The brain controls body weight and obesity by regulating intestinal fat absorption
The brain controls body weight and obesity by regulating intestinal fat absorption
A new study in the journal ‘Nature’ suggests the brain plays a key role in this process
...in mice.
The necessary clarification
So, the real elephant in the room is that for the average worker, they are more productive (ie, working much harder) and under much, much more financial stress... which effects epigenetics
and... people are having children later in life, leading to children with more genetic defects (the average person has about 7 genetic defects, some people have more, some fewer)
in the 1950s, a man could work at a factory with a high school diploma, own a house, support a family, and have a wife as a full-time assistant at home
now both parents have to work, if there even are children, there may or may not be a house, and many are just single. people are under huge amounts of stress, and all of it effects epigenetics including via weaker bonds within families
bodies interpret stress as either "uh oh, i'm going to get kicked out of my tribe and will have to forage and hunt on my own and may die" or "there may be a famine soon"
the fact that the vitamin levels of food has gone down is a real thing, bodies remember things like that, and can be aware of the decrease, and start to prepare for famines
TLDR captialism without proper government regulation of externalities is making people fat along with higher populations and decreased vitamin levels in food due to over-farming
A comment on lemmy. Never need to read it, it will always have the same conclusion "capitalism bad". No matter the topic.
TL;DR of lemmy: capitalism bad, now you don't need to open the app at all.
Let me guess.. These people with fewer genetic defects are superior?
Only if they have German descent.
\s (it's scandinavien descent actually \s \s )
Link to study in Nature being reported on:
That's pretty interesting. This could be the basis of a new weight-loss drug that works by limiting calorie absorption rather than regulating hunger cues.
I'm going to be mildly annoyed if the fat acceptance latches on to this as yet another study validating their belief that they can't lose weight.
Limiting oil absorption in the intestines sounds like a recipe for greasy diarrhea like Olestra caused.
It's lame how Olestra got such a bad rap. Like, it's an oil that your body doesn't absorb so it doesn't make you fat. It's totally fine in moderation but what do you think happens when you binge eat it??
It is. Ask anyone with pancreatic insufficiency.
I was gonna say, we already tried this.
Ooh, diarrhea chips!
Just ask anyone with gallbladder problems....
I actually went and skimmed the study, this is a very good article I would say in terms of lack of sensationalizing. That is exactly the main takeaway; perhaps we can get food (fat specifically) to ‘pass through’ us without being absorbed by the body. A fascinating possibility, if perhaps wasteful.
I'm going to be mildly annoyed if the fat acceptance latches on to this as yet another study validating their belief that they can't lose weight.
On the very first page of the study:
The predominant increase in fat and calorie-dense food consumption worldwide has contributed substantially to the ongoing pandemic of obesity and metabolic disorders
Essentially what they’ve discovered is that they can interrupt a process that occurs normally in everyone, whenever there are fats in your intestine. The headline alone gives the impression of possibly being related to “set-point” theory, in which thinner people’s brains are just tuned differently. So yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this start popping up in the spaces despite not supporting the stance at all
their belief that they can’t lose weight.
For a lot of people it's a poverty and lack of healthcare thing...
Even just annual checkups are a huge help because weight is being tracked and someone gets early and continuous warnings their health is being impacted.
They have as much control as someone trying to lift themselves up by their bootstraps.
If they can't escape poverty and gain access to healthcare... They're less likely to maintain a healthy weight.
That's valid. I was thinking more about the nuisances on Tik Tok who peddle straight-up health disinformation.
Yeah, that's bullshit.
Poverty isn't exactly helping, but there are more than enough people with enough resources and excessive body weight.
In the US, ¾ of the population is overweight, are you suggesting ¾ of the population is poor?
I used to be fat. It's not a monetary issue. In fact, I lost weight when I moved out and had very little money.
I'm going to be mildly annoyed if the fat acceptance latches on to this as yet another study validating their belief that they can't lose weight.
Latches on to what exactly?
I guess the idea that some people are fat for reasons outside of their control? When it comes to fat people, people don't like to hear "excuses," regardless if it's "I don't have enough time to work out" or "my body is unable to do xyz effeciently and causes weight gain." Fat is seen as a character flaw. And because for a lot of people, it is a simple "calorie in vs calorie out," the idea of it not working for someone is seen as a failure of character. So this "belief" is making it easier for... Fat people to be fat I guess.
