Obesity: Why are we getting fat? :epizza:

[ronthepon]

I knew it!

[Michaelangelica]

This is an interesting article-a spin off from the Sydney confrence.
Still nothing about it in the local press

Some thought provoking extracts

Published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a comprehensive study designed to associate BMI and death risk sent shock waves through the international medical community.
A research group led by Katherine Flegal, a senior epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzed data from several large U.S. health studies conducted between 1976 and 2000, controlling for factors such as smoking, age, race and alcohol consumption.
They found that while obesity caused about 112,000 deaths a year, being overweight prevented about 86,000 deaths annually. Based on those figures, the net U.S. death toll attributable to excess weight is 26,000 a year (about one-twelfth the figure that many obesity experts had been fond of quoting). But this was more than canceled out by the 34,000 deaths that researchers linked to being underweight—having a BMI lower than 18.5.
What to make of pudginess appearing to prolong lives? Study coauthor David Williamson speculated that since most people are over 70 when they die, some extra fat might have a protective effect in old age.

While some analysts condemned the study as flawed, its findings delighted University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, whose provocative book The Obesity Myth was published in 2004.
The Flegal study, he says, confirmed at least two of his firmly held views: that the BMI's overweight category is meaningless and that you see a significant increase in the risk of premature death only at the two extremes of weight distribution.
"The vast majority of people who are being judged as weighing too much by public health authorities throughout the Western world are at a weight where there isn't even a correlation with increased health risk, let alone a causal relationship," says Campos.
The notion that overweight and obesity turn people into medical time bombs "is being exaggerated by roughly a factor of 10," he says. "An argument that may be relevant to the heaviest 6% of the population is being applied to 65% of the population."
. . .
Skeptics argue that far from being a fact, the obesity epidemic is a potpourri of scientific, moral and ideological assumptions.
One of these—that fat is bad and will eventually make you sick—ignores evidence that high BMI is associated with lower incidence of numerous diseases and syndromes, including some cancers, emphysema, anemia, bronchitis, osteoarthritis and hip fracture. It also skirts the evidence for fat, in many cases, being little more than a benign marker of an individual's genetic predisposition to carry it. According to GPs, there are many people who eat sensibly, exercise regularly and have excellent health readings—but have a BMI well over 25. "You can be thin," says The George Institute's Huxley, "and have a much worse cardiovascular profile than if you were fat but fit."

Much more (and above should be read in context)
HERE:-http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/article/0,13673,503060918-1533489,00.html

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/...-obesity-japan

Brown seaweed extract could fight obesity

By Stephen Daniells

All news for September 2006
All news for August 2006

9/12/2006 - Supplementing the diet of obese rodents with a compound found in brown seaweed reduced weight by 10 per cent, and could be developed as a natural extract to help fight the growing human obesity epidemic, Japanese researchers told attendees at the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.

The research, funded by the Japanese government, is yet more innovation from the Asian country that has consistently been at the forefront of nutrition research.

Professor Kazuo Miyashita and his team from Hokkaido University, focussed their studies on the compound fucoxanthin, a brownish pigment not found in significant quantities in green or red seaweed.

Since fucoxanthin is tightly bound to proteins in the seaweed and not easily absorbed in the form of whole seaweed, said Miyashita, this means that extracts for weight-loss supplements, or even pharmaceuticals, will be the most efficient way of delivering the active form of the fucoxanthin.

Miyashita and his team extracted fucoxanthin from Undaria pinnatifida, a type of kelp also known as wakame, to 200 rats and mice.
They found that the obese animals fed the seaweed extract had weight losses of between five and ten per cent.

The compound was reported to stimulate a protein found in the fat that surrounds internal organs (white adipose tissue), called UCP1, which causes fat oxidation and conversion of energy to heat. Since the abdominal area contains abundant adipose tissue, the compound might be particularly effective at shrinking oversized guts, Miyashita said.

