Possible Link Found Between Body Weight and the Immune System (theatlantic.com) 211
The Atlantic talked to Lora Hooper, chair of the immunology department at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, one of the researchers investigating gut microbes, inflammation, and what may be a very important connection.
They note that the rise of antibiotic usage among humans "coincides with the obesity epidemic." This could be a spurious correlation, of course -- lots of things have been on the rise since the '50s. But dismissing it entirely would require ignoring a growing body of evidence that our metabolic health is inseparable from the health of our gut microbes... While other researchers focused on the gut microbiome itself, [Hooper] took an interest in the immune system. Specifically, she wanted to know how an inflammatory response could influence these microscopic populations, and thus be related to weight gain.
Over the past decade or so, multiple studies have shown that obese adults mount less effective immune responses to vaccinations, and that both overweight and underweight people have elevated rates of infection. But these were long assumed to be effects of obesity, not causes.
"When I started my lab there wasn't much known about how the immune system perceives the gut microbes," Hooper says. "A lot of people thought the gut immune system might be sort of blind to them." To her, it was obvious that this couldn't be the case. The human gut is host to about 100 trillion bacteria. They serve vital metabolic functions, but can quickly kill a person if they get into the bloodstream. "So clearly the immune system has got to be involved in maintaining them," she says. It made sense to her that even subtle changes in the functioning of the immune system could influence microbial populations -- and, hence, weight gain and metabolism. This theory was borne out late last month in a paper in Science... [T]his experiment is a demonstration of principle: The immune system helps control the composition of the gut microbiome.
Slashdot reader Beeftopia submitted the story, noting that even the North American Meat Institute, the largest trade group representing meat processors, acknowledges that the use of some antibiotics "can destroy certain bacteria in the gut and help livestock and poultry convert feed to muscle more quickly causing more rapid growth." [PDF, page 4].
"Inflammation plays a critical role in determining how we digest food," writes the Atlantic, "and it's only now starting to reveal itself."
They note that the rise of antibiotic usage among humans "coincides with the obesity epidemic." This could be a spurious correlation, of course -- lots of things have been on the rise since the '50s. But dismissing it entirely would require ignoring a growing body of evidence that our metabolic health is inseparable from the health of our gut microbes... While other researchers focused on the gut microbiome itself, [Hooper] took an interest in the immune system. Specifically, she wanted to know how an inflammatory response could influence these microscopic populations, and thus be related to weight gain.
Over the past decade or so, multiple studies have shown that obese adults mount less effective immune responses to vaccinations, and that both overweight and underweight people have elevated rates of infection. But these were long assumed to be effects of obesity, not causes.
"When I started my lab there wasn't much known about how the immune system perceives the gut microbes," Hooper says. "A lot of people thought the gut immune system might be sort of blind to them." To her, it was obvious that this couldn't be the case. The human gut is host to about 100 trillion bacteria. They serve vital metabolic functions, but can quickly kill a person if they get into the bloodstream. "So clearly the immune system has got to be involved in maintaining them," she says. It made sense to her that even subtle changes in the functioning of the immune system could influence microbial populations -- and, hence, weight gain and metabolism. This theory was borne out late last month in a paper in Science... [T]his experiment is a demonstration of principle: The immune system helps control the composition of the gut microbiome.
Slashdot reader Beeftopia submitted the story, noting that even the North American Meat Institute, the largest trade group representing meat processors, acknowledges that the use of some antibiotics "can destroy certain bacteria in the gut and help livestock and poultry convert feed to muscle more quickly causing more rapid growth." [PDF, page 4].
"Inflammation plays a critical role in determining how we digest food," writes the Atlantic, "and it's only now starting to reveal itself."
I find this plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone suffering from ulcerative colitis, I am obviously all ears when such connections are brought to light, especially when inflammation is mentioned.
My wife found an article that stated that in a study where colitis patients cut out certain carbs present in supermarket bread (among other things) a not insignificant amount managed to pound the colitis into complete remission.
I am still debating testing this for myself. So far I only have anecdotal data. For instance my supposed lactose intolerance all but vanished when I started actually eating veggies.
For me the connection of the colon's biome to our health is very obvious but again, I have little hard data.
Re:I find this plausible (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the connection is pretty obvious, even if not well researched. I do hope you find something that works for you, but until medical sciences have advanced much further, individual (careful!) experimentation may be the only way to go. What others found helpful may or may not work for you. With good scientific coverage of the problem (which we should eventually get), a simple lab-test may tell you what to do and what not and there may even be a way to fix things. Unfortunately that may well take some decades or longer.
Re: I find this plausible (Score:2, Insightful)
Careful experimentation like eating veggies or cutting out supermarket bread ? That's not experimentation, that should be normal.
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Is there any specific problem with supermarket bread where you live? Agree on the vegetables.
As to "careful" I just mean to stop the experiment and seek medical help immediately if it seems to go wrong.
Re:I find this plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
The connection between the digestive microbiota and health is well known and has been asserted again and again in studies ranging back 20 years. The specifics of how it all works is the current mystery.
Re:I find this plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
Many food intolerance are simply an abundance of a particular type of gut bacteria that metabolizes that particular material and either creates an imbalance with the other microbes or produces other harmful compounds like toxins.
It should be mentioned that it should not be surprising that many of the issues mentioned in the article happened in the decades just after WW2.
You had a population that became more concentrated from war time industry and a huge number of people coming back from overseas travel (soldiers), bringing all kinds of microbes back with them.
Everyone keeps blaming antibiotics but humanity changed quite a lot during that period which is typically ignored when people focus solely on changes in medical practices.
Not discovered here syndrome? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that favoring the wrong (leptin-resistance and fat misdigestion causing) bacteria in the gut over normal healthy ones (that like branching carbs aka "prebiotics" too), by eating too much highly processed food (mostly sugars and simple starches), was well-known and established as the cause of obesity, a few years ago!
*Obviously* completely wrecking your gut flora will do that too... unless you are very careful about what you eat afterwards.
Anyone can test this:
Leave away the short simple carbs (not enough by itself), and eat more from the leek family, beans, etc. And watch your weight gain trend level off over the course of weeks, as the better bacteria get favored as they can digest more.of the food (namely the branching carbs) than the bad ones.
Alternatively, getting the right antibiotics and a gut flora transplant from somebody where you know he ate right, will also do the same.
None of those cures will, of course, make you lose weight quickly. That requires the usual negative energy balance. Aka being hungry. Eating lots of fibers that fill you up, will of course make it easier.
Re:Not discovered here syndrome? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's my anecdote.
I'm middle aged, exercise as much as I can, a diabetic but I keep my blood sugars in control (Hba1c 5), drink occasionally, and yet I've been progressively putting on weight for a couple of years. So far I'm up to 120kg. Stress-induced eating does not help, but in general, I would describe myself as an over-eater, complicated by the diabetes and middle age, hence the steady weight gain. Nothing too abnormal, aside from not wanting to get too big and basically feeling like a failure for not being able to turn it around.
Recently I started drinking kombucha drinks for no other reason than I tried one by accident, the ones here are low/zero carb (with a little Stevia, but the whole point is not very much, it's almost a bitter drink) and I really really liked the taste. So I started drinking them regularly, and certainly wasn't expecting anything from it. But what has struck me dramatically over the past two months is the impact on my appetite. I'm not hungry like I was before. I've dropped 10kg in 2 months, and the only association I can make is the kombucha and the impact on my gut biome.
So far I'm a happy camper and hope this continues.
Curious (Score:2)
Bitter? That's odd. Kombucha fermentation turns sugar into alcohol and then alcohol into acids, so the predominant taste should be acidic rather than bitter. Maybe the brand you're drinking does a really long extraction on the tea to get lots of tannins out?
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I can add my anecdotes to add to the pile;
I was getting to the point where almost everything was giving me heartburn. Coffee, red wine, pizza, hamburgers, I can understand, but pancakes, roast potatoes, porridge, fachrissakes?
