Study: Body Weight Heavily Influenced By Heritable Gut Microbes

FirephoxRising writes Our genetic makeup influences whether we are fat or thin by shaping which types of microbes thrive in our body, according to a new study. Scientists identified a specific, little known bacterial family that is highly heritable and more common in individuals with low body weight. So we are what we eat, and what we got from out parents. From the article: "The study, funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers sequenced the genes of microbes found in more than 1,000 fecal samples from 416 pairs of twins. The abundances of specific types of microbes were found to be more similar in identical twins, who share 100 per cent of their genes, than in non-identical twins, who share on average only half of the genes that vary between people. These findings demonstrate that genes influence the composition of gut microbes."

Comments

Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

Here we go, endless posts about how it's all down to pure willpower and entirely the fault of the individual. Maybe we could try looking for more practical solutions and simply berating people this time?

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go, endless posts about how it's all down to pure willpower and entirely the fault of the individual. Maybe we could try looking for more practical solutions and simply berating people this time?

We could look at the first law of thermodynamics.

Re:Oh no

[trout007]

If you change your diet you can change these microbs as well.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, somehow you have to explain how, in 1950, very few people (in the USA) were fat, and childhood obesity was unheard of. And how now, some 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese, and childhood obesity and related heath complications are epidemic.

Personally I think the kinds of foods we eat has a lot to do with it, coupled with a lack of exercise. But those things are ... you guessed it, under our control.

Re:Oh no

[radl33t]

just poop into a calorimeter.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go, endless posts about how it's all down to pure willpower and entirely the fault of the individual. Maybe we could try looking for more practical solutions and simply berating people this time?

Said the obvious fatty

Re:Oh no

[orasio]

That's what is being done nowadays, counting calories.

The problem is that calorie consumption is not constant. It's more like household economy.

If you earn (eat) a lot every day, you will probably end up with a lot of savings (belly fat).

One way of getting rid of those savings (belly fat) is taking a lower paying job (dieting). The problem is that your savings don't magically dissappear, and you can make changes that allow you to keep your savings (fat), even with a lower income (daily calorie intake).

Another way you can get rid of your savings is just spending more daily (like exercise). The problem is that, if you have a good enough income (daily intake), and sizable savings, you will only lose capital (weight) in the long run, no sizable short term effect.

So, a fat person body works, in what respects to calories, like a financially savvy household. Going skinny would be like going broke. Some of us could benefit from a way to teach our bodies to do a bit worse in the calorie finance department. Could be a lot easier than just dieting, exercising or both.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

Reducing intake will reduce weight regardless of state of your gut. Microbes don't generate energy out of nothing.

This is a story about the fact that microbiome of the gut is being widely recognised as essentially another organ of the body, and differences in microbiome can affect things like how well your gut absorbs energy and so on. However reducing intake will cause weight loss regardless of it. The only question is, "how much of a weight loss per reduced intake".

Re:Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

In the 1950s food was less processed, tended to have less added calories. Women were much less likely to work, so were preparing food from scratch at home. Modern life has created a situation where many people find it hard to eat well due to time pressure and sedentary jobs. Even the fit ones have to make a special trip to the gym or go out running to get enough exercise.

Re:Oh no

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not sure that's an "either-or" situation here. So perhaps some people are fatter today because of both their unfavourable gut bacteria AND the current structure of food intake. Remove either, and you get skinnier people. By going back in time, you remove the lousy food, but the vulnerable population group is still there. Does that sound plausible?

Re:Oh no

[CastrTroy]

This is why I think exercising is so essential to maintaining a healthy weight. Because living without calories sucks. Nobody wants to live on 1000-1500 calories a day because you will feel exhausted and will probably have trouble getting all the needed nutrients while eating so little food. If, on the other hand, you exercise enough such that (on average) your body takes 2500-3000 calories a day maintain, you can eat a lot more food, have a lot more energy available for the body to do things, and still be at a point where you're losing weight, simply because you are using so much energy.

Re:Oh no

[Charliemopps]

If you change your diet you can change these microbs as well.

This is based on genes. Your genetic makeup makes your body a more hospitable environment for some microbes.

My random made-up example: I have a genetic disposition for heartburn and increased acid production. These "Skinny microbes" cannot live in the higher acid environment so I don't get them.

I do not know that acid is the problem, but it's likely something like that.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Reducing intake will reduce weight regardless of state of your gut. Microbes don't generate energy out of nothing.

This is a story about the fact that microbiome of the gut is being widely recognised as essentially another organ of the body, and differences in microbiome can affect things like how well your gut absorbs energy and so on. However reducing intake will cause weight loss regardless of it. The only question is, "how much of a weight loss per reduced intake".

What it shows is another reason why the same diet doesn't work for everyone. Some people can cut back a small amount and lose weight easily, others have to go to such extremes that either their willpower inevitably breaks down or their body panics and goes even further into hording-mode. People who seem to be able to eat as much as they want without gaining much may be "lucky" to have inefficient microbes so they're not absorbing as much of the calories.

Re:Oh no

[daremonai]

There's actually been serious study of this, and it really is tied to potential for weight gain/loss. Here's one recent summary: Energy-balance studies reveal associations between gut microbes, caloric load, and nutrient absorption in humans.

Re:Oh no

[Charcharodon]

Doctor: "You have a certain kind of microbes in your gut that causes your body to absorb more of what you eat"
Patient: "What should I do?"
Doctor: "Eat less"

It still boils down to the behavior of the individual.

Personally I don't see how this is a bad thing. This is a big boon for feeding the world. The problems are individual and cultural.

You don't want to be fat, eat less and exercise more, that or go see your doctor have him sterilize your digestive track and repopulate it with the "skinny people" poop pill. (They actually do this with pills made of poop, insane.)

Re:Oh no

[Mr D from 63]

The microbes that like doughnuts are thriving in my gut.

Re:Oh no

[Roodvlees]

But some people stay thin much longer, their microbes cause the food to be turned into fat much less.
Also it's not so simple as "just eat less", the body has a concept of what your 'normal' weight is. If you lose some the chemical processes will change to make more fat and compensate for the weight loss. It probably takes about 6 months of holding an amount of weight before this concept changes.

Eventually being fat is a combination of many factors, several of which you do have control over.

Re:Oh no

[dfghjk]

"The only question is, "how much of a weight loss per reduced intake"."

That's not only NOT the "only question", it's not even the question that comes to mind. This is nothing more than doubling down on stupidity. ...and not that it's relevant here, but in some animals "gut microbes" do in fact generate energy. The issue here is not simply changing some conversion constant slightly in the equation that proves that fat people are inferior. Gut microbes can have a profound effect on how an individual behaves.

Re:Oh no

[BradleyUffner]

At the calorie level they are EXACTLY identical. Those foods are only different in the WAY they are turned in to calories. A Calorie is just a measure of energy.

Re:Oh no

[ILongForDarkness]

There is a whole psychological component you hinted at too. What if one guy feels happy/energetic etc at 2000 cal and another needs 2500? I think there are both biological reasons why it could be harder to burn, lower metabolism etc, but also other biological factors that just doesn't make you feel full, happy, etc without a certain calorie intake. Both may happen but in the one case at least if the cause is found I suspect you'd be forgive in the other case you'd be asked to suck it up and show some discipline.

Personally, I like to eat both good and bad things for me. But I also don't mind spending 5 hours a week at the gym so it all works out. Not everyone has the free time I have though or the money to afford access to a gym (yeah I know jogging is relatively free but who wants to look like Richard Simmons?).

Re:Oh no

[GLMDesigns]

So we can stop starvation by sending fat inducing microbes along with food?

Oh - and if you're ever stranded on a desert island one should eat all of one's calories at night just before going to bed. This way you can use less calories and be able to last longer until help comes.

Re:Oh no

[sumdumass]

Except that not all calories entering the body are used or stored by the body and some that do, have different effects in the process as well as people affecting the process directly themselves.

This can get far too complicated for a post here butsome keys are metabolism, carbohydrates verses fat (think adkins diet), water soluable and fat soluable fiber. If diet and excercise was that simple, there would be one diet plan that works for everyone.

So to your finacial example, think of part of the intake being stock options and profit sharing eith different tax implications for everyone.

Re:Oh no

[transporter_ii]

You can turn genes on and off with diet and lifestyle. Check out the field of epigenetics. Genes are influencers, but your fate is not written in stone because of them.

See: http://www.livescience.com/418...

The types of bacteria in your gut today may be different tomorrow, depending on what kinds of food you eat, a new study suggests.

Re:Oh no

[peragrin]

My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise. All I get is tired. Combine that with exercising when it is over 65 degrees out and I fatigue out three times as fast as when it is cooler. And I have a really hard time exercising for half the year. And a difficult time maintaining an exercise habit for the other half. I do try though. And while I don't count calories or watch what I eat. I do try to limit meals and sizes there of. I eat a little several times a day.

Re:Oh no

[DogDude]

Here we go, endless posts about how it's all down to pure willpower and entirely the fault of the individual.

Hey, if you know of an example where mass was spontaneously created without the addition of energy, it's vitally important that you tell somebody. Physicists everywhere need to know if there's a place in our universe where the law of conservation of mass doesn't apply (in general relativity, of course).

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. And first we must assume the human body is a frictionless sphere with uniform density in a vacuum.

How many studies have to come out showing that caloric intake is only one small factor of many in weight management, and by itself means hardly anything? You people are as bad as the climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers.

I know this is anecdotal, but to stave off any ad hominems: I eat enough calories to feed a small village every day and would be described as "thin" to "average". I know many other people like me, and I know many other people who hardly eat anything and still have weight problems.

Trying a "first law of thermodynamics" diet is just going to leave you malnourished. You may lose some weight, while starving your body of nutrients it actually needs, and possibly "reprogramming" it to get even fatter in the future any time you actually do feed yourself.

Re:Oh no

[Enry]

The difference being that 1000 calories of broccoli will fill you up faster (i.e. take up more space) than 1000 calories of donuts.

Re:Oh no

[Tyr07]

Don;'t worry, there is an entire army of people who will quickly rush to your aid and demonstrate how it is not their fault, and how everything else is some sort of condition caused by society and genetics, therefore it is also not their fault.

Fear not though, for their future awaits, when they determine it truly was not their fault and was genetics, and hence begins genetic screening. We're sorry, your gene pool is being eliminated, because you're a fat cheating bitch / bastard who slobs around, is lazy all day, cannot work, has every type of illness, phobia or anti-social behavior.

This sounds like a troll but it isn't. The reality is there are two choices with two outcomes.

1. Your will power influences your body, your decisions affect your genetics, you are responsible for your actions, although you might be pre-dispostioned to have a more difficult time making certain decisions, ultimate the decision is yours.

2. It is not your fault, you are a genetic machine. Free will is more illusionary and all of your problems are based on genetics. As the amount of people with genetic flaws seems to dramatically increase with the ease of life and less being dying from natural selection, the only way society will be able to continue to support itself will be to remove those genetics who do not contribute to what is deemed productive to society.

Who decides that? Those who have the genes that allows them to make decisions on the behalf of society for the betterment of society.

Trust me, you want a world where people are responsible for their own actions. That's the one I believe we're in, now we just need people to stop blaming everything else for not giving them the options they want (Like eating the cheesecake AND staying thin), and start taking responsibility for their choices.

The biggest hinderance to people taking responsibility for their actions means their more inclined not to do whatever they please and get away with it, and people really like doing whatever they please and getting away with it, just often won't admit that. A lot of people are actually terrible people, they just want to be people who are viewed as good people while they continue doing terrible things to get whatever they want.

