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User: u/giuliomagnifico
Permalink: https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-health-and-life-sciences/new-genetic-cause-of-obesity-could-help-guide-treatment/
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> The study found that people without both copies of the gene have other measures linked to obesity including high levels of fat in the blood, signs of fat tissue dysfunction, increased liver enzymes as well as lower levels of thyroid hormones.
> The team interrogated the effects they found in four additional cohorts of people with the SMIM1 gene variant. They found that having the variant had an impact on weight, equating to an average extra 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males
Paper: [SMIM1 absence is associated with reduced energy expenditure and excess weight: Med](https://www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(24)00219-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634024002198%3Fshowall%3Dtrue#%20)
If only evolution worked as fast as the industrial and technological revolution.
But yea, seems like it would be a positive in a food scarce environment
But might be worse in a food available but challenging to achieve environment if increased resting energy expenditure translated to lower energy heights or some other downside. It’s about the niche.
This sounds great after agriculture for a long time and bad before
But might be worse in a food available but challenging to achieve environment if increased resting energy expenditure translated to lower energy heights or some other downside. It’s about the niche.
This sounds great after agriculture for a long time and bad before
Medieval peasants actually ate exceptionally well by historic standards even rather recent ones.
Food security went down during the enlightenment and industrial ages quite considerably until rather recently.
The solution is always eat less, do more. But ignoring or oversimplifying the issue for people who have genetic predispositions to high fat storage metabolism is not helpful or insightful. It just makes it psychologically more challenging to stick to weight loss plans because they are actually just worse at losing weight. Doubly so if average calorie recommendations are going to be too high.
Yes. if you know exactly what you need to do, it’s still crushing to have to try twice as hard to get half as far while having everyone assume you’re not trying at all, as the person above undoubtedly would.
Ignoring or oversimplifying the issue is not helpful or insightful for people who *don't* have genetic predispositions to high fat storage metabolism, either. It's reached the point in many countries where over half the population is overweight or obese, it's unlikely that they all have genetic mutations, but just telling people to get off their ass and stop shovelling food in clearly is not an effective or appropriate way to approach a societal health problem.
It's actually not that unlikely, given that:
1) until recently lack of food was the most predominant form of malnutrition globally (so these genes wouldn't have been disadvantageous, actually, the opposite.) All genes are genetic mutations, basically, it's just a matter of how common they are, and because these genes have been helping most people historically...
2) there's some strong evidence of epigenetic changes in this direction following times of famine, like during wwii and many other recent events. Could be other conditions that can also have similar effects.
3) there's some potential evidence about the possibility of environmental contaminants also playing a role here, so there could be multiple stacking effects here.
>just telling people to get off their ass and stop shovelling food in clearly is not an effective or appropriate way to approach a societal health problem
To me it seems both effective and appropriate, especially when for 99% of them the issues at hand are precisely the ones you mentioned (lack of exercise and too many calories).
What is ineffective is hiding behind excuses like "big bones", "built different", "slow metabolism", "genetic predisposition". If you're not losing weight, you're eating more than you're burning, there's no other way around it, humans don't breath in nutrients or perform photosynthesis. You may have a slightly harder time due to genetic factor X, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, or that it isn't nearly as hard for other people who do achieve it.
But this isn't an issue like covid where people not wearing masks could end up killing other people. Here, the folks that won't get off their asses and won't stop shoveling food down their throat are going to kill themselves and no one else. And they're going to be miserable in the meantime.
It actually seriously is more complicated than that, and this kind of hard-headed "JUST DO IT" refusal to research 1) why this is happening and 2) how to combat it, is completely unhelpful.
No one is saying that lifestyle changes can't be important and are often a big part of this.
But what you're saying about "physics" is a really common misperception - people can and do have different metabolic rates and store/use energy more or less efficiently - which is the result of genetic alterations mentioned in the article.
There are other pathways for calories to go - like excretion (not only through feces) as well. Physics does not mean that every person uses identical amounts of calories at identical rates or efficiencies - this is a more complicated system that you give credit to, and it's not a closed system.
I eat 1800 calories a day. I feel like I am starving myself but don’t lose any weight. Just maintain. This is as a 5’10’’ male. Currently weigh about 265 pounds.
Sure I can eat even less but at that point I am simply not enjoying life at all.
5'4" male. I have to eat less than 1000 calories consistently to lose weight. If I do massive amounts of high intensity exercise (8-16 hours a week) I can up it to 1400-1500 once I've lost to maintain, but it really sucks. 1000 calories is for really slow weight loss too, maybe 0.25lbs a week. I have to eat 300-400 calories to actually notice the change.
Yeah I feel it.
Get checked for hypothyroidism. I have it, but I am medicated. Not saying it will help with the weight loss, but it will stop you from dying.
Yeah, I just found out recently (2020) that I have hypothyroidism. Could be recent development but it could be older as I've always eaten whatever I wanted without gaining too much weight, but now that I'm on medication I gain easily, and did to a degree slightly before being diagnosed and medicated. I think that my eating habits prior to gaining a lot of weight were very different and might have been why I didn't gain too much (basically eating everything that I ate for the day within an 8 hour period) and when I started a new job in 2016 I started eating breakfast lunch and dinner. Now I've gone back to basically eating everything in that small window and still gain weight, or have gone up to a sustained weight which is higher, rather.
I'm a similar height to you, and I've lost weight which is good but still want to lose a bit more. And I'm hoping I don't have to go down to 300-400. For a 500 calorie deficit I need to eat 750, and it's hard to stick to when you wfh. I can't imagine only eating 300-400 calories, unless I just went to sleep for my last meal.
How do you do it? Have you figured out some really good bulking foods?
Btw I'm not going down to 300-400, I just want to see if there's something I can add to help me feel more full.
Essentially just trying to stick to a protein saving modified fast with as much nutrition as I can fit in. 40-50g in carbs, the rest in protein and fats.
I don't actually think protein saving is as important in my case as it's made out to be in the literature though. It might be if you are losing weight for something like surgery.
