Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionately 661
Philip K Dickhead writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."
Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.
Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.
I'm fat. I'm able to avoid a huge variety of foods due to my wife's allergies. (If I've eaten the tiniest amounts of garlic, onion, capcicum, chill
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges. On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.
[snip]
Combine this with a desk job and yeah I _could_ try to make time for the gym (which I hate with a passion) but keeping up an excercise routine is to say the least problematic.
So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more. So you have a bad ankle, talk to your doctor to come up with an exercise routine that doesn't involve massive amounts of walking.
30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue.
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So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Not at all.
Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.
That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.
So you have
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Not at all.
Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.
That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.
You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right? And also from what kind of food you eat. Carbs burn *fast* in your body, so stay off from bread, rice, potatoes and such. Eat high-protein and high-fat foods like meat, fish and chicken. They often also contain way less calories than the high-carb foods. Start by eating when you feel like so, as you're quite possible taking way less calories in that way anyways. Lower your amounts a bit all the time and you'll notice you dont really need that much food.
I feel you in that theres sometimes reasons people cant get their motivation up for that, being it work or anything else. I'm myself around the ~30 in charts. But I know the reasons for it and I know that I could make it better, instead of lying to myself that it's somehow not possible.
The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it.
See this? That is the answer that I've already said and you've even noticed yourself. Hamburgers, bread and other such high-carb food is bad. Meat and chicken and fish is good. It's there by nature. Google for "low carb diet", go by that atleats 2 weeks and you'll notice how great it is. Then make that your lifestyle.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you serious about losing weight, you can take this advice from anyone, eat healthy. No junk foods, no junk additives, unless you know and understand all the independents and, know them to be natural (as in really no just labelling) and safe (as in really no just marketing) do not buy it and do not eat it. The obesity problem is tied to the addictive nature of the neuro stimulants used to create perceptions of flavour and beyond the B$=PR marketing used to give that 'hit' to keep people coming back again
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B) A low carb diet is not in any way related to being a dehydrated diabetic.
Your logic that being a dehydrated diabetic is deadly means that cutting most of the sugar from your diet is also deadly is simply bizarre. It is like saying that if A+B=C Then X+Y Must equal chicken.
So, yes. The claim that cutting sugar out of your diet will kill you is an urban myth. Conversely, I have met many people who have become very ill from a
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Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Informative)
You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right?
No. It's not. When I lost weight and was having a large bowl of salad and a piece of lean chicken or steak (no bread or other carbs) I would always go around feeling hungry. ALL THE TIME. FOR MONTHS ON END. Now after a while your stomach can't take the food. If you eat a little more than you usually do, or if you eat anything with a tiny bit of fat or oil you feel ill the rest of the day. BUT YOU STILL FEEL HUNGRY. That's how it was for me. I kept that up for maybe 8 months. I took an extra day off work every week (Try working when you're hungry to the point of distraction).
I'm tired of fools who automatically assume every fat person that's had trouble simply hasn't tried hard enough.
Here are some long term stats for you:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/620 [jacn.org]
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:4, Informative)
As a nerd who has just lost 35kg (thats > 70lb for you americans); I'd just like point out that the resultant physical changes from weight loss and exercise are not unencumbered.
I'm now angrier; I'm now constantly hungry. I have no energy. I can't focus. I'm not getting the stupidly large amount of calories that my body is used to and there's nothing I seem to be able to do to compensate at the moment besides eating more cheap calories. My work and personal life are suffering all because I decided to put the food down and start jogging.
And yes, I'm scheduling time to see a doctor and all of those specialists which I'm sure I'll be referred to. The fact still remains - I may look better, but I feel like shit.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:4, Funny)
Does anyone else find it kind of suspicious that a killer orca suggests people go swimming?
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
"and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week."
I'm going to call bullshit on this, it's fucking impossible to NOT lose weight in a week if you are "working your ass off", you're certainly not working you ass off if you're not losing even half a pound or 1 pound in 7 days. Losing weight DOES require some amount of willpower and definitely requires a commitment hence (by and large) one is responsible for one's weight.
