Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain

If anyone wants to see an abuse if statistics, this is a fantastic case.

Take a look at the conclusions drawn, and how the p values prove insignificant conclusions. Ie, less than 20kcal/day changes.

You can see that at best there is a small correlation. But it seems like they found numbers to prove their theory.

What I'm most surprised by is the caloric difference doesn't seem to be that significant despite weight gain reflected. Looking at the test results, it does seem that there's a most significant difference in the insulin levels, which tends to be an overriding hormone. There's only a 34kcal difference per day on average, meaning that it should take 100 days or so to make a pound of difference in weight, but in the study it was 2 weeks.

There was a difference in about 2-3g in carbs mostly from additional sugars. I'd be curious as to how much of that component was fructose specifically. Also of interest would be if any alcohol was consumed.

This does seem to add a lot of credence to the insulin/glucose model which has gained a lot of traction (tail wagging dog) in the lchf movement. Would be interested to see additional studies on eating windows (IF) for more/fewer meals in a more controlled environment over a similar two week period. Would also like to see more studies over time that included/grouped for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetics.