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Media items about obesity

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Helen, Dec 27, 2017.

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  1. Helen

    Helen Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have found evidence for the existence of an internal body weight sensing system. This system operates like bathroom scales, registering body weight and thereby fat mass. More knowledge about the sensing mechanism could lead to a better understanding of the causes of obesity as well as new anti-obesity drugs."

    Abstract

    Subjects spending much time sitting have increased risk of obesity but the mechanism for the antiobesity effect of standing is unknown.

    We hypothesized that there is a homeostatic regulation of body weight. We demonstrate that increased loading of rodents, achieved using capsules with different weights implanted in the abdomen or s.c. on the back, reversibly decreases the biological body weight via reduced food intake.

    Importantly, loading relieves diet-induced obesity and improves glucose tolerance. The identified homeostat for body weight regulates body fat mass independently of fat-derived leptin, revealing two independent negative feedback systems for fat mass regulation.

    It is known that osteocytes can sense changes in bone strain. In this study, the body weight-reducing effect of increased loading was lost in mice depleted of osteocytes.

    We propose that increased body weight activates a sensor dependent on osteocytes of the weight-bearing bones. This induces an afferent signal, which reduces body weight. These findings demonstrate a leptin-independent body weight homeostat (“gravitostat”) that regulates fat mass.

    Full study:
    Body weight homeostat that regulates fat mass independently of leptin in rats and mice
    http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/12/19/1715687114.full

    Article in media:
    https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-12-body-bathroom-scalesa-obesity.html
     
  2. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    So rats that are forced to carry around weights lose weight? I wonder if this works with researchers? Strap half a dozen 20kg plates to a researcher for a few months and see what happens........
     
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  3. NelliePledge

    NelliePledge Moderator Staff Member

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    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43822604

    There was a programme on BBC1 earlier in the week. The article sums up what the programme covered although the programme also highlighted significant increase in consumption of junk food and takeaways. Being firmly in the obese category myself I thought this content was interesting particularly showing the twins where there was a visible difference in weight and the heavier one had half the level of gut bacteria diversity of her thin sister. Also I hadn’t heard it quantified, although I knew implicitly from my own family, that the genetics makes such a substantial contribution to obesity.

    As someone who struggles with portion control and satiety (I find it almost impossible to leave left overs in the fridge til the next day) I am very interested in the research covered at the end of the article. They are giving obese people a mix of hormones including leptin by injection. This seems to give the benefits of gastric bypass without surgery. A guy interviewed had lost 7kg in 28 days. I really hope this works and gets adopted as I would definitely benefit from it. I’ve already lost 19kg by changing what I eat but it isn’t easy for me to get control of how much especially I found during the winter months.

    PS anyone struggling to lose weight join us on the weight loss thread.
     
  4. arewenearlythereyet

    arewenearlythereyet Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I saw this too. Overall I thought it was quite balanced.

    The genetic bit although interesting was a bit iffy in my opinion, mainly because there was very little context given to the overall impact and they skirted around the number of genes that were involved and didn’t really pin down a significance in terms of numbers affected.

    They did say that this on its own can’t explain the amount of people in the UK who are overweight and obese so this is a multifaceted problem, not just medical or genetic.

    This did tie in quite well with some of the things I’ve picked out from various work I’ve done. Off the top,of my head and without a PowerPoint slide in sight are some of the key chanes over time connected to the rise in obesity levels since the 1960’s):

    Increase in food availability in shops (e.g. after post war rationing)
    Increase in food affordability as noted by the price of groceries in relation to people’s disposable income
    Increase in consumption of convenience food (less cooking/shopping required/longer shelf life)
    Decrease in manual labour jobs/energy required to housekeep in the home/amount of energy required to get to work or school whilst portion sizes have stayed the same/increased
    Decrease in the amount of hours we spend sleeping
    Decrease in a balanced diet (less fibre and particularly low in vegetables)
    Decrease in defined meal time/increase in snacking (particularly calorie dense foods high in refined carbs and saturated fat)
    Increase in eating out of the home and takeaways (foodservice)

    These things are the drivers that have created a ‘perfect storm’ of excess calorie consumption in the general population, so whilst the genetics are interesting to give you a heads up that it might be more tricky to avoid losing weight for x% of people, the above are the things that are causing the majority of weight gain. When you map this out on a timeline against levels of obesity it’s clear this shows the evolution of the problem.

    Consumer studies also show that a significant proportion of people are conflating medical conditions arising as a result of their obesity as the cause of their obesity (e.g. microbiome, diabetes, imbalanced ghrelin etc).

    Most people though realise they are overeating but are unaware of the extent and creep effect that a small amount of overeating can build up over time. I’ve certainly found that the case and when you start tracking calories it is an eye opener.

