If you were around in the 1970s you likely heard of the grapefruit diet, a quick-fix, fad diet that had followers eating a grapefruit with each meal and consuming ridiculously low calories (~ 800/day).Obviously, I do not promote fad diets but every now and again research rears it's head and finds something of value in what would seem to absurd.
In the case of the grapefruit diet, it's not the starvation tactics that are of value but rather a type of flavonoid found in grapefruit and other citrus fruit called naringenin.
A study published in the Journal Diabetes found that naringenin can prompt the liver to burn excess fat rather than store it - at least if you're a mouse.
The research was based on dividing healthy mice with normal body weight in to 4 groups.
One group was fed a normal, healthy diet. The second group received a high fat, high calorie diet. The third and fourth groups received a high fat, high calorie diet along with naringenin supplementation.
After 4-weeks the mice on the high fat, high calorie diet became obese in addition to insulin and glucose intolerant (markers linked to Metabolic Syndrome).
The two groups who received the naringenin supplementation did not gain weight like their high fat, high calorie counterparts. Nor did they develop markers linked to Metabolic Syndrome.
While it will obviously be interesting to see further research using humans as a control group, consider that a grapefruit a day may help keep the fat away. And if it doesn't, it's certainly a better snack than a bag of chips!
Train hard; stay strong.
Peace.
Susan
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2 Responses to "How Sweet It Is"This is a good research report and if it helping the diet chart then it must be incorporated.Is this fruit sugar eliminated?
EMR, fructose is a simple monosacharide which is the simplest form of a carbohydrate. It is metabolized in the liver (versus glucose, which passes through the liver and can be metabolized anywhere in the body).
Because the liver can only store a limited amount fructose as glycogen at one time, excess fructose will be stored as fat.
With that said, the health benefits of fruit in general are enormous. I recommend to my clients who are trying to lose weight that they limit fruit intake to 2 servings per day, but do strongly encourage those two servings.
At a maintenance level, I personally consume 3 servings of fruit per day (grapefruit, apple, berries).
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