The Hormone Insulin as the Driving Force Behind Obesity

[alan]

Regarding various peoples who eat diets relatively high in carbs and yet are lean and healthy, etc. That is very true, but those people don't eat the Western diet of highly refined and processed foods.

And here's another thing: those people don't eat round the clock.

Dr. Fung explains that what one eats is not the only important thing when it comes to obesity. When (how frequently) is also important.

People in the USA tend to snack. If we're awake, we're eating something, and a lot of it is crap. Eating raises insulin. Insulin moves glucose into the cells. When the cells are full of glucose, it moves glucose to the liver, where it forms longer chains known as glycogen. When the liver is full of glycogen, it begins the process of de novo lipogenesis, i.e., making and storing fat.

In the presence of elevated levels of insulin, it is impossible for the body to burn fat as fuel.

We need periods when we're not eating, so that our insulin levels can fall. Otherwise the body is in fat-storing mode all the time.

Peoples like the Hunza, the Okinawans, etc., eat plenty of carbs, but they tend to get them from vegetables, not from a box from the grocery store or from the sugar bowl, and they don't snack nearly 24/7 the way many Americans do.

The weight falls off me very quickly on a low carb diet. Only problem is the diet can be a tough one to retain as carbs have a lot of comfort factor in them.

[Kirtan24]

Sounds like some sort of religious conviction.

It is pretty well known that vegetarianism can lead to some serious health problems. It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian, but one has to know what he is doing and be careful about it.

12 Mistakes to Avoid on a Vegetarian or Vegan Diet

Nutrition concerns and health effects of vegetarian diets

My vegan diet almost killed me

Nice move brother, I post some well known studies and you call it some kind of a "religious conviction".

Btw, this is literally what your link says:

A vegetarian diet usually provides a low intake of saturated fat and cholesterol and a high intake of dietary fiber and many health-promoting phytochemicals. This is achieved by an increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, legumes, nuts, and various soy products. As a result of these factors, vegetarians typically have lower body mass index, serum total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and blood pressure; reduced rates of death from ischemic heart disease; and decreased incidence of hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers than do nonvegetarians.

Looks like you didn't read through your own link. Anyway, you do you.

[rms2]

I read it.

You are selectively avoiding the cautionary parts and focusing solely on the positives, which is one of the reasons I said it sounds like some sort of religious conviction.

I think almost everyone has noticed that tendency among the advocates of vegetarianism, and, of course, some of the motivation behind vegetarianism is actual religious conviction.

[rms2]

The weight falls off me very quickly on a low carb diet. Only problem is the diet can be a tough one to retain as carbs have a lot of comfort factor in them.

Oh, yeah, that's absolutely true.

For example, I love bread and pasta. If I eat them at all, I do so only in small amounts, or I try to find varieties in which the total carbs are offset somewhat by fiber, so that the net carbs aren't that high.

One way to mitigate the effect of high or moderate carb foods is to take a shot of apple cider vinegar a few minutes before consuming them. Fung cites some studies that showed that apple cider vinegar can reduce insulin by about 34% if taken before a meal.

[maroco]

You just need to burn more Calories then you are eating

[rms2]

Caramba!

There's a lot more to it than that.

[ThaYamamoto]

Starchy carbohydrates are not a problem as long as the diet is devoid of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs). Combined they can be disastrous. Insulin isn't the driver of obesity, developing a resistance to insulin is correlated with obesity and of course type 2 diabetes. Sugars from carbohydrates are a red herring in the development of insulin resistance and both obesity and T2 diabetes. I'm sure one or two of you on here is also on the raypeat forum lol.

[Jatt1]

But then you have Hong Kong, they have the highest meat consumption per capita and also the highest life expectancy(occasionally).

Occasionally here quals genetics, I guess.

[Jatt1]

No, sorry. You need to read Fung's book. He talks about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment at length, which did not really involve "starvation". It involved calorie reduction of the kind you advocate.

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment results actually bolster Fung's argument.

Fung cites quite a few other studies, as well.

This thread is about Dr. Fung's research. It seems to me I'm the only one posting in this thread who has even the slightest clue what Fung has written or said.

Instead, we've gone on about keto, the silly "rice diet", vegetarianism (which is often advocated with religious fervor), and Twinkies and candy.

Have you even read what is on that link? Eat kale and spinach to your fill and let us see if you ever get insulation resistance and/or weight gain with it. All trouble comes from the processed foods and bad fats and too high proteins.

[Webb]

Just to play referee for a second, who we are has a lot to do with what foods we can eat or not eat or which foods suit us better. This is a forum based on genetics, after all. I can drink a gallon of Vitamin D milk and even add light cream to it and I am fine. If my son drinks more than a glass of milk it's poop city. A prime example of this: "Greenlanders' genomes signal a fatty diet". Link: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6254/1343.

I guarantee if I consumed the same fatty diet as referenced above, I would need a quadruple bypass surgery if I wasn't already dead from massive coronary failure.