One cannot just excuse oneself unless one has a serious medical condition, but even those that are sick (your arthritis in your leg/angle) can do other exercises. For instance when I was lifting free weights and benching you still burn and awful lot of fat without having to move around that much. What matters is expending energy.
I walked at a leisurely pace 4hrs/day 7/days week and lost 10-12 lbs a month, it's a matter of *commitment* either you want to lose the weight or you dont, if you don't like high intensity you have to make up the lack of intensity with duration of time and distance for low intensity aerobics (like walking).
The biggest thing is monitoring your appetite, no amount of exercise will help if you're over-eating and taking in more energy then you're burning off. The army did a study a long while back that showed just this: Taking in too much energy negates the weight loss benefits of exercise and you don't have to starve youself either, just limit yourself to 1500-1800 cals/day and keep track of it on a site like http://www.fitday.com/ [fitday.com]
The truth is many people who are overweight have never been thin for most of their life and got fat fairly young and developed a victim psychology because of bullying/social prejudice.
There's only so much you can do to excuse yourself from being overweight.. I agree there are many different body types and some of us store fat easily on the smallest amounts of food, but many of us that store easily barely exercise.
The real issue though is not paying attention to how energy dense the food you're eating is, most people "wing it" when they eat they don't get rigorous ambout keeping track of the amount of food (see fitday.com), once you get rigorous and can see it on a chart, then you will realize that - yes, you are over eating!
I realized this when I started tracking what I ate @ www.fitday.com (a great site btw) and it is handy because it will show you the evidence and you can't just deny it anymore.
Most people live in the fog of their own mind never really looking hard at teh evidence in their own lives contradicting and lending support to the naysayers of "no willpower", the truth is it's more about being aware of your own bad/blind thinking on the matter of how you eat and live that is the root of the problem.
I know I went through it.
here's the big secret: (Score:4, Insightful)
eat less
exercise more
that's it. that's the magic. everything else is bloviating
everything else is a giant game of rationalization, victimization, and other psychological manipulations, internal and external
again: eat less, exercise more. end of story
cut the fat, in your thinking as well as on your body
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who "can not" lose weight is, quite simply, doing something wrong. Sure, they could be part of the .001% of people with a gland problem but let's be serious and talk about the overwhelming majority.
If you weight (far too many)lbs and restrict your dietary intake you WILL lose weight. It's pretty straight forward honestly. Exercise greatly helps of course. And for the 'my poor ankle' whining comes back around - there are people with NO LEGS that are still healthy. Clearly a bad ankle is not a barrier to avoiding obesity.
There are a TON of other excuses and all of them are just that - excuses. If you want to be healthy, in shape, or just plain old 'not fat' then make it a priority. If catching the new episode of MTV Real Life Ethiopia or the taste of a big mac are more important than losing weight then, chances are, it will not work.
As for the story - it's another amusing 'well duh'. Next thing they'll post that old and immunodeficient are more likely to die from the flu (oh, sorry...meant to specify swine flu even though it's nothing more than different strain of flu) and bla bla bla. Of COURSE less healthy people are higher risk. They're also higher risk for ... well most other things.
Someone get back to me when the swine flu deaths are more than 5% of total flu deaths or when the evil swine flu increases the overall number of yearly flu deaths beyond the usual year-to-year variances. The whole swine flu nonsense is manufactured news.
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I've read a bunch of your posts now in this thread, and you continuously assert that you are somehow a special case, yet from what you write, you behave *exactly* like the typical diet-failure case.
1) You claim that it is impossible for you to lose weight. This is not true. I'm sure it's harder for you than for most people to lose weight, but by claiming it's impossible, you've resigned yourself to useless victimization.
2) You claim that since the long-term results are so bad, you might as well give up alre
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
You should submit yourself to the department of energy immediately.
Your bodies ability to create matter out of thin air and somehow ignore the second law of thermodynamics by burning more energy than you ingest is nothing short of amazing!
