Prisoner A
Wed, May-09-07, 17:15
Sigh! ^_^
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?em&ex=117-
8856000&en=271d386f02040361&ei=5087%0A
EXCERPTS
Every time the result was the same. The weight, so
painstakingly lost, came right back. But since this was a
research study, the investigators were also measuring
metabolic changes, psychiatric conditions, body temperature
and pulse. And that led them to a surprising conclusion: fat
people who lost large amounts of weight might look like
someone who was never fat, but they were very different. In
fact, by every metabolic measurement, they seemed like people
who were starving.
...
The Rockefeller researchers explained their observations in
one of their papers: "It is entirely possible that weight
reduction, instead of resulting in a normal state for obese
patients, results in an abnormal state resembling that of
starved nonobese individuals."
Eventually, more than 50 people lived at the hospital and lost
weight, and every one had physical and psychological signs of
starvation. There were a very few who did not get fat again,
but they made staying thin their life's work, becoming Weight
Watchers lecturers, for example, and, always, counting
calories and maintaining themselves in a permanent state of
starvation.
...
The implications were clear. There is a reason that fat
people cannot stay thin after they diet and that thin people
cannot stay fat when they force themselves to gain weight.
The body's metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight
within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as
much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its
original speed.
...
The message never really got out to the nation's dieters, but
a few research scientists were intrigued and asked the next
question about body weight: Is body weight inherited, or is
obesity more of an inadvertent, almost unconscious response to
a society where food is cheap, abundant and tempting? An extra
100 calories a day will pile on 10 pounds in a year, public
health messages often say. In five years, that is 50 pounds.
...
Dr. Stunkard ended up with 540 adults whose average age was
40. They had been adopted when they were very young - 55
percent had been adopted in the first month of life and 90
percent were adopted in the first year of life. His
conclusions, published in The New England Journal of
Medicine in 1986, were unequivocal. The adoptees were as
fat as their biological parents, and how fat they were had
no relation to how fat their adoptive parents were.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?em&ex=117-
8856000&en=271d386f02040361&ei=5087%0A
EXCERPTS
Every time the result was the same. The weight, so
painstakingly lost, came right back. But since this was a
research study, the investigators were also measuring
metabolic changes, psychiatric conditions, body temperature
and pulse. And that led them to a surprising conclusion: fat
people who lost large amounts of weight might look like
someone who was never fat, but they were very different. In
fact, by every metabolic measurement, they seemed like people
who were starving.
...
The Rockefeller researchers explained their observations in
one of their papers: "It is entirely possible that weight
reduction, instead of resulting in a normal state for obese
patients, results in an abnormal state resembling that of
starved nonobese individuals."
Eventually, more than 50 people lived at the hospital and lost
weight, and every one had physical and psychological signs of
starvation. There were a very few who did not get fat again,
but they made staying thin their life's work, becoming Weight
Watchers lecturers, for example, and, always, counting
calories and maintaining themselves in a permanent state of
starvation.
...
The implications were clear. There is a reason that fat
people cannot stay thin after they diet and that thin people
cannot stay fat when they force themselves to gain weight.
The body's metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight
within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as
much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its
original speed.
...
The message never really got out to the nation's dieters, but
a few research scientists were intrigued and asked the next
question about body weight: Is body weight inherited, or is
obesity more of an inadvertent, almost unconscious response to
a society where food is cheap, abundant and tempting? An extra
100 calories a day will pile on 10 pounds in a year, public
health messages often say. In five years, that is 50 pounds.
...
Dr. Stunkard ended up with 540 adults whose average age was
40. They had been adopted when they were very young - 55
percent had been adopted in the first month of life and 90
percent were adopted in the first year of life. His
conclusions, published in The New England Journal of
Medicine in 1986, were unequivocal. The adoptees were as
fat as their biological parents, and how fat they were had
no relation to how fat their adoptive parents were.