Obesity: Why are we getting fat? :epizza:

[Michaelangelica]

 

</h1>More on corn syrup. definitely a problem/contributing factor.

Even saw it added to my soy milk the other day. (The reason Japanese get fat when they move to USA??)

I don't think the body needs insulin to be able to use fructose.

Any biochemists out there?

<h1 id="article-title-1" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-style: none; font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; font-size: 1.8em; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: inherit; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline; ">Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity^1,2

George A Bray, Samara Joy Nielsen and Barry M Popkin

¹ From the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (GAB), and the Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (SJN and BMP).Obesity is a major epidemic, but its causes are still unclear. In this article, we investigate the relation between the intake of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and the development of obesity. We analyzed food consumption patterns by using US Department of Agriculture food consumption tables from 1967 to 2000. The consumption of HFCS increased > 1000% between 1970 and 1990, far exceeding the changes in intake of any other food or food group. HFCS now represents > 40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages and is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the United States. Our most conservative estimate of the consumption of HFCS indicates a daily average of 132 kcal for all Americans aged ≥ 2 y, and the top 20% of consumers of caloric sweeteners ingest 316 kcal from HFCS/d. The increased use of HFCS in the United States mirrors the rapid increase in obesity. The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis. In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain. Furthermore, calorically sweetened beverages may enhance caloric overconsumption. Thus, the increase in consumption of HFCS has a temporal relation to the epidemic of obesity, and the overconsumption of HFCS in calorically sweetened beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity.

 

 

(NaturalNews) A new study from Princeton University found that significant weight gain occurred by merely adding high fructose corn syrup to the diet. Subjects in the test group gained 48% more weight than those who were not given any high fructose corn syrup.

 

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/031971_HFCS_abdominal_fat.html#ixzz1VIpuZG3F

[Michaelangelica]

</h1>

<h1 class="articleHeadline">Impact of antibiotics on stomach bacteria under scrutiny

• 
  

WASHINGTON — Antibiotics can temporarily upset your stomach, but now it turns out that repeatedly taking them can trigger long-lasting changes in all those good germs that live in your gut, raising questions about lingering ill effects.

 

N

 

Scientists have discovered that overweight people harbor different types and amounts of gut bacteria than lean people, and that losing weight can change that bacterial makeup. They've also found links to other digestive diseases, precancerous colon polyps — and even are pursuing a theory that early use of antibiotics disrupts the developing microbiome in ways that spur autoimmune disorders.

 

 

http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/impact-of-antibiotics-on-stomach-bacteria-under-scrutiny-914474.html?cxtype=ynews_rss

 

There is a large body of experimental evidence and empirical data in the food industry showing that both antibiotics and probiotics, which modify the gut microbiota, can act as growth promoters, increasing the size and weight of animals. The current obesity pandemic may be caused, in part, by antibiotic treatments or colonization by probiotic bacteria

http://www.springerlink.com/content/17p22x858ph26q4x/

 

Antibiotic Overuse May Be Bad for Body's Good Bacteria

Some Researchers Believe Changes in Helpful Bacteria May Be Contributing to Obesity, Asthmahttp://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20110824/antibiotic-overuse-may-harm-bodys-good-bacteria

[Michaelangelica]

Evidence for

1. microorganisms,
2. epigenetics,
3. increasing maternal age,
4. greater fecundity among people with higher adiposity,
5. assortative mating,
6. sleep debt,
7. endocrine disruptors,
8. pharmaceutical iatrogenesis,
9. reduction in variability of ambient temperatures, and
10. intrauterine and intergenerational effects

as contributing factors to the obesity epidemic are reviewed herein.

While the evidence is strong for some contributors such as pharmaceutical-induced weight gain, it is still emerging for other reviewed factors.

Considering the role of such putative etiological factors of obesity may lead to comprehensive, cause specific, and effective strategies for prevention and treatment of this global epidemic.

http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/10408390903372599?prevSearch=&searchHistoryKey=

[paigetheoracle]

Try Googling

"fat obesity virus cause"

and see what you get

 

Virus blamed for obesity epidemic

Virus blamed for obesity epidemic - Science - Specials - smh.com.au

By Deborah Smith Science Editor

March 18, 2006

 

 

AS MANY as one in five Australians may have contracted a virus linked to obesity. Blood tests on 2000 Australians, carried out in the US, showed about 20 per cent of them had been exposed to a virus called Ad-36, which some researchers say can cause weight gain.