*Or* you're just making the same tired old excuses that those with some vice *always make*. You claim that your body is somehow special and refuses to burn the energy that you put in well guess what - that means you are going to have to eat 1/4 of what you do now for the rest of your life end of story (unless there's some medical "cure"). OR, you can be continue being fat and whinge about it on Slashdot for the rest of your (more than likely) short life...
You need to expend more energy than you ingest per day, no amount of moral indignation can change the laws of physics.
Otherwise if you already are ingesting less than you expend then you are a scientific marvel and for the good of human kind please get make yourself known to some scientists in the relevant field.
On a side note you're at +5 which means that you've got a pretty general support from the people on here, it's kind of amusing how the basic laws of physics and "personal responsibility" ideals that are usually worshiped with religious fervor around here are kicked to the curb as soon as it's useful to do so.
Glad to see the highly "logical" slashdot hordes - to borrow a clique, are just as prone to self delusion and excuses when it suits as the masses that are so often looked down upon here for doing exactly the same thing are.
I am a pphysicist so I would like to say : COE (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that people are all different.
Some people can maintain a light weight with no effort all.
Some people can maintain a light weight with a moderate effort.
Some people can work hard and maintain a light weight.
Quite a few people have to put in a huge battle and really not get anywhere with it - or they make progress only to lose ground.
Look, I suspect that most people, if they worked REALLY hard, could do as well in math as I do. I'm not a complete prodigy or anything. However, I don't consider people lazy if they end up getting 70s on tests that I score in the high 90s on - that's just how it has been for all of my life - I can cruise through tests that most normal people barely pass with a fair amount of study. However, why should they bother trying to reach my level of proficiency at math? They should just spend their time on something they're better at, and learn enough math to get by in normal life. (Yes - I realize that quite a few people who read this post could outperform me in math - that isn't my point.)
I'm hardly morbidly obese, but I do struggle to keep my weight down. Maybe that means I'll live ten years less than my peers - I'm willing to accept that. I do try to control my diet, but the fact is that unless somebody comes out with some kind of medical advance I'm not going to be average in weight without a huge amount of effort. I'm not sure that effort is really worth it - I'd rather die happy at 70 than suffer until 80. :) And if somebody comes up with better healthy ways to lose weight that don't involve huge amounts of self-deprivation, then that is just a win-win for everybody. Sure, maybe in the meantime I'll statistically cost society more to keep alive than the "average" person, but last time I checked I was paying far more in taxes than the average person and that's just how things work. In the meantime I'll keep working on my health, but if I can refrain from taunting people who weren't developing software in multiple languages in middle school in the 80s perhaps we can get beyond taunting people for having trouble controlling their weight?
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Actually, losing weight has little to do with exercise. You exercise to be healthy, you eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight.
Hacket's Diet. Look it up, follow it, you'll lose (or gain, if you want) weight. It's the meta diet for all diets! With the hacker's diet you learn how your weight is completely arbitrary, you can weigh whatever you want!
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't expect a serious discussion in response to your post. Although most people on Slashdot are smart and keep up with the latest technology, many have rather medieval attitudes when it comes to medicine.
Blaming the patient for the condition is one of those attitudes. Illness is like a "sin" to them, so the solution has to have some penance involved. "No pain, No gain" is one mantra of this religious belief.
Even the medical community has been guilty of this. Ulcers used to be all about stress and lifestyle until one doctor discovered the bacteria that was actually the cause. A simple triple antibiotic "no pain" solution worked while the "painful" lifestyle changes didn't.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some conditions that are based on lifestyle. You cannot say that these should not be blamed on the patient!
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"That usually (YMMV) means you're eating the wrong food. Your body tends to stay hungry until it has got what it needs. Eat something else and the craving remains."
Thanks for the old wives tale, AC.
