The FastDay Forum

Looks like it might be of some interest tho' the Daily Mail piece is a trifle more facile than suits me: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... eater.html

Scientists identified three broad groups: ‘feasters’ who keep on eating because they never feel full; ‘constant cravers’ who can’t stop thinking about food; and ‘emotional eaters’ who raid the biscuit tin in times of trouble.
According to the team, which included Government nutrition advisor Professor Susan Jebb, from Oxford University, and Cambridge geneticist Dr Giles Yeo, each group responds differently to different diets...
[F]feasters don’t release enough of a hormone known as GLP1, which tells your brain you are full.
He said: ‘If you are someone who goes to an all-you-can-eat buffet and never feels full, then chances are you are a feaster.
‘Secondly, we know that some people have a genetic risk factor for being overweight. It isn’t one gene – there are many. Some of them are about personality, some are about appetite, and some about willpower. Those with lots of these ‘‘obesity genes’’ are the constant cravers.’..
‘Finally, we noticed some people self-medicate with food. They eat when they are unhappy. We call them the emotional eaters.’
Having identified the groups, the researchers created different diets for each.
‘Feasters’ were given a diet designed to stimulate gut hormone levels with high-protein foods such as meat, fish and pulses, and cut out ‘high-GI’ carbohydrates such as white bread and potatoes...
‘Constant cravers’ were put on a version of the 5:2 diet, eating no more than 800 calories for two days every week. They could eat what they liked for the other five...
‘Emotional eaters’ were enrolled in Weight Watchers-style classes, on the theory that what they really needed was social support to prevent them turning to food.

Does any of this ring true for people? Altho' I'm familiar with the role ascribed to GLP1, the suggestion that it can be ameliorated by eating high-protein foods (in what quantity, I wonder? and as what kcal % of the diet?) is novel to me.

ETA: to be clear, altho' I know there have been studies that measure this and other hormones after a meal and then assess subjective impressions of appetite later, or measure how much is consumed at a subsequent meal, I'm not aware of a study that assesses this over several months while measuring various metrics such as biomarkers or waist/body fat etc. Particularly not one involving men and women...

Thanks @Ssure I look forward to watching the Horizon programme. I don't recognise myself in those categories. My weight gain was through sheer foggy mindlessness, a lack of discipline and awareness creeping over 15 years. I think it was also based on being a busy working mother, running around like a mad person and feeding others. I do stop eating when stressed so perhaps I'm in the emotional category, if that makes sense?

I seem to be a cross between the constant cravers and emotional eaters but the thought of joining WW type groups doesn't appeal to me at all. I think I'll stay with the cravers and 5:2, it works for me.

[Debs]

Thank you for posting this, I guess I am part craver part feaster which is why the combo of low carb and fasting works for me.

Thank you for the heads up on the Horizon programme because I always enjoy watching them. I think I am an emotional eater but mostly just like certain foods. I have tried weight loss clubs & just find it humiliating & doing my own thing 5:2ing with the information & support on this forum works best for me!

Very interesting @Ssure. Not sure about the science but I see myself as a "feaster" type and interestingly, I have success with weight loss when I stick with a low carb approach, just as the article suggests.

There is NO evidence that I am aware of that GLP-1 can be raised by eating protein. It is raised by certain drugs prescribed for diabetes and more recently obesity, but these drugs have been shown to cause abnormal cell growth in the pancreas, leading to painful potentially fatal pancreatitis and tumors both in the pancreas and in some cases the thyroid. Not recommended.

The sudden citation of GLP-1 in the health media probably is because of the recent approval of using GLP-1 boosting drugs to treat obesity. The drug companies selling these drugs are running well-funded sales efforts targeting physicians. Unfortunately, few physicians have the time to research these issues on their own and they are swayed by the often specious drug company presentations. A recent article I read documented how the FDA approved one of these drugs, Victoza, despite its proven connection with cancer. The article showed how much money each of the members of the approval committee had received from drug companies that year--many tens of thousands of dollars.

Bottom line: If anyone tells you you need GLP-1 to lose weight, RUN! They want to sell you a very expensive, very dangerous drug.

