SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

[Forest]

well atleast according to this new article

"And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/hl_nm/diet_exercise_dc

what do you guys think?

[kylie]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

I think a study that has only 24 "subjects" and 10 "control subjects" in an attempt to answer a question for "people in general" is sorely lacking. Just my 2 cents..

Edited to add: This cracks me up...the nentire article goes on and on about how there is apparently no difference between diet & exercise and diet alone then this from the guy running the study:

"For overall health, an appropriate program of diet and exercise is still the best," he said.

REALLY? Didn't your study just tell me that they are the same?

Junk science frosts me.

[jroche5998]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

OK, I just erased what I had written so I can simplify what I was going to say. I don't buy it. Their extremely controlled experiment made both groups have the exact same cloric deficit, so of course the loss would be the same. Long term the muscles will burn more energy at rest. And their comment saying "If anything, highly trained people are highly efficient, so they burn fewer calories at rest," just doesn't jive. No efiiciency in the world is going to make up for the multiple in difference between fat and muscle energy usage.

Bad science in my opinion. JMHO

[Forest]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

"For overall health, an appropriate program of diet and exercise is still the best," he said.

REALLY? Didn't your study just tell me that they are the same?

LOL I know

that part cracked me up

[sallyseachange]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

Interesting...but I don't buy it either, for the reasons already mentioned!

[Maerow]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

Its poopy. <---my official scientific opinion.

[ShannonM]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

None of the people in the study did any weight training; they only did long sessions of low-intensity cardio on the treadmill, stairmaster, or stationary bike. You can hardly draw any accurate inferences about the efficacy of weight training when none of your subjects are doing it.

[Lyssie]

Re: SO muscle mass does not influence metabolism

Sooo.. while I understand that a calorie is just a calorie and everything... there are a couple things with this study that are kinda interesting. Ok.

1. I have never seen a study done with 34 people, perhaps that's just because I work in drug studies that are actually submitted to the FDA and this is not that.
2. This doesn't specify anything about the weight of the folks who started, or the number of calories they actually *were* eating.
3. His study is basically telling people that if they eat 400 calories a day, they are going to lose as much weight as someone who eats like, 1700 calories a day and exercises. Which is basically giving the ok for people to starve themselves and then use his study as the rationale behind it since he doesn't take into account what happens long term with decreasing your calories to an unhealthy level. Maybe he should see if people who eat 500-600 calories a day have a longer life expectancy since he thinks that taking in fewer calories helps people live longer.
4. The concept that he is speaking of is BS. The concept that he should be talking about is the one where if you exercise, you're toning your muscle mass, so while you may be losing the same amount, your muscles will *LOOK* better.
5. I'm assuming that he's using cardio as the form of exercise and am wondering... if he had people lift weights as their form of exercise.. that would burn off the 12.5% of calories they were missing, what the results would be at the end of 6 months.
6. Dieting, in general, does not make people lose muscle mass. Dieting to an unhealthy degree *WILL* make your body try to burn off any calories it can get it's grubby paws on, including muscle if it's there and easily accessible.

Anyway, sorry for my rant. Those are just my first opinions when reading this. He is right that people who are *just* doing cardio, who are eating the *same* foods as one another, and have had their percentages decreased by the same amount, should technically lose the same percentage of mass... It doesn't show long term health benefits for each group, it doesn't show differences in blood results comparatively for each group or anything like that.