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Brains of Overweight People Look Ten Years Older Than Those of Lean Peers, Says Report (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The brains of people who are obese or overweight appear to have aged an extra 10 years compared to their lean peers from middle age onwards, brain scanning research has revealed. The difference, scientists say, corresponds to a greater shrinkage in the volume of white matter, although they don't know the cause. It might be down to genes causing both brain-shrinking and obesity, or it could be that changes occurring in the brain lead to overeating. Either way, it does not appear to affect cognitive performance. White matter is tissue, composed of nerve fibers, that aids communication between different regions of the brain. The volume of white matter in a human brain increases during youth and then decreases with age for both lean people and those who are overweight or obese. But researchers have discovered that this shrinkage differs depending on a subject's BMI. "The overall message is that brains basically appear to be 10 years older if you are overweight or obese," said Lisa Ronan, first author of the study from the University of Cambridge. Despite a higher BMI being linked to a smaller volume of white matter, it did not appear to have any link to mental prowess, with no difference seen between lean and overweight or obese participants when they were subjected to IQ tests. Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Yale University have published their findings in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.
Having lost 150lbs over the past few years, I have read innumerable articles over that time about nutrition and have come to a conclusion: Nobody has any fucking idea what they're talking about. Carbs are bad for you, fat is bad for you, refined sugar is bad for you, all sugar is bad for you, processed food of any kind is bad for you, artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and on and on. I can find an article and a study to back up just about any claim you care to make about nutrition. It's all bullshit pseudo science.
Here's the consensus: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight, and try to eat some vegetables every once in a while to ensure you get some vitamins. That's about it.
If you're having trouble gaining weight, you're not eating enough. Simple as that. Here's what you do: Eat what you normally would every day, then eat an entire loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter every night. That's an extra 10000 Calories or so every day. If you can't gain weight on that then you're a medical marvel or an Olympiad in training. Will it be hard to force yourself to eat all that? You bet it will. It's at least as hard for people on the opposite end of the spectrum who have to force themselves not to eat, trust me. So it's really just a matter of how bad you want it, isn't it?
When looking at an entire populate, the very muscular athletes are outliers. High BMI almost always indicates obesity.
Except on slashdot. You see on any youth thread we complain about how all the millennials think they are special snowflakes. But on BMI threads, everyone with an obese level BMI is one of the few special snowflakes for whom the prediction is not accurate.
SJW n. One who posts facts.