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When your calories in is greater than your calories out, you gain fat. The point that the article is making is that one collection of gut bacteria may be more

by daenz 11y ago

When your calories in is greater than your calories out, you gain fat. The point that the article is making is that one collection of gut bacteria may be more efficient at extracting calories from the same food than another collection, resulting in more "calories in." What is disconcerting is the idea of engineering your gut bacteria to be less efficient at absorbing calories and nutrients in order to not require self control about what you give your body in the first place.

Roritharr 11y ago
It's just a form of hedonism, nothing our society looks down upon in other areas. Optimize for happiness isn't the worst path to walk down in life.
DanBC 11y ago
The gut flora can cause feelings of not hungry, so it's plausible they can cause feelings of hungry. If that's true then manipulating gut flora is less about allowing people to have no self control, but about helping people get back self control.
- daenz 11y ago
  Sorry, the article doesn't say that at all. It does say: "If you want to stay lean, you'll want bacteria that are not very efficient," says Claire Fraser, a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Here's a link that shows gut flora can cause people to feel not hungry. http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html
dragonwriter 11y ago
> When your calories in is greater than your calories out, you gain fat. Wrong. Calorie surplus is neither necessary for nor a guarantee of fat gain. When your calories in are greater than your calories out, you gain net energy content of body mass. If you have very low body fat already, you aren't going to be able to gain lean body mass without increasing net energy content, which means a calorie surplus; and a calorie surplus can sometimes, AFAIK, be beneficial in building lean body mass even if you haven't already driven your body fat %age to a very low level. Conversely, you can gain body fat while losing lean body mass with a calorie deficit. > What is disconcerting is the idea of engineering your gut bacteria to be less efficient at absorbing calories and nutrients in order to not require self control about what you give your body in the first place. Why is that disconcerting? If excessive efficiency in this one function is associated with adverse health outcomes, and people with less efficient (than the level raising concern) gut microbiomes tend toward healthier weights and better health outcomes, preference for maximum efficiency in this area is a harmful microoptimization, like optimizing a firm's software development operations for maximum lines of code produced per day rather than business functionality delivered.
- ashark 11y ago
  > Conversely, you can gain body fat while losing lean body mass with a calorie deficit. Do you have any sources for this? I'm curious because it matches my experience the handful of times I've attempted even fairly harsh caloric restriction. A month or two in and my weight drops such a small fraction of what all "weight loss" calculators suggest it should (like, 1/20) that I doubt the "calories in, calories out, it's so simple bro!" crowd would believe me. Meanwhile, anaerobic exercise cuts fat and builds muscle on me like crazy. Way, way more effective. Too bad since I find it way easier to cut calories (time commitment of zero, if not negative).
- daenz 11y ago
  > Wrong. Calorie surplus is neither necessary for nor a guarantee of fat gain. I was excluding exercise from my (admittedly) very simplistic rule of thumb of weight gain. You seem to have a general understanding of nutrition, so I would say to you that it is absolutely disingenuous to those who don't have that understanding to say that calorie surplus != fat gain. It's a general rule, and it applies to the majority of people. > Why is that disconcerting? It's disconcerting in the same way that liposuction is disconcerting. You could make very similar arguments about liposuction as you did about gut engineering: if it improves health, then it's a good thing. But at the end of the day, it doesn't address the issue of being able to control what you do with your body in the interest of your health. Getting too fat? Just reset your gut bacteria, regardless of what other unknown hormone changes it will have. It's ridiculous.
johndavi 11y ago
Your assumption is that obese / overweight individuals are seeking abnormally inefficient bacteria, as opposed to their perhaps having abnormally efficient microbes. I'm sure the world of the overweight is comprised of many types: those who simply overeat beyond their "normal" bacteria's ability, those who eat their way to super-efficiency, those who accidentally (antibiotics, food poisoning maybe, Caesarean-section-delivery -- who knows?) arrive there, etc. Simply labeling it a problem of self-control paints with far too wide (and pejorative) a brush. Let's assume a hospitalization somehow leaves you with a more efficient gut -- how easily can you stop eating, say, 250 calories a day? (Research shows: not easily, and not forever.)
- speeder 11y ago
  Also a very bad assumption, but that I see a lot, is that increasing or decreased absorption and use of one nutrient affect all others equally... I have Hashimoto's Disease, and people tell me that I should just eat less, to stop gaining weight randomly... The problem is that I absorb calories too easily, and use them too slow, while I have problems absorbing everything else (and using everything else). The result is that I need a very high protein and vitamin intake (medics even told me to use some supplements, for example it has been years that I am taking vitamin D in the maximum "safe" known dosage, and my blood levels are still in the "dangerously low" level) to keep my body barely working properly (Barely because I struggle to keep lean mass, not only in muscles, but also hair, nails, skin... my hair is constantly falling, nails break for no reason, and sometimes layers of my skin start to peel off). But the amount of resources I need to keep my body working, has in themselves more calories than my body uses... So my choices are: don't eat and get rapidly worsening health, or eat and get fat.

by daenz 11y ago

Roritharr 11y ago

It's just a form of hedonism, nothing our society looks down upon in other areas. Optimize for happiness isn't the worst path to walk down in life.

