Alcohol Switches the Brain Into Starvation Mode In Mice, Increasing Hunger and Appetite, Study Finds (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: In tests on mice, alcohol activated the brain signals that tell the body to eat more food. The UK researchers, who report their findings in the journal Nature Communications, believe the same is probably true in humans. The mice were given generous doses of alcohol for three days -- a dose being equivalent to around 18 units or a bottle-and-a-half of wine for a person. The alcohol caused increased activity in neurons called AGRP. These are the neurons that are fired when the body experiences starvation. The mice ate more than normal too. When the researchers repeated the experiment but blocked the neurons with a drug, the mice did not eat as much which, the researchers say, suggests that AGRP neurons are responsible for the alcohol-induced eating. The study authors, Denis Burdakov and colleagues, say understanding how alcohol changes the body and our behavior could help with managing obesity. Around two-thirds of adults in the UK are overweight or obese.

Comments

Munchies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's called the "munchies".

Re:Munchies

[p51d007]

Explains why you see a line of cars at taco bell, white castles, McDonald's around 1-3am most nights, especially Friday/Saturday.

Re:Munchies

[Anonymous Coward]

You and OP really should look up that term on urbandictionary; keep in mind the alcohol-related answers were provided by drunks and do not reflect the term's actual meaning.

Also, Taco Bell is definitely the place to go for that.

Re:Munchies

[geekmux]

Explains why you see a line of cars at taco bell, white castles, McDonald's around 1-3am most nights, especially Friday/Saturday.

If high school was any indication, I believe you have your drugs mixed up. That line in front of Taco Bell at 2AM would be the weed talking, not the alcohol. Weed also explains half the crazy shit they come up with to put on a menu.

That said, it's no surprise that alcohol also induces food consumption, and often overindulgence, as if that's been some unsolved mystery through the ages. Those "mice" we affectionately label drunk humans validated that theory hundreds of years ago. We needed a fucking study for this? Seriously?

Re:Munchies

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently we do - since YOU clearly have no idea wtf you're talking about.

Maybe you're just doing that stupid thing where people that don't understand shit project their weird ideas onto the scene and make a stupid joke about weed - but clearly the 2am taco bell line is both drunks and stoners.

Then you weirdly contradict yourself to be correct in paragraph 2.

Re:Munchies

[Quirkz]

Hm. I would have guessed that, if someone's up unusually late on a weekend, they'd just be hungry due to elapsed time. If you have supper around 6, then by 3 a.m. it's been 9 hours since you've eaten. That would make it time for another meal, right?

Re:Munchies

[geekmux]

Apparently we do - since YOU clearly have no idea wtf you're talking about.

Maybe you're just doing that stupid thing where people that don't understand shit project their weird ideas onto the scene and make a stupid joke about weed - but clearly the 2am taco bell line is both drunks and stoners.

Then you weirdly contradict yourself to be correct in paragraph 2.

My statement was not meant to be a contradiction, it was meant to clarify other influences lining up humans at 2AM, along with the influences creating the weird shit we like to label "food" today. Alcohol isn't exclusive in this influence, and my point regarding wasting time studying mice stands, especially when humans have been capitalizing on the known behavior of drunks for literally hundreds of years.

Re:Munchies

[Anonymous Coward]

Look out everybody, angry alcoholic who went to a couple AA meetings and wound up with a bunch of psychobabble terms he could hurl at people to justify his continued addiction.

Re:Munchies

[cayenne8]

I've never found that drinking gave me the *munchies*...in fact, if I drink much before time for a meal, I really lose my appetite and don't eat much.

HOWEVER, the next day, if hungover, my food choices become dismal I will admit.

If I'm hungover, I often don't feel like getting up and cooking a healthy meal with lots of veggies, etc. THOSE are the times I reach for the phone for a pizza....or if I can manage to get up and out just for a quick run...fast food like Taco Bell.

But that's more alcohol withdrawal related than alcohol consumption.

Re:Munchies

[losfromla]

I thought a hangover was not so much an alcohol withdrawal symptom as the body healing from alcohol damage and dehydration. I stopped drinking because of the hangovers, man I really hated the hangovers.

As I recall from a movie I saw a long time ago (probably sensationalist, incorrect, and overdramatized), alcohol withdrawal is more characterized by DTs (Delirium Tremens).

