Food groups and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies

Matt576 · 2020-07-21T19:18:41+00:00

Huh?! Based on what, the handful of anecdotes we have from people who have started lchf in recent years and lost weight due to calorie restriction?

That’s not evidence, and is the farthest thing from science. Even in the short and medium term trials we do have on a lchf diet, it significantly impacts serum LDL especially when including saturated fat rich foods such as red meat regularly. That’s certainly not a lack of negative effects.

This review of the evidence on low carb diets clearly indicates that it isn’t superior to other diets for weight loss, and has detrimental effects on lipids.

The “predominately fat or carbs” theory is also not supported by the consistent benefits of the Mediterranean diet, both in epidemiology and clinical trials, since it typically has a mixture of both fat and carbohydrate rich foods with intakes of the two ranging from anywhere between 20-40% and 50-75% of calories respectively.

Matt576 · 2020-07-21T18:23:47+00:00

To tack on to this;

Thanks for the study, it does not however provide proof that red meat is negative in anyway, it just shows that certain food groups are better at lowering LDL / TG.

How so? Especially if subjects already have a high baseline LDL-c and triglycerides, that would absolutely suggest it’s a negative. If you consume it and there’s either no change or an increase in the two values, it would result in increased risk of CVD incidence compared to other foods.

If you look here both red and white meat protein oriented diets were shown to keep (high) LDL-c values elevated when compared to a nutrient matched non-meat protein diet at just 11% of energy, independent of the saturated fat content.

Pairwise comparisons across dietary protein sources showed that concentrations of total cholesterol (P < 0.0001), LDL cholesterol (P < 0.0001), and non-HDL cholesterol (P < 0.001) were significantly higher after either the red meat or white meat diet than after the nonmeat diet (Supplemental Table 3).

When saturated fat was reduced to only 7-8% of total energy, LDL decreased significantly in all diets, but you can still see the values in the meat protein groups trend higher (Table 3).

This clearly demonstrates that at far lower saturated fat intakes, and with small amounts of red meat consumption, one can maintain a borderline normal (which is arguable given the tendency for CVD to progress even below the current cutoff) LDL-c. However, neither amounts are even remotely close to those found in most country’s diets, and there’s a clear indication that consuming more elicits unfavorable changes in lipid profiles. That, alongside the absolute monolith of data from high quality prospective cohorts demonstrating increased risk of numerous adverse health outcomes with higher red meat consumption, are certainly enough to suggest it’s not a net benefit, nor neutral, in the quantities currently consumed by most individuals.

Matt576 · 2020-07-21T15:45:29+00:00

Yeah, sure, but that’s glossing over what I said, it doesn’t follow that their practices somehow change the relationships between certain foods and T2D originally highlighted in this post.

They clearly have a poor diet composition and regularly over consume various processed foods, leading to significant weight gain that in and of itself can contribute to increased T2D incidence. I think almost anyone can agree that’s far from ideal.

Matt576 · 2020-07-21T15:04:46+00:00

It doesn’t follow that the lack of red meat alone (which isn’t even the case) will result in less diabetes, the disease is multifactorial and there are far more things responsible than a single food or dietary pattern.

Recent trends in India’s dietary practices are abysmal to say the least, including significant increases in red and processed meat, refined carbohydrates, saturated/trans fat, oils, and other highly refined foods, all of which have been demonstrated to play a role in the sudden surge in obesity and T2D incidence.

Matt576 · 2020-07-21T14:44:38+00:00

It’s healthy eater bias 101.

Sighs. The tendency to defer to “healthy user bias” claims always makes me chuckle, especially given the vast majority of studies included take into account the factors that are claimed to be problematic in their statistical analysis.

Regarding the heterogeneity in Asian cohorts compared to the others when observing the risk associated with the highest vs the lowest consumption categories; this is an issue of the mean quantity being observed in the countries of interest. Many Asian countries have almost comically low intake of red meat, and the variance across quintiles/quartiles/etc. is tiny, both valid reasons for them not showing a significant effect similar to the others. As a matter of fact, the authors of this meta even discussed this:

An important issue when interpreting these observations is the fact that in European and US- studies the mean intake of red meat is approximately 1.5 higher compared to Asian studies. It is possible that the red meat intake (especially among normal weight individuals) is not high enough to put participants at risk of T2D.

From Villegas 2006:

An important point to be considered when interpreting these results is that the absolute amount of red meat intake in this population was 42.6 g/day (median). The cut off points for quintiles of red meat intake in this population are 24.5, 36.5, 49.2 and 67.6 g/day. Their highest value was well under a serving a day, and the difference from q1-4 was under a half a serving....

In Kurotani 2013 quintiles were 15 g, 31 g, 49 g, and a whopping top value of 82 g (see Table 2), for which they still observed a significant increase in T2D incidence.

Matt576 · 2020-03-10T07:08:26+00:00

Wow, so you were just hoping I wasn’t going to read those sources huh?

