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Science

Mice Given an Experimental Gene Therapy Don't Get Fat (boingboing.net) 167

AmiMoJo shares a report from Boing Boing: Researchers at Flinders University knocked out a gene known as RCAN1 in mice, hypothesizing that this would increase "non-shivering thermogenesis," which "expends calories as heat rather than storing them as fat" -- the mice were fed a high-calorie diet and did not gain weight. In particular, the modified mice did not store fat around their middles -- a phenomenon associated with many health risks, including cardiac problems -- and their resting muscles burned more calories.

[Vice News reports:] The study's authors point out that there's a time and place for RCAN1's role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren't so readily available. In the modern world of "caloric abundance," however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that "These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity." "We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months," said Damien, "and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene. "Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight."

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Mice Given an Experimental Gene Therapy Don't Get Fat

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  • Wrong way (Score:4, Insightful)

    by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:11AM (#57770426)

    Trying to get the body to burn more calories is the wrong way to solve the obesity problem. People need to figure out ways to ingest less calories, not burn more. Eating less saves money and time you would otherwise need for food and eating. Also, increasing metabolism most likely has bad side effects on longer term, such as higher rates of cancer due to increased oxidative stress.

    Of course, it's hard to make a profit on people eating less.

    • Re:Wrong way (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:38AM (#57770460) Homepage Journal

      It's not ideal for long term use, but as a way to lose weight it's very promising.

      The reason why fat people find it so hard to lose weight and keep it off is that the body fights them. When they cut down their calorie intake it goes into starvation mode. They feel tried all the time and it reduces burn to a minimum, which ends up meaning they need to diet extremely aggressively to get anywhere and will likely be unable to keep the weight off. 1500 calories/day is neither healthy nor sustainable, but in starvation mode that's what they need to achieve.

      This gene seems to fix that. Say it could be turned on and off at will, or perhaps turned off but then the body regulated with medication instead. People could maintain a healthy 2500 calories/day diet with all the nutrition they need, and still lose weight and then maintain at that level.

      • When they cut down their calorie intake it goes into starvation mode.

        Source with actual measurements ?

        • Re:Wrong way (Score:5, Informative)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @06:06AM (#57770500) Homepage Journal

          Here's an interesting study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

          A more readable write-up here: https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]

          TL;DR the people studied lost weight but ended up in an unsustainable position, and put a lot of it back on. Not to mention the other health problems they suffered as a result.

        • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          "...higher rates of cancer due to increased oxidative stress."

          Source with actual measurements ?

      • Re:Wrong way (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Megol ( 3135005 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @06:52AM (#57770556)

        Reduce intake to somewhat below that required to maintain current body weight and then start exercising to burn more. No starvation mode, more calories are used to build muscle. Gradually step down intake as the stomach get accustomed to less food, step up exercise as the body get accustomed to being used for what it was evolved for. But it isn't a quick fix - which is what most people want.

        • Re:Wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @08:53AM (#57770766) Homepage Journal

          If it really was that simple we wouldn't have the problems we have with obesity.

          We could argue about where the problem lies, but it's pointless. Even if it is just people with no willpower and too lazy, how does knowing that help? We have tried shaming and berating, it doesn't work.

          What does work is surgery, but that's drastic. This looks like a good option.

          • I'm not sure I agree that genetic engineering is a less drastic solution than surgery. Especially since you'd likely have to make the call for your kids, rather than yourself.

            Still, at first glance it seems like it might be a fairly benevolent modification to actively spread in the species. It'll probably give a rough time to our descendants in places and times where civilization has collapsed, but those will hopefully be only fill a tiny percentage of our future.

          • OK, this account has been hacked. There is NO way it is defending fat, lazy, deplorable Americans. None.
            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              It's almost as if everything you think you know about me is wrong.

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  I think some of them just assume that anyone who criticises the US must hate America.

                  Well, the other bit of bad reasoning is that if anyone suggests anything that doesn't fit their preferred economic model or sounds vaguely socialist then they must also hate America.

