Those are 2 interesting studies, but I'm not sure how one can compare them. The first group certainly were prevented from cheating, but they were also in a stressful environment. The first study was 36 young men. The 2nd study was 3 men and 8 women according to the PDF and the diet wasn't as controlled.

When I was in my early 20s, it was almost impossible for me to change my weight of around 125. By the time I was in my mid-30s, my weight would creep up near 160 if I ate anything approaching the same number of calories. Yes, my activity level dropped (I used to walk a lot, now not so much), but more was going on, I think.

Anecdotally, I can weigh less the morning after eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's than I do after eating nothing. I find a real fatty ice cream like that to be much more satisfying than the equivalent amount of fluffy lower-fat Edys. I also know that people in their ninties who always ate lots of meat and potatoes and never had weight problems. (Others in their family were extremely obese, so something else other than home cooking was going on there, too.)

But I'm not sure how to sort out all of these competing diet claims. I don't think that the standard Department of Agriculture diet is an evil plot, and I think there's a demonstrated benefit of roughage (usually tied in with carbs) to get stuff out of the body reasonably quickly. Aren't too many of these reports annecdotal? How do you come up with a way of evaluating them that isn't simply confirming pre-existing bias?

Cheers,
Scott.