Pregnant for the first time and gaining an immense amount of weight (~60 lbs in 7 months), I’m curious about the effect of cellular changes to mothers who gain during gestation. My (anecdotal, speculative) understanding is that first time moms tend to shed most of the weight in about a year, but after a second baby, the weight remains more stubbornly attached. I wonder if studies like this one could explain whether there needs to be a static weight for a certain amount of time in order for the body to accept that as its “normal”.
There's one indisputable fact. If you eat fewer calories, you will lose weight. Eating fewer calories costs nothing. There should be no public health insurance for people who refuse to do this free, natural, and safe treatment that will make them much healthier.
1
But it can make you hangry - and with the number of guns in this country, maybe not such a great combination. Just sayin’.
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This just isn't so. Science proves it over and over again.
3
There is ample data demonstrating that hunger and the urge to eat too many calories is genetically and environmentally determined. People don´t only eat too much because they refuse to follow public health advice. They are actually drawn to excess food by their genes. Refusing public health for obesity would be akin to refusing it for depression, because it is "all in their minds".
8
The amateur scientists come out when the study is controversial.
Not to worry, scientists. Eventually every decision will be based on data. It will survive in a secular world as the only way to settle conflict.
And you just might find it upending peoples' concepts of freedom and rights.
1
Get fit in the gym/in the kitchen get healthy and trim.
3
For me, nothing is as confusing as diet; back in the 70's AMA shifted from demon walnuts to nourishing walnuts..., no need to state further. I did incredibly well on the fen/fen pill, but then, AMA withdrew its approval with a danger warning. 27 years later, I'm still here, perhaps with a less efficient heart, but then, with f/f, my heart didn't have to pump as far.
I guess that this an age-old dilemma, perhaps extending back to the days of healthy tobacco smoke, miasmas..., Pericelcius was brilliant but for micro-testing.
Wouldn't it be grand for the AMA to maintain better control of its recommendations? Wouldn't it be grand if the pharmaceutical developers knew what they were doing before releasing controversial advice, dangerous pills?
Blessings are, I'm still thriving but for a couple broken backs. :)
1
Science continues to show how weight gain, as well as the inability to lose or keep off weight, is not the fault of fat people, who have bodies extremely prone to gain weight and then fight to regain any weight loss. This is true regardless of those who can keep off weight (or never gain it at all). Those fortunate people are simply lucky. They think they are just more disciplined and motivated than fat people, but that isn't the case, no matter how vigilant they may be at what they eat and how they exercise. If they had the biology of fat people they'd soon see it's an uphill battle where the hill soon turns into a series of mountains that cannot be scaled. Science will probably solve the obesity crisis in the decades to come. When that happens the stigma fat people face every day will start to lessen, but until then, too many will be content to blame and shame fat people. And when it comes to fatness, that's a very visible suffering to target. Try to remember that most fat people have tried many, many times to fight their own bodies and appetites, only to fail again and again. Some succeed but most do not.
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Are there any biologists out there who can give us an idea how these environmental triggers for gene expression and suppression might affect development were they to occur during ontogeny? And whether there's any chance such epigenetic effects might cross over into the germ line?
Hey what about the vesicles?
1
LOL -- now that's hilarious!
It seems inescapable that very slim is healthiest. If you want to maximize life span, it's best as a woman to weigh under 90 lbs, or a man 120. And Parisians show us that one can be svelte without undue agonies. Out my way in dairy country women over 30 tend to run 150- 190 lbs before being considered chubby. Men pretty much start at 200 and go up to 300. It's not obese. It's wjhat's called farming.
Yes, we moved from a major metropolitan area in Canada to a small farming community 3-4 hours away, that is predominantly dairy in origins about six years ago. Culture shock! And I can agree, it is the same here. I am not especially skinny ( still within quite healthy BMI) but am petite and have some trouble finding clothes my size here. Still make the 3 hr trip back to shop every few months.
