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- 2 years (by reducing sitting to less than 3 hours a day)
- 1.4 years (by reducing TV time to less than 2 hours a day)
- Stand while talking on the phone or eating lunch
- Try a standing desk — or improvise with a high table or counter
- Walk laps with your colleagues rather than gathering in a conference room
- Position your work surface above a treadmill
- Walk or bike to work
- Use a “fitness ball” in place of a chair
- Keep small weights or giant rubber bands in your desk for quick exercise breaks
- Hold a meeting while walking, inside or outside
- When traveling on business, choose a hotel with a workout room
- Park your car farther away… Use stairs, not elevators; take a long route
- While computing, set a timer to remind you to stand up and stretch every half hour
- Don’t send emails if the recipient is near; walk over and talk to him or her
- Avoid long sitting commutes by standing on the bus, subway or train
- When watching TV, lose the remote; get up to change the channels
- Stand or exercise while you watch TV
- During intense gaming, stand up in between sessions and screen loads
The Nine-Letter Dirty Word of Obesity (concluded)
May 24th, 2013
A lot of dirty words have only four letters, but this one has nine, and Childhood Obesity News has been looking at why so many medical professionals think “sedentary” is a dangerous word that signifies frightening futures. For instance, Gretchen Reynolds reported for The New York Times how:
[...] researchers determined that watching an hour of television can snip 22 minutes from someone’s life. If an average man watched no TV in his adult life, the authors concluded, his life span might be 1.8 years longer, and a TV-less woman might live for a year and half longer than otherwise.
Writing for the Mayo Clinic, Jennifer Nelson and Katherine Zeratsky also give longevity estimates based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys:
If Americans would cut their sitting time in half, their life expectancy would increase by roughly:
Length of life is not the only issue. Quality of life is hugely important. Quality of life is very much diminished when the persistently sedentary patient develops hypertension, elevated blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol levels, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, breast cancer, or colon cancer.
Persuasive connective lines have been drawn between all these conditions and too much sitting. Moreover, cardiovascular disease experienced by the overly sedentary appears to be unassociated with known risk factors like smoking.
No doubt, all the diseases people can get from sitting too much can eventually contribute to obesity. The worse a person feels, the less inclined she or he is to do active things, leading to the occurrence of one of the vicious cycles to which humans are so prone. Sitting is the villain here. The sedentary life is the unhealthy life.
On the other hand…
On the positive side, research has found plenty of benefits to moving around. Frequent physical activity, even if mild, seems to increase insulin sensitivity, which is good. And hormonal imbalances seem to be affected for the better. Inflammation is not so severe. Body fat is reduced.
A University of Massachusetts study showed that volunteers who stood up all day used up a lot more energy and “burned hundreds more calories,” than when they sat for the same period of time. This was just standing, not jogging or even walking. Dr. James A. Levine of the Mayo Clinic says:
[...] [T]he muscle activity needed for standing and other movement seems to trigger important processes related to the breakdown of fats and sugars within the body.
Being a helpful person can create benefits for the self. A reader relates her experience working in the office of a large church:
I don’t just give directions, but accompany visitors to the part of the building they need. If a tape dispenser is missing from one of the desks, I go and look for it. If someone returns a pair of crutches loaned by the church’s medical equipment center, I volunteer to go put them away. I check the mailbox at the main entrance, sometimes knowing the mail hasn’t been delivered yet. Any excuse to get up and move.
From the pros
For daily life, Dr. Levine and his colleagues makes these suggestions (condensed here):
A website called JustStand.org suggests, not surprisingly, more ways to stay upright and/or mobile:
The Washington Post not only makes suggestions, but offers a series of 12 brief animated videos, just to show how to do exercises that might reasonably be adapted into the work environment. The movements were developed by:
Toni Yancey, professor of health services at UCLA… Alice Burron, exercise physiologist… Catrine Tudor-Locke, who studies walking behavior… [E]xperts whose jobs involve studying motion, preventing obesity and generally getting people off their duffs.
Even if it can’t be directly proven that any of these suggestions will prevent the gain of pounds, none of them can hurt.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Don’t Just Sit There,” The New York Times, 04/28/12
Source: “Do you have ‘sitting disease’?,” MayoClinic.com, 07/25/12
Source: “What are the risks of sitting too much?,” MayoClinic.com, 06/16/12
Source: “Workplace exercises: How to burn calories at work,” MayoClinic.com, 09/24/11
Source: “The Facts,” JustStand.org
Source: “A workout at work?,” The Washington Post, undated
Image by William Murphy.
The Nine-Letter Dirty Word of Obesity (continued)
May 23rd, 2013
Yesterday, Childhood Obesity News mentioned the decreased life expectancy of TV addicts, office workers, and other sedentary people. “Sedentary” is, of course, the dirty nine-letter word referred to in our title, and the habit or necessity of long-term sitting turns out to be an insidious hidden killer. The effects of immobility can be grim.