I'd heard about the benefits of fermented food, so I made a batch of sauerkraut, basically shredded red cabbage, carrots and onions left to soak unrefrigerated in a brine solution of 2% by total weight for five days. The heartburn just...stopped. Seriously, overnight. I ate half a lar
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If you have a healthy diet, you'd only need a flora transplant if you've had your appendix removed. The appendix should store a gut flora reserve that will survive antibiotic use.
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Your post suggests that you've only started to eat vegetables recently and if you're contemplating whether to cut out supermarket bread or not it indicates that it's a non-significant part of your diet. I'd encourage you to start meal planning before doing the weekly shopping. Unless you're also contemplating some other sort of extreme diet, this is guaranteed not to have any adverse effects, and would save you some money to boot.
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The use of emulsifiers have grown since the early 1900's in food and has grown rapidly since the 1950's and now is very high food inclusion in modern food in addition to the use of soy products in foods.
Emulsifiers include soy lecithin which is in a lot of processed foods including vegetable oils (even though its not listed), candies, cookies (almost all processed foods) but there are a variety of emulsifiers.
Soy lecithin is an emulsifier and allows stomach contents to pass with greater ease into the blood
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That's why it is anonymous. lol
I hope this helps you. Long post! (Score:3)
Here is the path I walked; I hope it helps you!
Summary: no grains, no sugar --> no problems!
Can you afford to do personalized research (requires investment of personal time and more complicated logistics than usual, not money per se)?
Meaning, create a base "elimination" diet by eating rather small "basket" of foods excluding all varieties of grain, sugars and alcohol (mine also excluded nuts, which are considered good food but my doctor said they are difficult to process; later on it turned out that for
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If you avoid sugar and processed foods, you've already made a huge change and probably would have a good diet.
You're talking about thinking it causes you problems to eat too many vegetables, I'm thinking there is something else going on there. Like maybe you just ate something unhealthy, like sugar, and then you ate excess vegetables to try to make up for it, and felt sick.
Whatever you're doing to your colon, stop blaming walnuts unless you're talking about eating the shells.
A bottle of wine a week, if it i
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I have a significant MSG allergy
You literally cannot have an allergy to MSG. It's naturally produced in your body.
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I have a significant MSG allergy
You literally cannot have an allergy to MSG. It's naturally produced in your body.
That's glutamate, not monosodium glutamate.
Glutamate is a naturally-occurring amino acid. Yes, it's produced in the body.
MSG or Monosodium Glutamate is an artificial food additive derived from glutamate, and, yes, there are people allergic to it and many more sensitive to it.
Best to avoid.
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Monosodium glutamate is produced by reacting sodium and glutamate. There's sodium in a lot of foods, and MSG occurs naturally in a few of them, including most famously tomatoes.
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Monosodium glutamate is produced by reacting sodium and glutamate. There's sodium in a lot of foods, and MSG occurs naturally in a few of them, including most famously tomatoes.
No, no it doesn't. Glutamic acid is found naturally in tomatoes, grapes, cheese, mushrooms and other foods, but not MSG.
Combined with sodium, MSG can occur naturally. The MSG in naturally umami-rich foods is found in harmless amounts, but the concentrated doses associated with foods like ramen, processed products like Hamburger Helper and salty fast-food products have been linked with negative health effects.
hummingbird regularity (Score:2)
In related mysteries: how does your iPhone get power when it's not plugged into the wall?
Imagine you had a propane tank connected to an electrical generator, connected to a battery, to keep the juice flowing when the grid fails.
Good news!
You have exactly that. Glycogen stores, mainly in the liver, will provide all the energy you need for 24 hours. As glycogen declines, the body fires up the pr
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There is a lot of data available in this book on exactly this topic. He talks about why those without celiac disease still have much trouble with certain grains and foods that contain lectins (a protein commonly found in food).
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I had horrible inflammation issues. The rheumatologist of course insisted it was RA even with negative tests and just kept wanting to pump different drugs in me to figure out a way to reduce the symptoms.
I was close to being wheelchair bound... Once I eliminated both gluten and sulfites, I'm mostly back to normal. Note, both of those are in great quantities in store bought bread.
Try eating nothing but organic chicken (only salt) and rice for 3 days (apples are
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The last research I saw showed that the appendix actually protects you. It seems to serve as a place to host bacteria so that when you get ill and your gut is wiped out via diarrhea/etc, the bacteria can easily re-populate your intestinal tract.
