Reading Gary Taubes’ discussion of pre-insulin type-1 diabetics wasting away despite eating well convinced me CICO is too simplistic. Maybe “CICO plus the endocrine environment”?
I have 80 bullet points to go. Ultimately CICO is wrong or, at least not helpful, or maybe not even well defined). I'll try to explain where the endocrine environment fits in. Thermodynamics (energy) will determine what reactions can happen. The endocrine environment controls how fast you get there. In diabetes, the reactions are essentially changed because they happen so quickly, e.g. with no insulin, the rate of breakdown of fat is greatly increased and the rate of ketogenesis becomes significant.
Thanks, Richard. I love reading your insights into the CICO model because you have twin expertise in thermo AND in the practical therapeutic benefits of these "metabolically advantageous" diets. I can share on my Sub (for whatever that's worth!) but need some time to process and sort through all the ideas (and posts you linked to). The reasoning all sounds solid, if the bio chem and physics are above my paygrade.
This point in particular seems powerful and impervious to counter: "Generally, we don’t know what the reactions are. Key idea: energy “in” is after digestion and processing. We don’t know calories in (CI). And, it follows that we don’t know CO either."
I have 80 bullet points to go. The real problem is that thermodynamics is sophisticated, mathematical and often has very straightforward conclusions but you can't shoot from the hip. You have to know what you're talking about. A thermo course is tough and as students we sometimes want it all to go away as in Jason Fung's post where he says that it is all irrelevant which, of course, is exactly the opposite. It applies to everything. I will explain as we move forward.
Question/point of clarification: I get what you're saying that the energy is in the reaction, but if we put a fine point on it - is it more accurate to say (during the reaction) energy is PRODUCED or RELEASED?
You can use “produced“ or “released“ as long as you don’t imply that the energy is a thing in the absence of the actual reaction. The energy of a chemical reaction may come from the energy of the chemical bonds and the configuration, but it is not “in“ the reactants until there is an actual reaction. It is really like potential energy in mechanics. A boulder at the top of a cliff has potential energy by virtue of the height of the cliff. Does that make sense?
Richard, thanks for all of your insightful work on this topic. It's a lot to digest in one pass (no pun intended) so I find myself re-reading some of your posts after I've had time to appreciate some of the complexities that puzzle me. Then I move onto new puzzles.
One such puzzle maybe you can help me with -- the principle of conservation of energy applies locally, right? Which is to say that the sum of the energy from all the **reactions** that take place when we eat must remain locally constant. It's not as though some energy can vanish from our dinner table and an equal amount materializes somewhere over the Pacific ocean.
The problem with CICO then is not that the law is wrong but as you say not **useful**. As as an expositor of obesity, CICO says nothing about **which** reactions will take place -- and since the **reactions** are what govern the outcome of interest, CICO doesn't offer any useful explanations.
Jon, you hit it. We're re-creating the history of "CICO madness." When I read your post, I started to write the following:
"CICO is not a law. It is a catch phrase and is part of the practice of talking loosely about a subject that is very precise. You need to answer: what is the definition of energy? What does the first law say? In detail. Not just energy is conserved. What is the definition of the calorie as used in CICO, that is, when you calculate energy in a diet?”
Then the bell went off. [Back-to -the-past music, rotating screen....Atkins book comes into focus]. Atkins described "metabolic advantage" -- how you lose more weight per calorie on the Atkins diet -- based on his own experience and his patients and, at some point, everybody knew somebody who had lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet. The medical establishment went crazy. The medical journals calculated the number of deaths that would follow from adopting low-carb diet. The idea was that Atkins (not withstanding that his training in medicine was the same as his critics). Clearly Atkins was so ignorant as to not know that this would violate the first law of thermodynamics, you know, conservation of energy. Many had only a simple idea of the first law, but it was that most of his critics did not have the capacity to ask. "Aren't you violating the first law of thermodynamics?" Now, Atkins did not deal well with most of his critics and he was, in any case, interested in outcome. Some of us answered in some way but it was not a good period and, as in the current posts, the problem is still with us.