Gretchen Reynolds reported for The New York Times on a study with nearly 250,000 participants. That’s almost a quarter of a million. These subjects were questioned, measured, and tested over an eight-year period by the National Cancer Institute. The information collected concerned their time spent sitting at a computer or watching TV or commuting, and their exercise habits, and their health in general. Reynolds says:
At the start of the study, none suffered from heart disease, cancer or diabetes. But after eight years, many were ill and quite a few had died. The sick and deceased were also in most cases sedentary.
In other words, with such a large sample, science feels pretty comfortable about connecting the dots between a sedentary lifestyle and serious illness, leading often to an early grave. The gentleman in the photo on this page might very well be suffering from the effects of too much sitting still, over the years. Now he is under doctor’s orders to exercise as best he can, in a wheelchair, with the pedal machine. He has an excuse for watching TV. But given the choice, the likelihood is high that he would rather be up and walking around.
A healthier world
If all televisions had treadmills in front of them, the world would be a better place. What if each person made a rule for herself or himself, to never watch a TV show or a movie unless doing some exercise at the same time? While this practice would not single-handedly solve the obesity epidemic, there would no doubt be a massive overall improvement in health.
For office workers, expected to sit at desks, staying in motion might be more challenging. A treadmill desk might cause more typos, and audible breathing could cause the person on the other end of a phone call to wonder what on earth is going on.
The Mayo Clinic’s Dr. James Levine once consulted with a company that manufactures treadmill desks (from which he receives no profit). While 60,000 of those have gone out into the world, of course, for many work environments, the notion is just too extreme. But maybe they should get with the program. It is Dr. Levine’s belief that “even regular and zealous gym workouts can’t undo the damage” done by long periods of daily sitting.
Australian study
Gretchen Reynolds also wrote about a study from Melbourne’s Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute. On different days, volunteers followed prescribed regimes, which included sitting still for seven hours; or getting up every 20 minutes for a two-minute walk (not run) on a treadmill; or “jogging gently” during comparable break times.
Remaining sedentary for seven hours in a row proves to be a stress on the body. The blood sugar levels go up and the insulin levels are not what they should be. The good news is, those two-minute mild exercise breaks are enough to keep blood sugar levels stable. Interestingly, the Australian study showed that jogging doesn’t improve blood sugar equanimity any more than walking.
Indeed, this observation about the usefulness of merely being upright is reinforced by results from a University of Massachusetts study showing, Reynolds says:
… [W]hen volunteers stood all day — nothing else; no walking or jogging; just standing — they burned hundreds more calories than when they sat for the same period of time.
(To be continued…)
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Don’t Just Sit There,” The New York Times, 04/28/12
Source: “Obesity expert says daily workouts can’t undo damage done from sitting all day,” NBCNews.com, 01/09/13
Image by NCVO London.
The Nine-Letter Dirty Word of Obesity
May 22nd, 2013
Though it has more than four letters, “sedentary” is a dirty word in the anti-obesity business. Sure, workers who have to stand up all day suffer from discomfort and physical consequences. But according to an ever-increasing number of authorities, sitting down all day is literally killing office workers and anyone else whose job involves prolonged contact with a chair.
Journalist Mary Murphy puts it this way:
The body’s metabolic engines go to sleep. The muscles stop moving all together and the heart slows. Then, the body’s calorie-burning rate plummets to about one calorie per minute — a third of what it would be if you were walking. Insulin effectiveness drops and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. Fat and cholesterol levels rise too.
Apparently, the effects of immobilization are even worse and more widespread than anyone suspected. For The New York Times, Gretchen Reynolds describes lab animal experiments in which:
[...] casts have been placed on their back legs, after which the animals rapidly developed noxious cellular changes throughout their bodies, and not merely in the immobilized muscles. In particular, they produced substantially less of an enzyme that dissolves fat in the bloodstream. As a result, in animals and humans, fat can accumulate and migrate to the heart or liver, potentially leading to cardiac disease and diabetes.
Disuse
It has long been known that a broken leg healing in a cast becomes weak and flaccid. Injured athletes even do visualization meditations, mentally imagining that they are performing all their usual activities with intact extremities. In theory, the brain is somehow able to trick muscles into the perception of activity. Or maybe the practice keeps the communication pathways open.
At any rate, some swear that it works. But even if this method were 100% valid, it would be of little use to office workers, who not only sit immobile, but supposedly use their brains for their employers’ business, rather than imagining vigorous exercise.
After a fracture and/or surgery, even after the bone has knit, rehabilitation of a broken leg can take longer than the patient would have believed, prior to the injury. One reason is that a lot more is going on than anyone previously realized. A detailed picture comes from the University of Massachusetts, where researchers invented an experiment to simulate the effects of total non-use of a healthy leg, when compared to the corresponding limb on the other side. Reynolds describes it:
… [A] group of healthy young men donned a clunky platform shoe with a 4-inch heel on their right foot, leaving the left leg to dangle above the ground. For two days, the men hopped about using crutches (and presumably gained some respect for those people who regularly toddle about in platform heels). Each man’s left leg never touched the ground. Its muscles didn’t contract. It was fully sedentary.