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LOL "The researchers say it acts as a safe house for good bacteria, which can be used to effectively reboot the gut following a bout of dysentery or cholera."
How do you know what is a good bacteria? Is it the particular strain, or its ratio to all the other bacteria and fungi living in your gut?
The latter, mostly, though the lack of producing toxins that directly affect human tissue is also a good hint. :-)
And if something killed all the good bacteria in the colon, why didn't it also kill them in the appendix?
Because, although connected, food doesn't flow through the appendix. Therefore, depending on the antibiotic, it may or may not affect the bacteria in the appendix to the same degree. (This is true for low-absorption antibiotics like oral Vancomycin, but not true to the same degree for high-absorption antibiotics like Levofloxacin that get absorbed into the bloodstream and then get excreted int
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So why do you need an appendix to store bacteria that you already consume?? Was that somehow not apparent to you?
Oh, that's an easy one. Because most humans don't consume amniotic fluid after they are born, and don't consume breast milk after they are a few years old, and don't eat dirt after they stop playing in sandboxes. The main mechanisms for introducing symbiotic bacteria into the gut don't continue to play a meaningful dietary role in adulthood.
I think that there is stronger correlation (Score:2, Offtopic)
between eating way more fatty, sugary stuff today and the current obesity trend.
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Sources, please... or are you just shaming to stroke your ego?
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Shaming?
Oh sorry, I didn't know the information didn't yet make it across the pond that fat has about 9000 calories a kilo.
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Right, it's not even 4500 calories a pound, so that's not even half as bad.
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Don't forget to wash your outrage down with a soda.
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Calories_in > (Calories_Burned+Calories_Passed_Threw)
For the most part we can calculate Calories_in as a sum of all the calories we eat.
However how much we Burn is far more complex.
Some people have a High metabolism, meaning when they eat food, it gives them a lot of energy right away, and shortly after eating they have to go out and run, do stuff or just be rather jumpy. Their body is trying to burn calories as soon as they get into the system. Other people with slower metabolisms, food doesn't give the
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Here's one to support you: obese humans normally have elevated levels of triglycerides (the fatty acid release by fat cells for energy). But, in obese people who test positive for the obesity-linked virus AD36, they have abnormally *low* levels of triglycerides. Google "AD36 triglycerides" for the scientific papers.
This suggests a hypothetical mechanism: their fat cells have been partially damaged by the virus'd DNA. They can store sugars fine, but don't respond to the right signals to release energy again.
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between eating way more fatty, sugary stuff today and the current obesity trend.
Of course that has an impact; although if I look back at my father's generation, fried foods several times a day: bacon, eggs, buttered toast for breakfast every day. Jam sandwiches for lunch...etc... they were getting lots of fat and sugar and didn't get as fat.
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You put a colon after "fried foods several times a day," followed by a list. But not a single one of the items in the list is "fried."
Re:I think that there is stronger correlation (Score:4, Interesting)
between eating way more fatty, sugary stuff today and the current obesity trend.
It's the sugar, not the fat that is the problem. My wife & I switched to a ketogenic diet just over 6 months ago, and our diet is composed of about 70% of calories from fat. I'm closing in on 50 lbs of weight loss. Fats help to satiate and don't result in an insulin response which actually causes your body to store fat.
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Perhaps more to the point, proteins help to satiate, and the presence of protein and fat in food is positively correlated.
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Fats digest slower than protein which is what causes them to satiate more.
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Actually corporate america is just giving people whatever they can mark up the most. If putting high fructose corn syrup in those foods hurt sales they would rename it in the ingredient list so fast the labels would change right there on the shelf. They might even sub-divide it among 3 obscure marketing names and push all three down in the list.
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I don't buy it. Noboby asked for sugar in salad dressing, for example. Hell, nobody knows that it's even in there. They put it in because some marketing twit decided that, subconsciously, it will cause the average consumer to perceive the product as being more satisfying. And thus began a race to the bottom.
