RoR: Forum

Post 60

Saturday, May 16 - 5:56pm

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Thank you, Steve. I thought to admit to you all that I had a personal interest in the matter. The thread hasn't been fun, but I don't feel that the thread was a mistake, either.

On the radio today they had callers call in talking about the decision (Minnesota, where this happened, is my home state). Their reactions were split roughly 50-50, with half of the callers expressing relief that Daniel will get conventional care, and the other half expressing dismay, either because of libertarian reasons, or because of belief in the power of alternative medicine. The host (K.C. O'Dea?), like a good host does, consistently shifted positions in order to play the Devil's Advocate.

To the alternative medicine enthusiasts, he argued that chemotherapy, while toxic, is thought to be the best game in town for Daniel. He argued that there was professional agreement on that at the trial. To the libertarians, he admitted that for him it's a dilemma: no one wants Daniel dead, but what it is that will apparently 'give Daniel life' is, essentially, statism.

To those agreeing with the court's decision, he challenged them to answer at what point they'd stop encouraging government to interfere with parents' decisions. He asked if they would feel the same way if conventional care didn't afford a 90+ chance of survival, but only afforded a 70% chance of survival (keep in mind that the best estimate for actual long-term survival is 75% with conventional care -- as I've shown above). The caller said he'd still agree with government interference if conventional care afforded a 70% chance of survival, but that he wouldn't know what to do below that point.

The host, like me, expressed deep concern over the "estimated" chance of survival 5% without conventional care. To my knowledge, no ones knows what that number is based on. What if the chance of survival with conventional care was only 5% better than the chance of survival with alternative care? Should the state still get involved at that point?

For instance, I know about a whole slew of things that can, if added or deleted to a child's life, raise or lower survival odds by at least 5%. If I were the government, would that give me the right to force parents to do everything (that I know is) right for their kids (effectively maximizing their kid's health-span)?

Ed

Post 61

Saturday, May 16 - 7:20pm

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Thank you, William.

It was frustrating to talk to this oncologist. Her argument was basically an argument against vitamin A (retinol), which is the most toxic of the vitamins, but is also a powerful anti-cancer agent -- as is shown here, here, and here. A specific benefit to vitamin A (and, more specifically, vitamin D) is that you get cell differentiation, which turns cancer cells into normal ones -- a 'cancer-cure' at the cellular level. Though it seems vitamin D is a better cancer cell differentiator, vitamin A is a better cancer cell killer (apoptosis).

In research, vitamin A has acted like a smart bomb targeting cancer cells for their own destruction.

She used the vitamin A toxicity as a way to get defensive against all of my information (which she didn't read well in the first place). It was an argument from intimidation. She said she's giving Kellie chemotherapy (which is toxic to her liver) and now I'm suggesting vitamin A, which is also toxic to the liver. This toxicity could be something monitored, in order to reap the specific benefits of cell differentiation/apoptosis -- but she wouldn't get on board with that.

Instead, she used this potential toxicity as a springboard to go ahead and dismiss all of my ideas.

She, in a defense of her dismissal of me, even used this potential toxicity to make a case against me to my sister. My sister was convinced that I was either ignorant or worse. So, she has this doctor shovelling what's basically poison into her body (with way more hepatotoxicity than two months of 12,000 mcg of vitamin A, by the way), and this doctor tells you not to trust your own brother -- because what it is that he's suggesting might cause some damage to your liver.

The irony there is so thick that you could cut it with a knife.

Ed

p.s. Those Nemenhah's sound like they are peddling some serious snake oil.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/16, 7:49pm)

Post 62

Saturday, May 16 - 8:54pm

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Sorry for your loss, Ed. Our loved ones make choices we don't agree with sometimes.

Regarding the Nemenhah's thing, as much as I tend to protect someone's right to be stupid and erase their contribution from the gene pool, they are seeming more ridiculous by the minute. As in, not "I firmly believe Zeus will heal my son", but "We totally made all this shit up last week." I read today that the kid is totally illiterate, considers himself and "elder" in the religion, cannot define what an "elder" is, and cannot define any specific knowledge or training required to be a "medicine man". The mother's religious cures seem to be stuff she found on the internet, not any organized or semi-organized belief system. It seems the kid also did one round of chemo before they discovered it was against their religion, which seems to indicate it isn't religion, but "This totally sucks and I don't want to do it"-ism. People have a right to act in accordance with their religion, but applying the mantle of religion to whatever bad decision you want to make this week is going a bit far.

