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Mice Given an Experimental Gene Therapy Don't Get Fat (boingboing.net)
AmiMoJo shares a report from Boing Boing: Researchers at Flinders University knocked out a gene known as RCAN1 in mice, hypothesizing that this would increase "non-shivering thermogenesis," which "expends calories as heat rather than storing them as fat" -- the mice were fed a high-calorie diet and did not gain weight. In particular, the modified mice did not store fat around their middles -- a phenomenon associated with many health risks, including cardiac problems -- and their resting muscles burned more calories.
[Vice News reports:] The study's authors point out that there's a time and place for RCAN1's role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren't so readily available. In the modern world of "caloric abundance," however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that "These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity." "We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months," said Damien, "and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene. "Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight."
[Vice News reports:] The study's authors point out that there's a time and place for RCAN1's role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren't so readily available. In the modern world of "caloric abundance," however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that "These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity." "We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months," said Damien, "and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene. "Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight."
Trying to get the body to burn more calories is the wrong way to solve the obesity problem. People need to figure out ways to ingest less calories, not burn more. Eating less saves money and time you would otherwise need for food and eating. Also, increasing metabolism most likely has bad side effects on longer term, such as higher rates of cancer due to increased oxidative stress.
Of course, it's hard to make a profit on people eating less.
I am 100% certain he never had this gene to begin with.
I'm sure some here will say "this sounds unnatural and all people need is discpline" and you know, a speech like that is correct.
Life is also too damn short and some of us genuinely do have a pretty poor metabolism, or in my case I've now gained and lost weight so many times, I have the excess fat cells in me, which is hard to get rid of (read up on it, fat cells get bigger and small for you, unless you REALLY push too far, THEN they multiply)
If you said to me "you can take this drug, with 0 current side effects, but you'll live 2 years shorter" I'd take it.
Heck, hypothetically if they made another one for free time "you can take this drug, sleep 3 hours a night and feel totally and utterly normal and well rested, but you lose 5 more years" I'd take that too.
This also sounds like a great way to considerably reduce heating bills. I always thought it was absurd to heat a whole house just to warm the people inside it as you're likely heating an area that's hundreds of times the volume of the people in the house. It would be far better to simply heat the people, but that has traditionally been challenging and impractical as you would have to wear clothes containing heating elements and carry a power source.
If this converts energy to body heat then you could stay warm by eating, which would likely be far cheaper and more efficient than heating a whole house. That would have benefits in reducing energy consumption, which would conserve fuel resources and reduce carbon output. Plus, who wouldn't want to warm up eating lots of chocolate.
Obviously, the practicality of using this as a heating alternative depends on how much it warms you up, and that's something the boingboing.net article doesn't seem to say as it focuses on tackling obesity. The recommended daily calorie intake is 2000kcal, which converts to 8368kj of energy. 1 joule is enough to heat 1g of water by 0.24C, so 8368kj could heat 1kg of water to 2008.32C, which...er...is interesting but doesn't really tell us a lot about how much this gene therapy will warm you up through the day. This is were I quietly back away from the keyboard and wait for somebody who knows what they're talking about :)
Somehow, I am reminded of a scene from Catching Fire where Suzanne Collins introduces a modern misinterpretation of the word vomitorium. It was believed at some point that the Romans would overindulge in food and visit a room dedicated to vomiting to avoid the negative effects and be able to eat even more. (This is not what the word means, but I suppose it makes good TV).
Obesity is associated with many illnesses, ailments and diseases. But obesity is also a symptom. I would hazard a guess that people who do not move enough to burn the calories they consume will still be prone to most of these problems whether they store excess calories or not.
The associated issues with this are numerous. If we provide gene therapy that would discontinue storing excess calories, it would allow more people to overindulge. That would increase consumption and place an additional burden on the supply chain and the natural resources of the planet overall.
People would live longer while burdening society. Obesity is one of the few remaining tools nature has of balancing itself.
Consider stupid other things. If you consume more (and we will) and your body lacks the facilities to store it in quantity, it will be ejected more often. This means that we will use toilets more.
What will be the added cost of fresh water consumption and toilet paper usage? Using a bidet could alleviate portions of the paper related issues, but unless it were supplied by recycled water, the environmental impact of the additional water consumption would be outrageous and likely untenable.
I am quite sure this is a very very bad thing.
L.I.A.R. but that sounds harsh. Like calling Trump a treasonous money grabbing pussy.
I was at a ball game and got sick. The college kid who was working there ( I guess he was showing off his humanities major or something) told me to go to the restroom off of the vomitorium. I was drunk sick and heard vomitorium and puked up the beer, nachos, hot dogs and the Jack Daniels I had in the parking lot.
