Just submitted our latest manuscript entitled "A plant-based, low-fat diet decreases ad libitum energy intake compared to an animal-based, ketogenic diet: An inpatient randomized controlled trial". I'm looking forward to all constructive comments!
Our latest RCT paper was just submitted for peer review and now available as a
@NutriXiv
preprint: "Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: A one-month inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake". 1/7
Debates about diet mechanisms and physiology can be tiresome and confusing. It's sometimes lost that there's a lot of common ground regarding diet:
To the extent possible, avoid ultra-processed foods and make an abundance of non-starchy vegetables the foundation of your diet.
A paper by
@AdrianSotoMota
@nicknorwitz
@davidludwigmd
et al. reanalyzed data from our previous study, claiming to have invalidated our primary findings, & concluding that our data support the carbohydrate-insulin model (CIM) of obesity. Our response:
There's widespread misunderstanding of the energy balance model (EBM) of obesity. The EBM does NOT postulate that food intake is primarily under conscious control or that obesity is a failure of willpower and can be effectively treated by calorie counting or advice to “eat less”.
Policies that discourage consumption of ultra-processed foods should be sensitive to the time, skill, expense, and effort required to prepare meals from minimally processed foods—resources often in short supply for those who are not members of the upper socioeconomic classes.
BBC News
‘Ultra-processed foods have hijacked our appetites and we need to shift back to real food’
Let’s once again also bust the myth of physical inactivity and
#obesity
.
You can’t out cycle a bad diet prime minister!
Today, the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee reported that there is limited evidence that ultra-processed food intake increases risk of obesity in adults and made an explicit call for more US research on this important topic.
What determines how many calories people eat during a meal? Our new study, led by Tera Fazzino
@UnivOfKansas
, was just published in
@NatureFoodJnl
& investigated the meal characteristics that influence ad libitum energy intake.
New preprint led by
@AaronHengist
just posted to
@medrxivpreprint
: "Imprecision nutrition? Duplicate meals result in unreliable individual glycemic responses measured by continuous glucose monitors across three dietary patterns in adults without diabetes"
All weight loss interventions eventually result in a plateau, but different interventions seem to affect the timing of the plateau. What determines when the plateau occurs? I wrote a short paper about this topic and I would appreciate hearing your comments
Interesting new 6 week controlled feeding study comparing body composition changes following three isocaloric diets: low fat vs. keto vs. keto + exogenous ketones. Net result: no significant group differences in body fat loss or resting energy expenditure
Clearly, if
@NIH
folks harbor such wrong-headed ideas while being surrounded by obesity experts and scientists studying the biology of food intake regulation then we have a lot of work to do to fight against obesity stigmatization and fat bias as a society as a whole. 2/2
"Eliminate or reformulate ultra-processed foods? Biological mechanisms matter" is my first publication with
@deirdre_tobias
and is now online in
@Cell_Metabolism
and free to access until December 14
Excited to share a pre-print of our new paper led by
@vdarcey
that we just submitted for peer review entitled "Restriction of dietary fat, but not carbohydrate, alters brain reward circuitry in adults with obesity"
I regularly receive asinine comments on Twitter, but a shocking email from an
@NIH
colleague (thankfully not involved in obesity) said of our ultra-processed food study: "you only re-proved that gluttony is fattening. Don’t blame the processing, blame the self-control."1/2
How do different controlled food environments affect human energy intake and body fat? In our studies, only the ultra-processed diet led to body fat gain. Differences in energy intake & body fat change were not solely explained by non-beverage energy density (listed on right).
Seriously
@Cell_Metabolism
? Please require authors to disclose pre-registered outcomes and report results accordingly. Here, neither primary nor secondary outcomes were significantly different & Statistical Analysis section didn't even specifying outcomes it was powered to detect
Pls RT! Any PhD or MD students with a passion for human nutrition & metabolism interested in a fully-funded
@IRPatNIH
@NIDDKgov
postdoc to lead a metabolic ward study on hepatic metabolism, ketones, NAD, TG? Collaboration with
@NASH_and_coffee
&
@CharlesMBrenner
! Starting 2022.
