MIT Researchers Discover "Metabolic Master Switch" To Control Obesity 381
New submitter ahbond writes: The meme of the chubby nerd alone in the basement may be a thing of the past. Well, at least the chubby part, if recent work at MIT pans out and we're able to use a biological "master switch" to "dial-in" a persons metabolic rate. “Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” said senior author Manolis Kellis, a professor of computer science and a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and of the Broad Institute.
I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Interesting)
Where do I sign up to try?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
Eat Less.
Yeah, that's what all those with an above average metabolism say.
Re: (Score:3)
And not just "eat less", but be happy and healthy. That's the real challenge. 10 years later. Ie. not a 21 day diet, but a lifestyle.
This is why Paleo/Banting gets advocated. Anyone can starve themselves. But increase their health whilst also increase their food intake and enjoy their meals and have more energy?
Re: (Score:2)
So your suggestion is that they 'just' have to be naked and afraid for the rest of their lives? You think you're such a gift to mankind that they should subject themselves to that to meet your aesthetic values?
Re: (Score:2)
The suggestion is to eat less.
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
Try this, breathe less. No, I didn't make an oblique reference to suicide, I mean breathe less. Just wait a little bit after you start feeling the breathing urge. Each time. For the rest of your life.
That is, make everything all about your breathing, or the lack thereof. Be sure to measure the amount of each breath. You wouldn't want to be a weak willed overbreather, would you?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm guessing that by 'did' you mean you were not able to continue it 24/7 for the rest of your life as the 'just eat crowd' demands of others.
Side note, I do practice yogic breathing, just not 24/7 forever.
Re: (Score:3)
Or, in other words, they can only fight the biological urge that is stronger than the sex drive and just under breathing for so long, then they relapse.
Some people overeat out of habit. Some have a stronger drive to eat. Some actually do eat pretty much what everyone else does or less and they gain weight anyway. Some people cut down eating and they lose weight and feel better. Others cut down and feel exhausted, get sick all the time, and their hair starts falling out all. Some are the opposite, they can't
Re: (Score:3)
For the first part of your response, it's called having discipline. I love looking at beautiful girls and I love sex, that doesn't mean I'm humping every girl I see in the street. Am I superhuman because I can resist a basic human desire that is third only to breathing and eating?
That's odd you would say that and then tell a story about how you failed twice to maintain that control so far (or if you want to count each meal, you've failed thousands of times). That's the thing. Anyone can resist any biological drive for a moment or two. Even breathing can be held briefly without distress.
Re: I volunteer as tribute. (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The internet is flooded with shitposts like yours in every article about weight loss. Diet and exercise, in the real world, appear to cure obesity about 2% of the time. That's like... shamanism cure rates. So yes, we'll need a real solution, and no, shitposts like yours won't bring it to fruition any faster.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No you are wrong, almost certainly because you are addicted and in denial.
Sensible diet and exercise WILL reduce weight in someone who is obese. By definition. It cannot not work.
There are a few factors however that damage such perceptions.
1) a persons metabolic rate determines what is 'enough' food. person A may be able to eat twice as much as person B for the same effect, but people now
expect to be able to eat until they feel full. In fact they practically demand it.
2) people expect to undo YEARS of overe
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
> No you are wrong, almost certainly because you are addicted and in denial.
0- Ad hominem. Off to a strong start I see.
> Sensible diet and exercise WILL reduce weight in someone who is obese.
1- Moving the goal posts. The cure rate is negligible. I didn't say "reduce weight". Don't move the fucking goal posts to something you CAN get a weak kick in. That's not the fucking topic.
> your 2% figure, which of course we understand is pulled out of your arse,
2- I think it's 2% for some groups, I'm pretty sure it can get that high. It's 1% in general.
Article:
http://www.seattletimes.com/ne... [seattletimes.com]
Based on study:
http://ajph.aphapublications.o... [aphapublications.org]
> is of course a silly form of self denial.
3- Second ad hominem. I guess if you don't have evidence on your side, you need that sort of scintillating distraction!