Re:Munchies

[LunaticTippy]

I think it is fascinating that alcohol stimulates chemical receptors linked with the starvation response. Nobody knew this before the study. I'm not sure why you hate science so much you dismiss the "fucking study" with so much hostility. You even have geek in your handle, which would imply respect for science.

Re:Munchies

[AK Marc]

Sugar creates hunger. Alcohol is a sugar.

This study doesn't add anything to our knowledge of diet.

Re:Munchies

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly why my friends and I used to end up at Tommy's at 3 in the morning after being out drinking.

Re:Munchies

[geekmux]

I think it is fascinating that alcohol stimulates chemical receptors linked with the starvation response. Nobody knew this before the study....

You mean other than the tens of thousands of alcohol proprietors across hundreds of years of history who have found that pairing drunk people with food results in a quite a profitable business? (FYI, capitalism is also the reason that there will not be some form of AGRP-blocking chemical added to alcohol in order to try and make drinking "healthier", regardless of the study.)

People who have a drinking problem are also likely to be obese due to over-consumption of food. Alcohol is also a poison to the human body, creating other ailments and diseases, especially targeting the liver. Given these facts come directly from the No-Shit-Sherlock department, yes, I'd say a study that will ultimately change the opinions and attitudes of exactly zero obese drinkers tends to showcase the entire value of it. Doubly so if this study was funded by taxpayers.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the science, when it exceeds the water-is-wet threshold.

You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at most heavy drinkers. They're usually overweight, more so than can be accounted for by the extra calories in alcohol alone.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Colleges and universities, and especially frat houses, are full of morbidly obese fat kids. This is explained by their exceptionally high consumption of alcohol.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Nidi62]

Exactly. Colleges and universities, and especially frat houses, are full of morbidly obese fat kids. This is explained by their exceptionally high consumption of alcohol.

Or by the fact that most colleges have meal plans that are essentially all you can eat which leads to overeating since the food is "free" for the student (free as in not out of pocket since loans,parents, scholarships or whatever are paying for the meal plan as part of tuition/room/board)

Re:You need a study for this?

[codeButcher]

Look at most heavy drinkers. They're usually overweight, more so than can be accounted for by the extra calories in alcohol alone.

On the other hand, these rodent heavy drinkers went at it for only 3 days...

Re:You need a study for this?

[Maritz]

more so than can be accounted for by the extra calories in alcohol alone.

Damn, they wasted all their time doing this study when they really should have just asked you.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Maritz]

Exactly. Colleges and universities, and especially frat houses, are full of morbidly obese fat kids. This is explained by their exceptionally high consumption of alcohol.

Mhmm. Your certainty is completely misplaced. You don't know if it's drink, or if it's food, or a sedentary lifestyle, or all of the above. I know you think you know, because most people on slashdot think they know everything, but you actually don't.

Re:You need a study for this?

[MightyYar]

Boy, the quality of the food must have increased markedly since I was in school in the 90s. The only edible thing was the Lucky Charms.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Nidi62]

Boy, the quality of the food must have increased markedly since I was in school in the 90s. The only edible thing was the Lucky Charms.

I went to school out in the country. The biscuits and gravy seemed to be popular (I found the gravy somewhat bland though), as was the pizza and stir fry. Really good chicken and dumplings and fried chicken, too.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*

It seems the average slashdotter's desire to project his gargantuan neckbearditude onto others really believes college fraternities are full of morbidly obese people.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

True alcoholic "heavy drinkers" do not get the munchies. In fact they're more likely to not even eat when drinking.

I am not overweight. If I drink say 2 drinks a day, 4 days a week, I will put on about 12 extra pounds even with no change whatsoever in my diet.

I've actually experimented with this by not drinking at all until I go down to my base weight. Then drinking a fixed amount over some months until I hit a maximum weight. Again, even with no change in diet there seems to be a direct correlation with weight gain and the amount I drink (more drinking, more weight gain).

Alcohol probably also affects metabolism rates, fat storage, or something along those lines.

Re:You need a study for this?

[beelsebob]

Uhhh... Yes.