                  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                    • Democrats don't hate freedom? Well that will be news to James Damore. Remember the Berkeley Anti Free Speech Riots of 2017? Well to be fair that was xenophobic hatred of foreigners. Hey, have you worn your "Sarah Palin is a Cunt" T-shirt lately? How totally not misogynist! How supportive of women in high office! Face it, Americans are your Outgroup. It's the only explanation that allows you to break such sacred values. The Other is never covered under those.
                • So, what do you think about Americas? Racist, hate filled, shall I go on? When's the last time you participated in one of their activities? For example, spectating professional sports? Only morons watch sportsball. Or let's go hunting. Only The Other would do something like murder animals. Or scrapbooking. Seriously? Could you be more The Other if you tried? Please direct me to this place of sympathy and friendship for Americans on the Left, because to me it's as mythical as Stoval'Kor.
              • You are defending Americans who are fat. You are defending Americans who are lazy. Who do you hate the most? Fat, lazy Americans. I can't believe I have to be the one to explain this. Defense of fat, lazy racists. Jesus.
        • Since puberty I always carried a little xtra weight. In college I started working out a lot. I thinned out and put on some muscle but I never became as lean as I should be for the amount of work I put into it. As I got older I have to work extra hard just to maintain a body that others can have by default. I don't think it's fair to do so much work to not look obese and the amount of hours spent doing it could be used towards other activities. So yeah, it would help people like me that are borderline, not o
        • Re:Wrong way (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @03:36PM (#57772064)
          The problem with reducing intake is that our bodies are not wired for the small number of calories needed to live a modern lifestyle. About 15-20 years ago, PBS ran a reality show called Frontier House, where they put volunteers in a situation a typical pioneer would've faced in the late 1800s. They had to raise and harvest sufficient crops and livestock during the summer to hypothetically feed them through a winter. Halfway through, the volunteers demanded to see doctors because they were eating 5000+ calories a day heavily loaded with butter and fat, yet they were still losing weight. Something had to be wrong with their bodies. The doctors examined them, and pronounced them fit as a horse.

          It turns out that without machines to do all the heavy lifting for you, you needed to eat that much just to survive back then. And it wasn't just the men working the fields who were burning prodigious amounts of calories. This extended to the women too - no washing machine, no dishwasher, no vacuum cleaner, no blender, no prepackaged meals. You had to do all those cleaning tasks by hand, make all your meals from scratch. The women remarked that as soon as they finished cleaning up after one meal, it was time to start preparing the next meal.

          Even estimates for the diets of slaves (who were not the best-fed people) put their daily caloric intake between 3000-8000 calories/day (towards the high end during harvest season). So the problem isn't that we're eating too much and we just need to eat less. We've already substantially reduced our food intake from the historical levels that our bodies are wired for. The problem is that our physical activity has decreased much more than our appetites have.
          • I've lost weight on 5000 calories a day when labouring one summer vacation. It made a lot of it move around, too - mostly upwards, though it didn't stay there when I stopped :-(

            The ability to retain fat would have been a huge survival advantage back when food supply was uncertain. The chubbies would survive after the skinnies had starved. But I doubt that even in the good times food was plentiful enough for long enough that you'd get the blubbertubs you see today.

      • Instead of permanently switching this gene, you have a drug that temporarily does it. Then you can adjust your body weight at will, without lasting effects.
      • If I'm not exercising like a mad man I need to be at about 1500 cal/day or I'm gaining weight. I eat throughout the day to keep my energy levels up. It doesn't help that I can't have caffeine (mild heart condition that's exacerbated by it).
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The recommended intake for an adult male is 2500/day, or 2000 for a female. Much below that and it becomes difficult to get enough nutrition and maintain energy levels.

          1500 is extremely low. I presume you have spoken to a nutritionist or your doctor before adopting such an aggressive diet. Do you use supplements?

      • What you just said is what overweight people who have never tried to be honest with exercise and nutrition say. Cut your bullshit.
      • The reason why fat people find it so hard to lose weight and keep it off is that the body fights them. When they cut down their calorie intake it goes into starvation mode. They feel tried all the time and it reduces burn to a minimum, which ends up meaning they need to diet extremely aggressively to get anywhere and will likely be unable to keep the weight off. 1500 calories/day is neither healthy nor sustainable, but in starvation mode that's what they need to achieve.

