Monday 5 March 2012

I heart Gary Taubes

Those of you who aren't interested in weight and it's cause or function can look away for now. From the last post a commenter had some things on their mind.

I'd first like to address certain misunderstandings that tend to come up in these matters. I am aware that there is and has been  genuine study of fat human beings-Dr. Stephen O'Rahilly, springs to mind though he doesn't call his studies 'obesity'.

It makes it easier to see the last say 20 years have marked a shift from that towards dominance from a specific point of view.

'Obesity' for the main of its existence has been an extremely marginal subject. Mostly an underfunded backwater. If you look closely, it hasn't really emerged from this inability to combine sustained funding and genuineness. The idiological hype is formed by a need to surmount that, clearly, the question for what (motive) and to what end/s?

The blame for ignoring anyone's resarch goes solely to the field itself. It has taught everyone including myself how to see these matters therefore it is responsible for anyone within its corps being overlooked due to honesty that seems like lies- familiar no? Those who are genuine can also blame the same for their own struggle in isolation, I'm sure.

The idea of blaming the monkeys for dancing when the organ grinder has turned the wheel seems a reversal of noblesse oblige.
But there ARE people out there doing the research and helping thousands recover from diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypothyroidism...modern diseases.
Leaving aside 'obesity', none of these conditions are specific to fat people. If they were, as much 'progress would have been made with them as has been made with leaving aside 'obesity', none of these have anything specifically to do with being fat, suggested by the fact that if they had no more progress would have been made with them than 'obesity' and weight change. And we all know despite flummery, nothing has been achieved. Calories in/out was discovered aeon's ago would have stopped  the adipocalypse before it started.

As for recovery from diabetes, I am intrigued, it appears to be incurable. What I know about type 2 is microscopic, but I'd say if anyone's recovered from it, it's likely they didn't have it. Recovering from 'obesity'doesn't require any assistance. You just stop play acting a poor miserable 'obese' and that tends to do it, though there is no defined route as yet. 

I also don't quite get this general point that these are modern conditions, as far as I can tell, only stuff like HIV are new and even there we are talking appearance or even context. There is nothing new about these conditions, they dominate more and more because certain infectious diseases are in the process of being vanquished, leaving more bodies to go along the courses they would have gone along in previous generations had there been a absence of pathogenic.
And, yes, it is something in our modern environment switching on genes that have always been there, dormant. genetic predisposition + modern "toxic" environment = modern diseases and obesity. This is especially true when people are nutrient deficient over many generations due to poor diet in their family history. It's a complex subject but there are answers out there.
The switching on/off genes/traits defines human function in general over time, how we adapt to our environs. You could say the same about any seemingly increasing human trait from asthma to autism-which is not an illness of any kind (that's the point) to homosexuality for different reasons or things like depression etc., which is a sign of distress.

Weight gain/fatness again is something else. It simply is a matter of personal inclination whether to interpret it as a pathology. Even if it is for pathological reasons it does not make it a pathology in itself. weight often acts to stop something more threatening to current conditions from happening, fusing those together just misleads. As we can see, those who deal in that have achieved nothing of any real worth and come up against the same brick walls of their own making. Recently this was 'solved' by yet again lowering the standard of surely a candidates for the most worthless drugs ever.

That will last until the current tranche mash up some or other organs-as believe me they will.

As I said, it could just be physical evolution given the way modern societies have progressed. iow, given the conditions, inevitable. So we can find a way to alter/manipulate actual function or we can leave well alone and accept it. Probably both.

What we cannot continue with (I'm speaking rhetorically because clearly "we" can) is this suspension of consequence that keeps people seeking to pretend to resolve this by beating up fatz.

6 comments:

  1. "Leaving aside 'obesity', none of these conditions are specific to fat people"

    Hi, I didn't say that these diseases are specific to fat people. I listed them all together because I believe they are interrelated. Inflammation is the main cause and these modern diseases (or syndromes) are the result. It is well researched that these are modern diseases. Even today, tribal communities are studied and it's shown that the incidence of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes is negligible or non-existent in primitive cultures. There are many things about our modern environment that cause inflammation within our bodies but the most important factor and the one likely to have the biggest impact when modified is diet/nutrition.

