Brillyant comments on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Part 3: Did the US Government Give Us Absurd Advice About Sugar? - Less Wrong

4 Post author: ChrisHallquist 30 December 2013 12:58AM

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Comment author: Brillyant 28 December 2013 10:31:43PM 2 points [-]

Thanks for this. It is the first substantive comment I've seen.

I read the NYT article; the other is above my head. Frankly, I don't buy this: "Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one."

I think they are observing (primarily) genetically slow metabolisms.

I'd agree that the 3500 calorie = 1lb of weight loss is not linear because 100 pound people don't disappear in 10 years. Conventional wisdom says that metabolism will adjust to a 100 cal deficit so that one would need to reduce cals more with time In order to achieve the same result. OR they would need to add exercise, which is also conventional wisdom.

Would you agree that this: "An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one." is because they are looking at people with genetic abnormalities?

Comment author: drethelin 30 December 2013 09:42:30AM 2 points [-]

genetic abnormalities implies it's not a giant fraction of the population. I think it's very likely that either because of historic population genetics or possibly gut flora biomes that different people simply will gain different amounts of weight from the same food over the course of their lives.