Congrats to
@ethanjweiss
&
@Dy1anLowe
on a hype-busting clinical trial of time-restricted eating with primarily null results. I'm happy to have contributed (in a very small way) to mathematical modeling the participants' changes in calorie intake.
The registry of the new intermittent fasting study (NCT02673515) in
@Cell_Metabolism
has 1 primary outcome (insulin sensitivity) & 8 secondary outcomes. The paper fails to report the primary outcome or 7/8 secondary outcomes. WTF?!
Food for thought: What if we could prevent chronic diet-related diseases by reengineering the tasty, convenient, and affordable ultra-processed foods that now comprise most of the American diet?
My Nutrition 2018 talk entitled "Diets Differing in Macronutrient Composition for Weight Loss and Maintenance of Lost Weight" has been posted on ASN On Demand free of charge:
It seems I'm well on my way to being disliked by proponents of every kind of diet. I wonder if that will quell the criticisms that I'm just a shill for ___ (fill in the blank with: big food, pharma, etc.) rigging my studies to make oodles of $$ and promote my sinister agenda? 😜
Our latest paper offers a cautionary note for proponents of Precision Nutrition: ”Imprecision nutrition? Different simultaneous continuous glucose monitors provide discordant meal rankings for incremental postprandial glucose in subjects without diabetes”
I have some thoughts on a recent video posted at by
@nutrition_facts
called “Keto Diet Results for Weight Loss” that relied heavily on our research to criticize ketogenic diets:
This is a wonderfully written article on ultra-processed food by
@KitchenBee
in
@guardian
featuring some of our recent work on this topic and including some discussion of our new study to begin this spring!
On June 24 at 11am Eastern, I’ll be presenting a live webinar on “Calories, Carbs, or Quality? What Matters Most for Body Weight” as part of the
@APSPhysiology
webinar series on Obesity. If you are interested, please register here:
A calorie is NOT a calorie when it comes to brain dopamine! Restricting dietary fat, but not carbohydrate, likely increases tonic dopamine in brain reward regions and may shift ad lib food choices towards those high in both fat and carbs and may possibly hamper diet adherence.
Our narrative review of "Low-carbohydrate diets for the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes" is now available online. Of course, I think it's fair and balanced but I'm guessing others may disagree.
If more academic journals understood the huge waste of time it is to abide by detailed manuscript formatting requirements for initial submissions, and scientists refused to submit papers to journals requiring such nonsense, maybe science would progress at an even faster rate.
Remember when we used to talk about nutrition science? Well, if you want to take a break from the crisis and reminisce about those good old days, check out my Perspective article in
@ScienceMagazine
on the "Challenges of human nutrition research":
Pls RT: New diet & cancer metabolism R01 and R21 funding opportunities from
@NIH
@theNCI
on the mechanistic links between diet, lipid metabolism, tumor growth & progression. Applications are likely due Fall 2022!
Literally every tweet in this thread contains blatant errors about our recent ultra-processed food study- including botching the name of the journal where it was published! Perhaps
@Botanygeek
should have more closely read the study before tweeting to his numerous followers?
Just learned that my recent
@UMassDiabetes
webinar entitled “Calories, Carbs, or Quality? What Matters Most for Body Weight” is now available for viewing here:
A recent
#SciencePerspective
suggests that while insulin does play a role in body fat regulation, it does so mostly independent of dietary carbohydrates. Read more:
Ok, I can’t believe I’m doing this. But in defense of
@garytaubes
please remember that energy balance/conservation is a law of nature and not a model of obesity. It does not specify the cause of body fat gain. But it does provide meaningful constraints on any causal model or data
Our JAMA letter to the editor: "The physiological adaptations to weight loss that decrease calorie expenditure and increase appetite require a new rule of thumb relating diet calories to body weight: the 55 kcal per day per pound rule."