Beyond that, there are many, many metabolic reasons why people gain weight, not just three highly oversimplified ones. Many people who think they have "emotional" eating also have hormonal issues that trigger brain signals driving them to eat that feel emotional but are actually due to physiological imbalances.

I know that Horizon's quality has deteriorated over the last decade or more but I nonetheless have a great deal of respect for Jebbs and Yeo and their respective corpus of research - enough to be fairly sure that they didn't pull these associations out of nowhere and that, perhaps, nearer the time, there will be more details as to the evidence base and perhaps some quizzes/guides that are intended to guide people as to which category they might fit (or not at all).

There are some studies that associate greater protein intake with an increase in GLP-1, but, as I caveated in the OP, I'm not aware of any that assess this over more than a second meal effect: e.g., http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/97/5/980.long

Protein dose-dependently increased satiety and GLP-1, PYY 3–36, and glucagon, which may, at least in part, be responsible for the satiety-stimulating effect of protein...

The current results indicated that protein has greater satiety stimulating properties than carbohydrate and emphasized previous findings of an effect of a high protein intake on appetite-regulating hormones (13, 16, 31), subjective appetite sensations, and subsequent EI (19, 20) compared with that of a lower protein intake. We showed clear-cut dose-response relations for protein's effect on GLP-1, PYY 3–36, glucagon, and subjective appetite ratings...

Inevitably, that study was in young men which only adds to the limits that should be placed on its relevance. Plus, the study was under-powered to detect a substantial difference in energy intake (as the authors acknowledge). However, it will be interesting to see what the further material is from Horizon as to why this is a WOE that they chose to explore.

It will also be interesting to see why they chose these 3 categories and if they acknowledge that they do not provide comprehensive coverage of most people who might be looking for weight change.

[carorees]

@SSure
I had a quick trawl through PubMed. As said above there are no studies that provide strong evidence for protein stimulating GLP-1 beyond a single meal effect. I did find a few interesting papers though:
Protein dose-dependently increased satiety and GLP-1, PYY 3-36, and glucagon in men http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23466396
A study on the satiating effect of protein in women: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24698990 though it doesn't mention GLP-1.
Interesting article on late night protein snacks reduce appetite at breakfast but worsen insulin levels: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24833598
Satiating effect of protein in old vs young men (less satiating in older men) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25099545
Study in overweight men with hypertension showing that ingestion of maltodextrin produced a lower GLP-1 response than ingestion of a mixed protein meal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24893214

I didn't see anything that supported the concept of different types of eaters being due to GLP-1 though. I did note that GLP-1 secretion is influenced by body fat % so would that not confound the results?

I wonder how much of the effect of protein in suppressing appetite might be down to a corresponding decrease in carbs?
A combination of fasting with lowering carb intake which seems to work well for many on this forum seems to make sense.

@carorees,

The satiation reported is almost entirely due to the decrease in carbs. The poor awareness among supposedly professional nutrition researchers about how lowering carbs decreases appetite explains why these results can be reported as if it were caused by the protein. And as you point out single meal studies are pretty useless, since the hormones being discussed here will adapt very quickly to a sustained change in diet. This applies to all the hunger-related hormones. Even the hunger damping effects of low carb diets vanish at the hormone level after a few months, with the sole remaining benefit being that if blood sugar stays flat you don't get the blood-sugar related hunger that has nothing to do with hunger hormones.

As I said earlier, you can expect to suddenly start hearing about the magic of GLP-1 now that a GLP-1 agonist is on the market in the US for obesity. Of these drugs Byetta is the most effective for weight loss. It works for 1 out of 3 people who take it. But any advantage it confers is canceled out by the strong evidence that it is causing irreversible growth of highly abnormal cells in the pancreas.

Anyone who is interested in learning more about this should read this report on Dr. Peter Butler's research: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla- ... rch-244467

There was a huge pushback from the drug industry after these results were published, but the doctors on the drug company payrolls have not advanced any real evidence to counter these claims. Nor did experts interviewed by the NYTimes agree with the industry flacks that there were problems with the methodology of these studies. All they have done is point to epidemiological studies of medical records that show that people who took this class of drugs for a short time don't seem to have a greater incidence of cancer. This is as meaningful as studies would be showing the smokers who smoke for 3 years do not get more cancers. They don't, but look again in 10-25 years and you see something completely different.