I think you just rewrote "sells better" in more words. We have all this sugar because of the lack of any historical nanny state, it's really cheap, unbridled capitalism in our food markets, and the general taste of Americans, all combined.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, and I certainly don't condone it being in everything as a cheap (yet somehow tasty) additive. I don't even like sweet things myself, I prefer savory.
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All the stores here have whole milk yogurt, "regular," "lite," non-fat.
There are probably better stores in other neighborhoods.
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That might be over reductionist, and there could be a lot of motivated reasoning why many people believe that.
For a counter-example, look up the AD36 virus (Adeno virus 36 strain). When other animals are infected with this virus (can include rodents, birds, primates etc) they start to get fat. Really fat. it's pretty clearly causative, and there's no real wiggle room on that. It causes fatness. Additionally, while we can't ethically *experiment* on humans to prove this, AD36 antibodies are far more prevalen
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Not needed as we can look at places with increased obesity where corn is uncommon. Do you really think people working on this are stupid?
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Not in Europe, where obesity is just as much a problem as in the US.
There is no single offender. It's more due to fat being great at carrying flavours and cheap to boot, so it's used in pretty much any processed food in abundance. Add some sugar for similar reasons and there you go.
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Not in Europe, where obesity is just as much a problem as in the US.
Technically it's not "as much a problem", it is catching up, but still isn't quite as high as the US yet, only Mexico can really rival the American waistline; still, a lot of foods ARE internationally prepared and shipped. I suspect the people who are obese in Europe are more likely to eat more shelf-stable internationally produced and shipped products (the kinds that are more likely to consume maize-based sugars) than the non-obese Europeans.
Obviously there isn't just one cause of obesity, there are diff
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Try to cut out corn in all forms and see what happens. It's in nearly everything.
When referring to corn on an international website it's probably best to be more specific calling it either "Maize/Sweet corn", "Wheat", or "Barley", or whatever else you mean by the term "corn" to avoid any confusion as to which product you are referring ("corn" generally has geo-specific meaning). Not all crops that are sometimes called corn are as bad as each other although they're all grains and NOT VEGETABLES. Wheat in excess is unhealthy too but not as bad as maize.
Assuming you're American and refer
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Where in the world would they confuse the terms "Corn" with those terms of "Wheat" or "Barley"?
They are 3 different grain plants entirely.
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Where in the world would they confuse the terms "Corn" with those terms of "Wheat" or "Barley"?
They are 3 different grain plants entirely.
Historically "Corn" means "Grain-Crop". In more modern times "Corn" has taken on the layman meaning of whatever the number one grain crop is in that region. Therefore in the US "Corn" means "Maize", England "Corn" frequently means "wheat", in parts of Scotland "Corn" frequently means "Barley"- and the meaning can vary anywhere you go in the anglophone world. I'm not sure what the number one grain crop is in Australia, but I bet whatever it is they call it "corn" too.
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FYI... This is what Wikipedia says:
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In the past. Corn used to be the word that meant "grain."
Medical research is slow (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably one of the slowest fields. Part of that may be due to strong hierarchies, part is surely due to a smaller distance between research and practice than in most other fields and part is likely ethical concerns. Still, we seem to slowly get to a point were research can be done even if it contradicts well-established explanations and this story seems to describe such an instance. Excellent. We need more of that.
Medical research is not slow (Score:2)
Probably one of the slowest fields.
Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Medical research has progressed at an astonishing pace in the last 100 years. The human body is arguably the most complicated system we study. FAR more complicated than the PC I'm typing this on. In the last 100 years we've developed vaccines, antibiotics, antiviral, organ transplants, artificial organs, sequenced the genome, developed blood banking, developed molecular tests, uncountable treatments for serious diseases, and the list goes on for ages. If you th
How's your smallpox? (Score:2)
They don’t cure nothing.
Really? Had smallpox recently? Polio? Mumps? Tetanus? Hepatitis?
Same diseases been hanging out since l was a kid, man. What’s the last shit a doctor cured? Polio.
Here are just a few [cdc.gov] of the diseases prevented by vaccines. Not to mention the countless diseases that are cured by antibiotics and other drugs.
