Oh happy day! First it was Kurt Harris, and now Peter at Hyperlipid is back to blogging.
In one of his first couple of posts, Peter reviews a paper on leptin and blood glucose. Turns out if you infuse boatloads of leptin into the brains of severely diabetic rats, you can achieve normal levels of blood glucose.
Peter teases out lots of other interesting tidbits from the study, but what I found interesting was his editorial comment re insulin and weight set points (emphasis mine):
There is clearly a regulatory set point for the control of breathing. There is also one for blood pressure, blood sodium, potassium, pretty well everything else. … Why not one for bodyweight?
At the moment I have an insulinocentric view of metabolism and bodyweight. Insulin appears to explain a fairly large chunk of weight control issues. It doesn’t intrinsically need a set point concept, but there is every reason to accept some brain input to determine bodyweight. But the idea that the brain can over ride the obesogenic effect of a diet which requires chronic hyperinsulinaemia to maintain a semblance of health is very hard to accept.
His comment re “the obesogenic effect of a diet which requires chronic hyperinsulinaemia” reminded me of something I read over a year ago re the brain, our diet, and appetite.
In the NY Times’ Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria, Zoe Finch Totten of The Full Yield connected the dots between our diet and out-of-control appetite (emphasis mine):
F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer … says [“You can eat when you’re hungry, as much as you want, as long as you pay attention to when you’re full”] is an inappropriate message in a nation full of overeaters. “It just isn’t true that people stop when they should,” says Dr. Pi-Sunyer. “Americans are overriding their satiety signals. So to say eat until you’re satiated is not a helpful health message.”
But Ms. Totten contends that overeating doesn’t result from a nationwide failure to count calories, but from the fact that so many people consume a diet of processed, refined foods. “People overeat Doritos because those foods are designed to trick the body’s beautiful ability to be able to self-regulate,” she said. “When you eat primarily health-supporting foods you will recover those protective mechanisms.”
Of carbs & thermodynamics. I’m not philosophically opposed to the arguments between the low-carbers and the calorie in vs out folks. Hopefully out of these arguments will come a better, well-accepted understanding of the increasing prevalence of obesity.
But it seems to me that neither group is adequately addressing how what we eat affects appetite (which is very, very different from hunger BTW). This comment says it so well I’m just gonna reprint it here, again:
The main thrust of the new ideas is that the right dietary composition helps you cut down on calories, whereas the wrong composition does the opposite. Discipline + reduced temptation is more successful than just discipline, and less calories is not a fully separate concept from proper composition.
To me, moderating carbs, avoiding food toxins, and eating whole, real foods (with a minimum of ingredients) is the key to both health and weight loss.
Hi Beth! I saw your post at “Refuse to Regain” and followed you over here because what you said resonated with me. I don’t like the emphasis on “healthy” weight or “healthy” BMI because it encourages all-or-nothing thinking. As if anything over a 25 BMI or whatever is UNHEALTHY. And it encourages people to think about giving up on improved health by means that do no result in a particular BMI. Sort of a “screw it” attitude as someone commented…if being overweight is good enough, the thinking goes, then I might as well be obese.
I mean how ridiculous is it to think that 24 BMI is healthier than 26, or that 29 BMI is still “overweight” so I might as well go back to 40.
Sigh.
But my bias is very much in favor of low carbohydrate (at least for me) because that is the only way I have been able to reverse all my health problems, eat intuitively and to satiety, and not have to exercise like a machine. I can enjoy moving my body without worrying about burning calories or building muscle…just for pleasure and joy of movement.
Also, I don’t get hungry, except before I eat, which I do anytime I feel hungry. LOL.
I lost over 100 lbs too. I like not having a goal weight but seeing where this way of eating will take me. For awhile I thought I was maintaining, but recently I got weighed at the doc and I found out I’m still losing. It’s all good. What matters is how great I feel.
I’ll be back to read more of your blog!
Oops. Should have written “if being overweight ISN’T good enough…”
Great post, you talk about weight and food with such a scientific sense, sad how rare that is. I was struck with the idea of satiety with certain foods. Yes, we know foods are engineered for us to overeat on them but also that whole foods will help us get in touch with satiety mechanisms was a way I hadn’t expressed or heard this expressed. We are told (and I tell clients) to not eat certain foods as they are more difficult to control BUT much more inspiring to say these foods will put you in the drivers seat and help you feel more sated. Come lend your intelligence to Foodtrainers’ blog comments, would love to hear from you.