    "As for recovery from diabetes, I am intrigued, it appears to be incurable. What I know about type 2 is microscopic, but I'd say if anyone's recovered from it, it's likely they didn't have it"

    People recover from real diabetes every day and it is usually through weight loss. A lot of FA people seem to express they believe their fat is just there, a blob sitting on their body without consequence. This couldn't be further from the truth. Fat is metabolically active. It alters hormone levels, releases inflammatory cytokines, disrupts leptin signalling. The more fat you have, the more hormonal imbalance and inflammation, and the more likely to have diabetes, insulin resistance, and heart disease (from inflammation).
    I'm not saying that you can't be fat and healthy (or healthier than unfit thin people with poor diet and lifestyle) I am saying that the healthiest fat person will never be as healthy as the healthiest thin person simply because the fat itself is so disruptive to hormones and perpetuates the cycle of inflammation even if the diet is healthy. To pretend otherwise is doing yourself a disservice.


    http://chriskresser.com/how-inflammation-makes-you-fat-and-diabetic-and-vice-versa

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  2. I listed them all together because I believe they are interrelated. Inflammation is the main cause and these modern diseases (or syndromes) are the result.

    Yeah, whether good or ill they're all products of our history of existence as I thought we'd already agreed.

    A lot of FA people seem to express they believe their fat is just there, a blob sitting on their body without consequence.

    What most people in FA are getting to grips with is the wholeness of their bodies.

    That fat and all are integrated and indivisible. That's more than just a social affectation, any changes to that must happen as a whole or take the whole into account.

    People recover from real diabetes every day and it is usually through weight loss.

    We don't have WL, we have anorexia with WL as a hoped for side effect, that's the problem.

    The 'cure' is itself a pathology, and we aren't talking botox here.

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  3. "Yeah, whether good or ill they're all products of our history of existence as I thought we'd already agreed"
    I think we agree there is a genetic component but I don’t agree that genetics alone are the final answer or that we have evolved to be fat as some protective measure. Our genetics are just a base of our potential in life whether good or bad. Just because one has a genetic predisposition for overweight does not mean they will get fat, or that once fat they do not have the ability to safely lose weight. Lifestyle has the ability to switch genes on or off. What we eat, what toxins we’re exposed to, how much we sleep, how much stress…all these factors and more interact with our genes and either enable or disable certain gene expressions. I believe almost everyone has the ability to lose weight by providing our bodies with foods that our bodies have evolved to eat and can recognize therefore switching on the right genes. I’m not talking calorie or food restriction. I’m talking about recognizing that we simply aren’t meant to eat our modern diets and eliminating certain items that aren’t really “food”. I don’t think it’s dysfunctional eating to refuse certain modern foods because we don’t believe they are appropriate fuel for our bodies. If you take a step back and look at it from an evolutionary or even multi-generational perspective the way we eat today (the last 40 years or so) would be considered dysfunctional eating. I do agree that weight loss must be a side effect of taking the whole body into account. If you fix the underlying disturbances within the body and you’re doing it correctly then weight loss will be secondary. Focusing on weight loss as the primary factor in health is backwards and does cause more harm than good.
    http://www.marksdailyapple.com/epigenetics/#axzz1oSie0qcT
    All this aside, if people just want to be happy with their bodies and feel they don't need or can't handle the stress of analyzing their diets/lifestlyles and making changes that's fine. I don't judge or think it's okay for others to judge. Being happy is a major part of health as well. My original point here was to bring up that there are researchers doing valuable research in obesity, and there are diets (Paleolithic style diets) that work by reprogramming genes that do not require hunger, caloric restriction, or any unhealthful means to achieve results because these diets work on the underlying factors before WL.

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  4. I don’t agree that genetics alone are the final answer or that we have evolved to be fat as some protective measure.

    That's nice for you, I'm not a genetic determinist on soft traits-one's not definitive to our existence-either and I said that.

    It's another case of talking to a generic idea of me that doesn't exist. But that wasn't really your aim was it?

    You've made your point/s, humans aren't designed to eat what we now eat, this is undermining our health and something called the paleotlithic diet is the cure for the damage we've done and the key to a healthy existence and this was found out by useful research in the field of 'obesity'.

    Gotcha.

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  5. Ah, wriggles, you are brilliant. Thank you for this post.

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  6. Nice to hear from you again RNegade and you're welcome. When I have my moments, I try to share ;-)

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