Hold Off Dieting to Avoid the Flu???
That’s how a new study is being interpreted…
Dieting at this time of year could impair your body’s ability to fight the flu virus, a study warns.
US researchers found mice who were put on a calorie-controlled diet found it harder to tackle the infection than those on a normal diet.
…The team at Michigan State University found even though the mice on the lower calorie diet received adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, their bodies were still not able to produce the amount of killer cells needed to fight an infection.
But it just goes to show you, it pays to actually read things through, and not just jump to conclusions based on the headline + skimming. If I hadn’t, I might have missed this sentence:
As well as being more likely to die from the virus, the mice – which were consuming around 40% of the calories given to their counterparts on a normal diet – took longer to recover, lost more weight and displayed other symptoms of poor health.
40% of the calories???
Well, no wonder the little buggers were having problems…that’s a starvation-level diet. Even if their diets supplied an adequate amount of essential nutrients, I can understand why they were having problems fighting off a serious viral infection.
To put that “40%” into perspective, my normal maintenance intake is around 2200 – 2300 calories/day. 40% of that is roughly 900 calories. I’d be DYING on 900 calories a day.
The take home lesson of a study like this shouldn’t be “don’t diet during cold/flu season” – it should be “don’t severely restrict calories”…which is good advice during any time of the year. The focus of any solid fat loss program should be on changing eating (and activity) habits – and that’s an extended process. More often than not, rapid weight loss programs are self-defeating.
Thus, if your New Year’s Resolution is to shed those unwanted pounds, I wouldn’t take this study as a warning to delay making a start…just as a warning to avoid fad/starvation diets. Take it slow, for both your short and long term health.