Now, see what happened after not two months, not two weeks, but a mere two days. When the active muscles and the “sedentary” muscles were biopsied and compared, the legs that had started on the way to atrophy did not make a good showing. The genes were all messed up, being “expressed differently,” with evidence that the DNA repair mechanisms were out of order.
After only 48 hours of inactivity, the metabolism of each individual cell had slowed down, with increased oxidative stress and decreased insulin response. On a smaller scale, this is what happens to us when we sit around all day, whether laboring at a desk or driving or sitting in a subway car or watching TV.
Speaking of TV…
Reynolds also mentions another study that shows premature death resulting from the watching of seven or more hours of television out of each 24. One might think, “My daily TV watching is counteracted by all the hard work I do,” but one would be mistaken. She writes:
Exercise only slightly lessened the health risks of sitting. People in the study who exercised for seven hours or more a week but spent at least seven hours a day in front of the television were more likely to die prematurely than the small group who worked out seven hours a week and watched less than an hour of TV a day.
(To be continued…)
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Obesity expert says daily workouts can’t undo damage done from sitting all day,” NBCNews.com, 01/09/13
Source: “Don’t Just Sit There,” The New York Times, 04/28/12
Image by Joe Hoover.
Public Perceptions of Obesity
May 21st, 2013
“How I Got Back at the Strangers Who Mock Me for Being Fat” is the title of an account by Haley Morris-Cafiero, assistant professor of fine arts and photography at the Memphis College of Art. She takes her students on field trips with an unusual purpose. For instance, in a popular tourist area amongst the artistic and architectural marvels of Barcelona, she once noticed two young men:
I could see them in the reflection of a mirrored building, making gestures with their hands to suggest how much bigger I was than the thin girl standing next to me, her small waist accentuated by her crop top and cut-off shorts. They painted her figure in the air like an hourglass. Then they painted my shape like the convex curves of a ball. The guys were saying something, too, but there was only one word I could make out: Gorda. Fat woman.
Scenarios like this have become fodder for a combined social experiment and artistic project, a series of images called “Wait Watchers.” A literal-minded commentator who obviously doesn’t understand word play tried to correct the teacher — “Don’t you mean Weight Watchers?” No, Morris-Cafiero does not mean that. The whole point is to cruise public places and wait for someone to react unfavorably to her appearance.
To provoke the desired gaze of disapproval, she might throw in a little extra stage business, like savoring ice cream at an intersection, until a passerby looks at her. Then an assistant takes their picture. And this constitutes her revenge upon a fat-shaming world. Indeed, the performance pieces have occurred not only in Spain and Tennessee, but in Chicago, New York, and Peru. The artist explains why:
I was interested in capturing something I already knew firsthand: If the large women in historical art pieces were walking around today, they would be scorned and ridiculed… I’m up against quite a few stereotypes as an overweight blond female artist. I’m constantly fighting strangers’ criticisms that I am lazy and slow-witted, or that I am an overly emotional slob.
The more academically-phrased version of the impetus behind this quest is found in the artist’s faculty biography:
Haley Morris Cafiero is a photographer and sculptor who creates images and objects that reflect the lack of control she feels about her body and her surroundings. Sometimes the work deals with the reactions of people and objects to her inability to control the size of her external body. Other times, her art is inspired by the possibilities of disease silently eating away her internal body.
Trouble started when Morris-Cafiero graduated high school, and regular games of soccer were no longer part of her life, and her clothing size increased rapidly from 7 to 14. There was a medical problem too:
Eventually, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Though I did go through phases of food restriction and over-exercise, I came to realize that I shouldn’t punish myself for something I can’t control. Self-criticism is a waste of time. I look worse with tons of make up and products in my hair. I am happy when I am not stressed — so I don’t stress.
This is the crux of the criticism her project has garnered. The consensus seems to be that anyone who goes around looking grouchy, dressed inappropriately, eating ostentatiously, and with a student aiming a camera at her, is bound to attract glances. Doubters who have examined the photos closely believe that in many scenes, the subjects are not even looking at Ms. Morris-Cafiero. Even other obese women do not always extend sympathy, and advise her to get over herself.
Several commentators have rejected the hypothyroidism explanation. “Marie” writes that when she began to be treated for the condition some years ago, she expected that the medication would help her weight melt away. But no, it’s not that easy, says Marie:
From my own experience, I cannot use the synthetic drug they automatically prescribe (Synthroid) and have had to use a milk-based med (Levoxyl). But I ask for a broad spectrum blood analysis every checkup to ensure what I am taking is working… [A] patient must ask for a TSH test WITH a T3 and T4, as well… For women who don’t research this condition, they won’t know to ask for this and they will be under-diagnosed and under-treated.
