasn't interested in cashing in, so he's not as famous as Cordain. He writes for Scientific American and has an infrequently updated blog. He's going to be at AHS. I look forward to what he says.


(I also remember that Konner wrote in various places that modern equivalents of Paleo foods were perfectly acceptable, even skim milk!! In short he was the opposite of dogmatic.)
Diana Moon said…
"overfeeding does things you won't like to your body because your body
can't adapt to overfeeding, and it never will! It's a modern problem."


Yes but....fructose (again, not in an apple but sodas, etc.) does play a special part in this. And as for adaptation - what I am saying is, and this is conjecture - keep overfeeding the liver fructose and it will become adapted to converting that to fat, better at it, than a liver whose owner drinks a soda once in a while.



Just a guess. Maybe I'm wrong. Is there a study?
carbsane said…
This is quite possible Diana. Short term fructose feeding is thermogenic and stimulates carbohydrate oxidation and metabolic rate more than glucose. But one of the papers from the 10 week Schwarz et.al. study discusses decreased lipid oxidation rate and energy expenditure with fructose (but not with glucose).


But it always seems to require a degree of chronic hypercaloric background.


If you search on CAF rat here there's the post about sick fat. The LF rats were actually high sugar/fructose rats. They exhibited a degree of liver damage but it was different than that from the HF or CAF diets though they only got modestly heavier than the controls (and about the same as the HF rats). Not sure what to make of that, other than I'm certainly not advocating drinking any sort of SSB in any sort of chronic manner and/or significant amount.
carbsane said…
Also, chronic DNL could upregulate those enzymes and result in more DNL in chronic overfeeding. Hepatic outputs are not very large, however.
eulerandothers said…
'keep overfeeding the liver fructose and it will become adapted to
converting that to fat, better at it, than a liver whose owner drinks a
soda once in a while.'


What seems so vague is the 'overfeeding'? If you look at the Hellerstein inset, you read that DNL increases 20-fold for fructose, compared to glucose. However, less than 5% of the fructose load is given to fat synthesis. Hellerstein says, then, so it's a 'sensitive signal.'


Imagine that you were using modern methods to measure DNL increases in the livers of toddlers eating quantities of pureed pears, apples, and prunes. An assault on those baby-sized livers? Stressed baby livers? I'm guessing not. Whether fructose produces 20 times more DNL than a cup of tea with sugar may very well have little impact. But it sounds scary, right?
carbsane said…
I think that paleo is synonymous with being active, but there is great dissension amongst the ranks exactly what that means. Mark Sisson's tenets are actually rather good -- advocating among other things 4-5 hrs per week of long and slow activity -- but get misinterpreted out of context in some cases. He and I discussed this during our phone conversation and I think he understands that this happens but for some reason he does little to set that record straight. OTOH there is a bit of hypocrisy in his arguments because it is impossible to attribute his current physique to the last 10 years or so of primal lifestyle and ignore the contributions of the first 45-50 years, a goodly part of the formative years spent as an elite endurance athlete. (He used to be involved with the P90X stuff too).

Then you have Nell Stephenson (Paleoista) who is currently a competitive triathlete ... she says Robb Wolf shouldn't eat any starch (well, she didn't name him, but since he's not an endurance athlete he would be included in her contention that only endurance athletes need to or should consume starch). There are certainly those in paleo who follow the 12 seconds/week exercise is all you need meme, moreso as the lines have been blurred by various low carbers, but McGuff is pretty paleo as I understand it. And then you have the CrossFitters.

Thanks for the link to Konner's blog. There's some interesting stuff there that I think fits in nicely with a post I've been adding to from time to time in the draft bin. It becomes ever the more clear that pop-Paleo™ and true "paleo" are NOT the same thing.
Diana Moon said…
" It becomes ever the more clear that pop-Paleo™ and true "paleo" are NOT the same thing."

Yes!

There's no way to avoid sounding a bit condescending but....it's like the average guy (in other words, me) talking about "quantum leaps" and "black holes" when I have no real clue what these mean. OK, bad analogy, because Paleoanthropology isn't the hard science that quantum physics is but I think you get my point.

I don't pay attention to the popular stuff, because that's what it is, pop junk science. I pay attention to people like Konner, et al.


BTW Konner was the guy whose work was borrowed way back when to "prove" that the Paleolithic era was the original leisure society. Konner realized that he'd made a mistake, that the HGs he studied weren't lazing around, they were dead tired from working so hard. He publicly revised his theory, but the popularizers who had borrowed from him were too busy making money selling the idea, so the Paleolithic Garden of Eden meme got firmly implanted into the popular mind.
Diana Moon said…
"An assault on those baby-sized livers? Stressed baby livers? I'm guessing not."