Good times. Good times.
Well, some people doesn't need brains to succeed and some others want their dicks to fall off. ;P
It's closer to a drug addiction by a drug you aren't aware of taking!
Please stop spreading this meme, that "eating less" would solve anything, and especially that it's those people's fault, as is such a, no offense, typical meme in the US! It's especially insulting, given where that meme originated.
Such people have a gigantic leptin resistance. (Actually, we all have, compared to healthy standards.)
Leptin is the messenger that tells the body you had enough. If the body gets way too much of it via external means, we get numb to it, just like with drug addictions.
So you just can't stop feeling hungry.
Fat, for example, would, by nature, just make you feel full very quickly, and you simply could not eat too much of it, because you would never want to! Replacing fat actually only makes things worse!
Yes, you could still "just" plain force yourself to eat a certain amount, but that is ridiculous self-harmful 60s masochist thinking. You'll still always be hungry, and suffer under it.You can literally measure the pain in the brain's pain center. Make no mistake: It is real pain, and it will torment and destroy your life, just like any other never-ending pain.
The actual problem is what's causing that leptin resistance!
It's an inflammation of bacteria, whose waste product is a substance that the body can't tell from leptin. It grows in huge masses and creates leptin in huge masses.... And its staple food are short acellular carbohydrates in an unnatural purity! The same shit that ruins your teeth via bad bacteria, actually ruins your whole digestive system!
So, no, it's not just "carbs"! Let alone "fat". Cooked non-overbred potatoes, for example, are fine!
(Thinking that fat makes you fat, just because it's the same word, always was as silly as saying sugar makes people sweet, anyway.)
It's when you destroy all the cells, break the carbs into short quickly digesting short sugars/starches, and don't have enough of anything else is there that would serve as a food for bacteria that could compete with those bad bacteria!
Because then, they can grow in huge masses, ruining your leptin resistance, and on top cause fat to be misdigested, for a double-hit! That's why we stupidly used to blame fat.
If people could actually buy real food in the supermarkets, and afford it too, and have time to prepare it too(!!), and not have to work three jobs and stuff themselves with HFCS and fat-starch-blends in-between, then they would automatically not over-eat, because they would not feel too hungry all the time!
That is a plain and simple and most importantly, actually scientifically proven to reliably work, solution, that has been known by experts for nearly 80 freaking years!! German Dr. M. O. Bruker used to cure tens of thousands of patients with that method, in the freaking 60s!
And he was called, alternatingly, a Nazi, then a Jew, then a Nazi again, in slander campaigns of, you guessed it, the sugar industry!
This legacy goes on to this day, when Coca-Cola & co release big PR campaigns "to get people to do more sports", with the intent of training people to blame their own "laziness", and not Coca-Cola & co, for trying to get literally everyone to drink only sugar water and nothing else all the time.
TL;DR: If people wouldn't have to slave away, and wages would not be basically crimes, and certain companies would not base their entire business model on literally getting the entire world sick, then they could eat actual food, and would, without any additional action, automatically not want to eat more than they really need.
And people like you spreading this horribly wrong victim-blaming meme, protecting those criminals, are the main reason this still isn't fixed.
This is clearly part of the pro-gene editing propaganda we're seeing everywhere. Bring the fucking guillotines, I say. We need some radical political change in this country.
Sometimes I read these long posts in their entirety and easily find many things wrong with it from the very first sentence to the last. That is my skeptical life. Wish you could have been there for the rest of it you would see how difficult it is to fool someone who reads the whole thing every single time. Pardon my language but holy moly
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If everyone thought like you we probably would not have had so many wars. At least evidence suggests so. Killing with kindness pays dividends.
I don't think gene therapy is the right solution, especially because it doesn't address the main problem: people eat too much shitty food. Too much of something I don't even call "food". I'm of reasonable weight for my age, but I can thank that only to my lifestyle: no sweets, no fast food, no snacks, no sandwiches. Just normal food made from fresh vegetables and ingredients bought at the farmer's market, 3 times a day. No special diet will ever solve the obesity problem because people can't stick to any of those diets and make it a lifestyle. So I'm a proponent of brain surgery. Just remove the part of the brain that is responsible for craving sweets, snacks, pastry, hot-dogs... fast food in general, and you remove the obesity problem. Kinda half-joking, of course. But it's the only solution to make people eat a sensible and healthy, sustainable diet, and make it a lifestyle.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
I was thinking the same thing as parent re: "would increase consumption and place an additional burden on the supply chain and the natural resources of the planet overall."
