THE PROFESSOR’S FEATURES
NO. 35; AUTUMN 2011
Lack of Sleep. Could it be…
…the big sleeper in weight gain – and chronic disease?
It’s common knowledge that lack of
exercise and a poor diet are major
problems in advanced countries where
people should know better.
But here’s another problem
that seems to have slipped under
everybody’s (except the Professor’s)
radar – poor and or inadequate sleep.
Sleep is the big sleeper when it
comes to what ails us in modern
health. Too little, or poor quality sleep
has a direct link with Type 2 diabetes
and heart disease, as well as other
problems. What is not well known
however is the link between poor sleep
and obesity.
The overweight have poor sleeping
patterns, including obstructive sleep
apnea (OSA) and snoring. But do poor
sleeping patterns cause overweight
– or is it the opposite? That’s the basis
of much recent research, the results of
which are so far, far from clear. To make
it clearer, here’s the Professor’s rundown of the situation to date.
Sleep and body weight — the latest
Sleep is something we know all
mammals need – although we don’t
know why. It could be to restore
used brain circuitry, It could be just
to recover. Some sleep theorists
even think that all wakefulness is just
delayed sleep. The fact that the longest
a human has ever gone without sleep
is about 8 days, suggest that it is even
more important than food.
So how much do we really need?
There’s a variation around a normal
curve, which generally defines this.
Some people need only 2-3 hours
a night – but they’re the extremes.
Others go for 10 or 11 hours – again,
at the other extreme. On average, it’s
believed we need about 7 – 8.5 hours
every 24, but that after about 10 hours
it becomes potentially unhealthy again.
(continued on page 3)
The Professor’s cunning plan for getting back to sleep
Early waking is a problem for many people whose thought processes then go crazy, stopping them from getting
back to sleep, and thus suffering the next day. To help overcome this it’s important understand how it happens.
Sleep cycles
Sleep occurs in several stages from very light to deep, then back to
light. These cycles occur for up to 2-3 hours and can happen 4-5 times
during the night.
is recovered, it becomes easy to move from the rapid eye movement
(REM), or dream state of deep sleep, to a lighter and more conscious
aware state.
Initially it’s difficult to differentiate between dreams and thoughts,
but as consciousness increases, one thought leads to another, thus
increasing the level of wakefulness. Usually in the dead of night such
thoughts are also exaggerated forms of worry – about the tax bills,
what the wife said yesterday, etc.
The Professor’s cunning secret is to stop thoughts spiralling before
they increase wakefulness to the point where it is difficult to get
back to sleep. This can be done by:
l
Focusing, with eyes closed, on the bridge of the nose,
l
Concentrating on a black screen in the consciousness.
Each time a thought arises, it should be left to drift off the
screen and disappear, returning to the blackness or nothingness of
the screen.
l
The sooner this occurs in early wakefulness, the quicker you’ll return
to the sleep cycle and wake feeling more rested.
Whether this affects weight loss or not is another matter – but let’s take
things one at a time.
l
In the early night, when sleep debt needs to be recovered, the deep
stages are stronger and longer, and the cycles are more difficult to
come out of. During the early morning however, as much of that sleep
Sleeping with the Professor
Your commonly asked questions about sleep put to rest
Is the 8-9 hours a night
recommended sleep just time in
bed, or deep sleep?
If it was just time in bed, Charlie Sheen
would be the healthiest man alive.
Unfortunately, this also relates to the
quality of sleep. Deep sleep is what you
are after, and fewer hours of this are
much more valuable than more hours
of tossing and turning.
Do dreams mean good or
bad sleep?
Generally the dream state occurs in a
phase called the rapid eye movement
(REM) phase of sleep, which is one of
the deeper levels, so unless the dreams
are nightmares or disturbing, they are
an indication of good, healthy, deep
sleep. Don’t knock your dreams: as far
as we know you don’t have them when
you’re dead.
Can you recover sleep debt with
short naps?
The answer is ‘yes’ – and probably
better with short naps (10-20 mins)
than longer than this during the day.
