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Comment by spraak | Hacker News Reader

I believe that you're missing the point. We aren't getting obese on the carb diet. We are getting obese from excess calories and dietary fat. De novo lipogenesis (producing fat from only carbs) is inefficient and uncommon. Storing carbs as body fat via de novo lipogenesis is inefficient; storing dietary fat in body fat reserves is easy and efficient.

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storing dietary fat works best when you eat carbs, because then your body will run on carbs and carbs will spike your insuline to signal the body to store the fat. Also the insuline spikes and drops make you crave more carbs...

That sounds like a very keto perspective. Meat can "spike" insulin, too.

> "In fact meat protein causes as much insulin release as pure sugar." and "Some of the protein-rich foods (beef, cheese, eggs) had larger insulin responses per gram than did many of the foods consisting predominately of carbohydrate." and "A low-fat diet based on less-refined, carbohydrate-rich foods with relatively low insulin scores may help enhance satiety and aid weight loss as well as improve blood glucose and lipid control" [1]

If you're not eating excess calories and are limiting fat intake, you won't get fat.

[1] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/66/5/1264.full.pdf

"The results of this study are preliminary but we hope they stimulate discussion and further research. Additional studies are needed to determine whether the IS concept is useful, reproducible around the world, predictable in a mixed-meal context, and cliii ically useful in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and overweight"

Interesting but ultimately a flawed concept.

Since i was born and for 45 years i was eating a typical mediterranean diet (i live in these parts) very high in complex carbs and fibers from legumes, whole grain breads, beans. what exactly did that to my health? Gradualy from my early teens years i become overweight and later on obese, my cholesterol levels skyrocket and from the age of 20 i became pre-diabetic

Since i started a low carb diet 3 years ago (48 yo now) not only i lost all that extra weght, but i'm no longer pre diabetic and the cholesterol levels went down to normal levels. most importantly, i feel and i'm as healthy as i've never felt in my whole life so far. and all this by eating mostly meat, fish, eggs, full fat dairy and a bit of vegetables/fruits

I know very well what these 45 years of eating low-fat high complex carbs actualy did to my health and how much i suffered all these years, and i'm not intend to return back to these eating habits, Ever!

> 45 years of eating low-fat high complex carbs

Can you quantify how many grams per day "low fat" was for you? Were you consuming eggs, fish, dairy or olive oil? Were you consuming any processed foods?

Main source of my fat intake was from olive oil which was about 2 tablespoons per day (in salads). dairy, in the form of low fat yogurt (1-2 times per week) and eggs (max 2-3 eggs) was always on very limited quantities during the week, With the exception of (small fishes) fish which was only consumed durring the weekends and not more than 3 times per month, no other meat or poultry was consumed in my home. basically the majority of weekdays we were eating dishes with legumes (lentils, kidney beans, chickpea) green beans, peas, olive-oil based vegetable dishes, potatoes, brown rice, whole grain breads, salads which always were present in the table, and of course plenty of fruits. i was basically eating as vegetarian my entire life.

No processed foods, fast foods or sweets were allowed on my home, as a family, we were always very health conscious people.

I agree that you won't get fat if you're limiting calories intake, I was just saying all dietary fat isn't always stored and carbs do have an impact in fat absorption.

I'm currently losing the stubborn fat I've had for all my life, just a few pounds I couldn't get rid of: only a low carb higher fat diet has finally worked for me (my BMI is normal).

Also I'm 47 (not the killer)

That was one of the earliest GI measurement studies, though the term GI was invented later.

The problem with GI-based (or GL which takes quantity into account) is that insulin levels at 2 hours isn’t a good proxy for health. One really needs to measure the integral of the insulin level over 24 hours or more (which would involve lots of starving subjects). The best proxy we have for the overall insulin response over time is just net carbs.

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