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No it moves slow as it is working on a complex system with different individual effects combined with a framework designed to reduce risks to patients. This isn't about contradicting some holy rules but a continuous work in understanding that very complex system that is the human body.
But we already know that (with reduced beneficial bacteria or not) reducing the energy intake to match the energy expenditure will reduce obesity and we already know that high energy foods are consumed more than in the past.
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Correlation != causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Overweight** people (in general, not all) tend to be less health conscious and are less healthy in many ways, not just - if the report is to be believed - gut microbes. The gut microbes are probably less healthy because of the bad diet the person is eating, not the other way around.
** Fat, not muscular.
Re:Correlation != causation (Score:5, Interesting)
Overweight people are often malnourished, despite being very heavy. Poor diet choices - either too little or too much of anything can lead to problems.
As a surgeon - it's way easier to operate on thinner people. They also have significantly fewer complications.
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Which part of "probably" didn't you understand Mr Shit For Brains?
There's no "oh" moment, just a "duh?" moment that you probably have all the time.
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As a surgeon - it's way easier to operate on thinner people. They also have significantly fewer complications.
I'd hate to be in that position - patient is on the brink due to their weight yet if I make a big cut where the fat is pressed hard against the skin then less bloodflow means much easier infection, sepsis, organ failure and death anyway. There goes my fucking stats
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Read the subject of your post.
Then read what you wrote... then read the subject of your post.... keep repeating until you get the "oh...." moment.
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Oh dear, looks like a Fatty has been triggered. Never mind - go eat a nice burger with a doughnut follow-up afternoon snack, you'll feel much better.
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Overweight** people (in general, not all) tend to be less health conscious and are less healthy in many ways, not just - if the report is to be believed - gut microbes. The gut microbes are probably less healthy because of the bad diet the person is eating, not the other way around.
** Fat, not muscular.
It comes down to fibre. What feeds gut bacteria? Fibre. Where does fibre come from? Vegetables. What do most oveweight people not get enough of? Fibre. Fat bellies frequently consume few veggies. I can't remember the % but I do recall that it's well over 50% of Americans who are fibre deficient in their diet.
There's also the case that people on atkins and keto diets have been linked to lower immune systems even if it does make them lose weight. The common factor here is that some people on those di
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...not sure where you get your info, but a keto diet does NOT ask one to reduce vegetables, only the ones that break down into sugar:
Educate yourself:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto
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...not sure where you get your info, but a keto diet does NOT ask one to reduce vegetables, only the ones that break down into sugar:
Educate yourself:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low... [dietdoctor.com]
I think you need to reread what I wrote, I said "some people who think they have to cut out fruit/veggies". Sadly a lot of people on the keto diet DO cut out a lot of veggies from their diet or use it as an excuse just to eat slabs of meat without anything nutritious. What happens with a lot of these exclusionary diets is that people hear folks say "I lost xxlbs on keto by cutting out sugar and eating more fat" - and what they take from that is "eat more steaks and I lose weight".
Most people on exclusiona
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And no, Ketchup is NOT a vegetable.
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I would say that I have more gut microbes after eating pizza than any amount of vegetables.
I would say that I have more gut after eating pizza.
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A: It is not insightful to mindlessly squawk "Correlation is not causation".
B: It is especially not insightful in response to a line of reasoning that starts "This could be a spurious correlation, of course", i.e. they are already considering that there may be no causation.
C: It is outright false in response to research that actually found a causal link and which you don't even attempt to refute.
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They found a potential causal link which provides a correlation.
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Except the POINT of the article is that they're /trying to determine causation./
There have been several studies where replacement of internal flora has changed weight retention.
No, correlation isn't PROOF of causation, but it's INDICATIVE of it. We use correlation to suggest causation (or at least provide us direction for inquiry) ALL THE DAMN TIME.
If people get sunburnt a lot develop a wealth of skin melanomas, we tend to look at sun exposure, not the price of ostrich meat. If your cookie jar breaks and
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"Overweight** people (in general, not all) tend to be less health conscious"
What a ludicrous statement! It seems that you have never spoken with a fat person. The reality is that fat people tend to know a great deal about many well known obesity theories. They often experiment with different lifestyles/diets etc based upon various theories.
