Everything in moderation: too much meat will kill you, but a new study suggests that not getting enough will encourage you to gorge on other foods.
The study, published in Obesity Reviews, found that people increase their calorie intake from other nutrients, like fat and carbohydrates, when they consumed less protein. Researchers examined data for thirty-eight different nutritional trials. In one, they found that when people decreased the protein consumed from fifteen per cent to ten per cent of their total daily intake, they ended up consuming more energy to the tune of an additional twelve per cent.
Researchers aren’t sure whether there’s some kind of innate protein target the body is trying to reach, but their data suggests that inadequate protein may be part of the reason that fad diets like the lemon diet or the grapefruit diet don’t work.
That, and those diets are crazy.