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Interesting)
How come that obesity is a modern day epidemic? Were people in the past ALL starving ALL the time and only barons, priests and kings were obese? I am not sure...looking at the pictures of the villagers where my mom was born [circa 40'ties] I see not a single obese person. Yet, all of them that are alive say they were not starving at all [despite war and shit]. After all they were mostly farmers. But when I ask "what is the major difference between your time and today in terms of food" the answer is unanimous - "sugar". They got 1 small cube of sugar per month, while gorging on fat, protein and grain [man, farmers DO know how to eat]
There is something more here, something hidden [accidentally or deliberately]. Something in our lives today pushes people's bodies in the wrong direction and trying to fix it through genomics seems futile and unwise to me...
I am on no grain, no sugar diet for 14 months already. Of course sometimes I have a piece of cake. In the last 4 weeks not even that. And just now, 5 minutes before finding this tread a colleagues brought chocolate for his newborn. I had 2 small pieces [20 grams in total] and at the moment my heart is racing, I feel dizzy and out of breath, even my hands are shaking a bit. I don't know what the hell is going on here...but I ain't gonna put sugar in my mouth for a long time I can promise you that...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Servants to reduce their physical workload? Yes.
Cooks to prepare food with little effort? Yes.
One day's labor or income providing more than 10 days of food? Yes.
Plenty of food all winter? Yes.
Children somewhere else for much of the day? Yes.
Sugar is a _result_ of wealth and modern industry supported by that wealth. I'm afraid it's hardly the only factor modern obese people share with historically obese people.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, you should watch the biggest loser, you know, the show where they kick people off because they just aren't losing weight despite all that exercise and reduced diet. It is interesting that when you have factors choosing for you how much you get the chosen result.
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet is flooded with shitposts like yours in every article about weight loss. Diet and exercise, in the real world, appear to cure obesity about 2% of the time. That's like... shamanism cure rates. So yes, we'll need a real solution, and no, shitposts like yours won't bring it to fruition any faster.
If there was a pill that cured a disease if you took at every day, but 98% of the people with the disease couldn't manage that would you say the pill didn't work?
There are no fat starving people, when people in general eat less, there was less obesity. Almost nobody gets fat without eating too much and exercising too little even many of the metabolic disorders trotted out as excuses won't make you obese by themselves.
Sure some people get lucky through genes and/or gut flora can eat more and not put on weight but it can't be that every thin person has this because the obesity problem is relatively recent and limited to certain countries. So there have to be plenty of people out there who are not obese but it isn't just luck.
There are other things that could help, regulating and/or taxing fat and sugar in food for example. Looking for a medical solution for a cultural problem seems like a problematic idea to me though.
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
> No, they cure it 100% of the time. The problem is few people actually follow a proper regimen.
If 98% of people can't "follow the proper regimen", then it's not a proper regimen, and it's quite obviously not at all what thin people are doing. That's the fucking point.
Hey, side question- you know that study where the poop transplants make people skinny, or fat? How about you round up your "proper regiment" bros- people who agree with your general side of this coin- and get the poop transplant from the really fat dudes? Put your body where your mouth is. If it's all about diet and exercise, I imagine 100% of the diet-and-exercise-is-panacea team will stay their original weight, no prob at all.
Call me when that happens. Until then... lolzors bro.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people find it hard to give up smoking. It's addictive, and stopping with aids is difficult. Some people argue that they are pussys and weak minded, with no self control, unable to stop crapping fags into their gobs and lighting up. Most people recognize that addictive substances are hard to beat by force of will alone.
Somehow when it comes to food though, it's really easy to just eat less and exercise more and anyone who fails to do really just wants to be fat. Because people like being fat, and getting diabetes and all the other health benefits of being obese, obviously. Who wants a sexy summer body when they can have rolls of flab instead?
Yep, obviously people who find that diet and exercising is hard for them just don't really want to be thin.
Re: (Score:3)
I would say from experience, quitting smoking is easier than losing weight.