Re:Oh no

[AlexSasha]

This! Get out of your SUV and walk around a bit. That'd be a start.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

I always ask my wife (a dietitian) how many calories I release as waste.

All {calorie in minus calorie out} calculations completely ignore calories in your waste.

Re: Oh no

[bill_mcgonigle]

Careful ... as soon as you imply that the income tax is a contributing factor to childhood obesity, a singularity forms and obligate statists lose coherence.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

Wow. Just Wow.

Let me guess. You think:

burning off 1000 calories by running >> burning off 1000 calories by walking.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one diet that works for everybody. Don't eat too much, make sure what you eat isn't junk, and be more active. Every diet boils down to that. It's just that diet on the surface is quite a pain in the ass to stick to, so every diet tries to make something more palatable in the hopes of getting you to stick with it. But I promise you, follow those 3 rules above, you will lose weight. I don't care who you are. But in practice, those three rules are quite hard to follow.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

You do realize that the calories out part of calorie counting depends massively on your metabolism+exercise, right?

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise. All I get is tired. Combine that with exercising when it is over 65 degrees out and I fatigue out three times as fast as when it is cooler. And I have a really hard time exercising for half the year. And a difficult time maintaining an exercise habit for the other half. I do try though. And while I don't count calories or watch what I eat. I do try to limit meals and sizes there of. I eat a little several times a day.

I believe the "runners high" to be a placebo thing for the same reason, I've never felt a "rush" or "buzz" after exercise. Then again perhaps they are only felt by people who've never had an actual buzz.

I need to feel productive while getting any sort of exercise, which is why I do my own yard work and shovel the snow rather than using the snowblower if I'm not in a hurry. If I'm at least getting work done then I don't have the boredom issue keeping me from getting exercise.

Re:Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

So what you're saying is fat people don't have to take any responsibility for themselves

NO. I cannot stress that enough. People do need to take responsibility for fixing the problem, but they need help and tools to do it. At least now we understand another problem they have and can look for ways to help them.

Fox News / Daily Mail style outrage is easy, but it doesn't help anyone.

Re:Oh no

[exploder]

I've felt it (and I've felt plenty of other buzzes, too).

Notably, I have only felt it during the (few, brief) periods in my life that I've been in excellent physical shape. If I'd start exercising but quit before tiring myself out, I'd feel frustrated. But if I exercised to a decent level of fatigue, I'd feel a strong sense of well-being.

At the moment I'm in terrible cardio shape, and all I feel when running is awful. I don't think the "runner's high" happens until you're a runner.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

And this study basically just touches on digestive efficiency.

Ironically, skinny people probably have less efficient digestive systems.

Re:Oh no

[beelsebob]

What does that have to do with the situation? That only applies in a closed system. These microbes (and many other factors) are making this not closed, and causing varying amounts of chemical potential energy to be leaked from the system depending on the genetic make up of the individual.

Re:Oh no

[delcielo]

That's not what anybody is saying, and it's disingenuous to say that it is.

This study shouldn't be any great shock to anybody; that life is more complicated than a single cause for something. Some people are fat because they live a fat lifestyle. Some are fat because of their genetic makeup. Some are fat for a combination of them. Some people will have to put more effort into staying thin than others. This study suggests that these microbes are one factor.

The OP is making a statement that you completely confirmed: people are easily willing to bash and shame others. The second sentence of your post is the perfect example of using the worst possible scenario to describe everybody who exhibits a particular "fault". So tell me, what is the line of demarcation? Where is the fat line? What weight is 1lb more than the normal reasonable person and defines the lazy slovenly glutton you describe?

What about smokers? Do they suck as people too? Drinkers? What about people who curse? Are religious fanatics ok (that could go either way with you, I'd guess)? Sex addicts? How about people who are thin but can't run very fast? Are they lazy, too? Tell us, how are all of these people failures, too? And what about people with more or less intelligence: are the more intellectual people simply harder workers and the less intelligent just lazy?

Hmm, how about beautiful people vs the rest of us?

Are you perfect? And if not, is it because you're lazy?

Re:Oh no

[TheCarp]

It isn't that simple though because that only tells you part of cause and effect. If I gave you a capsule that you could swallow that somehow was 100% nutritionally complete and you would require nothing else to live, you would still get hungry and want to eat. Would you be able to "starve" yourself just because you knew you were not "really" starving, you were just perceiving yourself as starving because every signal our ancestors evolved to associate with the need to eat was telling you otherwise?

Its long been said that Calories in - Calories out = weight gain. Its so simple and so correct in its simplicity but, it entirely misses that real picture, that we are not spreadsheets.

The bigger issue is that appetite is based on feedback loops, and if you don't satiate appetite, willpower isn't ever going to be enough to help most people.

This is, of course, where diet really comes in because....different foods have different effects on appetite, and its not always in proportion to their calorie content. If all foods with the same calorie content provided the same level of satiation, then drinking a soda would leave you as full as eating a hamburger. However, it doesn't. In fact, sugar suppresses satiation so, if you drink a soda you will likely want more hamburgers than if you didn't....meaning each calorie in soda is really more than 1 calorie since it will induce you to ingest more calories of something else than you would have normally.

Without knowing how different foods effect fullness, calories in and calories out is almost worthless since it doesn't tell you how to control it.

If the water pipe bursts a useful thing to say is "the shut off valve is over there", not "I think the problem is water is coming in" that is actully , correct but useless.

Re:Oh no

[Dixie_Flatline]

To a certain extent, that's meaningless. Those calories are bound up in a way that you can't use them--which is why they're waste). It may be that there are some usable calories in there if you went back and ingested them again, but obviously there are significantly diminishing returns.

There are a certain number of calories per gram of food. Your body is capable of removing and using somewhere between 0-100% of those calories. Your gut flora pushes you in one direction or another--at the highest end, you can capture nearly 100% of the available food energy from your meals. No matter what, you cannot gain more than 1g of weight from 1g of food. Physics and chemistry being what it is, you probably won't, though.

In the end, there are two things that people need to know if they want to control their weight: how much they're eating, and how much they're burning. Those are the only things you can meaningfully control (there is some evidence that changing your diet significantly can affect the microbiome--it seems pretty imprecise right now). If your gut microbiome is super efficient, you'll need to find ways to eat that don't leave you hungry but also don't give you too many calories.

Re:Oh no

[Dixie_Flatline]

It IS about willpower and it IS up to the individual, but I don't think those things are undeserving of sympathy and broader societal support. We make it hard for overweight people to change their diets. Fattening, unhealthy food is cheap. Good food is more expensive. Exercising takes time, we increasingly make sure that people don't have any time outside their jobs. Our jobs are more sedentary than ever before and the bad food is targeted directly at making our brains feel good. Depression goes untreated for years at a time.

The problem is less about food and thermodynamics and our guts. If you want to lose weight, you have to obey thermodynamics. You have to eat less than you burn, and you need to exercise to be healthy. But if we don't give people the opportunity to do those things, then we can't expect them to lose weight consistently.

Re:Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

The only question is, "how much of a weight loss per reduced intake".

It's not the only question. Clearly if it's twice as hard for one person to reduce their weight and they see half the results it will require more willpower. If we can make it easier to lose weight they are likely to be more successful with their available willpower.

It's like nicotine patches for smokers. You can just quit without aids but it's much easier if you have them.

Re:Oh no

[rockmuelle]

The first few weeks of any training program typically suck. That's where willpower (or encouragement if you're in a group) plays such an important role.

Once I'm passed the initial hump, I always feel the "addictive" need to get more exercise and chase the high. In my specific case, the "high" comes after sustained exertion in the med/high effort range. I rarely see it biking (I'm a bike commuter and never really push myself). But running, climbing, mountaineering, and snowboarding all bring it out. For running, on long runs at a moderate pace it kicks in around mile 5 or 6. For short, faster runs, it kicks in about 30 minutes after the run and lasts for a few hours. Other sports have similar patterns. In my experience, the feeling is most similar to hydrocodone (which, unfortunately, I also know about from running).

Wikipedia's description of the "runner's high" covers some of the suspected mechanisms for it.

-Chris

Re:Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

It's also worth noting that not everyone has the same capacity for exercise. For those with a low exercise capacity anything that helps is a huge help.

Re:Oh no

[Whorhay]

Well that could depend on how you classify ">>" Running would burn off the calories faster, provided you are fit enough. Depending on fitness level walking could be better as it would require less recovery time and so you could spend more time actually performing the exercise, walking in this case.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

Incorrect. What it shows is that volume of change needs to be different for each person. In general, reduced intake will reduce weight. Increased anaerobic muscular activity will increase energy burn and reduce fat levels. And so on.

There is no structural difference here. The difference is merely in how much change results in how much results.

Re:Oh no

[evil_aaronm]

Well, pound of lead vs. pound of feathers applies, but burning off 1000 calories from running is better, if time is a factor.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

You appear to confuse concepts of "obesity" with "weight". Weight is a sum of all your body tissues. Obesity is about over abundance of fat tissue. If you reduce intake while retaining mainly "sitting" lifestyle, your body should nominally switch to reduced energy expenditure to maintain fat levels and start burning off muscle mass in addition to fat. While this will reduce fat tissue a significant degree, it will also atrophy your musculature.

With small exception of people that suffer from severe forms of metabolic disorders, we have full control of us being fat or not being fat. Fat is a tissue which obeys laws of physics just like everything else in our body, and not providing energy for it to form while expending energy causing body to utilize existing fat tissues as source of energy is a functional way to combat obesity for essentially everyone except people with aforementioned extremely rare conditions.

This is why obesity is largely a problem in societies where lifestyle switches to Western style consumption and diet and is not a problem elsewhere.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

None of which circumvents laws of physics that clearly state that you cannot generate energy from nowhere.

Re:Oh no

[oldmac31310]

Hey fatty, third post and you're already butt hurt? Get some exercise!

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

Certainly. That is my entire point: the issue isn't whether a person can affect being overweight through his/her actions, but how much of an impact actions would have. Some people require more effort than others to drop weight, while some require more effort to fatten up.

This in no way shape of form provides the excuse pushed by many that being overweight is not a result of their own actions. It merely points out that it may be harder for them to stay reasonably fit.

And when it comes to being obese rather than overweight, even that excuse rarely flies, because being obese requires significant amount of overeating and underexcercising.

Re:Oh no

[Kielistic]

Are you sure you are not missing a source of calories? Because that sounds dangerously low for a person your size.

Re:Oh no

[beelsebob]

To a certain extent, that's meaningless. Those calories are bound up in a way that you can't use them--which is why they're waste). It may be that there are some usable calories in there if you went back and ingested them again, but obviously there are significantly diminishing returns.

Of course it's not meaningless. Those calories are energy. If I ingest 1800 calories, and burn 1400, but poop out 400, I will maintain my weight, despite not burning as many calories as I ingested. If I have gut bacteria that break down certain long chain sugars so that that I can now ingest them, I will instead only poop out 200, and start gaining weight, despite eating the same thing, and doing the same amount of exercise.

The point here is not really that the solution to my weight gain in that situation is either eat 200 calories less, or do 200 calories more work (or some combination of the above), it absolutely is.

Instead, it's that there's a large part of the world out there that will eat the exact same food, and do the exact same exercise, and maintain or loose weight, because their gut bacteria is not the same. These people (as the person at the root of this thread said) are very likely to sit there screaming that all these "fatties" are just gobbling up donuts, and that's why they're fat. Instead, some of them are actually doing more, and eating less already, but will still gain weight by doing that.