If you actually read, you'll see that the study isn't about the fact that alcohol triggers you to eat more, it's about how it does it, which parts of your brain are affected, and why. That's important information if you say.... wanted to make drugs that suppressed your starvation response to help you lose weight.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Hey just because the last fresh meal was made Friday morning and they just reheated the same shit over and over again until Monday morning doesn't mean it was awful. I never asked for a plate with a heaping pile of sausage patties that were closer to charcoal just so I could dump them in the trash on Sunday morning. I also never told the person who was cooking burgers that if they cooked them half as long they would be twice as good since they would cook every drop of moisture out of them.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

[QUOTE]I am not overweight.[/QUOTE]

Of course not. This is the internet - nobody is.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the typical local "Skid Row". A bunch of skinny old dudes with full heads of hair. (Heavy Alcohol consumption suppresses the production of Testosterone.) Alkies don't much like eating. Some of those skinny old dudes are under forty. Skinny old young dudes with bloated faces and full heads of hair...
Fat Alcoholics tend to have other addictions. It's all about Feeding, stuffing the face. Skinny Alcoholics are quite the opposite; they embrace starvation. If they were impressionable teenaged Girls, they would be Purging and cutting themselves to embrace the pain.

Let's try this Bukowski style:

Check out the typical local "Skid Row".
A bunch of skinny old dudes
with full heads of hair.
(Heavy Alcohol consumption suppresses the production of Testosterone.)
Alkies don't much like eating.
Some of those skinny old dudes are under forty.
Skinny old
young dudes
with bloated faces and full heads of hair.

Fat Alcoholics
tend to have other addictions.
It's all about Feeding, stuffing the face.
Skinny Alcoholics are quite the opposite;
they embrace starvation.
If they were impressionable teenaged Girls,
they would be Purging
and cutting themselves
to embrace the pain.

Re:You need a study for this?

[MightyYar]

I went to school in Philadelphia, and even the cheesesteaks were nasty in the cafeteria. That's sacrilegious in those parts.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they studied mice? Am I a mouse and nobody told me?

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have tested a more reasonable alcohol dose. Those poor mice were absolutely hammered. It would be much more interesting to learn about the effects of a more normal dose, the equivalent of a what a non-binge drinker might drink.

Re:You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at most heavy drinkers. They're usually overweight, more so than can be accounted for by the extra calories in alcohol alone.

There's usually also a large drop in physical activity in heavy drinkers.

Re:You need a study for this?

[lactose99]

mmmm gravy

Re: You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know any hard drinkers do you. In my early 20s a 26 a day was an average day for me. Not proud of it at all but we all got our demons.

Point is a a bottle and a half of wine is not an unreasonable amount of alcohol for anyone that had our in the time and commitment to build a tolerance to booze.

Re: You need a study for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has put*

Re:You need a study for this?

[losfromla]

This must be very school dependent. I graduated in 1994 and the food was fantastic.
Breakfast: The usual cereals from dispensers, a line if you wanted a fresh made omelette (from real eggs) with whatever ingredients you wanted: bacon, sausage, assorted veggies, cheeses...

Lunch: Burgers, sandwiches, could have grabbed a to-go PBJ at breakfast.

Dinner: Typical dinner fare, it all seemed fresh made.

Re:You need a study for this?

[losfromla]

Yeah, the ability to perceive sarcasm/humor has really plummeted lately. I blame tRump!

Re:You need a study for this?

[losfromla]

*whoosh*

Re:You need a study for this?

[thegarbz]

Look at most heavy drinkers. They're usually overweight

You're a genius, a true scientist. Someone fetch this man a nobel prize.

Re:You need a study for this?

[MightyYar]

Maybe it's city school vs country school or something? I went to a city school and so there were dozens of lunch options, including lunch trucks, fast food, bars, and the like. As a result, not a single faculty member used the cafeteria. For that matter, no one not required to buy the meal plan ate there. I suspect in a self-enclosed campus with fewer options, the faculty and students would demand better food.

Re: You need a study for this?

[thygate]

for an organism new to alcohol, that is a lot imo

Re:You need a study for this?

[h4x0t]

Or the same for the reverse: increase apatite in those who may require it.

Re:You need a study for this?

[losfromla]

Maybe so. Or maybe the school already knew the competition was fierce, what with being in the middle of Westwood. That said, I doubt anyone was going to go from the dorms out to town just for breakfast, it was hard enough to roll out in time to make breakfast hours downstairs. Even the student athletes ate in the caf (basketball players are easy to spot). I knew a couple of people who didn't live in the dorms but bought the meal plans. Yeah! Good times!

Re:You need a study for this?

