There’s a recently published paper that’s going around the tubes that you may have heard about. It’s controversial (more about that later), but it suggests that obesity may be the body’s attempt to protect itself from the excesses in our diet.
Diabetes researchers Roger Unger and Philipp Scherer (both from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) looked at recent studies involving fat in both mice and humans and concluded:
that obesity protects the body from the effects of overeating by providing somewhere safe to deposit the dietary deluge of fat and sugar, which in excess is toxic to many body tissues.
Meant to make a note of this a while back. Over at PaNu, Kurt Harris was commenting on the similarities between Doug McGruff’s Body by Science’s nutrition approach and Dr. Harris’ PaNu approach.
Check out the whole post; it’s interesting. But one specific item stuck out for me. Dr. McGruff has put out a DVD, and in his post, Dr. Harris shared that at:
one point in the lecture, [Doug McGruff] hints that he does not believe in doing a lot of testing. He says, “if the number is bad, eat healthy, and if the number is good, eat healthy”. What do you need the number for?
Dr. Harris then added this sidebar:
This is profound, actually and I have been meaning to blog on this for a while. I think he is using a heuristic that could, when coupled with having the consumers of health care actually be the ones paying for it, slash our health care costs nationally by more than half, even if everyone kept eating the SAD.
For me, this is less about the policy issue (although the implications are pretty staggering), but it strikes a chord on the wellness/healing front.
Seeing this post from Dr. Parker today got me interested in finding out more about the study he mentioned recommending seven color groups for fruits and vegetables.
counting servings may not be adequate if you are missing out on one or more major color categories. Not all members of the fruit and vegetable group are alike.
They have unique properties that provide combinations of substances with unique effects on human biology. Therefore, simply eating five servings a day of fruits and vegetables will not guarantee that you are eating enough of the different substances needed to stimulate the metabolic pathways of genes in the different organs where fruits and vegetables have their beneficial effects.
So, the idea behind Dr. Heber’s What Color is Your Diet? is to make sure you eat from each group every day. Like Dr. Parker, I suspect this may be a challenge for many, and others (like the zero-carbers) may not agree with this approach philosophically.
Note too that fruits & veggies aren’t the only source of these nutrients. For example, eggs are a great source of lutein. Also, keep in mind that you may benefit from (or require) fat in the diet to increase your ability to use some of these (like lycopene). Finally, there are other issues that can affect whether or not we can use these nutrients; e.g., some people require preformed vitamin A because they can’t make it from carotenes.
Me, I think it makes sense to eat veggies year-round and fruits in season. I like the idea of the color groups, so I whipped up a graphic to keep on hand for reference. Click on the image or this link for a larger version. Hope you like it!
The Farm Bill, a massive piece of federal legislation making its way through Congress, governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products—the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.
Ah, King Corn. Our friends across the pond have gone so far as to call it liquid Satan, and suggest that:
America is doomed to lead the world’s obesity rankings as long as the process by which it elects its presidents starts in Iowa — a state known for its cornfields and corn subsidies.
I love me a good infographic, but while the one above has a clever theme, it’s misleading. It’s not the meat and dairy subsidies per se that are the problem. Even if you are okay with grains being part of your diet (and not everyone agrees), they are wreaking havoc as food for feedlot animals. And that is causing lots of problems for us.
In the study, researchers started with a group of 132 obese people who weighed an average of 289 pounds before starting either a low-fat diet, a calorie-restricted diet with less than 30% of daily calories from fat, or a low-carb diet with fewer than 30 grams of fat [this probably was 30g carbs, not fat] per day for 12 months.
At 6 months, the low-carb dieters had lost more weight, but by 12 months, there was no difference between the two.
But here’s the kicker:
Three years after the study began and two years after the diets ended, researchers followed up with 40 people in the low-carb diet group and 48 in the low-fat diet group.
They found people in the low-carb diet group weighed an average of 4.9 pounds less than before they started dieting while those in the low-fat diet group weighed an average of 9.5 pounds less than they did at the start of the study.
