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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."
It's not ideal for long term use, but as a way to lose weight it's very promising.
The reason why fat people find it so hard to lose weight and keep it off is that the body fights them. When they cut down their calorie intake it goes into starvation mode. They feel tried all the time and it reduces burn to a minimum, which ends up meaning they need to diet extremely aggressively to get anywhere and will likely be unable to keep the weight off. 1500 calories/day is neither healthy nor sustainable, but in starvation mode that's what they need to achieve.
This gene seems to fix that. Say it could be turned on and off at will, or perhaps turned off but then the body regulated with medication instead. People could maintain a healthy 2500 calories/day diet with all the nutrition they need, and still lose weight and then maintain at that level.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
At some point, desire *is* a failure of character. When you are starving in Ethiopia, that "desire to eat" is well within correct, reasonable, non-impugnable bounds. But when you are a 300+ megafatass with a personal pantry that could run a soup kitchen for a week - you have crossed that boundary. People 'desire' a lot of things they shouldn't have -- but have them anyway -- like extramarital affairs, or a drink for the road when they are already borderline drunk. They know, and they do it anyway.
That inability to control their own behavior is the problem, even if they want to blame it on vague forces, because their actions are the *last* step that bridges the gap between the inappropriate desire and it's fulfillment.
Found the rich republican. Shops at farmers market, has time to make fresh food 3 times a day, (no job, obviously, but still money for "good food") and thinks he should be allowed to mandate what other people do to their bodies. You sir, are what's wrong with the world today. Kindly fuck off, please.
Signed,
A poor fat guy who can only afford 1-2 meals per day, mostly stale, written off products at work cause they're free.
Why do you care if someone else exercises? If fat can be kept off the body without exercise, why is that a bad thing?
You are not wrong, but the fix is not to say "so stop doing that" as clearly many cannot. Also, with gene's playing a part in whether fat accumulates or not... perhaps some people have a stronger propensity towards accumulation than others. If that is the case, it is also a medical condition. You COULD eat less and exercise 3 hours a day... just like someone on dialysis can be hooked up to a machine for hours each day. But we seek to heal these issues.
You are obviously under 30.
When you get to be 40, see of you still believe that.
In my case, I lost the ability to walk or perform almost any exercise for 20 years (ages 19-41). I gained a moderate amount of weight, but nearly constant dieting kept me below 290 lbs. Then I finally had a doctor that fixed what was wrong with me, and I started exercising. (My first exercise: slow the rate of fall as you slide down a wall, I kid you not)
Upon exercising (and being 40), I gained weight. I only eat 1 time a day, just to maintain. I work out heavily (extremely motivated!), and am constantly exercising.
My point: not everyone is like you, so stop acting like a butt.
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Way back in the day Michelin was looking to increase sales and one way to do that was to get people to buy cars and drive more (hence more tires sold) and they needed a reason for people to want a car. So Michelin started reviewing restaurants (awarding them Michelin stars which are still given out today and considered somewhat prestigious) with the thinking that people would want to buy a car or use it more if they could have an exceptional dining experience.
The obvious counterargument to the notion that obesity is a person's genetic destiny is that 50 years ago, people were much less fat. 75 years ago we were slimmer still.
Unless there has been incredibly rapid natural selection for fatter genes on a massive scale, the difference has to be environmental. That's the food we eat, how and when we eat it, and the activities which burn calories. And if you look at the differences in the way people live, it's a perfect storm. People move much less -- even when controlling for how sedentary their occupations are; and they live in an environment where there is continual access to food that has been engineered to be quick and convenient to consume almost mindlessly. Honestly if it were just sandwiches, I think we'd be OK, but so much food today is designed to be psychologically rewarding but not sating. The Cheet-O is the perfect food commodity: eat one and you'll want another, and you will never feel like you've had enough, much less too much.
Genetics plays a role, sure; but the majority of healthy people will put on weight in the kind of environment we've created for ourselves. Increasingly it's the genetic outliers who don't do that.
Our attitudes toward things like hunger haven't helped. We've been trained to view ordinary hunger in an otherwise well-nourished person as a crisis to be avoided at all costs. Many doctors advise their patients to avoid it all costs by continually feeding themselves small meals. That can work, but it's extremely challenging to balance energy input and output.
If you've ever tried fasting, that all seems kind of ridiculous. You don't need food every couple of hours, you can go days without food with no harmful effects at all. Learning to treat hunger as a normal, non-urgent situation is a big part in learning not to overeat in a food-saturated world. Once you've done it a few times, you realize a hunger pang isn't an emergency alarm. It's a routine reminder to think about getting some food, one that turns off in a few minutes and can be safely ignored for a few hours or even days in a world where food is nearly always at arms reach.
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The problem with reducing intake is that our bodies are not wired for the small number of calories needed to live a modern lifestyle. About 15-20 years ago, PBS ran a reality show called Frontier House, where they put volunteers in a situation a typical pioneer would've faced in the late 1800s. They had to raise and harvest sufficient crops and livestock during the summer to hypothetically feed them through a winter. Halfway through, the volunteers demanded to see doctors because they were eating 5000+ calories a day heavily loaded with butter and fat, yet they were still losing weight. Something had to be wrong with their bodies. The doctors examined them, and pronounced them fit as a horse.
It turns out that without machines to do all the heavy lifting for you, you needed to eat that much just to survive back then. And it wasn't just the men working the fields who were burning prodigious amounts of calories. This extended to the women too - no washing machine, no dishwasher, no vacuum cleaner, no blender, no prepackaged meals. You had to do all those cleaning tasks by hand, make all your meals from scratch. The women remarked that as soon as they finished cleaning up after one meal, it was time to start preparing the next meal.
Even estimates for the diets of slaves (who were not the best-fed people) put their daily caloric intake between 3000-8000 calories/day (towards the high end during harvest season). So the problem isn't that we're eating too much and we just need to eat less. We've already substantially reduced our food intake from the historical levels that our bodies are wired for. The problem is that our physical activity has decreased much more than our appetites have.