90 pounds? At 5'11"? Slim may be healthy but your chosen weight ranges are ludicrous.
13
Parisians also smoke like chimneys too. Sure, it keeps them thin, but it's not exactly healthy.
1
It seems this study borders on the unethical. Especially, since they found some of the changes are not irreversible. How did they ever get ethic's approval? I hope the University has a good team of malpractice lawyers. Why would anyone be persuaded to participate in a study that's potentially life threatening. Shades of the Tallahassee syphilis experiment.
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This isn't big data. These are 23 individual data points. When you can do this to tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals then it might earn the title of "big data". The author of this article has swallowed a university press release hook line and sinker. Fancy measurements don't compensate for bad experimental design.
9
I think your perspective is flawed. It’s big data because there is a vast amount of data, even though it only comes from a few samples. The study has a lot of depth, though not much breadth. If we measured many many variables in the US stock exchange we would call that big data, even though it is only one exchange.
1
I am surprised you haven't actually read the study, given that you apparently misunderstand so much about the data.
A small sample size is a small sample size no matter how many measurements you make on those few samples.
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If you're looking for "junk science," folks, look no further than Susan's top rated comment.
A 70-year-old, 63-inch-tall female with a TDEE of 2,750 kcal? There are three possible explanations for this:
1) She's currently training for a marathon
2) She doesn't know how to count calories properly
3) She's lying
Of course one must admit that her two examples of "real science" are highly compelling: first, her own reporting of her personal diet, and second, "the defunct Magic Bus blog."
Even so, I might humbly suggest that you readers dig around on the web for peer-reviewed, NIH-funded studies on the subject of "is a calorie a calorie?" You'll find that what the real science *actually* says is that, even if there are metabolic differences between differently balanced diets of the same caloric value, those metabolic differences are fairly insignificant, amounting to tens, *maybe* a hundred or two kcal per day in extreme cases.
There is no way known to science that simply changing the composition of the diet could cause the ~1,000 kcal metabolic difference Susan appears to be claiming. Amazing what one finds in internet comments, even on outlets like the NYT.
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@rumplebuttskin:
Focus on calories ignores hunger and satiety. Changing composition of the diet affects on hunger/satiety, fat storage, and metabolic rate, independent of calories.
1
There sure are a lot of commenters who are experts on dietary metabolism. It’s not surprising though, considering the credibility of nutrition science, an oxymoron.
1
It's interesting, but as many others here have noted, simply counting calories has been proven an ineffective way to gain/lose weight, particularly by those for whom food is more or less an addictive substance.
Regardless, it's the idea that the body makes significant changes on a cellular level that I found intriguing.
I know that by losing weight, one can perform tasks and move more easily, but it goes further than that. I have lost 50 lb. over the last 10 months, by adhering to the current Weight Watchers program. I'm also using Warfarin, the blood thinner. An interesting effect seems to be that my blood is naturally getting slightly thicker, I can only figure because of the weight loss, as there haven't been any other significant changes in my life or behavior.
3
This is great, it proves that we still know nothing about humans body. I know that everyone is build differently, for example, me and my wife, we eat the same thing but I gain the weight. She rest more then I do, I don't get much sleep since I get up everyday to work. I tend to stay up late while she fall fast asleep way before me. in the end, I am the one gaining the weight while she retain her figures even if she eat badly. this article also mention that it take as long to loose the weight you gained. That's very true, since I've been trying to loose that 20 pounds I gained 5 years ago for about 3 years now. I don't think what you eat make that much of a different as long as you don't over eat. RESTING is also one of the main key to healthier lifestyle.
2
OK. Some of us are more prone to weight gain than others. Why is there not more research into finding ways to reduce appetite and to moderate our metabolisms? I have struggled with weight gain my entire life. Eating is something that one cannot avoid. Help us find real solutions instead of constantly doing studies that over and over have the same results!
