Just saw a post on the NY Times Well blog about nuts based on an article in the Berkeley Wellness Letter. The Well blog post is here:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/going-nuts-for-the-holidays/
and the original material from the Wellness Letter is here:
http://wellnessletter.com/html/wl/2008/wlFeatured0508.html
I take this as more backup for my belief that calories in/calories out oversimplifies how the body works. How would it explain why people lose more weight, or at least do not gain weight, when adding calories to the diet from certain foods (like nuts) but not restricting calories to compensate?
Part of my theory is that the body does not fully break down some foods to their smallest components, and thus does not receive the full lab-tested caloric content from them. For example, I think I have read that some proteins or fats can be assimilated and used to build cells in the body, or serve various other biologic purposes, without being fully broken down and thus not releasing all the energy measured as calories in the lab. The article mentions that fats from some nuts can pass through the body undigested, which also reduces the calories absorbed.
Also, some food components require more energy to break down in the body than others, thus offsetting their caloric impact.
Granted, I'm not a scientist and these are just ideas I kick around in my mind, but I love reading about things like this nut study that knock the established nutrition industry off its standard course.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/going-nuts-for-the-holidays/
and the original material from the Wellness Letter is here:
http://wellnessletter.com/html/wl/2008/wlFeatured0508.html
I take this as more backup for my belief that calories in/calories out oversimplifies how the body works. How would it explain why people lose more weight, or at least do not gain weight, when adding calories to the diet from certain foods (like nuts) but not restricting calories to compensate?
Part of my theory is that the body does not fully break down some foods to their smallest components, and thus does not receive the full lab-tested caloric content from them. For example, I think I have read that some proteins or fats can be assimilated and used to build cells in the body, or serve various other biologic purposes, without being fully broken down and thus not releasing all the energy measured as calories in the lab. The article mentions that fats from some nuts can pass through the body undigested, which also reduces the calories absorbed.
Also, some food components require more energy to break down in the body than others, thus offsetting their caloric impact.
Granted, I'm not a scientist and these are just ideas I kick around in my mind, but I love reading about things like this nut study that knock the established nutrition industry off its standard course.
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