The man who can't get fat

[Sagehill]

Interesting article about a man whose body produces six times too much insulin and so rapidly burns off body fat. I wonder what would happen if he radically cut his carbs as low as possible?


The man who can't get fat
By Bonnie Malkin

Mr Perry, 59, can eat whatever he likes - including unlimited pies, burgers and desserts - and never get fat. Mr Perry regularly eats Chinese takeaways, chips and chocolate. He cannot put on weight because of a condition called lipodystrophy that makes his body rapidly burn fat. Mr Perry regularly eats Chinese takeaways, chips, chocolate and clotted cream, but his weight has remained stable at 11st 12lb.

He told the Sun that he used to be a chubby child, but at age 12 the fat dropped off "almost over night". Doctors thought he was refusing to eat or had a stomach ulcer, he said. He initially tried to eat more to gain weight, but it had no effect.

“I didn’t like being slim at first. As a teenager playing football I was so thin I got embarrassed taking my shirt off," he said. “I used to eat loads of chocolate to try and put on weight but I couldn’t.” Mr Perry, of Ilford in Essex, endured a decade of tests before the illness was diagnosed. It finally emerged that his body produces six times the normal level of insulin.

Doctors have admitted that the condition would be a "slimmer's dream".

http:/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/10/nfat110.xml

[Nancy LC]

Lypodystrophy isn't a slimmer's dream at all, it is a health nightmare.

http://www.atdn.org/simple/lipodys.html

[Sagehill]

This is true; still, the news perpetuates the belief that it's better to be thin of a non-curable disorder, than relatively healthy and overweight. The following link suggests the disorder probably is related to insulin resistance rather than HIV, so perhaps a low-carb diet would be the best way to treat this problem after all:

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=19803

[Nancy LC]

When I read about it I wondered how hyperinsulinism could cause it, usually hyperinsulinism makes you fat. Maybe there's SO much insulin that it destroys the fat cell?

[Chefjen]

well hes stupid if he eats all taht crap.. People who are skinny can still clog their arteries and suffer from other aliments

[LessLiz]

Nancy, I don't know how it does it either but some cases of lipodystrophy are associated with hyperinsulinism. I wonder if there are other things going on, because hyperinsulinism also occurs with relative frequency in people with Type II diabetes and it results in weight gain.

[Sagehill]

Nancy, I don't know how it does it either but some cases of lipodystrophy are associated with hyperinsulinism. I wonder if there are other things going on, because hyperinsulinism also occurs with relative frequency in people with Type II diabetes and it results in weight gain.That's what I gathered from the article... he has six times more insulin than normal; the interesting thing is it started with puberty. I wonder if his condition may be due to an enzyme defect per this link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/43988.php

[anita45]

Taubes actually spoke about this medical condition in that video lecture that's been posted up here somewhere.

[M Levac]

You'd think that somebody would read this and consider that he's producing 6 times more insulin because maybe, just maybe, glucose is 6 times more poisonous for that chap.

[Baerdric]

perhaps a low-carb diet would be the best way to treat this problem I wondered that myself. Perhaps he is producing 6X as much insulin because sugar is an irritant or something. Just speculation...

[Nancy LC]

Taubes actually spoke about this medical condition in that video lecture that's been posted up here somewhere.
He did but slightly different variation, it was people with it localized. This guy has it all over, other folks seem to have it in certain areas, like above the waist they're skeletal, below they're quite fat.

[teaser]

He might just be missing or deficient in certain hormones that parallel the action of insulin. Adiponectin, for example, discourages gluconeogenesis, as does insulin. Or he could need the insulin to oppose the action of insulin-antagonist hormones like glucagon. Or maybe his cells just don't get the part of the insulin message that's supposed to turn off fat burning. Maybe his fat cells just plain ate themselves--or at least the fatty acid portion of those cells. Maybe his body isn't so good at burning sugar directly,or is too busy burning fat to bother, so he needs high levels of insulin to send the message to his liver that it needs to convert lots of sugar to fat? That would explain the high triglycerides.
I find it hard to believe that they didn't check his insulin levels right off. Maybe they ruled out type one diabetes by just checking blood sugar?
In his case, those high triglycerides might not even be bad. Other than his lean tissue, they're the only emergency store of calories he's got, after all.

"Doctor's have admitted" that it's a slimmer's dream suggests a certain reluctance broken by media harrassment, doesn't it? ;)

[anita45]

He did but slightly different variation, it was people with it localized. This guy has it all over, other folks seem to have it in certain areas, like above the waist they're skeletal, below they're quite fat.

I'm sure he also spoke about people who have it all over because he said something about how it causes them a whole host of health problems because of those raised insulin levels...

[glennette]

.
"Doctor's have admitted" that it's a slimmer's dream suggests a certain reluctance broken by media harrassment, doesn't it? ;)

That's exactly what I thought when I read it. :agree:

[KiaKaha]

I cant figure out why he isnt dead of a heart attack - surely with that much insulin and a high carb, high fat diet - he must have heart disease?

[francisstp]

I'm so glad when strange cases like this emerge because we can learn so much from them!

[kaypeeoh]

The parallel that comes to mind is allergy shots. If you'e allergic to ragweed you can have injections of ragweed extract. By flooding the body with so much ragweed protein, the proteins 'gum up' the attachment sites so that there's no physiologic effect, ie no sneezing, etc. So that much insulin might clog the attachment sites on cell membranes, preventing glucose from entering.

I remember when Claus Von Bulow was arrested for attemped murder of his wife. She ended up in a coma because of giving herself insulin injections. She wasn't diabetic. She did the injections to keep thin.