Post 63

Sunday, May 17 - 6:36am

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Thanks, Ryan.

Your analysis of their use of religion merely as an excuse to do what they want does seem to be correct.

Ed

Post 64

Monday, May 18 - 10:28am

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Interesting discussion. Of course, there have to be some guidelines as to how parents should be allowed to treat their children. For example, parents who neglect to feed their children should be arrested for child neglect and the children removed from their custody. Where it gets tricky is that there are now some alternative treatments that are effective and may be superior to conventional treatments, which cause more side effects. Obviously, these alternative treatments are not endorsed by everyone.

Dean Ornish has been doing some fascinating studies on diet and prostate cancer. Men with mild prostate cancer who follow his diet have lowered their PSA levels and arrested the progression of their cancer. Thankfully, prostate cancer is not a childhood disease, so the patient is entirely responsible for the treatment that he receives. What's interesting about prostate cancer is that it appears to respond to diets that lower insulin levels. Insulin is one of the powerful growth hormones in the body. The Ornish diet, which is very low in fat, makes the body more sensitive to insulin (since fat interferes with its action), so that not as much is required to metabolize blood sugar. I recommended this diet to a diabetic whom I know, who was on insulin, and she was able to go off her insulin as a result of the diet.

The Ornish diet is basically the same one that was pioneered by Nathan Pritikin some 40 years ago. The Pritikin Longevity Center has been doing research on the effects of diet and life-style for decades. No other lifestyle-change program has been more closely studied by the scientific community. More than 90 studies in top medical journals have documented its results.

For example, in a study of 652 diabetics by Diabetes Care, a medical journal published by the American Diabetes Association, 70 percent of those on oral agents left the Pritikin Longevity Center free of these medications, and 39 percent of diabetics on insulin left insulin-free. According to the medical journal Circulation, published by the American Heart Association, in just three weeks, people who followed the Pritikin diet reduced oxidative stress, controlled blood pressure, and reduced insulin levels by 46 percent.

So, it's not surprising that Dr. Dean Ornish is getting the results he is by prescribing what is basically the Pritikin diet for his heart and cancer patients. Ornish isn't some alternative medicine practitioner; he is an established medical doctor who works and does research at the UC Medical Center in San Francisco. Yet, his approach to diet and nutrition is considered by many to be "alternative," since the medical community is still largely influenced by a focus on drug and invasive therapies.

- Bill

Post 65

Monday, May 18 - 5:10pm

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Bill,

You're hijacking my thread to promote one version of alternative dieting. Statistically though, it is not the best diet (for most people most of the time). We've been through this before, so here I go again ...

From the March 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association:

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Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets for change in weight and related risk factors among overweight premenopausal women: the A TO Z Weight Loss Study: a randomized trial.

Gardner CD, Kiazand A, Alhassan S, Kim S, Stafford RS, Balise RR, Kraemer HC, King AC.

Stanford Prevention Research Center and the Department of Medicine, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, Calif, USA. cgardner@stanford.edu

CONTEXT: Popular diets, particularly those low in carbohydrates, have challenged current recommendations advising a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for weight loss. Potential benefits and risks have not been tested adequately. OBJECTIVE: To compare 4 weight-loss diets representing a spectrum of low to high carbohydrate intake for effects on weight loss and related metabolic variables.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Twelve-month randomized trial conducted in the United States from February 2003 to October 2005 among 311 free-living, overweight/obese (body mass index, 27-40) nondiabetic, premenopausal women.

INTERVENTION: Participants were randomly assigned to follow the Atkins (n = 77), Zone (n = 79), LEARN (n = 79), or Ornish (n = 76) diets and received weekly instruction for 2 months, then an additional 10-month follow-up.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Weight loss at 12 months was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included lipid profile (low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels), percentage of body fat, waist-hip ratio, fasting insulin and glucose levels, and blood pressure. Outcomes were assessed at months 0, 2, 6, and 12. The Tukey studentized range test was used to adjust for multiple testing.