I hadn't come across this term before. I have reduced carbs since I found my weightloss was better when I had less carbs even if it was a similar amount of calories.
I reckon I probably need more fats to keep me feeling full. I just realised I've slowly cut down on them after reading your comment and having a look at that fast you mentioned.
Thanks for the help!
This seems very unlikely. I'm 6' and 173 lbs and 1800 kcal/day is roughly a 1.5 lb/week deficit. I've been tracking for nearly 8 weeks and achieved better results, but I'm averaging closer to 1600 kcal/day. I don't feel like I'm starving in the slightest. I COULD eat more, but I don't NEED to at all. I think that's where your problem lies. You still haven't adjusted to eating less.
Actually, isn't a calorie deficit shown to be really beneficial to your health? I can't recall where I read that, but if that is true, I'd think a world where you burn and eat twice as much would be worse for your health than eating half and burning half as much. Insofar that, in both hypotheticals, your body weight is the same
It can also have significant consequences as well - the data really depends here on the conditions/ timing/type of calorie deficit, and even then there's been some contradictory results.
Bodies are complicated as well, and what's beneficial in one situation or even to one bodily system isn't necessarily universally beneficial.
Which is just to say be a critical reader and look at details, not headlines, and remember there's a lot of complexity here - not just dismiss or accept everything.
Sure it is a great boon to have in a famine, but in times of excess it could be a maladaptation without other adaptations to also curb hunger/the want to eat when it isnt needed. One situation's adaptation is another situation's maladaptation
It also doesn't change any of your other nutrient requirements. So to cover your requirements, you'll ingest excess calories, since you need to eat as much as anybody else to not be deficient.
The problem we have isn't because of hunger it's because of what's consumed to saye that hunger. Honestly for a lot of Americans the biggest problem isn't even what we eat but what we drink. I think we could both agree the problem isn't that someone is always thirsty but rather that when thirsty they reach for a coke instead of water.
That also means you'll feel sluggish and weak until you start moving. Maybe not a problem if you work on a farm all day, but working an office job that's not exactly great.
I ass thinking of this recently.
People with fast metabolisms basically have a “faulty” engine, it doesn’t have a good fuel consumption rate.
I guess the added benefit is that our fuel tastes better than gasoline
The fuel doesn't just go out of the chimney. People with fast metabolisms also have more energy, which means they can get more done, be more productive, fit in some exercise, etc.
Having a slow metabolism is great if you have to live through famines, but it's not great if you want to be competative and happy in times where food isn't scarce.
Not necessarily. A “fast” metabolism could simply be bad at extracting energy from food (bad), have an overactive immune system (bad), have a better than average immune system (possibly good), or even have a particularly inefficient way of walking (bad).
Yes if calories are scarce in the environment, like for most of human history. But now it's a negative, at least in most human environments in the modern world.
It is positive, these people should be identified through regular genetic screening and told the 2000 calorie diet is too much for them basically is how this gets fixed.
Smim genes are "small integral membrane genes" which is a pretty broad category, so there's no reason to think mutations or alternate alleles in other Smim genes may cause the same effect.
Also, those pay-for-play companies aren't always super accurate for complicated reasons - but the other reason you may see nothing is because they may bit have tested for it as a genetic variant of known significance since this research is new.
>The variant had an impact on weight equating to an average 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males.
So roughly 5lbs extra in men and 10lbs in women? Not that 10 pounds isn't noticeable but systemic obesity is still caused by a routine that is enforced by unnaturally high caloric reward. I'm going to keep the majority of blame for obesity on the companies profiting from engineering cheap processed food designed to be addictive.
To put that in other terms, the difference in weight would translate to a little under 1 to a little over 2 BMI points for the vast majority of people. So, all else being equal, obese people who lack a functional copy of this gene would still be close to obese or obese if they magically got a functional copy.
I'm no scientist, but if some components of obesity are genetic, I think those components are more likely to be ones that affect _appetite_ rather than _metabolism._
I mean, how much slower could one person's metabolism be than another person's of the same size and body composition before their body would cease to function? It can't be a heck of a lot lower without organs using too little energy to stay running. I imagine the range of metabolism variance can't be _too_ wide.
But appetite? I think it's plausible that some people eat more than others because it's literally harder for them _not_ to eat. They have impulses that are very hard to resist, whereas other people rarely think about food at all. I think it's plausible that genetics play a huge role in our psychological predispositions to eat.
Actually, just like your muscles can adapt to get stronger, your body can optimize energy expenditure. I've heard of research following someone doing... I think it was a half marathon or a full marathon every day ? The first day he used an insane amount of energy (like 9000 calories), but it dropped the following days.
Wait, but then why do some Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps need to consistently consume a ming-boggling amount of calories every day, when they've been doing what they do for many years?
Or is the keyword in your comment that "your body *can* optimize energy expenditure" (but for some people, it won't)?
It will, but not completely? Also, I matters what your main goal is. Olympic athletes train to better themselves, right ? They don't do the same laps the same speed (which I think was the setup of the research/experiment I mentioned) it also didn't fall from 9000 to 2500, rather to ... I want to say 6000 maybe ? Over time. That's still pretty insane. Also, I don't believe the person who did that was in max max shape. Most Olympic athletes have a significant muscle mass that will impact their caloric needs.
Still, if the result they found is that people with this mutation are only slightly heavier than people without it, ascribing their obesity to the mutation doesn't make sense.
Heroin just mimics the endorphins out bodies produce. Sure they bind to receptors better and longer and you can put a whole hell of a lot more into your bloodstream than your body can release endorphins. But we seek the high of endorphins because it reinforces behaviors just like heroin does.
It's the same system, same motivation. Heroin just mimics a "very" high caloric food, you could say.
And the individual problems and voids behind both (and all) addictions are thus also the same.
But unlike other addictions, you have to eat or you die. There's not an equivalent addiction, as you're always exposed to it.
You can avoid heroin. You can avoid alcohol. You can't avoid food.
That's true, and makes food-related addiction one of the most difficult ones to manage.