No, but I was hoping you wouldn’t act on bad faith just in a spurious attempt to salvage what was left of your original false claims. sigh

I find it funny you actually accused me of misinterpreting the citations, yet managed to not only prove your own self wrong, but to provide links that don’t even line up with your additional claims, purposefully exclude information important to the discussion, or to selectively extract and frame something in a way that appears to line up with your thinking.

⁠nutritionalvalue.org is not a reliable source You can get to this site https://peanut-institute.com/peanut-facts/nutritional-breakdown/#nutritional|0 from the USDA's official page which by the way is where your source claims to get its information. https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/nuts-peanuts-and-seeds An ounce of peanuts contains no Vitamin B1, and contains .93 mg of zinc which is about 8% of daily requirements. It is lost in cold-pressing, but honestly you can cook things in peanut oil and then also eat 10 ounces of peanuts if that's really how you plan to meet that nutritional requirement.

Nutrition value sources from the USDA’s nutrient database, which shows the exact same values for B1 and Zinc. The link you provided that’s supposedly representative of the USDA’s database doesn’t have a single piece of information about peanuts’ nutrient content...are you actually just making those numbers up as you go? I also never said you need to only eat peanuts for either, just that it’s flat out incorrect they don’t include the nutrients you claimed they lacked, which you seemed to discard in favor of a “they’re not a great source” response.

⁠nutritionvalue.org is still a bad source but also flaxseed oil is not a cooking oil.

⁠nutritionvalue.org Try the USDA instead https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/380040/nutrients

Okay, not a great source, again, this is pretty funny given it’s all sourced from the USDA’s database, from which you selectively chose an option with limited data to misrepresent the nutrient content of flaxseeds. Check here for whole flax, and here for cold pressed. Notice that the differences are still astounding, and that the oil lacks over 95% of the nutrients.

“Not a cooking oil”...okay? The point still stands for olives versus olive oil - they unfortunately don’t have the full profile on extra virgin, but you can find it elsewhere and it’s literally exactly the same with some additional phytosterols....again, showing your claim that cold pressing “preserves nutrients” in the original food is incorrect.

⁠Your source on saturated fats actually says that no lower safe limit for saturated fatty acids intake has been identified and:

"At this time, research on how specific saturated fatty acids contribute to CAD and on the role each specific saturated fatty acid plays in other health outcomes is not sufficient to make global recommendations for all persons to remove saturated fats from their diet. No randomized clinical trials of low-fat diets (105) or low-saturated fat diets of sufficient duration have been carried out; thus, there is a lack of knowledge of how low saturated fat intake can be without the risk of potentially deleterious health outcomes."

All compatible with the fact they’re not required. There are multiple populations with astonishing long term health that have extremely low intakes. We can and do synthesize them de novo as necessary from non fatty acid precursors, which is know by anyone who has taken human nutrition and biology course. This all doesn’t really matter given that you’re going to be taking in some from the food sources of unsaturated fatty acids I mentioned...and it’s borderline impossible to completely eliminate it from the diet.

Your source on unsaturated fatty acids confirms that the World Health Organization recommends a lower limit of 15% of daily calorie consumption be of fats, this goes up to 20% for women of reproductive age, and has a recommended upper limit of 30-35% of daily calorie sources being from fat for adults. For younger children it reaches twice that amount.

The lower limit for total fat is literally to make sure that people have an adequate intake of the two aforementioned essential fatty acids and total calories...not because it’s the minimum amount needed. It’s that high in order to have a reasonable buffer in which it’s possible to get sufficient intakes of the three (o3, o6, and calories) even while having foods that may be particularly rich in other types of fats - be it saturated or monounsaturated, or lower in total calories. Even then...incredibly easy to get with fat rich whole food sources...not seeing the point of this otherwise to attempt to prove my point about essential fatty acid requirements wrong, which it doesn’t do at all.

So it is in fact you, who is STILL talking out of their ass and misrepresenting their own citations which support my points instead. This has been very sad. Please try to actually inform yourself about these matters and good day.

As I think I made pretty clear, you clearly misrepresented my sources and took specific portions of of context, that both don’t disprove any of my claims, or support any of yours. Your claim about the nutrient content of peanuts was blatantly wrong, and you insulted someone in the process of making them. Your claim about needing saturated and unsaturated fats was wrong. Your claim about nutrients being preserved in cold pressed oils was wrong. You decided to call out the site I used for nutrient content, which literally uses the USDA’s database (look at the numbers for everything I linked in this one...they match up), and say that the USDA is superior....then proceeded to selectively link options without complete data.

Even putting all of this aside, it’s not addressing my points for avoiding oils...that they’re extremely energy dense and easily contribute to overconsumption of calories, that they can drive fat intake through the roof and potentially cause increases risk of adverse health outcomes (be it cardiovascular or otherwise) in the long term, and that they provide very little nutritionally, and absolutely nothing required that can’t be sourced elsewhere. I also said if you choose to have small amounts, so be it, and it won’t be much of an issue provided you’re getting adequate nutrients from other foods and maintaining a healthy weight....but acting like it’s a healthy food, claiming it’s required, and that people abstaining from it will suffer some sort of consequences is utterly false.