Though Chantix helped, it was not the whole picture, and finally quitting was very difficult.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> No, they cure it 100% of the time. The problem is few people actually follow a proper regimen.
If 98% of people can't "follow the proper regimen", then it's not a proper regimen, and it's quite obviously not at all what thin people are doing. That's the fucking point.
This! Thin people pretty much happen to be........wait for it........Thin!
Acting like something that comes naturally to you makes you somehow superior regarding body style is exactly like telling people that everyone is a genius, they are only too lazy to use their mind if they have a lower IQ.
Re: (Score:3)
Shut the fuck up you worthless fucking pig.
Having a bad day there my little chachalaca?
Thin people are thin because they have not spent their entire lives eating far more food than they could possibly use.
My wife and I eat rougly the same amount, yet I weigh much more than her. Her family has a very high metabolic rate. One of her brothers consumes probably 8-10 kilocalories a day of food, yet is very slender.
The laws of physics prove that you're a delusional fat fuck.
Umm no. I am a rather muscular person who has to work very hrd at keeping that way. A fit endomorph.
Your one size fits all brand of physics just doesn't work outside of your mind.
Hot tip, one of the many negative consequences of being an obeast is lowered intellectual capacity.
Looks like you're suffering from that one.
You are on a profanity fueled outrage, and you claim I have a lowered intelle
Re: (Score:3)
> No, they cure it 100% of the time. The problem is few people actually follow a proper regimen.
If 98% of people can't "follow the proper regimen", then it's not a proper regimen, and it's quite obviously not at all what thin people are doing. That's the fucking point.
Weirdly enough, as much as I've studied and thought about this issue over the years, I never really thought about the people I know who eat just as much shit food as everyone else, and yet they're not overweight.
Now I'm flashing back to the time my wife was in the hospital, back when those "take the stairs instead of the elevator" ads were running. I was working 60 hours a week at a job that involved unloading freight out of the back of a truck by hand, and every chance I got, I went by the hospital to see
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> It is still a proper regimen, but the fat lazy bastards dont follow it correctly
Do you hear yourself?
No, if it doesn't cure obesity, it's not at all that thing. And obesity is so common now that it clearly can't be some edge case.
Anyway, why does every one of these weight loss or obesity topics have a mile of shitposters like you, instead of just a few people who:
> Put on a bunch of weight, like 80 pounds, with diet (poor) and exercise (little)
> Lose all that
> Repeat the first two steps to sh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Interesting)
I follow a proper regimen of computer games and ice cream, and I'm thinner than most people.
It should be plain to anyone who's met more than a couple of people that people can differ in body shape and muscle mass even with basically the same diet and training.
I have no idea why some people have become so eager to deny that, but it doesn't seem to stem from a deep seated belief in equality.
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Informative)
This is 100% bullshit and anyone with even a high school level of understanding of physics knows this.
And they'd be wrong, since you need college level biochemistry to actually understand what's happening. I follow a "proper" regimen of diet and exercise and it works, however there are plenty of others who follow the same kind of workout and diet routine whose BMR is MUCH MUCH higher than mine. Some of them it's so high they complain about the opposite problem, inability to gain weight.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People don't follow a "proper regimen" because attempting to adjust your body weight outside of it's desired setpoint is very difficult to do day after day. This goes not just for people trying to lose weight, but people trying to gain weight (like me). It requires either being hungry and miserable all the time, or forcing yourself to eat when you can barely stand the sight of food. Doing this for a lifetime is extremely difficult, and can crowd out your other priorities. Even if you have the willpower,
Re:I volunteer as tribute. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they cure it 100% of the time. The problem is few people actually follow a proper regimen.
Well, we're in dueling half-truths territory here. It's true that altering the balance between your calorie intake and output will inevitably cause your weight to drop. It's also true that this does not work better than a placebo when it comes to sustainable weight loss -- in fact the yoyo effect makes it worse than a placebo. Which leads us to one of only two possible conclusions: either the strategy is faulty or nearly all human beings are faulty.
One thing I've noticed over the years is how stable weight is when you aren't paying any attention to it. If you weigh yourself regularly at the same time of day, say when you go to do your gym routine, your weight readings will oscillate a percent or so around an average figure; if your average weight is 200 pounds you might get readings mostly in the range 197-203 lbs. This kind of remarkably precise stability doesn't happen by accident. Your nervous system and gut must be working in concert to keep your body composition in equilibrium, and it does an amazingly good job.
So how far does this feedback mechanism have to be from perfect to be a problem?
Imagine you're a six foot tall, 25 year old man who weighs 200 lbs. Unless you're a serious athlete that's a bit chunky, but not obese; it puts you at roughly the 75th percentile of American men your age for BMI. Now suppose you gain 1% of your body mass every year. When you are fifty years old you'll weigh 260 pounds. If you have any genetic disposition to obesity-related problems like hypertension, diabetes, or osteoarthritis there's a good chance you'll have one of them, in which case your BMI of 35.3 qualifies you for bariatric surgery according to the NIH guidelines.
But we don't experience our lives a year at time; the changes you need to stop this have to be done a day at a time. How much of your body weight have you gained on a *daily* basis over the last 25 years? 0.0027%. So when you're 25 and 200 pounds, and your weight measurements are swinging back and forth by three pounds on a daily basis, there's an underlying trend of gaining weight at a literally imperceptible rate of 2.4 grams per day. That about the same as adding a penny to your pocket, and that's only 0.2% of your normal daily weight fluctuation.
This is the ultimate case of tortoise (underlying bias toward weight gain) vs hare (conscious alteration of calorie balance), and because this race is lifelong the hare is screwed. But slowing the turtle down just a *tiny* bit would alter the race. It'd mean that you wouldn't put on those 60 pounds in the first place, or if you had then an attempt to diet down a few pounds would stick.
1% a year is good enough for evolution; by the time you're 50 it's supposed to be time for you to make room for your offspring. But most of us would appreciate being able to enjoy another twenty or thirty years of good health.
Re: (Score:3)
No, they cure it 100% of the time. The problem is few people actually follow a proper regimen.
Yeah yeah yeah, with eating one meal and a snack per day, bicycling 20 miles per day, and running several miles at lunch, then hitting the gym before bicycling home, I managed to get my weight to 185 at 5 foot 11. That's "overweight". Playing Ice hockey three games a week, I could just barely maintain my weight. Really low fat percentage for certain, but I was exercising several hours every day to maintain that. My life was work and working out.
It really isn't that easy. Some of us are just efficient
Expect a LOT more of this stuff... (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to a new technique called "CRISPR-Cas9" [wikipedia.org], there's been a whole lot of rapid development on the gene-identification front, and likely to be an explosion of new ones in coming months/years.
It's definitely being used here: Linky. [genomeweb.com]
Likely lots of half/false leads will also come out of all this too, but thanks to all this, we're getting a lot further into exploring the whole nature/nurture beyond simple debating points, and I think it's all amazing and interesting.
Ryan Fenton
Not ignored (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't being ignored; it's part of the equation, and always has been. Metabolic rate acts as a multiplier on the "calories out" part of the equation.
Re:Not ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but just look at the responses here. Suggesting that people have different metabolic rates is a weird 3rd rail on the Internet. If you say, "Two people of the same age, weight, height, and sex can have different metabolic rates," you're pretty much inviting a flame war where people accuse you of being fat, and just trying to defend your lazy, overeating habits.
I'm not always sure why people get so angry about it, but my guess is that some of those people must be clinging on really tightly to their superiority over fat people, and saying that their other factors threatens their self-esteem. Like they're thinking, "I'm a total piece of shit, but at least I'm not fat! I'm better than everyone who weighs more than me!" so if you suggest that their low weight might be at least partially due to genetics, it really freaks them out. That's my only guess.
Because otherwise, why get so angry about what's basically settled science? The statement "Some people have a harder time controlling their weight than others," shouldn't be so upsetting.
Cell wear == Engine Wear ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Running an engine faster shortens it useful life,hmm, maybe this might not be a good idea. Will turning up the biological clock shorten up the life based around the clock. What is really solved by tweaking your system so that you can eat more junk food, damn, I just imagined the junk food companies incorporating this chemical into the pseudo foods they produce, they would go nuts with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, they're going to include retro viruses in their products that are going to alter DNA, sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah and lot's alcohol consumption doesn't shorten your life nor does smoking tobacco nor does crystal meth nor well how much crap shortens you life without altering you DNA, seriously what were you thinking?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You're safe then. If your candle was burning twice as bright, you might have factored colour temperature into the equation, or you might have said that the candle that burns twice as bright burns green, or something interesting like that (though it appears that the candles that burn half as bright also burn green.)
Re: (Score:2)
Lets assume you aren't fat.
Lets assume that they figure out how to turn on (fat mode) and turn off (skinny mode) some set of genes.
Will you be lining up to swap to fat mode?
Somehow I bet this is more "there's no WAY science will solve the problem because the answer is DIET AND EXERCISE and anything (aka, just like, all the things) that show otherwise MUST be wrong, there MUST be a cost".
Or maybe there's no cost.
Re: (Score:2)
...cows alone are causing more global warming than the poorest half of the population of the entire planet...
At least I can eat the cows.
Next year they'll find another switch (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. That is how progress works. Of course we will really evolved significantly when the human race has been rid of morons that use the subject line as the first line of their actual post.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wonder who's happier about this... (Score:2)
Eating is Dopamine (Score:2)
Which just means that people will eat even more, not getting as fat but filling their arteries with cholesterol and other harmful substances. Just like Americans smoke more, and drink more if it is available, they will keep eating to excess.
When people admit the connection between depression and eating fatty foods yielding a drug like high, they may start to fight the American obesity epidemic.
Re:Eating is Dopamine (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing says "I have a valid opinion worth listening to!" quite like lumping cholesterol in with "harmful substances".
Just kidding. Cholesterol is the very foundation that all animal life is built on. It is the chemical that allows us to be complex multicellular organisms that aren't made of plant cells.
You may also have missed some other recent memos. Arterial plaque appears to be caused by inflammation, and cholesterol accumulation in the damaged areas appears to be part of your body's repair efforts.
Genetic factor (Score:2)
It is nice to consider the genetic factor, but soon we are going to be told genetic expression is modulated by the environment, and especially by what we eat.
This may seems to bring us back to the starting place, but it is not exactly the case, since food quality (and not only quantity) will come into account. At least.
Original paper, New England Journal of Medicine (Score:5, Informative)
Original paper, New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10... [nejm.org]
Brought to you by Coca Cola (Score:3)
Spend half your money on coke, the other half on drugs to avoid gaining weight, what a life!
Input output (Score:3)
Funny, so many developers/coders here, and yet they forget ye old addage 'garbage in, garbage out', or another way, if input > output, guess what happens?
So many people want excuses (it's my genes, it's my metabolism, I'm big boned, blah blah fucking blah). For the VAST majority of people, it's simple, they consume more calories than they burn.... period.
I dropped 30 lbs after keeping a food log for 6 months -- you know what I found, I was initially eating more than I should be, shocker I know! I reduced my calories from ~ 2200 a day to ~1600 and what do you know, I lost about 1-1.5 lb a week every week. It's THAT simple for 99% of the population, why is it everyone claims they're the 1% who have a thyroid or metabolic issue, when they know they're fat cause they fucking eat too much?
People want a pill or quick fix for everything... or an excuse
Re: (Score:3)
So, if the only thing that matters to get the desired output is to use the correct input, and the platform itself is irrelevant, then a Commodore 64 is sufficient for all computing needs, right?
Or, in more modern terms, there's no need for Linux, or any other OS for that matter. After all, the 'genetics' or 'metabolism' of the platform is irrelevant. A
ignores genetics ... bs (Score:3)
That quote was from a computer scientist. If energy in > energy out you will get obese. Genetics isn't going to magically create the fat for you, nor does it magically make exercise take no energy to perform, it just contributes to how big or small the right side of the balance is going to be.
