The Potential Role of Protein Leverage in the US Obesity Epidemic
Open accessAbstract
The protein leverage model of obesity posits that decreasing the protein fraction of the diet leads to compensatory increases in total energy intake in an attempt to maintain a target amount of absolute protein consumed. The resulting increased energy intake thereby causes weight gain. According to food balance sheets published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, while the absolute protein content of the US food supply has increased since the early 1970s, the fraction of available calories from protein has decreased by ~1% because of greater increases in available carbohydrate and fat. Counterintuitively, even such a small decrease in the protein fraction of the food supply has the potential to result in relatively large increases in energy intake according to the protein leverage model. Therefore, while the protein leverage effect is unlikely to fully explain the obesity epidemic, its potential contribution should not be ignored.
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Under perfect protein leverage, protein leverage could explain at most about 50% of the observed energy intake difference between diets.
“we calculated that protein leverage could potentially explain at most ~50% of the observed energy intake differences between the diets assuming perfect leverage”
From Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake (2019) · cites this paper as Hall, 2019
The indexed passage labeled Abstract (page not provided) defines perfect protein leverage and models its effect on energy intake. It does not report that leverage explains at most ~50% of observed energy-intake differences between diets; its quantitative estimate instead concerns about two-thirds of the rise in mean adult body weight in the US. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Cites
The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact
Hall, K. D., Guo, J., Dore, M., & Chow, C. C. (2009) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007940 · Cited by 748 · cited 1× · see citing works
“The difference between the ~600- to 800-kcal/d increase in food supply calories and the ~250- to 300-kcal/d increase in energy intake indicates progressive increases in food lost or wasted along the supply chain (10).”
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Research works printed but not linked: 10
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Hall, K. D., Ayuketah, A., Brychta, R., Cai, H., Cassimatis, T., Chen, K. Y., Chung, S. T., Costa, E., Courville, A., Darcey, V., et al. (2019) · Cell Metabolism · doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008 · Cited by 1,971 · see citing works
“Using the mathematical relationship between energy intake changes expected from the observed differences in the protein fraction of the provided diets (Hall, 2019), we calculated that protein leverage could potentially explain at most (cid”
BackgroundSelf-citationProtein Leverage: Theoretical Foundations and Ten Points of Clarification
Raubenheimer, D., & Simpson, S. J. (2019) · Obesity · doi:10.1002/oby.22531 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
Protein, amino acids and obesity treatment
Simonson, M., Boirie, Y., & Guillet, C. (2020) · Reviews in Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders · doi:10.1007/s11154-020-09574-5 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Low carbohydrate dietary approaches for people with type 2 diabetes-a narrative review
Wheatley, S. D., Deakin, T. A., Arjomandkhah, N. C., Hollinrake, P. B., & Reeves, T. E. (2021) · Frontiers in Nutrition · doi:10.3389/fnut.2021.687658 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hall, K. D.
- Affiliations
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hall, Kevin D.
- ORCID
- Hall, Kevin D.
- Venue
- Obesity
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-05-16
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1222-1224
- ISSN
- 1930-7381 (ISSN-L)
- 1930-739X
- PMC
- PMC7147114
- OpenAlex
- W2945497525
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 5
- FWCI
- 3.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- public-domain
- onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
- Locations
- Obesity (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- NutriXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- NutriXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Funders
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (1-ZIA-DK013036)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Regulation of Appetite and Obesity
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Keywords
- obesity epidemic, food balance sheets, weight gain
- MeSH terms
- Energy Intake, Diet, Dietary Carbohydrates, Dietary Proteins, Food Analysis, Food Supply, Humans, Obesity, United States, Weight Gain
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