Philip Thrift wrote:

>On Mon, 3 Jun 2002 21:39:44 -0400, Richard Geller <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>>The research suggests that what you eat (paleo, or not) makes less of a
>>difference when you are on a CR diet, so long as you get all the
required
>>nutrients.
>
>Have they really done studies without the incorrect mindset that
>"all calories are the same"? The advised "Food Pyramid" human
>diet is Carb/Protein/Fat calories 55/15/30% (!!!). What if they did
>a study where this were 20/45/35
>(that is Carb calories dramatically decreased)
>but protein calories were dramatically increased?
>(especially if they had those monkeys lifting weights :-)

Serious weight lifting is not really an option on a CRON program, and
would be pointless in any case.  The strength for it just isn't there.

To answer your question, my recollection is that they *did* experiment
with various macronutrient combinations.  One factor, however, is that
in order to keep calories low, fat intake must be kept low, because fat
is devoid of micronutrients (except for a few grams of EFAs, of
course).  The challenge of CRON is to cut calories drastically without
forfeiting nutrients.  For this, lean meats and low-calorie but
nutrient-dense plant foods are essential.  The fat content of a food,
like the sugar content, adds nothing to its nutrient content.

>Maybe what is really being measured here is the effect of Carb-CR
>and the others are not factors.

Insulin reduction must be a factor, but I don't think it's the whole
explanation.  CRON causes real metabolic slowing, and that appears to
be a large part of why it works.

It's interesting to consider whether a CRON diet involving fasting
every other day, with normal eating on the other days, would be less
psychologically oppressive than constant hunger.  The quotation that
Amadeus posted from the benbest web site indicated that this way of
doing CRON actually worked better with lab animals.

Todd Moody
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