    What’s also interesting is that people state their biggest health food watch out is the amount of sugar in the food but when you ask what do you look to avoid in packaged food it’s artificial sweeteners....so there is a contradiction there showing that the government campaign is a little one dimensional in terms of education on diet etc. Personally I think they need to focus on calorie reduction strategies rather than demonising particular food groups or products ...seems more linked to tax income stream than a real benefit to public health. Seems strange that they tried to cut free school meals at the same time?

    The main thing I keep getting shocked about though is the amount of takeaways people eat...I think we treat ourselves to one a month in our house if that, so I definitely think there is an age difference towards whether you have grown up in the 90’s (convenience food the norm) or earlier.
     
  5. Mij

    Mij Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I live in the city and am shocked when I see all the young urban professionals on their way home carrying take-out bags. When I'm out walking in the evenings on 'trash day', the stacks of pizza boxes in front of people's homes is another shocker- piles of them!
     
  6. NelliePledge

    NelliePledge Moderator Staff Member

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    @arewenearlythereyet Good point about convenience food becoming the norm in the 90s. I didn’t get really overweight until the mid/late 90s age over 35.

    I think what is a good diet depends how heavy you are if you are obese low carb is definitely worth trying as is fasting. I wouldn’t say either were appropriate for a normal weight person.
     
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  7. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I suspect that food irradiation has something to do with declining gut bacteria diversity. I was surprised at how long the history of food irradiation has been - it was first patented in 1905.

    https://ccr.ucdavis.edu/food-irradiation/history-food-irradiation

    http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/campaigns/europe_and_the_uk/

    If we ate food that was fresh from the ground, bush, tree or vine and/or meat/fish that was completely fresh and untreated it would contains loads of bacteria. Washing and cooking would get rid of some bacteria, but presumably not all of it. But food which has been irradiated will never add anything to the diversity of gut bacteria we have because the bacteria have all been killed off. Taking loads of antibiotics will also reduce the populations of gut bacteria.

    I find it infuriating that companies sell probiotics which are carefully designed not to multiply so that people have to keep buying the products if they think they help. I understand why they do this, but that doesn't stop me being angry about it.
     
  8. arewenearlythereyet

    arewenearlythereyet Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I don’t understand this ...the only thing that’s irradiated in the uk are herbs and spices ...and that’s because you can’t heat treat them any other way without compromising them.

    Most fresh frozen or short life ambient food has a good loading of bacteria in it even when pasteurised. It’s only retorted (temperature under pressure) products that are sterilised...you can spot these quite easily since they are either in a can bottle or pouch and have a very long shelf life outside the fridge or freezer.

    No food apart from herbs and spices are irradiated. It may have been invented a long time ago ...that doesn’t mean it’s been adopted since then.

    The only thing apart from herbs and spices that are irradiated are some food packaging before they have food packed into them 99% of food in the uk isn’t as far as I’m aware? I may not be aware of as\n astronaught food supplier I suppose...but you should be ok in the uk and most of Europe.

    If you’ve seen the micro results from herbs and spices like I have you would want the irradiated ...lots of salmonella and worse I seem to recall.
     
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  9. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Source : https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/irradiated-food

    I realise that "may be irradiated" doesn't mean they necessarily are, but it is definitely allowed.
     
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  10. arewenearlythereyet

    arewenearlythereyet Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Yes but It isn’t widely used because it’s custom and practice to use existing food safety controls using heat (pasteurisation/sterilisation) gas flushing, salt, smoking freezing, chilling etc.

    I have worked with all those product areas and have never in 30 years seen any irradiation being used apart from the areas discussed and that’s normally after due diligence checks or positive release methods have failed to find an alternative.

    Just because the legislation calls out certain products doesn’t mean this is a blanket permission. The legislation is there to call out the exceptions not open the door for using it on all food. It clearly restricts the use of irradiation in food when other preservation alternatives are available.

    So in this context why would a manufacturer put in an expensive irradiation plant to replace a pasteuriser or freezer or whatever when you can only generally use it on a very few things due to the legislation?

    most own label contracts discourage their use on top of the discouragement from the law so that’s at least 50% of all food in the uk.

    But don’t take my word for it, all products that have been irradiated in the EU have to declare so on their packaging ..so have a look if your worried. It will be on the back of pack next to the ingredients panel. If it’s not there you are ok. :thumbup:
     
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  11. arewenearlythereyet

    arewenearlythereyet Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    If anyone is interested (I don’t blame you if you aren’t ) here is a link talking about the world of irradiation and the problems sourcing spices from the developing world ...insect eggs and salmonella the big ones ..probably due to differing food production standards that are difficult to enforce/cultivate from afar. (Faecal contamination from animals and humans is often a problem when things are dried in the open/sun). Basically anything travelling from the tropics by ship is a nightmare in terms of infestation and this needs to be carefully managed (lifecycle management etc)

    http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...outbreak-may-spark-interest-irradiated-spices

    McCormick don’t use irradiation and use steam sterilisation for their spices (Schwartz brand)
     
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  12. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    @arewenearlythereyet Thanks for all the info on irradiation of food. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick from things I saw on TV some years ago.
     
