Proteinaholic

For example, the German physiologist Dr. Carl von Voit studied the diets of late-nineteenth-century laborers and found that they ate about 118 grams of protein per day. Von Voit then made a couple of classic errors. He confused description with prescription, and he extrapolated from heavy laborers to the population at large. He assumed that the workers ate what their bodies needed, so therefore 118 grams of protein must be the optimal daily amount for everyone

The longest-lived people in the world get an average of 10 percent of their total calories from protein. Our average is as high as 15 to 20 percent, and of course, if you’re on a high-protein diet—Atkins, Paleo, or the diets recommended by many of my colleagues, and formerly by me—that figure goes up to 40 or 50 percent.

Their differences are superficial, and they cite insulin dumps from excess carbs as our biggest enemy. They refuse to acknowledge the science showing they are actually promoting excess insulin release, and none admit the long-term health consequences of their high-protein diets

Atkins did succeed in making the diet respectable, and pervasive in our culture and our individual psyches. People would lose weight in the beginning, and that experience was so monumental and profound that they were unable to revise their opinions when the weight returned and their health decayed.

Ketosis, the body’s switch to fat metabolism as an emergency fuel, causes its own unpleasant and ultimately harmful side effects. In their fantastic and comprehensive review of popular diets, nutrition professor Marjorie Freedman, Ph.D., and her colleagues point out that the Atkins diet is not only disadvantageous for weight loss, it’s actually accompanied by the kinds of side effects you usually find on the flip side of magazine ads for pharmaceutical drugs: constipation, bad breath, headache, nausea, and fatigue, among others. With those kinds of side effects is it any wonder that virtually nobody can stick to the diet? Freedman, after an amazing review of the science behind popular diets, including Atkins, concludes that the best evidence for weight loss comes from a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and grains and low in fat (Freedman, King, et al. 2001).

As we’ve seen, the body uses carbs as its preferred and natural source of energy. Deprive someone of carbs, and eventually willpower and resolve cannot override the body’s desperate need for them. The carbs cravings will hit, and hit hard.

The authors of this review do point out that low-fat protein, such as found with plant protein, may be different and beneficial (Hu 2005).

So back to the A to Z diet study. The significant water loss due to diuresis and the decreased calorie consumption caused by nausea did result in initial weight loss. Over time, however, the Atkins group began to gain back weight so that, at one year, the difference in weight loss between groups was not significant. The Atkins group lost about four to five pounds more after one year than the Ornish (“low-fat vegan”) group

One researcher placed 35 obese women on diets consisting of exactly 1,200 calories per day, but varied the percentage of fat from 10 percent to 40 percent. There was absolutely no difference in weight loss over a 12-week period (Powell, Tucker, et al. 1994). Another study took a similar approach, keeping calories the same but varying the participants’ carbohydrate content from 25 percent to 75 percent. Again, no difference in weight loss. They did show that the higher protein group had higher nitrogen breakdown components, which can cause future health problems (Alford, Blankenship, et al. 1990).

A more rigorous trial was conducted on 12 men. Each participant was given a diet either high in pork protein, soy protein, or carbs. They then went into a special chamber that measured their energy expenditure. Then they would switch diets and repeat the process. In the end, the high-protein diets had a very slight 2 percent increase in basal metabolic rate, hardly enough to cause any substantial weight loss (Mikkelsen, Toubro, et al. 2000)