7 ms·

This is something under active research, and it might have some true behind, there are some cases in the hospital where you see people doing diet as they should

This is something under active research, and it might have some true behind, there are some cases in the hospital where you see people doing diet as they should and not lossing weight at all and at the same time they have some autoimmune condition. It wouldn't surprise me to see a true connection found in a couple of years between autoimmune conditions and weight in a reciprocal way.

Havoc 10y ago
>couple of years between autoimmune conditions and weight in a reciprocal way. Don't think it'll take that long. Both seem to be connected to messed up gut flora to some extent.
- eagsalazar2 10y ago
  If that is the case, I wonder what the impact of a fecal transplant from a person who "can eat whatever they want and stay skinny" would be?
  - gingerrr 10y ago
    Since it's already been purported to work the other way (fecal transplant from overweight individual causes rapid weight gain [1]) it may become the next big diet fad. That would be a nice biohack. -- [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31168511 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31168511
    - wdewind 10y ago
      Please don't get science news from BBC. This is a sample size of 1, in a person who was probably already eating a ton and not absorbing it much due to a massive infection. There's not a ton we can take from this.
      - gingerrr 10y ago
        I did say 'purported', and the BBC is basing their story on an case study from the Oxford Journal for infectious diseases, which was linked in the first paragraph of the article: http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full. Since you have an issue with the sample size, please point me to the nearest full-scale fecal transplant study done and I'll gladly use those results. >in a person who was probably already eating a ton and not absorbing it much due to a massive infection. Source? Let's not criticize others for their sources and then make unsupported drive-by claims. edit: "article" --> "case study"
        wdewind 10y ago
        There is some interesting stuff in that case study, but there is nothing we can generalize from it. That's the point. There are no full scale fecal transplant studies looking into obesity to my knowledge. > Source? Let's not criticize others for their sources and then make unsupported drive-by claims. You're right, but upon digging deeper into the study it's even worse: neither her, nor the person she took the fecal sample from, were obese at the time of transplant. Both became obese after the treatment. The source of the transplant was her daughter, so I can imagine a lot of environmental factors effecting both of them. It's hard to imagine the donor becoming obese because of the transplant... The point here is there are a TON of other obvious variables to examine, and gut flora may really play a role, but there is really not substantial evidence to think that's true. Regardless of if it is true, it doesn't change much for outcomes: you still have to eat less, you still have to workout more.
    - amelius 10y ago
      Ignoring feasibility, how about a full fecal AND blood transplant?
  - wdewind 10y ago
    There is some evidence to think that a fecal transplant could help treat obesity, but not a ton. There is no evidence of the existence of people who can eat whatever they want and stay skinny. The thing is, with all the tweaks etc. that we've discovered, like gut flora effecting how many calories you absorb, none of them are hugely impactful. None of them explain obesity by themselves. So far nothing outside of massively over eating explains obesity in any kind of useful way that could be turned into a medical intervention.
    - tormeh 10y ago
      The gut flora does have a decisive role when it comes to appetite, I seem to recall.
      - wdewind 10y ago
        Right, I agree, the major thing we need to be studying when it comes to diet are the psychological aspects of it. But the difference is the important part is not "you absorb more food due to your gut makeup" because that part is real, but not hugely significant. Put simply: obesity is a food addiction. There are a ton of things that go into it, like depression, the reward system etc. We aren't likely to find the solution to obesity in small dietary tweaks, or fecal transplants.
        gingerrr 10y ago
        Your claim about obesity being psychologically caused ignores the growing amount of research indicating that gut flora may very well impact decisionmaking, stress response and anxiety/depression [1]. Gut bacteria can even create and dispatch their own neurotransmitters [2]. You're firmly claiming causal direction on something the current research no longer supports. Psychology may be a result of digestive biome (or at least influenced by), rather than the seminal cause as you seem to think. Edit: none of the above is to claim causality in the other direction, but to point out that the absolute nature of the claims you are making is not necessarily borne out by the prevailing research. -- [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/16050 http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/16050 [2] http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956(15)00065-5/fulltext http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-39...
alva 10y ago
"some cases in the hospital where you see people doing diet as they should and not lossing weight at all" would love a link if you have one handy. it seems impossible?
- greglindahl 10y ago
  This is not impossible. In some people, reducing calories (edit: by a lot) leads their body to decide it's starving, lowering their basal metabolism. Humans are a complex system with feedback loops. (edit: note that I'm responding to the 'impossible' comment.)
  - wdewind 10y ago
    This is sort of true but not really usefully true. Yes, your metabolic rate will go down slightly when you eat less food, but the idea of "starvation mode" comes from a study done in the fifties on extremely underweight people, who were then put on extremely calorically restricted diets. If the person is within reasonable weight, or overweight, "starvation mode" simply does not apply. People who are in this condition cannot lead normal lives due to low energy, and will frequently have massive health issues due to their body having to give up on a ton of base functions it's doing every day. It's a very extreme thing, and does not happen to many people, especially in America.
    - Apocryphon 10y ago
      Plus, starvation mode takes over a day to kick in. Something like 48-72 hours, maybe?
      - wdewind 10y ago
        Yeah, in the context of usefully effecting the obesity epidemic it's just not even worth discussing because it has no impact.
        greglindahl 10y ago
jimmywanger 10y ago
> not lossing weight at all and at the same time they have some autoimmune condition. That means that they're retaining water. That does not mean that they're accumulating fat stores, which is thermodynamically impossible.