One complainer says it’s illegal and improper to capture and publish strangers’ images without their permission. A dissenter points out that in public places, there is no expectation of privacy, and besides, the camera is out in the open. An online commentator who goes by “madihwa” adds some attitude:
Why not? They insult her without her permission. Do you think it’s fun to be insulted and laughed at? I guarantee you it’s not… One time a girl and her father made disparaging comments behind my back about me. My son has extremely acute hearing and he overheard their remarks. He gave them HELL!!! I’ll bet they never did that again..
On online critic known as “Booze and nonsense” adds:
Unfortunately we live in a world where people are prejudiced. That doesn’t give you the right to shame them. How are you any better than the people making fun of you? This is a terrible exercise in ‘getting back’. No excuses.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “How I Got Back at the Strangers Who Mock Me for Being Fat,” Alternet.org, 05/15/13
Source: “Haley Morris-Cafiero,” mca.edu
Image by Frederique Panassac.
A New Weight-Loss Drug
May 20th, 2013
Almost a year ago, a concoction known as Belviq received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the first prescription diet drug to have done so in the previous 13 years.
Alice Park wrote “Belviq: 5 Things You Need to Know About the New Weight-Loss Pill.” One of those facts is that the drug is supposed to only be prescribed to a patient who is both overweight/obese, and suffers from at least one adverse health condition resulting from the weight. But if recent trends are any indication, it will, like so many other pharmaceuticals, be used for all kinds of “off-label” purposes. Park writes:
The drug works by controlling appetite — specifically by activating brain receptors for serotonin, a neurotransmitter that triggers feelings of satiety and satisfaction. Serotonin is also involved in mood; many antidepressant drugs work by preventing the reuptake of serotonin and keeping brain receptors bathed in the chemical. Researchers at Arena say their drug is designed to seek out only the serotonin receptors that affect appetite.
The admitted side effect for diabetic patients are “low blood sugar, headache, back pain, cough and fatigue.” Non-diabetic patients might experience “headache, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, dry mouth and constipation.” In lab animals, there are rumors of tumors, and apparently a very similar drug (withdrawn from the market) has caused heart-valve defects in humans.
The government ordered the makers of Belviq to conduct six studies, once the drug is on the market, to explore whether this heart valve problem is real. Anyone who starts taking it might have the exciting opportunity to be a subject in one of these studies!
This product of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (also known as ARNA) will hit the pharmacy shelves next month, at which time its partner, an entity known as Eisai, is contractually obligated to hand over a “milestone payment” of $65 million. Interestingly, the European Union is not on board with Belviq. The company withdrew its application for refiling at a later time.
The plot thickens
Also, and here is where the drama begins, another weight-loss drug has also been newly approved in the United States, and yet another is in the late stages of development. The website Seeking Alpha is a production of Enhydris Private Equity, Inc., a company that services people who want to buy into the high-tech future but don’t know exactly where to invest their funds. In the course of educating its potential and existing clients, the site is capable of displaying some hard-nosed and cynical attitude. Should investors buy weight-loss pill stock? At first glance it seems like a no-brainer. After all, there are a lot of fat people out there.
Noting that a monthly supply of Belviq will cost the end user somewhere in the $220-$250 range, the columnist then seems rather doubtful about its success. Insurance companies have not been lining volunteering to pay for anti-obesity medications, and prospects don’t look good for Obamacare to remedy this situation. So, people will be opening their own wallets.
Women who need such a drug the most are the least able to afford it. With men, the statistics are more evenly spread out, because “males tend to be fat irrespective of their incomes.” Adding them together, it might be a potential customer pool of 30 million Americans. However, another factor needs to be considered — efficacy and administration. According to the instructions, the medication should be discontinued if the patient has not achieved a 5% weight loss after three months. And less than half the people who try it make that goal.
So, buy stock or not?
There are wheels within wheels, and by the time the writer has brought in more numbers to conjure with, it looks like there are really only about 6.9 potential regular users, which might amount to 80,000 prescriptions in the first year. But… a competitive product will take part of the market share. Therefore, realistically speaking, the analyst figures more like 40,000 to 60,000 prescriptions in the first year. More number-crunching, and the expected initial sales might be about 10,000 prescriptions, or maybe approximately $2.5 million.
But it will pick up after that. Here is a sample of the cold jargon of the finance industry, describing something that affects the health and well-being of millions of people:
If we apply a sector average multiple of 17, I thus believe ARNA shares are due for a 22% correction to the downside from current levels, once the first sales numbers hit the street. And that is based on fundamentals alone. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a much larger drop based on sheer overreaction. That said, I do believe ARNA would then become a strong buy after the first quarter sales hit the street, and the subsequent correction to the downside.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Belviq: 5 Things You Need to Know About the New Weight-Loss Pill,” TIME.com, 06/28/13
Source: “ARNA Sheds Light on Belviq Launch,” Zacks.com, 05/09/13
Source: “Belviq’s Sales Will Disappoint: Demographics Matter,” SeekingAlpha.com, 05/10/13
Image by Cea. (Playing Futures — Applied Nomadology).
