FatBlogger

Microbesity

It has been awhile, but do any of you recall reading the NY Times Magazine article this past August titled "Fat Factors"? It deals with an emerging new science called "Microbesity".

Here is a link, which you will probably have to register to read, but it is well worth it.

Basically, what some scientists have discovered is that some people that are obese may have more of one kind of gut microbe (Firmicutes) than another (Bacteroidetes). This disproportion of microbes may be why some people can eat many calories and gain little weight, and why some obese people eat few calories but can not lose weight. The microbes are designed to determine fat storage, when the scientist played with the ratios in mice they  discovered that mice  were under or over weight depending on these ratios, though the amount of food was the same.

The implications are fascinating really. Right now as I type this, researchers are testing this theory on humans, taking samples and comparing data. If they find similar results to the experiments and observations on the mice, can a pill containing the proper dose of microbes, or a contrived dose to help obese people lose weight, be far behind?

Don't worry...I am not going to wait for an extra helping of Bacteroidetes...13 days to go!

The Diabetes Plague

Since I had slept for 11 hours the night before, I felt up to the task of staying up a bit later and watching The Charlie Rose Show on Thursday night. Have any of you ever seen it? Its a PBS broadcast at night, topical guests for lengthy interviews. Sometimes I watch it, sometimes I Tivo it. The Tivo by the way, LOVE IT! Anyway, Thursday's show was a bit of a shocker, and no, not because Zbigniew Brzezinski says that we are in a mess in Iraq, no it was about the second half of the show, about the diabetes epidemic going on in the world.

Today diabetes is the ONLY disease that is increasing in our country, not decreasing. In fact while most other causes of death have decreased by 40% or more, death by diabetes has increased by 45%! Right now an African-American or Hispanic child has a 50/50 shot of developing childhood type 2 diabetes. Right now, diabetes is the second leading cause of death in America, and right now, more vets have their limbs removed because of diabetes then they do from IED's.  Right now there are nearly 21 million Americans with diabetes, and 7 million of them don't even know they have it. 90% of diabetes is caused by obesity or poor diet.

Now, there are other factors, like genetics, but remember I am talking about type 2 here, what used to be called adult onset diabetes until so many children starting getting it. Fifty years ago a pediatrician never saw a case of it, or rarely, today it is rampant. The cause? Simple sugars, soda, high fructose corn syrup. Junk.

My father got it in his forties because he got fat, so did his father. My dad lost the weight and controls it pretty well, but he looks like he is 80 and he is in his 60's, he finds it harder and harder to walk any distance. What science is now finding is that diabetes actually contributes to the first leading cause of death in America, heart disease.

I was moved by the doctors on the show, and the reporter for the NY Times that is running the 4 part story. I was shocked, and I was scared, not just for myself but for our children. The next morning I went to the American Diabetes Association for some more info.

I looked up the early (and often ignored) symptoms...

• Frequent urination
• Excessive thirst
• Extreme hunger
• Unusual weight loss
• Increased fatigue
• Irritability
• Blurry vision

I looked up what can happen to you when you get it...

• Depression
• Blindness
• Kidney Disease
• Foot and Skin Complications
• Nureopathy and Nerve damage
• Gastropareses

I took the Diabetes Risk Test and got some interesting results. When I plug in the numbers (weight, height, age) and included exercise my risk threat came back a "6", some minor or medium risk. No big deal. Then I did it again with out exercise and my risk factor came back a giant glaring red "11".  As the great Nigel Tufnel (of Spinal Tap fame) would say... "that's one more than 10, so it's better right?". Not.

With my weight being what it is, I MIGHT be able to hold off getting diabetes as long as I am active. Once I stop moving, I am a sitting duck to develop it.  Of course I could take my weight loss more seriously...that old chestnut.

Beyond worrying about my own ass, something I do with ease, I worry about the future of our children's health in general. One of the doctors in Thursday's show, Dr. Richard Bernstein, swears that what we have here with this epidemic, particularly with children, is an addiction to simple carbohydrates, which very quickly, almost immediately upon touching your lips, turns into simple sugars. I have seen my kid raid the pantry, I have seen his choices, and yes, it looks like an addiction to me!

I am not sure if our country, or the rapidly industrializing countries of Asia, can ever put the genie ( access to junk food) back in the bottle, but I can see what is on the horizon if we don't try to contain it. Massive health care costs, misery and death. Perhaps this is why we see many American food manufactures starting to put whole grains into their cereals, pasta and snacks. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall and they do not want to get sued. One thing is clear, this is a huge, and often ignored, problem in our country. Ignored, that is, until you get it...and then it is too late, it ain't going away, the best you can do is manage it.

Hey, not trying to bum you out this weekend! Just giving you something to think about, look into and maybe take a little action on. If we tax payers can spend billions, even trillions, on weapons and war to prevent deaths that MIGHT occur by terrorism, maybe we can get the government to shell out another billion or two to get gym class back into all public schools and prevent the deaths that we KNOW will occur if we don't.

225,000 people died last year in America due to diabetes, that number is increasing every year, and a larger and larger portion of it is going to be our children. A very sobering, and very terrifying thought for me.

Alli your Ally?

It looks like the "fat pill" will soon be on a shelf at your local pharmacy. There have been many that have said that they would take the pill if it helps, I can understand that particularly when weight loss has been stubborn, but after reading more about it, I am not sure it does that. In a clinical study of 6 months, subjects lost an average of 5-6 pounds more than those who did not go on it. For those of you mathematically challenged, that's only 1 pound a month. Is it worth the side effects? We know someone who was on the pill as a prescription from the doctor, and her tales of the end results were not pretty. If losing a pound a month in exchange for oily stools and diarrhea sounds like a fair exchange to you, then you are all set come this Summer! Of course you still have to combine it with exercise and modified diet, that old chestnut.

