Episode 026: On this week’s episode of Real Health Radio I interview Stephan Guyenet.
Stephan is an obesity researcher and neurobiologist who brings together cutting-edge biomedical research with an evolutionary health framework. His research spans neurodegenerative disease, aging, nutrition, and obesity, but in recent years has been focused primarily on the neurobiology of eating behavior and obesity. He received a BS in biochemistry from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in neurobiology from the University of Washington. His upcoming book The Hungry Brain will explain the neurobiology of why we often overeat, despite our best intentions.
00:01:00
Want to work with me?
00:04:45
His love of science
00:10:20
What’s changed over the last 40 years that’s’ created the “obesity epidemic”
00:16:20
How we created foods that were more palatable
00:21:15
How novelty can increase calorie intake
00:22:15
What is the weight set point theory
00:27:45
How highly palatable food can mess with the body weight set point
00:29:45
What does it mean that a food is highly palatable
00:33:45
Is sugar is as bas as it’s made up to be?
00:41:00
Why the low GI diet idea isn’t supported by research
00:48:30
How someone can improve health even if weight stays the same
00:56:35
How likely is someone to go from obese to being lean?
01:03:10
His Upcoming book The Hungry Brain
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Hi Chris and thank you sooo much for getting Stephan on your show- wow!! I listened and loved it but still had some nagging questions- not sure if you could answer them or if they nagged you as well?
1. When you asked him about clients whose symptoms abated, but hadn’t lost (or even gained weight), but then when you tried to get their calories lower, their symptoms returned, I got confused by his response. He said that he felt that you might have been lowering their setpoints with a simple whole food diet and that their weights were approaching that. I am afraid I don’t follow the logic. Can you help clarify? He seemed to totally ‘get’ all the symptoms that they were experiencing and they were all classic symptoms of being BELOW your body’s preferred weight set point. So it seems to me that the answer is to gain the weight. I got confused after that. Do you think that what he meant was that while they might have gained weight, the COULD have gained even more had you not lowered their set point on a whole foods diets?
2. He knew of no studies about set point getting HIGHER with cyclic dieting except the one rodent study where cyclic dieting didn’t change the set point. And yet, he’s heard of people who tell this story (we ALL have heard numerous- thousands- of this story). Did it seem to you that aside from that one study he cited, that he was unaware of human studies of this sort?
3. Do you have any idea how a ‘set point’ is actually measured? is it a measured calorie burn per day? Any idea how Stephan measures or tracks set point and therefore how it’s noted to have raised, decreased, or stayed the same?
4. Do you know why he stated that highly processed foods increase set point and weight gain occurs and whole foods decrease set point and weight loss occurs? Do you know if it’s just that people get bored eating boring food so they eat less? Why do you think he thinks that the set point is actually lowered?
Anyway, not sure if you also had these questions, but I thought I’d just pose them to you here. Great, great interview, so thanks!
Hey Deb,
It was a great episode and I loved what Stephan had to say (even if I do disagree on certain things based on what I’ve experienced in practice). With your questions:
1) I have to agree with you on this one. I think what he was saying was that by eating a whole food diet it can, with time, lower someones set point…but with the clients and examples I used this had obviously not been the case.
2) From what he said he didn’t know of any humans studies on this. Maybe he meant that there hadn’t been any random controlled studies that showed this, specifically with human testing weight cycling. I wished I’d asked about the human starvation experiment by Ancel Keys and would this fit the bill. Because while people’s weight set point eventually came back down to basically where it started, it took quite a while for this to happen and prior to this happening the weight went much higher from where they first started.
3) The weight set point is normally measured based on the band that someone’s weight falls in. It is normally estimated around 10% of body weight, meaning it can go up and down in this band pretty easily. I don’t think that there is any scientific way to actually measure it, rather than just looking at where is someone now maintaining their weight when eating in a “normal” way.
4) This is definitely part of it. The more palatable something is, the more people eat; the more bland, the less people eat. Why this happens is still very much up for debate and at this stage is all just theories. But I’d assume that this is what he will cover in detail in his book based on the available research.
I hope that helps, I know most of these don’t give you much more of an answer.
Chris
Thank you so much for answering these questions! I can’t wait for his book- gah, we have to wait for fall!
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Another great episode! Stephan is always very interesting to listen and you asked some good questions. I think it could be really interesting to pick Stephan’s brain on anorexia. It’s basically the opposite of what he is suggesting 🙂
Hi Chris
Great interview. Really took a lot away from it.
I’m thinking in relation to the set point issue…from a practical perspective, every person i know who yo yo diets has gradually increased their weight over time – even though there might be brief periods of weight loss. So my interpretation of what he meant was that there might be no connection between the diet and the increased set point and that the causal factor is still all the other brain-related drivers.
My question though is around how much body fat is allowed / recommended if body fat is the cause of so many health problems. Because I have had to significantly increase my food intake and decrease my exercise to improve my health (symptoms have improved) however I now have more body fat which is the cause of different health problems…(none of which I outwardly experience any symptoms). I’m perplexed. Do I exercise more and decrease body fat
This guest made some good points but there are absolutely no studies that prove CAUSATION of metabolic syndromes such as diabetes from being overweight/obese. All any studies have shown is a CORRELATION. Correlation does not equal causation. There is the idea that diabetes and other metabolic syndromes are causing weight gain, so the exact opposite.
Honestly, he sounds like everyone else in the weight loss industry trying to prove that it’s just better to be thin rather than people simply accepting that we are not all designed to look like supermodels.