Your Food is Doing More than Adding Calories...

Your Food Is Doing More Than Adding Calories

We’ve spent decades arguing about calories.

Then carbs.

Then fat.

Then protein.

And somehow we keep acting like the human body is a calculator where 500 calories of one food automatically does the same thing as 500 calories of another.

It doesn’t.

Several health stories making headlines this week are another reminder that what you eat can change what happens inside your body in ways that have very little to do with the number printed on the Nutrition Facts label.

Ultra-Processed Food May Be Changing Your Muscles

One of the more interesting stories this week looked at ultra-processed food and something most people probably never think about:

Fat inside your muscles.

Researchers analyzed MRI scans and dietary information from 615 adults and found that people eating more ultra-processed food tended to have more fat in their thigh muscles.

And here’s the interesting part.

The association remained even after researchers accounted for things like total calories, physical activity and body size.

So two diets can contain the same number of calories and still produce very different signals inside the body.

Food structure matters.

Ingredients matter.

How much processing that food went through matters.

And muscle quality becomes increasingly important as we get older.

Everybody worries about losing muscle.

We probably ought to be paying attention to the QUALITY of the muscle we keep too.

Can Changing Your Diet Make You “Younger” in Four Weeks?

Another study getting a lot of attention this week had one of those headlines I normally roll my eyes at:

Scientists reversed biological age in four weeks.

Well...sort of.

Researchers looked at 104 adults between 65 and 75 and put them on four different diets for four weeks.

They then calculated a biological-age estimate using 20 different biomarkers, including things like cholesterol, insulin and inflammation.

Three of the four groups showed improvements in that calculated biological-age score.

They demonstrated that biomarkers associated with aging can change surprisingly quickly when you change the diet.

Your health at 65, 70 or 75 isn't necessarily locked in.

Four weeks.

That’s it.

You can make measurable changes in the body in a month.

Your Gut Bacteria May Be Turning Food Into Medicine

Then there was another fascinating gut-health story.

Researchers have been studying something called urolithin A.

You don't normally eat much urolithin A directly.

Certain gut bacteria manufacture it after breaking down compounds found in foods including pomegranates, walnuts and berries.

Researchers found that urolithin A activated pathways that helped strengthen the intestinal barrier, increase protective mucus and regulate immune activity in experimental models. They also saw activation of the same protective pathway in intestinal tissue from people with inflammatory bowel disease.

Now, that doesn't mean eating a handful of walnuts cures Crohn’s disease.

But think about what is happening here.

You eat food.

Your microbes interact with that food.

They produce completely different compounds.

Those compounds then communicate with cells lining your intestine.

That’s a long way from:

Calories in. Calories out.

My Bottom Line

Calories matter.

Protein matters.

Some Carbohydrates matter.

Fat matters.

But that’s not the whole story.

We’re learning more and more that food affects your gut bacteria, inflammation, hormones, muscle composition, blood sugar and dozens of signaling pathways most people have never heard of.

Which is why I keep coming back to the same boring advice.

Eat more actual food.

Meat. Eggs. Fish. Vegetables. Some Fruit. Fermented foods. Nuts. Dairy if you tolerate it.

Food that still resembles what it started as.

You don't need to understand every biochemical pathway involved.

You don't need to calculate your biological age every Tuesday morning.

And you definitely don't need another $79 bottle of something because an influencer told you it “activates longevity.”

Start with food.

Because every few weeks we discover another mechanism explaining something humans should probably have figured out a long time ago:

Real food does a lot more inside your body than simply give you calories.

Studies Mentioned

Ultra-processed Foods and Muscle Fat Infiltration at Thigh MRI: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41979462/

Short-Term Dietary Intervention Alters Physiological Profiles Relevant to Ageing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42037549/

Urolithin A Activates AHR-NLRP6-Mediated Pathways: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42336837/

I put 3 videos you may be interested in down below if you missed them.  

Stay healthy,
Victor
Primal Nutrition / Southern Keto

P.S.

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