Brains, Botox, and Childhood Obesity
May 17th, 2013
Last time, Childhood Obesity News considered deep brain stimulation, or DBS. Now, we revisit the brain to look at other research where mice took center stage, concerning a change on the cellular level that “accompanies obesity.” ScienceDaily says:
The findings could explain the body’s tendency to maintain undesirable weight levels, rather than an ideal weight…
One head of the research team is Ken Mackie, who teaches psychology and brain sciences at IU Bloomington. He is also affiliated with the university’s Gill Center for Biomolecular Science, which has long collaborated with Italy’s Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry, academic home of the other leader, Vincenzo Di Marzo.
The hypothalamus is where the molecular drama takes place, involving neurons and a switch and a “massive shift of receptors.” The writer says:
This neurochemical system is involved in a variety of physiological processes, including appetite, pain, mood, stress responses and memory. Food consumption is controlled in part by the hypothalamus, a portion of the brain that regulates many essential behaviors. Like other important body systems, food consumption is regulated by multiple neurochemical systems, including the endocannabinoid system…
Leptin also enters the equation, contributing to the tendency of the molecular switch to go wonky. Various chemical events upset the delicate balance of this complicated network, which then makes our stubborn, traitorous meat vehicles want to be fat. The research has identified a mechanism that causes this to happen and hopefully will show where pharmaceutical intervention could potentially do some good.
Bad Tenants
Methanobrevibacter smithii (familiarly called M. smithii) live inside us, and they are up to no good. They consume hydrogen, which they get from more genteel and helpful gut bacteria. The M. smithii organisms, ingrates that they are, repay the favor by producing methane gas, which seems to somehow make us fatter. Maybe by slowing down the travel time through the intestines, giving the opportunity for more nutrients (soon to be calories) to be leached out of it, which leads eventually to overweight.
Scientists believe that a breath test can predict future obesity. Maggie Fox of NBC News says:
Researchers are trying to figure out if it’s possible to kill off the guilty germ and help people lose weight. But they know better than to just kill gut bacteria willy-nilly — studies have shown that taking antibiotics can alter the balance of microbes in a bad way, causing stomach upset, allowing deadly infections such as C. difficile to take hold and, perhaps, even allowing a takeover by the obesity-generating germs.
False Path
Here from LiveScience.com is the lowdown a certain substance:
Botox, short for Botulinum toxin, is a neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Though it is one of the most poisonous substances in the world, specialists use it in very small amounts… [P]erhaps its most popular use is cosmetic: Botox can smooth out facial wrinkles by paralyzing the muscles that cause them to form.
At some time in the recent past, a study was performed that seemed to show that gastric Botox injections could facilitate weight loss by making the stomach muscles relax, so they wouldn’t squeeze as hard. Food stays there longer and, if all goes as planned, the patient feels full. This wouldn’t make much difference to the absorption of nutrients, because most of that action takes place in the small intestine.
The same stuff that plastic surgeons squirt into people’s facial frown lines, gastroenterologists now stick tubes down people’s gullets to give them shots of in the stomach. The subjects of early research felt increased sensations of fullness, because the Botox would delay the speed of the stomach emptying. There seems to be a flaw in that reasoning, because compulsive eaters will eat far beyond the feeling of repletion and well into the discomfort zone. They don’t care. What’s a little pain in the midsection, when you’re feeding your face?
Anyway, the Botox thing, forget about it. Newer research from the Mayo Clinic has refuted it. ScienceBlog.com says:
This study invalidates those findings because it is larger, used ultrasound to ensure injections were properly placed, and limited bias by ensuring that neither physicians nor patients knew who received Botox and who received placebo injections.
So, while Botox does delay the exit of partly broken-down food from the stomach, it doesn’t lead to weight loss. The admittedly inevitable risks, other than a mild sore throat from the esophageal tube, seem to remain largely unspecified.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Key Shift in Brain That Creates Drive to Overeat Identified,” ScienceDaily, 04/29/13
Source: “Breath test might show it’s not your fault you’re fat,” NBCNews.com, 03/26/13
Source: “Stomach Botox Injections Don’t Help Weight Loss,” LiveScience, 01/28/13
Source: “Injecting botox into stomach does not promote weight loss,” ScienceBlog.com, 01/29/13
Image by fekaylius (Jason Wilson).
Childhood Obesity and Happy Mice
May 16th, 2013
This year has already produced some interesting news relating to childhood obesity, with a lot of help from little rodents.
Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS, for instance, involves inserting a devices into the brains of a mouse. Its home is stocked with low-calorie kibble 24/7, but high-fat food is made available for one hour per day. The mouse quickly catches on, and proceeds to pig out on the high-fat food before it can be taken away. “Get it while you can,” is the watchword.
But then… turn on the DBS and send some electrical impulses into the mouse’s nucleus accumbens, and equanimity is restored. The brain’s reward center feels like it has done something just as satisfying as an eating binge, and the critter remains uninterested by the opportunity to gorge itself. Next, turn the device off, and voila! The mouse reverts to its former self, lining up at the feeding trough when the daily offering of high-fat lunch appears.