DanBC 11y ago

The gut flora can cause feelings of not hungry, so it's plausible they can cause feelings of hungry. If that's true then manipulating gut flora is less about allowing people to have no self control, but about helping people get back self control.

daenz 11y ago
Sorry, the article doesn't say that at all. It does say: "If you want to stay lean, you'll want bacteria that are not very efficient," says Claire Fraser, a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Here's a link that shows gut flora can cause people to feel not hungry. http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html

dragonwriter 11y ago

> When your calories in is greater than your calories out, you gain fat. Wrong. Calorie surplus is neither necessary for nor a guarantee of fat gain. When your calories in are greater than your calories out, you gain net energy content of body mass. If you have very low body fat already, you aren't going to be able to gain lean body mass without increasing net energy content, which means a calorie surplus; and a calorie surplus can sometimes, AFAIK, be beneficial in building lean body mass even if you haven't already driven your body fat %age to a very low level. Conversely, you can gain body fat while losing lean body mass with a calorie deficit. > What is disconcerting is the idea of engineering your gut bacteria to be less efficient at absorbing calories and nutrients in order to not require self control about what you give your body in the first place. Why is that disconcerting? If excessive efficiency in this one function is associated with adverse health outcomes, and people with less efficient (than the level raising concern) gut microbiomes tend toward healthier weights and better health outcomes, preference for maximum efficiency in this area is a harmful microoptimization, like optimizing a firm's software development operations for maximum lines of code produced per day rather than business functionality delivered.

ashark 11y ago
> Conversely, you can gain body fat while losing lean body mass with a calorie deficit. Do you have any sources for this? I'm curious because it matches my experience the handful of times I've attempted even fairly harsh caloric restriction. A month or two in and my weight drops such a small fraction of what all "weight loss" calculators suggest it should (like, 1/20) that I doubt the "calories in, calories out, it's so simple bro!" crowd would believe me. Meanwhile, anaerobic exercise cuts fat and builds muscle on me like crazy. Way, way more effective. Too bad since I find it way easier to cut calories (time commitment of zero, if not negative).
daenz 11y ago
> Wrong. Calorie surplus is neither necessary for nor a guarantee of fat gain. I was excluding exercise from my (admittedly) very simplistic rule of thumb of weight gain. You seem to have a general understanding of nutrition, so I would say to you that it is absolutely disingenuous to those who don't have that understanding to say that calorie surplus != fat gain. It's a general rule, and it applies to the majority of people. > Why is that disconcerting? It's disconcerting in the same way that liposuction is disconcerting. You could make very similar arguments about liposuction as you did about gut engineering: if it improves health, then it's a good thing. But at the end of the day, it doesn't address the issue of being able to control what you do with your body in the interest of your health. Getting too fat? Just reset your gut bacteria, regardless of what other unknown hormone changes it will have. It's ridiculous.

johndavi 11y ago

Your assumption is that obese / overweight individuals are seeking abnormally inefficient bacteria, as opposed to their perhaps having abnormally efficient microbes. I'm sure the world of the overweight is comprised of many types: those who simply overeat beyond their "normal" bacteria's ability, those who eat their way to super-efficiency, those who accidentally (antibiotics, food poisoning maybe, Caesarean-section-delivery -- who knows?) arrive there, etc. Simply labeling it a problem of self-control paints with far too wide (and pejorative) a brush. Let's assume a hospitalization somehow leaves you with a more efficient gut -- how easily can you stop eating, say, 250 calories a day? (Research shows: not easily, and not forever.)

speeder 11y ago
Also a very bad assumption, but that I see a lot, is that increasing or decreased absorption and use of one nutrient affect all others equally... I have Hashimoto's Disease, and people tell me that I should just eat less, to stop gaining weight randomly... The problem is that I absorb calories too easily, and use them too slow, while I have problems absorbing everything else (and using everything else). The result is that I need a very high protein and vitamin intake (medics even told me to use some supplements, for example it has been years that I am taking vitamin D in the maximum "safe" known dosage, and my blood levels are still in the "dangerously low" level) to keep my body barely working properly (Barely because I struggle to keep lean mass, not only in muscles, but also hair, nails, skin... my hair is constantly falling, nails break for no reason, and sometimes layers of my skin start to peel off). But the amount of resources I need to keep my body working, has in themselves more calories than my body uses... So my choices are: don't eat and get rapidly worsening health, or eat and get fat.