Oh my god. This 3rd episode of “The Skinny on Obesity” may be the best short video on obesity I’ve seen. Not because dr Robert Lustig tells me something I didn’t already know, but because he explains it so crystal clear that a kid will understand.
Do you want people to understand the reason behind perhaps 90 percent of obesity epidemic? Spread this video. It needs to be seen by as many people as possible.
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The bottom line is that the cause of garden-variety obesity is relatively simple: Excess (processed) carbs increases insulin which increases fat storage. Some bloggers on the internet have objections to this, but that does not change the facts.
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As in this comment on Steve Novella's blog (where he says, "After many studies looking at this issue from many angles the results boil down to a few simple rules. For weight control exercise on a regular basis and find some way to control overall caloric intake long term. There are no magic diets, special foods, or optimal proportions of macronutrients that will make calorie restriction easy. Reducing total fat seems to be helpful.")*
"I thought, at the time, that the low carb thing is what did it for me. I even used biochemical justifications (aka just-so stories) to explain it."
"... tells me something I didn’t already know..."
Which part?
* http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-to-lose-weight-eat-l...
(I know I posted this link the other day .)
He does refer ever so briefly to the "modern industrial diet" but I think the point needs to be as clearly illustrated as the "excess insulin causes the body to turn sugar into fat" point. Hopefully he will do so in subsequent episodes.
Every contemporary biochemistry textbook will tell you that insulin causes fat storage. Every single one. You can search on Google Books for your self to verify this. Every doctor who has passed biochemistry has learned this, been tested on this, and passed. Every doctor with clinical experience with T1D people will tell you this. Lustig's explanation of the mechanism is basically what you will find in the biochemistry textbooks.
This is not unknown, unsettled or in doubt. If you call a commonly-taught scientific fact with experimental proof, a known and validated biochemical mechanism, and many many clinical results a "just so story," then I have to question your credentials as a doctor. Novella bills himself as a "skeptic," but there's a point at which "skepticism" becomes tin-foil hattery.
Nowhere does he offer an alternative mechanism, biochemistry, or robust clinical/experimental evidence to deny the action of insulin in this case. Out-of-hand dismissal is not a scientific argument. If the book-standard biochemistry is wrong, offer robust experimental evidence.
It pretty much makes me spit glass. Novella and his followers are all about science, RCTs, peer review, evidence, etc. - until it comes to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and then everything is chalked up to some sort of mass delusion and magical thinking.
(Sorry if I derailed.)
BTW, you can download a pdf of Lehningers Principals of Biochemisty 5 here:
http://www.freeebook4u.net/2011/01/lehninger-principles-of-biochemist...
"...but there's a point at which "skepticism" becomes tin-foil hattery."
LOL!
The "alternative mechanism" is eating too much and not exercising enough because of your weak character. *eyeroll*
"eating too much and not exercising enough because of your weak character"
That is truely one of the biggest lies. My oldest son is moore than 100 kg and he is a construktion worker. He keepes his body mooving 8 hours/day, But unfortunatatley he is addicted to carbs... as for character no mother could be more proud than me,,,
This is great. Why don't Stephan Guyenet and his followers get this? And Steve Novella? Did they not take Biochemistry?
Sometimes I think it is because of some remnant of Puritan religious belief:
1) The idea that somebody could achieve weight loss and better health without suffering and sacrificing just rubs them the wrong way. "It's not fair! It shouldn't work that way!"
2) Real foods like fatty meats and cream and butter are associated with luxury and indulgence - sinful pleasures, in other words. It "stands to reason" that eating these foods will make you fatter and sicker (the wages of sin). After all, they can't eat them! They've been giving them up for years and they're still fat. What makes you think you're so special that you can eat them and lose weight?
Short answer: biochemistry.
Please, reinforcing the 'Need To Feed' hysteria only perpetuates the myths, misinformation and outright lies that cause people to become obese.
Go read the Wikipedia page on the human starvation response, it takes a looooog time & an extreme situation to truly enter the starvation process.