Denise Chow wrote for The Huffington Post:
Since binge eating and other obesity-related behaviors have been linked to deficits of a chemical called dopamine, the researchers used deep brain stimulation to activate the dopamine type-2 receptor in the nucleus accumbens of mice.
One of this study’s senior authors is Tracy Bale, who teaches neuroscience to future veterinarians at the University of Pennsylvania, and the journalist quotes her, especially on the subject of the comparative safety of a neural implant, compared to bariatric surgery or even pharmaceuticals:
The things that drive people to overeat are part of the reward system. So, for example, if someone is under a lot of stress, or if they had a bad day, they might reward themselves with food. And bingeing is a component strongly linked with obesity… It sounds intimidating, but for this type of surgery, the morbidity rate is much less.
And this could be something for patients who don’t respond to drugs. Many drug companies are trying to target obesity by getting people to not feel hungry, but that doesn’t work. People aren’t overeating because they’re hungry. They’re eating because it tastes good, or makes them feel better. This treatment taps directly into that reward system.
This sounds awfully familiar, and not in a good way. In a creepy way. The original experiments on the pleasure centers of lab rats date from back in the 1950s, and speculative fiction writers glommed onto the idea. The “wirehead” became a character in the works of many different novelists. Like the rats, once supplied with the ability to stimulate their own brains’ pleasure centers, these fictional wireheads became addicts who would pretty much stimulate themselves to death via starvation and poor hygiene.
In Larry Niven’s imagined universe, the electronic brain implant is called a “droud,” and his character Louis Wu is the only human to have recovered from bondage to the droud. At least four other science fiction writers have included wireheading in their stories, but William S. Burroughs, in the 1959 novel Naked Lunch, may have been the first.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Brain & Obesity: Neural Implant Could Curb Overeating, Mouse Study Suggests,” The Huffington Post, 04/26/13
Image by Ramona Forcella.
Fat and Famous
May 15th, 2013
New Jersey governor Chris Christie had “lap-band” surgery three months ago, and has since lost 40 pounds. He didn’t really intend to make headlines over this particular topic, but some pesky reporter called and said they had the story, and wouldn’t he like the opportunity to tell his side? Incredibly, this personal health choice ended up being the subject of a 40-minute press conference which the governor, to his credit, called ridiculous and silly.
Christie told the press he had tried “a whole bunch of other things” and also that the decision to have the surgery was more of a health and family issue than a political one. Maybe so, but it might be the most important political decision he ever made, because he wants to run for President next time around, and one of the things that has been stalling his political career, according to some advisers, is that he has been overweight his whole adult life.
Apparently the governor’s personality is not the most dulcet, and political enemies have taken advantage of that, plus his bulk, to characterize him as “throwing his weight around.” But he (or one of his image consultants) does have a sense of humor. Kate Zernike and Marc Santora reported for The New York Times:
In February, about a week before the surgery, Mr. Christie made light of the issue by munching on a doughnut in an appearance on the ‘Late Show With David Letterman.’
Going for the Homer Simpson fan demographic? Indeed, some supporters seem to regard the governor’s heft as part of his “brand,” making him “relatable,” and lending the “Everyman appeal.” A couple of days after the Christie press conference, Michelle Obama was a guest on the “Today” show. Like the classy First Lady she is, the leader of the Let’s Move! campaign declined to say more than that the governor’s surgery was a very personal matter, and proceeded to take the opportunity to make her own point:
We want to start working with kids when they’re young, so that they don’t have these challenges when they get older.
The NYT journalistic team also wrote:
The political pressures are real in a country that has not elected an obese president since William Howard Taft more than a century ago. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas lost more than a hundred pounds before seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi told reporters interested in whether he would seek the 2012 Republican nomination to watch his waistline for clues.
Christie’s detractors are not the first to turn a politician’s weight problems against him. History is replete with rulers who were mocked, or maybe even despised and reviled for their fatness. King August III, known as Otyly, “the overweight one,” ruled Poland back in the 1700s and is mainly remembered for importing French chefs who made better doughnuts than the traditional Polish item. Described by historian Simon Winder as “pitiful” and “a helpless and catastrophic figure,” he nevertheless fathered 15 children while driving his country into ruin.
Louis XIV of France was called the Sun King, or Roi Soleil. Later on, Louis XVIII (pictured above) came along and was called, in mean-spirited rhyme, Roi Foteille. It means Armchair King, derived from the fact that because of his amazing girth and the gout he suffered from, servants carried or wheeled him around in a chair.
The Mongol leader Subedei, known as Genghis Khan’s Dog of War, was the only invader who ever conquered Russia. No horse could support his huge weight, and he had to be hauled to a position overlooking the battlefield in an iron chariot.