And the winner is...

Oregon! Yeah Oregon! You are the only state in the union which did not get FATTER.

In a recent study by The Trust for America's Health, most states increased their obesity stats.  The percentage of obese Americans is now a staggering 25%.  Apparently, Atkins, the South Beach Diet, The Hollywood Diet, Dr. Phil and every other weight loss scheme plan ain't working for crap except to make some people rich. There seems to be a correlation between fatter Americans and fatter bank accounts for some.

(click image for enlargement)

The state I currently live in, Texas,  is tied for 6Th fattest overall. The state  where I lived 10 years ago, Massachusetts, ranked 49Th fattest. By and "large", no pun intended, the rates of obesity are generally the same through out, and except for a few northern states, run around 20+ %. 

This is not a statistic on simply being overweight by 10 or maybe even 20 pounds, this is a statistic on clinical obesity. Technically you are considered obese if you have a BMI of 30 or above, and then there are several levels of obesity, like morbidly obese, etc. I checked out my own numbers here The Department of Health and Human Services. Needless to say I was not happy with the results, my BMI is 33.  I give this some serious thought, but I also know that there is no way I can be the weight they recommend for my height, around 150 pounds, I have more muscle and bone than that alone, so it is relative to your body type, but still a good measurement to gage your overall health. I believe the percentage of simply overweight Americans is much higher, around 2/3 of the public or a whopping 60+% !?

I guess the best thing for my weight-loss efforts is to move back in with my parents in Boston and live in their basement until I can get my BMI down to 20 or below. Not sure yet how to break the news to the Mrs.

the bigotries of shape and size

Since most of my friends are woman, I decided to post this article from the Boston Globe. It does not come as a shock to me that researchers discovered that woman who were overweight suffered not just with perceptions of vanity, but also in the financial department. It parallels another study that showed the more attractive you are the more money you will make through out your life time.

Movies, television, print ads all drive home the point that being thin is good, fat bad, and if you are a women, the thinner the better, regardless of how unhealthy it is.  Men must comply as well, but we have a lot more latitude. Men can still lead normal, healthy, successful lives even if we are fat, we get a pass. Some woman's groups protest, some individual feminists, but the vast majority of woman, particularly young women, still buy into this crap, they have yet to have a national "bra burning" of magazines pushing this notion, have yet to make a nationwide massive movement saying enough is enough.

Yes, 60 percent of Americans are unhealthily overweight, of which I am one. I would say that perhaps that is a separate issue, but maybe it is not. It is very probable that this unhealthy "model" of thinness has had a reverse effect, has in fact forced many of us into diets, especially women, where we inevitably gain more and more weight. People blame the availability of food now as the culprit but fail to see that prior to this explosion of weight gain in our country, there were no diet foods, no diet soft drinks. Butter, meat, potatoes, ice-cream, sugar, flour salt, were staples of earlier times.  As a nation we began to gain weight steadily at the beginning of the early 70's, about the same time that it became common place to see print ads of thin models and movie stars slimmed down. Voluptuous had given way to skinny and we never looked back.

Where am I going with all of this? I'm not sure. On the one hand you have the national hysteria of thinness that has been raging for over 30 years and on the other you have the majority of people, particularly women that fall through the cracks of this perception, literally "don't fit in". They suffer from more than damage to their self-esteem, they suffer in the work place and the checking book as well. Earlier I mentioned the fact that women, en mass, have yet to band together to fight this stupidity and fight the men that keep pushing it. It is not vanity or sex or being attractive that has suppressed such a movement, but simply the fact that woman want what a man is free to pursue, the ability to succeed, to climb to achieve and being thin is the only way they can get in the door.

It seems, even in the 21st century, we are still dealing with bigotries in the work place, and over the last quarter century we have added shape and size as well.

Boston Globe article here!

"We are the Borg - Resistance is futile!"

I weighed in today. I have a "Borg" scale, also measures your fat%. I lost three pounds in the last week and 1% of fat. This is good, I was trying to lose only 2, plus it is doubly good because it was all fat, my LBM (lean body mass or muscle) stayed the same. Usually on diets you tend to lose too much muscle and not enough fat, which makes gaining weight all the easier should you fall from grace. Last week I was 220 pounds @32% body fat, this week 217 @31%. If I multiply both weights by their respective fat% and then take that total ( my fat total) minus my body weight total, I get the LBM. My LBM has stayed constant so far at 149 pounds.

220 x 32%(fat)  = 70.4 lbs fat  then  220 -  70.4 = 149.6 lbs lbm                              217 x 31% (fat) = 67.3 fat then  217 - 67.3 = 149.7 lbm

I came across a great Christian Science Monitor article about how counties around the country are dealing with the costs of obesity and what they are trying to do to get people to lose weight. Of course this is the classic argument, "don't we have a right to be fat?" Should Big Brother be telling us what and how much to stuff into our faces? Should we as fellow citizens be concerned about the costs in money and lives to our society?

Yesterday I said that I was going to get into my program, and since I know have proof that it is working I suppose I shouldn't hold out, but to tell the truth, I am just too tired right now to get into it and I kinda got off track tonight. Tomorrow, tomorrow, always tomorrow!