Eh? Thats the truth really. If you havent tried yet, try eating just foods with low amounts of carbs. Instead eat meat, fish and chicken. *without something that comes with carbs*. You'll notice how much longer you stay full. You can start by googling for "low carb diet". But dont just keep it as diet, keep it as a lifestyle. You'll notice the difference.
Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:4, Insightful)
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BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.
So are you telling us that you are just big boned?
Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nah, they're going to blame it on the economy - you know ... inflation.
Or they'll just say that it's environmental - they live in the South [time.com]
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BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.
What is the correlation between BMI and fraction body fat?
Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:5, Insightful)
With the relatively small number of people that have died as a result of the H1N1 it's much easier to detect whether or not it's accurate for the group. But when doing models of how this is likely to shape out, the BMI is a perfectly legitimate way of doing it. The only other measure that's reasonable to consider is the waste to hip ratio, and that's not really designed for this.
waste : hip (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:4, Funny)
You mean waist [reference.com].
Waste to intake ratio might actually be be another way to chart it. We'd have to do it, to find out. ;)
Oversensitive, in this case it works (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, the BMI they are recording is over 40 - categorized as "morbidly obese". The only people not actually very overweight that would hit that would be professional weight lifters...
For just seeing if someone is a touch overweight it's not a great tool. But in this case the observation is perfectly valid.
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BMI is a good measure of a population as a whole, but not necessarily applicable to individuals. Body fat is a better measure, but is significantly more difficult to measure accurately, and accurate methods are not economical for regular (semi-weekly) tracking of your condition.
It is, sadly, fairly accurate for most people (I'm presuming better than 80%), but it has been modified for many reasons. Most people would say that (as of a year ago) my BMI of ~27 was far from obese (6'-0", 202lbs, 35"-36" waist)
Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:4, Insightful)
BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.
Bogus, no; misleading, sometimes. Someone with a BMI over 40 is always fat, however. Even a 7-foot tall, heavily-muscled man cannot achieve that without huge rolls of fat or a stomach full of ball bearings.
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BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.
I generally agree that body fat percent is way more sensible, but at BMI of 40, we're talking about evident obesity. That, or phenomenal muscle mass, which wasn't the case here.
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For figuring out if someone is obese? Yes, it's a poor indicator.
But we're not trying to determine whether one is obese. We're trying to find a pattern for "Who is most likely to get horribly sick from swine flu". Apparently, BMI is a reasonably good predictor of this.
Though I agree that there will likely be a better correlation with those that have high % body fat than high BMI.
This is just wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
"Morbid obesity is one of the most common findings turning up in severely ill patients," said Nikki Shindo, who is leading the investigation of swine flu patients at the WHO in Geneva. "It's a huge problem."
That is just wrong.
Re:This is just wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like you got the skinny on the whole situation.
It's called "swine flu" for a reason ... (Score:2, Funny)
It kills people who eat like pigs.
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Or they are labeled by the year (1918 flu, 1956 flu, and 1968 flu).
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By the same token, I found the subject/headline a bit ironic. It sounds to me like the swine flu kills obese people proportionally. The article even discusses approximately what the proportions are, and about what proportions you have to have to qualify (usually due to pro-portioning at the buffet...)
It's not news that fat is harmful (Score:2)
So why is this considered news, let alone for nerds? I understand the nerd appeal all too well, although crawling under my truck to install my lift kit (half done so far, my back is killing me dead) led to the realization that I can fit into my coveralls again... so I'm in about the best shape I ever have been, since childhood anyway.
It is interesting to me however that fat cells secrete nasties. I wonder if there's any benefit to those secretions, perhaps helping you live through winters or something.
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Overweight is symptom, not cause (Score:3, Insightful)
This surprises me not at all - people who are overweight generally are not eating that well, and also not exercising a lot.
I've been lucky to have a good metabolism and never really had weight issues. But I used to drink a ton of soda, and not eat that great... I was having combing down with the cold and flu multiple times per year.
Now I'm eating much better, drinking mostly water, and exercising a few times a week. I get at most about one cold a year now, and even that is not as bad as the worst of the colds I used to get.