[AK Marc]

Sbisa dining hall was one of the top rated food locations on the planet. Multiple patents on serving mass food came from there (or the tours were lies). The idea to stabilize warmed food by putting heat under a water bin, with food above that was invented there, then adopted world-wide.

Pizza and hamburgers made to order. A mix of fast food, short-order, and cafeteria, all in one dining hall.

But, if one wanted, one could stick to the vegetables and eat quite well, while healthfully. I dropped weight and gained muscle mass in college.

Re:You need a study for this?

[MightyYar]

Lesson: go to a massive agricultural school with an active food science department :)

Re:You need a study for this?

[MightyYar]

As freshmen, we had the somewhat torturous ritual of walking past a number of restaurants and food trucks on our way to the university-required foodplan cafeteria :) We hated it, but it was already paid for! I definitely did not step foot in there ever again after freshman year...

I wonder if the other center city Philly schools were as terrible. Aramark food service was native to Philly, and I think that was part of the problem. They switched to Marriott a little later and apparently that improved things, but I wouldn't know firsthand :)

Re: You need a study for this?

[tehcyder]

for an organism new to alcohol, that is a lot imo

I think a bottle and a half of wine is a hell of a lot to drink for a mouse regardless.

And they're just discovering this now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no wonder the British lost an empire.

Kebab shops

[Chrisq]

when the researchers repeated the experiment but blocked the neurons with a drug, the mice did not eat as much ...

You reaise that this drug could put a lot of late night kebab shops out of business

They eat more

[Anonymous Coward]

They eat more, but do they gain more weight?

So don't get your mice drunk

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez. How hard can it be?

Who Knew?

[Neuronwelder]

Alcohol gives you the munchies??

Re:Who Knew?

[No Longer an AC]

I'm not sure that it does.

Anecdotally I think it suppresses hunger in me. If I'm drunk and become really hungry (i.e. "get the munchies") it's probably because I haven't eaten enough.

That may just be me though, but the same was true when I was young and in college.

Oh, it's 2 AM and you're suddenly hungry? You've been drinking for 6 or 7 hours without eating anything, of course you're hungry!

And while composing this I did come over all peckish and I have been drinking, but I haven't actually eaten anything in about 10 hours. Of course I'm hungry!

I wish I had a kebab, but I'll have to settle for something less exotic. (Meatloaf and mashed potatoes it is then!)

That's my take on it - cheer's everyone.

Re:Who Knew?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

It does for me. I always have to stop by a kebab joint or a Burger King or whatever on my way home.

Re:Who Knew?

[Cajun Hell]

It's gotta be more complicated than that.

When we get home from work, I'm kind of hungry, but it's beer time so we start drinking beers. And then I notice I'm not so hungry anymore. Beer really does have food value.

OTOH, it just delays dinner, and I don't think we eat less of it when we eventually get around to it. So what happened to the food value? Did my body "forget" that I've already "eaten" some?

Re:Who Knew?

[losfromla]

The calories in it are primarily/exclusively in the form of alcohol sugars so they digest very easily. By easily, I mean that your liver has to work like a beast to metabolize the poison that alcohol is so you won't die from excessive sugar in the blood. But it performs the job heroically and so you live, but the calories have already been dealt with and put into deep storage, both in the liver and in your visceral fat (thus the beer/alcohol belly) so you get hungry again.
Similar to the effect of eating carbs/sugars but more brutal on the body because the sugars are more concentrated as alcohols.

Re:Who Knew?

[tehcyder]

It does for me. I always have to stop by a kebab joint or a Burger King or whatever on my way home.

I would humbly suggest that you are just moderately drunk, and therefore sensibly hungry, as you probably haven't eaten since lunchtime.

If you go out and get seriously drunk, you are unlikely to disrupt the flow by breaking for food, in my experience.

Re:Who Knew?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You're probably right.

What the fuck is "starvation mode"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean just normal hunger, you fat fucks?

Re:What the fuck is "starvation mode"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you don't speak clickbaitese.

Re:What the fuck is "starvation mode"?

[Maritz]

I'd say it's probably a nuanced technical term. But hey you're not personally familiar with it, so it must be bullshit right?

Re: What the fuck is "starvation mode"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great it's Maritz, king of the trolls! He's here to tell us that "starvation mode" is a nuanced medical term!

Re:What the fuck is "starvation mode"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Starvation mode is a myth, dumbass

All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

All the best research on addiction, consumption and rehabilitation of all drugs is done in Europe.