RESULTS: Weight loss was greater for women in the Atkins diet group compared with the other diet groups at 12 months, and mean 12-month weight loss was significantly different between the Atkins and Zone diets (P<.05). Mean 12-month weight loss was as follows: Atkins, -4.7 kg (95% confidence interval [CI], -6.3 to -3.1 kg), Zone, -1.6 kg (95% CI, -2.8 to -0.4 kg), LEARN, -2.6 kg (-3.8 to -1.3 kg), and Ornish, -2.2 kg (-3.6 to -0.8 kg). Weight loss was not statistically different among the Zone, LEARN, and Ornish groups. At 12 months, secondary outcomes for the Atkins group were comparable with or more favorable than the other diet groups.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, premenopausal overweight and obese women assigned to follow the Atkins diet, which had the lowest carbohydrate intake, lost more weight at 12 months than women assigned to follow the Zone diet, and had experienced comparable or more favorable metabolic effects than those assigned to the Zone, Ornish, or LEARN diets [corrected] While questions remain about long-term effects and mechanisms, a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diet may be considered a feasible alternative recommendation for weight loss. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00079573.
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Recap:
In a head-to-head comparison of the Ornish diet and the Atkins diet, with overweight women, the Atkins diet was as good or better than the Ornish diet in controlling fasting insulin, fasting glucose, and blood pressure. It also caused more weight loss.

And from the February 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine:
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Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates.

Sacks FM, Bray GA, Carey VJ, Smith SR, Ryan DH, Anton SD, McManus K, Champagne CM, Bishop LM, Laranjo N, Leboff MS, Rood JC, de Jonge L, Greenway FL, Loria CM, Obarzanek E, Williamson DA.

Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA.

BACKGROUND: The possible advantage for weight loss of a diet that emphasizes protein, fat, or carbohydrates has not been established, and there are few studies that extend beyond 1 year.

METHODS: We randomly assigned 811 overweight adults to one of four diets; the targeted percentages of energy derived from fat, protein, and carbohydrates in the four diets were 20, 15, and 65%; 20, 25, and 55%; 40, 15, and 45%; and 40, 25, and 35%. The diets consisted of similar foods and met guidelines for cardiovascular health. The participants were offered group and individual instructional sessions for 2 years. The primary outcome was the change in body weight after 2 years in two-by-two factorial comparisons of low fat versus high fat and average protein versus high protein and in the comparison of highest and lowest carbohydrate content.

RESULTS: At 6 months, participants assigned to each diet had lost an average of 6 kg, which represented 7% of their initial weight; they began to regain weight after 12 months. By 2 years, weight loss remained similar in those who were assigned to a diet with 15% protein and those assigned to a diet with 25% protein (3.0 and 3.6 kg, respectively); in those assigned to a diet with 20% fat and those assigned to a diet with 40% fat (3.3 kg for both groups); and in those assigned to a diet with 65% carbohydrates and those assigned to a diet with 35% carbohydrates (2.9 and 3.4 kg, respectively) (P>0.20 for all comparisons). Among the 80% of participants who completed the trial, the average weight loss was 4 kg; 14 to 15% of the participants had a reduction of at least 10% of their initial body weight. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance at group sessions were similar for all diets; attendance was strongly associated with weight loss (0.2 kg per session attended). The diets improved lipid-related risk factors and fasting insulin levels.

CONCLUSIONS: Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00072995.) 2009 Massachusetts Medical Society
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Recap:
Diets with 40% fat improved fasting insulin levels as well as did diets with 20% fat.

So I wish that you would quit intimating that 'low-fat' is the best way to go for folks' blood pressure, insulin, and blood sugar. It is not necessarily the best when compared head-to-head with other diets. The research just isn't there to support what you are promoting. It worked wonders for you. I admit that. It worked wonders for your friends. Fine. But you (and your friends) are not everybody, you are not even "most people." According to the bulk of the research, most people would do best on one of the 3 diets which I promote:

1) Zone
2) Mediterranean
3) Paleo

Ed

Post 66

Tuesday, May 19 - 8:21am

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Ed,

I'm not hijacking anything. You've already commented on diet and nutrition as being relevant to cancer. I'm simply extending that discussion. You just don't like it, because you don't agree with the Pritikin-Ornish diet, even though it's been validated by numerous well-documented studies.

