A new mouse study calls into question the conventional wisdom that cutting calories leads to weight loss. Athletic performanceEven when you’re on a diet, The mammalian body Be motivated to maintain your previous level of activity.
The researchers looked at mice that spent time on a treadmill while eating less, a laboratory test that makes it easier to get a fixed number than in the real world, where the relationship between food and exercise is often erratic and difficult to quantify.
After three weeks of baseline measurements, the team, led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), reduced the number of calories given to the mice by 20% one week, then by 40% the next.Breeding “high runner” mice To enjoy running.
“Voluntary movement [in mice] “They were surprisingly resistant to cutting back on their food intake by 20 or even 40 percent.” say “They just kept running,” says biologist Theodore Garland Jr. of the University of California, Riverside.
The only significant decrease in running distance the researchers noted was an 11 percent decrease in the high-runner mice on the most severely restricted diet, which isn’t considered a big change since these mice ran three times as much as normal anyway.
In the other scenarios, the running method remained the same. Additionally, despite a 20 percent reduction in calorie intake, the mice’s weight remained the same, with only a slight decrease in weight observed at the 40 percent reduction point.
This is a surprising discovery, Other similar studiesThe researchers suspect that some sort of counterbalancing mechanism may be at work that keeps people from losing weight as they normally would.
“If you’re not losing much weight even when you eat 40 percent less, then there must be some kind of compensation going on.” say wreath.
“Maybe other types of activity are reduced or metabolism is more efficient, but we can’t measure this yet.”
Even while dieting, it’s important to continue exercising for overall health, and this study shows that, at least in mice, the body should be able to cope with consuming less food while maintaining the same level of activity.
In fact, there is mounting evidence that for dieting to be effective, it must be combined with exercise. In a world grappling with rising obesity and its impact on health, it is important to understand the science of weight loss.
“We don’t want dieters to say, ‘I don’t have enough energy, so I’ll make up for it by not exercising.'” say wreath.
“That would be counterproductive, and we now know that it doesn’t have to be that way.”
This study Physiology and behavior.