This is the first time that a natural food component has been shown to reduce fat by targeting the UCP1 protein, he said.

The pigment is also reported to have stimulated the liver to produce the omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at levels comparable to fish oil supplementation.
Research has shown that DHA can reduce the levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, which is said to contribute to obesity and heart disease. No adverse side effects from fucoxanthin were reported in the mice and rats used in the study.

[Michaelangelica]

A very intersesting 'fat' site
http://www.fatnews.com/

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn."

--

[Michaelangelica]

Geting fat can make you go blind!!??

Obese People Twice as Likely to Lose Sight

SightThose who are obese have a greatly increased risk of losing their sight due to degenerative eye conditions, according to a report from Britain's Royal National Institute of the Blind.

Obese people have an increased risk of three major causes of sight loss:

The obese have twice the risk of suffering from AMD and cataracts, and up to10 times the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

ScientificAmerican.com September 6, 2006

http://www.mercola.com/2006/sep/19/o...lose_sight.htm

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by The link pasted by Michaelangelica

SightThose who are obese have a greatly increased risk of losing their sight due to degenerative eye conditions, according to a report from Britain's Royal National Institute of the Blind.

See also: Diabetic retinopathy

http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/diabetic/retinopathy.asp

[ThisIsMyName]

A virus?? Maybe just all the fat people are eating the same foods that are making them sick? I knew plenty of fat people hat have pinker internet tissus than I probably do!
Blow up McDonalds, Buger King, and all those other gross fast food places and all the fat people will look like Europeans!

Here's a link for ten foods you should never eat:

http://www.cspinet.org/nah/10foods_bad.html

[HydrogenBond]

One aspect of obesity that is often overlooked is perception of wealth. If anyone has parents or grandparents that went through the Great Depression, they are often very conservative when it comes to food. They often teach one to finish their plate, (it may be the last meal for awhile).

If one considers why poor people tend to be overweight more than wealthy people, such thinking could be part of the affect. A wealthy person may order an entree and decide their don't like it. They would have no problem leaving it unfinished. The poor person just invested their weeks go-out allowance, and will polish it off even if it is not that good.

The wealthy parent may cut off the crust for their little darling and throw it in the barrel. The poor parent will tell the child to eat it, since there is not enough food to give everyone 30% more food to suppliment the waste.
Wealthy people like fresh food and don't always eat leftovers, except maybe pizza. A poor person, if they cook too much, would feel bad about wasting food and will eat the leftovers.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

One aspect of obesity that is often overlooked is perception of wealth. If anyone has parents or grandparents that went through the Great Depression, they are often very conservative when it comes to food. They often teach one to finish their plate, (it may be the last meal for awhile).

The opposite can be the case! Scarcity can cause obesity!
(see my posts on the "hungerwinter" and how this produced obese males.)
Throughout this thread I have tried to show that there are very many factors influencing obesity, genetic, social, viral, environmental.

We seem to be stuck in a logic loop criticising Mc Donald's who have already moved on to salads.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

The opposite can be the case! Scarcity can cause obesity!

This is a good point. In times of limited food resources, the body will convert a higher percentage of ingested food into fat for longer term storage.

If anyone has parents or grandparents that went through the Great Depression, they are often very conservative when it comes to food. They often teach one to finish their plate, (it may be the last meal for awhile).

HB's point is good too, in that much about the way we eat has a lot to do with what we've been taught. He further indicates that what we are taught has a lot to do with the SES in which we find ourselves.


Me, I clean my plate. Every time. Sometimes the plates of others too. I workout and have a fast metabolism though, so am still in excellent shape. Just yesterday, I had 9 pieces of pizza for lunch (yes, seriously) and then went rock climbing and was hungry again in a few hours.

It's the way our genes, our environment, and our choices all come together which really dictates the outcomes.


As an aside, a tremendous amount of calories can be burned through cognitive function. You'll burn more calories working on a math problem than you will watching the grass grow.