Are certain pollutants making us fat?

[lpetrich]

What's Really Making Us Fat? - The Atlantic

Conventional wisdom says that weight gain or loss is based on the energy balance model of "calories in, calories out," which is often reduced to the simple refrain, "eat less, and exercise more." But new research reveals a far more complex equation that appears to rest on several other important factors affecting weight gain. Researchers in a relatively new field are looking at the role of industrial chemicals and non-caloric aspects of foods -- called obesogens -- in weight gain. Scientists conducting this research believe that these substances that are now prevalent in our food supply may be altering the way our bodies store fat and regulate our metabolism. But not everyone agrees. Many scientists, nutritionists, and doctors are still firm believers in the energy balance model. A debate has ensued, leaving a rather unclear picture as to what's really at work behind our nation's spike in obesity.

Bruce Blumberg invented "obesogen", coining it for the likes of organotins, often used as pesticides.

Organotins, which he considers to be obesogens, "change how your body responds to calories," he says. "So the ones we study, tributyltin and triphenyltin, actually cause exposed animals to have more and bigger fat cells. The animals that we treat with these chemicals don't eat a different diet than the ones who don't get fat. They eat the same diet -- we're not challenging them with a high-fat or a high-carbohydrate diet. They're eating normal food, and they're getting fatter."

Fructose is likely another obesogen.

Researchers found that rats drinking high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) gained significantly more weight than rats drinking sugar water, even though the amount of calories consumed was the same. The rats drinking HFCS also exhibited signs of metabolic syndrome, including abnormal weight gain, especially visceral fat around the belly, and significant increases in circulating triglycerides.

The sugar in the sugar water was not mentioned in the article, but it may have been table sugar, sucrose. It is a glucose-fructose combination, so the problem with fructose would be consuming too much of it.

Another one is bisphenol-A, something found in a *lot* of packaging.

Vom Saal believes that BPA is only the most prominent example of many substances in our food supply and environment that functions as an obesogen. "If people really want to solve the obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease epidemics," he says, "it isn't a wise thing to be ignoring any contributor to this. And we're not obese just because of HFCS, or because of BPA. I also know that nicotine and PCBs and other chemicals are implicated in diabetes and metabolic disease as well."

Exposure to obesogens, stress, and the like may also explain why richer people tend to be less fat than poorer ones, despite consuming roughly the same amount of food.

It would be interesting to work out how obesogens work, because that may make it possible to construct anti-obesogens, stuff that can help us lose weight.

 

[repoman]

Also, lots of other changes have happened since way back - let's go to the 1930s-1950s as a rough estimate (ignoring the chaos of WWII).

Much longer commutes
Television and now cellphone screens until late at night (ever have that awkward feeling of being sleepy but even more hungry?)
more processed food especially sugars
fractured eating times so insulin stays high (so does cortisol?)

Anecdotally people are seeming to have some good weight loss success with only 2 large meals a day and zero snacks (not even tea or coffee in the interim). This is going back closer to the old 3 squares a day.


But more directly related to the OP, apparently some of the BPA substitutes may be worse, Tritan for example.

BPA is in polycarbonate (bisphenol-a mixed in a resin with carbonate). It is still in water bubbler jugs, but that is not so much of a source as the acidic leaching tomato sauce cans were that are now BPA free.

As you probably know fructose is processed by the liver, I think that there is a small amount that can be processed before it goes heavily into making visceral fat. I think that for coke (even with HFCS) it is actually about the size of the old bottles (~8 oz) that is the limit at which large visceral fat started to be made. And that is if you have only one serving every several hours with otherwise fairly healthy lowish carb food.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There must be other chemicals at work. The chemicals mentioned may certainly be making it easier to add weight, but what would be causing people to accept the weight gain as something over which they have no control?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As you probably know fructose is processed by the liver, I think that there is a small amount that can be processed before it goes heavily into making visceral fat. I think that for coke (even with HFCS) it is actually about the size of the old bottles (~8 oz) that is the limit at which large visceral fat started to be made. And that is if you have only one serving every several hours with otherwise fairly healthy lowish carb food.

Acquired habits are important. Had lunch with my 22 year old nephew. We ate the same meal but his included an additional Pepsi and two refills.

 

[PyramidHead]

Calories and body fat are really separate issues that shouldn't be conflated as if they were the same. Your body is constantly burning calories in order to function. It preferentially burns calories that come from carbohydrates, so as long as there are carbohydrates in your diet, those will get used for energy first (and anything beyond what is needed right away will be stored for later as fat).

Without carbohydrates in your diet, your body will directly burn stored and consumed fat. The mechanism of fat storage is different from the mechanism of fat creation from carbohydrates; if you eat more fat than your body needs for energy, what happens to the remainder depends on a lot of things, and your body might just discard the leftover energy in your colon rather than go through the process of making new adipocytes. It makes the extra effort to store excess carbohydrate-derived energy as fat because humans evolved in a carbohydrate-scarce environment, and those of our ancestors whose bodies treated such sources of quick energy as precious tended to thrive.

From the article:

Lustig is another researcher and doctor who finds fault in the calories in, calories out model. "I don't believe in the energy balance model, which is calorie-centric," he says. "I believe in the fat deposition model, which is insulin-centric. The reason is that by altering insulin dynamics, you can alter both caloric consumption and physical activity behavior. This has been my research for the past 16 years." What Lustig means is that by increasing circulating insulin -- often as a result of consuming too much fructose -- people become hungrier and more fatigued, which results in overeating and little motivation to exercise.