Very short ‘power naps’ on the other
hand, don’t seem to work. As put by
one sleep specialist, ‘the bank that
deals in sleep debt doesn’t take small
deposits.’
Can you sleep too much?
It seems like more than about 10 hours
a night’s sleep can be just as unhealthy
as too little ie. less than 7 hours. But it’s
difficult to know this for sure because
those people who do usually sleep
this long often have an illness, hence
confounding the research. It does
seem though that too much sleep
amongst the healthy, may not help to
keep them that way.
If you only sleep 2-3 hours a
night, with no daytime tiredness,
is this a problem?
As explained above there’s a wide
variation in the amount of sleep
needed by individuals. Some people
can cope with less than 3 hours,
some can cope with more than 10.
In general, it’s around 7-8.5 hrs that’s
required. The best measure is daytime
functioning. If this is not happening
properly, you’re probably not getting
enough sleep.
Is snoring a problem – for anyone
but the sleeping partner?
It is – and much more so than one
might think. The gasps of air that
snorers take during the night (apneas)
are an attempt to regain the oxygen
that’s lost through long periods of
not breathing. This can raise blood
pressure and indirectly affect the heart
– and not in a good way.
Are all snorers fat?
Not all, but most. And there is a reason
for this. Apart from the belly, one of
the first parts of the body to gain
fat is the tongue and this occludes
the windpipe, causing that ZZZZZ
sound. You do get lean snorers, but
this is generally due to a mechanical
problem which needs to be looked at
by a good sleep specialist.
Is it better to keep the room
warm for better sleep?
It’s actually better to be slightly cool.
Constant air temperature is now being
seen as a potential risk for weight gain
because the body’s metabolism never
changes. Going from warm to cool to
hot to cold is something humans have
done for eons. This has only changed
recently since the development of air
conditioning. And that must tell you
something.
Does it matter where you sleep?
Not if it’s good quality deep sleep
– it’s the quality of sleep that is
important. And while your sleeping
architecture might cause a stiff neck,
bad back and pains in the butt. It
won’t stop you from getting that well
needed sleep response.
Devices measure sleep quality
By definition, it’s difficult for anybody who is asleep to know the quality
of that sleep. You could be having hundreds of apneas, or small periods of
wakefulness without knowing it, making you tired during the day.
Until recently it was difficult to test this except by paying hundreds of
dollars and going into a sleep clinic overnight to have a test sent back to
your doctor. Technological advances have now made tests more feasible
and accessible to the average person.
Professor Ron Grunstein, a world acknowledged sleep expert from the
Woolock Institute in Sydney has now developed the ‘Flow Wizz”, a small
device attainable through your doctor on Medicare, with an attachment for
the nostrils that is left on during the night. This feeds in to a computer chip,
which is sent back to the Institute for analysis. The analysis is then returned
to your doctor, giving a full set of data to show how deep your sleep was,
when periods of wakefulness or apneas occurred, and any other problems.
A more simple measure is also attainable through activity devices such as
the Bodyfit Media, a new movement sensor which is worn on the arm, and
which feeds movement levels back into a computer. Not only does it tell
you how active you are during the day, but can show how good your sleep
is at night. The cost of one of these is around $900, but can provide great
results for monitoring activity levels as well as improving sleep.
(continued from page 1)
We know that average sleep times
have dropped dramatically over the
last 30 years. Eighteen percent of
under 20 year-olds for example got
less than 7 hours a night sleep 30
years ago, but according to the US
Sleep Foundation that figure has now
leapt to 36%. Why? Entertainment and
development in electronics have no
doubt played a major part, going back
to the discovery of electricity.
We know that young children who
sleep less than 7 hours a night have a
greater risk of obesity than those who
sleep 8+ hours. But again, is this cause
or effect? Obese adults suffer from
sleep apnea and snore more than the
lean. This leads to disruption of sleep
patterns and poor sleep, but does the
obesity, or the poor sleep come first?