Basically, these studies don't change the correct approach to maintaining weight - but what they do do is highlight that people should be a bit more sensitive to each other, and stop assuming that anyone who gains weight is eating a lot, or exercising a little. There are more factors than those alone.

Re:Oh no

[orasio]

They are identical on paper, but not for a person.

It's a lot easier to get energy from doughnuts than from broccoli.

It's 5 medium doughnuts versus 5 broccoli bunches. I'm pretty sure I can have 5 doughnuts in a sitting, but not 5 broccoli bunches.

There's a lot of fiber in broccoli, so even if you manage to have all that broccoli, you will have a hard time extracting many calories from it. In any case, it will be slow, so at least it keeps you full for a longer time than doughnuts.

Re:Oh no

[doug141]

Food calorie content is commonly measured in a bomb calorimeter, using a energy-release process totally different from the human body, and in some cases giving very different values. For example, Olestra releases calories in a bomb calorimeter, but not in the body. Same with sawdust, or "microcrystalline cellulose" as the fast-food places call it.

Re:Oh no

[txoutback]

Don't eat too much, make sure what you eat isn't junk, and be more active.

Quoted for Truth. And it should be noted that it takes a while to make a lasting difference...long enough for this behavior to become an everyday way of being, and not an exception.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be like you. Real life is more complicated than an equation on paper. Fortunately for people like us these are quantifiable, the problem is you just aren't paying close enough attention to biochemistry and practice thereof.

You've got your GT symbols (not c++ streams?) going the wrong way. Running is more likely to use up glycogen, walking is more likely to be a ketogenic activity, depending on what you've eaten recently. Some additional caloric loss will happen when your kidneys filter out ketones, and glyconeogenesis is wildly inefficient compared to burning muscular glycogen. Also in the cold walking will require you to keep yourself warm metabolically with higher T3 levels and some caloric loss due to direct heat produced from brown-adipose tissues and shivering. Running produces more heat from your muscles in a shorter period of time, negating this unless you're in very cold temps.

Walking might also expose you to more sunlight, increasing serum Vitamin D3 levels (7-dehydrocholesterol -UVB-> cholecalciferol ) which will uptake some calories during the mineralization of bones/cartilage/tendons/muscles/arteries.

Re:Oh no

[hodet]

This is a tired old debate. The "Stop stuffing your face" vs "Thyroid Problems" discussion. Fact is some people can burn calories quicker than others so there are differences. If you are one of those people that can consume 5000 calories a day then a the more power to you. If you can't you really shouldn't be stuffing your face and drinking a dozen sodas a day. Just logic man. For those who eat a healthy diet, exercise and still have weight issues it can be tough no doubt. Feel good about who you are and to hell with it.

Re:Oh no

[Hognoxious]

in some animals "gut microbes" do in fact generate energy.

They photosynthesise in the dark, I presume.

Re:Oh no

[Hognoxious]

"Waste" is just a subset of "out".

Re:Oh no

[Kielistic]

Jogging really doesn't use that many calories; our bodies are extremely efficient at it. It is still great for your health but if your goal is to burn calories you will do much better at a gym doing weight training or some such.

Re:Oh no

[ILongForDarkness]

30min X 3-4 running so that is fixed. + ~4 sets of 4 exercises 4-5 days a week (on a day I'm not doing cardio probably get that done in about 40min). I'm not a fast runner to begin with and am recovering from a broken leg but I get in about 3 mi each run so 9-12 a week. The rest is weights.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

Food calories are measured by burning the food with O2 in a calorimeter.

Anyone who things that metabolism works the same way is an idiot. You have to take into account the efficiency of the various metabolic proceses, how much energy it takes to digest the food in the first place, what portion remains undigested, etc, etc.

Re:Oh no

[ILongForDarkness]

Yeah it isn't the jogging that burns it is the lean muscle mass. I get about 500-700 cal out of a run if the treadmill is accurate which would take about 6 runs per pound of fat not counting anything put back in afterwards for recovery. I have about 195lb lean which burns a hell of a lot. just sitting around I burn 2500 a day and I don't just sit around.

Re:Oh no

[tompaulco]

Diet is one of those words that has been misappropriated. A diet is what you eat. Period. For some reason, we have turned it into what you eat when you are trying not to eat what you normally eat. That is exactly the opposite of what the word means.

Re: Oh no

[MadChicken]

Pointless analogies are like a car with no steering wheel.

Re:Oh no

[sjames]

Well they have to do something to maintain that minty fresh Aryan Übermensch glow! They're not allowed to shit on black people and women anymore!

Re:Oh no

[aztracker1]

And for some there are other genetic conditions... knees that pop out of their sockets (incredibly painful) under even modest stress loads, and a relatively high weight for example. I've been over 400# and under 330# over a dozen times in the past decade and a half. Every time I start getting more active, I get injured. Last time I went for a longer walk, I had blisters (I'm diabetic with some advanced metabolic syndrom issues)... I've been changing a bandage on a small ulcer in my foot for the better part of two years... I've eliminated most of the starches from my diet altogether, and have a minimum of carbs in general from non-whole sources that are also higher in fiber.

It isn't nearly as easy as some make it out to be... I wish some people that think it was could have their knee dislocated every time they try to run or go up more than a flight of stairs, and see how that feels. The only time I even resembled a normal weight in my life was when I swam for 3+ hours a day on top of football practice in my mid-later teens.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news.. I am tall and skinny and have been all my life..

So the question you have to ask yourselves is , who wants to buy a log of my poo?

Re:Oh no

[Shakrai]

I believe the "runners high" to be a placebo thing for the same reason, I've never felt a "rush" or "buzz" after exercise. Then again perhaps they are only felt by people who've never had an actual buzz.

It's not a buzz or a rush; for me it works in a few different ways:

1) A small amount of euphoria about 20-25 minutes into a run; this primarily manifests itself as an increased pain threshold, meaning that if I had some minor nagging injury (say muscle aches) I can tune the pain out for the duration of the workout and a non-zero amount of time afterwards.
2) A vastly improved mood after the exercise is complete. I'm usually smiling for no obvious reason after a run, no matter how bad my mood was prior to the run; this doesn't sound like a lot but my personality is such that I rarely smile or experience 'happiness' as others define it.
3) Related to #2, a sense of accomplishment; Yes, I'm tired, but it's a good tired.

#3 is the only one of the above that I can get from strength training, the rest require a relatively intense cardio workout to achieve, which for me usually means >20 minutes of running. I have experienced them after cardio workouts at the gym but not to the same degree or in as short of a time.

There are other effects that I could point to too: sounder sleep and higher sex drive being the two that first come to mind.

Re:Oh no

[Shakrai]

The only fat animals are those in human captivity. And they have miserable lives and die early.

Huh? You might want to look up the life expectancy of indoor vs. outdoor cats....

Re:Oh no

[BitterOak]

Of course it's not meaningless. Those calories are energy. If I ingest 1800 calories, and burn 1400, but poop out 400, I will maintain my weight, despite not burning as many calories as I ingested. If I have gut bacteria that break down certain long chain sugars so that that I can now ingest them, I will instead only poop out 200, and start gaining weight, despite eating the same thing, and doing the same amount of exercise.

Well, the answer in that case is simple: eat less. The amount you eat should be determined by how much exercise you get AND by how efficiently your digestive system processes calories. If your digestive system extracts more calories from food than someone else, you need to eat less. It's that simple.

Re:Oh no

[Shakrai]

Nobody wants to live on 1000-1500 calories a day because you will feel exhausted and will probably have trouble getting all the needed nutrients while eating so little food

Why would anyone try to live on 1000-1500 calories? Even if you need to lose a massive amount of weight that's not sustainable. Weight loss is all about long term lifestyle adjustments not short term extremes. I've tried in vein to explain this to my fat friends who engage in yo-yo dieting; at one point I did some digging and discovered that the average ration at Alschwitz was in the 1,300 to 1,700 calorie range. Guess what? Most of those people were near death after three months. Even that analogy isn't enough to dissuade the idiots that think it's healthy to engage in starvation diets.

I limited my caloric deficit to a 250-300 calories a day when I needed to lose weight. Guess what? I kept my weight off, without too many yo-yos (the biggest yo-yo for me is winter, living in the Northeast and all....), and I was never so hungry that I hated life or thought about quitting.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

That is nonsense.

The microbes are inherited, that has nothing to do with genes. They simply colonize the guts of the child via the mother.

Also it is the opposite around: not the skinny guys have a special microbe you have not, but you have a special microbe that the skinnies don't have.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Reducing intake will reduce weight regardless of state of your gut.
True in theory, wrong in practice.

Microbes don't generate energy out of nothing.
Wow, how smart. Then why don't you read the article or google around from where the microbes get the energy? For starters: they help to digest what you normally could not digest: fibers.

If you want to fight that by reducing intake, you basically have to eat NOTHING.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

That is nonsense.
The microbes have absolutely no influence on how much fat you "produce". Most fat is simply already in the meal. If fat is produced it is done by the fat-cells themselves which convert carbs into fat.
If you lose some the chemical processes will change to make more fat and compensate for the weight loss.
That is nonsense.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

If you reduce intake while retaining mainly "sitting" lifestyle, your body should nominally switch to reduced energy expenditure to maintain fat levels and start burning off muscle mass in addition to fat.
That is complete nonsense.
Burning muscle mass is the very very latest resort of your body. It is only doing that when you are starving that much that you are hallucinating. I don't get why people repeat such idiotic nonsense.
What would be the logic if the body burned muscles first and turned to fat later? A fat starving guy who can not move anymore due to lack of muscles?

With small exception of people that suffer from severe forms of metabolic disorders, we have full control of us being fat or not being fat.
No we have not. There are plenty of cases, especially the cases mentioned in the article where microbes lead to digesting of stuff like fibres that "normal" people can not digest.
How do you want to fight that? The only way is to replace the microbes, or do you really want to eat so less "normal" food that all other stuff like minerals and vitamins need to be supplied artificially?

This is why obesity is largely a problem in societies where lifestyle switches to Western style consumption and diet and is not a problem elsewhere.
No it is not. The reason the westerners are fat is very simple: they eat the wrong food. In america it is nearly impossible to get "normal food", everything is sweetened, even a steak you buy in the supermarket is not "pure meat" but is covered with spices containing mainly sugar. On top of that you have artificial sweeteners that play havoc with your metabolism.

The reason people are fat is: lack of knowledge how the body works and what healthy food is, plus metabolic problems, like "wrong gut bacteria".

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

I doubt loosing fat has _much_ to do with thermodynamics.

Perhaps you should read up what it is before throwing random physical concepts into a /. discussion.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

That is nonsense.

If your body needs 1000 kcal to "have its energy" and 500 kcal to hold its weight, changing to a 2500-3000 kcal makes not more energy "available" ... as the body still only needs 1000 kcal. That idea if yours is simply nuts. Ah: you mean now we can run and jump and swim and burn 1000 - 15000 extra kcals during that? Oh: obviously that is a no brainer.
On the other hand, as soon as you "lack energy" your body will demand food. So the whole concept of yours makes no sense at all.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Why don't you simply figure in which sport you have fun and do that instead of "exercising"?

I eat a little several times a day.
Yeah, another american nutrition myth.

What is so difficult to stick to 2 or 3 real meals and just eat healthy ones? Avoid sugar in combination with fat? And if you really need a "snack" eat an apple, and not a damn sugar/schocko/fat bar!

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

Not in the calculations used in current weight mgmt.

Which is my exact point.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

No you don't.

Weight training is the stupids thing to do to try to lose fat.

First, of all the amount of calories you burn is much to low to have any effect.

Secondly, you never will come into a state where the body even tries to burn fat.