One aspect of the flu I did think was odd was how so many cases were in Mexico... when I feel like I'm perhaps going to get a cold, I often eat spicy food and it seems to knock it out of me. I would think they have a lot spicier stuff in most Mexican's diets than elsewhere.
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Now I'm eating much better, drinking mostly water, and exercising a few times a week. I get at most about one cold a year now, and even that is not as bad as the worst of the colds I used to get.
I too have been through years without so much as a sniffle, and had years where I've been struck down repeatedly by colds and flus. It hasn't correlated with what I ate. Correlation isn't causation is overused on /. but in this case I think it's appropriate. That doesn't mean that you're wasting your time eating and
Cost of subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cost of subsidies (Score:5, Funny)
How dare you question America? Also, while I'm at it, corn is by far the most efficient source of ethanol, unlike sugar cane, which is for communists.
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I completely agree with you; the subsidies the US provides do not encourage a healthy American diet. They have drastically affected the supply/demand for a lot of commodities, like sugar VS corn.
But to put it into perspective, US subsidies only equal about 15-25 dollars per person per year (it varies every year, as different farm bills are passed), or about 1% of total food expenditures in the country. Corn and wheat are cheap for several reasons. First, they grow well in the US. Also, the farming system is
Confuses cause and effect (Score:2, Informative)
Swine flu is a serious thread to people who are already chronically ill. If you are seriously ill, you are likely bed ridden and pumped with cortizone, steroids and other drugs. And as a result, of course you have a poor body mass index. Its a miracle you are even alive. Swine flu comes along and is the final straw, your body can't take another illness.
Obesity = Bad general health? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps it's not so much that H1N1 affects obese people more than others, but that obesity is a sign of bad health generally?
If so, then the correlation would be "unhealthy people more likely to develop respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal".
Doesn't roll off the tongue like "swine flu kills fatties" though.
Karma? (Score:3, Funny)
I previously believed Swine Flu was created by pigs to get revenge for people eating too much bacon. Now it's confirmed. Can I have a Nobel Prize now?
only one thing to say (Score:2)
A reasoned discussion (Score:4, Insightful)
I would be going to be very politically incorrect here, but people that are medically obese suffer a wide variety of ailments. If swine flu is what finally motivates these people to seek and complete treatment, why is this a bad thing? Or shall we continue to scream about the oppression of our right to be fat, forgetting that the virus doesn't give two sh--s either way.
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If swine flu is what finally motivates these people to seek and complete treatment, why is this a bad thing?
Well there's a long list of reasons, but here are 2:
1) It takes a long time to lose weight if you're morbidly obese. Months or years. Forget the "biggest loser" style shows designed to sell weight loss products. That kind of weight loss is much less healthy than having the weight on in the first place. Epidemics on the other hand move much more quickly.
2) Some of the people we're talking about are mor
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It takes months or years to become morbidly obese in the first place. Cry me a fricken river. The longer you wait to take action, the longer it'll take.
Well I got obese around the age of 3 asshole. You going to hold a child accountable for that? Even holding the parents accountable has its problems. Not all our bodies work the same way dipshit.
And that's a valid reason. However, since that's a fraction of a percent of obese people, it's really not worth considering.
Of course you know everyone's complete med
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Yeah, I know. However, we're talking about morbid obesity, not the fact that not everyone is going to be an Olympic gymnast.
Yeah we're also talking about bodies that work very differently.
Yes, because when talking about a problem, you always talk solely about the edge cases and never the vast, vast majority.
Have you taken a look at the stats? We're not just talking about edge cases. THAT is the problem. THAT is why obesity itself is being called an epidemic. Don't let facts distract your ranting though.
