5 ms·

Mysteries of obesity: wild animals are becoming more obese too

20 points by vghaisas 5y ago

jqpabc123 5y ago
Personal theory --- micro plastic contamination. The environment is totally polluted with it. As we speak, you are most likely inhaling plastic microfibers from your clothes and furniture. Once inside your body, some of them can mimic hormones.
- vghaisas 5y ago
  Related, "Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)" are covered later in the thread: https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1419814637588070404?s=20 https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1419814637588070404?s=2...
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
We have tossed a lot of chemicals into the environment without really understanding what they might do. I’m not sure how we could have done it differently. Some effects don’t show up until you have mass exposure. The best we can do is ban things once we discover there is a problem. The problem then becomes you have entrenched interests manufacturing those chemicals, which makes them hard to ban. Somewhere back in common law we made the mistake of allowing private parties to pollute the commons. And now we have centuries of case law that are impossible to overturn.
makeitdouble 5y ago
> The calories-in-calories-out perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as fat. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. This one will be so hard to swallow for so many people. I actually assume it will never go away, and linger eternally in people’s mind as it’s a way too seductive myth to be resisted.
- vmladenov 5y ago
  It’s still a perfectly reasonable approximation. What pains me is the popular myth that reducing calories in while maintaining calories out “doesn’t work”, which is essentially arguing for the existence of a perpetual motion machine.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    But can you maintain calories out? You don’t know what they are, you have no way to measure them, and your body processes will change them in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. I realize that people can fight homeostasis short term, but very few successfully fight it long term. We need to figure out the real causes of obesity, because calories in/calories out doesn’t appear to actually help very many people.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    Calorie in/ calorie out is reasonable if you start counting the calorie effectively absorbed by your gut (the “IN”), and find a way to measure the energy spent by your body in all directions (including temperature keeping, brain activity, etc., the “OUT”). The killing joke being that the “OUT” has been times and times shown to be regulated depending on the “IN”, so reduction in calorie intake generally cascades in reduced calorie spending in a variety of ways.
    - cracell 5y ago
      So? It's not complicated. If someone is overweight and consuming 3,000 calories a day and then reduces to 2,000 they might not lose weight. But then they just need to reduce further. All humans will lose weight at 0 calories per day. You just gotta find the right calorie level. Yes exact absorption greatly varies and is impossible to measure. But that's why you just reduce until you are losing at the desired speed. You don't need to precisely measure anything. You just need to be able to tell if overall consumption is going up or down. Of course this is mentally very challenging so people try to find reasons for it to not work. But energy has to come from somewhere.
mycall 5y ago
Could it be caused partly by plastics being consumed in higher quantities over time.
cracell 5y ago
This is basically a conspiracy theory. They are ignoring expert opinion and answers. And instead making a lot of big claims based on some correlations. The most laughable part being the claim that reducing calorie intake doesn't work. Everyone will lose weight by reducing calorie intake. It's just physics. Now in practice people have an extremely hard time sticking to diets which makes them ineffective. But people not following diets is not proof that you can't lose weight by reducing calories.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
timmg 5y ago
Not enough predators?
8jef 5y ago
We should further investigate lecithin consumption as a possible culprit for the obesity epidemic. An eye opening study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19288019/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19288019/ According to this webpage, lecithin production and worlwide use really took off in the late 1970's: https://www.soyinfocenter.com/books/193 https://www.soyinfocenter.com/books/193 As of today, lecithins are present in lots and lots of different manufactured food worldwide.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  That would likely be a diversion from the actual culprits.
  - 8jef 5y ago
    Which actual culprits? It's all wind, and nobody knows about what's really making living things fatter and fatter. I'd advocate more studies on lecithin, because it became absolutely ubiquitous about 40 years ago, in all the food actual poor fat people consume on an hourly basis: cereals, margarine, chocolate, puddings, cookies, etc.
    - sosborn 5y ago
      The actual culprits are calories. The list of food you listed certainly conforms to that simple theory.
      - 8jef 5y ago
        Well, yes but no. That's the whole point of this discussion: how considering calories with sugar intake alone doesn't completely explain the obesity pandemic. Eating too much food never made most people that fat for such a long period of time, until the industrial food revolution that happened in the last 45 years. The real culprit for this obesity pandemic was introduced in our diet only about 45 years ago. Emulsifiers like lecithins should be looked at very seriously, along with other recent history additives.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Environmental estrogenic chemicals are a common factor that could explain both. This includes HRTs that don't get removed in water treatment but also many plasticizers in plastics are estrogenic.