 

The idea that fatness is catching is controversial. However, Richard Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who did the testing, said a fat virus could help explain the worldwide epidemic of obesity.

 

"I believe obesity is a complex disease of many causes, one of which is viral infection," he said. How Ad-36 caused fatness was not known exactly, but it had been detected in fat cells in people and animals. In the laboratory it stimulates cells that are pre-fat cells to become fat cells.

 

Well if that is the case, could it be that the virus is growing the fat to live on, turning human beings into 'domesticated herds to live off' and hitching a ride across to other human bodies via sex, touch, sneezing or however they transmigrate?

 

By the way I'm lazy too and not particularly overweight - could this be down though to my brains use of energy as opposed to my body's lack of exercise? (Has anyone carried out a survey to find out if those people that are grossly overweight are intellectually challenged (mentally lazy) or are there fat geniuses out there too? (Suggestion based on brain using up large proportion of food intake)). Also is there an emotional element to this too - are the grossly overweight depressed or overeating through boredom? In other words does mental health/ usage come into this equation, has anyone checked? (Not saying it does, just speculating, to see if every angle has been covered).

[CraigD]

I don't think the body needs insulin to be able to use fructose.

Technically, this is correct: insulin specifically signals cell membranes to allow glucose – not fructose, sucrose, lactose, or other carbohydrates – in the blood to enter their cells.

 

Before non-glucose carbohydrates can be used as energy sources in the body’s most common and important metabolic processed, they must be converted to glucose.

 

So, while the body can use fructose as a major energy source, it can do so only by converting first converting it into glycogen a multi-step process that takes place almost entirely in the liver. As in the many other tissues and organs that store it, glycogen is then converted into glucose. Unlike in most cells, where the released glucose is used to do work, such as moving muscles, the liver acts like a “storage battery”, releasing most of its into the blood, to be taken up by other cells that need it. Glucose plays a major role in cells taking glucose from the blood, but effectively none in the processes that precede that.

 

 

Well if that is the case, could it be that the virus is growing the fat to live on, turning human beings into 'domesticated herds to live off' and hitching a ride across to other human bodies via sex, touch, sneezing or however they transmigrate?

In a sense, as they can’t survive long outside our bodies, we can nearly all human viruses to be “using” us.

 

I think suggesting that viruses are intentionally altering our bodies to their advantage, however, falsely credits these extraordinarily simple biological machines (strictly speaking, having no metabolism of their own, viruses aren’t living organisms) with the ability to have intentions.

 

Viruses and simple organisms, such as some bacteria, that depend on our bodies for their survival, don’t have the brains to understand and plan, so can’t intentionally do anything. Rather, populations that adapt successfully to their environment – in this case, our bodies – survive and thrive, while those that don’t, don’t.

 

By the way I'm lazy too and not particularly overweight - could this be down though to my brains use of energy as opposed to my body's lack of exercise? (Has anyone carried out a survey to find out if those people that are grossly overweight are intellectually challenged (mentally lazy) or are there fat geniuses out there too? (Suggestion based on brain using up large proportion of food intake)).

The brain does use a lot of energy – at a rate of about 100 W when very active. It uses much less energy when inactive, especially sleeping, than active, so a person who is awake and thinking intensely more than another uses more food energy. However, brain energy use doesn’t depend on the quality of the thought – stupid thinking takes as much metabolic energy as genius thinking.

 

Over or under weight, however, is due in cases where a person or animal has an adequate food supply, to over or under eating, because while we have limited ability to control how much use energy, we almost always have total control over how much we eat.

 

I’ve never read any study correlating body mass index or other over/under weight measurement to intellectual under/over achievement, and would be interested to, but I suspect that whatever the correlation or lack of one, the cause is psychological and/or perceptual (a major cause of overweight is believed to be due to the physiological misperception by people prone to it that they’re hungry even when they have eaten enough), not due to how much or how well one thinks.

[paigetheoracle]

Try Googling

"fat obesity virus cause"

and see what you get

 

Virus blamed for obesity epidemic

Virus blamed for obesity epidemic - Science - Specials - smh.com.au

By Deborah Smith Science Editor

March 18, 2006

 

 

AS MANY as one in five Australians may have contracted a virus linked to obesity. Blood tests on 2000 Australians, carried out in the US, showed about 20 per cent of them had been exposed to a virus called Ad-36, which some researchers say can cause weight gain.

