UPF vs HPF
Published 2.2.2024: Are ultra-processed foods(UPF) the devil? Or is the issue hyperpalatable foods (HPF). Kevin Hall is redoing his UPF study, but this time he's trying to control for hyperpalatable foods (HPF)
Kevin Hall had been leaning into UPF being the issue, until Tera Fazzino from the University of Kansas contacted him and asked him to check to see if his UPF had also been HPF. The unprocessed foods were not HPF and people ate less of them, but the UPF were also HPF, and maybe that's why subjects are more of them. In his study, Hall used a subjective "satiation" metric to compare the two diets, but Fazzino's method is objective. A food has so much fat and salt, or it doesn't.
So Hall is rerunning his experiment with the same nonHPF nonUPF diet, and the UPF + HPF diets, but also UPF diets that are not HPF. Hall also found that the amount of fluid between the diets varied, so they are controlling for that.
My money remains on HPF as being the important characteristic. HPF explains our weight gain over the years, UPF does not. And most UPF are HPF. Regular food cooked at home is not UPF, and can be (by design— no one tries to make unpalatable food) HPF. And people will overeat them, therefore.
UPF is not a requirement for obesity, I think HPF may well be. I didn't realize that NIH can only have 2 subjects at a time in their metabolic ward. No wonder it takes so long to do the studies. Eating UPF might have helped the vegan twins in the recent Gardner study, which was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary and which I wrote about previously.
Coincidentally, I listened to a podcast interview with Tera Fazzino about here research. Interestingly, she thinks that sodium (salt) is the primary driver in hyperpalatability rather than sugar. Although she does include sugar and fat as one category of hyperpalatable foods. Rather than shoe horn that into this article, I think I write up a separate piece about hyperpalatable foods and their effects.
Kevin Hall had been leaning into UPF being the issue, until Tera Fazzino from the University of Kansas contacted him and asked him to check to see if his UPF had also been HPF. The unprocessed foods were not HPF and people ate less of them, but the UPF were also HPF, and maybe that's why subjects are more of them. In his study, Hall used a subjective "satiation" metric to compare the two diets, but Fazzino's method is objective. A food has so much fat and salt, or it doesn't.
So Hall is rerunning his experiment with the same nonHPF nonUPF diet, and the UPF + HPF diets, but also UPF diets that are not HPF. Hall also found that the amount of fluid between the diets varied, so they are controlling for that.
My money remains on HPF as being the important characteristic. HPF explains our weight gain over the years, UPF does not. And most UPF are HPF. Regular food cooked at home is not UPF, and can be (by design— no one tries to make unpalatable food) HPF. And people will overeat them, therefore.
UPF is not a requirement for obesity, I think HPF may well be. I didn't realize that NIH can only have 2 subjects at a time in their metabolic ward. No wonder it takes so long to do the studies. Eating UPF might have helped the vegan twins in the recent Gardner study, which was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary and which I wrote about previously.
Coincidentally, I listened to a podcast interview with Tera Fazzino about here research. Interestingly, she thinks that sodium (salt) is the primary driver in hyperpalatability rather than sugar. Although she does include sugar and fat as one category of hyperpalatable foods. Rather than shoe horn that into this article, I think I write up a separate piece about hyperpalatable foods and their effects.
Still Targeting Taubes Nonsense
Which isn't to say that Kevin Hall has forgotten Gary Taubes and his nonsense. In 2022, Kevin Hall continues to roast Gary Taubes and his dumb theory—specifically, and by name in this case. The paper begins with a Taubes quote continues with the results of an experiment to test the issue.
"One influential author concluded that “any diet that succeeds does so because the dieter restricts fattening carbohydrates …Those who lose fat on a diet do so because of what they are not eating—the fattening carbohydrates” (Taubes, 2011). In other words, body fat loss requires reduction of insulinogenic carbohydrates. This extraordinary claim was based on the observation that even diets targeting fat reduction typically also reduce refined carbohydrates. Since the primary regulator of adipose tissue fat storage is insulin, and a reduction in refined carbohydrates reduces insulin, carbohydrate reduction alone may have been responsible for the loss of body fat—even with a low-fat diet."