Here in the States, it's treated as a character flaw and research pales in comparison. And rehab is mostly ineffectual 12-Programs that were created 80 years-ago by a drunken religious kook. But when one fails a 12-step program, it's all on them and not the fact that 12-programs are quackery and thinly disguised religion.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine be me. Let someone else pay for these studies, not me.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

You failed to complete all 12 steps, and now you're blaming other people for your problems?

Oh wait, that's the Democrat Party platform now.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Maritz]

The AA never releases studies or co-operates with rigorous studies. I suspect this is because they know their approach is largely bullshit.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[squiggleslash]

Here in the States, it's treated as a character flaw and research pales in comparison.

As someone who's lived in both countries - though fortunately had a body type that wasn't seen to be overweight in either country (technically I am overweight right now, but nobody I know thinks so) - I can honestly say I question this. In the UK, I routinely witnessed overweight people mocked and verbally abused. In the US, there's at least a general recognition that losing weight isn't easy, and gaining it is. Which is not to say that there are no assholes in the US either.

I'd always assumed it was due to the environment. The UK is generally urban, which means people get plenty of exercise, and spend 20 minutes getting to and from work leaving more time in their day for healthy food preparation. In the US, which is more suburban, a combination of barriers to walking (some, like bizarre zoning, legally enforced) means people have to seek out exercise, do not get it naturally, and the 30-45 minute each way commute leaves even less time for food preparation, leading to widespread consumption of relatively unhealthy premade meals.

That leads to a situation where people in the UK weigh far less than the average American, which means there's less empathy - fewer people in your circle are likely to be overweight, so you're allowed to make more negative judgments AND the fact that so few people are overweight makes you more likely to treat them as doing something "wrong", as obviously they're "doing something" that the vast majority of people aren't (which, ironically, is less likely to be true in an environment with fewer overweight people - you're more likely to find people in that environment who do the same things as you, but have biological/genetic/medical/etc reasons for gaining weight.)

Is there better research in Europe? No idea - if there is, it probably has to do with a willingness of governments to fund research that has no agenda beyond better health, while I'm willing to bet most American research into obesity has an end goal of selling more Nutrasystems and Slimfasts. (That said, I'd love to be proven wrong on this.)

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you bother to read the summary?

It states 2/3s of all adults in the UK are overweight or obese.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[squiggleslash]

Yes, I also lived there. I said absolutely nothing to contradict that, pointing out merely that there are more overweight people in the US, that the average Brit weighs less, and I also pointed out, referring to my own case, that many people who are overweight don't look it.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US lots of people pull up to the takeout counter at McDonald's or Taco Bell and then eat in their SUVs with the engine running. It's amazing how people live in their SUVs in this country. I'm always wary when I walk through a parking lot because so many drivers are sitting their idling their motors and it seems like they could pull out at any time.

And they're wearing stretch pants and cotton jerseys, sometimes with team logos, for comfort.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[kamapuaa]

That is you stating your personal opinion while ignoring science, ironically enough. Your accusations of withheld information don't really make sense, because there isn't like "The Association of 12 step programs" keeping all their records secret. It's a group of unaffiliated organizations using a similar approach.

Scientific studies and meta-studies, on the other hand, say 12 step programs have a "robust medium-size effect." Per a scientific study.

How large is the relationship between AA exposure and abstinence? As shown in Figure 1, which draws on a longitudinal study of male inpatients in Veterans Administration programs, rates of abstinence are about twice as high for those who attended a 12-step group such as AA following treatment. One-year follow-ups considered 12-step group attendance and abstinence from alcohol and drugs, while the 18-month results reported AA attendance and alcohol abstinence. Results are remarkably similar, at 1-year and 18 months, for these different exposure and abstinence measures. About 20%–25% of those who did not attend AA or another 12-step group (or receive any other form of aftercare after the inpatient stay) were abstinent from alcohol and drugs at 1 year [15], and from alcohol at 18 months (combined alcohol and drug abstinence were not reported at 18 months) [16]. The rates of abstinence were about twice as high among those who had attended AA or another 12-step group (but no other form of aftercare). In terms of effect sizes, this translates to a robust medium-size effect (h=.5) [17, pp.181–p.185].

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're wearing stretch pants and cotton jerseys, sometimes with team logos, for comfort.