I agree with this, but I wouldn't put the same emphasis on physical activity. Exercise is a poor way to lose weight compared to eliminating insulin-spiking materials from your diet. It just expends whatever calories are available, and if they are derived from carbohydrates then the amount of fat in your body will stay the same no matter how much you exercise. On top of that, exercise makes you very hungry. It's unpleasant and strenuous, to the degree that most people end up "rewarding" themselves after a good workout, defeating whatever benefit it may have provided.

Food additives should be looked at case-by-case, and I don't believe they have as much impact on obesity as the article suggests. The answer is staring us right in the face: just reduce carbohydrate intake, mostly or completely. You don't need any carbohydrates to live a long, healthy life. You just want some for variety or enjoyment once in a while, but nutritionally you don't need anything other than ruminant meat for optimal health, without supplements. I haven't had appreciable quantities of carbohydrates--or any plant-derived matter--in my diet for several months now, and I've never felt or looked better.

 

[ronburgundy]

There must be other chemicals at work. The chemicals mentioned may certainly be making it easier to add weight, but what would be causing people to accept the weight gain as something over which they have no control?

Your question is worded in a way that presumes self control has decreased. There is not need for that assumption.
Suppose people used to exert S amount of self control, consume C amount of calories, and engage in E amount of exercise, resulting in F amount of body fat. What the article is saying is that their is an additional variable O (obesigen chemical) that determine how much F is produced even if S, C, and E stay the same. In order for the increase of these chemicals to not cause an increase in obesity, people would actually need to exert more self control than they every had to before just to maintain the same body fat they used to.

There is a similar wrong assumption made in the common argument that even if obese people have a slower metabolism, they must also lack self control in order to become fat. In reality, and fat person with lower metabolism can actually have more self control than a skinny person with high metabolism. The skinny person's metabolism means they never need to exert self control to be skinny, so they may have no self control. While the fat person does exert some self control and more than the skinny person, but not enough to fully nullify their much slower metabolism, thus they are fatter.

 

[repoman]

Calories and body fat are really separate issues that shouldn't be conflated as if they were the same. Your body is constantly burning calories in order to function. It preferentially burns calories that come from carbohydrates, so as long as there are carbohydrates in your diet, those will get used for energy first (and anything beyond what is needed right away will be stored for later as fat).

Without carbohydrates in your diet, your body will directly burn stored and consumed fat. The mechanism of fat storage is different from the mechanism of fat creation from carbohydrates; if you eat more fat than your body needs for energy, what happens to the remainder depends on a lot of things, and your body might just discard the leftover energy in your colon rather than go through the process of making new adipocytes. It makes the extra effort to store excess carbohydrate-derived energy as fat because humans evolved in a carbohydrate-scarce environment, and those of our ancestors whose bodies treated such sources of quick energy as precious tended to thrive.

From the article:

Lustig is another researcher and doctor who finds fault in the calories in, calories out model. "I don't believe in the energy balance model, which is calorie-centric," he says. "I believe in the fat deposition model, which is insulin-centric. The reason is that by altering insulin dynamics, you can alter both caloric consumption and physical activity behavior. This has been my research for the past 16 years." What Lustig means is that by increasing circulating insulin -- often as a result of consuming too much fructose -- people become hungrier and more fatigued, which results in overeating and little motivation to exercise.

I agree with this, but I wouldn't put the same emphasis on physical activity. Exercise is a poor way to lose weight compared to eliminating insulin-spiking materials from your diet. It just expends whatever calories are available, and if they are derived from carbohydrates then the amount of fat in your body will stay the same no matter how much you exercise. On top of that, exercise makes you very hungry. It's unpleasant and strenuous, to the degree that most people end up "rewarding" themselves after a good workout, defeating whatever benefit it may have provided.

Food additives should be looked at case-by-case, and I don't believe they have as much impact on obesity as the article suggests. The answer is staring us right in the face: just reduce carbohydrate intake, mostly or completely. You don't need any carbohydrates to live a long, healthy life. You just want some for variety or enjoyment once in a while, but nutritionally you don't need anything other than ruminant meat for optimal health, without supplements. I haven't had appreciable quantities of carbohydrates--or any plant-derived matter--in my diet for several months now, and I've never felt or looked better.

So apparently you can make sugar from triglyerides by using the glycerol backbones and the rest can be used for making ketones.

But it seems that TIME is the key along with having low insulin spiking food (which can include protein in high enough amount). You have to wait long enough to have low insulin and low(er) blood sugar to get the metabolic machinery running to get fat burning going. A lot of it seems to be helped with glucagon which is a sort of anti-insulin.

IIRC, high insulin and low blood sugar and not eating at that time will make you burn muscle for sugar and also squeeze out some cortisol. When in full fasting or very low carb mode your body is protective of muscle and burns fat very well.

Insulin and glucagon in an old school website

http://www.medbio.info/horn/time%203-4/homeostasis_2.htm

 

[bilby]

There must be other chemicals at work. The chemicals mentioned may certainly be making it easier to add weight, but what would be causing people to accept the weight gain as something over which they have no control?

Dopamine, Seratonin, and Oxytocin, with some help from gamma-Aminobutyric acid and Acetylcholine.