Weird that this didn't trigger concerns of anorexics latching onto this study validating their belief that they can't eat/eat certain foods because their body absorbs more than others. But, like they say, you can never be too rich or too thin. 👍🏾
But the most novel and surprising thing that researchers have observed is that when a certain group of neurons in that same nucleus is deactivated, specifically those that project to the jejunum, a part of the small intestine, the length of the microvilli in the intestinal wall is shortened, which reduces its surface area and thus the place in whose blood capillaries fat absorption occurs. The brain thus regulates this absorption by controlling the length and surface area of the intestinal spaces in which it takes place.
Huh, so your intestines can stretch to control absorption rate, cool!
I know that while pregnant, the digestion slows down, to try to wring more nutrition from what you eat. I also know that I eat about the same as my ex and my husband and both managed to get fat. Also I drop weight when stressed and maintain a normal BMI when not so stressed, but others I know gain when stressed.
It all is very interesting to me, but so strange that it's broken for so many people, and most all in the direction of overweight.
I drop weight while stressed too, even when I’m mostly eating normally.
Might explain why I can barely gain weight, once had a camp week where me and a friend had the exact same food intake and exercise but he gained 2kg while I lost 3kg.
Sofar doctors have thought I just had a fast metabolism but seems like there could be more at play.
So you mean you are not enough stressed out ^^ jk
Well my body does not produce enough cortisol on its own so that might track
This explains so much about my guts
The scientific and social study of obesity has shown that it is a complex bodily disorder, the causes of which are multiple and varied, and may include genetic and epigenetic factors, diet and eating habits, socioeconomic status, and personal and social lifestyles.
Wtf?
Yes, there's a lot involved, but excusing away obesity as genetic ignores that 99% of it is behavioural. Just look at the explosion of Type II diabetes, which is pretty much all caused by diet.
Growing up, there were exactly 2 obese kids in our school, from first grade through 12th (across all grades). Those kids had a genetic cause to their obesity.
Today we have a much higher rate - I'm not buying that genetics drastically changed over the last few decades.
The elephant in the room is a combination of bullshit from governmental agencies (the lie of the food pyramid anyone?), nonsense from the medical community (fat in our diet isn't the driver of cardiovascular disease or obesity, it's unstable glucose, something that's been well known since the early 90's), pushing a high-carb diet in the 80's, which was a lie that ran counter to what doctors advised for diabetetics since the 1930's!
Dude, go talk to a bariatric specialist. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
You ever even look into the advances in bariatric medicine the last decade? Ever help treat a bariatric patient? 99% behaviorial is utter bullshit, and does not match currer best information.
Genetics didn't likely change, but epigenetics is how our systems respond to conditions in and around us. And that absolutely can and has changed in the last fifty years, and was changing before that.
How our food is process impacts the entire endocrine system, our microbiota in not only the gut, but the entire body. We've got massive increases in environmental contamination over the same kind of timeline, which can not only directly effect systemic function, it can change epigenetics in the womb, and the actual genes themselves.
99% behaviorial my hairy ass.
Even that part is influenced by how food is processed, since there's enough shit in anything you grow, even when you're growing it yourself to play a factor. Actual processed foods are literally designed to trigger our brains and kick off addictions to the added fats and sugars.
That kind of bullshit is the same kind of brainless thing that leads to people thinking vaccines cause autism. There's a metric buttload of data pointing to both weight gain and difficulty in weight loss being heavily influenced by external factors, but you're in here like "nuh-uh, my data set of two fat kids in school says no"
It's both a behavioural issue and a complex bodily disorder with many external factors...
Biologically, weight is pretty much an effect of calories in and calories out. If you lock someone up and give them too little food, they'll generally get thin. The body can't create fat if you don't feed it and it can't work without burning energy. Physics.
But losing weight when you're not locked in a cell with someone else controlling your food availability is really hard. Not eating when you're hungry is hard. The facility of getting healthy food that makes it easier is socio-economical. etc
It's like running a marathon is "just" about starting to run and not stopping until you reach the finish line. It's trivial on one level, really hard on another. It's simple physics AND a complex web of genetic factors, motivation, knowledge, upbringing, etc
So most people are technically and biologically capable of losing weight, but most people are also practically and statistically not very successful at it.
Most popular diets work under controlled conditions, for the people who adhere to them; but most popular diets also don't work in practice, as it's too hard for people to diet for the rest of their life.