Cause and effect
Many of these questions have been
recently looked at through an analysis
of all the existing research, or ‘metaanalysis’, on sleep and obesity. This
shows that it is not the lack of sleep
per se, that leads to weight gain, but
the fact that lack of sleep leads to
excessive day-time tiredness, which
then decreases physical activity levels,
which in turn, can lead to weight gain.
Snoring causes several little
awakenings or apneas during the
night, and although the snorer may
not be aware of being awake, these
periods of wakefulness need to be
recovered during the day.
The association between lack of
sleep and obesity in children could
also have a confounder. If the extra
waking hours are spent on passive
entertainment (computer games,
TV etc), this can be accompanied by
extra eating (as well as lack of large
movement) . As this is unlikely to be
of the type recommended by the
National Heart Foundation, just being
awake, might thus make you fat!
Summing up
Irrespective of the direct causal link,
there’s now clear evidence that lack
of sleep is not good for body weight
maintenance. Sleep deprivation can
also cause a type of ‘inflammation’,
which can then go on to cause type
2 diabetes. Twelve hours lack of sleep
is the equivalent in driving skills
reduction of a blood alcohol content of
0.05% and 24 hours of 0.1%. So driving
a vehicle makes a poor sleeper a lethal
weapon on the road.
Which ever way you cut it, poor or
inadequate sleep is unhealthy.
Do political systems make you fat?
It’s food and activity that make individuals fat at the individual level, but what makes whole populations fat?
Although it seems
to be a ‘no brainer’,
it has taken some
time for obesity
researchers to understand the
importance of the environment in
determining obesity. If you have to
walk to work and have to dig in the
fields for food, there’s less chance of
being fat than if machines do all this
for you.
So, how does this relate to the
different political and economic
systems that determine population
levels of obesity?
University of Sussex researchers
Richard Wilinson and Kate Pickett
hit on the importance of the social
environment in their book ‘The
Spirit Level’, when they showed that
the fattest countries are those with
greater inequality between the rich
and the poor. Although they admit
to not knowing why this is so, they
say it could be due to the stress
that’s created as a result of income
differentials leading to greater eating
and less activity ie. not venturing
outdoors for fear of crime.
Surprisingly, it’s the rich as well as
the poor, who do worse in unequal
countries like the US (and even
Australia), where everyone is fatter
than their equivalents in European
countries.
Oxford researcher,
Dr Avner Offer
and his associates
have recently
added to this by looking more
deeply at the economic conditions
that create obesity. Offner claims
that it’s economic insecurity, rather
than inequality that makes people
fat, and that this comes from the
different forms of market systems that
dominate in a country.
Using four measures of
economic insecurity (security from
unemployment, illness, single parent
poverty, and poverty in old age), Offer
found that in countries where these
are highest, the population is more
likely to be obese. This is the case in
countries like the US, UK, Canada,
Australia, NZ and Ireland. Where there
is more economic security, in countries
like Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Finland, Germany and France, the
populations do not seem to be as fat.
The question then becomes what
drives economic insecurity?
Economic insecurity and
economic growth
In some, as yet unpublished
research, colleagues of the Professor
have found that the gap between
‘economically secure’ and insecure
countries and consequent obesity
levels, only exists at the highest levels
of income, or average GDP. Below
this, increases in wealth do add to
average body weight, but all within
a healthy range. The main driver it
seems, is the non-regulated drive for
economic growth, beyond a point of
development.
As Sam Kekovitch might say:
“You know it makes sense.” As we
all get richer, we have to do less
physical work and there is more fatty
food available to eat. And if we feel
insecure about keeping up with the
Jones’, we actually tend to eat more
and move less.
So, if you really want to lose weight,
eat an economist. They may not be
too tasty. But you could be saving
yourself – and the planet!
World’s Best
Contraceptive
Rolled Out
Hunger vs Appetite
In the latest sally in the all-out war
on runaway population growth,
the Center for Biological Diversity
has launched an apparel product
guaranteed to reduce overbreeding:
The new Endangered Species sockand-sandal sets, the world’s most
powerful contraceptives.