The only fat you burn during weight lifting or other typical gym exercises depend on what you have eaten that day before starting the training.

If you want to burn fat, go swimming or do anything that requires minimum 30 minutes high energy usage. Burning fat starts the soonest after minimum 30 minutes, after the carb reserves in your body are burned. For that you need a sport that exercises the whole body and goes on your fitness and not your strength. Some people have more carb reserves ...

Hint: read that carefully! If you want to burn 30 mins long fat, you have to run, swim, row or what ever minimum an hour!!!

Unfortunately our body is highly efficient at all kinds of sport, not only jogging. Hence sport alone without changing eating habits wont help many people.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

The entire point is that 100% of the calories in are counted, but 0% of the calories out via waste are counted; only calories by energy expenditure are counted. I'm not sure we really even know what range % of calories via waste might be in. If it's ~5%, no big deal. If it's ~25%, big deal. Does it depend on what you eat, in what order, whether you drink while eating, etc?

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

1000 calories burned is 1000 calories burned, whether you're sprinting or sleeping.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry,
I don't get where you got that numbers from.

1500 kcal is a very normal diet, I doubt I eat more than 2000 kcal.

A normal person can live on 1300 - 1700 kcal just fine.

Re:Oh no

[NatasRevol]

So if I burn 1000 calories via each method of exercise, you're saying I'll get more calories burned out of one over the other? Or 1000>1000?

Because that's what you just said.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Fibers are not solvable in either fat or water :D
Fibers are simply super long carbohydrates (longer than sugar) which need to be broken up before digesting them (which e.g. special bacteria in the guts of cows do)

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

(* facepalm *)
Why don't you for god sake read a book about it?

If there is a piece of food with a sticker on it: contains XYZ kcal, then this already includes the burden of the body to somehow get those calories out of the food.

So your idea that you get kcals easier out of doughnuts than out of broccoli is simply absurd and nonsense.

True is: a single doughnut likely has more calories than a kilo gram of broccoli.

you will have a hard time extracting many calories from it. In any case, it will be slow,
No it won't. There is no argument that a doughnut has the most calories ready available: simple fat and sugar, and the rest needs to be digested from other carbohydrates ... but digesting broccoli is not particular difficult for the body, after all it consists mainly of variations of sugar, too!!!

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

If I gave you a capsule that you could swallow that somehow was 100% nutritionally complete and you would require nothing else to live, you would still get hungry and want to eat.
No you would not.
Hint: try fasting. After a few days the whole feeling of hunger is gone.

Re:Oh no

[CastrTroy]

Interesting. But I think there were a few other problem with the diet of the holocaust victims other than just looking at the calories. They probably didn't get all the nutrients they needed from 350g of bread, 500ml of coffee, and 1L of potato or turnip soup. Also, these were work camps, and it's likely that many people in these camps had to expend a lot of calories. Also, they did not have great accommodations. They probably would have used a lot of calories just to stay warm at night.

Re:Oh no

[QRDeNameland]

We could look at the first law of thermodynamics.

And you could also realize that the first law of thermodynamics says nothing about causation. After all, thermodynamics are exactly as applicable to normal human growth as they are to obesity, but no one attributes the *cause* of growth in a child or abnormalities of growth like gigantism or dwarfism to caloric balance. Biology matters.

Re:Oh no

[QRDeNameland]

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment disagrees with you.

It is also well observed that lean people are just as prone to underestimate the amount of calories they consume as do the overweight/obese, so it's quite possible that all the people who claim to only eat circa 1500 kcal/day are eating significantly more. Remember that if you are not fat, no one will ever call you out on it.

Re:Oh no

[suutar]

I know that and you know that. Now tell my hypothalamus that just because my stomach is empty doesn't mean I haven't had enough food.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Perhaps you should read the link you posted.
It agrees with me and does not disagree in any way!

I just calculated what I likely will consume today: five pints of beer and a pizza: 1600 k callories.

I guess I'm often close to 1900, though.

And I'm still gaining weight right now as I don't do my usual amount of sports.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

Skinny people poop lots of "usable" calories. They just have a less efficient digestive system. This has been known for a while. People used to deliberately ingest tapeworms to get/keep thin. It isn't what you eat, it's what you absorb.

And the vast differences between people make most of the "just eat less" crowd wrong. Eating less (than someone else) will *never* guarantee weight loss. Bob could eat 1/2 the calories of Carol and still gain weight while Carol is losing weight, for the same activity levels for both. All the fat-haters ignore metabolism and digestive efficiency.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

I knew a guy that ate so few calories that he was malnutritioned. He also didn't lose weight. The less he ate, the more efficient his digestion and metabolism got. His energy levels dropped, reducing activity levels, and he maintained weight. "Eat less" is not always the answer. In fact, it's not even usually the answer. Anyone who says it is, is just proving they don't understand the question.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

Not true. I know people who did that (1000 calories) and didn't lose weight. He lost weight by increasing calories. It improved his metabolism more than it increased his caloric intake.

Re:Oh no

[QRDeNameland]

My point was with the statement "A normal person can live on 1300 - 1700 kcal just fine."

So note: "During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject's dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day."

...and...

"Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally). Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation."

That doesn't sound like most people will "live on 1300 - 1700 kcal just fine".

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

You don't burn any fat lifting. But you burn more in the 24 hours after you lift than in the 24 hours after you run.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, it does not sound like that, nevertheless it is.
The depressions might simply come from the fact that they want a steak and don't get one :)
After all the diet was modled after WWII survivors in europe who had not much food ...
Point is: plenty of people live on so low calorie diets, and usually they are quite happy.
1500 - 1700 is the lower edge for nutrition for females/males ... well known school book fact since 100 years.
Now you could argue: meanwhile people are taler, so they need more energy. Perhaps true.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

The problem is less about food and thermodynamics and our guts. If you want to lose weight, you have to obey thermodynamics. You have to eat less than you burn, and you need to exercise to be healthy. But if we don't give people the opportunity to do those things, then we can't expect them to lose weight consistently.

And the people that poop 1000+ calories a day are lecturing others about "restraint" while they demonstrate none and don't need to for weight loss. It's about thermodynamics only if people don't poop calories.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

No, you burn no fat at all in both cases.
To burn fat, you need to exhaust all sugar reservoirs of your body.

As you are hungry after any kind of sports, you most certainly take starch/sugar in and stop any fat burning.

Provided you actually burned any fat at all during or in the short period after your sports.

Bottom line your idea/explanation makes no sense at all anyway: burning, what ever you are burning, only depends on the actual usage/need of energy. Regardless what kind of sports you did before, regardless how much energy you burned during that sport, as soon as you are relaxing somewhere your body only needs the 'lying on the couch' amount of energy. So it does not matter at all what sport you did to get to said couch. (* facepalm *) where do all that brain dead ideas come from?

Re:Oh no

[QRDeNameland]

So there's a well-regarded scientific study (and there have been many others) showing the opposite of what you claim, yet you stick to it without offering any evidence to the contrary.

Plenty of people may *claim* to eat diets that low in calories, but we also know that people both fat and thin tend to greatly underestimate their intake. Clinical studies like these make clear such a diet will generally make most people miserable, and likely the main reason such diets virtually always fail in the long term.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

Bottom line your idea/explanation makes no sense at all anyway: burning, what ever you are burning, only depends on the actual usage/need of energy. Regardless what kind of sports you did before, regardless how much energy you burned during that sport, as soon as you are relaxing somewhere your body only needs the 'lying on the couch' amount of energy. So it does not matter at all what sport you did to get to said couch.

People with more body muscle and less body fat burn more calories at rest than someone with less muscle and more fat.

(* facepalm *) where do all that brain dead ideas come from?/quote>I don't know, you tell us.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

So you actually did not really read that 80 year old clinical study?
Is it that what you want o say? Or what exactly do you need to be convied that I'm right?
Perhaps you should google for some more clinical studies ...
Actually we did not talk anout diets. you 'suddenly' are switching topic.
A healthy diet lets say on a 2000 calorie base makes no one miserable. If you have a misserable life it is likely becuase you have serious problems in your life. Dropping nutrition only makes you lose the 'sugar adiction compensation'.
Your claim is analogous to claiming that a guy who is an alcohol adict is feeling miserable because he stops drinking alcohol. Of course he is.

Btw, I told you what I ate/drunk today. If you forgot: 5 beer and one pizza. It is up to you to calculate the total calories :)

Re:Oh no

[ultranova]

burning, what ever you are burning, only depends on the actual usage/need of energy

You need more energy after exercising than before because your body is repairing itself. Which is something I find it very hard to believe anyone who has ever exercised even a single time in their life wouldn't know from experience.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Obviously, but that has nothing to do with our previous discussion.
AND more important: the difference is neglectible, as the amount of energy a human body uses is extremely low anyway.

Re: Oh no

[samwichse]

Ignoring the fact that income taxes were way higher in the 50's, of course.

Pointing that fact out makes obligate fools lose coherence.

Re:Oh no

[QRDeNameland]

Well, as for the bulk of the your post, all I'll say is that the 5 beers are showing.

As for calculating your total calories, it all depends on the pizza. The beer is pretty much 750 kcal (a little less if light beer, but potentially much more if say a nice malty craft brew), but depending on the size of pizza and toppings, it could be 700-800 kcal, it could be 2000 or even much much more.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

Factually incorrect and easily proven false. Eat nothing but spinach. Shove yourself full of it. You'll lose weight faster.

Why? Because it takes more energy to break spinach down to digestible form than our metabolism can extract from it.

The rest I dismiss on the very simple basis: what is being presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Especially when claims are so absurd. I'm yet to hear of this magical person that started gaining weight by eating nothing or eating significantly less. In fact, the main reason why stomach bypass surgery works is because it reduces the volume of stomach dramatically, forcing overeating people to eat less. Simply because stomach can no longer accomodate their eat huge volumes of food eating habits due to limitations of physical volume of massively smaller stomach.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

Which still doesn't let you generate energy out of nothing.

Re:Oh no

[Luckyo]

1. It's a well known fact that you will lose muscle mass rapidly if you diet and do not excercise. Our body is conditioned to keep the musculature at "minimum required" levels for sake of efficiency - it's largely why we won the evolutionary battle against other homo species such as homo neandethaliensis, who had far more musculature making them far less energy efficient.
2. Irrelevant to the topic.You do not need to "fight that", you merely need to adjust intake based on your own personal findings. There's a reason why a lot of people who did sports throughout their youth who stop gain weight rapidly and why a lot of people who are morbidly obese lose weight rapidly when they get a personal trainer that actually watches what they do. This is a question of will power and being able to stick to the eating and training regimen suitable for you. The only exceptions are people with severe metabolic diseases. And that doesn't mean "oh I gain weight fast if I overeat". That's not a metabolic illness. That's you not being able not to overeat.
3. This is not about "America". The same problem is clearly present in Europe, and arrives in any country worldwide that adopts Western style diet. It's been noticed even in Japan with their very healthy diet of fish and rice, it's been noted in Australia which is on the other side of the world and tends to use different staple foods as well. It's been noted in China which has its own cuisine and culture as well. This is in no way, shape or form "oh noes, 'murica". This is a problem of massive increase of availability of cheap food coupled with natural instincts and general human laziness that drives people to overeat and underexcercise.

The main reason why people are fat is not "healthy food" or "gut bacteria". The main reason why people are fat is because they simply eat too much and excercise too little. While the target for each person is unique and individual, unless you are suffering from a severe metabolic illness, the problem is typically in simple lack of willpower.