A ruler with a similar inability to ride a horse was Sancho I, king of Leon (part of Spain) back in the 900s. He couldn’t even draw his sword properly, because his flab got in the way. The nobles believed his obesity to be a sign of moral turpitude, and kicked him off the throne. But then… Here is how Tamim Ansary describes the situation, in his book Destiny Disrupted:
Sancho then heard about a Jewish physician named who reputedly knew how to cure obesity. Hisdai was employed by the Muslim ruler in Cordoba, so Sancho headed south [...] to seek treatments… Abdul Rahman the Third welcomed Sancho as an honored guest and had him stay at the royal palace until Hisdai had shrunk him down, whereupon Sancho returned to Leon, reclaimed his throne, and signed a treaty of friendship with Abdul Rahman.
Olaf II of Norway was known as “The Stout” or “The Fat,” but he later became an official saint according to the Catholic Church. So take that, skinny people.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Weight Led Governor to Surgery,” The New York Times, 05/07/13
Source: “First Lady: Christie’s struggle with weight,” NJ.com, 05/09/13
Image by Wikimedia.org.
Burger Addiction: Why Consumers Eat
May 14th, 2013
Burger Addiction is a new restaurant chain starting up in Australia. Some highlights from online reviews: A woman who went on opening day waited half an hour, from order to first bite, and was disappointed by the meal. The burgers come with all sorts of trimmings, among them garlic aioli, kim chi, cucumber, pulled pork, blue cheese, caramelized onion, tomato, greens, and whiskey barbecue sauce. Despite the exotic ingredients and combinations, customers have found some flavors indistinguishable or insipid, and other flavors unpleasantly overpowering.
The best thing one person could find to say was that Burger Addiction burgers are not as greasy as McDonald’s. But then, another review, which references grease dripping from the wrapper, kind of cancels out that one. And there seems to be a general feeling that the product is a bit pricey for food-court fare.
But it’s the name that really wins a place in the annals of infamy. As Dr. Pretlow says, “The food industry obviously understands why consumers eat.” The definition of addiction seems still to be largely a matter of semantics, and the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn’t shed much light. Binge eating disorder is now recognized as a clinical entity, and the criteria for mild substance abuse disorder now require two or three symptoms instead of one. But more on that another time.
Whether it’s called compulsive eating, or a type of body-focused repetitive behavior that just happens to involve moving a handful of food to the mouth many more times than is necessary, or whether you go with the easily understandable tag of food addiction, something very real is going on. Let’s just throw in a quotation from Dr. Douglas Hunt, author of the 1988 book No More Cravings:
One cannot deny the pleasurable sensations that one receives when indulging, but this is the benefit, not the cause, of overeating.
In other words, the root of food addiction is in the person, and the hyperpalatable concoctions invented by food companies are standing by, ready and willing to aid and abet the tendency. It’s not new, of course. For just one little example, here’s a Pinterest page that combines burger addiction (not the restaurant, the plain old English phrase) and food porn!
Exactly how addictive are burgers, anyway? Can beef patties really be a substance of abuse? Decades ago, Dr. Hunt linked food allergies with food cravings, and cravings are indicative of addiction. Beef, he said, is something that people are commonly allergic to. People are often both allergic to, and hooked on, the same foods. For some reason, many anecdotal accounts name beef jerky as particularly and literally addictive.
George Pamplona-Roger, in Foods That Heal, writes:
The stimulant hypoxanthine, not any special properties of its protein, vitamins, or minerals is responsible for the satisfying and stimulating effects of meat… Hypoxanthine and other similar substances [...] are present in meat… They are central nervous system stimulants. They are addictive. Hypoxanthine explains the stimulating effect of meat and it’s capacity to create a certain level of addiction, which manifests itself when meat is given up abruptly.
Here is an interesting testimonial from the website MeatJunkie.com, from a man whose doctor laughed at him:
My name is Tyler Cole, and I’m a recovering meat addict… [M]y own first attempt at quitting wrecked me… Again and again I tried to quit, but for several years breakfast meats in particular continued to get the best of me. Finally in early 1999 I kicked the habit for good, and just this past year I realized that my repeated failures were nothing more than the agony of withdrawal followed by the joy of relapse. And upon recognizing this classic cycle of addiction, I finally knew something for certain. Meat can be just as addictive as any other drug.
Health journalist Robert Rister has advised readers to “Kick Your Meat Addiction“:
The proteins in beef blood [...] activate the same receptors in the brain and spinal cord that respond to oxycodone, hydroxycodone, opium, and heroin. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers [...] are literally addictive… The way these foods trap our appetites is through their action on specialized sites known as mu-opioid receptors on cells in part of the spinal cord known as the substantia gelatinosa of Rolando… This part of the spinal cord transmits poorly localized, vague aches and pains. When these cells are activated, we feel bad, but we don’t know why… The rush of happiness we feel after we eat is so strong that our brains start looking for more of the meat (more specifically, beef blood)…
And one more, from troubled citizen Steve Heilig:
I am a meat addict. [...] Our ancestors were able to eat more animals 80,000 years ago, and the increased protein allowed our brains to grow bigger. With that meat, we also got heavy hits of amino acids like l-tyrosine, needed to synthesize dopamine — the neurotransmitter that controls our brain’s reward and pleasure functions. Addiction experts say it’s all about dopamine. And meat is one way to get that rush.
