What If Low Carb Is Wrong? Does ASP Prove That Insulin Doesn’t Matter and That Its Calories That Really Count?

So there I was on the forums of t-nation.com answering questions about my recent interview piece with Gary Taubes when I started to wonder if this low-carb thing was legitimate after all.  “Have I been giving bad advice the whole time?  Should I just be telling people to ‘eat less and exercise more?’  But that’s never worked…  What I do now works like clock work… But all these posts keep telling me how ‘retarded’ me and Gary are…’”, I worried to myself.

What’s not authoritative and intimidating about being insulted over and over again by anonymous people on a forum?  If they can type it on a forum it must be well researched and true!  Right?

I did come to my thin-skinned senses eventually, BUT the folks on the t-nation forums did leave me with one question that I wasn’t entirely sure about:  Is ASP the overlooked flaw in low-carb dieting?

There were a lot of posts saying in effect: “What Tuabes and the rest of the low-carb community don’t like talking about is a little compound called acylation stimulating protein (ASP) which stores dietary fat in the fat cell with ZERO rise in insulin levels.”

I started doing some digging and found statements like these in peer reviewed research (I’m paraphrasing to make them readable and concise):

#1.  “ASP is far more powerful than insulin in stimulating the creation of new body-fat.” (1)

#2.  “ASP is released in response to an oral fat load.” (2)

Did I Get Served On A Forum?

I started really getting into ASP research at about 10pm on a Saturday night, and by the time I found the above statements in peer reviewed research I started sweating and my stomach was twisted up in knots.  I tried to let it go and hang out with my fiancé, but I just had to know – “What’s the deal with ASP!?  Is this something the debunks low-carb?”

So I spent the next 6 hours combing everything that I could get my hands on about ASP, and every time a paper made on of the above statements (#1 & 2 above) I noted the paper they cited.  (By the way, my biochemistry textbooks were no help at all.)  Pretty soon it became clear that those two statements were pretty much built off of two papers published in 1989:

•    Statement #1 above was pretty much built off of a paper titled “Purification and characterization of acylation stimulating protein”, but let’s call it “ASP trumps insulin” for this article.

•    Statement #2 above was built off of a paper titled “Metabolic response of acylation stimulating protein to an oral fat load,” but let’s call it “ASP is released in response to fat, not carbs.”

Does ASP Trump Insulin?

For the “ASP trumps insulin paper” the researchers grew fat cells in cultures (outside the body).  It is true the addition of ASP REALLY accelerated the creation of new fat (triglyceride) – it was faster than insulin.

HOWEVER, both the ASP and the no-ASP cultures had insulin and carbs added to them.  So the water is very muddy:

Could the ASP be a way in which insulin accelerates its activity?  Maybe the super deadly combo a high-fat and high sugar meal?  Maybe the only thing to learn from this study is that frosting is more fattening than candy?  Why not test ASP without insulin and carbs if your goal is to see what the difference between them is?

Or, for that matter, why not just test ASP in actual people instead of cultures? (1)

Is ASP Released In Response to Fat, Not Carbs?

For the “ASP is released in response to fat, not carbs.” The “lipid meal” or “oral fat load” that was used to induce the ASP response was cream + one tbsp table sugar (sucrose) + one tbsp nonfat dry milk.

That mixture is 25% carbs by weight!  So, that really doesn’t tell us anything at all.

Why not just have people drink olive oil or melted butter instead of cream plus a bunch of sugary stuff?

Take It Home Gary

I shared my research with Gary Taubes and he had this to say:

“Nice to know you’re suitably obsessed Josef.

“One thing to keep in mind in all this is the need to explain the observations, not just work with possible mechanisms that can’t explain anything. So one of the observations is weight loss on a high fat diet — the Atkins diet.

“So if ASP was good at sequestering dietary fat away in the fat tissue without carbs being needed, why would people lose weight when they ate an Atkins diet?

“Another observation we’re trying to understand, as I point out in lectures, is the obesity in poor populations eating low-fat, high carb diets. So there ASP would be irrelevant. Now if we had obesity in populations eating low-carb, high-fat diets, that would be telling and a reason to invoke ASP, but, as far as I know, no such populations exist.

“So maybe ASP plays a role in obesity in rats that are fed high fat diets, but we’re not all that interested in rats.”

Epilogue – Falling Asleep At A Wedding

My obsessive researching kept me up ‘till 4am, but I had to be up at 8am to workout, shower and be at a friend’s wedding the next day.  I couldn’t put off my workout and sleep in because I had deadlines to meet that night.  So, while everyone else was watching the cake cutting and dancing, I passed out, face down on the table.  Even though I woke with drool on my cheek I felt a lot better.

