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anon84873628today at 12:05 AM6 repliesview on HN

Relatedly, there is evidence that certain types of "resistant starch" can help reduce visceral fat. This starch comes from green bananas, potatoes, legumes, etc. It has to be either raw (there are supplements for this) or cooked and cooled.

"Resistant starch intake facilitates weight loss in humans by reshaping the gut microbiota"

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10963277/

Edit: Ah, HN submission 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39592367


Replies

ebiestertoday at 8:20 AM

Mark Stache ( https://youtu.be/L-gNdQZorEE?si=nkwAhZOiAFtY2f44 ) just did a 90 day evaluation. The biggest problem at the level they mention is some intense flatulence. He is also in good shape and had mixed results compared to the study.

paimapitoday at 1:44 AM

sample size n=37 of which recruitment only happened in Shanghai without any real control for confounders, only evaluated over a period of two weeks with no longterm follow-ups, the dosage of 40g RS/d is very high (would take about 4-5 large potatoes daily for equivalency or ingesting likely expensive supplement), the crossover compares RS vs CS in the same participants with only a 4 week washout which is a weakness since fermentable fiber persists >4 weeks, also the supplement they used was industry-provided by a starch manufacturer which was weirdly not disclosed

this is a great study if you are an overweight/obese adult without overt metabolic disease, willing and able to consume 90 g/d of starch supplement within a controlled diet, and living in Shanghai with similar baseline fiber intakes endemic to that population. it is extremely not generalizeable to you or even me though I fit more of those characteristics than I care to admit

stay skeptical of small studies like this, friend

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faangguyindiatoday at 2:04 AM

You can just go on a calorie deficit and it will reduce your visceral fat when you start getting lean enough.

But obviously, most people are a lot more interested in finding a magic food which does this rather than a proven calorie deficit, which is highly effective.

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judge2020today at 1:30 AM

IMO my only concern is their dats shows they were actually able to maintain a pretty controlled diet for each participant, I wonder how selection was done. I also would've appreciated some bomb calorimetry of fecal samples, similar to [0] which is the widely cited paper that does link general fiber intake to a lower level of caloric/energy absorption.

Baer, David J., et al. "Dietary fiber decreases the metabolizable energy content and nutrient digestibility of mixed diets fed to humans." The Journal of nutrition 127.4 (1997): 579-586.

declan_robertstoday at 12:14 AM

I feel like I've heard this story 1 million times before.

mapotofutoday at 12:09 AM

I seriously don’t understand why you people need to optimize every damn thing. Eat real food and take a walk for maybe an hour a day. Within a year you will have lost a lot of weight. Stop inventing new terms and just eat reasonably instead of eating like pigs FFS.

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