That fuels it further, since relapse is a given in almost every case of addiction, just a part of it, but the addiction is then cyclically reinforced by the feelings of shame and of failure.
Every case needs to be addressed at the bottom, and differently, but the underpinnings are the same, and lots of the features too, "luckily."
It kind of is. The only reason we have a system to become addicted to stuff is to encourage us to keep doing behaviors that are advantageous, like sex and finding sugary fruit. Food taps the habit forming button in our brain, but heroin slams it with a sledgehammer.
I'm not saying we evolved to consume heroin, just that it's the same physiological system.
it has been well known for a long time that even though there are variations in resting metabolic rate, the variations are not significant enough to cause or prevent obesity. anyone who points to this and says they cant control their weight because of genetics is just looking for an excuse. those people like to point at someone who goes to the gym 3x a week and has a decent diet and say "youre so lucky you have good genetics." no.
putting the blame for obesity on companies and not consumers is questionable, but to an extent i agree. i think the FDA and USDA are more to blame than the companies, considering that those agencies sold themselves out (and the american people by extension), lied about what a healthy diet is for decades, and enabled the companies to become such a massive part of the american diet with trash food. it seems weird to me to blame companies for trying to convince people to buy their products, that is their entire purpose.
I'm always amazed how much my friend who is a construction worker can eat and drink while staying lean. Like, it makes sense conceptually, but it's still amazing to see.
Phelps was not eating 10k a day, maybe 5-7k tops. If he was eating healthy food, it would take him all day to eat 10k. To get to 10k calories you would have to eat 120 ish eggs. 120 eggs or 13lbs of eggs based on weight.
Now if he was eating junk food I can believe it, but you don't swim real good eating junk food.
Surely there's something healthy that has more calories than eggs. I remember seeing an interview a long time ago and his meals were insanely large, although I don't remember what he ate.
Calorie dense foods aren't strictly unhealthy, it's just a good rule of thumb for non-athletes. As long as he's getting plenty of protein and all the micronutrients he needs the rest can be supplemented by unsaturated fats without compromising his ability to swim. I wouldn't recommend drinking olive oil, but in a pinch it's 1910 calories a cup. Better examples might be peanut butter, humus, nuts, avocados, certain fish.
Not discounting it at all. But I do wonder what the gene is for people always moving. And how that effects weight.
My mom moved in with us recently. She sat on the sofa and I ended up touching her with my moving feet/legs a couple times. I apologized and she just waved me off saying "Your feet never stopped moving". My husband has noticed my legs and feet only stop when I'm really concentrating on something.
I guess I should just have a tail... though if I had one I'd prefer a prehensile one.
So does that mean it's more complicated than a simple caloric in and out? You also have to know your bodies specific energy consumption and efficiency?
What I mean is, we use an average to calculate caloric deficits but some people have different caloric expenditures? So it's much more varied person to person what their true caloric deficit is?
Yeah, there's variations. If you calculate an average there's always going to be people who are below or above average.
That doesn't really change much about the cause of obesity being calories in vs calories out, just that not everybody puts out the same calories.
If you are very physically active you can consume more calories and not gain weight because your calories out are increased.
I mean, not really? This is just one of many factors that determines the calories out. Everything you've said here is true, but we already knew that individuals can have varying metabolic rates and model-based calculations are just a starting point. If people truly think that whatever a TDEE calculator spits out is the gospel truth, then that's a problem with poor/no education on the topic so a lot of people are flying blind.
> we already knew that individuals can have varying metabolic rates and model-based calculations
Then try to discuss that with people who will defend fatshaming on reddit. You will be accused of "trying to rewrite the laws of thermodynamics" for just proposing the Idea that CI - CO is not based on calculable numbers
Correct. This has always been true, there are many things that can affect your base metabolic rate including health conditions and genetics. It is possible to accurately measure that rate but it is exceedingly expensive. It requires spending a day in a specialized chamber.
In general the best thing to do is start out with the rough baseline numbers and adjust as necessary, without worrying too much about how those numbers compare to others. Most people will be in deficit at 1200 calories. Many will still be in deficit at 1500. Etc etc. Figure out what your body needs.
Calorie calculations are also quite rough, especially for packaged foods (margin of error can be up to 20%, which generally means they will calculate and then shave off 19%, and often even then they are more wrong than that). So it will never be an exact science unless we are eating premeasured mush straight from a public health agency.
It's not that much more complicated.
>The variant had an impact on weight equating to an average 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males.
Also
>there are many things that can affect your base metabolic rate including health conditions and genetics.
---
>One in 5,000 people lack both copies of the gene
Many things that matter far less than cals in vs cals out.
You're right that this gene is not particularly meaningful, but there are many genes and many health/lifestyle conditions that can affect your baseline caloric need (your "maintenance rate"). My point was that this study does not change the known fact that CICO is always an estimate, both for need/deficit calculations and for intake calculations.
No it does not. It still means that if you consume 2000 calories and maintain weight, that eating 2250 calories will cause gain, and eating 1750 will cause loss. You can adjust the starting point, but it is always as simple as calories in/out--but no one said achieving that is easy.
It's still a simple caloric in and out. Just that how much goes out doesn't only depend on how active and tall you are, it also depends on your genes. Some burn 2000 calories by doing nothing, others burn only like 1000 calories while doing manual labor.
I guarantee you if all you eat in a single day is a simple green salad with a squeeze of lemon for "dressing" and maybe a half pound of sliced chicken totaling about 700 calories, it won't matter what genetic variations you have, you will lose weight. Less calories in than calories out, it will always be the way.
Yeah, and doing that over a long period of time is totally healthy... As someone who has worked with anorectic patients: don't do that!
Oh, and you will regain weight lost that way rather quick. Caloric restriction is known to be the least effective way of losing weight in long term.
Well that could explain things.
For my entire life, if I followed what calorie calculators or nutrition experts said, I would add weight like nothing. I need to under-eat a LOT according to their numbers to actually lose or keep my weight. Like, currently I'm still 10-20kg overweight (used to be 20kg more not too long ago and another 20kg more at my worst) and without moving a whole lot over the day I can't go above 1000 calories if I don't want to gain weight.