How
someone had to say it... (Score:2, Funny)
It hasn't been found in pigs (Score:2)
This particular flu hasn't been isolated in pigs, or any other animals so far.
http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_090427.htm [oie.int]
and
http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_090611.htm [oie.int]
So it's origins are currently unknown.
e.g.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/05/14/swine-flu-shock-claim/expert-says-virus-created-in-lab-by-vaccine-scientists.html [www.bild.de]
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What about the pig farmer in Alberta, Canada who gave the flu to his pigs? This is not the punchline for a bad joke, it actually happened - Farmer was in the US, flew home to canada and accidentally infected most (all?) of his herd(?) of pigs.
Not all (Score:5, Informative)
Summary: "They are all fat."
Article: "They are fat. [...] In Canada's Manitoba province, three out of five people treated for the new flu strain in intensive care units are obese."
If this virus killed only fat people that would be astounding. If it kills more than it's share of fat people, that's still interesting (despite all the "being fat is bad duh!" comments here) but less flashy.
Not such bad news, since i'm thin (Score:2)
In Other news the mortality rate of H1N1 [wordpress.com] has apparently stablised at 0.45% so it not that deadly really.
--
Flu Feed [feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
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Good thing that swine flu isn't democratic - there are more fatso's around than skinny models.
Now, since swine flu kills fat slobs, we could say that it's actually anti-entropic (fewer slobs around == less disorganization == lower entropy)
Lower entropy means more energy potentially available to be converted to work ...
Swine Flu is the new perpetual energy source!
"Swine" flu targets the obese? (Score:2)
Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.
Hold on a sec, Captain Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
What isn't clear from TFA, and seems to be the crux of whether this is a story or not, is whether this particular flu is affecting obese people disproportionately as compared to similar influenzas. If all strains of flu have the same pattern and are more severe (by whatever measure) in obese people, then there's nothing interesting here. If, on the other hand, the correlation between BMI and severity is much higher for this H1N1, that's a potential clue, one that might tell us something about (a) how this particular virus works, which could be useful in developing treatments for everyone, and/or (b) how obesity affects immune response, which could be helpful in the treatment of other infectious diseases. But, alas, TFA gives only anecdotal evidence so we can't even speculate.
Genius! (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly this is a terrorist act targeting Americans!
stop using the term swine flu (Score:4, Insightful)
the term itself is misleading, the virus strand might have originated from swine, but the current flu has nothing to do with pigs. The proper term should be Influenza A (H1N1)
Super Lame!! (Score:4, Funny)
My only chance is to filter my air through this huge pile of empty pie wrappers!
The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pandemic means spread, not severity. Dr. Mercola suggests concerns about the swine flu may be overblown. See: ... As of June 12, 2009, 74 countries have officially reported 29,669 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection and only 145 deaths in the ENTIRE world from this illness. The United States has had 13217 confirmed cases, and 27 deaths. Mexico has had less cases but still has the majority of the deaths at 108. ... BUT to keep this in perspective the regular flu, not the swine flu, has killed 13,000 in the US since January. But there is strong support that these types of figures are grossly exaggerated to increase vaccine sales. However, the fact remains that the regular flu at this point in time is FAR more dangerous than the swine flu and were you worried about the regular flu before the media started talking this up?"
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx [mercola.com]
"To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time
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So what you're saying is that we should have genuine concern (fair enough) over anything that's new (eek!) to people. That's a recipe for trouble, if nothing else.
Flu, especially swine flu, isn't *all* that serious in terms of pretty much any measure you want to put out there. It really isn't. Let's say that this one particular strain (which has, inevitably, grown from the usual strains with a slight mutation and which we expect to happen VERY quickly to ALL such viruses, every single day) will *kill* yo
On the upside... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally!! A Cure For Obesity!! (Score:5, Funny)
Pig flu affects fat persons.. I didn't see that one coming!
The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't killing them disproportionally - it's killing them in direct relationship to their proportions :-)
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obesity is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Losing fat comes down to a simple equation.
If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.
No amount of "glandular" problem is going to make you put on weight if you are eating less calories than you use in your daily activites.
So you need to either eat less, or do more ecercise, or both. Exercise helps because as you get fitter and have more muscle, as just having more muscle makes you burn more energy - so in that respect it is easier for a fit person to stay slim, but there is no reason in the world that anyone needs to be fat, regardless of any "glandular" problem.