Ahh, yes, one of the few benefits to living in Minnesota in the winter - not being forced to look at people wearing stretch pants and/or cotton jerseys. (It's too cold for stretch pants and the jerseys are underneath the winter coats.)

They're still sitting in their SUVs munching down a Big Mac or whatever nutritional monstrosity Taco Bell has cooked up, but since their windows are rolled up and it's dark we don't even have to see that.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK, I routinely witnessed overweight people mocked and verbally abused

It's true, British people are by and large awful. But the OP is right about Europe, excluding the UK. Most EU nations are much more progressive and willing to tackle the issue. And even the UK does fund research into it, because the intellectuals who direct the money are less politically motivated than their counterparts in the states.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[losfromla]

Which is not to say that there are no assholes in the US either.

I took an anatomy class a long time ago, I am of the opinion that your statement is very true. In fact the ratio of assholes to people is exactly 1, with of course a standard deviation of 0.0000000001.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[losfromla]

Your anecdote notwithstanding, the science is firmly on the side that exercise has not a whit to do with overweight, it is all about the foods consumed. People who eat a high carb diet become fat/obese, people who eat a high fat diet become slim/healthy. Not so much about the calories consumed either, it is about the hormonal effect that the macro-nutrients have on the body.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[losfromla]

They're still sitting in their SUVs munching down a Big Mac or whatever "nutritional" monstrosity Taco Bell has cooked up, but since their windows are rolled up and it's dark we don't even have to see that.

FTFY

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[rahvin112]

Almost all US government funded research into nutrition is done through the department of Agriculture and up until about a decade ago was completely focused on pushing American's to a diet that prioritized foods grown in America. This resulted in diets pushed to consume grains, something America produced in great excess. It's this push that caused the shift in American eating habits that prioritized cold breakfasts composed of cold cereals instead of the prior tradition of high protein/fat breakfasts using bacon, eggs, ham and even steak. On top of this the DoA was a primary instigator, often providing all the research in the creation of most of the junk foods you love.

There are quite a few people in the nutrition and medical fields that now believe this shift is one of the factors that has caused America's obesity issues which are only exacerbated by the reduced exercise. American diets contain massive amounts of carbs due to this push by the DoA. Even with the shifts we've seen towards less carbs it's probably going to take a decade or several, maybe a whole generation to restore proper protein/fat consumption and reduce america's obesity epidemic.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[squiggleslash]

I seriously doubt there's any body of research that says that exercise, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with weight, and the only times I've successfully lost significant amounts of weight (more than 20lbs) were when I combined a more controlled diet with exercise. Simply trying to control my diet has never helped, and I know nobody who successfully lost a lot of weight without either going on a relatively dangerous starvation diet (sometimes necessary) or combining exercise with something more reasonable.

But note that I also pointed out that urban vs suburban living also determines diet.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[tehcyder]

The UK is generally urban, which means people get plenty of exercise, and spend 20 minutes getting to and from work leaving more time in their day for healthy food preparation.

You must have lived in n expensive flat near to your high powered job in the City of London if you believe that.

In London, most normal people take an hour to get to work on over-crowded public transport, and pile out of their office at 5 to go down the pub then have a burger on the bus home.

Re:All the best research is done in Europe

[losfromla]

Friend squiggleslash, please notice that I specifically pointed out that it is the hormonal effects of food on the body that impact weight loss or gain. While a caloric deficit does matter for fine tuning weight loss, first and foremost the macros have to be correct. It turns out that if you eat a high fat diet, in the absence of most carbs, you will lose weight. This happens because the body's satiety mechanisms are well satisfied by the eating of fats. It is also a well understood principle in animal studies that if you want to fatten up your subjects, you stuff them with grains, same to achieve foie gras, duck is stuffed with grains. When scientists tried to fatten up mice on a pure high-fat diet, the darn mice lost weight. It works on humans too, look at the ketogenic diet.

I am willing to go out on a limb and suggest that you gained back those hard-won 20 lbs with interest. This happens because you attempted to force your body to a new set-point through an unnatural caloric deficit. Your body adapted and when you got tired of the deficit and reverted to the amounts you started eating (or exercise regime if you insist), your body now took those extra calories and put them into storage.