That is why stomach bypass surgery is so effective. Instead of relying on person who can't stop himself from eating too much, you just massively reduce the volume of his/her stomach so he/she cannot overeat. Massively reduced stomach volume simply prevents it from happening. If your argument was correct, stomach bypass would be wholly ineffective in many cases because "wrong gut bacteria" is not located in the stomach but in intestines.

Re:Oh no

[I'm New Around Here]

What was he eating at the 1000 calorie mark? What did he start eating at the higher calorie point?

About a dozen other questions after that.

And the body's starvation mode isn't exactly an unknown mechanism. I don't know why you keep sounding surprised he discovered it.

Re:Oh no

[Kielistic]

You will burn muscle doing that as well. Strength training will increase your metabolic rate and how many calories you use in a day. (Really it depends on where you're coming from and what your goal is.)

The problem is really that it takes cardio, strength, interval training and diet to actually get the results people want.

Re:Oh no

[Kielistic]

I think it has a little to do with calorie burn.

Re:Oh no

[cyn1c77]

Here we go, endless posts about how it's all down to pure willpower and entirely the fault of the individual. Maybe we could try looking for more practical solutions and simply berating people this time?

Um, if you read the article, you would know that it is entirely the fault of the individual.

If you are not willing to swap fecal microbes, you won't be able to change your body weight as easily.

Thus, like most things in life (work, pleasing your spouse either physically or metaphorically), good things come to those who bend over and bear it.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

I'm not surprised. I'm just pointing out all the people who say "eat less means you must lose weight" are idiots. What part of that confuses you so?

Re:Oh no

[BartlebyScrivener]

Amen. These calorie counting programs are great! They work by doing all the math for you. http://myfitnesspal.com/ I used to just run more if I started gaining weight, but then after a certain age the knees give out. Then it's time to face weight problems for what they really are: Remedial math problems.

Re:Oh no

[Shakrai]

1500 - 1700 is the lower edge for nutrition for females/males

My BMR is 1820. That's my caloric requirement just to stay in bed all day and do nothing. I am an otherwise average 33 year old male, 5'10", 175 lbs. Throw the modifier in for my activity level (moderate) and my need is increased to 2,821 kcals/day.

In other words your claims are total bullshit and you're talking out of your ass. I would slowly starve to death while doing nothing at 1,500 kcal/day. Toss even light activity into the equation and the starvation process happens that much faster....

Re:Oh no

[johncandale]

It is thou. The difference in the amount people burn or their Bactria burn is trivial compared to the difference in the amount they eat + they amount they exercise properly. Over and over again, overweight people say they don't eat that much but then when you monitor them, you see they eat way more. Skinny people trying to bulk up do the same thing. "I eat so much" but when you look at it, it is not that much.

In any case if you do keep more, that just means you get to eat less. So even if is your genes fault, it is still your job to adjust

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Sure, if you want to nitpick you should have mentioned that right away.
The amount of energy is how much? 1% or 2% of your base energy need when sitting on the couch?
Sorry ... the amount you 'burn' after exercising is completely neglegtible.
It surprises me that anyone who has ever exercised even a single time in their life wouldn't know from experience.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

A typical pizza has about 550 - 700 kcal. (Typical italian sized relatively thin bread pizza), I guess mine was on the lower end)
The five beers have slightly above 1000 kcal. (german beer with about 4.5% alc)

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

1. It's a well known fact that you will lose muscle mass rapidly if you diet and do not excercise.
No it is not. It is simply wrong. Regardless what I eat, as long as I eat enough to be healthy, my body does not touch anything of my muscles unless I change my "habit of using my body". If I cycle the same, walk the same do sports the same, the diet has no influence at all.
Perhaps you meant: one starts a diet and at the same time stops doing sports. That would be retarded, but then again he would not lose muscle mass due to the diet but due to stopping doing sports. Muscles are constantly recycled and rebuild. If you don't use your muscles enough, the recycling effect might exceed the regrows effect and the muscles shrink. Again: that has nothing to do with your diet except you manage to eat ZERO proteins.

I don't know what you want to say with 2.

Number 3, you are widely mislead again. Cheap food is not the problem. Food quality is. Just wait 20 more years when the class actions against food producers start. It is known since 30 or more years that most artificial sweeteners have negative effects on your hormone balance and digestion. It is known that putting sugar (corn syrup etc.) into everything trains the children to over sweeten stuff, or only like super sweet stuff. The same with fat ... half the meals lack the needed fat because people don't understand the relation between fat and carbs/sugar and insulin (the food concerns do).

Putting everything on the "human who eats" is complete nonsense.

The main reason why people are fat is not "healthy food" or "gut bacteria". The main reason why people are fat is because they simply eat too much and excercise too little. While the target for each person is unique and individual, unless you are suffering from a severe metabolic illness, the problem is typically in simple lack of willpower.

You are an moron. If you have the wrong type of gut bacteria you can exercise as much as you want ... you never lose weight, unless you stop eating. The only way to lose weight in such a case is to live from "mineral / vitamin drinks" only. Get a damn clue and read a book.
On top of that: it is virtually impossible to lose weight by exercising. The energy consumption even for the hardest tasks is so low, it would take decades to lose a significant amount of fat (if you are obese).
if you just eat to much, then you have to reduce food, there you are right. Putting exercising on top of it is only the icing on the cake, it is not really needed.

If your argument was correct, stomach bypass would be wholly ineffective in many cases because "wrong gut bacteria" is not located in the stomach but in intestines.
How idiotic are you really? Have you just reading trouble or are you on a blind "I hate all fat people" spree? Of course the stomach bypass works fine for people who don't have the wrong gut bacteria!
Wow, that was a no brainer.

Or did you somehow assume I or anyone else had claimed: all fat people have the wrong gut bacteria? Anyway, if you assumed that: learn to read. No one claimed it. However the OP is exactly about those people who have the wrong gut bacteria.

If your guts are fine, nice for you!

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Pfft ... you and your misconceptions. I hope you are not a fat guy who tries to lose weight.

Why? Because it takes more energy to break spinach down to digestible form than our metabolism can extract from it.

Wrong. The calories given on food already take into account the amount "wasted" for breaking it up. Otherwise putting calorie numbers on food labels would be nonsense. So a kg spinach has about 250 kcal. Obviously you would need to eat about 6 kg a day to get to the 1500 kcal minimum your body needs.

OTOH, perhaps you might try to get that now: spinach has about 25g fibers per kg. If you have the wrong gut bacteria they will break that fibers up into sugars and your body will digest that sugar just fine. Those bacterias (20g sugar per kg) will add another 80 kcal per kg spinach, increasing its "nominal" kcal from 250 to 290. That is nearly 20%!

In general vegetables contain amounts of fibers that equal 30% - 50% of their digestible carbohydrates. If you have accidentally those gut bacterias that can break them up into sugar, you eat 30% - 50% more kcals than written on the label of the food you bought.

I don't get what your problem is, in understanding those basic facts.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually you seem bad in math etc.

You proved my point. I can not see how you can claim I wrote bullshit.

I would slowly starve to death while doing nothing at 1,500 kcal/day. No you would not. On what base do you believe that? You would lose weight until 1700 is enough for you. The 1500 is more for females.

Toss even light activity into the equation and the starvation process happens that much faster....
No it does not. It only makes the losing weight faster.

Also I wonder on what scientific base your calculator is :D

Like you I picked a random german website, I guess the numbers and texts are self explanatory:
Ergebnis Ihrer Berechnung: Bei einer KÃrpergrÃÃYe von 172 cm, einem Gewicht von 70 kg und einem Alter von 47 Jahren betrÃgt der Kalorien-Grundumsatz
bei Frauen: 1472 kcal
bei MÃnnern: 1576 kcal
Ihr Energie-Gesamtbedarf betrÃgt unter Berücksichtigung Ihrer TÃtigkeit:

bei Frauen: 1472 kcal
bei MÃnnern: 1576 kcal

Wow, obviously I was even way to high in my out of my mind calculation.

Putting the same numbers into your BMR tool yields: You have a BMR of 1567.479. WOW! So I was perfectly right even when I only did sleave of the envelope calculations in my mind!!!

So, moron. If you lose weight to my level, as you are not much higher than I am, you will easily live on 1700 kcal. No one says you should.

Re:Oh no

[uninformedLuddite]

To a certain extent, that's meaningless. Those calories are bound up in a way that you can't use them--which is why they're waste). It may be that there are some usable calories in there if you went back and ingested them again, but obviously there are significantly diminishing returns.

Does that mean you get kissed less often?

Re:Oh no

[romons]

To a certain extent, that's meaningless. Those calories are bound up in a way that you can't use them--which is why they're waste). It may be that there are some usable calories in there if you went back and ingested them again, but obviously there are significantly diminishing returns.

My dog, when she was a puppy, had an annoying habit of eating her own poop. The question is, is it nutritious? I suspect putting it through a second time isn't such a bad thing nutritionally, although it is disgusting, obviously. It certainly adversely affected her breath.

Re:Oh no

[ConceptJunkie]

I learned less from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment than I did from the Minnesota Spankological Protocol.

Re:Oh no

[Dixie_Flatline]

Sure, but what you're asking is nearly impossible to measure. You'd have to test your poop for each food that you eat. It's not going to be the same for each sort of food exactly because your gut digests different things differently. It's irrelevant because it's impossible to know. If you eat a carrot and excrete 50% of the usable calories, it doesn't mean that the same will hold true for a potato or a porkchop. You can't even really average it out because different foods are going to affect your gut differently.

If you know the UPPER bound of the caloric energy of the food you eat--that is, the calories listed on the box, or the calories calculated from a bomb calorimeter--you can start making calculations from there. You can make good estimates of how much you eat using a scale and the internet. You can make good estimates of how much you burn using a whole bunch of different devices. The empirical, day-to-day measurement is what's going to tell you how you're doing.

For several years, I weighed my food and tracked my exercise for about 3 months in the spring so I could lose weight for the cycling season. I weighed literally everything I ate and kept detailed logs of my exercise. The balance equations were more or less what I expected.

All these things change over time as well. As we get older our metabolisms slow. On a more narrow scale, the more we do one sport, the less energy we burn doing it. I use fewer calories going 50km on my bike than I did when I was a beginner.

In the end, the one quantity that's actually measurable is the food that goes in. All the other things are observations that either validate or refute your hypotheses about your calories-in/calories-out equation. Whether you happen to burn more calories standing still than I do or you simply excrete more usable calories as waste as I do is a meaningless distinction for the question of weight change.

Re:Oh no

[I'm New Around Here]

Well, I'm confused about why you sound so surprised that your friend sent his body into starvation mode.

As for the idiots, they are right about eating less. Your friend just didn't go far enough. Ask him to cut down to 100 calories a day for six months, and see if he loses weight. I bet he would.

Other than that, I'm glad your friend is eating healthier now. I hope he gets to the weight he wants and lives well.

Re:Oh no

[AK Marc]

Well, I'm confused about why you sound so surprised that your friend sent his body into starvation mode.

Any surprise you sensed wasn't because I implied it, but because you inferred it. I simply pointed out the fact that less food doesn't mean weight loss, and the people quoting thermodynamics are wrong.

The chemical reactions obey thermodynamics, but on a macro scale, it's more complicated than that. More calories can lead to weight loss while fewer calories leads to weight gain.

Re:Oh no

[Shakrai]

I can not see how you can claim I wrote bullshit.

Because I have a background in both history and nutrition; there is no mainstream opinion in the latter field that says it's healthy to live off 1,500 calories a day. My background in the former tells me that people face starvation when they're forced to eat at those levels for extended periods. Research the food situation in Germany and Japan immediately after WW2; people were starving to death while eating the number of calories that you claim is normal.