I think part of the problem is even if you say have two people with the same hunger "drive" and they manage to eat the "right balanced diet" for that caloric level there is no guarantee that your desire to eat is going to match your bodies ability to burn that which you eat. So for example, people with this disease might have to live a life where they are always a bit hungry, or walk their asses off every day in order to force themselves to balance out. Anyways, there are many factors that go into obesity, but at some level it is a disease and like someone with asthma or liver failure it means your lifestyle might not be able to be the same as the next guys, or even the way you prefer. I don't like it that I need to workout 4-5 days a week to keep my body weight stable, but that is what I have to do because I have a slow metabolism and prefer exercise over eating very small portions (for me at least normal meal + exercise leaves me less hungry than taking the equivalent calories out of my meals instead, + it has nice side effects like benching 300lbs and a resting heart rate of 52).
Part of the problem is diet and exercise take time. A lot of other medical conditions don't really take that long each day to deal with, you take your pill, carry your inhaler in case you need it etc, but proper diet and exercise means you are probably spending an hour a day making food (or the equivalent hours working to pay for it prepared for you) and another hour or so being active (maybe more if you go to a gym and then need a second shower on workout days) which you might not be lucky enough to get from your work either. It can easily eat up 15 hours a week.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Interesting)
To say metabolic rates don't vary significantly is simply wrong. In my own case I eat 3-4000 calories per day with nil exercise. I retain my lean figure despite everything I do to work against that outcome. It is true that just about any obese person could become healthier with less intake of food, but BMR remains an important factor.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is parent modded down? He made a good point, one that most people have seen with their own eyes.
Next door to me lives a sixty-year old man who is rail thin despite living the good life (especially with food) and never exercising. I'm not talking about merely not overweight, this guy is really skinny. His twenty-something daughter is already pretty hefty, not fat yet but will be by the time she's thirty. Same lifestyle, half of the same genes, different results.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it is anecdotal. No matter how true it may be, it is terrible science.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. A single data point can invalidate a theory. It just can't "prove" anything.
But invalidate, yes.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Insightful)
No, parent is modded down because a bunch of fat hate ppls swarm around all these stories and downvote. Make no mistake, parent isn't modded down- he's downvoted.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is parent modded down?
Probably because he's lying about eating 4,000 calories a day and not exercising. Either that or he's on meth, but his post isn't insane enough for that.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It's possible his body isn't absorbing all those calories and instead is ejecting them as waste.
Or I suppose he might be a mutant with strange muscle and energy usage.
Or he has some sort of parasite in him.
Re: (Score:2)
Ugh...usually when people say "metabolic rate" they mean something like BMR - basal metabolic rate. Did you know that we have quite a number of equations which predict BMR from relatively few variables. If what you assert it true - that BMR varies significantly, per person. Then you wouldn't be able to perform a regression on BMR data with any useful correlation.
We do. Hence you are wrong.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Insightful)
This is flat out wrong. The whole point of a regression is to determine the correlation in noisy data. We're not talking about random points here like paint thrown at a piece of graph paper, but rather a correlation between indep. variables vs. dep. variables which have a distribution. That in no way negates the possibility that the mean values of the samples can be tightly correlated to the indep. vars.
Now what might be the physical basis for high variance in basal metabolism vs. low variance? Well, there are about a zillion parameters in the human body with complex interactions, genetic & epigenetic dependencies, etc. that we barely understand! Yet we assume that everyone is the same?
I'll tell you where this unscientific belief comes from--the "soul" model of human consciousness. Most discussions of obesity have a heavy bias toward the view that people simply choose to be pigs. Evidence that this is false is steadily accumulating, as it is clear that simply turning a few knobs on your hormone regulation, or other parameters, could turn you into a completely different person--an obese compulsive eater, a drug addict, etc. Note that it is easier to perturb a well optimized body so as to degrade health and behavioral regulation vs. bringing one from non-optimum to optimum.