I am not in any way proposing a starvation diet, not at all. I am proposing that eating to satiety on a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet will make you lose weight naturally and painlessly. Unless you consider giving up carbs and sugars and replacing them with eggs and bacon as a painful thing to do. The arguments you are making are based on the suggestions from various governmental agencies, none of those recommendations had a basis in science.

Alternate study version

[Nidi62]

If this study were done in America you wouldn't even need mice. Just go into any Waffle House at 2am.

HOW much wine?

[Anonymous Coward]

4.5 bottles of wine (minimum) over 3 days sounds like alcoholism to me.

Re:HOW much wine?

[codeButcher]

... but after three days, they sobered up again. (I guess all those giants in white lab coats messing with your neurons does that.)

Re:HOW much wine?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Yeah, a bottle-and-a-half of wine is definitely into "serious drinking problem" territory. Marginally increased appetite is the least of your worries in that situation.

Alcohol spoils your diet in three ways

[Anonymous Coward]

- It contains calories that need to be burned
- It makes you hungry (just as this revolutionary research found out)
- It stops the liver from burnig fat, since it is busy getting rid of the alcohol, which it considers a kind of poison

Re:Alcohol spoils your diet in three ways

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Alcohol is poison with a relatively high LD50, and a rather pleasant buzz at moderate doses.

Laboratory mouse life

[codeButcher]

The mice were given generous doses of alcohol for three days ... equivalent to around ... a bottle-and-a-half of wine for a person. ... The mice ate more than normal too.

See, being a lab mouse is not all bad. All that free booze and food!

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[sinij]

Yes, but the WiFi is lousy, so only 2/5 stars.

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[thegarbz]

Hey you don't know what a good WiFi signal is like until you've been a mouse in the "does WiFi have a negative affect on tissue" experiment.

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[Tranzistors]

Yeah, perks are great, but that certain death at the end of experiment is a bit of a downer. Hmm, what was that wooshing sound?

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[losfromla]

LOL

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[rahvin112]

Only if you're the mouse that's the Booze mouse, you could lose the coin flip and get to be the mouse that gets stuck with a needle (that's the equivalent to a 2inches in diameter for you) four times a day for your entire life.

Re:Laboratory mouse life

[antdude]

And lots of sex? :D

Dehydration

[zifn4b]

These findings are not surprising because alcohol causes dehydration and dehydration is often confused with hunger. A lot of people who are chronically dehydrated aren't even aware of it and confuse it with hunger and thus try to resolve by eating when what they really need is a glass of water.

Re:Dehydration

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You gotta drink 8,437 glasses of water a day!

Re:Dehydration

[vektros]

You gotta drink 8,437 glasses of water a day!

If each glass was one gram and u weighed 600 pounds

Re:Dehydration

[losfromla]

That's probably correct if you are european and used the comma in place of the period.

Re:Dehydration

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I am actually European, but I used American notation to make a joke :-)

Re:Dehydration

[losfromla]

It was a good one but you made the mistake of using 8 for your first digit which is the most widely accepted as correct number of glasses of water to drink in a day. Even Dr Batmanghelidj went with 8. I should have made a better joke about the extreme accuracy of your recommendation *sigh*.

Re:Dehydration

[Anonymous Coward]

fun fact there is no known amount we should drink the 8 glasses thing came out of nowhere the most accepted amount to drink? when you feel you need to. chronically dehydrated people is a myth and a rather poor one at that. we know when we need water as well shit we evolved needing it!

Obesity causes

[Anonymous Coward]

Obesity causes are linked mostly to sugar consumption and junk food.
Alcohol accounts for a very small percentage of that.
They should focus on studies related to sugar consumption, not alcohol.

Re: Obesity causes

[Anonymous Coward]

Or as other researchers have already proven sugar is alcohol in disguise, same metabolithic pathway, just no receptors to feel the buzz. YouTube sugar: the bitter truth

Re:Obesity causes

[geekmux]

Obesity causes are linked mostly to sugar consumption and junk food. Alcohol accounts for a very small percentage of that.

That depends on what you're drinking.

The latest trend in beer making leans towards putting 300+ calories in a 10% beer, along with an ingredient list that would make a Starbucks hipster jealous. This is all done to make beer taste good for the I-hate-beer crowd (not unlike what Starbucks has done to coffee).

I'd say there's more than enough in that bottle to warrant a growing waistline.

We get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You like to drink, who cares...

That is more...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the potheads. Drunks don't waste their money on food, they use it for more alcohol.

Re:That is more...

