New Weight Loss Research: Sugar Addictive, Low-Carb Memory Loss, Protein Burns Fat, And Money Talks

You never know what you’re gonna get from the health research world when a new study is presented at a medical or scientific conference or published in a prestigious journal. But one thing is for certain–the debate over the validity of these studies never dies down since we all have our predispositions about what is right in regards to diet, nutrition, and healthy living. That aside, it is always beneficial to see what the research is showing us and learn from it. And I have four new studies to share with you today.

SUGAR MAY INDEED BE AS ADDICTIVE AS DRUGS

It is something we’ve suspected for a long time, but research is now confirming it–sugar leads to chemical changes in the brain in similar ways that cocaine and heroin addicts experience. Lead researcher Bart Hoebel, a psychology professor at Princeton University, starved lab rats for 12 hours a day before feeding them food and the amount of sugar typical of a sugary soda for 12 hours a day over a 3-4 week period. The researchers found this “binge” effect released high amounts of dopamine in a certain part of the brain that drug abusers look to get their high. Hoebel says the withdrawals the rats felt from being apart from the sugar were as pronounced as seen in people coming off of nicotine, alcohol, or morphine addiction. When they cut off the brain endorphins, all of the withdrawals symptoms went away and dopamine levels returned to normal again. This neurochemical response to sugar is what led the researchers to conclude the addictive nature of sugar is as bad as drugs.

Interestingly, the longer the rats went without their sugar “fix,” the more they craved it and consumed even higher amounts of it the next time around. And when sugar was no longer available to them they turned to alcohol instead. Dr. Hoebel even went so far as to say this addiction to sugar may only be just the beginning of further abuse with sugar acting as a “gateway” to later abuse of drugs such as alcohol and harder drugs. The results of this study were presented at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday.

Some may even argue that this “addiction” goes far beyond sugar and extends even to the taste of “sweet” as I’m currently testing this theory throughout the month of December. The jury is still out on that one as the research has not yet been conducted. But this study from Dr. Hoebel is compelling and would make me seriously consider what I put in my mouth if I was still consuming sugar. Why is this so easy for you and me to see, but the rest of the world wants to turn a blind eye to it?

LOW-CARB DIETS MAKE YOU FORGET? OH, I FORGOT!

Another study from a group of psychologists out of Tufts University claims that people on a carbohydrate-restricted diet performed poorly on memory-based exercises compared to those on a high-carb, calorie-restricted diet. A total of 19 women were placed on a voluntary basis on a low-carb or low-calorie, macronutrient balanced diet. Nine women went on the low-carb diet and 10 chose the low-calorie one (is it just me or does that sample size seem just a wee bit small?). Five cognitive memory tests were given to the study participants, including before they began the diets, two during the first week, and then two more in the second and third week of the diet which, ironically, included the low-carb group ADDING BACK IN CARBOHYDRATES TO THEIR DIET?! What the heck?

The low-carb dieters allegedly experienced a decrease in their memory-related tasks compared with the low-calorie dieters. Reaction time was slower, but short-term attention span was better for the low-carb group. Hunger wasn’t an issue for either group and the low-calorie participants experienced some confusion in the middle of the study (maybe they were REALLY hungry and were fighting it off).

Answering the question about why the low-carb diet group started adding the carbs back in, it was to return the cognition to normal, according to the researchers led by Holly A. Taylor.

“The popular low-carb, no-carb diets have the strongest potential for negative impact on thinking and cognition,” she explained. “Although this study only tracked dieting participants for three weeks, the data suggest that diets can affect more than just weight. The brain needs glucose for energy and diets low in carbohydrates can be detrimental to learning, memory and thinking.”

OH REALLY?! Well, what about this study from Australian researchers that showed there was no difference as it relates to cognitive and psychological function between low-carb and high-carb diets? Noted neurosurgeon Dr. Larry McCleary, author of The Brain Trust Program, said in my blog interview with him that “if you want to age your brain just eat the typical [high-carb] diet most Americans consume. That will lead to memory, attention and mood difficulties and will hasten the path to Alzheimer’s.” So, it’s NOT low-carb diets that tend to be the culprit in memory loss…it looks like it is the high-carb, junk-based diets that dominate American culture nowadays.

Taylor contends the brain uses glucose as the primary fuel source but cannot store it in the body. That’s why your body needs carbohydrates so it can turn those carbs into glucose which is then delivered to the brain by the blood to be used as energy. Therefore, in her reasoning, reducing the carb intake takes away from giving your brain the energy it needs, right? Not exactly. This line of thinking is DEAD WRONG because it forgets that brain functions BEST on ketone bodies. Again, I turn to my blog interview with Dr. McCleary as he explains how this works.

“[There is] an alternative energy source the body developed millions of years ago for times when the brain couldn’t depend upon glucose. This alternative fuel is ketone bodies which are merely partially burned fats. They are burned differently than sugars and the brain loves them. They have been shown to help a multitude of brain afflictions from memory loss to migraine headaches to hot flashes. An easy way to produce ketone bodies is simply by restricting carbohydrate intake.”