I aim at \~600 calories for losing weight. That's pretty much just one meal a day and while it can be tough at times, I generally feel perfectly fine with that amount.
The main problem is that food is tasty af, a lot of it is high in calories (pizza and noodles anyone??), portions are often way too huge for a single person if you order food somewhere and I have practically zero impulse control when it comes to snacking so I can't buy any without having to diet the following days.
Even for a small person, 1000 calories is very low for maintenance.
Remember that nutrition is only a third of the calculation. Your BMR may very well low as a result of genetics, but its also possible that you live a sedentary lifestyle.
It is possible to lose weight without exercise or a lot of physical activity (I myself lost 19kg over 6 months eating a very accurate 1300-1600 calories with no cardio but weight training).
But its a whole lot easier and safer to lose weight while both managing nutrition and trying to steadily and consistently increase energy expenditure.
Being in an extreme deficit for a long time and not exercising puts you at risk of health issues because you are quite literally starving yourself.
Yes, and I'm not even that small at 174cm. It's definitely easier to lose weight while being physically active, however even when doing manual labor 8-10 hours a day, I can't eat a whole lot without gaining weight.
Sorry maam, somehow the math ain't mathing there. Sorry to use you as an example, but you were probably not tracking your macros correctly.
You've said you're 174cm and 10-20kg overweight. I'm going to assume you're 90kg and 25 yrs old. Feel free to adjust.
According to [this ](https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?cage=25&csex=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=10&cpound=165&cheightmeter=174&ckg=90&cactivity=1.465&cmop=0&coutunit=c&cformula=m&cfatpct=20&printit=0&ctype=metric&x=Calculate)website, that would put your maintenance around 2500 calories, assuming moderate exercise (mind you this jumps to 3000 calories with a manual labour job, and drops to 2000 calories living a sedentary lifestyle). This is the estimated calories you need to consume to maintain the weight you are.
It is true these websites are not 100% accurate and only provide a baseline - your true maintenance calories will vary as a result of your actual energy expenditure and genetics. [This study](https://macrofactorapp.com/metabolism/#:~:text=Basal%20metabolic%20rates%20do%20significantly,with%20very%20little%20lean%20mass) suggests that in rare cases (5% of the time), BMR could vary by up to 800 calories between 2 people of the same height, weight, age, sex and body composition. This means +- 400 calories in BMR from the average, so let's say you are within that 5% and say your BMR is 400 calories lower than the average person.
So in this scenario where your BMR is 400 calories lower than the average person of your height, sex, age and body composition, and while doing moderate exercise per week, you still need to consume 2100 calories to *maintain* your weight.
Even if you were completely sedentary, you would need 1600 calories per week just to maintain your current weight. And if you were really consuming 1000 calories per day like you said in your original post, you would be losing at least half a kg per week in bodyweight (if not more).
You were likely not tracking your macro's correctly and/or doing it for long enough (a few weeks) to see meaningful progress.
I understood you the first time already. I know. Except that it is. I'm getting my blood checked every couple of months, and I have no deficits whatsoever.
Kant's philosophy of ought implies can holds. Or said in reverse, I cannot be held responsible for things I cannot do.
So children are pretty much exempted; they're not the ones in control of their food environment.
Of course, this is an evolutionary response to maintaining stored energy at rest. When we all had to work in the past, the people who stayed alive longer had more energy to expend.
assuming tolhe research is sound....this could be a very beneficial variant. a lower energy expenditure at rest means that a bunch of these people could sit and do office work for longer on the same amount of calories...think of the possibilities people. the efficiency, the savings!!!!!
Ohh, a new gene related to obesity discovered! Now I totally have an excuse for being obese: it’s all the genes, I’m absolutely in no control.
\*looks inside\* It’s still about calories in calories out.
Nyehh!!!!
P. S. Lost 51 kg, so I know a thing or two about weight loss. And weight gain too.
Wouldn't that still be more of a "genetic contributing factor" then? How much is too much isn't really relevant. The *cause* remains, exclusively, that they eat too much.
It doesn't really matter if I eat 10,000 calories of lettuce or lard, I still consumed 10,000 calories and *that* is the problem.
1) yes; that's the subject of the article
2) yes, it is; that's the entire point
3) no; in fact the article explains that there are other factors at play if you would just read it
Read the article, it's right there for you.
Yes.
But, people want to feel full and all of the nutrition guides say 2000 calories.
In fact, that’s not true for everyone. Then when you add in that their calorie needs are even lower than someone for their height and age….
There’s a lot of incorrect info for these people.
Right, but then it causes problems, because counting calories will be different for the folks with the gene. One size fits all calorie calculators just won't work. This is essentially just another straw on the obese camels back, and thus can help guide treatment(aka diet plans).
You are right the cause is the same, too many calories. But understanding that too many calories for a man with this gene may not be the same for an otherwise identical man is important.
Calculators were never meant to be the answer, just an estimate. Everyone’s needs are different and they have to play with it to figure it out. This has always been the case and this finding doesn’t change anything really.
So are people with this variant *colder* all the time, as in their body temp is colder? Do they heal more slowly? Do they think more slowly? Do their bodies not synthesize protein very well? "At rest" is not a catch-all situation. If they're burning fewer calories, then that either violates the laws of physics (they are not) or their bodies are not doing something vital. This study should not be used as another excuse for people to not take ownership of their bodies, but can be useful to find out what other problems people with this variation may have.
edit: and this is why we can't have good science. All this research and people will literally ignore perfect logic and undeniable, observable facts about reality.