Growing up in Canada, I regularly listened to the
@cbcradio
science show
@CBCQuirks
. I’m honoured to say that this weekend I’ll be on the show! You can listen to my interview with Bob McDonald here:
AP story with a quote from me: ”Low-carb diets can work well for people with type 2 diabetes who are more sensitive to carbohydrates. But the benefits of low-carb can also be overblown, and people still have to make sure their overall diet is healthy”
Interesting that
@USDA
is actively promoting to the public (via press release) a diet very high in ultra-processed foods as being "healthy" despite its high Na content and without the diet actually ever being tested in people.🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
However, advocates of policies that discourage ultra-processed foods should be mindful that the time, skill, expense, and effort to prepare meals from minimally processed foods requires resources that are often in short supply. 7/7
Imagine helping people make substantial lifestyle improvements to promote personal health by providing persistent support, including medications that facilitate adherence. At the same time, imagine working to improve public health by changing environments that promote disease.
A thread based on my recent experience with post-publication peer-review and its publicization. It raises questions about incentivizing Open Science which I whole-heartedly support. A recently updated
@RetractionWatch
story is here:
People eating ketogenic diets reported to have a "resting metabolic rate ...more than ten times than those who ate a standard diet." Can you imagine? The funniest thing is that the original publication cites our studies in support of their results! 🤦♂️
New paper showing it's possible for a diet high in ultra-processed food (UPF) to meet the US Dietary Guidelines. Without outcome data, high UPF diets were presumed to be healthy rather than the alternative that the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) may be flawed🤦♂️
In summary, the fatally flawed reanalysis by
@AdrianSotoMota
@nicknorwitz
@davidludwigmd
et al attempted to resurrect the CIM by following the adage "if you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything". In this case, data torture led to a false confession of CIM support
This sobering book by
@jamestabery
argues that disproportionate investment in the science underlying “precision medicine” has led to less focus on important environmental drivers of poor health. Is the same story repeating in the context of “precision nutrition”? HT
@garytaubes
Increased prevalence of common obesity isn't primarily due to weak willpower, inaccurate calorie counting, hungry fat cells, or too many carbs versus fat in the diet.
Finally finished "Science Fictions" by
@StuartJRitchie
. This book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about understanding the practice of science (good and bad) and especially for those who want to become scientists. We need to do better!
It’s almost like nobody with an alternative viewpoint was invited to present at the session on ultra-processed foods at
#Nutrition2023
. I wonder why? 🤷♂️
The Energy Balance Model (EBM) of obesity posits that the brain regulates weight mainly below our conscious awareness by controlling food intake under the influence of internal signals and in response to the body’s dynamic energy needs as well as the food environment.
It’s come to my attention that my past tweets about the work of
@davidludwigmd
have been taken as personal attacks. I regret this & sincerely apologize. I hope we can move forward & engage in collegial scientific discussions that help us advance the field of nutrition science.
If we don’t eat phytonutrient-rich plant foods—like fruits and vegetables— with every meal, then, for hours after we dine, our bodies are out of balance and tipped into a pro-oxidative state, which can set us up for oxidative-stress diseases.
My latest: "The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity Is Difficult to Reconcile With Current Evidence" was just published in
@JAMAInternalMed
with
@whsource
and Rudy Leibel as an invited response to an article by
@davidludwigmd
and Cara Ebbeling. Enjoy!
Just a reminder that I'm presenting a free, live webinar this Wednesday, June 24 at at 11am Eastern on the topic: “Calories, Carbs, or Quality? What Matters Most for Body Weight” as part of the
@APSPhysiology
series on Obesity. Register here:
Slides from my presentation at
#6COS
“Carbs, Calories, or Quality: What Matters Most for Weight Control?” can be downloaded here: and a video has been posted on the
@ObesityCan
Facebook page starting at 24:00:
New paper published today in
@JCI_insight
led by
@vdarcey
suggesting that “a calorie is NOT a calorie” when it comes to the effects of energy restriction on brain dopamine in people with obesity.
The most read article of 2018 published in
@bmj_latest
claimed that restricting dietary carbohydrates offers a metabolic advantage for maintaining lost weight, but the data may not support this conclusion. Our updated
@biorxivpreprint
reanalysis is here:
Happy to have contributed to this
@JAMA_current
Viewpoint "Is Weight Loss–Induced Muscle Mass Loss Clinically Relevant?" with
@CatConte_MD
and Sam Klein.
and apply these concepts to our research. Congratulations to the authors on some really impressive work putting this all together! Here's a link to the paper:
Happy to be visiting Quebec City to present at Université Laval Research Chair in Obesity 23rd International Symposium on the Pathophysiology of Obesity.