20 points by vghaisas 5y ago

Personal theory --- micro plastic contamination. The environment is totally polluted with it. As we speak, you are most likely inhaling plastic microfibers from your clothes and furniture. Once inside your body, some of them can mimic hormones.

vghaisas 5y ago
Related, "Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)" are covered later in the thread: https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1419814637588070404?s=20 https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1419814637588070404?s=2...

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

We have tossed a lot of chemicals into the environment without really understanding what they might do. I’m not sure how we could have done it differently. Some effects don’t show up until you have mass exposure. The best we can do is ban things once we discover there is a problem. The problem then becomes you have entrenched interests manufacturing those chemicals, which makes them hard to ban. Somewhere back in common law we made the mistake of allowing private parties to pollute the commons. And now we have centuries of case law that are impossible to overturn.

makeitdouble 5y ago

> The calories-in-calories-out perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as fat. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. This one will be so hard to swallow for so many people. I actually assume it will never go away, and linger eternally in people’s mind as it’s a way too seductive myth to be resisted.

vmladenov 5y ago
It’s still a perfectly reasonable approximation. What pains me is the popular myth that reducing calories in while maintaining calories out “doesn’t work”, which is essentially arguing for the existence of a perpetual motion machine.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  But can you maintain calories out? You don’t know what they are, you have no way to measure them, and your body processes will change them in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. I realize that people can fight homeostasis short term, but very few successfully fight it long term. We need to figure out the real causes of obesity, because calories in/calories out doesn’t appear to actually help very many people.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Calorie in/ calorie out is reasonable if you start counting the calorie effectively absorbed by your gut (the “IN”), and find a way to measure the energy spent by your body in all directions (including temperature keeping, brain activity, etc., the “OUT”). The killing joke being that the “OUT” has been times and times shown to be regulated depending on the “IN”, so reduction in calorie intake generally cascades in reduced calorie spending in a variety of ways.
  - cracell 5y ago
    So? It's not complicated. If someone is overweight and consuming 3,000 calories a day and then reduces to 2,000 they might not lose weight. But then they just need to reduce further. All humans will lose weight at 0 calories per day. You just gotta find the right calorie level. Yes exact absorption greatly varies and is impossible to measure. But that's why you just reduce until you are losing at the desired speed. You don't need to precisely measure anything. You just need to be able to tell if overall consumption is going up or down. Of course this is mentally very challenging so people try to find reasons for it to not work. But energy has to come from somewhere.

mycall 5y ago

Could it be caused partly by plastics being consumed in higher quantities over time.

cracell 5y ago

This is basically a conspiracy theory. They are ignoring expert opinion and answers. And instead making a lot of big claims based on some correlations. The most laughable part being the claim that reducing calorie intake doesn't work. Everyone will lose weight by reducing calorie intake. It's just physics. Now in practice people have an extremely hard time sticking to diets which makes them ineffective. But people not following diets is not proof that you can't lose weight by reducing calories.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

timmg 5y ago

Not enough predators?

8jef 5y ago

We should further investigate lecithin consumption as a possible culprit for the obesity epidemic. An eye opening study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19288019/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19288019/ According to this webpage, lecithin production and worlwide use really took off in the late 1970's: https://www.soyinfocenter.com/books/193 https://www.soyinfocenter.com/books/193 As of today, lecithins are present in lots and lots of different manufactured food worldwide.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
That would likely be a diversion from the actual culprits.
- 8jef 5y ago
  Which actual culprits? It's all wind, and nobody knows about what's really making living things fatter and fatter. I'd advocate more studies on lecithin, because it became absolutely ubiquitous about 40 years ago, in all the food actual poor fat people consume on an hourly basis: cereals, margarine, chocolate, puddings, cookies, etc.
  - sosborn 5y ago
    The actual culprits are calories. The list of food you listed certainly conforms to that simple theory.
    - 8jef 5y ago
      Well, yes but no. That's the whole point of this discussion: how considering calories with sugar intake alone doesn't completely explain the obesity pandemic. Eating too much food never made most people that fat for such a long period of time, until the industrial food revolution that happened in the last 45 years. The real culprit for this obesity pandemic was introduced in our diet only about 45 years ago. Emulsifiers like lecithins should be looked at very seriously, along with other recent history additives.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Environmental estrogenic chemicals are a common factor that could explain both. This includes HRTs that don't get removed in water treatment but also many plasticizers in plastics are estrogenic.