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Comment by _aavaa_ | Hacker News Reader

"The investigators acknowledge some limitations on this research, including the fact that although they measured food intake, *they didn't measure what the participants were actually eating or their feelings of satiation or satiety*."

This seems to directly contradict the title.

EDIT: What food they are eating and how satiating that food may be is irrelevant. They did not measure the participants feelings of satiation or satiety. The title can't claim that the lower BMI people feel less hungry if you don't measure how hungry they feel.

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Totally agree with your point and find it really annoying. The original journal entry is titled: 'Higher than predicted resting energy expenditure and lower physical activity in healthy underweight Chinese adults.' and makes no such 'less hungry' claim. That appears to have been introduced from the 'cell press' journal/article promoting organization.

Did you read the full study?

I think they are saying the caloric intake was measured, but they didn’t distinguish between what kind of food the calories were coming from:

> The participants were monitored for two weeks. Their food intake was measured with an isotope-based technique called the doubly-labeled water method, which assesses energy expenditure based on the difference between the turnover rates of hydrogen and oxygen in body water as a function of carbon dioxide production. Their physical activity was measured using an accelerometry-based motion detector.

Also regarding the specific food choices:

> The team is now expanding its research, including studies that include these measures. They also plan to look at genetic differences between normal weight and healthy underweight individuals. Preliminary analysis suggests single nucleotide polymorphisms in certain genes that might play a role.

I don't see how that has any impact on my point.

title: "People with low BMI aren't more active, *they are just less hungry*, 'run hotter'"

quotation: "they didn't measure what the participants were actually eating or *their feelings of satiation or satiety*"

The title is factually untrue. You can't claim that people with lower BMI "are just less hungry" if you don't measure how hungry they feel.

Depending what you eat, it's possible to basically eat all you want and still lose weight. One example is learning to love non-carb foods - eat all the antipasto salad and steak you like (expensive AF yes).

Which doesn’t refute the point the post you are replying to made at all.

> One example is learning to love non-carb foods

This could be true for some people, but not for everyone, which is where this research will lead.

With all the love of science here why does no one think genetics matters when it comes to diet and health?

OK, I see what you mean. However I would interpret the fact that people consistently ate less as strongly implying that they were less hungry in the first place. While one individual might go around hungry, in general people don’t experience hunger if they don’t have to.

I think if they had substituted “eat less” for “are less hungry” the title would be fair.

Title says they are less hungry, researchers say they didn't measure feelings of satisfaction or satiety. I think that contradcits the title.

Caloric intake is a measure of the energy we receive from food accurately, i believe they are referring more-so to an idea in a recent popular HN post, potatoes,[1] and which foods are more filling. It could be that there is error in what the less-eating participants happen to eat more-filling food, but not that the entire hypothesis would be incorrect.

[1] https://dynomight.net/potato-diet/

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