Ernest Christley wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

Rich S. wrote:

I scrounged through the recycle bin until I found last month's Reader's
Digest (July) and re-read the article on "Beating the Urge to Eat" by
Peter
Jaret. Several interesting items caught my attention.

1. A hormone called leptin signals the brain to supress appetite - "Hey,
Dude, quit eating. You're full!".

2. 85 to 90 percent of obese people DO NOT have a deficiency of leptin.
Their bodies have become resistant to its effects. This is much like
Type II
diabetes where the body has plenty of insulin but is insulin resistant.

3. An excess of triglycerides may contribute to leptin resistance.

4. An enzyme called SCD-1 - controlled by leptin - is used by the
body to
create fat cells. Delete the gene that makes SCD-1 (in mice) and they
can
pig out on Twinkies and beer without gaining weight.

5. Another culprit that may make you chubby is a virus, AD-36.

6. Base level activity can vary up to 500 calories/day. Notice how some
people constantly twitch? Low or high metabolism is hereditary, but
they're
working on metabolism boosting substances.

The article closes with, "Patients used to blame being overweight on
glands
and hormones, and we doctors would say, 'It's not hormones, it's
calories,'
" says Banks. "Now we know hormones *are* involved." . . ."People can
diet
and lose 10 or 15 pounds. But real obesity isn't a willpower
problem,. It's
a medical problem."



I still don't buy it. If it is a medical problem, why did it just
occur in the last 20-30 years and not 500 or 1000 years ago? I
believe it is our sedentary lifestyle combined with simply eating for
recreation rather than sustenance.


Matt


It's a medical problem that has always existed, but we have become much
more affluent in the past 20 or 30 years. We've gone from an average of
one car per family to three. We go to restaurants where we're served
huge, fatty portions, 'cause nobody would spend $50 for a plate of
boring vegetables and a slice of baloney (what you'd eat if you stayed
at home and fixed it yourself). Millenia of evolution taught us that we
better eat when food is available or you'll starve to death tomorrow.
You've gotta get fat in the summer to survive the winter. The instinct
is still there, but the winter isn't, and neither is the need to chase
the food down.

Baloney. We also have a brain that we can use to know that we don't
need to eat like pigs when our waist measurement exceeds our chest
measurement. I really feel sorry for all you folk that are just victims
of the world and circumstances.


Matt