Most low-carb people will be 100% adamant that carbs are fucking evil and cause obesity. Most low calorie people will be 100% adamant that surplus calories are fucking evil and cause obesity.
I think both are wrong.
As humans we have evolved to store surplus lipid for long term usage and famines. That means that we will partition 50-100% of surplus energy into adipose tissue or intramuscular slow twitch tissue, depending on our genetics and our epigenetics, including gender (i.e. women with lots of oestrogen/progesterone will partition more of their calories into adipose stores).
But when this energy is stored, two things can happen:
1. Adipocytes grow in size due to enlargement of lipid droplet. More leptin and less adiponectin. Everyone is happy, end of.
2. Adipocytes grow in number due to PPAR gamma activation by adipogenic hormones, signalling pathways and genes. Less leptin, more adiponectin. More shit.
Guess which one leads to non-terminating dire grotesque 500lb obesity...
(btw it's #2)
And this is what I research on the side of my usual education (chemistry, biology, maths and french): peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma 2 (PPARy2) in the adipose tissue. It is the holy grail to understanding obesity and how to reverse it, because this molecule is the ultimate thrifty molecule.
When you cannot store, you burn.
When you store, you cannot burn.
Tu comprends? Good. I will continue this series, starting with what excessive PPARy does, and it ain't pretty -(think insulin hypersecretion, large adipocyte apoptosis, and overall significant increases in small, insulin sensitive, and most of all hungry adipocytes).
Just remember that food is not the culprit - the physiology is.
You won't want to miss it.
Why the f did i not say that carbs and calories merely facilitate obesity. They are not causal but are a vector and a condition to obesity.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting catnip :) Looking forward to reading more. I agree that adipogenesis and what regulates this is key to understanding severe obesity. Insulin is surely implicated and controlling insulin can be therapeutic, but it doesn't really tell us *why* some individuals grow fat tissue like a cancer in the context of hyperinsulinemia, meanwhile others will not.
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting ;)
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. Controlling insulin can stunt a fat tissue's growth as it can stunt a child's linear growth but ultimately hyperinsulinaemia by itself is not going to morph someone into an obese patient who cannot move. People say obesity is advantageous because of energy storage but in the context of escaping from a predator or hunting for whatever, obesity is not a good trait to have - movement is severely limited.
I've been reading some articles on nature.com which does some gd scientific journals and reviews. When food is not mentioned, obesity is suddenly a biological disease and not a Catholic failure lol.