Re: (Score:3)
Your BMR may still be 2000, you just aren't absorbing all 3-4000 calories that you eat. In other words your intestines are crappy and you're pooping out half your calories. :)
Gut bacteria play a huge role in how much nutrition/calories we absorb from our food.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Informative)
BMR (basal metabolic rate) really doesn't vary much person to person.
Actually, the article is stating precisely the opposite. It states that the BMR is controlled by IRX3 and IRX5, and that this varies from person to person, and thus people have different propensities for fat storage as a result of the state of those genes. They went on to modify the nucleotide in mice, and demonstrated that they had in fact found the regulatory mechanism for the metabolic pathway.
Re: (Score:3)
The article is vague, but if you changed a person's metabolic rate (how many calories are burnt without exercises) you would also expect them to have a corresponding change in body temperature. Perhaps there's another explanation for IRX3 and IRX5 and obesity being linked. They mentioned "a complete resistance to a high-fat diet" which sounds like, it adjusts how these mice eat (and certainly doesn't mean the same thing as metabolic rate). Of course, saying you have a miracle obesity cure that means you
This is precisely what they found. (Score:4, Interesting)
The article is vague, but if you changed a person's metabolic rate (how many calories are burnt without exercises) you would also expect them to have a corresponding change in body temperature.
This is precisely what they found.
I've made another posting (later) in which I link to a PDF of the original research paper, if you care to read it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I read the article, and my comment stands. Obesity is, in general, not caused by variance in BMR. Far from it. It's caused by an imbalance between eating and activity habits. There are a lot of factors that go into both the energy in and energy out sides of the equation, from hormone levels to satiety levels to calorie-dense and hyperpalatable foods, etc.
But the bottom line is that obesity in the western world is a factor of overabundance of extremely tasty, calorie-dense food combined with increasingl
Re: (Score:2)
Starvation is more fun than ketogenic diets.
Sure, three days without food hurts. It's still better than cutting out all the food I like eating.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Soooo... Fat people are fat because deserve to be fat... very scientific of you to call a constant something that actually is a variable.
I know many strength trainers, dieticians, and physical therapists that would disagree with you. BMR can vary widely from person to person, whether healthy or sick, and especially between genders. There are tons of medical conditions that will actually mess with BMR as a side effect, as well as definite genetic problems. BMR also changes with age, and various age related c
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:4, Interesting)
I never said "deserve." I was a fat guy, and now I'm not a fat guy. I did it the same way everyone ultimately does it: eating less and moving more. There is some, but not much, person to person variation in BMR. You can calculate your own BMR to a reasonable accuracy using your age, mass, gender, and body composition. From there it becomes an engineering problem: energy in and energy out.
It's a simple problem, but not an easy one. The energy in part is extremely difficult to tackle. Hyperpalatable foods - foods with a combination of fats, salts, and simple carbs or sugars - are a huge problem. They are cheap and make it easy to eat far far more than one needs. It's very difficult to maintain the energy in side of the equation when we spend our days surrounded by calorie-dense, delicious food that is essentially free.
Satiety is strongly affected by hormones and genetics - some people can "eat whatever they want" and maintain their weight while some people can't. If you're really strict about observing these people (who often claim they eat 3000+ calories a day and don't exercise), they eat far less than they think they do. I've observed a number of those people, and counted calories on them. It never fails. The energy equation always wins. You can put someone on an isocaloric diet, measure their mass change over time, and calculate their average calorie expenditure.
Satiety is also strongly affected by the food you eat, which is why low-carb diets are often so effective. It's really rather difficult to eat 3000 calories worth of meat and vegetables a day, while 3000 is no problem when you include bread, chips, ice cream, soda, juice, etc.
On top of that, our society is getting fatter and fatter. It's not because BMR is changing.
tl;dr Variability in BMR from person to person can be explained almost entirely by the known predictors (gender, age, height, fat mass, and fat free mass), and the obesity epidemic is not caused by differences in BMR.
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Interesting)
Satiety is strongly affected by hormones and genetics - some people can "eat whatever they want" and maintain their weight while some people can't. If you're really strict about observing these people (who often claim they eat 3000+ calories a day and don't exercise), they eat far less than they think they do. I've observed a number of those people, and counted calories on them. It never fails.