When it comes to issues of lifestyle,
some medical workers are beyond
the eight ball. Look up a medical
dictionary for example for a definition
of ‘hunger’ and ‘appetite’, and you’ll
find basically the same thing. But look
up any English dictionary definition
and you’ll see they are quite different
in ways that are important for anyone
interested in weight control ie: The
Macquarie Dictionary defines hunger as:
Learning to recognise the difference and how it can help your weight
“ The pain sensation or state of
exhaustion caused by the need of
food”, and appetite as:
“A desire for food or drink.”
According to the CBD, the SASS, as they
call them, work by neutralizing the sex
pheromones humans traditionally emit
to attract mates. Studies have shown
that once the sock-and-sandal sets are
donned, outgoing pheromones simply
drop to the floor, where they lie limp
and passive and are soon trampled.
Stray incoming pheromones, which
may still be emitted accidentally in
a low-light setting such as a bar or
restaurant, cling only briefly to the
wearer of the sock-and-sandal set;
their half-life is short and incoming
pheromones typically cease once
potential mates fully perceive the
presence of the sock/sandal combo.
The sets -- made of recycled hybrid
tires and 100-percent organic cotton
grown in the shade by aging socialists
-- were originally designed with men in
mind, but are also available in unisex.
Please note: The SASS are not
effective in Tasmania.
Distinguishing hunger
from appetite
Basically, hunger is the biological
need to have to eat. It is a constant,
urging drive to seek out food, which
doesn’t go away with distraction.
Appetite on the other hand, is a
learned desire to want to eat, that
develops largely through learning.
It can go away when distracted (eg.
if scared) and is therefore generally
easier to deal with than genuine
hunger when trying to reduce one’s
food intake. How do you tell the
difference?
Genuine hunger should be rated
on a scale from 1 to 8, where 1 is
‘ravenously hungry’ and 8 is ‘full to
the point of wanting to throw up’.
Anything beyond about 6 is likely to
be genuine hunger, whereas anything
less than 4 is just a learned need.
Appetite develops from
experience. If it is the normal
experience to eat a three course meal
every day at a certain time, whether
hungry or not, the appetite for a
meal at that time is likely to increase
– irrespective of hunger. Like Pavlov’s
dog, this can be de-conditioned by
changing the meal, or not having the
meal at that time.
Snacks are probably even more
importantly influenced by appetite.
A cup of tea, coffee or a glass of
beer for example, if accompanied
by nuts, chips, or anything else that
is enjoyable, will usually lead to a
pairing of those two stimuli (classical
conditioning). Ultimately, this means
every time you have a drink, you’ll get
a craving for that type of snack.
Appetite is the simple one of the
twin eating problems to deal with.
One of the Professor’s renowned
cunning plans for dealing with this is
to show a supposedly hungry man,
a centrefold from Playboy magazine.
If hunger is still the over-riding drive,
then it’s genuine. If not, it’s probably
just appetite.
Hunger, on the other hand, is
much more difficult to deal with.
Because it’s biological, it needs to
be satisfied, but this can be done
in all the wrong ways eg. with high,
energy-dense foods. The trick is to
fool the body: Foods that are high in
fibre, protein, low-glycaemic index
content, and even water, tend to
reduce the energy, or calories taken
in, whilst satisfying hunger.
Summary:
Tip 1 is to recognise the difference
between appetite and hunger; Tip 2
is to satisfy genuine hunger with low
energy-dense, filling foods. You can
actually lose weight by eating more,
using this method.
The Professor’s Guaranteed
Weight Loss programs
Everyone else is doing it - selling
weird and wonderful weight loss
programs - and making a fortune out
of it, so why not the Professor? Here
are some ideas that are likely to be
more effective than anything you’ll
read in the women’s magazines:
1.The ‘Move-Away’ Diet: For a little
over $1000 you can purchase a oneway ticket to Bangladesh, where living
with the locals is guaranteed to help
you lose more weight than you’ve
ever dreamed of. Maintenance is not a
problem – provided you never move
back to a country like Australia or the
US. Rating: How much more ‘natural’
a treatment can you get?