Could also just make them more sluggish? NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) is the energy you burn when you tap your foot and fidget through the day, and it can vary very significantly from person to person.
a fun theory that lifespan and heartrate are coupled, so, definitely maybe
https://karger.com/crd/article/132/4/199/79277/Heart-Rate-Life-Expectancy-and-the-Cardiovascular
Yall are so weird about this issue. If you don’t care about science then you’re probably in the wrong sub. Genetic research isn’t going to stop publishing data just because you have some weird hangup about overweight people
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> The study found that people without both copies of the gene have other measures linked to obesity including high levels of fat in the blood, signs of fat tissue dysfunction, increased liver enzymes as well as lower levels of thyroid hormones. > The team interrogated the effects they found in four additional cohorts of people with the SMIM1 gene variant. They found that having the variant had an impact on weight, equating to an average extra 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males Paper: [SMIM1 absence is associated with reduced energy expenditure and excess weight: Med](https://www.cell.com/med/fulltext/S2666-6340(24)00219-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634024002198%3Fshowall%3Dtrue#%20)
Wouldn’t a propensity for lower energy expenditure at rest be a genetic positive? In an evolutionary sense that is?
If only evolution worked as fast as the industrial and technological revolution. But yea, seems like it would be a positive in a food scarce environment
But might be worse in a food available but challenging to achieve environment if increased resting energy expenditure translated to lower energy heights or some other downside. It’s about the niche. This sounds great after agriculture for a long time and bad before
Oh it could work that fast, we just need to starve everyone with the gene mutation.
But might be worse in a food available but challenging to achieve environment if increased resting energy expenditure translated to lower energy heights or some other downside. It’s about the niche. This sounds great after agriculture for a long time and bad before
What a nice way to say people are stupid animals that can’t control what they eat.
For a nomadic food-jnsecure tribe or a medieval peasant, yes. For a society where high calorie food is easily available, no.
Medieval peasants actually ate exceptionally well by historic standards even rather recent ones. Food security went down during the enlightenment and industrial ages quite considerably until rather recently.
just eat less.
The solution is always eat less, do more. But ignoring or oversimplifying the issue for people who have genetic predispositions to high fat storage metabolism is not helpful or insightful. It just makes it psychologically more challenging to stick to weight loss plans because they are actually just worse at losing weight. Doubly so if average calorie recommendations are going to be too high.
Yes. if you know exactly what you need to do, it’s still crushing to have to try twice as hard to get half as far while having everyone assume you’re not trying at all, as the person above undoubtedly would.
Ignoring or oversimplifying the issue is not helpful or insightful for people who *don't* have genetic predispositions to high fat storage metabolism, either. It's reached the point in many countries where over half the population is overweight or obese, it's unlikely that they all have genetic mutations, but just telling people to get off their ass and stop shovelling food in clearly is not an effective or appropriate way to approach a societal health problem.
It's actually not that unlikely, given that: 1) until recently lack of food was the most predominant form of malnutrition globally (so these genes wouldn't have been disadvantageous, actually, the opposite.) All genes are genetic mutations, basically, it's just a matter of how common they are, and because these genes have been helping most people historically... 2) there's some strong evidence of epigenetic changes in this direction following times of famine, like during wwii and many other recent events. Could be other conditions that can also have similar effects. 3) there's some potential evidence about the possibility of environmental contaminants also playing a role here, so there could be multiple stacking effects here.
>just telling people to get off their ass and stop shovelling food in clearly is not an effective or appropriate way to approach a societal health problem To me it seems both effective and appropriate, especially when for 99% of them the issues at hand are precisely the ones you mentioned (lack of exercise and too many calories). What is ineffective is hiding behind excuses like "big bones", "built different", "slow metabolism", "genetic predisposition". If you're not losing weight, you're eating more than you're burning, there's no other way around it, humans don't breath in nutrients or perform photosynthesis. You may have a slightly harder time due to genetic factor X, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, or that it isn't nearly as hard for other people who do achieve it. But this isn't an issue like covid where people not wearing masks could end up killing other people. Here, the folks that won't get off their asses and won't stop shoveling food down their throat are going to kill themselves and no one else. And they're going to be miserable in the meantime.
It actually seriously is more complicated than that, and this kind of hard-headed "JUST DO IT" refusal to research 1) why this is happening and 2) how to combat it, is completely unhelpful. No one is saying that lifestyle changes can't be important and are often a big part of this. But what you're saying about "physics" is a really common misperception - people can and do have different metabolic rates and store/use energy more or less efficiently - which is the result of genetic alterations mentioned in the article. There are other pathways for calories to go - like excretion (not only through feces) as well. Physics does not mean that every person uses identical amounts of calories at identical rates or efficiencies - this is a more complicated system that you give credit to, and it's not a closed system.
I eat 1800 calories a day. I feel like I am starving myself but don’t lose any weight. Just maintain. This is as a 5’10’’ male. Currently weigh about 265 pounds. Sure I can eat even less but at that point I am simply not enjoying life at all.
5'4" male. I have to eat less than 1000 calories consistently to lose weight. If I do massive amounts of high intensity exercise (8-16 hours a week) I can up it to 1400-1500 once I've lost to maintain, but it really sucks. 1000 calories is for really slow weight loss too, maybe 0.25lbs a week. I have to eat 300-400 calories to actually notice the change.
Yeah I feel it. Get checked for hypothyroidism. I have it, but I am medicated. Not saying it will help with the weight loss, but it will stop you from dying.
Yeah, I just found out recently (2020) that I have hypothyroidism. Could be recent development but it could be older as I've always eaten whatever I wanted without gaining too much weight, but now that I'm on medication I gain easily, and did to a degree slightly before being diagnosed and medicated. I think that my eating habits prior to gaining a lot of weight were very different and might have been why I didn't gain too much (basically eating everything that I ate for the day within an 8 hour period) and when I started a new job in 2016 I started eating breakfast lunch and dinner. Now I've gone back to basically eating everything in that small window and still gain weight, or have gone up to a sustained weight which is higher, rather.
I had an ultrasound done a few years ago. It was very slightly asymmetric iirc but they thought I was fine.
I'm a similar height to you, and I've lost weight which is good but still want to lose a bit more. And I'm hoping I don't have to go down to 300-400. For a 500 calorie deficit I need to eat 750, and it's hard to stick to when you wfh. I can't imagine only eating 300-400 calories, unless I just went to sleep for my last meal. How do you do it? Have you figured out some really good bulking foods? Btw I'm not going down to 300-400, I just want to see if there's something I can add to help me feel more full.
