Locusts as dietary role models
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a University of Sydney study into eating habits.
Obesity experts are conducting a three-year trial that aims to prove people keep eating until they have satisfied their appetite for protein.
The study will involve groups of volunteers kept in laboratory conditions for a week at a time and fed carefully manipulated diets.
The project’s chief investigator, Professor Stephen Simpson, said the study will test his “protein leverage hypothesis” that high-protein diets, such as the CSIRO Total Wellbeing and Atkins, work not because they cut out carbohydrates but because they are high in protein.
The theory follows the observation that insects such as locusts move in swarms to areas providing enough protein for their diet.
Humans don’t move, they eat more.