2. The ‘Messiah’ program: To date
there are no respectable messiahs
who have become so without a fast
of at least 40 days and 40 nights in
the desert. This is guaranteed to
have bariatric effects, along with the
psychological highs and delusions
of grandeur that come from an
elevated endorphin level. Long-term
maintenance however is likely to be
accomplished by sudden and extreme
loss of friends. Rating: Good not just
for this life, but also the next.
3. The ‘Smoke-like-a-chimney’
diet: It’s been castigated for it’s
disadvantages, but smoking DOES
aid weight loss by: 1. Increasing
metabolic rate 2. Altering taste
sensation, and 3. Giving you
something to do with your hands.
Long-term (permanent) weight loss is
even more guaranteed. Unfortunately,
going off the program leads to a
quick rebound of ~5kg a year, but this
is easily overcome by not quitting.
You’ll be dead before you know it
anyway. Rating: A bit drastic, but very
effective.
4. The Mafia weight loss plan:
Employ a Mafia hit-man to take off
a finger every time you eat more
than you should, or skip an exercise
session. If that doesn’t work, get
him to ‘waste’ one of your kids and
tell your wife why it might happen.
Rating: Cruel, but fair. Provided you
play the game.
TRIM’S TUMMY TICKLERS
5. The ‘Travel Diet’: Travel through
Indonesia eating and drinking
everything that looks and tastes good.
It won’t be long before it all comes
out the other end, with great hunks
of fat from the belly, chin and other
places of storage. This is likely to be
coupled with the desire to never eat
food again, a sure fire way of losing
kilos without effort. Rating: Highly
competitive on price although longterm maintenance is uncomfortable.
6. The ‘more sex’ program:
Unexpectedly, this is not because of
the energy burned during the act (you
have to be a bedroom Olympian for
this to have an impact!). The logic is
more convoluted: Almost invariably,
after modern western women have
babies, they stack on the lard. So it
stands to reason (vis. The second law
of thermo-dynamics that “…energy is
neither gained or lost, it just changes
form”) that the act of giving a female
a baby should help a man take off
weight. Rating: It’s not foolproof, but
it’s better than most alternatives. (In
any case it’s a good chat-up line).
are not all
FAT Why
vegetarians lean, mean
FACTS and hungry looking?
There’s a feeling that going vegetarian means
going low energy. Hence eating just plants is
likely to have a weight loss effect. But the devil
is in the detail.
Depending on how vegetarian foods are
prepared and cooked, the energy intake
may be just as high as if it came from a nonvegetarian source. Oil, ghee, lard and foods
like coconut, have a high-energy content. If
a vegetarian diet includes animals products,
such as cheese, and these are eaten in large
amounts, a vegetarian diet can be even more
fattening than lots of dead animal.
TRIMLINES
Current conundrums in weight loss
Readers of this esteemed publication,
along with Donald Rumsfield, know
that there are known knowns and
there are known unknowns. However
there are unknown knowns and……
oh bugger it. You known what we
mean!
And the same applies to the facts
about weight loss. Here are some of
the facts in the field we’re just not sure
about…
Does exercise overpower nutrition
for weight loss in old age?
Although it’s been going for some 2030 years, research into weight loss and
obesity is relatively novel, and while
we know the basics, there are certain
questions that remain unanswered,
such as changing dynamics with age.
In the early years, it was promoted as
doctrine that a decrease in food intake
combined with an increase in exercise
are equally important in the weight
loss equation. But what happens as
we get older? Does the relationship
between exercise and nutrition stay
the same?
We know that gaining weight
is easier with age, and keeping
weight off, at least in the modern
environment, more difficult.
But there are physiological
differences that occur with age that
can alter the balance between energy
intake and expenditure. Metabolic
rate for example, decreases by about
2% per decade, which means that a
60 year old is burning about 10% less
energy than he was at 20, just being
alive. Under these circumstances, food
is likely to be stored more easily in the
older person as fat.
On the other hand, exercise, because
it raises metabolic rate, is more likely to
have the opposite effect. So is exercise
relatively more important for weight
maintenance with age than diet? The
truth is, we don’t know the answer – but
it’s likely to spark a PhD thesis or two.