        Bullshit. "Starvation mode" doesn't exist, straight up*. What does happen is that you need fewer calories as you lose weight, because fat (like every other cell in your body) consumes energy: less fat means less energy consumed. The idea that your body can miraculously can metabolic efficiency just because you've lost some weight is garbage that makes absolutely no sense: our bodies have had literally millions of years of evolution to become basically as efficient as it's possible for a biological organism

      • 'Starvation mode' is fake, you don't experience any of that. Its just another lame excuse fat people make to keep eating above their TDEE. Your body is not fighting you, its slave to your mind and how much you decide to eat. Everybody is in full control of that and your TDEE will not drop significantly without a reduction in mass to explain it.
    • Re:Wrong way (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:58AM (#57770490) Homepage

      Trying to get the body to burn more calories is the wrong way to solve the obesity problem. People need to figure out ways to ingest less calories, not burn more.

      It's certainly one solution, but it's a bit like saying the only right way to avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancies is abstinence. I love eating food, like sex I know it's just evolution hard-wiring survival and reproduction into my pleasure centers but nothing is going to stop me wanting to dig into a juicy steak. It's the flavors, texture and smell that makes me want it, the calorie intake is just one tiny bit though I suppose you couldn't get the sugar rush without actually consuming the sugar but I wouldn't mind something like a "condom" for my stomach that sent the calories straight through. Or sent my metabolism into hyperactive like I was running for miles to work it off, burning it away.

      Eating less saves money and time you would otherwise need for food and eating. Also, increasing metabolism most likely has bad side effects on longer term, such as higher rates of cancer due to increased oxidative stress.

      I doubt that, athletes that during their career have eaten and spent way more calories than average don't seem to suffer any ill effects. Sure, it would probably be a really bad idea to change it permanently if you ever got lost and had to live off very few calories in an emergency. And it certainly could be hard to get off the mental addiction that you can just gorge on anything without getting fat if you lost access to the calorie blockers. From an environmental perspective it's a waste. But from a personal perspective I'd like to eat my cake and have my waistline too. There's no doubt that I'm overweight and my health would be substantially improved if I was thinner, but dieting sucks. It certainly works, but it's always going to suck.

    • It's closer to a drug addiction by a drug you aren't aware of taking!

      Please stop spreading this meme, that "eating less" would solve anything, and especially that it's those people's fault, as is such a, no offense, typical meme in the US! It's especially insulting, given where that meme originated.

      Such people have a gigantic leptin resistance. (Actually, we all have, compared to healthy standards.)
      Leptin is the messenger that tells the body you had enough. If the body gets way too much of it via external m

      • Sometimes I read these long posts in their entirety and easily find many things wrong with it from the very first sentence to the last. That is my skeptical life. Wish you could have been there for the rest of it you would see how difficult it is to fool someone who reads the whole thing every single time. Pardon my language but holy moly

    • Time spent eating is not wasted time but time well spent.
      In some nations people eat to fast ...

      People need to figure out ways to ingest less calories
      For many fat people that is not the problem, but a messed up metabolizm is.

      However you are right that increasing the burn rate most likely has negative side effects.

      • In some nations people eat to fast ...

        Impossible. Fasting, by definition, means not eating.

        • Which leads to the old joke inquiring about how much fast food one would need to eat in order to starve to death.
          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Depends on whether you have to chase the fast food or can just shoot it from the comfort of your chair.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "Trying to get the body to burn more calories is the wrong way to solve the obesity problem."

      And that's not what's being done here.

      Advocating solutions known not to work is also "the wrong way to solve the obesity problem."

      Nice try disguising the same old "obesity is a character issue" claim.

      • "Trying to get the body to burn more calories is the wrong way to solve the obesity problem."

        And that's not what's being done here.

        Advocating solutions known not to work is also "the wrong way to solve the obesity problem."

        Nice try disguising the same old "obesity is a character issue" claim.

        For the majority of fat people, it is a character issue.

        Count the number fat prisoners from holocaust camps.

        • Suggesting torture as an example of weight loss is a character issue.
          • Suggesting torture as an example of weight loss is a character issue.

            Who suggested that? Pointing out that people forced into low-cal diets don't gain weight isn't "suggesting torture".

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "People need to figure out ways to ingest less calories..."

      Exactly what this is targeting, despite your inability to understand it. People are not fat because of the desire to consume more, they desire to consume more because something is wrong.