Behavioural ≠ easy
Former fatty. It was 100% behavioral. CICO. Physics. Some people need help, no denying that. But rigorously limiting and counting my intake, and estimating my output from added activity with fitness trackers, while also altering my diet to include more volume, less caloric density to stop feeling so hungry, 100% worked. And I learned to be hungry and that the world wasn't going to end if I was hungry for a little while until it was meal time. I had plenty of caloric surplus and my body was being a little bitch.
Anyhow, anecdata of one that supports the control what goes in your facehole camp.
How is a list of seven(!) different analyzed potential factors reduced by you with a "wtf" to one of those?
And then followed by an anecdote, a correlated studies off topic to the study described and a bit of conspiracy theory (note: one of the few I even support myself, but i's out of scope of this article!).
You're actively harming the points you want to make by jumping onto the wrong targets.
No one gives a fuck about "the points", when are you people going to figure that out? You are the ones harming people by trying to dismiss necessary behavioral changes and real advice because there are technically other factors that you can back up with OODLES OF PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES, HOW CAN YOU INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE LIKE THIS???? No one cares what you studied while knocking out gen ed requirements, get over yourself.
You're not in high school debate class anymore, you're among people seeking and sharing knowledge that can be of actual use to them. If you're gonna pretend you're in someone's corner and shield them from a false sense of blame, and then REFUSE to discuss actual, meaningful solutions, you are utterly worthless in spaces like this.
I think they’re just saying that they found another link to obesity causing things. On the flip side of this my family can eat literally anything we want and not a single one of us is more than 130 pounds(all somewhere between 5’7 and 6’). I mean I’ve watched my brother slam 4 eggs, two slices of cheesecake, and half a gallon of milk for breakfast. He also tried to gain weight for two months by upping his calorie intake to somewhere around 6K calories a day. He gained like a pound and dropped it cause it was expensive…
We can only gain weight by adding muscle. My other brother was in the military and heaviest he ever weighed was after training. It’s been a few decades since then and he’s right back to his earlier weight.
I’ve been told by many that oh as you age that metabolism is gonna slow and you’ll start putting on the pounds. There is some truth to that but not as extreme as others.
My 70+ year old mother is 103 pounds. She might gain a few pounds if she has 2-3 shakes in a week(this also means she’s just on a sweets binge in general). All that’s required to lose it? Not have shakes the next week. Mind you this is someone who had 4 children and left the hospital after pregnancy within a few pounds of their pre-pregnancy weight.
So genetics is absolutely a factor and I’m all for them uncovering what that link is and researching it. The more we understand things the better.
I’d like to put on some weight…even fat. Cause I’m literally low single digit fat percentage right now which isn’t healthy either. Mind you I have a desk job. Not like I’m the epitome of active people.
There's body type/genetics too; in both, muscle and fat gain.
The elephant in the room is a combination of bullshit from governmental agencies (the lie of the food pyramid anyone?), nonsense from the medical community (fat in our diet isn’t the driver of cardiovascular disease or obesity, it’s unstable glucose, something that’s been well known since the early 90’s), pushing a high-carb diet in the 80’s, which was a lie that ran counter to what doctors advised for diabetetics since the 1930’s!
100% correct, but this also speaks to factors other then just behavioral.
Surely you could say eating carbs, avoiding fat is a behavioral choice - but really people are given so much advice even from their primary care giver, that they follow advice that puts them into a super difficult position to recover from. Even if someone follows the advice perfectly, low fat, high carb whole food diet, they could still have metabolic syndrome (which is more then just visible fat), due to the bad advice they are given.
More like: epi/genetics is, if you gain fat/muscle easily. Socioeconomics is, if you gain fat/muscle.
The elephant in the room is a combination of bullshit from governmental agencies (the lie of the food pyramid anyone?), nonsense from the medical community (fat in our diet isn't the driver of cardiovascular disease or obesity, it's unstable glucose, something that's been well known since the early 90's), pushing a high-carb diet in the 80's, which was a lie that ran counter to what doctors advised for diabetetics since the 1930's!
Domestic terrorist spotted.
You should see my '89 year book. Almost no one was even slightly overweight except for the biggest jocks. I see people every day that would have shocked us in the 80s and 90s.
My friend across the street is grossly obese. His best friend just calls him "chubby", but really fat. Told him the guy would have been the fattest kid in my senior class (excepting the jocks).
My theory is this: People keep seeing people bigger than themselves and saying, "I might be fat, but at least I'm not that fat!" Rinse and repeat.
Here's a study that seems to support your theory a bit: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5885842/