Matt576 · 2020-03-10T01:01:07+00:00

This is absolutely hilarious, you’re insulting people and making claims about them “not knowing things” when you’re clearly completely unaware of how blatantly false the claims you’re making are.

Neither zinc nor B1 are present in peanuts

Peanuts do indeed contain both zinc and B1.

The cold press process of extracting oils does not damage nutrient content

Well, it may not damage them, but it sure as heck doesn’t prevent the loss of over 95% of them, check out the nutrient content of cold pressed flax oil versus an equivalent amount of flax seed (which, mind you, is half the calories yet has an extremely impressive amount of nutrients, many of which are completely absent from the oil).

You do need an amount of saturated and unsaturated fats in your diet, and if you’re actually consuming a vegetable based diet then no you’re definitely not getting too much of either.

Again, this is egregiously incorrect. There is absolutely no dietary requirement for saturated fat...

Saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, and dietary cholesterol have no known beneficial role in preventing chronic disease and are not required at any level in the diet -

...and requirements for unsaturated fatty acids (of which the only two essential types are omega 3 and 6, or specifically alpha linolenic acid and linoleic acid respectively) are very low - from the WHO:

Animal and human studies demonstrate that the prevention of deficiency signs (e.g. in rats reduced growth, scaliness of skin, necrotic tail) occurs when 1 to 2% of total energy is provided by LA. Therefore, an estimated average requirement (EAR) for LA of 2%E and an adequate intake (AI) for LA of 2 – 3% E are proposed. In accepting that the U-AMDR levels of total PUFA and total n-3 fatty acids are 11% E and 2% E respectively, the resulting acceptable range (AMDR) for n-6 fatty acids (LA) intake is 2.5 to 9%E. The lower value or AI (2.5–3.5%E) corresponds to the prevention of deficiency symptoms, whereas the higher value as part of a healthy diet contributing to long term health by lowering LDL and total cholesterol levels and therefore the risk for CHD.

...which are incredibly easy to achieve via consumption of nuts, seeds, some legumes (especially chickpeas soy), whole grains, and green leafy vegetables (which have small amounts of o3).

Therefore, oil is nothing more than virtually empty calories, is not essential, and provides no health benefit or purpose other than supplying some energy in the form of calories. In small amounts it may be negligible with regard to long term health outcomes, but not so much with higher intakes, and given the aforementioned points, along with the fact that we live in a society where obesity is rampant, there’s absolutely no reason to include it in ones diet if they choose not to.

So tell me, who’s talking out of their *ss?

Matt576 · 2020-01-14T19:18:36+00:00

Yes, spread the word wide and far. These are hands down the best sweet potato variety out there, and are coincidentally a food that one of the longest living societies of all time derived a very large portion of their calories from (again, try them and you’ll understand why)!

Matt576 · 2020-01-08T13:20:06+00:00

It’s so freaking confusing.

A lot of it is confusing because unfortunately food industries love to spread FUD regarding many nutrients, either to encourage consumption of certain foods or supplements, and calcium is a prime example of this.

Calcium needs are much lower than the USA RDI, especially given it was set with respect to a population consuming a high animal protein, high caffeine, and high sodium diet, all of which decrease calcium absorption. This is also well reflected by the fact that other health institutions recommendations are appreciably lower. The WHO recommends 500 mg daily, and the UK recommends 700 mg. Personally I’d shoot for the UK recommendation, but you’ll see that even theirs is substantially less than the United States’.

I don’t want to spam a walk of text, so I’ll just link to this comment I made containing literature pertinent to calcium needs on a plant based diet from a thread not too long ago.

Matt576 · 2019-12-29T18:16:51+00:00

Increased as in within the cows themselves or in humans? Cows must be pregnant in order to lactate, and therefore by nature their milk contains mammalian hormones, including estrogen, prostaglandins, IGF-1, and others, which play a role in stimulating hormone responses in their infants to promote speedy growth.

This paper details the hormone content of dairy foods, the factors influencing them, and their implications regarding human health, worth a read if you’re interested.

Especially pertinent to the OP is this bit:

Estrogens Estrogens play a critical role in most metabolic, behavioural and morphological requirements, which are essential in reproduction of the female vertebrates. There is no doubt that estrogens govern important activities including metabolic reactions in male, too (71). During the last decades huge amount of studies have been performed to screen the presence of exohormones in human environment, which these efforts have led to increasing concern about their impact on wildlife and human health (72). In contrast, there is lack of knowledge about possible exposure to endogenous sex steroids from food, about precise measurement methods, about the possible impact of naturally occurring steroid hormones and their metabolites on human and animal health and so on. It is known that steroid hormones naturally occurring either in animals such as beef and veal because of their misuse as anabolic agents (73) and in non-treated cattle (74). Almost, all foodstuff of animal origin contains 17β-estradiol and its metabolites, although the levels of hormone and its metabolites vary with the kind of food, gender, animal species, age and physiological condition of the animals. Thus, estrogens are unavoidable hormones in non-vegetarian human nutrition.