 

The idea that fatness is catching is controversial. However, Richard Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who did the testing, said a fat virus could help explain the worldwide epidemic of obesity.

 

"I believe obesity is a complex disease of many causes, one of which is viral infection," he said. How Ad-36 caused fatness was not known exactly, but it had been detected in fat cells in people and animals. In the laboratory it stimulates cells that are pre-fat cells to become fat cells.

 

Another angle on this. Could it be that the interpretation of the findings is at fault and this is just a scapegoat? Maybe this virus isn't causing the obesity epidemic but just taking advantage of it - think of grazing animals, they'll go where there is loads of grass and abandon areas where vegetation is scarce (Buffalo on the Great Plains/ The vast herds of the African Savannah).

 

What if the culprit is closer to home and more obvious? What if the steroids used to fatten up cattle is getting passed onto the human population? (You are what you eat). A study would reveal this of course. Do countries that don't use steroids to fatten up their animals, still have this problem? Are vegetarians also suffering from this obesity syndrome?

 

Another thought. I've noticed since I've given into despair at any of my ideas taking off, leading to me stopping thinking nearly every conscious minute as was my former want, I've started to put on weight. Could it be psychological and the dumbing down of the world, which would mean no physical evidence would be forthcoming?

[paigetheoracle]

In a sense, as they can’t survive long outside our bodies, we can nearly all human viruses to be “using” us.

 

I think suggesting that viruses are intentionally altering our bodies to their advantage, however, falsely credits these extraordinarily simple biological machines (strictly speaking, having no metabolism of their own, viruses aren’t living organisms) with the ability to have intentions.

 

Viruses and simple organisms, such as some bacteria, that depend on our bodies for their survival, don’t have the brains to understand and plan, so can’t intentionally do anything. Rather, populations that adapt successfully to their environment – in this case, our bodies – survive and thrive, while those that don’t, don’t.

 

 

The brain does use a lot of energy – at a rate of about 100 W when very active. It uses much less energy when inactive, especially sleeping, than active, so a person who is awake and thinking intensely more than another uses more food energy. However, brain energy use doesn’t depend on the quality of the thought – stupid thinking takes as much metabolic energy as genius thinking.

 

Over or under weight, however, is due in cases where a person or animal has an adequate food supply, to over or under eating, because while we have limited ability to control how much use energy, we almost always have total control over how much we eat.

 

I’ve never read any study correlating body mass index or other over/under weight measurement to intellectual under/over achievement, and would be interested to, but I suspect that whatever the correlation or lack of one, the cause is psychological and/or perceptual (a major cause of overweight is believed to be due to the physiological misperception by people prone to it that they’re hungry even when they have eaten enough), not due to how much or how well one thinks.

 

Thank you for this Craig. Firstly, this shows that emotion may be involved in the issue of fat build up. For inactive, read depressed, bored, not exerting effort. A stupid person will use as much energy as a genius, if expressing their thoughts/ thinking and none, if giving up all intention to think/find out/explore. I know that when I was on a high, chasing down ideas, I could eat a packet of biscuits or half a loaf, without putting on weight but depression isn't about doing or thinking but giving up on expression (no action=low metabolism i.e. ticking over as in sleep: We talk about people we consider stupid as being asleep (in a stupor)). From a sociological level, could economic depression reflect individual depression too? (Are the Chinese fat?). Also note how science is losing its popularity in schools because it requires effort, giving way to easier art subjects (Also think about how depression and music go together as opposed to elation (revelation) and seeing. I'm not saying this is the cause of the monstrously overweight people around at the moment, just that emotion leads to weight loss (positive/ enthusiastic) or gain (depression/ negativism): I seem to remember that there was some study that showed you only had to think about exercising, for it to tone up your body or at least be better preparation than not thinking about it before hand. I find it ironical that that I'm putting on more weight, even though I'm eating less and literally have less appetite for life, as well as food.

 

Stress tenses the body (speeds up the mind/ tenses the body - exercise for both) and makes us more sensitive/ aware, from my experience. Relaxation, desensitizes the body and empties the mind, allowing the former to inflate like a balloon, it seems (Egg timer effect and fat storage (hibernation reaction) as opposed to energy use). Think of a slow moving river and deposition in the body or cholesterol and the arteries. So have there been any studies on depression and slowed body metabolism/ brain using less energy than in a normal person?