Havoc 10y ago

>couple of years between autoimmune conditions and weight in a reciprocal way. Don't think it'll take that long. Both seem to be connected to messed up gut flora to some extent.

eagsalazar2 10y ago
If that is the case, I wonder what the impact of a fecal transplant from a person who "can eat whatever they want and stay skinny" would be?
- gingerrr 10y ago
  Since it's already been purported to work the other way (fecal transplant from overweight individual causes rapid weight gain [1]) it may become the next big diet fad. That would be a nice biohack. -- [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31168511 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31168511
  - wdewind 10y ago
    Please don't get science news from BBC. This is a sample size of 1, in a person who was probably already eating a ton and not absorbing it much due to a massive infection. There's not a ton we can take from this.
    - gingerrr 10y ago
      I did say 'purported', and the BBC is basing their story on an case study from the Oxford Journal for infectious diseases, which was linked in the first paragraph of the article: http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full. Since you have an issue with the sample size, please point me to the nearest full-scale fecal transplant study done and I'll gladly use those results. >in a person who was probably already eating a ton and not absorbing it much due to a massive infection. Source? Let's not criticize others for their sources and then make unsupported drive-by claims. edit: "article" --> "case study"
      - wdewind 10y ago
        There is some interesting stuff in that case study, but there is nothing we can generalize from it. That's the point. There are no full scale fecal transplant studies looking into obesity to my knowledge. > Source? Let's not criticize others for their sources and then make unsupported drive-by claims. You're right, but upon digging deeper into the study it's even worse: neither her, nor the person she took the fecal sample from, were obese at the time of transplant. Both became obese after the treatment. The source of the transplant was her daughter, so I can imagine a lot of environmental factors effecting both of them. It's hard to imagine the donor becoming obese because of the transplant... The point here is there are a TON of other obvious variables to examine, and gut flora may really play a role, but there is really not substantial evidence to think that's true. Regardless of if it is true, it doesn't change much for outcomes: you still have to eat less, you still have to workout more.
  - amelius 10y ago
    Ignoring feasibility, how about a full fecal AND blood transplant?
- wdewind 10y ago
  There is some evidence to think that a fecal transplant could help treat obesity, but not a ton. There is no evidence of the existence of people who can eat whatever they want and stay skinny. The thing is, with all the tweaks etc. that we've discovered, like gut flora effecting how many calories you absorb, none of them are hugely impactful. None of them explain obesity by themselves. So far nothing outside of massively over eating explains obesity in any kind of useful way that could be turned into a medical intervention.
  - tormeh 10y ago
    The gut flora does have a decisive role when it comes to appetite, I seem to recall.
    - wdewind 10y ago
      Right, I agree, the major thing we need to be studying when it comes to diet are the psychological aspects of it. But the difference is the important part is not "you absorb more food due to your gut makeup" because that part is real, but not hugely significant. Put simply: obesity is a food addiction. There are a ton of things that go into it, like depression, the reward system etc. We aren't likely to find the solution to obesity in small dietary tweaks, or fecal transplants.
      - gingerrr 10y ago
        Your claim about obesity being psychologically caused ignores the growing amount of research indicating that gut flora may very well impact decisionmaking, stress response and anxiety/depression [1]. Gut bacteria can even create and dispatch their own neurotransmitters [2]. You're firmly claiming causal direction on something the current research no longer supports. Psychology may be a result of digestive biome (or at least influenced by), rather than the seminal cause as you seem to think. Edit: none of the above is to claim causality in the other direction, but to point out that the absolute nature of the claims you are making is not necessarily borne out by the prevailing research. -- [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/16050 http://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/16050 [2] http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956(15)00065-5/fulltext http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-39...

alva 10y ago

"some cases in the hospital where you see people doing diet as they should and not lossing weight at all" would love a link if you have one handy. it seems impossible?

greglindahl 10y ago
This is not impossible. In some people, reducing calories (edit: by a lot) leads their body to decide it's starving, lowering their basal metabolism. Humans are a complex system with feedback loops. (edit: note that I'm responding to the 'impossible' comment.)
- wdewind 10y ago
  This is sort of true but not really usefully true. Yes, your metabolic rate will go down slightly when you eat less food, but the idea of "starvation mode" comes from a study done in the fifties on extremely underweight people, who were then put on extremely calorically restricted diets. If the person is within reasonable weight, or overweight, "starvation mode" simply does not apply. People who are in this condition cannot lead normal lives due to low energy, and will frequently have massive health issues due to their body having to give up on a ton of base functions it's doing every day. It's a very extreme thing, and does not happen to many people, especially in America.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    Plus, starvation mode takes over a day to kick in. Something like 48-72 hours, maybe?
    - wdewind 10y ago
      Yeah, in the context of usefully effecting the obesity epidemic it's just not even worth discussing because it has no impact.
      - greglindahl 10y ago

jimmywanger 10y ago

> not lossing weight at all and at the same time they have some autoimmune condition. That means that they're retaining water. That does not mean that they're accumulating fat stores, which is thermodynamically impossible.