How does bariatric, lap-banding
surgery work?
The idea of putting a band around
the top of the stomach and restricting
food intake, was originally thought
to work by doing just that – reducing
food intake. Then it was found to have
a more subtle effect. People who had
been banded tended to have less
craving for food and therefore eat less
soon after having the operation.
It was thought that just the physical
pressure of the band around the
stomach wall could have an effect on
hunger hormones in the brain, which
reduced the genuine desire to eat. This
all seemed perfectly explainable.
Then some smart researcher
found that these hormones actually
increased in a way that would make
hunger MORE rather than LESS likely.
And although we know that hunger is
a complex interplay between chemical
levels in the brain, our knowledge
to date doesn’t provide us with the
answer to how lap-banding surgery
works.
If a calorie is a calorie, why do
different types of oils have different
effects on weight loss?
The second law of thermo-dynamics
states that energy is neither gained
not lost, it just changes form. So
irrespective of the form in which a
calorie is consumed, it should have the
same effect on body weight.
Some time ago this was refuted by
research that showed that men on a
Mediterranean diet using olive oil, lost
more weight than men on a diet of
another form of equally calorific oil.
And while we know that the energy
balance equation is not a ‘physics’
equation, but a biological one – and
hence is dependent on feedback, the
reason for this, is nowhere near clear.
Is it because people feel better after
eating olive oil and therefore tend to
become more active, hence burning
up more energy? We wait in anxious
anticipation for a definitive answer.
Why do people respond differently
to different diets?
The argument has raged for the last
decade or so about whether low
carbohydrate, low fat, low protein or
low alcohol is best for weight loss.
And while it is almost impossible to
predict what is best for an individual,
it’s probably true that all are effective
to some level in some people.
There’s little doubt that the primary
influence on energy intake for weight
loss, is the total volume (in terms of
calories or kilojoules) of food and drink.
But it may be that some people crave
carbohydrate, store fat, burn protein or
metabolise alcohol more readily than
others, therefore leading to individual
specific weight loss effects.
To date we’re unable to determine
which diet suits which person best, but
it’s likely to be a question that will be
better answered in the future.
Why does a reduction in total food
intake help people live longer?
For 2-3 decades now it’s been known
that all mammals, including humans,
tend to live longer if they have less,
rather than more access to food; that
is, provided they have enough to
survive. The general estimate is that a
decrease of around 30% of food intake
that would be eaten in an ad-lib food
environment, can add up to 2-3 years
of life. But why?
We don’t know, but here are some
thoughts: Parts of the genome known
to be associated with longevity, tend
to change with decreased food intake.
It’s also possible that the more food to
which we are exposed, the higher the
likelihood of oxidative stress from free
radicals that form from oxygen broken
down in food.
For an estimated 15,000 free radical
‘hits’ a day in the average person, a
decrease of even 1/3 of this, would help
decrease the ‘rusting’ that comes with
old age. But in truth, we don’t know.
The next scam:
Indigenous foods for weight loss
If native foods are good for you, can they help you lose weight?
Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis)
In their desire to keep turning over
a buck, entrepreneurs are always on
the look-out for new products to flog.
It’s even better if these have some
semblance of health or sustainability
attached to them so they can be
flogged in an environmentally
friendly way.
It’s no surprise therefore to see
that one of the latest trends in
medicine ie. the use of native plants
for health, is about to be taken up in
weight control – pushing native plant
products used by Indigenous people,
for healthy weight loss.
But step back with the Professor
for a moment to examine the logic
behind this.
Native plants and health
There’s little doubt that native
plants have medicinal properties:
Indigenous people have used them
as such for thousands of years, no
doubt with enormous success.
Pharmacologists have tapped the
rich source of nutriceuticals in such
products, and used them, either in
natural or synthetic form, to create
efficient medications.
It’s also probably not unexpected
that Indigenous people and powerful,
healthy plant products have evolved
together. It could even help to explain
the ability of humans to evolve to the
level they have.