 

Whether virus have brains or not as we think of them, who's to say that they don't have unconscious intention? How do they get into the body in the first place? Do they have mobility or are they totally passive as something I read ages ago, seems to indicate? What about reproduction - is that an accident of finding themselves in a healthy environment too - in other words, that they don't so much breed as are bred by circumstances beyond their control?

[paigetheoracle]

A few last thoughts as a layman, until I stand corrected by those with more medical/ scientific knowledge.

 

Could it be pollution and storage of toxins in fat cells? If so, like the thought on steroids, does the obesity epidemic only include the first world and not the third world? (Proof of cause is to be found in effective cure or control area, where problem doesn't exist or didn't until a certain time (Pima Indians obesity outbreak).

 

Lastly, Horizon on BBC television, featured a doctor who thinks the obesity outbreak, could be linked to birth weightMy link

[paigetheoracle]

I've just had another thought, after which I will leave you professionals to carry on arguing the case. Could the point I made about obesity and depression, link to hibernation? Don't depressed people sleep a lot and aren't they totally inactive, if clinically depressed? Could depression and the sense of failure behind it, not only lead to withdrawal from the world and a slowing down of responses but a mimicking of hibernation? When animals run out of food or it becomes scarce, either during the winter or in desert conditions, everything from micro-organisms to full size animals, tend to conserve and even build up energy reserves (fat), so that they can survive austere times. Could it be that this is the purpose of depression and weight gain as the psychological response to a barren mental plain? (slow down, conserve, withdraw from contact with what is seen as a hostile environment?

 

I, being a layman, don't know about hibernation syndrome, Kleine Levin syndrome, narcolepsy or all the causes of other people's migraines but I can tell you that my attacks of the last named, come about because I feel I've hit a brick wall, going into depression after an outburst of anger at not being able to penetrate that glass ceiling further. So again, from personal experience, I can state that depression and sleep go together and now weight gain, not only because I am older but because at my age I don't see me getting any further forward with any of my projects (no public recognition or use of the same and I'm too old to be able to cope with the pressure, should they by some miracle suddenly take off - fat the psychological angle).

 

The other causes mentioned could also be true as pollution of some sort, would to me explain the gross weight gain but not the milder age related or depressive relaxation stage (letting it all hang out, instead of pulling it in as discipline and hope fly out the window together). Genetic inheritance and regional inheritance I'd also agree about as well as sleep debt, from eating to compensate for tiredness (electric light has allowed us to burn the candle at both ends, where previous generations were lead mostly by natural daylight and a slower pace of life).

 

Goodbye gentlemen - especially you doctors and medical researchers! (see you in the Spring? Bear with sore head).

 

By the way, we have a saying in the UK 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.' In other words when you find the true cause of this epidemic, you'll be able to cure it. Until then this thread will go on, and on, and on... (understanding brings control and that can only come from experience by experimental pioneers, not theoretical speculation, although it may lead to alleyways of exploration)

[CraigD]

I've just had another thought, after which I will leave you professionals to carry on arguing the case. Could the point I made about obesity and depression, link to hibernation? Don't depressed people sleep a lot and aren't they totally inactive, if clinically depressed? Could depression and the sense of failure behind it, not only lead to withdrawal from the world and a slowing down of responses but a mimicking of hibernation?

That, like most if not all mammals and, we humans can store excess food energy as fat, and to a limited extent metabolize that fat when food is unavailable, is why we can get fat – if we lacked such metabolic processes, we’d have to simply excrete excess food or its intermediate metabolites.

 

Somewhere in our evolutionary past, humans and other most primates appear to have lost the ability to hibernate or otherwise survive for long periods without food by metabolizing fat. The physiological chemistry of this is complicated and not all that well understood (there are some key unanswered questions and controversies about it), but empirically, we know that most primates can’t respond to the lack of food by losing consciousness, slowing all of our metabolic processes, lowering our body temperature, etc., the way animals like mice can. Though, like bears, humans can and do respond to starvation with lethargy and increased sleeping, unlike other mammals that routinely do this, our body temperature doesn’t significantly decrease, and we can suffer serious organ damage from it.