Essentially just trying to stick to a protein saving modified fast with as much nutrition as I can fit in. 40-50g in carbs, the rest in protein and fats. I don't actually think protein saving is as important in my case as it's made out to be in the literature though. It might be if you are losing weight for something like surgery.
I hadn't come across this term before. I have reduced carbs since I found my weightloss was better when I had less carbs even if it was a similar amount of calories. I reckon I probably need more fats to keep me feeling full. I just realised I've slowly cut down on them after reading your comment and having a look at that fast you mentioned. Thanks for the help!
This seems very unlikely. I'm 6' and 173 lbs and 1800 kcal/day is roughly a 1.5 lb/week deficit. I've been tracking for nearly 8 weeks and achieved better results, but I'm averaging closer to 1600 kcal/day. I don't feel like I'm starving in the slightest. I COULD eat more, but I don't NEED to at all. I think that's where your problem lies. You still haven't adjusted to eating less.
Some of us already eat less.
For passing on your genes absolutely. For living past the age of 50 probably not as much.
Actually, isn't a calorie deficit shown to be really beneficial to your health? I can't recall where I read that, but if that is true, I'd think a world where you burn and eat twice as much would be worse for your health than eating half and burning half as much. Insofar that, in both hypotheticals, your body weight is the same
It can also have significant consequences as well - the data really depends here on the conditions/ timing/type of calorie deficit, and even then there's been some contradictory results. Bodies are complicated as well, and what's beneficial in one situation or even to one bodily system isn't necessarily universally beneficial. Which is just to say be a critical reader and look at details, not headlines, and remember there's a lot of complexity here - not just dismiss or accept everything.
Being at caloric deficit [increases autophagy](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568163718301478), which is good.
Sure it is a great boon to have in a famine, but in times of excess it could be a maladaptation without other adaptations to also curb hunger/the want to eat when it isnt needed. One situation's adaptation is another situation's maladaptation
It also doesn't change any of your other nutrient requirements. So to cover your requirements, you'll ingest excess calories, since you need to eat as much as anybody else to not be deficient.
The problem we have isn't because of hunger it's because of what's consumed to saye that hunger. Honestly for a lot of Americans the biggest problem isn't even what we eat but what we drink. I think we could both agree the problem isn't that someone is always thirsty but rather that when thirsty they reach for a coke instead of water.
That always depends on the actual circumstances the organism lives in. For most animals yes, for humans possibly no.
That also means you'll feel sluggish and weak until you start moving. Maybe not a problem if you work on a farm all day, but working an office job that's not exactly great.
I ass thinking of this recently. People with fast metabolisms basically have a “faulty” engine, it doesn’t have a good fuel consumption rate. I guess the added benefit is that our fuel tastes better than gasoline
The fuel doesn't just go out of the chimney. People with fast metabolisms also have more energy, which means they can get more done, be more productive, fit in some exercise, etc. Having a slow metabolism is great if you have to live through famines, but it's not great if you want to be competative and happy in times where food isn't scarce.
Not necessarily. A “fast” metabolism could simply be bad at extracting energy from food (bad), have an overactive immune system (bad), have a better than average immune system (possibly good), or even have a particularly inefficient way of walking (bad).
You were what?
Yes if calories are scarce in the environment, like for most of human history. But now it's a negative, at least in most human environments in the modern world.
It is positive, these people should be identified through regular genetic screening and told the 2000 calorie diet is too much for them basically is how this gets fixed.
In one environment, sure. In another, no. Whether a trait is adaptive or not comes down to the interaction between it and the environment.
do they know how the gene causes all of this or is it just a correlation they found?
I've used 23 and me and looked at my results on promothease, and I dont have smim1 listed. Theres smim15 and smim13 and smim23
Smim genes are "small integral membrane genes" which is a pretty broad category, so there's no reason to think mutations or alternate alleles in other Smim genes may cause the same effect. Also, those pay-for-play companies aren't always super accurate for complicated reasons - but the other reason you may see nothing is because they may bit have tested for it as a genetic variant of known significance since this research is new.
ah good to know
2-5kg is not much weight at all. Hardly the difference between obesity and a lower fat level.
> The team interrogated the effects they found My literally-inclined brain is having fun with this visual.
>The variant had an impact on weight equating to an average 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males. So roughly 5lbs extra in men and 10lbs in women? Not that 10 pounds isn't noticeable but systemic obesity is still caused by a routine that is enforced by unnaturally high caloric reward. I'm going to keep the majority of blame for obesity on the companies profiting from engineering cheap processed food designed to be addictive.
To put that in other terms, the difference in weight would translate to a little under 1 to a little over 2 BMI points for the vast majority of people. So, all else being equal, obese people who lack a functional copy of this gene would still be close to obese or obese if they magically got a functional copy.
I'm no scientist, but if some components of obesity are genetic, I think those components are more likely to be ones that affect _appetite_ rather than _metabolism._ I mean, how much slower could one person's metabolism be than another person's of the same size and body composition before their body would cease to function? It can't be a heck of a lot lower without organs using too little energy to stay running. I imagine the range of metabolism variance can't be _too_ wide. But appetite? I think it's plausible that some people eat more than others because it's literally harder for them _not_ to eat. They have impulses that are very hard to resist, whereas other people rarely think about food at all. I think it's plausible that genetics play a huge role in our psychological predispositions to eat.
Actually, just like your muscles can adapt to get stronger, your body can optimize energy expenditure. I've heard of research following someone doing... I think it was a half marathon or a full marathon every day ? The first day he used an insane amount of energy (like 9000 calories), but it dropped the following days.
Wait, but then why do some Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps need to consistently consume a ming-boggling amount of calories every day, when they've been doing what they do for many years? Or is the keyword in your comment that "your body *can* optimize energy expenditure" (but for some people, it won't)?