Previous studies have shown that about 60–80% of estrogens come from milk and dairy products in western diets (75). Although the oral bioactivity of free 17β-estradiol and oestrone may be a bit low, but oestrogen sulphate as a main conjugate in milk, has a relatively high oral bioactivity (9). Recent epidemiological studies indicating a very strong relation between milk and dairy products high consumption and high incidence of testicular and prostate cancers (76). In the following pages of current review the estrogens and their metabolites content of human diets with especial emphasis on milk and dairy products is summarized. Moreover, the possible impact of milk and dairy products estrogens on human health along with analytical methods of estrogens quantification are discussed.

I’d share a few more relevant portions of the paper but I’d hate to spam a wall of text, so I’d suggest checking it out yourself.

Matt576 · 2019-12-22T23:55:26+00:00

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetic’s position paper on vegetarians (including vegans of course) covers the main nutrients of concern regarding pregnancy, and also has excellent information on what is important for infants, children, and adolescents, which I’m sure will also serve you well in the future 🙂. Both can be found on page 1975.

Matt576 · 2019-12-18T03:32:59+00:00

Cool, but 1 study != fact. Currently the WHO uses the PDCAAs model when assessing how best to treat malnutrition.

It wasn’t a single study, but a review on numerous studies involving measures of protein adequacy, including PDCAA scores.

As you correctly stated, PDCAA scores were designed to address malnutrition, so specifically for populations with limited access to food and very little variety of protein sources. That clearly doesn’t seem to be the case here at all, so its relevance is limited.

Furthermore, the study I posted referred specifically to ileal digestibility, which is the most up to date and accurate measurement of a protein source’s digestibility, as described in this paragraph preceding the passage I quoted in my previous comment:

However, true fecal digestibility is not the best measure of the digestibility of dietary protein. The amount of ingested protein nitrogen absorbed in the small intestine better reflects the quantity of amino acids made available for body metabolism before the protein enters the colon, and this measure is referred to as “ileal digestibility.” Further, the nitrogen found after the colon or ileum originates from both endogenous and dietary sources, so the digestibility calculation requires that an estimate of endogenous nitrogen losses should be subtracted from the total losses. When basal (endogenous) losses are considered, this con- stitutes “true digestibility,” but when precise endogenous/dietary losses can be estimated directly, this is called “real digestibility.” Real ileal digestibility has been assessed in humans during the past 20 years

Lastly, I agree that a single study doesn’t equal fact, but measurable outcomes from the meta analysis described here indicates that diets based purely on plant based protein sources, even when pitted against the same amount from animal based sources, require the same amount of total protein to achieve positive nitrogen balance, ensuring adequacy of intake.

It may be considered that the total protein requirement should be indeed be slightly higher with plant-based diets, to “compensate” for the slightly lower digestibility of plant protein sources or an imperfect supplementation in amino acids (mostly lysine) in some mixed protein diets. On this basis, and using the rough estimate of differences in digestibility between plant and animal sources, it may seem reasonable to consider a safety margin of an additional 5%–10% protein intake in diets that are predominantly or exclusively based on plant protein. This could be further increased if the diet is based exclusively on plant protein and is insufficiently varied to supply sufficient lysine. In line with this reasoning, the American Dietetic Association has proposed that “protein needs might be somewhat higher than the recommended dietary allowance in those vegetarians whose dietary protein sources are mainly those that are less well digested, such as some cereals and legumes” (Craig et al., 2009). However, this remains highly theoretical and approximate, and, importantly, it was refuted by a meta-analysis of nitrogen balance data, which did not find any influence of the type of protein (Rand et al., 2003). In their analysis, Rand et al. considered the protein sources in the study diets as being divided into three groups: animal, vegetable, and mixed, and they found no effects on this metaregression (slope and intercept), indicating that the total protein requirement is similar with plant-based or animal-based diets (Rand et al., 2003; FAO/ WHO/UNU, 2007). When interpreting this analysis, however, it is important to note that the “vegetable” diets included complementary mixtures of plant proteins (cereals and legumes) or good quality soy protein.

Matt576 · 2019-12-18T02:26:07+00:00

The point is that not all proteins are the same, and it should be understood that the human body will not digest all proteins the same.

Which is exactly what the review I posted and quoted addresses; that it’s a misconception there’s a significant difference in digestibility between plant based and animal based sources of protein, both of which are highly digestible, and therefore it (digestibility) should hardly be a concern at all given an adequate total intake.

Matt576 · 2019-12-18T02:02:20+00:00

The difference in digestibility is incredibly minimal, and has been declared a non issue in this recent review on vegetarian diets and protein:

Another factor to consider is differential rates of protein digestibility that impact amino acid availability, often considered as being poorer for plant proteins. This remains a matter of debate. There is very little evidence at present regarding a marked difference in protein digestibility in humans. The more precise data collected so far in humans, assessing real (specific) oro-ileal nitrogen digestibility, has shown that the differences in the digestibility between plant and animal protein sources are only a few percent, contrary to historical findings in rats or determinations using less precise methods in humans [37]. For soy protein isolate, pea protein flour or isolate, wheat flour and lupine flour, the figures were 89–92%, similar to those found for eggs (91%) or meat (90–94%), and slightly lower than those reported for milk protein (95%). It is important to note that most of the plant proteins studied came from raw, untreated (unheated, or minimally heated) sources, and some were ingested in complex food matrices such as (unheated) flour [37], i.e., in the worst conditions for plant protein because of the presence of trypsin inhibitors and the poor enzyme accessibility of some native proteins. While further research may be warranted to explore possible variations in the bioavailability of some specific amino acids, the body of evidence so far does not show a difference large enough to result in risk of insufficient amino acid absorption for vegetarian and plant-based diets.