      One of the oldest, tired-est cliches among the pretend intelligencia here is "correlation is not causation". Well, eating more certainly correlates with obesity but "correlation is not causation". I find it interesting how no one here ever seems to get that when i

      • Well, eating more certainly correlates with obesity but "correlation is not causation".

        Well eating less certainly correlates with emaciation.

        But "correlation is not causation". Anorexics run a lot. Auschwitz was full of bulimics, right.

    • Re:Wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @08:50AM (#57770758)

      That's pretty dumb. Some people can eat whatever they want and stay skinny. Some people have to work really hard. As long as being thin is an advantage, I see no reason to work hard to get it.

      If there were a gene that made you smarter, would you write something like "you should just read more books"?

    • Every time there is an article on weight someone comes in and says, "people just need to eat less." When you get older you will learn more. Some people are just "fat" and there's nothing they can do about it. My wife and I eat the same meals every day. She is skinny and healthy while I am obese. Same meals. It is NOT always a matter of counting calories. I have two daughters. One can eat a gallon of ice cream every day and she is medically underweight. The other only eats twice a day like a bird and is obes
    • I am in full agreement that this approach is the wrong way to solve the problem, but believe that science needs to figure out ways to allow people to ingest less calories, not the "people" in general.

      If a medicinal regimen was so hard to stick to that less than 10% managed to do so, the FDA wouldn't even consider approving it. They routinely deny approval in those situations. The same should apply to doctor's advice. No doctor should be able to prescribe a course of therapy doomed to failure in most situati

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Why? From the philosophical aspect it is analogous to contraception vs not having sex at all. From the health aspect we should evaluate each particular treatment. OK, for the environment growing and eating more food than necessary certainly isn't ideal.

  • by AbRASiON ( 589899 ) * on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:40AM (#57770462) Journal

    I'm sure some here will say "this sounds unnatural and all people need is discpline" and you know, a speech like that is correct.

    Life is also too damn short and some of us genuinely do have a pretty poor metabolism, or in my case I've now gained and lost weight so many times, I have the excess fat cells in me, which is hard to get rid of (read up on it, fat cells get bigger and small for you, unless you REALLY push too far, THEN they multiply)

    If you said to me "you can take this drug, with 0 current side effects, but you'll live 2 years shorter" I'd take it.
    Heck, hypothetically if they made another one for free time "you can take this drug, sleep 3 hours a night and feel totally and utterly normal and well rested, but you lose 5 more years" I'd take that too.

  • This also sounds like a great way to considerably reduce heating bills. I always thought it was absurd to heat a whole house just to warm the people inside it as you're likely heating an area that's hundreds of times the volume of the people in the house. It would be far better to simply heat the people, but that has traditionally been challenging and impractical as you would have to wear clothes containing heating elements and carry a power source.

    If this converts energy to body heat then you could stay

  • A good thing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @06:05AM (#57770496)
    Somehow, I am reminded of a scene from Catching Fire where Suzanne Collins introduces a modern misinterpretation of the word vomitorium. It was believed at some point that the Romans would overindulge in food and visit a room dedicated to vomiting to avoid the negative effects and be able to eat even more. (This is not what the word means, but I suppose it makes good TV).

    Obesity is associated with many illnesses, ailments and diseases. But obesity is also a symptom. I would hazard a guess that people who do not move enough to burn the calories they consume will still be prone to most of these problems whether they store excess calories or not.

    The associated issues with this are numerous. If we provide gene therapy that would discontinue storing excess calories, it would allow more people to overindulge. That would increase consumption and place an additional burden on the supply chain and the natural resources of the planet overall.

    People would live longer while burdening society. Obesity is one of the few remaining tools nature has of balancing itself.

    Consider stupid other things. If you consume more (and we will) and your body lacks the facilities to store it in quantity, it will be ejected more often. This means that we will use toilets more.

    What will be the added cost of fresh water consumption and toilet paper usage? Using a bidet could alleviate portions of the paper related issues, but unless it were supplied by recycled water, the environmental impact of the additional water consumption would be outrageous and likely untenable.

    I am quite sure this is a very very bad thing.
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      LOL what a stupid take. If put more intelligently put it could qualify as a troll.