And I've done the same and found the opposite. They actually burn far more calories at rest than BMR would suggest. The basic metabolic rate of people varies largely.
the obesity epidemic is not caused by differences in BMR.
Nobody ever said it was. Seems you are ignoring all the science, so you can support your personal opinion about the obesity epidemic. Processed food changes the content of the food. This causes obesity by triggering over-eating in those who aren't eating things required by their body. If you are iron deficient, you'll have cravings. Often for iron-rich food. If your food has the useful contents purged from it, it'll cause over-eating. It's not a "willpower" thing. It's a malnutrition thing. We are eating the bare minimum to not be malnutritioned, and it's making us fat, because the food doesn't have food in it anymore, just flavor. That's what's causing the obesity epidemic.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're really strict about observing these people (who often claim they eat 3000+ calories a day and don't exercise), they eat far less than they think they do. I've observed a number of those people, and counted calories on them.
How about some data rather than anecdotes?
I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Basically the mitochondria in my body that are responsible for delivering energy to my muscles and organs don't work properly. There is no known treatment or cure. Before it started I was able to control my weight without too much trouble, but now I'm eating relatively few calories but still unable to lose what I have gained.
Other people with this condition experienced similar problems. They were skinny before, able to eat as
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Metabolic rate doesn't vary that much (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Unlike Asia, where no one eats noodles, rice, or rice noodles.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And the glycemic load of IV glucose is even higher. You said "fast carbs". Do these not qualify as "fast"?
Re: (Score:2)
Annoyingly enough you are correct. Exercise is a good way of getting fit, but not a particularly effective way of losing weight. I have recently been losing 1 kg a week (for 2 months) mainly because I have had a jaw reconstruction and basically have to eat slowly, and due to some other treatment food doesn't taste that great, so I tend to get bored before I finish a plateful.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect the article is some "don't feel so bad for being a fat slob" shit. I suspect it doesn't even claim in the article actually that being fat wouldn't be a result of eating more energy than you burn, but that makes a better blurb so the text has to be there at top of the article.
basically I suspect that the article/prof is just about finding a way to make you feel less hungry if you don't need the energy, so you wouldn't need self restraint to limit you from eating too much.
I refuse to give them click
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect it doesn't even claim in the article actually that being fat wouldn't be a result of eating more energy than you burn,
I've never seen anyone argue against that. The points I've seen argued are the liars who assert that the amount burned is fixed and constant between similar people (like BMR calculations).
Re: (Score:2)
For me personally, I went from reasonable calorie count and low activity and being 20 lbs below "average" to fewer calories, and the same activity and being 20 lbs above "average". Cutting calories has little effect on my weight. It just makes my body hold calories better. The less I eat, the more efficient I get. BMR is wrong, because it doesn't take into account so many proven effects like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Obesity still is an imbalance regardless (Score:4, Insightful)
If this research is correct, "what you use" does change if this gene is expressed. So while the x/y equation might not change, both the values of x and y can.
Re:Obesity still is an imbalance regardless (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obesity still is an imbalance regardless (Score:4, Insightful)
You have cause and effect reversed. You are going to eat more if you are gaining weight. We understand this relationship correctly when children are growing, when women are pregnant, and when we breed some cattle to be thin and produce milk while others are bred to be heavy so we can harvest more meat off of them.
In evolutionary terms, we eat when we are hungry. We certainly are not the offspring of organisms that failed to observe this simple rule. Those organisms are dead, and if they had any offspring, the offspring are dead too.
And don't forget that people tend to gain or lose weight after poop transplants, tending usually towards the donor's BMI.
There is more, if you care to go do some research. Science is poking holes in the "fat people are lazy and/or stupid" myth almost daily now.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is better far to follow research at the Broad Institute than to possess a narrow mind.
Re:i already have a master switch (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird, because you clearly don't know when to stop making sounds out of it when you want to control stupidity.
Re: (Score:2)