From: "ANNIE GAZDAG" <GAZDAG@GANDALF.PHYSED.WISC.EDU>

Subject: Re: Calorie intake: BMR, RDAs and skeletal muscle fiber typ

To: UncleWolf@worldnet.att.net, ismnt@Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE

Organization: U.W. Dept. of Kinesiology

Andrew,

You must not be involved in biological research. It is exceedingly

expensive and difficult to conduct a well controlled, long term

feeding trial on humans. Essentially, you have to put these people

in cages, just like rats. The human cages are metabolic wards, not

wire bottom cages. Well controlled food intake studies are

impossible in free living humans because they lie and cheat. They'll

tell you they ate such and such, or exercised like you said, but even

with the most mild intervention and non-screwed up subjects, you

cannot trust compliance 100%.

A rat in a cage eats what you give it, and nothing else (except feces

and some cage bedding, but this can be eliminated with wire bottom

cages). Idealistically, yes, it would be best to do diet research

ONLY on humans. Realistically, how many people will sacrifice a year

of their lives (ie lose a job, be away from family, be isolated in a

hospital) for a year just so you can feel better about whether a high

fat diet really makes you fatter than a low fat diet? You could

always volunteer...

We do the best we can within the limits of reality. Indeed, a rat is

not a human, but that does not mean information gleened from these

studies is totally useless. If you only want to consider information

on humans, that's up to you. You won't have much to go on, and what

you will have will be difficult to interpret. So they eat a low fat

diet in China. Do you compare a Chinese person to an American

because the US diet is high in fat? We also sit on our asses much

more than Chinese, and our genetic makeup may be slightly, but in

some cases significantly, different. Try controlling for that.

In the end, I share the same frustration as you, but am a little more

resigned. Hope this sheds a sliver of favourable light on the

majority of diet research done to date.

Annie