6
Seriously, eat 99% whole foods with no meat or dairy. you will lose weight and feel 200 percent better! I lost 25 lbs in 6 months and still losing slowly. Love what I am eating, never feel hungry, never a craving, its AMAZING! i only wish i had the common sense to do this in my 20's- I'm almost 60 but better late than never, right??? Google "whole foods plant based" and check out the awesome young people on youtube who are dedicated to this lifestyle- they helped me tremendously. Oh yeah- stopped the statins when cholesterol was down 100 points!
@Its not Rocket Science:
Lots of people have good results on whole foods omnivorous diets, and lots of people fail to thrive on vegan diets, because humans in general are adapted to eat an omnivorous diet. For literally millions of years.
Cholesterol is a homeostasis. Too low is just as dangerous as too high. Cholesterol-lowering through _diet_ has been extensively tested for decades, and has never been demonstrated to prevent heart disease.
A lot of know-it-all, snarky comments here, and I'd wager that not a single one of the posters clicked the link to actually read even part of the study in question--it's right there, people. It's not even clear the posters have read the news article. Instead, everyone decides what *they* think they study is about, what *they* think the researchers did, and what conclusions *they* think were drawn. And in every instance I've read, they are incorrect. No wonder our country is in the sad shape it's in.
19
I wish this article said more about what happened when people lost weight. It seems to only address what happens when one gains weight.
1
Goody - more junk science. Any study that claims excess calories caused weight gain is fatally flawed, since real science has now disproved that theory six ways from Sunday. It's the caloric composition that matters, not the quantity. Had those participants eaten an extra 1000 calories a day of fat, they would have likely gained a fraction of the weight. Had they been metabolically healthy, they would likely have lost some. As did the two healthy young men did on the (now defunct) Magic Bus blog proved about a decade or so. They ate *2500* excess calories per day for 30 days. All fat. No exercise, journaling food and calories eaten daily. One weighed precisely the same on day 30 as day 1. The other lost a pound. Folks, it's the sugar and processed/fast food making the metabolic changes and causing diabetes and obesity. Period. I gave it all up 10 years ago, went from 245 to 128, am 5'3, and eat 2500-3000 calories daily. Oh, and I'm 70 next month.
49
"Junk science" is claiming that 2500 excess calories a day can simply disappear.
Conservation of energy is not "junk science." Energy can be transformed in countless ways, but it cannot be destroyed. There is a Nobel Prize in physics waiting for someone who can show otherwise - but it's going to take more evidence than a defunct blog to prove it.
I don't know why people insist that weight loss on a high fat diet is "proof" that an energy balance has no relationship to weight, when there are other reasonable explanations - high fat diets are more satiating, some people do not absorb fat as readily, etc - that don't require throwing out one of the most basic principles of modern science.
15
You didn't read the article. The study is not addressing the factors that cause weight gain but the changes in the body that occur with weight gain. And since the fact is that the majority of people in this country gain weight due to simply adding junk calories to their diets, without making other lifestyle changes, the results of this study will apply to them. More careful reading, and less preaching (and bragging about your own impeccable diet) might contribute something useful to this discussion.
12
I would read the paper. Their argument isn’t that eating more calories causes weight gain. Although it did in the people they followed. They are claiming to have identified biomolecular signatures of weight gain. These genes are candidates for further investigation. The scientific consensus right now is that genetically different people could eat the same exact thing and one be overweight and the other not. They believe there’s a genetic explanation for that and went searching for it. While I didn’t find this paper impressive, it’s not junk science... you just didn’t understand it.
8
How humorous that we need data to tell us anything about losing weight. The choice is clear: eat food with empty calories and you will gain weight, eat nutritious food and you will maintain your weight or lose weight. The trick is knowing how many calories to consume for optimum performance, while maintaining you body weight.
From a strictly personal point of view: I lost a great deal of weight recently, on purpose. I feel remarkably better. I have more energy and my joints don't hurt from the excess poundage. There isn't a mystery here. It is a choice.
