The challenge of dealing with the obesity epidemic is one of the most interesting debates in the field of human health. Most people feel the answer is already there, “eat less and exercise more stupid.” Not so fast. The body has feedback mechanisms in place to maintain a constant weight. If you eat too little, metabolism slows down and you get more hungry. If you eat too much, metabolism speeds up and you get less hungry. Anyone can gain or lose a few pounds by suddenly changing exercise levels and food intake before these homeostatic mechanisms catch up, but going beyond those parameters is difficult unless the feedback mechanism is broken. The feedback loop is broken when there is inequality between the metabolic rate and hunger levels. An overweight person… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Obesity
180 Degree Sneak Peek – Hyperinsulinemia and Friends
…Carbohydrates alone do not cause insulin resistance. Having your insulin levels rise over and over again in response to carbohydrate-rich meals does not solely lead to insulin resistance and the compensatory hyperinsulinemia that is at the core of modern diseases. Most people on the low-carb side of the fence would have you believe that our Paleolithic evolutionary genetic programming has left us incapable of ingesting so many carbohydrates – that the amount of carbohydrates we’re currently eating is too much. That’s what the low-carbers really believe, that the human being is not designed to eat but a tiny amount of carbohydrates. Here are some kinks. Some of the healthiest, leanest, and longest-living human groups ever discovered eat a very high carbohydrate diet. The Sikhs of India and the Hunzas of… Read more »
180 Degree Sneak Peek – "Thy Thyroid"
A sample of the first download that will be made available at 180degreehealth.com, “180 Degree Metabolism”… …Suffice it to say that, because of the metabolism-regulating action of the thyroid gland, that trying to eat less and exercise more as a solution to the obesity epidemic is like a dog chasing its tail. It hasn’t been effective advice for the general public because it doesn’t work. It is merely a short-term solution, with negative consequences, which provides the temporary illusion of success – like cleaning a room by stuffing everything under the bed. Eating too much and exercising too little isn’t the predominant cause of the obesity epidemic either per se. The world is full of people who eat to they’re satisfied at every meal and hardly ever break a sweat… Read more »
180degreehealth sneak peek — Dr. Fatkins
Unedited excerpt from 180-Degree Health: Understanding and Reversing the Decline of Human Health, due for release in January 2009 …one need look much further than the end result of most people “livin’ la vida low carb.” Everyone knows that going on a practically no carb diet has serious drawbacks. For one, most people get mean constipation. If not, your body odor and breath start stinking to a level that screams, “this can’t be healthy!” What’s totally nuts is that even Dr. Fatkins himself mentions, on page 303 of Dr. Fatkins New Diet Revolution… “…remember that prolonged dieting [including ‘this one’] tends to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid… Read more »
Malabsorption
First off, apologies to my long-time followers for always being so preoccupied with Weston A. Price and others that witnessed the sudden dramatic decline of health at the dawn of modern food. But the shift of human health really dominates my thinking. From the beginning I’ve really been perplexed and driven to understand how and what, specifically, brought about this shift. As a very brief recap for all the newbies, Price directly observed a dramatic change in physical, mental, and even societal health amongst several independent groups of humans worldwide, as they were exposed to modern foods for the first time from a previously natural, nutritious, and untainted diet. Highlights include improper formation of facial structure resulting in crooked teeth, something we now just consider to be normal and “genetic”… Read more »
The Dynamic Duo
Batman and Robin, Kobe and Shaq, Starsky and Hutch, Mary Kate and Ashley – the world is full of tag team duos. Now of course these duos couldn’t have become what they are without some support. Batman has that like, smart butler guy, Kobe and Shaq had a bunch of other big dudes on the team, Starsky and Hutch had police scanners and guns, and we all know that Mary Kate and Ashley wouldn’t be didley squat without Uncle Joey, let alone Deej, Sags, and Dave Coulier. There is a digestible dynamic duo as well, and sure they’ve got support from elsewhere, but a meal without these two lacks metabolic healing power. A meal without the duo is like, well, Michael J. Fox when he’s not wolfed out, and when… Read more »
Fruc Fructose
Fructose is a kind of sugar. There are many kinds of sugars: sucrose, lactose, galactose, maltose, dextrose, raffinose, glucose, and bunches more. Fructose is just one type. Fructose is famous for being the type of sugar found in fruit. Because of this association with fruit, considered to be a very nutritious and overall healthy food to be included in the daily diet of every man, woman, and child, fructose has been given unfair judgment. We might want to take a moment to investigate fructose a little further though, because there’s a legitimate possibility that it is the biggest single contributor to chronic disease. For realsies. As those who have done their homework have discovered, there is a striking correlation between the availability of refined sugar and the widespread onset of… Read more »