While this sounds like a big win for the low-fat diet (or at least the way the media and low-fat fans are pushing this), look at the numbers. These folks averaged nearly 300 pounds. Yet three years after the study began, neither group had lost or maintained even 5% of their weight.
I guess the researchers must have just loved the statistical difference between 4.9 lbs and 9.5 lbs, but unless you’re a size 2 trying to get into a size 0, this study isn’t a ringing endorsement for either diet — or diets in general!
You’ve heard the conventional wisdom: obesity leads to diabetes, heart disease, etc.
Me, I think obesity may be the cause of things like arthritis from the excess weight on joints, but if you’ve read the sidebar here, you know that I actually think that obesity is also a symptom, and what causes it is what causes diabetes and heart disease (among others): the Western diet. And our diet’s influence on inflammation probably contributes to things like arthritis as well!
But I’ve also been noodling something in my head for a while now. What to make of people whose excess weight winds up being hundreds of pounds or more?
And why aren’t many of these morbidly obese folks diabetic?
Doug McGruff (ER doc & Body by Science guru) has an interesting take on the Biggest Loser approach to weight loss:
[Bob and Jillian's] contempt for the obese was obvious as they spewed insults (and saliva) in the faces of the contestants. I don’t care how fat or desperate I was, if someone did this to me I would punch them in the face and storm off the set. I checked in on the show between patients. The diet and exercise shown were prescriptive for ravenous hunger and ultimate failure. As I continued to work, I kept thinking about the importance of biologic signaling, and why it does not have to be this hard.
Read the entire post for more, but here’s the point:
The key to turning around these sorts of metabolic disasters is to send the correct biologic and hormonal signals. … A brief, but intense workout that fatigues the musculature activates growth hormone, testosterone and adrenaline which all signal to empty glycogen and fat, both short and long-term. A hunter-gatherer diet creates a low insulin signal which triggers the body to defend a lower body fat set point.
Contrast that with:
Overtraining (especially in the obese) triggers cortisol and other stress hormones. A low fat, high carbohydrate diet signals insulin release. These signals defend a high level of stored fat and drive hunger…a true prescription for misery and failure.
One of the perils of blogging is having to deal with blog spam from people wanting to increase their page rank with search engines. Most of it is automated; a lot of it comes from non-English speakers.
Every once in a while though, you get a real pearl, like:
When I found this I had a strong desire to kick myself in the face to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I got out of my chair and walked around the office with a huge smile on my face. I was in such a good state of being that I asked out this girl from the coffee shop that I like. Posts like this slap all others square in the balls.
Though it is still spam that is COMPLETELY unrelated to the post it’s attached to (and you will still delete it), you have to give the writer an A for effort :).
… consider how convenient it is for the airline industry to deflect a customer’s anger over ridiculously small seats—I’m thinner than approximately 80 percent of middle-aged men and I don’t fit into one very comfortably—on to “overweight” passengers, a category that includes, according to our public health authorities, nearly seven out of 10 adult Americans.
Back to Campos. His article is also worth the read for his criticisms of MeMe Roth of the National Action Against Obesity. But I like Tom Naughton’s approach even better!
Tom adds:
I actually find MeMe Roth more annoying than the sue-happy lawyer. This is a woman who is obviously naturally thin. She was born on the finish line and thinks she won a race. So now she feels justified in telling other people how to eat, and in criticizing pretty much every overweight person in the public eye. …
My advice: never take advice on losing weight from anyone who’s never had to work at it. They have no flippin’ clue what they’re talking about.
The other day, I got into a bit of a tiff on Facebook over the Kevin Smith – Southwest Airlines fiasco. Predictably, and sadly, the common response was “good for Southwest … it sucks having to sit next to fatties on planes.”
I'm a DC techie who thinks obesity is more a symptom than a cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. I'm also into cooking, primal nutrition & food policy. And cats!
There’s a recently published paper that’s going around the tubes that you may have heard about. It’s controversial (more about that later), but it suggests that obesity may be the body’s attempt to protect itself from the excesses in our diet.
You’ve heard the conventional wisdom: obesity leads to diabetes, heart disease, etc. 
