BUMP!
{Original publish date: 2/25/11}
In addition to blogging on several topics raised during Stephan Guyenet and Gary Taubes recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, I've decided to bump some of the past content on this blog relevant to some topics discussed and/or research studies mentioned. I'll include a little commentary with each.
At around the 12 minute mark, Stephan makes a great opening play, and then gets distracted or flustered into fumbling the football. Stephan asks what it is about the food environment, etc. that causes obesity, and distills it down to the simplest of questions (paraphrase):
Q: What is the most fattening diet on the planet?
A: Human junk food.
Nail. Head. Boom. He then calls out some numbers from the research summary he posted on his blog in advance of the podcast. The study I discuss in this blog post is the one included in "#52" that he's discussing in the podcast. Joe seemed perplexed by this idea that we couldn't replicate the junk food fattening with sugar or even fat alone. Joe seems fixated on junk food = sugary "bullshit diet". He gets very confused, despite Stephan laying it out fairly well. Give just sugar/refined carb or give just fat, and the rats don't get AS obese as they do when you give them a mixture of sugar/fat and FLAVOR in human junk foods. Yes, Joe, soda is just sugar and is a junk food, but junk foods are also things like donuts, cookies and ice cream or pizza, fries and Doritos. Carb + fat + flavor.
While the CAF rats are indeed rats, this study does a fairly good job in demonstrating that it's not just the macros. Four diets: Standard Chow (mostly grains, 12% fat) , Low Fat Refined (35% sugar, 10% fat) diet, High Fat diet (45% fat, as lard and soybean oil) and CAF -- a wide assortment of junk foods from sugary breakfast cereals, to Doritos, to pork rinds, to wedding cake. If it's carbs and insulin, why don't the rats on the SC get fat? If it's just refined carbs, why don't the sugar rats get fat? If it's just the fats, why don't the lardos get fat? These two groups of rats did gain more weight, but -- as Stephan mentions -- they don't gain a lot more, and more importantly, they don't overeat energy. The CAF rats, meanwhile, consumed over 30% more food/calories and got a whole lot fatter.
Gary's Response: We're looking at this wrong. Calories are the wrong way to look at this.
While the CAF rats are indeed rats, this study does a fairly good job in demonstrating that it's not just the macros. Four diets: Standard Chow (mostly grains, 12% fat) , Low Fat Refined (35% sugar, 10% fat) diet, High Fat diet (45% fat, as lard and soybean oil) and CAF -- a wide assortment of junk foods from sugary breakfast cereals, to Doritos, to pork rinds, to wedding cake. If it's carbs and insulin, why don't the rats on the SC get fat? If it's just refined carbs, why don't the sugar rats get fat? If it's just the fats, why don't the lardos get fat? These two groups of rats did gain more weight, but -- as Stephan mentions -- they don't gain a lot more, and more importantly, they don't overeat energy. The CAF rats, meanwhile, consumed over 30% more food/calories and got a whole lot fatter.
Gary's Response: We're looking at this wrong. Calories are the wrong way to look at this.
SIGH
Other blog posts discussing this study:
- Why We Get Fat ... Lessons from Obese Humans & Cafeteria Rats (3/9/11)
- Why We Get (Sick) Fat (and Sick Livers) - Lessons from a Cafeteria Rat (3/8/11)
- Taubes' Rat Problem (I think this one is most relevant to current topic).
- Revisiting the "Cafeteria Rat" Study -- Why Doesn't Everyone Get Fat? (7/1/12)
- Lessons from the Cafeteria Rat: Adiposopathy ~ How/Why Does Fat Get "Sick" (8/1/15)
{Original publish date: 2/25/11}
(Hat tip to Beth for bringing this to my attention)
This study used male Wistar rats
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{eek ... I'm having flashbacks to a former career!} |
This rat is not a genetic mutant designed to be predisposed towards obesity. It is, however, often used in diet induced obesity (DIO) studies.