That would apply to the shorter term. Now look longer, when civilization falls, and we need conserve calories again and can't (we'd gamble on some natural selection recreating that gene effect in order to come out the other side still a species...)
The other thought I had was regarding a big root cause - habitual overeating for comfort. I wonder if knocking out this gene would have any effect on that mechanism? or if lack of calorie storage would be noticed by internal systems and trigger some other unpredictable behavior influence?
I'm 49 years old. I was incredibly skinny all my life (like skin and bones) until I was about 30. I had severe asthma as a kid and we were relatively poor and didn't always have enough to eat. Also, my metabolism was high. I never exercised that much due to asthma, but, I was always unhealthily skinny. I even had "low cholesterol" to the point they recommended I eat more bacon. When I joined the Army, I was 5'10" and 118lbs soaking wet. The drill sergeants made me eat double meals to put on weight in Basic and AIT. By the end of that (about 60 weeks in total), I was up to about 130lbs. I stayed that way the entire 5 years I was in the Army and left the Army at 23 weighing about 140lbs soaking wet.
Why am I fat now? Simple, because I sit 10 to 14 hours per day working and end up stress-eating more than I should. Not a ridiculous amount, but, it adds up. Day after day, week after week, year after year. I started putting on weight around 30 and I'm now at 290lbs. Almost all of it around the middle. Is it genes? Is it the food industry? Nope. Not really.
It's sitting and not getting enough exercise and continuing to eat like I were getting exercise (and stress to a lesser degree). It is my responsibility to take charge of my life and do something different. In this case, that means I have to get more exercise, sit less, and watch what I eat a little more carefully. I've been doing that now and I'm starting to lose weight.
It really is as simple as that. Stop looking for simple solutions that don't require any effort. Effort is good. Pain is good (it let's you know you're alive). You don't always have to feel good (drug addicts take note). Sometimes, when you feel like shit, you just have to soldier up and drive on.
The article says those mice didn't gain weight on a high fat diet, which is funny because humans LOSE weight on a high fat low carb diet, without genetic modification.
Who woulda thunk it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Eat less, and if you can't eat less, eat fewer carbs. It works.
Trump is being withheld this vital slimming treatment, you sick libs? TRAITORS! I'm calling the Russians, you'll be sorry!
Which is probably a good thing. Would you want to see Trump going around naked and sweaty everywhere? North Korea would probably launch the missiles it lied about destroying.
If I'm not exercising like a mad man I need to be at about 1500 cal/day or I'm gaining weight. I eat throughout the day to keep my energy levels up. It doesn't help that I can't have caffeine (mild heart condition that's exacerbated by it).
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a huge part of what leads to obesity is gut bacteria. Genetics also plays a role. As has been pointed out elsewhere on the forum a lot of us fatties do so because we need to keep our energy levels up. In America you work 40-50/hr /week minimum like it or not. 6 hours into an 8 hour shift there's still work to do, and you need to be alert enough to do it. Then it's time to go home, cook for the kids, help with homework (because we've cut funding to schools for 40 years straight now so it's not like the teachers are gonna do it), clean the house up and try to get some sleep so you can do it all over again.
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Going too low on the carbs isn't good for most people, but reducing the intake has been a blessing to me and my life. It has freed me from worrying about the next meal. When I was eating more carbs, I'd start thinking about a meal 2-3 hrs before it was time. These days, a small snack can easily replace an entire meal.
Don't eat rice, bread, fries or sugars-same effect.
Basically, get about 30% of your diet in carbs from veggies, not grains, cut out all the sugars from non-fruit sources, don't eat processed grains or oil fried foods and you will loose weight.
Limit fizzy drinks to 1 or 2 a week. It took me about 3 weeks of carb reduction and no sugar tasting foods/drinks for my body to get used to it. Sure, I miss potato chips, but not like it was at the start.
Humans are really good at storing carbs, so we have to reduce our normal 60+% of carb intake to be more like we'd have only from veggies.
They should give the treatment to women so they can stop complaining about the thermostat being set on too cold. Btw if you want the same effect just take an enormous amount of Thiamin (a B vitamin). It will basically light your body on fire.
I wonder if this is related to the Polynesian "thrifty gene".
Those who are obese due to some metabolic defects, such inability of the body to enter ketosis, glucagon insensitivity and those with severe thyroid issues.
I do the same thing and it works wonders. Recently however, I start to hit the weight plateau and its time increase the muscle mass, so its seems bread will return back into my meals.
This is a desperation move because the entire diet, obesity and diabetes industry has utterly failed us for the last 100 years.