But why would such plants be
needed to help native peoples lose
weight? They never had a weight
problem. The problem throughout
evolution has generally been to gain
weight in the good periods and keep
it on in the bad periods. It makes little
sense to have a plant that makes one
lose weight.
Hunger reduction
There is a case perhaps for suggesting
a temporary ability to reduce hunger.
This would help hunters who have to
go long periods stalking prey without
food to not get desperate and fire
an arrow in haste, where it might
miss its mark. Indeed, the Jojoba
plant of the southern African desert
was supposed to have just such an
effect on the Hottentot people of
the African desert. With that in mind,
it was picked up by a major multinational drug company to sell as a
weight loss treatment.
But the effect was transitory. While
Jojoba extract worked on Hottentots,
and possibly even for short periods
in westerners, it had no long-term
impact on weight loss in clinical trials.
Mother Nature appears efficient in
her ability to develop useful synergies
between plants and animals. But
evolution has determined that the
main advantage of this is to survive.
Weight loss in contrast to weight gain,
is not a survival technique, at least not
in lean hunter-gathers. So don’t wait
up for the natural weight loss plant.
THE PROFESSOR’S POINTS
Why are some natural
foods healthy, but their
‘de-natured’ or processed
equivalents unhealthy?
Again, this is in the realms of
speculation, but recent research
suggests that markers of inflammation
are increased in the blood immediately
after eating a de-natured’ food (eg.
processed white rice), compared with
its natural equivalent (eg. unprocessed
brown rice).
thus de-naturing the original, the body
could see this as a foreign invader and
react accordingly.
It’s early days, but this process has
now been considered as an underlying
cause of modern chronic diseases.
Is it more difficult to keep
weight off after losing if
obesity has been long term?
A typical response to weight loss in
people who have been big for some
time, is a regain over time. Indeed, this
seems to require much less of a change
in energy to put on weight than for
someone of the same weight who has
never been overweight before.
A simple answer to why this may be
to, the more hungry you seem to get.
so is ‘fat memory’. Like muscle memory,
There are chemicals in the body that
where body builders who have
are associated with this. But these tend
stopped weight lifting, find it easier to
to explain how it happens, rather than
regain the muscle lost than someone
why. It’s likely that there is an answer
who never was a body builder, the
hidden somewhere deep down in the
brain seems to want to return to a
brain, but at the moment we don’t
level of fatness it once had, possibly
know what it is.
to increase the chances of survival in a
famine.
We know these changes are
manifest through physiological
changes, such as changes in metabolic
rate, hunger levels etc., but we don’t
know why. Is there a switch in the brain
that flicks over with weight gain and
flicks off more quickly with weight loss?
Inflammation is generally a response
That question remains to be answered.
to a foreign body or injury, like a
Why are some people
perpetually more hungry
than others?
bacteria or virus. But a new form of
inflammation discovered in the last
decade, suggests that it can also occur,
albeit at a lower level, to different
Again, the simple answer is probably
types of foods with which the body
genes. But it’s not the whole answer.
hasn’t evolved. Humans have eaten
We know that hunger levels can also
brown rice for thousands of years,
change throughout life – and these
as an example, and hence, the body
can be influenced by experiences, such
sees this as a ‘friend’. When the germ is
as availability of food.
taken off brown rice to make it white,
Ironically, the more you have access
Why do some people
FAT get fat just looking at
FACTS food, and others stay
lean and trim while
eating like a horse?
To paraphrase Bob Dylan: The answer, my friend
is written in the genes. But genes have to have
an effect on either ‘energy in’, or ‘energy out’, if
they are to change body fat storage. The effect
is through a range of feedback mechanisms
like metabolic rate, hunger level, energy use of
exercise etc. There is not one gene, but possibly
hundreds that have these individual effects.
Some people have some. Some have them
all. Hence, it’s very easy for those with a host
of fat genes to put on weight, particularly in
an obesogenic environment. If you’re lucky
enough not to have any, you can probably eat
til your heart is content, without weight gain.
But just pray there’s no famine. Because If that
happens, you’ll be one of the first casualties
of starvation.