Elizabeth Miller wrote:
>
> Firstly, Blumberg's book is not a diet book -- It's called "Body Heat -
> Temperature and Life on Earth" .  He talks about DIT being triggered by a
> high fat/low protein diet; specifically how DIT via BAT appears to be not
> only a "non-shivering" system to generate heat, but to waste calories.

What I've read is that adult humans (and other precocial mammals) do not
have any BAT. If that's true it would seem to make this whole discussion
irrelevant. Altricial mammals such as mice keep their BAT into
adulthood, but precocial mammals only have BAT in infancy. Does Blumberg
disagree?

> I reasoned that the high protein diet I (and probably most of us) had
> been eating may inadvertently have been squelching any DIT via BAT.

Doesn't matter much if it's true that we don't have BAT. Cordain refers
to a large amount of evidence that high protein intake promotes
thermogenesis and satiety. As far as I can recall, all the major
paleodiet writers recommend high protein intake for a variety of health
benefits.

> That taken together with my remembering Atkin's admonition not to do
> too high protein/low fat version of his diet (these ratios are relative of course)
> made me realize that a proportionally higher fat/lower protein diet might
> trigger weight loss.  Thus, the experiment to give low protein/high fat a try
> was launched.  I haven't concerned myself so far with the issue of muscle
> wasting -- probably will if I decide to stay on any length of time.

Atkins also recommends high protein intake, just not along with low fat.
A surefire way to have more thermogenesis is to have more muscle mass
and more physical activity. Here's a link to a little article from the
American Society of Clinical Nutrition which suggests that wild animals
and early (wild) humans had activity levels as high or higher than
professional athletes, but that modern (domesticated) humans burn half
as many calories in a day.

Hilary