 

In short, I don’t think there’s a strong link to the lethargy and increased amount of sleeping that sometimes accompanies psychiatric depression in humans and similar, hibernation-like behavior associated with starving. Though many things, including, I think, lack of food, can trigger episodes of depression, I think depression is an “in the brain” psychological phenomenon, not a metabolic one.

 

When animals run out of food or it becomes scarce, either during the winter or in desert conditions, everything from micro-organisms to full size animals, tend to conserve and even build up energy reserves (fat), so that they can survive austere times.

I think it’s important to point out that animals don’t build up fat reserves when food is scarce, but build them up when it’s abundant. Animals like squirrels and bears begin overeating and gaining fat in anticipation of winter austerity, not during it.

 

Could it be that this is the purpose of depression and weight gain as the psychological response to a barren mental plain? (slow down, conserve, withdraw from contact with what is seen as a hostile environment?

It make sense to me, though I can’t rigorously support the idea, that overeating in humans and other animals is due to psychologically equating fear and uncertainty with the approach of winter or famine. We do, after all and with good reason, call such eating and the food we most crave for it “comfort food”, meaning not that it makes us physically comfortable, but that it relieves psychic stress.

 

I, being a layman, don't know about hibernation syndrome, Kleine Levin syndrome, narcolepsy or all the causes of other people's migraines but I can tell you that my attacks of the last named, come about because I feel I've hit a brick wall, going into depression after an outburst of anger at not being able to penetrate that glass ceiling further. So again, from personal experience, I can state that depression and sleep go together and now weight gain, not only because I am older but because at my age I don't see me getting any further forward with any of my projects (no public recognition or use of the same and I'm too old to be able to cope with the pressure, should they by some miracle suddenly take off - fat the psychological angle).

First, I’m sorry you’re feeling frustrated and depressed. In my experience, it’s comforting to believe that, for reasons you may not be able to foresee, things will eventually get better.

 

I’m not a physician and even if I was wouldn’t try to diagnose anybody via an internet forum, but if I may ask a personal question, how old are you, Paige :QuestionM

[Michaelangelica]

Although the root cause of obesity is excess caloric intake compared with expenditure, differences in gut microbial ecology between humans may be an important factor affecting energy homeostasis; i.e., individuals predisposed to obesity may have gut microbial communities that promote more efficient extraction and/or storage of energy from a given diet, compared with these communities in lean individuals. This hypothesis raises a number of basic questions about gut microbial ecology in humans and mice. For example, how do the distal-gut microbiotas of the two hosts compare? Does kinship play an important role in the composition of the microbial community? Does adiposity affect community structure, and, if so, at what taxonomic level do these effects occur, and do they reflect a heretofore unappreciated form of homeostatic feedback between the microbiota and host energy balance?Although information is limited, a current conceptualization of bacterial diversity in the human gut is that there is a restricted suite of highly adapted bacteria, likely inherited from the immediate family and, possibly, filtered by host genotype (5). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/

[Michaelangelica]

Could it be pollution and storage of toxins in fat cells? If so, like the thought on steroids, does the obesity epidemic only include the first world and not the third world? (Proof of cause is to be found in effective cure or control area, where problem doesn't exist or didn't until a certain time (Pima Indians obesity outbreak).

 

 

yes i have been told that the body wraps, toxins it cannot break down or excrete, in fat

and this fat containing toxin cell might be stored in/on the body.

Problem chemicals include the chlorinated hydrocarbons.

I saw an interesting film/documentary many years ago (20+?)about migrating Californian seals that were getting large doses of DDT(?) run off from Californian vegetable farms in their food. When the seals give birth they live off their accumulated fat. In doing this they released a lot of the CHs (DDT?) into their blood. this desroyed their mothering instinct. they were unable to respond to crys of distress/ calls from their young; instead they batted them to death when they cried out..

 

I really feel there are many factors in the obesity epidemic that are being ignored by science. Agreed the energy-in/out balance is most important; but too many other variables are being ignored. I especially think the changes in gut micro-flora might be especially relevant given the over use of antibiotics and the high correlation between the rise in obesity in the last fifty years and the rise in antibiotic use. (Really bacteria have only recently designed Homo sapiens so they can travel and see the world and maybe other worlds).

When people in 3rd world countries with limited access to food also start getting fat (!?) you have to ask more questions than what we are asking now.

We are just too ready to accept simple solutions to complex problems.