This is of course, complete nonsense. Taubes, for his part has gone on to blame sugar, specifically, and tout a ketogenic diet in his latest book. It's almost as though he's now chasing the latest diet grift, when back in the day he created it (well, re-invented it. Low carb diets are not a new phenomenon. They work the way they always did, by causing people to spontaneously cut calories).
Hall doesn't believe is going by feelings, he actually brought subjects to a metabolic ward and tested the hypothesis. And insulin is still not the driver for weight loss. The energy balance controls all. It may not be easy to adjust your balance, but it is possible.
This is the most recent evidence (Warning, that link is to X/Twitter Here is the link to the actual response article.) that Hall's results have seriously gotten stuck in low carb and keto craws. Hall's Twitter thread summarizes the article. Basically, researchers on Team Taubes tried to reanalyze and disprove the results from Hall's seminal paper— using a reanalysis that Hall's group did and published— and failed miserably.
The carbohydrate insulin model (CIM) is (at best) a subset of the energy balance. It is not the controlling aspect. Low carb diets (even keto diets) work because people eat fewer calories overall.
This is the article that the Taubesians tried to use against Hall's work disproving the CIM. The link is to a preprint, because the article is still in the reviewing process and hasn't bee printed yet. This (from an outside perspective) is a case of no good deed going unpunished. Hall et al. retested their data in response to criticisms, but all the CIM adherents saw was a chance to hoist them on their own petard. Which they then screwed up by not doing a complete analysis AND using data that the participants did not give permission to be used. But that's an outsiders view that may well be incorrect— or it may just reflect my own biases. I am not a Gary Taubes fan. I think he's done a lot of damage to nutrition.
Please note that the links in this article were live as of publication. They may or may not be live in future.
"One influential author concluded that “any diet that succeeds does so because the dieter restricts fattening carbohydrates …Those who lose fat on a diet do so because of what they are not eating—the fattening carbohydrates” (Taubes, 2011). In other words, body fat loss requires reduction of insulinogenic carbohydrates. This extraordinary claim was based on the observation that even diets targeting fat reduction typically also reduce refined carbohydrates. Since the primary regulator of adipose tissue fat storage is insulin, and a reduction in refined carbohydrates reduces insulin, carbohydrate reduction alone may have been responsible for the loss of body fat—even with a low-fat diet."
This is of course, complete nonsense. Taubes, for his part has gone on to blame sugar, specifically, and tout a ketogenic diet in his latest book. It's almost as though he's now chasing the latest diet grift, when back in the day he created it (well, re-invented it. Low carb diets are not a new phenomenon. They work the way they always did, by causing people to spontaneously cut calories).
Hall doesn't believe is going by feelings, he actually brought subjects to a metabolic ward and tested the hypothesis. And insulin is still not the driver for weight loss. The energy balance controls all. It may not be easy to adjust your balance, but it is possible.
This is the most recent evidence (Warning, that link is to X/Twitter Here is the link to the actual response article.) that Hall's results have seriously gotten stuck in low carb and keto craws. Hall's Twitter thread summarizes the article. Basically, researchers on Team Taubes tried to reanalyze and disprove the results from Hall's seminal paper— using a reanalysis that Hall's group did and published— and failed miserably.
The carbohydrate insulin model (CIM) is (at best) a subset of the energy balance. It is not the controlling aspect. Low carb diets (even keto diets) work because people eat fewer calories overall.
This is the article that the Taubesians tried to use against Hall's work disproving the CIM. The link is to a preprint, because the article is still in the reviewing process and hasn't bee printed yet. This (from an outside perspective) is a case of no good deed going unpunished. Hall et al. retested their data in response to criticisms, but all the CIM adherents saw was a chance to hoist them on their own petard. Which they then screwed up by not doing a complete analysis AND using data that the participants did not give permission to be used. But that's an outsiders view that may well be incorrect— or it may just reflect my own biases. I am not a Gary Taubes fan. I think he's done a lot of damage to nutrition.
Please note that the links in this article were live as of publication. They may or may not be live in future.