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What Boost Body Fat?
 

Obesity has been a major health issue around the world. People who are overweight or obese are possible victims for many diseases including heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure) and stroke. In the Untied States of America, many adults are overweight and more than 30 percent are considered as obese.

A study that was published in the Jan 4, 2012’s issue of ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’ (JAMA) reported that people who ate too much of a high-calorie, low-protein diet were more likely to gain more body fat than people who over consumed high amount of protein.

Since the role of diet composition in response to overeating and energy dissipation is unclear, the study was carried out to find out how different levels of protein might affect the overall weight gain, body fat and energy expenditure.

Researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana studied 25 people in Louisiana who agreed to live as in-patients in a weight-gain experiment. All the participants were healthy, weight-stable male and female volunteers, aged between 18 and 35, with a body mass index (BMI) of between 19 and 30. The first participant was admitted to the inpatient metabolic unit in June 2005 and the last in October 2007.

All participants, after consuming a weight-stabilizing diet for 13 to 25 days, were randomly assigned to receive diets containing 5 percent of energy from protein (low protein), 15 percent (normal protein), or 25 percent (high protein), which they were overfed during the last 8 weeks of their 10- to 12-week stay. Compared with energy intake during the weight stabilization period, the protein diets provided approximately 40 percent more energy intake, which corresponded to 954 calories a day.

All participants, regardless of sex, gained weight. The rate of weight gain in the low protein diet group was the lowest, 3.16 kilos, comparing to 6.05 kilos for the normal protein diet group and 6.51 kilos in the high protein diet group.

Body fat increased in all the 3 protein diet groups and represented 50 percent to more than 90 percent of the excess stored calories. However, the resting energy expenditure, total energy expenditure and lean body mass (body protein) did not increase during overfeeding with the low protein diet.

During the overeating period, lean body mass decreased by 0.70 kilos in the low protein diet group compared with a gain of 2.87 kilos in the normal protein diet group and 3.18 kilos in the high protein diet group. Resting energy expenditure increased significantly with the normal (160 calories/day) and high protein diets (227 calories/day).

The weight gained for patients in the low-protein diet group was insignificant, comparing to those patients in the normal-protein diet group (15 percent of energy from protein) with the same number of extra calories.

It was found that calories alone contributed to the increase in body fat. Protein did contribute to the changes in energy expenditure and lean body mass, but certainly not to the increase in body fat.

Other health professionals not involved in the study agreed that the new findings highlighted to the primary care physicians and policy makers about the benefits of protein in weight management. It is important for policy makers and primary care physicians to understand the role of Western diet in promoting overweight and obesity. The Western diet increases the risks of over-nutrition through fat deposition that was not detected by BMI.

Physicians should consider assessing a patient's overall fatness rather than simply measuring body weight or BMI. They should concentrate on the potential complications of excess fat accumulation. The goals for obesity treatment should, therefore, involve fat reduction rather than simply weight loss, along with a better understanding of nutrition science.

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