      Perhaps what we need is mandatory gene therapy for /. trolls that ensures non-curable cancer by age 40. This would reduce burden on society, reduce consumption, and ease pressure on fresh water and toilets. I'm quite sure this would be a very very good thing.

    • The vomitorium was an old Saturday Night Live skit with Burt Reynolds. Sad that people don't know when their comedy is ripped off. I guess that's how Lena Dunham and Carlos Mencia got so famous.
    • I was thinking the same thing as parent re: "would increase consumption and place an additional burden on the supply chain and the natural resources of the planet overall."
      That would apply to the shorter term. Now look longer, when civilization falls, and we need conserve calories again and can't (we'd gamble on some natural selection recreating that gene effect in order to come out the other side still a species...)

      The other thought I had was regarding a big root cause - habitual overeating for comf
    • Not so much (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @11:28AM (#57771184)
      a huge part of what leads to obesity is gut bacteria. Genetics also plays a role. As has been pointed out elsewhere on the forum a lot of us fatties do so because we need to keep our energy levels up. In America you work 40-50/hr /week minimum like it or not. 6 hours into an 8 hour shift there's still work to do, and you need to be alert enough to do it. Then it's time to go home, cook for the kids, help with homework (because we've cut funding to schools for 40 years straight now so it's not like the teachers are gonna do it), clean the house up and try to get some sleep so you can do it all over again.
  • by dddux ( 3656447 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @08:26AM (#57770704)
    I don't think gene therapy is the right solution, especially because it doesn't address the main problem: people eat too much shitty food. Too much of something I don't even call "food". I'm of reasonable weight for my age, but I can thank that only to my lifestyle: no sweets, no fast food, no snacks, no sandwiches. Just normal food made from fresh vegetables and ingredients bought at the farmer's market, 3 times a day. No special diet will ever solve the obesity problem because people can't stick to any of those diets and make it a lifestyle. So I'm a proponent of brain surgery. Just remove the part of the brain that is responsible for craving sweets, snacks, pastry, hot-dogs... fast food in general, and you remove the obesity problem. Kinda half-joking, of course. But it's the only solution to make people eat a sensible and healthy, sustainable diet, and make it a lifestyle.
    • Re:Brain surgery. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @08:46AM (#57770738)

      Surely you are aware that many people can afford neither the time nor the money to have "three meals a day from fresh vegetables they pick up in the farmer's market", right?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Be honest, they don't have the desire either. I know, I was one of them. I wouldn't eat free vegetables. Try being honest instead of being offended.

      • by dddux ( 3656447 )
        Regarding time, if you know how to cook or bake, it will take you the same amount of time to make a soup, salad, grilled veg. People buy all that instant soup, noodles, coffee, and they don't realise it takes the same amount of time and effort. You get a perfectly nice soup, for example, by just putting some veg into water and cooking it for 10-15 minutes. It also makes the vegetables less saggy and more nutritious. Regarding money, I absolutely see no point there, as basic and very healthy vegetables and
    • Re:Brain surgery. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @10:29AM (#57771046) Homepage Journal

      The obvious counterargument to the notion that obesity is a person's genetic destiny is that 50 years ago, people were much less fat. 75 years ago we were slimmer still.

      Unless there has been incredibly rapid natural selection for fatter genes on a massive scale, the difference has to be environmental. That's the food we eat, how and when we eat it, and the activities which burn calories. And if you look at the differences in the way people live, it's a perfect storm. People move much less -- even when controlling for how sedentary their occupations are; and they live in an environment where there is continual access to food that has been engineered to be quick and convenient to consume almost mindlessly. Honestly if it were just sandwiches, I think we'd be OK, but so much food today is designed to be psychologically rewarding but not sating. The Cheet-O is the perfect food commodity: eat one and you'll want another, and you will never feel like you've had enough, much less too much.

      Genetics plays a role, sure; but the majority of healthy people will put on weight in the kind of environment we've created for ourselves. Increasingly it's the genetic outliers who don't do that.

      Our attitudes toward things like hunger haven't helped. We've been trained to view ordinary hunger in an otherwise well-nourished person as a crisis to be avoided at all costs. Many doctors advise their patients to avoid it all costs by continually feeding themselves small meals. That can work, but it's extremely challenging to balance energy input and output.

