Negative calorie

Not to be confused with Frigoría.

The concept of negative calories refers to the calories of foods that burn more energy during their digestion than they contain. This concept is still under discussion. The theory of negative calories, which is not formally accepted by the medical community or other biological sciences, proposes that the calories that are ingested with certain foods, especially industrial foods, are spent on the proper digestion of these foods. And not only the calories of the food are burned but some extra calories will be needed for the digestion of these foods.

The existence of negative calories is being widely debated and its scientific validity has yet to be confirmed.

In particular it refers to proteins, since its caloric intake is 4 calories per 1 gram approx, but to be metabolized, the body spends 8 calories, ie high quality proteins or with good bioavailability, have a final balance of -4 calories, this is why many ketogenic diets high in protein have a great success in weight reduction even if they are not made to the letter, because they make the digestive system is constantly wasting energy to metabolize the nutrients provided by the diet.

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