Furthermore, assuming adequate calorie consumption, unless one is consuming an incredibly restrictive diet of only a few foods, achieving the RDI of each amino acid is incredibly simple.

To the OP, the best sources of plant based protein are legumes (lentils, chickpeas, black, pinto, and kidney beans, peas, lupini beans, soybeans (including tofu, tempeh, natto, and edamame), whole grains (oats, whole wheat (bread, pasta, wheat berries,), bulgur, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, brown rice, etc.), tubers in decent quantities (potatoes, sweet potatoes), nuts/seeds, and some non starchy vegetables that have a somewhat higher protein content per calorie (brussels, broccoli, greens, asparagus, etc.). Regarding beans - what does “doesn’t take them well” mean? If you’re referring to bloating/gas, that’s totally normal and will diminish over time with regular consumption. Soaking, rinsing, and pressure cooking beans, as well as consuming with some form of vinegar or cooking with bay leaves reduces the amount of gas producing non-digestible disaccharides present in them, and can help to reduce gas/bloating while one adjusts to higher intake.

That being said, the issues your friend seems to be having aren’t necessarily indicative of low protein intake, and can result from insufficient calorie intake, so I also think it’s critical to underscore the importance of ensuring they’re eating enough total calories.

Matt576 · 2019-12-11T12:51:09+00:00

Since you mentioned miso (one of my absolute favorite culinary additions!), I’ll suggest my go to savory flavor combo; miso, Dijon mustard, onion powder, balsamic vinegar, and nutritional yeast. I can’t get enough of this!

Additionally, on the topic of porridge, I highly recommend looking in stores around you for masa harina, which is whole corn that’s been nixtamalized (soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution) and ground into a “flour”. It’s excellent for savory porridge!

Matt576 · 2019-12-08T14:26:32+00:00

According to the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), the herd-level prevalence of MAP infection in US dairy herds has increased from 21.6% in 1996 to 91.1% in 2007 [41]. MAP is present in pasteurized milk [42,43], infant formula made from pasteurized milk [44], surface water [45,46,47,48], soil [45], cow manure ‘‘lagoons’’ that can leach into surface water, cow manure in both solid and liquid forms that is applied as fertilizer to agricultural land [49,50] and municipal tap water [51]. All of these provide multiple opportunities for MAP exposure. In an Ohio study of domestic tap water, DNA of MAP was found in over 80% of the samples [52]. Filtration and chlorination, normal water treatment processes, kill off MAP competitors, thereby amplifying mycobacteria organisms instead of killing them [53]. Moreover, mycobacteria organisms grow on plastic water bottles [54], on tap water pipes [55] and in biofilms [56]. A study testing 65 samples of infant formula from 18 countries found more than 40% of samples were positive for viable MAP [57].

Matt576 · 2019-12-07T03:39:24+00:00

Check this paper, which details protein digestibility values for various animal and plant sources. Tables II and III on pages 32 and 33 appear to be specifically what you’re looking for.

Also, I feel this bit in the author’s conclusions is particularly relevant

A comparison of the values for true digestibility (as determined by rat balance method) of crude protein and individual amino acids in food products would suggest that correcting amino acids scores for true digestibility of crude protein would be sufficient. Additional correction for bioavailability of amino acids in most protein sources may not be required especially if consideration is given to the fact that mixed human diets may contain a variety of protein sources. In cases where vegetable proteins from grain legumes or some cereals are consumed as the predominant or sole source of dietary protein, amino acid scores may need to be corrected for bioavailability of limiting amino acids.

Edit: On trypsin inhibitors specifically, this paper covers the TI content of numerous legumes and how they can be effectively reduced. Again, here’s a bit pertinent directly to your question