Burger Addiction offers “grain-fed cattle” as a selling point. We won’t go into the whys and wherefores of the grain-fed versus grass-fed debate here, but rest assured, plenty of researchers stand prepared to give multiple reasons why stuffing beef cattle with grain is a bad idea. While “grass-fed cattle” would be an attractive and meaningful selling point for many people, “grain-fed cattle” is a big yawn.
Burger Addiction’s corporate logo depicts what appears to be a burger, consuming a stylized heart. Huh? The reasons behind that artistic choice shall remain forever obscure, but might be worth giving some thought.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Foods That Heal,” Google.com
Source: “What is Meat Addiction?,” Meat Junkie.com
Source: “Kick Your Meat Addiction,” SteadyHealth.com, 08/17/11
Source: “Confessions of a Meat Addict,” The Huffington Post, 05/08/12
Image by Stephen Allison, M.D.
Food Porn and Fat Porn
May 13th, 2013
Did you know that YouTube offers over 12,000 items under the heading of “Food Porn”? It comes right through the computer screen, and a person can stare at food porn all day long without being ostracized by the community. The consumption of food porn has probably never been the grounds for a single divorce. It is not sent to the traditional mailbox in a plain brown wrapper, to frustrate the curiosity of neighbors and the postman, as was the custom in the days of relatively innocuous girlie magazines.
A couple of years ago, encouraged by the success of a campaign to require that tobacco products be sold in plain, rather than colorful, packaging, a group of Australian activists suggested doing the same with junk food. Generic packaging, they believe, should be more widely employed, along with yucky pictures of the end results of overindulgence in the product.
The Adam Smith Research Trust issued a report about all of this, noting that:
The most obvious targets would be alcohol, fatty foods and sugary drinks…
Imagine grabbing a can of cola, bringing its condensation-rimmed brim up to your mouth, and catching sight of the graphic on the side of the cylinder – bariatric surgery in progress. Would it make a difference?
While this topic was trending in the southern hemisphere, The Atlantic published a huge article by Marc Ambinder, which was a sort of “state of obesity” report. Among many other aspects and facets of world obesity, he demonstrated that people have different definitions of fat porn:
Obesity has become not just a scientific fad of sorts, generating intense research, curiosity, and public concern, but also a commercial gold mine that draws on the same kind of audiences that used to go to circus carnivals a century ago to peer at freakishly obese men and women.
Family TV Examples
The writer went on to describe various television shows and episodes that struck him as particularly objectionable, because despite their declared purpose of public service or education, they really seemed to be just presenting obese people as targets of ridicule. Ambinder wrote:
The impact of ‘fat porn’ on fat people is counterproductive… [T]here is little evidence that increasing stigma actually reduces obesity rates. And plenty of evidence shows that stigma makes fat people more likely to feel depressed, to experience stress, to receive poorer medical care, to experience discrimination in the workplace, to go on eating binges, and to duck exercise.
The sassy pop culture journalists of Jezebel have been on the case for a long time. Writer Irin Carmon was particularly interested in the fact that Marc Ambinder had bariatric surgery and noted:
[...] Ambinder does strike the delicate balance between raising concerns about obesity’s public and personal health repercussions, and staying away from fat-shaming. He also does a good job of clearly noting his class privilege — the money to sink into diet and exercise solutions, and then to have a $30,000 surgery not covered by insurance — and contrasting it with an analysis of the sociopolitical factors that contribute to childhood obesity in various low-income groups.
Real Fat Porn
But watching fat people bounce around trying to exercise, or struggling into and out of airplane seats, is only one kind of fat porn, the milder and socially acceptable kind. Out there in the wilds of cyberspace, the searcher can find every kind of fat porn subspecialty — pregnant, drunk, mature, hairy, even Australian. One website offers “chubby galls” [sic], typical of the general level of ignorance in the field.
Elsewhere, a young woman, Kelly Shibari, reveals how she is both a fat porn star and a role model. In Los Angeles, she was doing fine as a freelance production designer, until a major film industry strike caused jobs to disappear. A friend in the “adult” industry turned her on to the world of websites featuring overweight women glamorously dressed (or undressed) and made up like movie stars.
The rest is second-career history, and also where the role model claim enters the picture. Shibari writes:
[T]he number one thing I’ve always maintained is to be true to myself — and that means I’m a confident, brainy, nerdy, slightly dorky (okay, mostly dorky) fat Asian girl who doesn’t mind being naked… I’ve been able to use my status as a performer to run fundraisers, speak at marketing conferences, produce and direct my own projects… Where my ‘role-modeling’ comes in is to share the importance of being confident in yourself, to try as many things as possible, be open to life changes, and don’t let a little thing like what other people think of you get you down.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Beating Obesity,” The Atlantic, 04/13/10
Source: “On Obesity: Fat Chicks And Fat ‘Porn’ As Entertainment,” Jezebel, 04/13/10
Source: “It Happened to me: I’m a Fat Porn Star,” xoJane, 11/16/12
Image by birgerking.