You might also wish to educate yourself as to what BMR actually means. Hint: It's the number of calories required to sustain life in the absence of any other activity. Completely sedentary coach potatoes require more calories than their BMR if they're to survive in the long term. There's a reason why I used the sentence, "That's my caloric requirement just to stay in bed all day and do nothing." I even placed emphasis on the most important part of the sentence yet you still missed the point.

You're welcome to find a reputable source that says people in the mainstream of height/age/weight can survive on 1,500 (or even 1,700) calories a day indefinitely. The Mayo Clinic has an interesting nutrition calculator, perhaps you can start there? I input numbers for my height that are at the extreme low end of acceptable weight (130#) and still can't survive on 1,700 calories a day. That's with 'inactive' selected for activity level, in reality I'm anything but. I actually have to consume ~3500 calories a day to maintain my weight with my metabolism and activity level. That's a real number, FYI, from a fairly religiously kept food diary; not your nonsense "I had five beers and a pizza" calculation. Incidentally, I hate to break it to you, but five beers and a pizza almost certainly totals up to more than 2,000 calories. It may even be over 3,000 depending on the type of pizza in question.

Re:Oh no

[angel'o'sphere]

If your background is so sophisticate you should perhaps try to stay up to date.
And perhaps you should learn to read.

I enver said: it's healthy to live off 1,500 calories a day.

I said it is the bare minimum you can live on as a woman, depending on size/weight and that for males it is about 1700. However I pointed out that I live since years on a roughly 1550 diet as a male of size 172 and 70kg.

You might also wish to educate yourself as to what BMR actually means.
No I wont. Because it supports my case :D already used 2 of those calculators in an other post and figure: I was perfectly right. According to those calculators my base rate is 1500 - 1560.
Don't know how they exactly suppose to calculate for every person, as I do sports and work and still are not exceeding 1700 kcal in ordinary day live.

You're welcome to find a reputable source that says people in the mainstream of height/age/weight can survive on 1,500 (or even 1,700) calories a day indefinitely.
Why should I? You are the (self proclaimed) expert, if you missed them so far, in my book you are no expert.

hat's with 'inactive' selected for activity level, in reality I'm anything but. I actually have to consume ~3500 calories a day to maintain my weight with my metabolism and activity level. Sorry that is completely impossible. No idea how you come to that stupid idea. If a 'normal' person eats that much it will gain weight indefinitely. 3500 kcal are for workers who have really muscular challenging jobs.

"http://www.mayoclinic.org/calorie-calculator/itt-20084939" you forgot to enter your size and hight, or the link does not include it, so I can not comment. If you need more than 1700 kcal, you are already overweight and/or likely above average size.

That's a real number, FYI, from a fairly religiously kept food diary; not your nonsense "I had five beers and a pizza" calculation
That is not a nonsense calculation as that is what I ate that day and what is easy to google/calculate up to the total calories.

I hate to break it to you, but five beers and a pizza almost certainly totals up to more than 2,000 calories. My calculation came to something of 1600 if I recall correctly, rounding up ofc.
It may even be over 3,000 depending on the type of pizza in question. Sure, you can always find a super size me pizza with 3 times the calories an ordinary person 'needs'. Fortunately such pizzas in germany are advertized as : pizza for 2 or pizza for 3. I ate a Pizza for one.
An ordinary Pizza has a size of 350 grams. An ordinary pizza has about 200 kcal per 100g, rarely it approaches the maximum: 275kcal. So a pizza of the "worst case" is at 950 kcal.
You will be surprised that it does not surprise me that even your base estimate is more than 100% off and your worst case is 200% off.
And: I had not a worst case pizza, Mine was likely in the 650 kcal range.

Uh, if you ask about my background:
Actually I'm a martial arts teacher (besides that I'm a computer scientist) and help people to gain fitness and lose weight: so my background in nutrition is only 25 years of intensive work and perhaps only about 15 more years of random interest. It does not beat a professor or real nutrition scientist. But a random american repeating myths from magazines I'm beating by far.
As I mentioned before: I hope you have no nutrition problems, or obesity/weight problems. You will have it hard to get a clue about food without reading a real book about it or go to an university and really study it.
On the other hand: you only need to live a year in Italy, France, Japan, Thailand and there are plenty of other places, to figure how to eat healthy.

Re:gut microbes do matter but...

[king neckbeard]

Non-identical twins probably have about the same degree of shared environment as identical twins.

Diet causes change in those microbes

[trout007]

The microbs thrive in different environments. I went from a standard american diet to something more high fat low simple carbs diet with lots of fermented foods. Not only did I lose a bunch of weight but most digestive, allergy, and skin problems went away as well. I think there was something about the microbial environment that a high sugar diet caused that was giving me trouble.

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[Dcnjoe60]

The microbs thrive in different environments. I went from a standard american diet to something more high fat low simple carbs diet with lots of fermented foods. Not only did I lose a bunch of weight but most digestive, allergy, and skin problems went away as well. I think there was something about the microbial environment that a high sugar diet caused that was giving me trouble.

Diet doesn't really change the microbes. Location may have an impact on it, though (which is why there is the old adage of not drinking the local water). Going to a low carb diet works by the body, after about three days of not having enough carbs to convert to energy switches to burning fat reserves. The improved health effects you experience are not because of the microbial change but instead the diet change. Chances are, the same microbes that were there before the diet switch are still there.

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[Derec01]

Diet doesn't really change the microbes.

That is not what recent science indicates at all.

"Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome", Nature 505, 559–563 (23 January 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12820
http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

"Here we show that the short-term consumption of diets composed entirely of animal or plant products alters microbial community structure and overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression. "

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[trout007]

That is one reason I added the fermented foods. They are full of live microbs.

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[Dcnjoe60]

Diet doesn't really change the microbes.

That is not what recent science indicates at all.

"Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome", Nature 505, 559–563 (23 January 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12820
http://www.nature.com/nature/j...

"Here we show that the short-term consumption of diets composed entirely of animal or plant products alters microbial community structure and overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression. "

Yes, but low carb diets, at least described by the OP are not "entirely" animal products (or plant products). It would make sense that microbes that are needed to break down plants, would cease to exist in the gut if there were no plant material to break down. Likewise, for animal protein. We don't really need a new study for this, anybody who has changed a dirty diaper has experienced it. When babies go from breast milk, alone, to other foods, there is a distinct change in the stool. The gut flora needed to break down the new food source is picked up from the environment and begins to do its work. The old gut flora can't compete in the new environment and is replaced.

But, when going from a normal diet to a relatively low carb diet (using the term diet to describe what is consumed, versus weight loss), there still are ample plant sources, so the flora is not replaced, at least not in the dramatic fashion as going to an all animal or all plant diet.

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[angel'o'sphere]

That are different microbes and have nothing to do with the topic.

Re:Diet causes change in those microbes

[angel'o'sphere]

It would make sense that microbes that are needed to break down plants, would cease to exist in the gut if there were no plant material to break down. Unfortunately the microbes that brake down fibers can simply live from normal sugar as well. So while it "makes sense" it is not like that.

I'm not fat

[WormholeFiend]

I'm just big genetic'd

the environment changes, the equation remains.

[nimbius]

This smacks of the much chided 'im not fat its glandular' argument, so ill wait for the peer review. Regardless of the determining factors of bodyweight however, it remains important to remember than total body weight is a function of caloric intake - caloric expenditure. no human in the history of evolution has escaped this.

Re:the environment changes, the equation remains.

[itzly]

total body weight is a function of caloric intake - caloric expenditure

Ultimately yes, but there are still differences. Suppose you have two people with balanced caloric intake/output, then one person could be feeling fine, while the other is feeling like they're starving. Even worse, some people could actually physically starve, if incoming calories are all stored instead of being used by cells that require them.

Heritable?

[rossdee]

As opposed to inheritable?

Re:Heritable?

[q4Fry]

Mod -1 Inflamebait.

Re:gut microbes do matter but...

[Antique Geekmeister]

That could be well worth checking. They'd also tend to share the same fetal hormones and biochemistry from their mother.

How are microbes heritable?

[Dcnjoe60]

If the fetus is in a sterile sack, how do these heritable "gut" microbes get in there? For instance, e.coli isn't in there, but comes from the environment. Wouldn't these microbes follow the same path, in which case they aren't actually heritable, but instead environmental?

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Riddler Sensei]

The baby picks a lot of it up "on the way out". It's one of the effects of a C-section - this drive by infection doesn't occur.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[oDDmON oUT]

In normal birth (vs. C-section), there's a fair amount of mess involved, much of it from Mom. So in that sense she's inadvertently passing on heritable and beneficial microbiota.

We, in our wisdom, tend to try and tidy things up too much and so may have set our progeny up for later failure.

The same attitude was prevalent about breastfeeding in the last century (don't do it, just buy our formula and keep those ta-ta's perky).

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[retroworks]

Agreed, finding correlating microbes in the guts of twins does not seem to prove genetic causality, if the twins grew up in the same family and same environment. Since we know that the microbes can be passed between mammals via fecal matter ( https://www.sciencenews.org/ar... ) and identical twins are likely exposed to the same traces of fecal matter, I don't see how they have proven genetic causality. The study is behind a paywall unfortunately.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the summary as saying the bacteria comes from the environnement, but which ones are confy in your guts depend on what your genome is. The microbes aren't inheritable, the ability to host them is.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, finding correlating microbes in the guts of twins does not seem to prove genetic causality, if the twins grew up in the same family and same environment. Since we know that the microbes can be passed between mammals via fecal matter ( https://www.sciencenews.org/ar... ) and identical twins are likely exposed to the same traces of fecal matter, I don't see how they have proven genetic causality. The study is behind a paywall unfortunately.

Good god. RTFS. You don't even have to bother with the Article, just read the few Summary sentences right up there at the top of the page:

The abundances of specific types of microbes were found to be more similar in identical twins, who share 100 per cent of their genes, than in non-identical twins, who share on average only half of the genes that vary between people. These findings demonstrate that genes influence the composition of gut microbes.

If identical twins and non-identical twins both share the environment with each other and identical twin's gut microbes are significantly more similar, then it certainly suggests that genetics are involved. It doesn't prove it - maybe identical twins share the environment more closely, such as being more likely to share a bed room - but it is definitely a plausible hypothesis which can be further investigated.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Neil Boekend]

Maybe in the future this will be corrected by adding the right gut bacteria to the bottled products. Then it'll be better than breastfeeding.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Dcnjoe60]

The baby picks a lot of it up "on the way out". It's one of the effects of a C-section - this drive by infection doesn't occur.

But that is my point, if the microbes are from an external source, they are not heritable.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[sumdumass]

The twist is the identical twins. They are showing that the more similar that the genes are, the more likely the have the same or similar gut flora. And the opposite seems to be the case- the more dissimilar genes are, the more likely the gut flora would be dissimilar.

The use of twins raised by the same parents means they should be exposed to similar enviroments without age separating them. So the takeaway is not really microbes in the gut passed on from mom, but that genes influence the gut flora when two people are exposed to similar enviroments. Thus genes passed on can influence the microbes in the gut that remain and thrive or not.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[3.5 stripes]

Certainly, perky tits are worth paying for a substandard imitation of something your body creates for free..

