"Are you going to purposely malnourish people so that you can see they're malnourished? That's ethically dubious at best."
Yes, that's what Soylent is currently doing. No suprise the founder got bad news from his cardiologist with an earlier version. "Failing" with their product in this case actually means hurting the customers.
No you are wrong. MRP companies are just more careful regarding marketing. Taking a "failing is ok, we'll fix it later" approach to your own health is a terribly retarded approach. Especially because long term effects can take months and years to manifest (lack of nutrients).
It's the increased protein and reduced kcal intake (greater satiety by protein + less choice by excluding vast amounts of food groups) that works. No need to go very low carb/keto.
No, this is a very underused mechanism in humans. Highly active in lab rats though. Which led to this confusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3799507
500g Carbs overfeeding > <10g Fat synthesized
It is NOT useless. There are a plethora of factors influencing energy intake. Which you can work on. His unsubstantiated pet theory that carbs are to blame lacks evidence.