[PPH]

Drunks don't waste their money on food,

This is why the meal voucher program for the homeless failed so miserably in my city. Hand a beggar a coupon for food and they just scream at you.

Re:That is more...

[losfromla]

We offered a homeless lady a slice of freshly made, hot pepperoni pizza, she was very happy to have it. Didn't scream at me (or my kids) at all.

"Colorado booze"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin'.

Problem solves itself

[tomhath]

Drink until you puke.

Mmmm

[nospam007]

A bottle and a half of wine has over 1000 kilocalories. I wouldn't exactly call that 'starvation mode'.

Re: Mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Wanting extra calories even after having the calories in the alcohol!

Re:Mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the whole point!

You gain lots of calories, but your brain still thinks it's starving, thus making you eat even more...

Not the alcoholics I know

[coinreturn]

Alcoholics I know replace eating with drinking and lose wait as a result.

Re:Not the alcoholics I know

[Anonymous Coward]

I replaced eating with drinking - last week I lost 4 and a half days!

Which then leads to a follow-up question

[ScooterComputer]

So, if alcohol hacks your brain into thinking it is hungry, if you do NOT then eat--you purposefully resist the urge--does those same "starvation mode" signals then trigger different metabolic responses from the body as well and lead to weight LOSS?
Of the functioning alcoholics that I know, a not-insignificant number of them are rail skinny; while, yes, others are obese (mostly beer-gut "fat"). But I have empirically noticed that the skinny ones tend not to eat; they "drink" their dinners. In a few instances, those folks are also ones who "can eat what I want and not get fat"... but perhaps mostly because they likely rarely eat regularly. It would be an interesting next step to follow through on the research and see what the mice do if kept hydrated but underfed, or perhaps fed just a moderate calorie diet, versus a high calorie diet typical of many people. Comparing to recent research on fasting, alcohol might could turn out to be yet another "hack" that allows for metabolic disruption and significant weight-loss. (Though I'm not sure doctors/scientists would approve, given alcohol's other deleterious health effects, but if you're already a drinker I'd think obesity would be significantly more harmful on top of it.)

Re:Which then leads to a follow-up question

[PPH]

"starvation mode" signals then trigger different metabolic responses from the body as well and lead to weight LOSS

Starvation usually triggers a reduction in metabolism with the goal of reducing energy consumption from fat stores.

a not-insignificant number of them are rail skinny

Heavy drinking screws up metabolism of carbohydrates. They may still eat a lot, but extract less from what they eat. A by-product of this is that the products of this less efficient process place a heavy load on the liver, eventually damaging it.

Re:Which then leads to a follow-up question

[losfromla]

Hmm, I thought starvation mode triggers consumption of fat stores while reducing caloric needs through various mechanisms mainly aimed at increasing effficiency of calories used. As the saying goes "a half-starved man is at his best".

Re:No study needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"This study is flawed an false."

I rather like the way that you went to such great effort to spell "Empirically" properly, that you put it in all-caps.
After that though- Fail.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

The bigger story...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the researchers repeated the experiment but blocked the neurons with a drug, the mice did not eat as much

Wait, there's a drug that will block the urge to eat?!? Tell me more!!

Yeah!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

I wanna party with these rats!

Re:Yeah!

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

And I wanna go with them to Denny's at 2am and order eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns and pour gravy over the entire thing.

in other news ..

[thygate]

researchers find that the sky is blue .. seriously though, these researches need to get out more if they've never experienced the munchies themselves..

Re:in other news ..

[losfromla]

I have never, ever, ever experienced the munchies from drinking alcohol, usually only an overwhelming thirst for more alcohol, lots more alcohol. Usually it ends in tears, hangovers, and dehydration: muy malo.
Were you stoned enough to think they were talking about being stoned (on weed) and getting the munchies? That would be a fair excuse for the confusion. Munchies from alcohol is not one of those "oh, everybody knows that!" kind of memes.

May not be a link to starvation

[Anonymous Coward]

Could also be:

alcohol is a poison
brain says "need food to rid myself of this and rebuild whatever its destroying / replace what I'm using to rid myself of it"
hunger hits

May not be a link to starvation itself, could be there are more uses for AGRP than science knows.

Do all GABAergic compounds do this?

[mmdurrant]

I've observed benzos having a similar appetite-increasing effect. Curious whether this is a property of GABAergic compounds in general...