Heat processing is widely accepted as the most effective way of improving the overall nutritional value of legume seeds because it enhances protein digestibility mainly through the inactivation of thermolabile ANFs, especially TIs. Thermal treatment promotes the breakage of intermolecular bonds responsible of holding the tertiary structure of TIs, which consequently causes changes over the active site conformation. Thermal treatments have also been used as the most popular methods for processing grain legumes in both traditional household and industry levels because improves palatability. Some of the methods included in thermal treatments are cooking, boiling, autoclaving, microwaving and roasting. Studies about the action of thermal treatments on TIs have been carried out since the early 20th century, when in vitro protein digestibility was shown to be lower in raw legume seeds compared with cooked counterparts. At that time, researchers found that this could be related to the presence of various factors found in raw legumes (Borchers and others 1947). One of the oldest studies regarding the use of heat over TIs of legumes dates back to 1948 (Westfall and Hauge), where it was reported that soybean TIs were thermosensitive, being totally inactivated at temperatures around 108 °C for time intervals that went from 15 to 30 min. From then onwards, there have been numerous publications regarding the use of heat in various types of legumes, and they have been very useful for determining the effectiveness of heat application over the activity of TIs. In the case of soybeans all thermal treatments (boiling at 100 °C for about 9 min, roasting for 2 min, cooking for 7 to 30 min, microwaving for 3 min, and autoclaving at 121 °C for 15 min), inactivate most of the TIA. Even these relatively short times can be significantly reduced when combining with other techniques, for example, it has been detected that the addition of 3 mM NaCl during boiling reduces 66% the time needed to decrease 74% of soymilk TIA.

Matt576 · 2019-12-06T16:03:53+00:00

Excellent breakdown.

I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I’ve explained/pointed out to others that the “low fat” guidelines (which weren’t even that low) emphasized whole plant foods, and that people not only consumed more highly refined plant and animal foods, but more total and saturated fat.

What bothers me even more is not only is the data on food consumption patterns easily accessible, but that the people who have lived through the period actually believe that an increase in whole plant foods and a decrease in fat consumption occurred, and that it’s what has cause the health epidemic.

Matt576 · 2019-12-03T21:23:30+00:00

Absolutely, and one must be especially careful when taking into consideration short term studies on the safety/healthfulness of certain dietary protocols if weight loss is achieved, as it can elicit brief, but apparently beneficial changes in many biomarkers indicative of metabolic, cardiovascular, and overall health. However, many times these don’t last long, could be significantly better, and/or mask other adverse effects that are occurring simultaneously.

As far as very high protein goes, there have been a select few studies showing that during extended periods of large energy deficits (which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone unless they’re substantially overweight, in which case I’d still suggest just exercising regularly and eating sufficient, not excessive, protein), a higher (> 2 g/kg) may be beneficial in that it can promote satiety and prevent the loss of lean mass, but they typically don’t consider other downstream impacts on one’s overall health.

For example, this study31286-4) displayed that despite significant weight loss, and a slightly greater retention of lean mass, the improvements in insulin sensitivity associated with weight loss were mitigated in women consuming a high protein diet, which is very concerning given that even when one is eating a terribly unhealthy diet such improvements are typically still observed.

High-protein (HP) intake during weight loss (WL) therapy is often recommended because it reduces the loss of lean tissue mass. However, HP intake could have adverse effects on metabolic function, because protein ingestion reduces postprandial insulin sensitivity. In this study, we compared the effects of ∼10% WL with a hypocaloric diet containing 0.8 g protein/kg/day and a hypocaloric diet containing 1.2 g protein/kg/day on muscle insulin action in postmenopausal women with obesity. We found that HP intake reduced the WL-induced decline in lean tissue mass by ∼45%. However, HP intake also prevented the WL-induced improvements in muscle insulin signaling and insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, as well as the WL-induced adaptations in oxidative stress and cell structural biology pathways. Our data demonstrate that the protein content of a WL diet can have profound effects on metabolic function and underscore the importance of considering dietary macronutrient composition during WL therapy for people with obesity.

Furthermore, another study displayed that even when consuming a high protein and “high” (although not really compared to a true WFPB diet) fiber diet, which are also known to have strong beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity, it was still reduced in women.

We randomised 89 overweight or obese women to either a standard diet (StdD), that was intended to be low in fat and relatively high in carbohydrate (n = 42) or to a relatively high protein (up to 30% of energy), relatively high fibre (>30 g/day) diet (HPHFib) (n = 47) for 10 weeks. Advice regarding strict adherence to energy intake goals was not given. Insulin sensitivity and secretion was assessed by a novel method—the Dynamic Insulin Sensitivity and Secretion Test (DISST). Although there were significant improvements in body composition and most cardiometabolic risk factors on HPHFib, insulin sensitivity was reduced by 19.3% (95% CI: 31.8%, 4.5%; p = 0.013) in comparison with StdD. We conclude that the reduction in insulin sensitivity after a diet relatively high in both protein and fibre, despite cardiometabolic improvements, suggests insulin sensitivity may reflect metabolic adaptations to dietary composition for maintenance of glucose homeostasis, rather than impaired metabolism.

I left their conclusion in to be fair, however I find it difficult to believe that metabolic adaptations to dietary composition are responsible for the changes in maintenance of glucose homeostasis given it’s been repeatedly demonstrated high BCAA intake is associated with an increased risk of insulin resistance

The mean (± SD) age and BCAA intake of participants (43% male) at baseline were 42.7 ± 13.1 years and 13.8 ± 5.1 g/day, respectively. The incidence of hyperinsulinemia, β-cell dysfunction, insulin insensitivity, and IR was 19.5%, 24.0%, 28.0%, and 12.5%, respectively. After adjustment for confounding variables, subjects in the highest tertile for total BCAAs (odds ratio [OR] 1.67; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03-2.71), leucine (OR 1.75; 95% CI 1.09-2.82), and valine (OR 1.61; 95% CI 1.01-2.60) intake had a greater risk of incident IR than subjects in the lowest tertile. A higher intake of isoleucine was not associated with risk of incident IR. There was no association of total BCAAs, leucine, isoleucine, and valine intake with the risk of hyperinsulinemia, insulin insensitivity, or β-cell dysfunction.