There's an interesting new study in
@Cell_Metabolism
claiming to "demonstrate for the first time that clinically relevant improvements in cardiometabolic health after dietary macronutrient intervention are driven by [insulin resistance] phenotype."
My latest paper (at least until another one coming out later today!) “The potential role of protein leverage in the US obesity epidemic” was just published online in Obesity.
Happy to announce a new preprint with
@AaronHengist
,
@CmSciarrillo
, Juen Guo & Mary Walter entitled “Discordance between gut-derived appetite hormones and energy intake in humans” that we just submitted for publication.
Interested in personalized nutrition? Our new pub examining whether weight loss differs between genotype-concordant and genotype-discordant diets was published in
@NatureComms
and is featured as an Editors’ Highlight.
A thread on findings below.
Link:
NuSI “collapse” just published in
@WIRED
. NIH provided the timeline below documenting my participation and NuSI’s progressive infringement on the scientific integrity of the researchers only *after* preliminary results failed to support NuSI’s hypothesis.
Many in the food industry downplay the likely importance of ultra-processed foods in chronic diet-related diseases. Many public health experts want action based on current evidence. Very few are calling for substantial investment in better UPF research.
"physics and chemistry do not apply. The answer is endocrinology, and specifically insulin levels."
"Avoid using carbohydrates...keep your blood insulin low!...it's really that simple."
"No published studies have tested the hypotheses put forth in Taubes' series of books."
Please RT: Dive into the effects of processed and unprocessed foods with us. Learn more: NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment at 866-444-1134. Refer to study
#22
-DK-0002
I really enjoyed day 1 of the
@royalsociety
meeting "Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence" Videos of all the sessions are posted here:
Looking forward to day 2 starting in a couple of hours!
Many people are confused by what foods are ultra-processed and argue about the definition. But definitions in nutrition are sometimes odd. Just look up what vegetables are actually fruits, what fruits are actually berries, and what nuts are actually fruits or legumes.
Just a reminder that CGM measurements were not significantly different when participants consumed an 80% ultra-processed diet versus an unprocessed diet in our random order crossover study.
Unfortunately for his credibility, the sources of these fake quotes misattributed to me don't exist. It's too bad that this physician who uses CGMs regularly in his practice either can't understand the implications of our studies or simply chooses to misrepresent them.
What if the new data from
@davidludwigmd
in
@bmj_latest
were analyzed according to the original pre-registered plan? No Significant Effect of Dietary Carbohydrate vs Fat on the Reduction in Total Energy Expenditure During Maintenance of Lost Weight:
I recently gave this short presentation about our ultra-processed food study to attendees of a local meeting of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) -- a nonprofit organization supported by the food & beverage industry. Somehow, I survived! 😜
Can you imagine diet gurus expressing excitement when new data challenge their model of how things work? Discrepancies between model predictions and experimental results provide the opportunity to learn something new and get closer to the truth!
Perhaps it’s time to transcend the diet wars, abandon the notion that fellow scientists are “adversaries”, and work together as colleagues to advance nutrition science.
Excellent new review by
@CarpentierAndr3
on insulin and adipose tissue. Perhaps the most surprising conclusion for some folks will be: "Factors other than insulin play more important roles to stimulate adipose tissue uptake and storage of meal fatty acids"
I'm certainly not a fan of the "diet wars", but fractious discourse about diet is real and adds to public confusion. In contrast, I chose to focus on something that various warring factions generally agree about: recommending reduced consumption of ultra-processed foods!
Millions of people lose weight with a variety of interventions. Especially short term. Many also succeed long-term (>2 yrs), but most don't. Pretending LCHF is THE simple long-term solution to obesity for everyone isn't supported by data.
@YoniFreedhoff
I think there are millions of people around the world who have found a simple solution to losing all the weight we want to, and how to keep it off
@xeyedmess
. Perhaps you could talk to us?
Prime suspects include increased availability and marketing of a wide variety of inexpensive, convenient, energy-dense, ultra-processed foods that are high in portion size, fat, sugar, and low in protein and fiber.