That said I think that the final straw for obesity "could" be fitness level.I posted this on Paul Jamiet's website "Perfect Health Diet" a week ago.Since then I have slowly gotten to 12 flights of stairs straight up done today.Today,for the first time in what feels like a decade,I am looking at buying size 30 waist clothes.And all this time I have been doing low calorie/low carb/high everything etc.All the diets yet these last 25 to 30 pounds just hung around.That is until I added in what I feel might be the missing link.And this running up stairs is not that bad as long as I follow one principle.....run till I feel bad and stop.I started with 3 flights and was wasted and slowly it went up one flight per day.Today I got to 8 fl with ease as if I was walking around.Its funny that I always tell people I have a strenuous job yet I collapsed on 3 flights.Walking around,no matter what they tell you,is not enough to increase fitness.
So my theory is that maybe some people just get out of shape cardiovascular wise faster than others.Could explain the reason some people just eat whatever they want and never gain weight.But a lot of these same people,when you meet them yrs later,have a nice bulging waistline.Maybe not obese but started down the road.And who knows,maybe sitting around more and more will eventually lead to obesity for them too.
That said,I am also all for the insulin hypothesis.I get very unhealthy looking when I eat a normal diet,even if lower calorie.Not only unhealthy looking but it's as if insulin,or unstable blood sugar,ages me quickly.Right now I am back to Atkins/LCHF eating and stair running and results are amazing.
Yes the "pleashure of the flesh" is still a problem for people hwo can not accept the fact that we "humans" are animals and predators like lions and wolfes... ore eagels....
I dont know about the rest of you but I feel proud of beeing a member of that gang
True that using 'starvation' instead of 'hunger' is a bit harsh, but I've come to the conclusion that apparently the American audience needs superlatives ...
* the need to eat is a primal drive from our lower or reptilian brain -- much like the need to breath or drink water... we may consciously subdue these drives temporarily but we cannot ignore them for long without consequences.
* with chronic high levels of insulin and insulin resistance, the drive to "feed the beast" and preferably with fast acting, high energy foods, is extreme and, in my experience, pretty much constant
* since switching to a real whole food diet that is naturally LCHF I am no longer "hungry all the time" -- indeed I can easily skip meals if I have the need -- what I experience nowadays feels more like natural "hunger" to me, rather than the constant craving "starvation" I lived with for over 25 years
* we may equate the word "starvation" with scenes of famine in developing countries, but I am sorry to say there are many others who, while apparently surrounded by plenty, are still malnourished.
I agree Lustig's manner could use a little work, but I'm not going to quibble about the color of the lifeboats when the ship is sinking.
To "prove" Taubes wrong, Guyenet is completely willing to throw science under a bus.
The more pertinent question is who funds Guyenet and why. Could it be that if you're being paid to work on a brain-based drug to treat obesity, it's in your interest to destroy the insulin hypothesis? Notice how no one ever speaks of Guyenet's funding.
Taubes, we know he's paid by his publisher to sell books. But Guyenet? Who knows where his money comes from?
It seems like the longer a researcher has been trying to get the message out there, the more disgruntled they seem, that it hasn't caught on. Lustig, Taubes, Cordain, etc., all have that "Why is nobody taking this seriously!?!? Its so obvious!!!" tone.
And there seems to be a personal antagonism betwen him and Taubes.. that not helps the cause!
And I do belew that he have taken a lot of biochemistry classes to know there is no simple explanation.
One thing is what hapens when you got a damage metabolism.. preferbly metabolic syndrome, and whats realy causes it!
There are probably different patways to go there, one way is probably a high glycemic load, but thats not the whole explanation.. there is probably more things to cause a metabolic breakdown.
And I do hope no one gonna say that Insulin is a bad hormon.. when it juste doing its job, its hyperinsulinemia thats a bad thing.. almost in every case caused by hyperglycemia, how is caused by lower glucose tollerance.
So, insulin juste try to save your body from toxic overload of glucose to minimise damage of internal organs.
And when somebody do have reached this point, its better to avoid to much carbs.. thats what we know.. the rest is hypotetis.. to be proven!
But then he adds that hyperinsulinemia causes leptin resistance and hence excess hunger, having said at the start that the discovery of leptin was critical to a complete model of obesity.
His claims don't jibe together -- sounds like PC BS to me. His theory is based upon insulin alone, and he is gratuitously throwing in leptin because it's a faddish research sinkhole for his cohorts.
http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/search/label/Leptin