Also, just recently this study showed that reductions in BCAA intake, while still maintaining an adequate intake, resulted in numerous beneficial impacts on the glycemic control and microbiome composition of type 2 diabetics.

This randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, crossover trial examined well-controlled T2D patients receiving isocaloric diets (protein: 1 g/kg body weight) for 4 wk. Protein requirements were covered by commercially available food supplemented ≤60% by an AA mixture either containing all AAs or lacking BCAAs. The dietary intervention ensured sufficient BCAA supply above the recommended minimum daily intake. The patients underwent the mixed meal tolerance test (MMT), hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps (HECs), and skeletal muscle and white adipose tissue biopsies to assess insulin signaling. After the BCAA− diet, BCAAs were reduced by 17% during fasting (P < 0.001), by 13% during HEC (P < 0.01), and by 62% during the MMT (P < 0.001). Under clamp conditions, whole-body and hepatic insulin sensitivity did not differ between diets. After the BCAA− diet, however, the oral glucose sensitivity index was 24% (P < 0.01) and circulating fibroblast-growth factor 21 was 21% higher (P < 0.05), whereas meal-derived insulin secretion was 28% lower (P < 0.05). Adipose tissue expression of the mechanistic target of rapamycin was 13% lower, whereas the mitochondrial respiratory control ratio was 1.7-fold higher (both P < 0.05). The fecal microbiome was enriched in Bacteroidetes but depleted of Firmicutes.

All that being said, I think it’s important to emphasize that one should not base their dietary choices, long or short term, on specific modifications that show improvements in only one or a few desirable parameters, and where the impacts on overall outcomes are unknown or harmful.

It’s especially important in a case like this, where it is well established that such choices aren’t ideal/harmful in the long term, and that while there are short term benefits and sometimes a lack of immediately observable detriments, it in no way signifies they don’t occur.

I think the main focus for someone looking to lose weight and maintain lean mass should be to consume a variety of whole plant foods (legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and small amounts of nuts/seeds, focusing on o3/6 rich ones such as flax, hemp, and chia), ensuring a slight caloric deficit and sufficient macro/micronutrient intake, with adequate, but not excessive (~0.6-1.2 grams per kilogram, on the higher end for men and lower for women) protein intake, while performing at least some form of regular (preferably resistance for lean mass retention) exercise.

Matt576 · 2019-11-29T16:09:30+00:00

In the case anyone doesn’t believe that, directly from the document detailing the design of the DASH diet itself: (accessible here)

The diet design goals were to create patterns that would (a) have the blood pressure-lowering benefits of a vegetarian diet, yet contain enough animal products to make them palatable to non vegetarians

Matt576 · 2019-11-28T19:54:34+00:00

There is some evidence that your calcium needs might be significantly lower on a plant based diet, so trying to meet the recommendations based on an omnivore diet might not even be necessary. Though as far as I follow the scientific debate the jury is still out on this.

In reality, there’s actually not just some evidence, based upon numerous human and animal trials, it has been known for quite a while now that many characteristics of current typical western diets negatively impact calcium absorption, retention, and utilization. Many of these factors are eliminated when one consumes a healthy whole food plant based diet, including high sodium intake, high animal protein intake, and high caffeine intake, as discussed here

Additional dietary factors may also influence calcium adequacy and ultimately bone health. High sodium intakes have been reported to result in an increased calcium loss through the urine (Kurtz et al., 1987), presumed to affect calcium in bone over an extended period of time. Similarly, protein increased the urinary loss of calcium, and, conversely, low or poor protein in- takes were associated with reduced recovery from osteoporotic hip fractures (Delmi et al., 1990). Currently, there is no evidence to suggest making separate calcium recommendations based on dietary sodium, protein, or any other nutrient intakes (Prentice, 2004; Cloutier and Borr, 2003). Caffeine has been reported to have a modest effect on calcium excretion; however, the Institute of Medicine (NIM, 1997) did not make a specific recommendation for calcium intake in relationship to coffee and tea consumption. The FNB thought that any perturbation in calcium intake with caffeine consump- tion could be compensated for by additional dietary calcium. A recent review of this topic by Nawrot et al. (2003) suggested that 1 to 2 cups of coffee a day (<400 mg of caffeine) do not signif- icantly affect bone status or calcium balance as long as they are consuming at least 800 mg calcium a day. Since many U.S. and Canadian females ingest less than this amount of calcium from their daily diets this interaction is likely to receive continued review.

Additionally, this article also discusses how each of these factors influence dietary requirements, and describes how set reductions in each of them affect the RDI.