So Jon, you asked the question. The answer is that we have to be precise. Energy is not lost but useless energy is not part of the picture. The bullet points (some repetition from previous posts):
• Energy in physics is often like the common understanding: it is the ability to do work. Not a law but I think there is the idea that, in the end, complicated thermodynamics should allow you to lift a weight through a distance on a rope and pulley.
• The first law of thermodynamics says that there is a parameter called the internal energy (almost always written as U to avoid confusion with electrical potential, E). Any change in the energy, ∆U, is equal to q, the heat added to the system minus w, the work done by the system on the environment. (In any calculation movement from the system to the environment is (-) while any movement from the environment is positive (+).
• The first law: ∆U = q - w
• The origins of thermodynamics in the industrial revolution are never far away. We add heat to the machine and the machine does work for us. The machine, however, may return some heat to the environment, and that makes the machine inefficient. We hope to maximize the efficiency, that is get more w for q that we put in.
• It is the energy U that is "conserved," that is, many mechanisms can change without affecting U. (The machine could be enzymes in a living cell, or a calorimeter; put in glucose, get same stuff out) It doesn't matter much how you build the machine in terms of energy. Technically, U, like T (temperature) and P (pressure) are said to be state variables. But what is conserved is U, which is the algebraic difference between q and w. Individually, q and w are not state variables. If q goes up, w goes down since U is conserved.
• Bottom line: energy never vanishes. Heat vanishes out of the calculation. We are only interested in doing work. And we want high efficiency.
• Humans do locomotion but most of our work is chemical work. (In a rough way, work is defined as anything that isn't heat). Make cell material, transport chemicals, etc.
That's the answer. We many need a few bullet points to explain these bullet points. Watch this space.
Reading Gary Taubes’ discussion of pre-insulin type-1 diabetics wasting away despite eating well convinced me CICO is too simplistic. Maybe “CICO plus the endocrine environment”?
I have 80 bullet points to go. Ultimately CICO is wrong or, at least not helpful, or maybe not even well defined). I'll try to explain where the endocrine environment fits in. Thermodynamics (energy) will determine what reactions can happen. The endocrine environment controls how fast you get there. In diabetes, the reactions are essentially changed because they happen so quickly, e.g. with no insulin, the rate of breakdown of fat is greatly increased and the rate of ketogenesis becomes significant.
Thanks, Richard. I love reading your insights into the CICO model because you have twin expertise in thermo AND in the practical therapeutic benefits of these "metabolically advantageous" diets. I can share on my Sub (for whatever that's worth!) but need some time to process and sort through all the ideas (and posts you linked to). The reasoning all sounds solid, if the bio chem and physics are above my paygrade.
This point in particular seems powerful and impervious to counter: "Generally, we don’t know what the reactions are. Key idea: energy “in” is after digestion and processing. We don’t know calories in (CI). And, it follows that we don’t know CO either."
I have 80 bullet points to go. The real problem is that thermodynamics is sophisticated, mathematical and often has very straightforward conclusions but you can't shoot from the hip. You have to know what you're talking about. A thermo course is tough and as students we sometimes want it all to go away as in Jason Fung's post where he says that it is all irrelevant which, of course, is exactly the opposite. It applies to everything. I will explain as we move forward.
I tried (in caveman, possible wrong fashion) to explore a similar line of thinking here: https://farmerversusbanker.substack.com/p/chapter-5-you-dont-get-fat-from-eating But you put it more precisely.
Question/point of clarification: I get what you're saying that the energy is in the reaction, but if we put a fine point on it - is it more accurate to say (during the reaction) energy is PRODUCED or RELEASED?
Or is that a distinction without a difference?