  13. arewenearlythereyet

    arewenearlythereyet Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    No worries sorry also for being food bore :cookie:
     
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  14. DokaGirl

    DokaGirl Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "Everything you know about obesity is wrong"
    An excellent article, related to aspects of ME, with a more general interest as well:

    https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/

    This article adds to the response to the research noted in the thread:

    https://www.s4me.info/threads/physi...autonomic-regulation-2011-newton-et-al.20784/

    here is the research article from the above noted thread:


    https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/104/8/681/1582388

    Thank you for your comments.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2021
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  15. Sisyphus

    Sisyphus Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I got about halfway through the Huffington Post article. It reads like… the Huffington Post. Not Nature or Science.

    Calorie restriction studies have been done, although today’s ethical rules make some of them impossible. All show that when calories are restricted to significantly under the break even point, people lose mass. The body conserves energy to avoid losing mass, but this adaptation is quite limited. Zero of them maintained prior mass, all became skinny.

    During World War II, a group of conscientious object or’s of various weights were given the choice of enrolling in a minimal calorie food study or serving the Army in a non-combat capacity. The full study has long been declassified and is public. Within it you can see photos of the participants; they are excessively lean, bones show and their muscles are shrunk, but are not quite starving. The study was designed for science, not sadism.

    Another test, this one not motivated by science, was conducted on American prisoners of the Japanese. They also were placed on a severely reduced calorie diet, but this one was about the amount of food described in the Huffington Post article. Rather than maintaining BMI above 30, the American prisoners became skin and bones, some died of starvation.

    You cannot generate enough energy to break even as a 200 pound human on 500 cal per day. At 200#, you are losing far more than 500 cal per day in heat.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2021
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  16. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    I guess the problem, from a weight control point of view at least, is that we don't live in prisoner-of-war camps. Most of us live in an environment where energy-dense foods can be delivered to our door, almost at our whim. And wherever we turn, on tv, on social media, on billboards, our fridges, there is something to remind us that our whim is food. And we don't have to make much effort to get it.

    For most of my life, I never had to worry about how much food I was eating. My energy requirements and my metabolism were high enough that my body sorted itself out, easily maintaining a stable weight. Now that I'm older, and can't be so active, it's not like that. My willpower hasn't changed, but my weight has. Now I realise how lucky I was to be able to live most of my life not thinking about what I weighed.

    That's interesting about the drop in internal temperature given how so many of us with ME/CFS have lower than normal temperatures.
     
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  17. Milo

    Milo Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I would like a citation for this
     
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  18. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I think one could probably say 'Everything in this article is wrong'.
    Diets work fine, if they are stuck to - and that is all anyone ever claimed.
    Overweight and obesity are health problems at least as serious as cancer.
    The article is exactly the sort of irresponsible sabotage that it attributes to others.
     
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  19. DokaGirl

    DokaGirl Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    @Sisyphus

    Thank you for your comments.

    If I take your meaning correctly about this article, yes, it's not a scientific response to the article in the other thread, as noted above. However, it does discuss societal attitudes about being overweight, with examples of how detrimental this can be when played out in the health care arena. PwME as well as others have come up against this mistreatment.

    For example, a cursory medical review of a serious symptom actually caused by a life threatening condition, ignored and neglected because the patient is overweight.

    Are you also pointing out that with extended diets, the body gets past the conservation effect, and weight loss continues as long as the diet continues? People do plateau with weight loss. I don't know if all who persevere would again start to lose weight. It's certainly a struggle for many, as per the Huffington article.

    ETA: Or testing in the wrong area for the problem because the patient is overweight, thus delaying a proper diagnosis and treatment.

    ETA #2: Of course one of the perennial problems with diets and weight loss for many is that when they stop dieting, then what? Have habits changed? Reports say in many cases the weight goes back on. To maintain the new body shape, the program, or some form of it, has to be continued indefinitely.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2021
  20. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    I think if one did, one would probably be wrong. Maybe not everything is right in the article, but I think there are some truths.

    From memory, one is that doctors do not receive enough education in nutrition and weight-management, and the primary health system is not coping well with the need to support patients to attain a healthy weight. Another is that shaming someone about their weight is typically an unsuccessful way to assist them in attaining a healthy weight. And another is that people in poor areas are exposed to a lot more advertising for junk food.

    I'm not sure about the truth of the statistic that only 4% of US agricultural subsidies go to fruit and vegetable production, but it looked interesting.
     

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