Then you cite references that dispute it's superiority as a weight-loss diet, even though I cited the diet for its effectiveness against prostate cancer. For what it's worth, I think the diet is superior as a weight-loss diet long-term, but that wasn't the point of my post.

So much for hijacking the discussion.

- Bill

Post 67

Tuesday, May 19 - 11:32am

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Bill,

I'm not hijacking anything. ... I'm simply extending that discussion.

Okay, I withdraw the hijack part.

You just don't like it, because you don't agree with the Pritikin-Ornish diet, even though it's been validated by numerous well-documented studies.

I just don't agree with the Pritikin-Ornish diet as a statistically-best diet for humans. And what, really, does it mean to say it's validated? Does that mean that it helped folks with things? Well, I agree with that. I agree that it has helped folks with weight loss, cardiovascular health, blood sugar control, all of that. My point was not that the Pritikin-Ornish diet doesn't do any good for anyone, it's that it doesn't do as much good (for most everyone) as "my" diets do.

Then you cite references that dispute it's superiority as a weight-loss diet, even though I cited the diet for its effectiveness against prostate cancer. For what it's worth, I think the diet is superior as a weight-loss diet long-term, but that wasn't the point of my post.

I'm not denying that the Ornish diet has helped folks with prostate cancer. I'm arguing against your portrayal of the Ornish diet as one of the best ways to control blood sugar and blood pressure.

The reference I cited pretty much showed an equivalence between the Ornish diet and the Atkins diet with respect to blood sugar and blood pressure control. The 3 diets which I promote are likely even better than the Atkins diet is at controlling blood sugar and blood pressure. If Atkins is as good as Ornish, and my diets are better than Atkins, then my diets are better than Ornish.

You had come on here saying how restricting dietary fat intake helps these things. I think it's equally important to show folks how not restricting dietary fat intake (as part of a well-thought-out eating plan) ALSO helps these things -- and how it helps these things at least to the same extent that restricting dietary fat intake does.

Ed

Post 68

Tuesday, May 19 - 11:43am

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Somehow am hearing in the background - ["My dog's bigger than yer dog! my dog's bigger than yer's..."]

Post 69

Tuesday, May 19 - 12:45pm

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Woof woof

: )

Post 70

Tuesday, May 19 - 2:05pm

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The first report of a warrant issued for the boy's mom appears on Fox News. Seems she didn't show for today's hearing.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520690,00.html

Post 71

Tuesday, May 19 - 8:02pm

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Ed for what it's worth I'm interested in your diet discussion. I'm skeptical that a "low-fat" diet is the way to go for weight loss. I had always thought that was pretty dated medical advice. It's not just dietary fat that is the big culprit for obesity, it's all that damn sugar Americans eat and their sedentary lifestyles. But really it's all about going into a calorie deficit if weight loss is the goal. Monounsaturated fat actually helps in reducing bodyfat stores. Better to have a well rounded diet with plenty of protein, complex carbs and healthy fats. I've taken up weight-lifting as a hobby and I eat 170 grams of protein at least per day.

Post 72

Tuesday, May 19 - 8:19pm

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Anyone have any data on the use of calorie restriction to improve longevity? I've read some preliminary stuff, but some of you seem to track things of that nature more.

Post 73

Tuesday, May 19 - 8:36pm

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Ryan I've heard that restricting calorie consumption can help slow the aging process. But these are all relative words, "restricting" calories can be taken to the extreme and your metabolism can shut down and your body starts eating away at muscle tissue, bone and even internal organs, things you don't want to happen.

Post 74

Wednesday, May 20 - 6:31am

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John,

It's not just dietary fat that is the big culprit for obesity, it's all that damn sugar Americans eat and their sedentary lifestyles.

Right.

But really it's all about going into a calorie deficit if weight loss is the goal.

Wrong. This is an absorbed "meme." It pervades society (even academics) so much because most folks don't think to question it. The logic seems sound. It's physics, right? Calories in minus calories out, right? The short answer is "no, it's biophysics, not simple physics."