It may surprise you to know that diabetics tend to know a lot about diabetes. Cancer patients learn all they can about their cancer. Some of the world's foremost experts
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Or they just give up on it since prior attempts to follow well meaning (or sometimes mean spirited) advice didn't actually result in weight loss and may actually have further degraded their health.
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Correlation correlates with causation, but does correlation cause causation? Needs further study.
growing body (Score:1)
Used in farming (Score:3)
Parkinsons law (Score:2)
I can play correlation too. The drop in kcal/$ coincides with the rise of the obesity epidemic.
Re: appendix (Score:2)
At the end.
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Lining my pockets.
-- your friendly surgeon
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Maybe, just maybe, we found YET ANOTHER reason to not hand out antibiotics like candy?
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But that's not important right now!
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Wish I had mod points...
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The last study I saw showed that it serves to host/shelter your gut bacteria so that when you get sick and have an intestinal wipe due to diarrhea/etc, the bacteria can re-populate.
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What would be fascinating would be to take mice who have been gut-biome-altered / immune system altered, and measure their calories going in, and then measure their calories coming out, in feces.
All other things held equal, there should be fewer calories coming out of the fat mice, than are coming out of the normal mice. If there are the same, or perhaps more calories coming out of the fat mice, this would force a major re-evaluation of the mechanism of fat gain.
I've mentioned before that the digestive sys
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From the article: "This theory was borne out late last month in a paper in Science. Zac Stephens, a microbial ecologist at the University of Utah, and his colleagues had been working with mice with altered immune T cells. They noticed that over time, these mice “ballooned,” as Stephens puts it. One of his colleagues started calling them “pancakes.”
One assumes they were treated identically, including identical amounts of food and the same environment.
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I'd love to see this research go further.
If taking anti-biotics leads to weight gain (and I can see how that could be), what do we do to correct for the loss of microbiome when we take anti-biotics?
There are fecal transplants you can take... Doctors actually take poop from healthy individuals (with a good diversity of helpful gut bacteria) put them in pills and give them to people to take. Yummy. I'll take a pass on that.
You can also help yourself with pre and pro biotics. Products like yoghurt, quark, and eating close to the apple cores in your apples can help populate good bacteria into your gut. Then eating foods with lots of fibre, things like kohlrabi and other veggies from the cabbage family
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I'm trying to dig it up but can't find it - be careful with the whole "pro-biotics" thing - they might actually *prevent* your own body from repopulating the gut-biome it's used to, by displacing it with a mono-culture or at the very least a culture that isn't what you need. Apparently this might be one of the reasons we have an appendix - it serves as a "safe haven" from where your gut can repopulate its own biome after a shock.
I do know that alot get "flushed" if you don't feed them with fibrous veggies. Especially in those pills that people take. In a lot of those bacteria pills people swallow, some of those bacteria strains die off pretty quickly, they won't establish themselves if you continue eating a burger and fries diet.
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That's a strong claim that they hire doctors as the lab techs, or that the doctors are the CEOs, or whatever you meant there.
There is unlikely to be any doctor involved at all.
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"How can he be so unaware of this?"
He's not unaware, just ignoring inconvenient facts.
But, regardless of what gut bacteria or doing, obesity is not caused by "inflammation," or "imbalance" in gut bacteria, or whatever other new-age fad they are selling today.
Obesity is caused by one thing and one thing only: consuming more calories than the body needs over a very long term.
I don't give a shit what my gut bacteria is doing. I'm not measuring my flatulence or going in to some new-age homeopathic snake-oil sal
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The word is that people have been eating more and exercising less than in the past... I wonder if there's a correlation?
Yes, but "stop eating as much" is a less sexy statement than saying "drop out 'x' food group". One thing that helps exclusionary diets is that people actually end up eating less total food when they're on an exclusionary diet; especially when the diet is new.
The early adopters of high protein/ low carb diets lost more weight than later adopters. Part of this is because the early adopters didn't have a wide variety of low carb high protein snacks available to them. As soon as the diet became popular food
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is the root of all good things. I know this.
I know your mom probably has no immune system at all.