Research
Energy balance
Dietary energy density and the proportion of hyper-palatable foods are stronger predictors of ad libitum energy intake than macronutrient composition or gut hormone levels.
To control calories, prioritize foods with lower energy density (more volume for fewer calories) and reduce hyper-palatable combinations (high fat/sugar/sodium). These physical properties drive intake more than the specific macronutrient ratios or hormonal responses.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Recent analysis of meals from our inpatient feeding studies suggests that energy density, eating rate, and proportion of hyper-palatable foods are positively associated with energy intake... the LC diet had about double the energy density of the LF diet, a difference that mediated 24.4±5.5% of the diet effect on meal energy intake.
Why this rating
Based on the same rigorous inpatient study data.
Source
Discordance between gut-derived appetite hormones and energy intake in humans
Aaron Hengist et al. · medRxiv · 2023
DOI 10.1101/2023.05.10.23289718
preprint · n=20Cited 4×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Diet-induced changes in endogenous gut-derived appetite hormones (GLP-1, GIP, PYY, ghrelin) do not reliably predict or control ad libitum energy intake in humans.Good
- Endogenous gut hormone concentrations achieved through dietary changes are orders of magnitude lower than pharmacological doses, explaining why diet fails to suppress appetite while drugs succeed.Good
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