The whole eat less/move more idea (cut calories in, burn more with exercise) does NOT have lasting effects. Studies as far back as the early 1900's have shown this. Every major study around the world that has looked at this has shown this is the case.
It's complicated and this is a super abbreviated explanation but:
Insulin creates fat
High sugar (carbs, carbs, carbs) create insulin.
Excess insulin over time causes insulin resistance - meaning MORE insulin is needed to lower blood sugar, causing more fat.
The body has a certain 'set point' that it likes to have for its weight like a thermostat in a house.
Too much food causing weight gain? Body burns off the extra naturally.
Too little food? Body does EVERYTHING it can to preserve existing weight, starting with it lowering body temp and other things.
Insulin resistance over time causes this weight set point to go up and up and up and.. obesity and diabetes type 2 here we come.
So eating less just causes the body to burn less. No weight loss.
Moving more: the body burns way more energy just maintaining body temp and basic functions day to day than it does with exercising. You need to exercise a LOT to get any real calorie burn. And if you burn more in exercise, the body lowers other activity elsewhere to compensate so on a daily basis you don't actually burn much more energy. Other health benefits exist so you should exercise but weight loss ain't one of them.
Ketogenic diet = switching the body to burn fat, not sugars. This reduces actual fat and over time will lower the weight set point so the body will KEEP the new weight by itself.
Intermittent Fasting = not eating for varying periods. This causes certain effects in the way the body handles cell growth and calorie burning and works with Keto diet well to lose weight.
References:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/authors/dr-jason-fung-m-d
Read his book The Obesity Code and/or The Diabetes Code
https://www.drberg.com/
Another good reference point for these things.
There are others on YouTube as well if you look for them.
Since puberty I always carried a little xtra weight. In college I started working out a lot. I thinned out and put on some muscle but I never became as lean as I should be for the amount of work I put into it. As I got older I have to work extra hard just to maintain a body that others can have by default. I don't think it's fair to do so much work to not look obese and the amount of hours spent doing it could be used towards other activities. So yeah, it would help people like me that are borderline, not obese but not lean enough either.
See my post above. Yes you can maintain a healthier weight and not be fat if you really expend tremendous amount of energy fighting your innate genetic predisposition. I've lived long enough to have seen people who can ingest many thousands of calories and not gain any fat and others who have to be very diligent about their lifestyle so that their body doesn't balloon up with fat. It's the genetic lottery and we all accept it but why does it need to be that way? Why do we need to accept that some of us have to fight really hard to have a healthy weight and other can get that feature for free? Science says it's a single gene. Obviously some people have it and other don't. Why do you think we cannot per-empt nature and improve this situation?
Don't you know people who can eat all the shitty food they want and gain no fat? Others that watch they eat but they can't even have an ice cream or anything like that because of fear of getting fat? Why should those people not experience the happiness that comes with eating something delicious like ice cream? It really sounds an elitist attitude to blame weight gain purely on human behaviour.
Many good points in this post but keto diet is hard to keep up and we don't know what the long term side affects may be. I would be more happy to just get the gene that the skinny people have so I don't have to go to the gym daily and play sports for countless hours just to keep my healthy weight.
So... experimental genetic manipulation over some self discipline on your eating habits?
What could possibly go wrong?
As to long term effects of keto diet: you are right - we only have about the last 100,000 years of human evolution as a trial. We should wait another 100,000 just to be safe and instead stick with the over processed, refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweetener, carbohydrate and empty calorie diet that has only been around for the last 50 or 60 years and has made everybody obese and diabetic.
Yeah, sure that sounds good too.
Surgery doesn't even work anymore. I know 3 fatties who had bypass surgery and still managed to put back on the weight they lost. They're all over 300 again. Never underestimate American determination.
Their way is not your way, but it isn't wrong. Efforts to reduce the obesity epidemic by encouraging better eating practices have failed. This is a way to work in reality we are in.
So it sounds like I could eat and eat and eat and end up losing weight. No thanks, I've seen that before.
Caloric abundance now leading contributor to global warming.
We haven't been eating a keto diet for 100,000 years, you moron.
There is no evolutionary basis for recommending a keto diet, and that is ignoring the fact that different people would have evolved eating different diets based on where their ancestors lived, so there won't be one perfect diet for everybody in any case.
Obesity has been associated with several chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, adverse pregnancy outcomes, diabetes, and mortality; however it has not been until recently that an increased body mass index (BMI) was also related to Dental health, especially periodontitis.
If kids are on verge of obesity get them to Pediatric Dentist or a nice