Diane
(Login scientificbod) | Re: Give more fat! | March 30 2009, 3:32 PM |
They do say they use the same total energetic content in both groups and since excess carbohydrates (CHOs) are stored as fat anyway, it's not like they were simply adding oil to an existing feed.
What I really gawped at was the number in the study. EIGHT?!?!? I expect such poor numbers in a L'Oreal study for moisturiser (or am I the only one that notices their crap statistics??). It wasn't clear whether or not 8 was the total number in the study. If that's the case, then 4 in each group is not a good indicator.
Their abstract really should have read, 'reduce the carbohydrate content and increase the fat content accordingly'. I can't remember off hand how much extra energy fat metabolism uses to create the same amount of ATP as, say, Glucose, but the energetic 'cost' is much more. That's why CHOs are used in the body first, as there's less 'cost'. However, the yield of metabolic energy is much more. Fat contains 6 x more calorific content, but because of the 'cost', actually yields twice that of CHO and it's actually the biggest source of energy in the body. At least it is for humans.
My opinion is that high CHO content feeds came about due to the easier mobilisation of glycogen stores (how CHOs are stored), compared to stored fat. This is an advantage for competition horses and racehorses in full work. However, for your average neddie who isn't going to use all that excess, it's a disaster on two counts. First, as I said earlier, excess CHO is readily converted to fat and stored. Second, only the brain uses CHO as an energy source exclusively (except in starvation), so it's very easy to have excess CHO swimming around the brain and sending it metabolically loopy!
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