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Whorhay]

Making formula better than breast milk is a very tall order. In the case of gut bacteria, how do we know what the "right" gut bacteria is for any given child? And there are tons of other factors to consider. I'm all for trying to make a better baby formula as there are definitely children that need it to survive, I have a sister in law who doesn't produce healthy milk. But I would be very surprised if we figured out a better than breastmilk formula within this century.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[retroworks]

Well, Yes, I understand, but that methodology (comparing identical twins to fraternal twins) was already used in 1992 to study alcoholism, and among the reasons it was not definitive is that taste buds are genetically inherited (for example), and dopamine receptors are genetically inherited. They could not say that alcoholism was genetic because correlations /= causation, and it was possible that diet and other causes, e.g. habits affected by taste, were being measured. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publ...

... It seemed to me that if the 1992 study could not determine whether alcoholism was genetic, or environmental, that the original poster had made a valid observation. If alcohol consumption could be caused by diet preference (e.g. people who love the taste of beer start drinking earlier in life, when the brain is developing, leading to stronger habits / dependencies), gut flora could also be affected by diet preference, habit, or tastes. I guess you could argue that is a genetic trait, but not nearly in as assertive a way as the Summary suggests.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[0-until-pink]

Cruditys aside there are more reasons than basic nutrition that breast milk is preferable to formula. For instance the mother is eating food from the local environment so the baby slowly builds tolerance and taste for food they will later survive on. Newer studies have shown that peanut and shellfish allergies can be overcome in this way.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[sjames]

Given that the source is the mother (since it is rare for strangers to visit the fetus in the womb...) it is reasonably described as heritable.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[oDDmON oUT]

Your prediction would depend on another "one-size-fits-all" solution and as big Pharma is finding out, due to only testing prescription drugs on a select subset of the population, it just ain't true.

In fact, the case has already been made that formula â breast milk, in any way, shape or form.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[BergZ]

I think your summary is very good, but it makes me think that transplantation of gut microbes from thin people could be (in the long run) ineffective as the genetics of the new host may ultimately (in a sense) "reject" the transplanted microbes.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[angel'o'sphere]

The external source is the mother, hence the moniker: "heritable"

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Dcnjoe60]

The external source is the mother, hence the moniker: "heritable"

But, no. If that were true than in vitro fertilization with implantation into another woman's womb would mean the baby would inherit the biological mother's microbes. That is not the case. The transmission of the microbes is an environmental transfer, not a genetic one.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Dcnjoe60]

Given that the source is the mother (since it is rare for strangers to visit the fetus in the womb...) it is reasonably described as heritable.

So, if there is a surrogate involved, whose flora will the fetus inherit, the surrogate's or the biological mother's?

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[angel'o'sphere]

Ofc it is not a genetic one.
Hence I used the term 'moniker'.
We don't talk about genetics but about passing certain bacteria from mother to child, more precisely bacteria which usually are only acquired by eating the wrong food, hence the child should not have them, even if the mother has them.

I don't really get what you want to argue about. It is YOUR mistake that YOU assumed that the article, OP or anyone here was talking about 'genetics'.

Or is it genetics that make you inherit your fathers house when he dies?

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Neil Boekend]

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Don't believe the internet over your doctor.

There is no proof yet one way or the other whether a one-size fits all solution is applicable. It might be. It might be so that the difference in metabolism is caused by gut bacteria. That would mean that anyone in a modern country (where nobody is starving) would benefit from "thin" bacteria. The best moment to introduce the right bacterial culture is as a baby, when there is next to nothing present. After that you always first have to kill what is there. That could cause some trouble.

Not that I'd advise testing any bacterial culture on babies because that is easier. Even besides the point that I am not a doctor and my knowledge of this is limited. Grown ups with problematic gut bacteria are more suitable.
However, when it is finished (that means test subjects have been living for many years with those gut bacteria) then it may be wise to start doing exactly that. To start with an adult means to start with heavy heavy antibiotics to clean the bowels. Those antibiotics are not nice to the rest of the body.

Bottom line is: we just don't know. We are only just finding out what gut bacteria do. Who knows what we'll know in 20 years?
At least it is a viable research path that should be followed.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[sergueyz]

They are heritable just like heritability of, say, home or fortune. Home the children live in is not influenced by genes, but is still heritable.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[Dcnjoe60]

They are heritable just like heritability of, say, home or fortune. Home the children live in is not influenced by genes, but is still heritable.

That explanation fails as a home is only passed on to one child, if at all. The microbes are passed on to all offspring. I do not doubt that the microbes are passed on, just that they are considered heritable. On the other hand, if there is a condition or environment in the gut of the offspring that allows some microbes to flourish over other microbes, then that would be heritable. But, the microbes, themselves are not heritable.

They are transferable, but not heritable. For instance, if in vitro fertilization is used and the embryo implanted in a surrogate mother, the microbes that are transferred are from the surrogate, not the biological mother. The offspring inherits the gut environment that might allow one type of microbe to flourish over another, but not the microbes themselves.

This is further evidenced by the fact that identical twins end up with the same microbes, but fraternal twins do not. The mother, as do we all, have most of the microbes in question. It is a matter of which ones can thrive. Identical twins end up with identical guts, fraternal twins do not. As such, identical twins end up with the same flora, but not necessarily for fraternal twins (they may end up with similar gut environments).

In short, it is the gut environment that allows for certain microbes to flourish over others that is heritable, not the microbes themselves.

Re:How are microbes heritable?

[sumdumass]

This is probably the reality. The genetics seem to foster the growth and sustainability of certain microbes so depending on how strong of an effect it maintains throughout life, it should likely revert back to the genetic normal.

However, if the gut microbes could be administered several times as needed, it might defeat this as the length of time it might take to revert could be longer than shorter. What I mean is, if the microbes could be inserted by capsule and take a year before they are replaced or overcome by other microbes, then a yearly pill or perhaps shot might be sufficient. People smarter than me will have to figure that out though.

Re:Remember, I'm not a real scientist

[mwvdlee]

I think "-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview" is entirely valid in this case.

We aren't what we eat but what eats us !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you believe this story we aren't so much "what we eat" but rather "we are what eats us"

D.

Bull Shite

[koan]

You're fat because you eat more calories than you burn plain and simple.
Does gut bacteria have an effect? Yes, in fact the digestive tract is referred to as a second brain because bacteria effects mood as well.

But you aren't going to get away with "I'm fat because of my gut bacteria".

Re:Bull Shite

[drinkypoo]

You're fat because you eat more calories than you burn plain and simple.

That's a stupid thing to say right on the face of it, mostly because it just isn't true. Hmm, actually, completely because it isn't true. At all. First, the "caloric content" of foods is based on the amount of energy you get back when you set them on fire. Your body does not contain tiny furnaces into which magical goblins heave small pieces of the food you've eaten. The process for getting energy out of food may sound like that when mitochondria is described, but there's a number of steps between mastication and elimination which affect the amount of nutrition you derive from what you take in.

What this research demonstrates, in fact, is that two people eating the same food will have different results in the area of nutritive uptake due to their intestinal environment. It proves, in fact, the exact opposite of what you're saying. But since you were saying something we already knew to be false, it did not bear saying at all.

Re:Bull Shite

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Your body does not contain tiny furnaces into which magical goblins heave small pieces of the food you've eaten.

Hey, I'm fat because my inner goblins work so hard. If you're skinny, it's because your inner goblins are themselves fat and lazy. This is the origin of the saying "beauty is only skin deep"... because your insides are made of fat goblins.

Re:Bull Shite

[iggymanz]

Feces are flammable, so you have a misconception that all calories input are "burned" by the body. Using the bomb calorimeter to determine metabolic energy equivalence is a fallacy

Re:Bad study - findings do not illustrate that at

[Anonymous Coward]

Both identical and non-identical twins (typically) grow up sharing a household. The most obvious relevant thing different about them is their genome. Yes, it's possible there's some other effect, but both types of twins grow up in the same households exposed to the same foods. So the fact that significant differences are observed between identical and non-identical twins suggest that genetics is at play.

NO!!!!!!

[JimSadler]

We are what we eat is a lie. We are that we intake but do not poop.

Re:Bad study - findings do not illustrate that at

[dfghjk]

"If two people grow up in the same house, are raised by the same parents, and exposed to the same food, it would naturally follow that they would develop the same gut microbes, regardless of their DNA."

That's why they compared identical twins to non-identical twins.

"If they actually wanted to study if gut microbes were influenced by DNA, they should have ALSO done the same study on the same number of adopted siblings, and compared them to the twins."

And that would improve the data over non-identical twins in what way?

Can't

[Greyfox]

*points to the next story* Stupid virus

A New Diet Quickly Alters Gut Bacteria

[transporter_ii]

Genes can be turned on and off depending on diet and lifestyle. Not only that, but the types of foods you eat can influence your bacteria:

The types of bacteria in your gut today may be different tomorrow, depending on what kinds of food you eat, a new study suggests.

The study also adds evidence to the idea that human diets — acting through the gut bacteria — influence the risk of certain diseases

http://www.livescience.com/418...

We bring a lot of misery on ourselves, but it's human nature to attempt to blame someone (or something) else.

Re:A New Diet Quickly Alters Gut Bacteria

[3.5 stripes]

No pizza, pasta and tagliata?

I'll live with a few extra pounds and enjoy my time on the planet, thanks.

It takes a lot of guts ...

[CaptainDork]

... to harbor microbes.

You are what you eat

[PPH]

I had an extra helping of sexy beast for dinner last night.

No surprise...

[Lumpy]

Honestly I have a perfect weight loss system that can be proven to work in 100% of the population.

Infect yourself with a tape worm.

You will lose a LOT of weight, and eat as much as you want the entire time!

Re:Colonoscopy

[wooferhound]

How can you tell difference between a Male microbe and a Female microbe ?
Pull down it's jeans .. .. ..

Mass eaten minus mass retained

[sjbe]

All {calorie in minus calorie out} calculations completely ignore calories in your waste.

You should modify that a bit. It's actually non-water mass in minus non-water mass out. If I eat an orange that weights 1 pound then I've gained a pound for a short amount of time and the number of calories it has is irrelevant. It could have a million calories and I could not have gained more than 1 pound from that orange. Then once the digestive system gets to work the amount of the orange that gets converted into body mass is dependent on the percent of that mass that gets absorbed. Some will be water and the rest will be other matter. The amount of non-water mass we retain is a function of calories consumed minus our ability to digest them. A person's ability to absorb calories varies over time and different people have different ability to absorb calories.

If you have a digestive illness, you can eat lots of calories but often will not absorb many of them. If you haven't been eating much for a while and then you eat a lot more than normal, your body cannot digest it all and a higher percentage of calories than normal will pass through you undigested. Some people simply absorb more of what they consume than others. Presumably this is at least in part due to the gut bacteria. This is why simple calories eaten minus calories used in activity is not complete. The real equation excluding water is (calories eaten) - (calories not digested) - (calories used in activity) = (change in body mass). The calories not digested is only measurable by putting a calorimeter on your waste which is obviously problematic when trying to figure out how much of what you eat is actually staying with you.

Re:Mass eaten minus mass retained

[NatasRevol]

water has zero calories so doesn't enter into weight mgmt calculations.

Re:Mass eaten minus mass retained

[AK Marc]

If you eat a pound of sugar, this equates to more than a pound of body weight. Your orange is mostly water, so it'll increase your weight less than the sugar.

Re:Mass eaten minus mass retained

[I'm New Around Here]

Sure it does. If you drink a lot of water, you body will keep the fat cells full. If you drink very little water, you body will use the water stored in fat cells, and they will be depleted. So the amount of water you consume it as important as all of the other variables everyone here is throwing about.

Correlation and Causation

[Zorpheus]

So they found certain microbes in the guts of people who are overweight.
How do they conclude that the microbes cause the people to be overweight? I would assume that it is the other way around. The composition of microbes is determined by the "diet" of the people, if they take up too much fat and carbon certain microbes will grow in their guts.