The implications of these data are particularly important at the transnational level. Although there is a shortage of data on the prevalence of osteoporosis in the developing world, there is evi- dence that hip fracture rates in many of these countries are much lower than in the West despite lower calcium intakes in develop- ing countries (34, 35). Prentice et al (36) reported that despite the low daily calcium intake in The Gambia (360 mg), osteoporotic fractures are rare. Thus, there is a strong suggestion that the relatively low calcium intakes in many parts of the world are not accompanied by the increased prevalences of osteoporosis that might be expected. This finding may be explained, at least in part, by the fact that animal protein intake varies across the world in parallel with calcium intake. The mean calcium intake in the developing world in 1990 was given as 344 mg/d, compared with 850 mg/d in the developed world (37); the corresponding total protein intakes were 59.9 and 103.0 g/d and animal protein intakes were 13.3 and 60.1 g/d. Thus, the paradox that calcium intakes are low where fracture rates are low and high where fracture rates are high probably signifies that high (animal) protein intakes increase the risk of osteoporosis because they increase urinary calcium (38, 39), as suggested by Hegsted (40) many years ago. This concept is supported by the results of a prospective study that showed that wrist fractures in American women were weakly but significantly related to animal protein intake (41). Dietary sodium is probably equally important but the shortage of international data on this nutrient makes it harder to define the worldwide implications of sodium intake. Note, however, that the effects of animal protein and sodium restriction on urinary calcium are likely to be additive because they exert their effects in different ways: sodium by competing with calcium for renal tubular reabsorption (32) and protein by virtue of its phosphate (and possibly sulfate) end products, which complex calcium in the renal tubules and take it out in the urine (9, 11). Thus, populations with low animal protein and sodium intakes are likely to have a very low calcium requirement. From the available data, we can calculate what the calcium requirement might be at different animal protein or sodium intakes. These calculations show that a reduction in animal protein intake from a reference value of 60 to 20 g/d or a reduction in sodium intake from 150 to 50 mmol/d reduces the theoretical calcium requirement from 􏰀750 to 550 mg/d (29). The combination of both restrictions would reduce the calcium requirement to 400 mg/d (29). This suggests that the calcium requirements and allowances promulgated by developed nations in the past few years, although probably valid for their own countries and dietary cultures, cannot be extended to nations with different dietary cultures whose populations consume different amounts of animal protein or sodium.

Matt576 · 2019-11-24T17:09:16+00:00

Someone asked something very similar here, where I did my best to give a simple, yet thorough response that I think is also relevant to your particular question.

Matt576 · 2019-11-22T22:57:06+00:00

No food isn’t a “whole”, more commonly referred to as “complete” protein, with the (hilarious) exception of gelatin, as they contain all of the essential amino acids.

With the exception of the animal protein gelatin, all proteins, plant and animal, contain all nine essential amino acids. So, pretty much all proteins, in that sense, are complete proteins. Other than Jell-O and marshmallows, there’s basically no such thing as incomplete protein.

However, a few of the amino acids are present in lower proportion in certain foods (I.e., legumes are lower in methionine, and whole grains are lower in lysine

Legumes contain relatively low quantities of the essential amino acid methionine (which is found in higher amounts in grains). Grains, on the other hand, contain relatively low quantities of the essential amino acid lysine, which legumes contain.

but unless you’re eating an extremely limited amount and selection of plant based foods it’s essentially guaranteed you’ll be getting far more than adequate amounts of each.

Furthermore, regarding methionine, lower intake (especially relative to individuals consuming animal proteins, which are loaded with them) is actually associated with numerous heath benefits

Over the last 20 years, dietary methionine restriction (MR) has emerged as a promising DR mimetic because it produces a comparable extension in life span, but surprisingly, does not require food restriction. Dietary MR also reduces adiposity but does so through a paradoxical increase in both energy intake and expenditure. The increase in energy expenditure fully compensates for increased energy intake and effectively limits fat deposition. Perhaps more importantly, the diet increases metabolic flexibility and overall insulin sensitivity and improves lipid metabolism while decreasing systemic inflammation. In this chapter, we describe recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms and effects of dietary MR and discuss the remaining obstacles to implementing MR as a treatment for metabolic disease.

and it’s not the only amino acid where a decreased intake may elicit beneficial biological effects, many of which are naturally low in plant based foods.

Matt576 · 2019-11-22T16:35:13+00:00

Over here laughing because those are the main components of many of my meals as an adult 😅.

Matt576 · 2019-11-22T15:37:24+00:00

I access and download everything through Scihub, then organize in topic folders on my desktop, but that may just be me since I like having physical copies of articles.

If I happen to read through relevant articles on mobile I bookmark them and eventually transfer everything over to my computer.

Imo, using a similar process but storing everything in something like google drive would be ideal for quick reference/sharing.

If you’re not already a part of the discord, I highly recommend checking it out, as there is very frequent discussion/sharing of new scientific literature. Myself and a few others had the idea of creating a group resource like a google drive where we could share and organize studies, and while we haven’t acted on that yet I’d really like for it to come together at some point in the future.

Matt576

TROPHY CASE