Josef Brandenburg is an award winning Washington, DC weight loss expert and author of The Body You Want.  He specializes in helping normal, busy people create the bodies they want in the time they actually have.  You can pick up a FREE copy of his new CD “Why ‘Eat Less and Exercise More’ is The Worst Advice Ever” right here.

References

#1.  J Biol Chem vol. 264, Jan 5, 1989, p.426-430

#2. J lipid res vol 30, 1989 p. 1727-1733

The Secret Weapon in Creating The Body You Want

Most people let their thinking absolutely destroy them and their chances of ever creating the body they really want.  To make that even worse very few people are even aware of what the process of thinking actually is, so they have no place to go to make effective changes.

The good news is that the solution is actually quite simple:

Thinking is nothing more than the process of asking and answering questions.  Think about it, you just asked yourself a question about that statement I made… “is that true?”

With questions you can find any answer that you are looking for, or as the Bible says, “seek and ye shall find.”  The problem is that most of the time we are unconscious about the questions we ask – we simply ask them out of habit or despair.

So, if you ask yourself a question like, “why am I so fat?” or “why can’t I lose weight?” you WILL get an answer.  The problem is that there really aren’t any USEFUL answers to
those questions.

It doesn’t matter if the presupposition in your question is accurate or not, your brain will find an answer.  In the above you presupposed that:

#1.  You are a fat person (different than being a person with extra body-fat on them.  No, that is not just semantics – one is a temporary condition, the other is the identity that you have for yourself.  One of THE most powerful forces in the human personality IS the need to stay consistent with your identity.)

#2.  You can’t lose weight

By the way, your presuppositions are WRONG.

These are poor questions, but your brain will absolutely give you an answer anyway.  Unfortunately, the only answers to that question are self-defeating like:

• “because I have bad genetics”
• ”because I don’t have the time”
• ”because my parents treated me with junk food so now I love it”
• ”because I’m a big, fat slob who doesn’t have any self-discipline”
• “I don’t know, but there’s no point in working out”

Or something to that effect.

It turns out that what you REALLY wanted to know was:

“How can I drop a lot of body fat really fast, do that without being hungry, while increasing my energy levels and do it in a way that actually fits my schedule and while eating food that tastes good?”

That’s a question that has a VERY useful answer.

The same thing goes for life and fitness overall.  Asking yourself
questions like:

• Why can’t I eat French fries, everyone else is [in a whiny voice, of course]?
• Why do I keep screwing up?
• Why does _______ suck?

These questions can only yield answers that will make you feel hopeless and put-upon.

Better questions would be:

• ”What CAN I eat right now that would taste good AND help me get the body I want?” [this one COMPLETELY shifts your focus from what you’re missing out on to what you want, and thus completely changes how you feel and experience that situation.]
• What do I love about working out?
• How can I get back on track and be really happy doing it?
• Why do I love being fit?

YES, those questions actually have REAL answers.  Your brain may reply to the first one with, “Nothing!” initially.  But, you’re the boss  and you can always ask again, and ask with the expectation that you will get an answer – which you’ll get in no more than 60sec.  (By the way, when it comes to people’s brains and their kids they always seem to forget that they are the boss and that they call the shots…)

The questions you ask will determine what you focus on, and thus how you feel and what kind of action you do or don’t take.  Be conscious of the questions you are asking.  If you’re feeling bad its usually being compounded by a negative question, and you can turn things around very quickly with a positive question.

A positive question will get your focused on what you want, what you like and how to get there while having a good time and will completely change how you feel.

Let me leave you with these questions.  By the way if you take 10sec per question to really answer specifically, and to FEEL the answers you will feel like a million bucks!

#1.  What are you happy about in my body/fitness/lifestyle right now?  Why
does that make me happy?  How does that make me feel?

#2.  What am I proud of in my body/fitness/lifestyle?  Why am I proud of
that?  How does that make me feel?

#3.  What am I looking forward to in my body/fitness/lifestyle?  Why am I
looking forward to that?  How does that make me feel?

#4.  On a general note:  What am I grateful for in my life?  Why?  How
does that make me feel?

#5.  Who do I love?  Why?  How does that make me feel?

Really take the 10sec to specifically answer and feel those answers.

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and an award winning Washington DC personal trainer that was nominated several times for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine.  Oh, and check out his new web-site washingtondcpersonaltrainer.com