Getting more excercise is trivial too. It takes no more 5 minutes to do 30 pushups and 60 crunches - you can do them last thing at night before going to bed.
Likewise, you can get off the bus/train one stop earlier ( or walk to the next stop along from where you get on) and easily get a 15 to 30 min walk in a day. Losing weight doesnt have to mean hours and hours in the Gym - just a bit of self motivation to be a bit more active in your daily routine.
One other thing - Diet drinks - stay the hell away from them. Ever see slim people in the supermarket buying diet coke? no - its always the huge people. Diet drinks have less calories, but there's an interesting littlel experiment they did, where two groups of rats were allowed to eat as much as they wanted - one group was given diet drinks, and the other normal non diet drinks. The ones on diet drinks porked up. The theory: The sweetners give your body signals to get ready to deal with a lot of sugar. When the sugar doesnt arrive, your body goes "Holy crap - we're starving! better eat more!"
So diet drinks may actually make you fatter by making you have a bigger appetite. Here's a not very authoritive link http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/its_been_recognized_for_a.php [scienceblogs.com] to one article about this - Im sure with a more thorough search the actual paper would turn up somewhere.
Hopefully this latest news about swine flu will be that final bit of motivation a lot of people need to actually do something about their weight.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Informative)
Losing fat comes down to a simple equation. If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.
This is widely accepted conventional wisdom about losing (or gaining) weight. And it does just seem right. After all, you're punishing two of the seven deadly sins (gluttony and laziness) in a most fitting manner. People who can't control their lust for food and their own laziness get what they deserve. It is just so.
Science magazine reporter Gary Taubes published an article the New York Times Magazine titled: "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" He later expanded that article along with others he wrote (including an analysis of the science and politics that resulted in current U.S. Government dietary advice) in a book titled Good Calories, Bad Calories. Spoiler Alert: According to the book, the calorie balance hypothesis is wrong. Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy. The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoiler Alert: According to the book, the calorie balance hypothesis is wrong. Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy. The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.
Uhh... I'm pretty sure if you can burn more calories than you consume, while still gaining/maintaining weight, then you could quite comfortably claim the Randi Challenge [randi.org] prize. And then you could sell your body to science for billions.
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And use a non-motorized means of transport to fetch food.
Walk around New York City, and you'll eventually realize that the only truly obese people you see are tourists. This despite a culture highly reliant on high-calorie restaurant meals.
Certainly it helps that the culture here is not very accepting of fat, but I think it is more related to the fact that most people don't have a car.
As for the Atkins low-carb hypothesis... I want to know why Dr. Atkins thought that human evolution suddenly stopped at the introduction of agriculture? The ability to digest lactos
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This isn't my field of research either, but I am a scientist and I do know from first hand observations (such as characteristic tissue staining for microscopy) that fat cells contain mainly one thing: fat. In fact, they contain so much fat that most of them have just one big fat-filled vacuole which makes up most of their mass. I also do know the high energy content of the lipids inv
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Um, losing weight can be simple, but generally the "exercise more, eat less" argument will fail. If you want to lose weight, keep in mind the following:
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the best action is to not drink sugary drinks at all - but if you absolutely have to have that Coke, then have one with real sugar in it - and be aware of the additional calories you are eating. At least it wont make you hungrier, as the artificially sweetened drinks do, according to that study I linked.
The zero calorie drinks dont give you calories directly - but they apparently do make you hungrier, which in turn makes you want to eat more. Read the link.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course the best action is to not drink sugary drinks at all - but if you absolutely have to have that Coke, then have one with real sugar in it - and be aware of the additional calories you are eating. At least it wont make you hungrier, as the artificially sweetened drinks do, according to that study I linked.
You have no idea.
Lots of fat people suffer from insulin issues, so actually they (us) shouldn't eat sugar at all.
In my case, I had dieted a lot, and tried exercising, but just reducing intake wasn't doing the trick.