I strongly suggest people stop looking for scapegoats and panaceas for their extra weight. There will never be a pill that will help with this, and if there is, it will never be healthy to take it. Stop buying frozen garbage with too much salt and sugar. Cook more. Educate yourself and stop being lazy. Problem solved. Take that, Big Data.
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Not sure how your admonishments are relevant. This was not an article about how to lose weight but about the biological changes that occur upon weight gain and loss.
9
@Pamela L
“Educate yourself” means that someone has to do research. Weight loss is not as simple as you claim. Your experience is just a single data point that doesn’t necessarily tell anything at all about another person. That’s why research is needed. Stop being so arrogant; do you think that you really know more than a Stanford U. faculty member?
8
Pamela L. is just another poster who knows what eating control she must exercise, but she is also another poster who simply does not know how to read research articles, as her mind is only preoccupied with her own personal obsessions.
This article seems to indicate that the focus of this study is on number of calories consumed, rather than the type and quality of calories. One has to wonder what the researchers might miss by not looking at type and quality of calories consumed.
20
But they were studying weight gain/loss and its effects on the body. Not nutrition.
6
Ok gain, let's go over this again, what stone age people knew. This report was actually swiped from them.
All other things being equal, less calories in, more weight loss.
You can help the process by vigorous cardio workouts, make it healthier by watching watch you cut out and tone the body with workouts but the bottom line is less calories in, more weight loss.
You can rationalize, intellectualize, finger point, scapegoat, axe grind but the formula is above.
If you really want to do it, you are gonna do it. If not you won't.
9
@Paul:
All other things are never equal. Calories in, calories out, and storage are variable and interdependent. Not only that, they are mediated by both the amount of calories _and the nutritional quality_ of the food.
You make "intellectualizing" sound like a bad thing. But I would just call it plain old "doing your homework", which led me to ignore calories, focus on limiting refined carbs, and focus on increasing naturally protein-rich foods. Worked like a charm for my health and weight, but of course YMMV.
typo on my post...Freudian slip...should be Ok guys, not Ok gain...
1
Unfortunately, the Authors of this research aren't up-dated, so that the referred data are fundamentalliy biased. Heart (CAD 90%) and T2DM Inherited Real Risks do really exist, conditio sine qua non of cardiac disorders, and DM onset (1-3). As a consequence, overweight can cause heart disease as well as T2DM, sometimes but not always, exclusively in individuals involved by Heart (CAD 90%) and/or T2DM Inherited Real Risk.
References on request.
1
I really doubt that most of us readers have any idea what your comment meant. Unless I'm just ignorant.
2
How does the article reconcile these two statements?
"Most of these modifications reverted to their previous normal state once the men and women lost the added weight."
"Even if you later drop those pounds, the shifts 'are not reset completely.'”
I guess it's the difference between most and all?
It also seems like it's an awfully small study to draw any generalizable conclusion.
Wasn't anybody interested in the fact that the average daily increase in calories should have led to a gain of 7.5 pounds instead of six? Unless the "month" of the study was 28 days (should still have been a 7-pound gain). This must mean that even in obese individuals, there is some speeding up of metabolism in response to the weight gain.
Lastly, was there any question that it may have been questionable to have obese patients eat more and gain weight for research? If they weren't already symptomatic of weight-related disease, mightn't this gain have been the tipping point? And isn't possible that it will be even harder for these subjects to now take off any weight after having returned to their original weight?
7
three years ago I lost 40 lbs and for the first time I have been able to keep it off. I went Vegan. I thought it would be difficult but not only is it easy the food tastes so much better.
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I wonder how the study passed ethical review. Wouldn't adding 880 calories a day to subjects already overweight and insulin resistant cause potential undesirable health impacts on subjects?
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They must have not been considered dangerously overweight, only mildly so. Otherwise you're right; it would be like asking someone who is already dangerously underweight to go on a diet.
The gym rat business, and fad diets are too big type industries, to come into question. Medical science is raking water up hill telling folks to eat vegetables , and fruit and walk 150 minutes a week. The later doesn't seem that complicated , of course void of genetics.
