Is the Sirtfood diet healthy?
Registered dieititans give their thoughts on the buzzy eating plan made popular by Adele and Pippa Middleton.
With their curiosity piqued, many people are googling this diet du jour.
Spoiler alert: Most healthy eating experts are not on-board with this particular eating plan.
What is the Sirtfood diet?
The Sirtfood diet was created by two British nutritionists, Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten.
registered dietitian nutritionist and author ofCollagen: Self-Care Secrets to Eat, Drink, and Glow
Goggins and Matten dub sirtuins skinny genes because activating them, they say, leads to rapid weight loss.
These genes are otherwise only activated through exercise and fasting, they say.
Emphasis on they say, as research on the subject is hazy at bestbut more on that later.
First off, its very restrictive.
This comes with a lot of potential problems.
(For example, the Sirtfood diet food list includes very limited sources of protein and healthy fats.)
Additionally, for many people, this might not be enough food, period.
Eating only 1,000 or 1,500 calories a day is very extreme, Bippen adds.
Both dietitians also say that restrictive diets dont work.
registered dietitian nutritionist and author ofCollagen: Self-Care Secrets to Eat, Drink, and Glow
One reason for this is that it often leads to bingeing later, Rissetto says.
Restrictive diets are inherently harmful because they can lead to disordered eating, Rissetto says.
Many people who follow restrictive eating plans become overly obsessed with food and calories, and thats not healthy.
Additionally, both dietitians say that the science around sirtuin proteins does not check out.
Basically, the limited research isnt conclusive enough to support a whole diet with sirtuin proteins as the focus.
So maybe think twice before busting out the juicer.
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