You in the UK where expensive highly-profitable drugs are less likely to be affected by this. In the US these drugs are being treated as first line drugs for people newly diagnosed with diabetes and now obesity, and we are likely to see a terrible wave of drug related deaths showing up in another decade or so.

The science gets very complex, and I really appreciate those of you who take the time to do the research and are then able to discuss it with others in this forum. I try to learn from it though I am still unwilling to give up sugar...
But back to the original post on the 3 types of eaters, I am all three!! Despite almost 2 years on 5:2, I can still eat huge amounts of food if I let myself, I often think about food, and I certainly eat for emotional reasons. I guess I must moderate all of these to some extent, or I wouldn't be the weight I am now!

More about the programme (particularly in the short video): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02ddsd9

They mention that there will be an interactive quiz to establish categories of eaters as well as other downloadable information (nearer the broadcast date, presumably).

I wish they'd release some of the genetic/psychology/physiology evidence on which they're relying and lay out why they chose these categories and options for a study design. It will also be true, for various reasons, that the producers/investigators will need to have screened out anyone with a previous history of eating disorders and, possibly, metabolic disorders: it will be interesting to see how they address this.

A friend of mine has been involved in this. She has lost weight and looks /feels great . She is remaining quiet until it's aired but they have had some great results

A friend of mine has been involved in this. She has lost weight and looks /feels great . She is remaining quiet until it's aired but they have had some great results

That's so interesting. Please tell us more when she is able to comment as it will be super to have some information from a participant.

Giles Yeo is associated with work on the FTO 'obesity' gene (he's one of the first to say that it's not that straightforward and it's an interplay of several genes with an environment). Carl Zimmer has a nice piece on new observations about FTO in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/scien ... finds.html

In 2007, researchers discovered that people with a common variant of FTO tend to be heavier than those without it. Since then, studies have repeatedly confirmed the link. On average, one copy of the risky variant adds up to 3.5 extra pounds of weight. Two copies of the gene bring 7 extra pounds — and increase a person’s risk of becoming obese by 50 percent.

But the gene doesn’t seem to have always been a problem. If scientists had studied FTO just a few decades ago, they would have found no link to weight whatsoever. A new study shows that FTO became a risk only in people born after World War II.

The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises questions that extend far beyond obesity. Genes clearly influence our health in many ways, but so does our environment; often, it is the interplay between them that makes the difference in whether we develop obesity or cancer or another ailment.

But the relative importance of certain genes may shift over the years, the new study suggests, as our environment changes..

People born before the early 1940s were not at additional risk of putting on weight if they had the risky variant of FTO. Only subjects born in later years had a greater risk. And the more recently they were born, the scientists found, the greater the gene’s effect.

Some change in the way people lived in the late 20th century may have transformed FTO into a gene with a big impact on the risk of obesity, the researchers theorized. Giles S.H. Yeo, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge who wasn’t involved in the study, said he suspected that physical activity had something to do with the change.

It is possible that before World War II, people were so physically active that they were shielded from FTO’s obesity risks. As people became sedentary, they lost that protection and the gene emerged as a danger...

[R]ecent studies...find that FTO increases appetite. Dr. Frayling also notes that people who eat fried foods or drink sugary beverages gain more weight if they have the FTO variant, compared to those who do not.

“You could imagine any gene that affects appetite would have a bigger effect in today’s environment, where we all have lots of access to food,” Dr. Frayling said.

Usual caveat that the paper to which they refer is in PNAS (and the quality of those is variable) and I haven't seen the full text.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/ ... 1.abstract

Just a reminder that this programme is Monday Jan 12 and that the online eating habits test is now available (with appropriate caveats) alongside more information about the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z2csfg8

ETA: my DH did the test as an experiment for me (what a gem) only to be rewarded with the verdict (probably correct) that:

Based on your answers
you are not in any diet category

Your results indicate that none of the eating types we were testing for (Constant Craver, Feaster, and Emotional Eater) are a particular issue for you...

They have links to 7 days worth of suggested recipes for their diet plans for the eating types: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/occasions/healthy_diet_plans

I wish they'd included links to the supportive science research but that might be made available just before broadcast.