There's calories in, and there's calories out, and then there's this third thing: metabolism (how your body "handles" the calories). Here are examples, one involving digestion and absorption of any given amount of Calories, and one involving what Atkins referred to as "metabolic advantage" (differential handling of the same amount of Calories):

--If you (John Armaos) ate 3000 Calories of Corn Flakes and milk every day, you would gain weight (fat). If you ate 3000 Calories of celery sticks every day, you would lose weight (fat).

--If you ate 2000 Calories and 10% protein (200 of the Calories from protein), you might lose a little weight (fat). If you ate 2000 Calories and 30% protein (600 of the Calories from protein), you'd lose bucketloads of weight (fat).

Monounsaturated fat actually helps in reducing bodyfat stores.

There are special foods handled specially that specifically reduce bodyfat stores. However, the way that monounsaturated fat helps is by displacing other fats. You couldn't add monounsaturated fat on top of a diet and create more weight (fat) loss -- but you can add fish fat -- fish oil -- and create weight (fat) loss (this remarkable effect of eating more Calories without any more exercise, and still losing more weight, was first shown in rats). Monounsaturates are simply easier to burn than saturated fats are.

But the broader point -- which you allude to, by mentioning a specific foodstuff (monounsaturated fat) -- is that weight (fat) loss is not just about calorie deficits. If it was, then there wouldn't be better weight (fat) loss diets out there -- diets with the same Calorie-content as other diets, but causing more fat loss than other diets.

Ryan, check this out:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/RoRFitness/0053.shtml

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/20, 6:35am)

Post 75

Wednesday, May 20 - 8:51am

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Anyone have any data on the use of calorie restriction to improve longevity? I've read some preliminary stuff, but some of you seem to track things of that nature more.

Yes, it works. Earlier studies were done with rodents. Reducing calories to 2/3 of what the animals would eat on an unrestricted regimen doubled lifespan. More recent studies have been done with monkeys. The monkeys on the calorie-restricted diet are leaner, look younger and are healthier than the control group. The late Roy Walford, gerontologist at the UCLA Medical Center did a lot of pioneering research in this field. He popularized the catchphrase "undernutrition without malnutrition." The low-calorie diet has to be very nutritious, so it would be well balanced and would include all of the essential nutrients in optimal amounts.

A period of acclimation must be undergone for the diet to be effective. You can't switch from a relatively high-calorie diet to a very low-calorie one overnight. It must be a very gradual process. If you lose weight, it should be something on the order of a half a pound a month. This is difficult to do, but you get the idea. No crash dieting! The more gradual the weight loss, the better. You want to end up eating 1/3 less calories, not start out eating a 1/3 less calories!

The studies with lab animals suggest a process that ideally would take up to 5 years. So if you start today, in 5 years, you'd be eating 2/3 of the calories you're eating today -- assuming, of course, that you're not already on a diet -- that you're currently eating as much as you want.

Walford said that the Pritikin diet, of which I'm a big proponent, is very close to the longevity diet that he recommended, which has produced such dramatic life-extending results in all the animals on which it's been tried. So reduce your caloric intake by a third, but do it very gradually, allowing your metabolism to adjust. The animals on which this approach has been tried maintain their energy levels and do very well. They avoid the degenerative diseases that afflict so many people (and animals) as they get older.

I'll be 70 next year, and my fasting glucose is in the 70's, my blood pressure, when I'm relaxed, is 100/60, my LDL cholesterol 83, my resting pulse 45, and people are generally astonished when they find out how old I am. They say I look 20 years younger. I've been on the Pritikin diet for 25 years now. I weigh about 25 pounds less than I did at the age of 20.

Another benefit of the lower weight is that there's less stress on your joints as you get older. Many people have hip and knee replacements due to arthritic changes resulting from a lifetime of carrying around extra weight. The joints can only take so much stress. I know a professional body builder who, at the age of 42, tells me that all of his joints ache from the stress of the heaving lifting that he does in order to maintain his extraordinary muscle mass. The less you weigh, all other things being equal, the better off you are.

A low-calorie diet is indeed the secret to a long, healthy life.

