A recently published article in Pediatrics titled “Self-Reported Energy Intake by Age in Overweight and Healthy-Weight Children in NHANES, 2001–2008” reported some rather startling findings. They used questionnaires to monitor the food intake of children from ages 1 to 17. They concluded: “young obese/overweight children reported consuming significantly more calories and obese/overweight adolescents reported consuming fewer calories than their same-age healthy-weight peers.” In other words fat, older kids ate less than there normal sized peers. How is this possible when everyone knows that calories drive weight gain?

There could be several explanations for these findings. Food questionnaires tend to underestimate food consumption, especially in people who are obese. When I sent this paper to Dr. Robert Lustig, the anti-sugar crusader and childhood obesity expert, he dismissed the paper because it was based on food questionnaires. In this study they used the USDA Automated Multiple-Pass Method (AMPM). The AMPM is a computerized method for collecting interview-administered 24-hour dietary recalls. It employs 5 steps to enhance complete and accurate food recall. Although the AMPM has been shown to be more accurate in adults than previous food questionnaires, this is the first large study where it was used in children.

So are obese adolescents really eating less food than their normal weight peers or are they simply not reporting all the food they ate? Although the final answer isn’t in, I suspect that some obese kids are in fact eating less food compared with their normal weight peers. The excessive fat storage associated with obesity is a very complex biological process. We now know that it’s not just a matter of a balance between calories consumed and calories burned. All organisms store excessive fat for a reason, and the logic for this fat storage is likely buried deep in our evolutionary history. Appetite control and how we store fat are controlled by complex dance between opposing hormones such as insulin, leptin and other hormones. Our brain talks to our gut and our gut talks to our brain. Based on this complex communication our body decides how to use the energy that we consume—for fat storage, tissue repair or basic metabolic needs.

In Dr. Richard Johnson’s new book “The Fat Switch”, he outlines a model where excessive fructose seems to trigger a fat storage switch. Excessive fructose stimulates the production of the stress hormone cortisol, and it is well established that excessive cortisol leads to central obesity. Fructose is also converted to triglycerides that fill the liver with fat, leading to a condition called insulin resistance. In addition, excessive fructose increases levels of uric acid and in nature rising uric acid levels reflect environmental stress and starvation, signaling to the organism that it’s time to store fat. Excessive fructose also depletes cells of ATP, the primary energy source for all the cells in your body. So too much fructose makes you fat and tired. If you eat a lot of food in this metabolic state, you will certainly store more fat. If you eat less food you will still be storing extra fat, but not as much. Thus although excessive calories can make obesity worse, too many calories are not the cause of obesity.

During our evolutionary history excessive fructose wasn’t an issue because we consumed a modest amount of fructose from seasonal fruits and an occasional treat of honey. Now most of our fructose comes from sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Over the past 30 years average daily consumption of fructose has increased from 37 grams to 55 grams per day. That compares with an average of 15 grams of fructose per day in 1900. We really like our sugar!

In metabolically healthy people, consumption of carbohydrates doesn’t seem to lead to metabolic or health problems. When you have insulin resistance from consuming too much fructose, high glycemic carbohydrates, especially those from grains, do seem to play a role in obesity, metabolic problems and brain disorders. A recent study in the journal Pediatrics showed that adolescents with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance seem to have brain dysfunction and structural changes in their brains.  So the take-home message seems to be that foods containing sugar, HFCS, and grain based carbohydrates—typical modern processed food, make you fat, moody and dumb—not a pretty picture. We also believe that these dietary elements can trigger a form of food-induced brain dysfunction called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. People with CARB syndrome can develop up to 22 brain dysfunction symptoms that interfere with their ability to function in multiple settings.

Another recent article in the journal Nature showed the rhesus monkeys don’t live any longer on a calorie restricted diet than those who ate a normal amount of food. Calorie restriction has been the holly grail of the anti-aging crowd and this study suggests that they have been depriving themselves for no good reason. When you examine this study carefully, it is apparent that both groups of monkeys were fed standard monkey chow, loaded with grains and added sugars. Thus monkey chow is similar to the typical American diet of processed foods. If you want to study the effects of calorie restriction in monkey’s or humans, you need to start by feeding them a diet that reflects their evolutionary eating patterns.

To me it really doesn’t matter whether obese adolescents eat more than their normal weight peers. I want to know what they were eating, not how much they were eating. I would also like to know something about their moods and cognitive functioning. I don’t care about size or weight. I do care about abnormal metabolic markers and brain dysfunction symptoms. When you have CARB syndrome, your metabolism and brain both take a hit. You become prone to a long list of serious medical problems and your quality of life plummets because your brain isn’t working as intended.

That’s why I really don’t care about calories. Calories consumed tell you very little about a person’s health status. I want to know exactly what someone is eating, especially when it comes to fructose consumption. If you value your health and brain, keep your fructose intake below 25 grams daily—about the amount in 3 apples. Reduce your intake of high glycemic carbohydrates, especially from grains. Don’t be afraid of healthy fats like omega 3 fats, olive oil and coconut oil. The healthiest diet for your metabolism and brain appears to be a low carbohydrate, moderate protein, high fat diet, almost the exact opposite of our current government recommendations when it comes to diet composition. If you want to learn more about the health benefits of a high fat diet, I recommend that you read Jimmy Moore’s series of blog posts “N = 1” at:

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/n1

Take the time to move beyond the standard nutritional advice promoted by our government, food and agricultural industries. They seem to have their own agenda that his little to do with your health. It’s is important that you do your own research when it comes to diet and nutrition, so you can make intelligent decisions about the healthiest way to eat for yourself and those you care about.