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Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#41

Post by roel_v »

irishcoffee wrote: post #29
lsniddy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is curious, considering our rates of heart disease and diabetes were a fraction of what they were today when people ate more saturated fats (e.g butter). And when switching to a diet where saturated fat is the primary energy source, people tend to lose weight and see an increase in insulin sensitivity.

Off-topic, but every time I see the phrase "a fraction of what it was" I get a bit miffed. 99/100 is a fraction. 101/100 is a fraction. Every thing that gets measured in time intervals is always going to be a fraction of what it was before, bigger or smaller.

That's one meaning of the word. It also means 'much smaller than it once was'. Funny thing with words is that they can mean different things in different contexts.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#42

Post by rhaps0dy »

saiya-jin wrote: post #30

one thing i don't get with all these sways of opinions... everybody is so obsessed with what they eat and how much, nitpicking contents of this and that, instead of trying to match their intake with amount if activity per day. I know it's hard, i know you have to produce that nasty thing called sweat to actually achieve anything, but for christ sake... just do some activities! ideally daily, with some variability. Bu…

>after not consuming processed sugars for few weeks, eating something with them is rather disgusting experience

I confirm this. I used to love honey with anything, but now that I've been avoiding it for some time, It repulses me.

Maybe I should stop eating so many nuts too, and see if they become disgusting.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#43

Post by kayfox »

alecco wrote: post #18

Armchair dieticians in post an this thread. Not all carbs or fats are the same. Good ones of both are part of a healthy diet. But hey, making it simply black and white is appealing for the uneducated masses.

From the article: "Dariush Mozaffarian is dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. David S. Ludwig is the director of the Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and the author of the forthcoming book “Always Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently.”"

Armchair dieticians?

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#44

Post by alextgordon »

Jdoemk2 wrote: post #16
alextgordon wrote: post #7

Fat is calorie dense. There's ~380 calories per 100g of sugar but 880 calories per 100g of olive oil. 70% of the US population is overweight. Being overweight is bad for you. If your diet contains a lot of fat, you're consuming more calories than if you substituted the fat with something else (e.g. by avoiding deep fried foods, and eating leaner meat). If you are not overweight, then feel free to eat as much fat as y…

Fatty foods are often more satiating than carbs, meaning you eat less overall. All things being equal calorie-wise fat is better for weight loss than carbs are.

The feeling of fullness at the end of a meal is primarily driven by the stretching of the stomach. Which is why people who have their stomach stapled feel fuller faster, and so eat less per meal.

Fat, with its extremely high calorie density, is some of the least satiating food you can eat.

This oversimplifies it a bit, because there are multiple signals and sensations related to satiety and hunger. The mechanics of snacks are different from meals because you will never get "full" from eating snacks, although you may cease being "hungry".

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#45

Post by kazinator »

lsniddy wrote: post #17
CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

A large part of the issue is that in the traditional American diet, a significant portion of fat intake is in the form of saturated fat. There is a decent amount of research showing saturated fat has inflammatory effects in the body and directly causes insulin resistance. For a long time doctors have had success encouraging patients to eat diets excluding America's primary sources of saturated fat (red meat, bacon/la…

That is curious, considering our rates of heart disease and diabetes were a fraction of what they were today when people ate more saturated fats (e.g butter). And when switching to a diet where saturated fat is the primary energy source, people tend to lose weight and see an increase in insulin sensitivity.

This other comment from CuriouslyC provides references for the opposite view:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9858478

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#46

Post by CuriouslyC »

debacle wrote: post #5
CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

A large part of the issue is that in the traditional American diet, a significant portion of fat intake is in the form of saturated fat. There is a decent amount of research showing saturated fat has inflammatory effects in the body and directly causes insulin resistance. For a long time doctors have had success encouraging patients to eat diets excluding America's primary sources of saturated fat (red meat, bacon/la…

You're spreading a bit of misinformation here about the nature of saturated fats. The evidence that specifically saturated fats impact insulin resistance is very weak - the change was very low in the studies that took place, and there was no control group in the studies. More recent studies, which generally don't get the same level of publicity, found no correlation between the two (though do confirm the adipose infl…

I wouldn't say it is misinformation, though I agree that the issue is far from decided. I appreciate the references and I would love to look at any more you have.

One issue with Tierney et al. is that EPA/DHA have been shown to partially ameliorate the insulin desensitizing effects of saturated fatty acids. See http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/302/5/R598.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#48

Post by 2mur »

jerf wrote: post #21

Because they can't change their recommendations without admitting they were wrong , and governments generally can't do that . Or, at least, the speed with which they can change their recommendations is sharply bounded by ensuring they never quite have to admit fault. Admitting you were wrong is basically begging to have your funding cut, your reputation trashed, your influence removed, your job cut. The closest thing…

The 3 hardest words to string together: I was wrong

(see also: the War on Drugs)

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#49

Post by logfromblammo »

alextgordon wrote: post #15
thesis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time I did the ketogenic diet which bases the bulk of your daily calories from healthy natural fat. No carbs allowed except for carbs from fiber. I, along many other people who have did this diet have lost a lot of weight. It's simply not true that you can't lose weight by eating primarily fatty foods.

Most Americans could not sustain a ketogenic diet for any amount of time, so it is pointless for the purposes of a national health body.

A national health body is pointless in the context of the US health care system. Nobody here is going to fix that problem.

But we can still self-experiment based on dietary hypotheses. An anecdote is not data, but it can be a counterexample! When someone says, "You can't lose weight by eating mostly fat," and someone else says, "I lost X weight on a diet that was 60% fat," that casts strong doubt upon the validity of the hypothesis.

Even so, this is yet another rehash of the "food energy hypothesis" poster versus "body chemistry hypothesis" poster. We have seen it before, both on HN and in other places. I have never observed this particular debate to yield useful results, anywhere. I am, personally, a "body chemistry hypothesis" person. I don't think humans are glorified bomb calorimeters. And I don't think that the "food energy hypothesis" folks provide useful guidance to people who are currently overweight. So what; who cares? That's just, like, my opinion, man. Hypotheses are judged by the experiments that support or refute them, not by the number of people who believe they may be true.

So don't be like the national health bodies. Let the science speak for itself. Nobody should be touting any sort of dietary maxims when the available evidence is still inconclusive, especially when they have no meaningful accountability if they get it wrong.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#50

Post by kazinator »

irishcoffee wrote: post #29
lsniddy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is curious, considering our rates of heart disease and diabetes were a fraction of what they were today when people ate more saturated fats (e.g butter). And when switching to a diet where saturated fat is the primary energy source, people tend to lose weight and see an increase in insulin sensitivity.

Off-topic, but every time I see the phrase "a fraction of what it was" I get a bit miffed. 99/100 is a fraction. 101/100 is a fraction. Every thing that gets measured in time intervals is always going to be a fraction of what it was before, bigger or smaller.

"A fraction of what it was" is a common idiom, which uses fraction in the ordinary sense.

"Fraction" is related to words like "fracture" and "fragment". When you fraction something into pieces, they are always smaller than the whole (barring strange spatial partitionings: Banach-Tarski paradox and all that).

Maybe you were playing hooky in grade 3 when the teacher explained that 101/100 is an improper fraction, which can be rewritten as 1 1/100: the whole number 1, combined with a proper fraction. See? "Improper!" Mathematics recognizes a special status for fractions where the numerator has greater magnitude.

Also, ever heard of the "integral" and "fractional" parts of a floating-point number? See the ISO C99 function modf, for instance.

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