- Bill

Post 76

Wednesday, May 20 - 4:17pm

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Hi Ed, I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying but the old adage that more calories in, less calories out leads to weight loss is still valid. What you allude to is increasing your metabolism by making food selections that will do that, like eating more protein. Which eating more protein on something like a weightlifting regimen also is more likely to be used for muscle building as opposed to having those calories go to fat stores. So what macronutrients you take in can certainly affect body composition. But if you make food selections that increase your metabolism, it means more calories out. And an optimal macronutrient balance can mean more muscle mass, and less bodyfat, but you can never lose weight if you consume more calories than you burn. It's also a question of what kind of weight loss. The desirable weight loss is bodyfat, not muscle tissue. And you are right that not just any kind of diet will result in fat loss and could instead result in muscle loss. So the issue of weight loss becomes more complicated. But the law of thermodynamics can't be changed.

Post 77

Wednesday, May 20 - 5:13pm

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Okay, John.

I partially agree with the way that you use the phrase "Calories in - Calories out." You use it with the qualifier that "Calories out" is not just exercise (plus your resting metabolism) -- it also includes your body's reaction to not just the amount, but to the kind of foodstuff that you put into it. The only thing missing is the other thing I mentioned besides metabolism: digestion & absorption.

When doctors and public health officials say "Calories in - Calories out" they make the assumption that all foods are created equal with regard to

1) digestion & absorption
2) metabolism

What this wrong assumption does for them is to allow them to oversimplify the weight-control issue in the public's eyes. Once they've tricked the public into believing that there aren't some foods that are better than others with regard to weight control (i.e., that obesity is all our fault and we just need to moderate), then they and their friends in AgriBusiness get to sell us any kind of food at the highest profit (even fattening foods).

This also has the side-effect of increasing the medical expenditures, so bureaucrats overseeing the medical industry exploit this common public ignorance, too.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/20, 8:53pm)

Post 78

Wednesday, May 20 - 6:04pm

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I agree Ed. It's not just as simple as restricting calories. As not only can that backfire on you by reducing your metabolism, it's also hard to stick to since loading up your diet with say sugar and no fiber will just make you feel ravenous.

Post 79

Thursday, May 21 - 9:19am

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Recipe for Diabetes: Too Much Protein, Fat
Protein Worsens Insulin Resistance From High-Fat Diet

By Daniel J. DeNoon

WebMD Health News Reviewed by Elizabeth Klodas, MD, FACC
April 7, 2009 -- Too much "good" protein makes bad fats worse, new research suggests.

A high-fat diet may lead to insulin resistance, a major step on the path to type 2 diabetes. But cutting back on fat may not help those who continue to eat too much protein, find Christopher Newgard, PhD, director of the Sarah Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center at Duke University, and colleagues.

"There's not only fat in that hamburger but plenty of protein," Newgard tells WebMD. "We are overconsuming calories composed of all the different macronutrients, and together they have harmful effects."

When they began their studies, Newgard and colleagues weren't trying to give protein a bad name. They were just trying to find out how the metabolism of obese people differs from that of lean people.

To do this, they collected vast amounts of information -- including high-tech lab tests on blood and urine samples -- from 74 healthy obese people and 67 healthy lean people.

Unexpectedly, obese people had a distinct metabolic "signature" related to a particular subtype of amino acids called BCAA (branched-chain amino acids). About 20% of the protein in the typical American diet is made up of BCAAs.

Lean people's bodies tend to make new proteins out of BCAAs. In obese people, Newgard and colleagues suggest, this process gets overloaded. Instead of making new protein, the BCAAs are diverted into a deviant pathway that leads to insulin resistance.

Can too much protein really be bad? Yes -- at least in lab rats. Newgard's team fed rats all the high-fat food they wanted. Two other groups of rats got less food: either standard chow or chow enriched with fats and BCAAs.

The rats on the BCAA/fat diet didn't eat as much food or gain as much weight as the rats on the high-fat diet -- but they became just as insulin resistant.

"Under circumstances of overconsumption, not only does excess fat and carbohydrate have injurious effects, but also the protein component of the diet can lead to some of the co-morbidities of obesity," Newgard says.

Human studies will be needed to confirm the rat findings. But Ronald B. Goldberg, MD, director of the lipid disorders clinic at the University of Miami, says the findings could have major implications.

"What they show is that the combination of high fat and protein might be what's important in developing insulin resistance," Goldberg tells WebMD. "The truth is that in Western diets we do eat a high-protein, high-fat diet. The stress previously has not been on the high-protein component."

The Newgard study appears in the April 8 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/21, 9:24am)