1
Ms. Reynolds, I get it.
Exercise good, being overweight bad.
We who are overweight should exercise more or efficiently or both, eat less and eat right, so we can live longer and healthier lives. The problem is that if it was all simply a matter of will power we'd all have svelte physiques and "normal" BMIs and the diet industry would be a $60 billion dollar (as of 2013) a year sector of our economy. As somebody who has struggled for 35 years with maintaining a consistent exercise regime and have tried countless times to loose weight. There is something profoundly biologicial regulating our weight, and it is not our morals or our ability to reason.
Exercise good, being overweight bad.
We who are overweight should exercise more or efficiently or both, eat less and eat right, so we can live longer and healthier lives. The problem is that if it was all simply a matter of will power we'd all have svelte physiques and "normal" BMIs and the diet industry would be a $60 billion dollar (as of 2013) a year sector of our economy. As somebody who has struggled for 35 years with maintaining a consistent exercise regime and have tried countless times to loose weight. There is something profoundly biologicial regulating our weight, and it is not our morals or our ability to reason.
29
"Addding weight" doesn't cause diabetes. Sugar causes metabolic syndrome: dyslipidemea, hypertension, NAFLD, cardiovascular disease, and insulin resistance, eventually progressing to diabetes. The jury's in on this one--Big Ag and Big Sugar have bribed scientists and misled the ADA telling us it's dietary fat, and "a calorie is a calorie." Not true: sugar is metabolized differently, and the incidence of metabolic disease tracks closely to per capita sugar intake.
33
Everything that you've written is incorrect. Sugar does not cause metabolic syndrome. Excess body fat is by far the largest contributor to Type II diabetes. A calorie IS a calorie. The reason that the incidence of metabolic disease tracks per capita sugar intake is that per capita sugar intake is highly correlated with the Standard American Diet. Which means: lots of energy-dense processed foods high in sugar AND fat; and inadequate intake of lower-calorie, high-fiber fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Sugar is not exactly good for health, but absent excess calories, its super powers fizzle.
1
@childofsol:
Still pushing that low fat, high carb diet. Good luck with your glycemic control. The accumulation of excess body fat happens in the context of a chronically high insulin environment. The loss of body fat happens in the context of a low insulin environment. A calorie is most definitely not a calorie from the perspective of the insulin system.
You've reached an absurd place where you think 1,000 calories of sugar is the same of 1,000 calories of fish or vegetables.
So much for reading comprehension.
Diabetes IS dead beta cells. Those cells get dead because of excessive demands for them to produce insulin, which is caused by eating glucose (carbs), producing excessive glucose loads and peaks.
Those same carbs cause obesity. Despite constant repetition, the obesity doesn’t cause the diabetes - two results, one cause.
Those same carbs cause obesity. Despite constant repetition, the obesity doesn’t cause the diabetes - two results, one cause.
11
Sorry. The best science indicates animal fat.
nope
1
Interesting that they started with subjects who were already overweight and/or insulin resistant.
When similar overfeeding studies have been performed on lean, insulin-sensitive people, the lean subjects responded with decreased appetite, increased metabolic rate, and quickly rebounded to their original weights after the overfeeding ended.
Supportive of the "set point hypothesis," although this doesn't explain how or why the "set point" can be changed...
33
Actually, these two studies together would only show that people who are already fat get fat and stay fat more easily than people who are already lean. However, studies like this that find thousands of correlations between specific biological processes, out of the millions of possible correlations, should be a big help in teasing out some of the mechanisms that produce or protect people from obesity.
Just to be clear, I'm not criticizing the set-point hypothesis. I just don't see how this particular research does that much to confirm or refute it.
Just to be clear, I'm not criticizing the set-point hypothesis. I just don't see how this particular research does that much to confirm or refute it.
6
I'm interested in learning more about these studies done in lean people. Could you provide a cite?
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1