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18423-viruses-use-hive-intelligence-to-focus-their-attack.html

Viruses use 'hive intelligence' to focus their attack

[Michaelangelica]

For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful

Scientists are less sanguine.

Many of the so-called facts about obesity, they say, amount to speculation or oversimplification of the medical evidence.

Diet and exercise do matter, they now know, but these environmental influences alone do not determine an individual’s weight.

Body composition also is dictated by DNA and monitored by the brain. Bypassing these physical systems is not just a matter of willpower.

The leisurely after-dinner walk may be pleasant, and it may be better than another night parked in front of the television.

But modest exercise of this sort may not do much to reduce weight, evidence suggests.

The research is just beginning, true, but already it has upended some hoary myths about dieting.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html

[Michaelangelica]

Obesity in adolescents with celiac disease: two adolescents and two different presentations.

 

Balamtekin N. Demir H. Baysoy G. Uslu N. Yuce A.Turkish Journal of Pediatrics. 53(3):314-6, 2011 May-Jun.[Case Reports. Journal Article]UI: 21980814Authors Full Name<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: none; ">Balamtekin, Necati. Demir, Hulya. Baysoy, Gokhan. Uslu, Nuray. Yuce, Aysel.AB Celiac disease (CD) usually presents with diarrhea and growth retardation in childhood. Obesity is one of the paradoxical conditions in children with CD. We present two adolescents with CD and obesity. One of these patients was diagnosed as CD with malnutrition. His body weight had returned to normal after a gluten-free diet, and after stopping the diet, he had become obese. The second patient was an obese adolescent presenting with dyspeptic symptoms who was diagnosed as CD. Although rare, pediatricians should remember that obesity might be seen in CD before or after the diagnosis.

 

[Michaelangelica]

Then of course high fructose corn syrup came on the market after it was invented in Japan in 1966, and started finding its way into American foods in 1975. In 1980 the soft drink companies started introducing it into soft drinks and you can actually trace the prevalence of childhood obesity, and the rise, to 1980 when this change was made.

 

Norman Swan: What is it about this, it's got more calories than ordinary sugar weight for weight hasn't it?

 

Robert Lustig: No, actually it's not the calories that are different it's the fact that the only organ in your body that can take up fructose is your liver. Glucose, the standard sugar, can be taken up by every organ in the body, only 20% of glucose load ends up at your liver. So let's take 120 calories of glucose, that's two slices of white bread as an example, only 24 of those 120 calories will be metabolised by the liver, the rest of it will be metabolised by your muscles, by your brain, by your kidneys, by your heart etc. directly with no interference. Now let's take 120 calories of orange juice. Same 120 calories but now 60 of those calories are going to be fructose because fructose is half of sucrose and sucrose is what's in orange juice. So it's going to be all the fructose, that's 60 calories, plus 20% of the glucose, so that's another 12 out of 60 -- so in other words 72 out of the 120 calories will hit the liver, three times the substrate as when it was just glucose alone.

 

That bolus of extra substrate to your liver does some very bad things to it.

 

Norman Swan: Dr Robert Lustig who's Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. And you're listening to a Health Report special here on ABC Radio National on how food manufacturers by adding fructose to our foods, either from corn syrup as in the United States or added sucrose as in Australia, may actually be making the obesity epidemic even worse, starting with damage to our liver cells, the hepatocytes.

 

Robert Lustig: The first thing it does is it increases the phosphate depletion of the hepatocyte which ultimately causes an increase in uric acid. Uric acid is an inhibitor of nitric oxide, nitric oxide is your naturally occurring blood pressure lowerer. And so fructose is famous for causing hypertension.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/the-obesity-epidemic/3240406

 

 

[Guest MacPhee]

Does anyone else share my impression, that fat people usually seem less intelligent than slim people.

When you think of the people you know, aren't most of those you'd class as "intelligent", slim, not fat?

 

This might be because dumb people don't have the sense not to eat unhealthy junk food. So they eat it, and it makes them get obese. Whereas smart people, realise how unhealthy junk food is. So they don't eat it, and stay slim.

 

If so, then the epidemic of obesity sweeping the USA, has an obvious explanation - the US population is getting dumber. This results partly from the failure of the US educational system. Plus other things, that can't be mentioned here.

 

Could the point be this - obesity shows Natural Selection in action. The fat fools die, the slim smarts survive?