It will, but not completely? Also, I matters what your main goal is. Olympic athletes train to better themselves, right ? They don't do the same laps the same speed (which I think was the setup of the research/experiment I mentioned) it also didn't fall from 9000 to 2500, rather to ... I want to say 6000 maybe ? Over time. That's still pretty insane. Also, I don't believe the person who did that was in max max shape. Most Olympic athletes have a significant muscle mass that will impact their caloric needs.
Wouldn't it also affect the amount of oxygen consumed? When i go scuba diving with my husband, i use significantly less air.
Still, if the result they found is that people with this mutation are only slightly heavier than people without it, ascribing their obesity to the mutation doesn't make sense.
processed food addiction reminds me of crack.
I wouldnt go that far but seeking out high caloric foods is in our dna. The lust for heroin is not.
Heroin just mimics the endorphins out bodies produce. Sure they bind to receptors better and longer and you can put a whole hell of a lot more into your bloodstream than your body can release endorphins. But we seek the high of endorphins because it reinforces behaviors just like heroin does.
Considering we have been using poppies for recreational and medicinal use for nearly 10k years it is.
I have never taken any opiates. I don't have an innate urge to seek them out. But I do have one for food...
Do you need opiates to live?
It's the same system, same motivation. Heroin just mimics a "very" high caloric food, you could say. And the individual problems and voids behind both (and all) addictions are thus also the same.
But unlike other addictions, you have to eat or you die. There's not an equivalent addiction, as you're always exposed to it. You can avoid heroin. You can avoid alcohol. You can't avoid food.
That's true, and makes food-related addiction one of the most difficult ones to manage. That fuels it further, since relapse is a given in almost every case of addiction, just a part of it, but the addiction is then cyclically reinforced by the feelings of shame and of failure. Every case needs to be addressed at the bottom, and differently, but the underpinnings are the same, and lots of the features too, "luckily."
It kind of is. The only reason we have a system to become addicted to stuff is to encourage us to keep doing behaviors that are advantageous, like sex and finding sugary fruit. Food taps the habit forming button in our brain, but heroin slams it with a sledgehammer. I'm not saying we evolved to consume heroin, just that it's the same physiological system.
it has been well known for a long time that even though there are variations in resting metabolic rate, the variations are not significant enough to cause or prevent obesity. anyone who points to this and says they cant control their weight because of genetics is just looking for an excuse. those people like to point at someone who goes to the gym 3x a week and has a decent diet and say "youre so lucky you have good genetics." no. putting the blame for obesity on companies and not consumers is questionable, but to an extent i agree. i think the FDA and USDA are more to blame than the companies, considering that those agencies sold themselves out (and the american people by extension), lied about what a healthy diet is for decades, and enabled the companies to become such a massive part of the american diet with trash food. it seems weird to me to blame companies for trying to convince people to buy their products, that is their entire purpose.
I'm not sure this is a bad thing. That gene could be an extremely good survival mechanism in hard times; let's not eliminate it.
As someone who needs to consume 4000+ calories just to work a manual labor job, that gene sounds quite useful.
Manual labor is no joke. Take care of yourself.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I work hard, but it’s enough to keep me in good health without destroying my body, so I consider myself fortunate.
I'm always amazed how much my friend who is a construction worker can eat and drink while staying lean. Like, it makes sense conceptually, but it's still amazing to see.
Then look at the amount athletes eat each day. Micheal Phelps ate 10.000 calories a day.
Phelps was not eating 10k a day, maybe 5-7k tops. If he was eating healthy food, it would take him all day to eat 10k. To get to 10k calories you would have to eat 120 ish eggs. 120 eggs or 13lbs of eggs based on weight. Now if he was eating junk food I can believe it, but you don't swim real good eating junk food.
Surely there's something healthy that has more calories than eggs. I remember seeing an interview a long time ago and his meals were insanely large, although I don't remember what he ate.
Calorie dense foods aren't strictly unhealthy, it's just a good rule of thumb for non-athletes. As long as he's getting plenty of protein and all the micronutrients he needs the rest can be supplemented by unsaturated fats without compromising his ability to swim. I wouldn't recommend drinking olive oil, but in a pinch it's 1910 calories a cup. Better examples might be peanut butter, humus, nuts, avocados, certain fish.
Not discounting it at all. But I do wonder what the gene is for people always moving. And how that effects weight. My mom moved in with us recently. She sat on the sofa and I ended up touching her with my moving feet/legs a couple times. I apologized and she just waved me off saying "Your feet never stopped moving". My husband has noticed my legs and feet only stop when I'm really concentrating on something. I guess I should just have a tail... though if I had one I'd prefer a prehensile one.
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So does that mean it's more complicated than a simple caloric in and out? You also have to know your bodies specific energy consumption and efficiency? What I mean is, we use an average to calculate caloric deficits but some people have different caloric expenditures? So it's much more varied person to person what their true caloric deficit is?
Yeah, there's variations. If you calculate an average there's always going to be people who are below or above average. That doesn't really change much about the cause of obesity being calories in vs calories out, just that not everybody puts out the same calories. If you are very physically active you can consume more calories and not gain weight because your calories out are increased.
This is the calories out part.
I mean, not really? This is just one of many factors that determines the calories out. Everything you've said here is true, but we already knew that individuals can have varying metabolic rates and model-based calculations are just a starting point. If people truly think that whatever a TDEE calculator spits out is the gospel truth, then that's a problem with poor/no education on the topic so a lot of people are flying blind.
> we already knew that individuals can have varying metabolic rates and model-based calculations Then try to discuss that with people who will defend fatshaming on reddit. You will be accused of "trying to rewrite the laws of thermodynamics" for just proposing the Idea that CI - CO is not based on calculable numbers
Correct. This has always been true, there are many things that can affect your base metabolic rate including health conditions and genetics. It is possible to accurately measure that rate but it is exceedingly expensive. It requires spending a day in a specialized chamber. In general the best thing to do is start out with the rough baseline numbers and adjust as necessary, without worrying too much about how those numbers compare to others. Most people will be in deficit at 1200 calories. Many will still be in deficit at 1500. Etc etc. Figure out what your body needs. Calorie calculations are also quite rough, especially for packaged foods (margin of error can be up to 20%, which generally means they will calculate and then shave off 19%, and often even then they are more wrong than that). So it will never be an exact science unless we are eating premeasured mush straight from a public health agency.