I started an Atkins-style diet, with a lot more calories than I was used to, and now I am 50 pounds under my original weight, and 40 pounds above my ideal weight.
I also drank LOTS of diet coke.
The thing is that fat people bodies work differently. You need to understand _why_ you are fat, and then fight it.
In my case, it is high insulin production, and after losing 40 pounds I started medical treatment with metformine, which helps me a lot against rebounds.
That idea of reducing calorie intake seems like a good idea in paper, but I don't think it works in practice.
The human body is too complex. It doesn't respond well to uninformed direct manipulation. The best thing is to get an endocrinologist, and do as they say.
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One of the things I've found is that reducing your calories too much is counter-productive. Remember that our bodies evolved over millions of years where food supplies weren't constant. The body has to be able to deal with lack of food without completely failing. So, when you radically cut your calorie intake, your body senses this as a famine. It then reduces your metabolism to conserve energy. You burn less calories and retain more fat. During an actual famine, this is a good thing. You certainly d
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Apparently not according to you. Since you claim zero calorie drinks cause you to gain weight.
Actually, that's not what the GP said.
He said that the zero Calorie drinks had a side effect of causing the rats to eat more (and thus increase their Calorific intake)
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:4, Informative)
Artificial sweeteners (and some non-artificial sweeteners like fructose) are believed to do two things:
The statement about calories in vs. out does hold true, but there are foods that change the amount of energy that your body actually uses (both increasing and decreasing it), which complicates the equation greatly---sugars (both natural and artificial), caffeine, tryptophan, calcium, magnesium deficiency, etc. Caloric intake versus typical calorie use is still a pretty good predictor, though.
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I don't know if these "beliefs" are true (the whole brain scenario sounds like hand-waving speculation to me), but if they are his claim that "Its as simple as that" is wrong.
Some people just don't want to believe any explanation that doesn't allow them to feel morally superior.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent might be a troll, but depression is anything but off-topic. Depression is a major risk factor for obesity. It has often been observed that depressed people are more likely to fall victim to binge eating, which is a major cause of obesity. Depression can also be a symptom of hypothyroidism, IIRC, which causes low metabolism and can lead to obesity. The links between depression and obesity are not completely understood, but it is quite likely that reducing the incidence of depression will also reduce obesity.
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Pig flu affects fat persons.. I didn't see that one coming!
I like it how this got modded down as troll and flamebait :)
fyi, i'm somewhat fat myself. but atleast I see the reality and admit its not good, instead of modding down :)
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Morbid obesity is called morbid obesity precisely because there are one or more co-morbidities exhibited by the patient. That means there's already something wrong with you as a result of the obesity; combine that with yet another risk to the system and it's no surprise people have a higher incidence of greater illness.
This isn't just because the patients were overweight - it's because they're so overweight that they were already sick. A BMI of 40 isn't
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Please don't use "Darwinism" when referring to evolution.
Re:Darwinism is Finally Back! (Score:4, Funny)
I agree. We've used science to keep people alive that just should have died off a long time ago. People like Stephen Hawking, for instance. What a drag on the gene pool he's been.
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Hawking and feynman are irreplaceable human beings. Smart AND randy. Look it up.
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Are you implying that a thorough understanding of black holes is essential for the evolutionary success of the species?
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I think you intended to say evolution rather than Darwinism. Darwinism implies a social policy of letting evolution run its course in human society unhindered rather then the natural process of evolution itself. Darwin probably would not have supported such a policy himself.
I also take issue with your implied assertion that the process has been running in reverse. I don't think the process can run in reverse. The fittest always are more successful at procreation than the unfit. Its a matter of being fit
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Whether they're DEAD (like in the article) is the correct way. The article never said BMI was the way to determine whether their immune systems worked or not.
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What dumbass modded you Flamebait??? I wish I had mod points right now so that I could correct that.
I looked up that book on Amazon and it looks very interesting - think I'll pick up a copy. Thanks for the tip!