By GINA KOLATA | DEC. 12, 2016

“Dr. Frank Sacks, a professor of nutrition at Harvard, likes to challenge his audience when he gives lectures on obesity.

“If you want to make a great discovery,” he tells them, figure out this: Why do some people lose 50 pounds on a diet while others on the same diet gain a few pounds?

Then he shows them data from a study he did that found exactly that effect.

Dr. Sacks’s challenge is a question at the center of obesity research today. Two people can have the same amount of excess weight, they can be the same age, the same socioeconomic class, the same race, the same gender. And yet a treatment that works for one will do nothing for the other.

The problem, researchers say, is that obesity and its precursor — being overweight — are not one disease but instead, like cancer, they are many. “You can look at two people with the same amount of excess body weight and they put on the weight for very different reasons,” said Dr. Arya Sharma, medical director of the obesity program at the University of Alberta.”

READ FULL ARTICLE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES

This is an interesting article from the NY Times talking about some good diet guidelines, and some of the diet myths that have been around for some time.

“WEIGHT LOSS REPORT; New Look At Dieting: Fat Can Be A Friend”
By JANE E. BRODY | MAY 25, 1999

“Now hear this: avocados, walnuts, salad dressings with oil, sauteed vegetables, fatty fish and some kinds of margarine may be back on the menu for health-conscious Americans, even for those trying to lose weight, if the findings of recent studies are to be believed.

For three decades now, Americans have been bombarded with advice to eat less fat for the sake of their hearts and their waistlines. One well-known expert, Dr. Dean Ornish, advocates stripping away all added fats and naturally fatty foods to achieve a diet containing no more than 10 percent of calories from fat, down from the 44 percent typically consumed by Americans in the 1960’s and the 34 percent now consumed.”

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