I'm guessing maybe, and perhaps this stuff is as implicated in the OE as anything. Maybe moms shouldn't be feeding this stuff to kids as much as they do. I have read that Plains Indians kids used to beg their parents for organ meats....in the 19th century. Today, they say "yuck" just as our kids do. They are modern Americans.



Overfeeding IS a vague concept with babies and toddlers - who for the most part, do NOT overeat. In fact unless they are ravenous they often have to be pushed to eat. Vague or not, it is a real concept.



So much of our eating habits are taught.
Diana Moon said…
Welcome to modernity! (Bray study - OK I'll shut up about that already. But that is almost like my Bible. I think it tells us so much about why we are the way we are.)
Diana Moon said…
Into your fat cells. But it's difficult to do, since you can store 15g/kg of body weight. In my case that's about 900 grams of carbs = 3600 calories. Plus you are always burning some. In theory it is difficult to completely fill these stores. That's why endurance athletes carb load, and keep munching carby snacks.



At least that is my understanding of the situation. Perhaps someone else can do it better.
Diana Moon said…
Perhaps the "cardio" they disdain are endless cycles on the treadmill, spinning classes, etc., as opposed to getting outside and roaming over hilly terrain, searching for roots and berries, and bagging game. I saw a racoon the other day under Oak Bridge, and they had to tie my hands back, I was about to go after the little devil.

I like what Sisson has to say about 'the more the better.' Enough is enough.
Diana Moon said…
Also...how does that equate to a baby liver? I remember one of my favorite foods as a baby was strained peaches. Probably had added sugar, in those days. How much of that would equate to a baby binge? Might it not have contributed to my later sugar-holism? (Yes, I know you don't believe in sugar-holism, but I am one.)
Diana Moon said…
You are welcome. I've mentioned Konner many times on this blog, always in the context of defending its original principles, but you were never interested in picking up on the name. Now you do. I wonder why. I guess because you are going to encounter him at the AHS? Whatever. In any case, I think that most of what you've said constitutes a gross generalization against an entire, diverse movement, and I regret taking part in it.


An example of said diversity would be this:

"I think that paleo is synonymous with being active, but there is great dissension amongst the ranks exactly what that means."


Dissension to you, diversity to me. Whichever the case, this is a helluva lot different from l "paleo people hate cardio." There's a difference of opinion as to which kind and how much activity is optimal and healthy. That's great.
carbsane said…
Perhaps the reason I've not responded much is that he simply isn't very active in the movement. I would venture to guess that > 90% of followers of the movement have never heard the name.

If you go to his blog, the most recent posts are a spate from Sept 2012 discussing misogyny and genocide, before that in Jan 2011 he lamented Baby Boomer's laments on aging and weighed in on teen suicide. A few months before that about another teen tragedy and a swing in political pendulum following the 2010 elections. I need not go on. Nothing there that is relevant to nutrition/metabolism/science or what I'd call "food culture" for lack of a better term. Near as I can tell he's pretty silent on the current state of the paleo movement.

One of my earliest posts here was on the Eaton presentation that draws heavily on his paper with Konner http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/03/was-our-ancestral-diet-really-vlc-and.html ... Konner, Eaton, Cordain, Lindeberg ... have co-authored various publications and have been on the same page. I've been highlighting the DIFFERENCES between that and what is being marketed as paleo ...


Speaking of Eaton, he will be presenting with Konner and presented last year. Many in last year's audience were tweeting about where the bacon was in his diet and gasped aloud when he mentioned eating shredded wheat and skim milk.


You know, the paleo diet can fit nicely with USDA guidelines if you just replace grains with tubers (though interestingly enough beans are mentioned as paleolithic in the original Konner paper) and ditch the dairy. So you get a little more protein from lean meat or fish (something I have never really heard the low fatties object to) . It fits better with that than the recipes and dishes you see in paleo cookbooks and at paleo gatherings.


I gotta laugh as just today Diane Sanfilippo of Practical Paleo tweeted me that she doesn't really care if butter is "paleo" because it's rich in nutrients. That is kind of an odd statement to make?!


Lit paleo applied in the few studies uses little if any added fat and lean meats. So no butter, coconut oil, bacon, cocoa butter, chocolate, or Praising the Lard.


The second part of that blog post is interesting, however, as on the second reading of it I realized he was talking about the Shai study. Ummm ... sorry MK, that study is not relevant to your paleo.
James Cain said…
I'm curious what you think of the findings and reasoning given by this group. They seem to have a more accurate and comprehensive labeling and measurement protocol that indicates a relatively high amount of postprandial DNL in healthy subjects. It's is a good paper, and they have a few more similar publications in other populations.

Temporal pattern of de novo lipogenesis in the postprandial state in healthy men.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/81/1/35.long
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carbsane said…
Hi James! I'm still working my way through that article. I wish they could report DNL in absolute rates rather than percents. I hope to reply in more detail tomorrow.
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