The Study
Effects of Diet Macronutrient Composition on Weight Loss during Caloric Restriction and Subsequent Weight Regain during Refeeding in Aging Mice
This study watched mice eat different kinds of food after dieting and noticed that the ones eating high-fat food gained more weight. But it didn't randomly assign the mice to diets, so we can't be sure the food caused the weight gain — maybe the mice that got high-fat food were just hungrier to begin with.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
When mice lose weight by eating less, then eat all they want again, what they eat matters — especially how much fat.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 517 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1This suggests that after dieting, eating a lot of fatty foods can trick your body into overeating and storing more fat — even if you're burning more fat.
- 2Mice on a high-fat diet ate 87% more calories than during dieting and gained back 12.8% more weight than they originally lost.
- 3Mice on high-carb or high-protein diets didn't overshoot.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2023
Authors
P. Minderis, A. Fokin, Tomas Povilonis, Mindaugas Kvedaras, A. Ratkevičius
Related Content
Claims (6)
When people consume the same number of calories, changing the proportion of carbs and fats in their diet does not change how much fat or weight they lose.
When a person eats significantly fewer calories for a long time, their body burns fewer calories at rest and loses muscle tissue; if they then return to normal eating without adjusting calorie intake downward, they gain fat.
In older mice that are allowed to eat freely after a period of reduced calories, the amount of food they consume directly determines how much weight they regain, more than the types of nutrients in their diet.
In aging mice on a calorie-restricted diet, those eating a high-fat diet have higher blood leptin levels than those eating high-carb or high-protein diets, and this difference is due to greater fat tissue mass, not increased feelings of fullness.
In aging mice that lost weight through calorie restriction and then ate freely again, a high-fat diet caused them to regain more weight than they lost, primarily because they ate significantly more calories, even though their bodies burned more fat and had higher levels of the hormone leptin.
In aging mice that have been eating less food, switching to a high-fat diet during refeeding raises the rate of fat burning, but the mice still gain excess body fat, showing that burning more fat does not stop fat accumulation.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.