New Scientist articles

[Leadinglights]

Food for thought for the scientists among us?
In the last couple of weeks there have been a couple of articles relating to some of the previous discussions.
Processed foods and a new classification system NOVA which puts foods into groups depending on the level of processing they have undergone. Some surprising ones in the amount of processing some foods are regarded as having.
The other is 'The trouble with calories' suggesting the calories on food packets are wrong as they are determined by method which don't represent how the human body deals with the calories in the foods. In reality it is calorie availability which is an important factor. So the conclusion is, it does matter where the calories come from. The researcher is Giles Yeo and has a book Why Calories Don't Count.

 

[DaveB]

Counting Calories has always annoyed me as it's based on bad science. The New Scientist is right. The body is not 'test furnace' and metabolises each food group in different ways and some foods are burnt off as heat and not used directly by the body. Calories are best ignored other than in the gym for measuring energy output. As Carbs are the main source of BS and weight gain, measuring Carb input is far more use than Calorie input. Diet companies will continue to market 'Calories' as its a simple, but wrong, measure for the public. Food companies also love them as it avoids them having to highlight the high Carb content in their food. The NHS/PHE will continue the use Calories as well as Newcastle University - each to their own as long as it follows good science.

 

[Leadinglights]

A good article in this weeks New Scientist (well actually last week as it was only delivered today)
Rethinking Obesity - Putting on weight is often blamed on overeating but new evidence is emerging that it is actually the other way round.
Interesting link to the Diabetes Type 2 conundrum.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

A good article in this weeks New Scientist (well actually last week as it was only delivered today)
Rethinking Obesity - Putting on weight is often blamed on overeating but new evidence is emerging that it is actually the other way round.
Interesting link to the Diabetes Type 2 conundrum.

I also haven't read it. It sounds like what I'm sure used to be called Syndrome X but seems to be Metabolic syndrome now, a combination of traits that are strongly correlated but where it looked like none of them was the cause, exactly.

 

[Eddy Edson]

A good article in this weeks New Scientist (well actually last week as it was only delivered today)
Rethinking Obesity - Putting on weight is often blamed on overeating but new evidence is emerging that it is actually the other way round.
Interesting link to the Diabetes Type 2 conundrum.

That's David Ludwig, lead academic proponent of the "carbohydrate insulin model" of obesity. Many experts regard this as a failed hypothesis, invalidated by experiment.

Eg:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1478949589600194560

 

[Leadinglights]

Another interesting article in this weeks New Scientist, Battle of the Bulge, talking about 'middle age spread'.
The message being the priority of what helps for losing weight is Sleep. Diet, Exercise in that order.
And hormones play a huge part in how the body responds to just about everything.

 

[Leadinglights]

The New Scientist 23rd April has an article Is Covid 19 causing Diabetes which is interesting reading. Although a statement is confusing, it says 'Alternatively many kinds of illness including other viral infections, stress the body in various ways and so cause blood glucose to rise, a phenomenon called stress hypoglycaemia' Is this right?
The article suggests a big increase in diagnoses of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes but the reason is not entirely clear and it may have occurred anyway and was diagnosed because of Covid but not caused by Covid in some cases.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

The "stress hypoglycaemia" is just an error. Otherwise it's just repeating what's already been reported, I think: a 40% (or so) increase in the risk (mostly of T2) for those who've been infected compared to the usual risk. And a much more uncertain picture for T1 (some reports of increases by nobody seems sure yet).

 

[Leadinglights]

The "stress hypoglycaemia" is just an error. Otherwise it's just repeating what's already been reported, I think: a 40% (or so) increase in the risk (mostly of T2) for those who've been infected compared to the usual risk. And a much more uncertain picture for T1 (some reports of increases by nobody seems sure yet).

I thought it had to be, somebody didn't proof read it particularly well then.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I thought it had to be, somebody didn't proof read it particularly well then.

I'm pretty sure it's an error, anyway. (It's not that easy to verify with google, since "stress hypoglycaemia" produces plenty of hits, but I think they're all about hypos (and fear of hypos) causing stress.)

 

[trophywench]

Yep stress causer hyPER glycemia, not hyPOg !