You can use “produced“ or “released“ as long as you don’t imply that the energy is a thing in the absence of the actual reaction. The energy of a chemical reaction may come from the energy of the chemical bonds and the configuration, but it is not “in“ the reactants until there is an actual reaction. It is really like potential energy in mechanics. A boulder at the top of a cliff has potential energy by virtue of the height of the cliff. Does that make sense?
Yes, thank you for the response.
Richard, thanks for all of your insightful work on this topic. It's a lot to digest in one pass (no pun intended) so I find myself re-reading some of your posts after I've had time to appreciate some of the complexities that puzzle me. Then I move onto new puzzles.
One such puzzle maybe you can help me with -- the principle of conservation of energy applies locally, right? Which is to say that the sum of the energy from all the **reactions** that take place when we eat must remain locally constant. It's not as though some energy can vanish from our dinner table and an equal amount materializes somewhere over the Pacific ocean.
The problem with CICO then is not that the law is wrong but as you say not **useful**. As as an expositor of obesity, CICO says nothing about **which** reactions will take place -- and since the **reactions** are what govern the outcome of interest, CICO doesn't offer any useful explanations.
Looking forward to your other 80 bullet points.
Jon, you hit it. We're re-creating the history of "CICO madness." When I read your post, I started to write the following:
"CICO is not a law. It is a catch phrase and is part of the practice of talking loosely about a subject that is very precise. You need to answer: what is the definition of energy? What does the first law say? In detail. Not just energy is conserved. What is the definition of the calorie as used in CICO, that is, when you calculate energy in a diet?”
Then the bell went off. [Back-to -the-past music, rotating screen....Atkins book comes into focus]. Atkins described "metabolic advantage" -- how you lose more weight per calorie on the Atkins diet -- based on his own experience and his patients and, at some point, everybody knew somebody who had lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet. The medical establishment went crazy. The medical journals calculated the number of deaths that would follow from adopting low-carb diet. The idea was that Atkins (not withstanding that his training in medicine was the same as his critics). Clearly Atkins was so ignorant as to not know that this would violate the first law of thermodynamics, you know, conservation of energy. Many had only a simple idea of the first law, but it was that most of his critics did not have the capacity to ask. "Aren't you violating the first law of thermodynamics?" Now, Atkins did not deal well with most of his critics and he was, in any case, interested in outcome. Some of us answered in some way but it was not a good period and, as in the current posts, the problem is still with us.
So Jon, you asked the question. The answer is that we have to be precise. Energy is not lost but useless energy is not part of the picture. The bullet points (some repetition from previous posts):
• Energy in physics is often like the common understanding: it is the ability to do work. Not a law but I think there is the idea that, in the end, complicated thermodynamics should allow you to lift a weight through a distance on a rope and pulley.
• The first law of thermodynamics says that there is a parameter called the internal energy (almost always written as U to avoid confusion with electrical potential, E). Any change in the energy, ∆U, is equal to q, the heat added to the system minus w, the work done by the system on the environment. (In any calculation movement from the system to the environment is (-) while any movement from the environment is positive (+).
• The first law: ∆U = q - w
• The origins of thermodynamics in the industrial revolution are never far away. We add heat to the machine and the machine does work for us. The machine, however, may return some heat to the environment, and that makes the machine inefficient. We hope to maximize the efficiency, that is get more w for q that we put in.
• It is the energy U that is "conserved," that is, many mechanisms can change without affecting U. (The machine could be enzymes in a living cell, or a calorimeter; put in glucose, get same stuff out) It doesn't matter much how you build the machine in terms of energy. Technically, U, like T (temperature) and P (pressure) are said to be state variables. But what is conserved is U, which is the algebraic difference between q and w. Individually, q and w are not state variables. If q goes up, w goes down since U is conserved.
• Bottom line: energy never vanishes. Heat vanishes out of the calculation. We are only interested in doing work. And we want high efficiency.
• Humans do locomotion but most of our work is chemical work. (In a rough way, work is defined as anything that isn't heat). Make cell material, transport chemicals, etc.
That's the answer. We many need a few bullet points to explain these bullet points. Watch this space.