      If you've ever tried fasting, that all seems kind of ridiculous. You don't need food every couple of hours, you can go days without food with no harmful effects at all. Learning to treat hunger as a normal, non-urgent situation is a big part in learning not to overeat in a food-saturated world. Once you've done it a few times, you realize a hunger pang isn't an emergency alarm. It's a routine reminder to think about getting some food, one that turns off in a few minutes and can be safely ignored for a few hours or even days in a world where food is nearly always at arms reach.

      • But you are using an outdated view of genetics. Epigenetics is changing all of our assumptions. Because of epigenetics, a person's genetic program can be adapted to their environment in their lifetime. We've shown that experiences can cause a semi-permanent change in an individual's genetic expression and that change can be passed on to their children. This is not a rare phenomenon but one that likely occurs across many systems in every individual.

        It does seem to show up most obviously in extreme environmen

      • by Kjella ( 173770 )

        If you've ever tried fasting, that all seems kind of ridiculous. You don't need food every couple of hours, you can go days without food with no harmful effects at all. Learning to treat hunger as a normal, non-urgent situation is a big part in learning not to overeat in a food-saturated world. Once you've done it a few times, you realize a hunger pang isn't an emergency alarm. It's a routine reminder to think about getting some food, one that turns off in a few minutes and can be safely ignored for a few hours or even days in a world where food is nearly always at arms reach.

        Actually it's far more than that, us humans may not go into hibernation like bears but we are genetically programmed to deal with huge seasonal swings. Even though we've resorted to many different preservation techniques the primary method has been storing it as body fat, because food that's been in storage for months is very easily tainted. In humanity's history far more people have died from starvation than obesity. So there's an urge in all of us to fatten up to prepare, even though we don't need it righ

    • Don't you know people who can eat all the shitty food they want and gain no fat? Others that watch they eat but they can't even have an ice cream or anything like that because of fear of getting fat? Why should those people not experience the happiness that comes with eating something delicious like ice cream? It really sounds an elitist attitude to blame weight gain purely on human behaviour.
  • I'm Fat! (Score:2, Insightful)

    I'm 49 years old. I was incredibly skinny all my life (like skin and bones) until I was about 30. I had severe asthma as a kid and we were relatively poor and didn't always have enough to eat. Also, my metabolism was high. I never exercised that much due to asthma, but, I was always unhealthily skinny. I even had "low cholesterol" to the point they recommended I eat more bacon. When I joined the Army, I was 5'10" and 118lbs soaking wet. The drill sergeants made me eat double meals to put on weight in Basic

    • It is not only being inactive. It is what you put in your mouth. It also depends on the quality of food, how many times you are eating, and also into what you are drinking. It also depends on the dietary habits of you other half.
      I am about the same age. I was feeling very sick when 30 doing to weight and shed all that weight with a very aggressive diet.
      Case in point, drinking only water, avoiding bread, cheese and milk, and sweets, and maybe even coffee helps your body process better the food. Also port
  • They should give the treatment to women so they can stop complaining about the thermostat being set on too cold. Btw if you want the same effect just take an enormous amount of Thiamin (a B vitamin). It will basically light your body on fire.
  • This is a desperation move because the entire diet, obesity and diabetes industry has utterly failed us for the last 100 years.

    The whole eat less/move more idea (cut calories in, burn more with exercise) does NOT have lasting effects. Studies as far back as the early 1900's have shown this. Every major study around the world that has looked at this has shown this is the case.

    It's complicated and this is a super abbreviated explanation but:
    Insulin creates fat
    High sugar (carbs, carbs, carbs) create insulin.
    Ex
    • Many good points in this post but keto diet is hard to keep up and we don't know what the long term side affects may be. I would be more happy to just get the gene that the skinny people have so I don't have to go to the gym daily and play sports for countless hours just to keep my healthy weight.
      • So... experimental genetic manipulation over some self discipline on your eating habits?
        What could possibly go wrong?

        As to long term effects of keto diet: you are right - we only have about the last 100,000 years of human evolution as a trial. We should wait another 100,000 just to be safe and instead stick with the over processed, refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweetener, carbohydrate and empty calorie diet that has only been around for the last 50 or 60 years and has made everybody ob
  • Caloric abundance now leading contributor to global warming.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills. -- Ambrose Bierce

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