Re:Correlation and Causation

[Zorpheus]

I think their statistics showed only correlation, I wonder how they concluded causation.

Re:Correlation and Causation

[angel'o'sphere]

How do they conclude that the microbes cause the people to be overweight?
Why don't you read the article?

After all the knowledge in it is 25 years old, I really wonder why it reaches the US that late ...

The composition of microbes is determined by the "diet" of the people, Yeah, nevertheless the microbes have to come from somewhere. It is not like by eating sugar suddenly you have sugar eating microbes in your guts.

Also judging from this: if they take up too much fat and carbon certain microbes will grow in their guts you have no clue about what we talk anyway. You know: a calorie can only be eaten once. If the gut bacteria would eat them: you would be fine!!!!

Re:Correlation and Causation

[Zorpheus]

Well, fat and sugar are taken up in the intestine so I assume that the bacteria see this. Also we have a high number of different microbes there, and I guess they only check the genome of the more common ones. The composition of the food should determine which ones are common and which ones are rare. But you are right, I should read this article ...

Re:Correlation and Causation

[angel'o'sphere]

The genome inspections are only done to determine the different species of bacteria ... the food has not much to do with it. Consider having the wrong bacteria a gut infection. That makes more sense.

Re:Correlation and Causation

[Zorpheus]

Let me tell you about an experience that I had over the last year.
I like lentil soup, but did not have much over a few years. Last year I found a good offer, and ate quite much of it. This was fine for several meals. Well, the problem with lentils is that they contain some carbohydrates that are hard to digest, and certain gut bacteria feed on these and produce some gasses. So what happened is that when I ate lentil soup regularly the gas production became more and more. Even after taking a break for a month or two it still happened.
So I think this indicates that eating the lentil soup changed the composition of my gut bacteria, making the ones that feed on these carbohydrates more common. Why should this not happen? Of course they multiply when they find more food that suits them but not the others..

Re:Correlation and Causation

[angel'o'sphere]

Sigh, yes. Your eating habits change the composition of gut bacteria.
But we are not talking about THOSE bacterias.
We are talking about bacterias a human simply should not have, because they live usually in cowas.

Regarding your problem with lentils: if you produce gases that is done by bacteria you already have in your body. You can only influence their balance by 'feeding' some kind more than others. Further your self invented explanaition is wrong. There are no hard to digest carbon hydrats in lentils, or well, there are non digestable complex sugars, those are broken down by bacteria and lead to the gases. Actually if they are prepared right (same for beans) they don't produce any gases at all. I really doubt that your gas problem after stopping to eat lentils had anything to do with them. The most likely explanaition is you have some yeast bacteria/fungi in your guts and they simply fead on ordinary sugar/starche and caused the gases. Perhaps those can feed on complex sugars, too. Have to check that.

Runners high is quite real

[sjbe]

I believe the "runners high" to be a placebo thing for the same reason, I've never felt a "rush" or "buzz" after exercise.

It exists. I've experienced it and I can introduce you to plenty of others who've experienced it during their athletic careers. You have to be quite fit for it to happen in most cases. (much more fit than I am presently) Last time I had a runners high was back when I was competing in college. (wasn't during running but the effect was the same) You just feel like you are floating and everything you do seems almost effortless. It happens rarely - I've only experienced it four times in my life but the sensation is very real.

Then again perhaps they are only felt by people who've never had an actual buzz.

Nope. I've never had a drop of alcohol or other drugs that could elicit a high in my life. The smell of alcohol makes me nauseous and I feel no need to get high. I've no problem with others getting a buzz (safely) but I've never had a chemically induced buzz.

Almost nobody likes exercise for exercise sake

[sjbe]

My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise.

Just going out an running or lifting weights generally is quite boring. What I do is get involved with physically demanding activities that I also enjoy. I coach a sports team that allows me to participate. I do certain outdoor activities (hiking, paddling etc) that I enjoy that also happen to be physically taxing. Relatively few people actually enjoy exercise for exercise sake. I just do things I enjoy that also help keep me fit as a second order effect.

Re:Almost nobody likes exercise for exercise sake

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise.

I have a SurfShelf attached to my Schwinn eliptical trainer, an HDMI monitor in front of it plugged into my laptop, a G700 mouse with the buttons mapped to various important functions, and a presentation clicker with Page Up and Page Down buttons strapped to one of the elliptical's handlebars, so I can navigate through web pages while I work out. Pretty much covers everything; I also installed a program called Click-N-Type which is a big improvement on the usual Windows onscreen keyboard, so I can even do a bit of typing away from the laptop. I find exercise of any kind brutally tedious. Don't really have an excuse for still being a bit overweight of course...but there are ways to make solo workouts less dull.

Re:Energy in and energy out

[Whorhay]

Well typically what they mean is that they've tried everything except annorexia and bulemia. Both of those are far more harmful to long term health than being non-morbidly obese. Trying either of those disorders teaches your body to horde calories even more than it already does, which makes keeping the weight off even more difficult once you return to eating like a normal human being. The best and most consistent way to reduce weight and keep it off is to be more active, which is much harder to do when you are starving yourself. And of course when you are starving your body does not just consume fat, it also starts breaking down muscle tissue most critically the heart.

Re:gut microbes do matter but...

[Anonymous Coward]

And your gut microbiome is jump started during the birth process when the mothers microbiome is introduced to the babies system.

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[onkelonkel]

How do you know that us morally superior thin people aren't Person B types who are hungry all the time but don't use it as an excuse to eat when we don't need to?

1g food isn't 1g weight gain

[dutchwhizzman]

If you eat certain food, you could theoretically gain more than 1 gram of weight for every gram of food you eat. The human body is mostly made out of water and you can't go on a "drink less fluids" diet. That means that if you add 1 gram of solids from your food, you could very well add more than one gram of water to your body weight, even if that water holds no calories at all.

Re:Energy in and energy out

[nealric]

I find a lot of people who claim to have "tried" diet an exercise haven't effectively done either. "Exercise" does not mean sitting on a recumbant bike for 30 minutes while reading a magazine a few times a week. Sure, it's better than nothing, but it's not going to burn significant calories or increase your basal metabolic rate much. Likewise, "diet" does not mean switching to the "low fat" or "diet" versions of the foods you usually eat.

Effective exercise involves BOTH cardio and strength training. Cardio 5x a week, strength 3x. Unless you have a diagnosed health condition other than weight, it should not be moderate- It should be vigorous. Cardio can be pretty much anything, but it should involve periods above 80% max heart rate. Endurance exercise (1hr+ exertion) at a lower heart rate should be mixed in as well. Proper strength training involves doing sets of major exercises (deadlifts, squats, bench press, rows) until or near failure. Things like dumbell curls and kettlebell swings are fine supplements, but you won't see much in the way of gains from doing endless reps of curls on a 5lb dumbell.

Effective diet involves eating whole unprocessed foods with a lot of micronutrients. Don't drink your calories (most caloric drinks get that way through sugar). While the exact components of an ideal diet are a matter of debate, it's pretty clear than anything that comes in a box or can or sealed bag is a lot less likely to be healthy.

If you do the above, you will burn significant calories from the cardio and significantly increase your basal metabolic rate by adding muscle. Your total calories will likely decrease without any conscious reduction efforts because fresh fruits and veggies will fill you up a lot faster than a bag of Doritos. None of this is rocket science, but sadly is ignored by most people looking to loose weight. Mostly because it involves a lot of hard work (it will take a year of consistent training for your strength efforts to be visible), and because there is no gimmicky product to sell. All you need is the produce aisle, a good barbell set/bench/power rack, and a pair of running shoes.

The placenta is NOT sterile

[Rich.Miller.6]

The old dogma that the body is sterile (with respect to microbes) if it is healthy seems more and more likely to be just an old dogma, not to be confused with truth. Here's a recent article in Nature about the unexpected discovery that a healthy placenta has an associated microbial population: http://www.nature.com/news/bac...

Re:The placenta is NOT sterile

[Dcnjoe60]

The old dogma that the body is sterile (with respect to microbes) if it is healthy seems more and more likely to be just an old dogma, not to be confused with truth. Here's a recent article in Nature about the unexpected discovery that a healthy placenta has an associated microbial population: http://www.nature.com/news/bac...

While there can be microbes in a placenta, usually they are not the types found in the intestinal tract, which is what this article is about. So, yes, flora from the mouth can travel through the blood stream to the placenta, but those are not the flora which ultimately colonize the intestinal tract.

Japanese can't digest seaweed without microbes

[Maxo-Texas]

So this just makes sense.

You can get various illnesses that will devastate your microbes but not really affect you much. The only thing you can do is to repopulate using some kind of active culture.

Yogart has some strains but not all that many. You can get a couple dozen from health food store culture pills. They sell them in bottles but unless you have an ongoing problem, one will do.

Some autistic children appear to respond favorably to ongoing doses of probiotics.

I think I read some people are being treated successfully with fecal mater pills. Kinda disgusting but sort of like the parasitic worm treatment which permanently fixes people's stomach problems (sterile worms).

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[angel'o'sphere]

You don't consume lipids by resting ... during that you burn carbohydrates ...

The rest is utter nonsense as well.

Fecal Matter Transplant Diets Fads?

[speaker4thedead]

Will fecal matter transplants be the next big diet craze?
The infomercials for that out to be comedy gold.

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Citation please, or it didn't happen.

And do also please, explain, in detail, with references, how the rest is "nonsense." I'll be quite impressed if you can do so.

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[angel'o'sphere]

Google is your friend.
Or lets turn it this way: if you belive that your body burns fat while you sit or sleep: citation please! Idiot!

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

The argument isn't about burning fat when you sleep, per se. It's about burning fat when you're going about your daily activities, without additional exercise (e.g. sitting around a computer reading slashdot).

You burn carbohydrates if you have them to burn. If your stomach happens to be empty, or you're on a low carb diet, you will eventually get to burning fat as described here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

Google may be your friend, but PubMed an NIH make for a better noise to signal ratio.

Re:Yes, let's do look, shall we?

[angel'o'sphere]

You burn fat as soon as you have nothing else to burn left.

That means you have to drain all sugar and starch reservoirs. That only happens if you hard excercise for minimum 30 minutes, depending on your body, the size of your liver etc. it might take way longer, or by STARVING long enough that all possible sources of sugar (that includes rests of not yet fully digested food in your guts) are burned.

THEN you might touch your fat reserves and indeed start burning them. However while sitting at a table doing your job or by sleeping you most definitely never run in a situation where the body is out of sugar, hence it never scratches your fat reserves.

And if you would read the articles you link: YOU WOULD KNOW THAT!

Re:Energy in and energy out

[AK Marc]

I know people who ate malnutrition-level low calories and didn't lose weight.

Re:Energy in and energy out

[Tyr07]

It still matches the energy in and energy out equation. Malnutrition will cause your body to enter survival mode, which will significantly reduce its energy output, meaning you will feel more tired.

It's lowered your energy output to match your caloric intake. So even though you're eating less than you were before, you're still not losing weight as you are also putting out less energy. Even in a resting state your body burns more calories if it has proper nutrition than if it doesn't.

This is why a healthy eating style is essential to losing weight so that you're not crippling your ability to shed fat while reducing consumption.

Re:Energy in and energy out

[AK Marc]

Great, so why aren't you arguing with all the people asserting on here that lower calories will always result in a reduction of weight. It's simply thermodynamics, and digestive efficiency and metabolic rates are irrelevant.

But no, instead you "argue" with me, while agreeing, leaving the statements you directly contradict unchallenged. Why?