From: JFS@fwpa.com (JFS)

Subject: Re: Calorie intake

hgl@sgmf02.med-forschung.uni-marburg.de (H.G.Loeffler) wrote:

> How is it possible that persons with a similar caloric intake gain

> differently in weight? Can this difference simply be linked to a variable

> basic metabolic rate? I don't think that such a mechanism can account for

> the observed great individual differences. I recently heard that the

One theory, discussed in great detail in The Zone, is that insulin levels

control the amount of calories stored as fat. If insulin levels are driven up

by a particular combination of foods eaten (The Zone maintains that this would

be a high-carbohydrate diet, meaning a diet in which more than about 40% of

calories are derived from carbohydrates, and particularly a diet high in high

glycemic carbohydrates), then the body stores a greater percentage of incoming

calories as fat and satisfies a greater percentage of the brain's carbo needs

from carbos stored in the liver, rather than from the incoming food or from body

fat. One tenet of this theory, which is sensationalized in news coverage all

out of proportion to its significance, is that dietary fat can slow the

absorption of carbohydrates, moderating insulin levels, and thus can reduce the

storage of calories as fat. There have been some studies of diet composition in

diabetic patients fed low-calories diets that yielded results consistent with

Zone theories, but others on this list have suggested that those populations are

atypical. Anyway, it's one possible explanation.

Jefferson Scher