So, as you can see, carbohydrate intake for the sole purpose of making glucose for your brain’s energy needs as Taylor suggests is invalid. The brain PREFERS ketone bodies for energy just as the Eskimos, Inuit, and Paleolithic man (just to name a few!) all survived consuming a low-carb diet. And their memory did just fine, thank you very much!

This study entitled “Low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets. Effects on cognition and mood” appears in the February 2009 edition of the scientific journal Appetite.

EATING MORE PROTEIN BURNS MORE FAT

You’ve seen those Campbell’s soup commercials this year that say “Protein’s good!” Well, a new study out of Australia confirms it is VERY good if you are trying to burn stored body fat. Lead researcher Dr. Marijka Batterham from the University of Wollongong in New South Wales wanted to know if the protein content of a meal would make any impact in the amount of fat burned by the body. So she went out and recruited 18 overweight men and women to test his theory. A post-meal metabolism test was conducted on three different days with the study participants (8 were overweight, 6 were normal weight, and 4 were obese).

The first day they were fed a high-carb, low-protein diet to use as a “control” during the study. In the following two days, the meals included equal amounts of calories from fat, protein, and carbohydrates. As the researchers observed the study participants in the eight hours following the control meal, they discovered the overweight and obese groups burned less stored body fat than the normal weight group. However, on the two higher-protein meals, which included low-fat dairy, lean meat and eggs, the gap between the groups was significantly narrowed.

“Our research suggests that people with higher body fat burn fat better after a high-protein meal than people with lower levels of body fat,” Dr. Batterham stated.

Of course, it is no surprise that she would recommend people choose low-fat protein sources like fish, poultry, low-fat dairy, beans and nuts rather than those dastardly high-fat foods like bacon, sausage, and butter. Oh the horrors if you should put those protein sources in your mouth! Gimme a break! I think it’s great they recognize the incredible benefits of eating protein, including for weight loss, that “full” feeling known as satiety, and lower calorie consumption, just to name a few. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water–that fat intake is good for burning stored body fat when you reduced those carbohydrates!

This study was published in the journal November 2008 issue of the nutrition journal Nutrition & Dietetics.

SHOW ME THE MONEY AND I’LL LOSE THE WEIGHT

With weight loss reality shows like NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” dangling a $250,000 carrot in front of a group of obese contestants as a lure to get them to lose weight, some would say a financial incentive could motivate just about anyone to do what they had to do to lose the weight. Now a study says an immediate financial incentive works better than the prospect of better health and weight loss as a reward for making it happen. Lead researcher Dr. Kevin G. Volppan, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and staff physician at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, looked at 57 obese adults and discovered a monetary incentive to lose weight led to three times as much weight loss compared to those who simply weighed in each month.

The 16-week study split the men up into three groups: the weigh-in only group and two incentive groups–a daily lottery prize that could only be collected if they met their weight-loss goal at the end of the month and a deposit contract where the participants could contribute up to $3 per day and have that money matched by the research team if they met their weight-loss goal at the end of the month. The incentive groups lost an average of 13 and 14 pounds respectively while the weigh-in only group lost just 4 pounds. Interestingly, after 7 months both of the incentive groups had regained enough weight so that it eradicated the statistical difference between the three groups. But there was still a net weight loss even with the regained weight. The weigh-in only group did not experience this success.

If you have watched many of the former contestants on “The Biggest Loser,” then you know this phenomenon has happened, especially to many of the winners of that big grand prize of a quarter million dollars (i.e. Ryan Benson, Matt Hoover). That’s not to say that ALL of the former contestants ended up fat again (take my friend Pete Thomas, for example, who still looks FABULOUS and is helping others in their own weight loss journey). But as long as there was money at stake, people on the show seemed to be motivated.

That’s sorta what helped me, I think, during my 180-pound weight loss experience in 2004. Read the whole story for yourself in this FREE introduction (PDF download) to my 2005 debut book Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: My Journey From Flabby Fat To Sensationally Skinny In One Year, but I was a part of a radio weight loss contest locally in the Greenville/Spartanburg, SC area. The afternoon radio host gave about 5 of us a chance to win $3,000 or so worth of prizes and that was our incentive to lose weight. It WORKED to motivate me and the proof is in the weight loss. Would I have been as successful had I not had that hope for a prize waiting for me? I dunno.

But with two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese, can we really expect to just give them money if they succeed? Would that really work? Some will argue that if enough people took advantage of such an offer and lost the weight that it would provide relief to areas like hospitals who will not have to see as many sick people anymore, businesses who would no longer have to accommodate their large customers, and so much more which would easily pay for the financial reward for shedding the pounds. Putting a clause in there that the weight has to stay off for a certain amount of time may not be a bad idea either.

Volpp proposes health insurance providers or employers be the ones to take the initiative with this project on their employees in an effort to cut company health care costs. He says the current system of health care tends to penalize those who stay healthy rather than reward them. This would be a way for employees to find value in pursuing improvements in their weight and health. The long-term impact of financial incentives for weight loss is still unknown, but I can tell you my experience. After livin’ la vida low-carb for a certain amount of time, I’d NEVER think of going back to any other way of eating EVER again. Not even for a big pile of money!

The study findings were published in the December 10, 2008 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.

Have you seen a research study that you think might be interesting for me to highlight here at my blog? Then send a link to the news story about it to me at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.