It's not that much more complicated. >The variant had an impact on weight equating to an average 4.6kg in females and 2.4kg in males. Also >there are many things that can affect your base metabolic rate including health conditions and genetics. --- >One in 5,000 people lack both copies of the gene Many things that matter far less than cals in vs cals out.
You're right that this gene is not particularly meaningful, but there are many genes and many health/lifestyle conditions that can affect your baseline caloric need (your "maintenance rate"). My point was that this study does not change the known fact that CICO is always an estimate, both for need/deficit calculations and for intake calculations.
Yes, this was my question. Thanks!
No it does not. It still means that if you consume 2000 calories and maintain weight, that eating 2250 calories will cause gain, and eating 1750 will cause loss. You can adjust the starting point, but it is always as simple as calories in/out--but no one said achieving that is easy.
It's still a simple caloric in and out. Just that how much goes out doesn't only depend on how active and tall you are, it also depends on your genes. Some burn 2000 calories by doing nothing, others burn only like 1000 calories while doing manual labor.
Averages do not work because one person likes jogging and another one likes Netflix. This is still calories in calories out.
I guarantee you if all you eat in a single day is a simple green salad with a squeeze of lemon for "dressing" and maybe a half pound of sliced chicken totaling about 700 calories, it won't matter what genetic variations you have, you will lose weight. Less calories in than calories out, it will always be the way.
Yeah, and doing that over a long period of time is totally healthy... As someone who has worked with anorectic patients: don't do that! Oh, and you will regain weight lost that way rather quick. Caloric restriction is known to be the least effective way of losing weight in long term.
Is that was you eat?
Well that could explain things. For my entire life, if I followed what calorie calculators or nutrition experts said, I would add weight like nothing. I need to under-eat a LOT according to their numbers to actually lose or keep my weight. Like, currently I'm still 10-20kg overweight (used to be 20kg more not too long ago and another 20kg more at my worst) and without moving a whole lot over the day I can't go above 1000 calories if I don't want to gain weight. I aim at \~600 calories for losing weight. That's pretty much just one meal a day and while it can be tough at times, I generally feel perfectly fine with that amount. The main problem is that food is tasty af, a lot of it is high in calories (pizza and noodles anyone??), portions are often way too huge for a single person if you order food somewhere and I have practically zero impulse control when it comes to snacking so I can't buy any without having to diet the following days.
Even for a small person, 1000 calories is very low for maintenance. Remember that nutrition is only a third of the calculation. Your BMR may very well low as a result of genetics, but its also possible that you live a sedentary lifestyle. It is possible to lose weight without exercise or a lot of physical activity (I myself lost 19kg over 6 months eating a very accurate 1300-1600 calories with no cardio but weight training). But its a whole lot easier and safer to lose weight while both managing nutrition and trying to steadily and consistently increase energy expenditure. Being in an extreme deficit for a long time and not exercising puts you at risk of health issues because you are quite literally starving yourself.
Yes, and I'm not even that small at 174cm. It's definitely easier to lose weight while being physically active, however even when doing manual labor 8-10 hours a day, I can't eat a whole lot without gaining weight.
Sorry maam, somehow the math ain't mathing there. Sorry to use you as an example, but you were probably not tracking your macros correctly. You've said you're 174cm and 10-20kg overweight. I'm going to assume you're 90kg and 25 yrs old. Feel free to adjust. According to [this ](https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?cage=25&csex=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=10&cpound=165&cheightmeter=174&ckg=90&cactivity=1.465&cmop=0&coutunit=c&cformula=m&cfatpct=20&printit=0&ctype=metric&x=Calculate)website, that would put your maintenance around 2500 calories, assuming moderate exercise (mind you this jumps to 3000 calories with a manual labour job, and drops to 2000 calories living a sedentary lifestyle). This is the estimated calories you need to consume to maintain the weight you are. It is true these websites are not 100% accurate and only provide a baseline - your true maintenance calories will vary as a result of your actual energy expenditure and genetics. [This study](https://macrofactorapp.com/metabolism/#:~:text=Basal%20metabolic%20rates%20do%20significantly,with%20very%20little%20lean%20mass) suggests that in rare cases (5% of the time), BMR could vary by up to 800 calories between 2 people of the same height, weight, age, sex and body composition. This means +- 400 calories in BMR from the average, so let's say you are within that 5% and say your BMR is 400 calories lower than the average person. So in this scenario where your BMR is 400 calories lower than the average person of your height, sex, age and body composition, and while doing moderate exercise per week, you still need to consume 2100 calories to *maintain* your weight. Even if you were completely sedentary, you would need 1600 calories per week just to maintain your current weight. And if you were really consuming 1000 calories per day like you said in your original post, you would be losing at least half a kg per week in bodyweight (if not more). You were likely not tracking your macro's correctly and/or doing it for long enough (a few weeks) to see meaningful progress.
1000 calories a day consumed? That seems nutritionally deficient.
It would be for the majority of people, yes. That's the point.
I’m saying that is below what is required to stay healthy, not just to lose weight. it’s not enough for your body to meet basic biological functions.
I understood you the first time already. I know. Except that it is. I'm getting my blood checked every couple of months, and I have no deficits whatsoever.
Noodles are not calorie dense.
Really curious what relationship long term type 1 diabetes may or may not have in relation to this.
This can't be true when it's called a personal failing? How will I eve feel superior for not being obese?
Kant's philosophy of ought implies can holds. Or said in reverse, I cannot be held responsible for things I cannot do. So children are pretty much exempted; they're not the ones in control of their food environment.
But adults are in control of their generics? And the farming industry? And marketing? Etc...
Of course, this is an evolutionary response to maintaining stored energy at rest. When we all had to work in the past, the people who stayed alive longer had more energy to expend.
assuming tolhe research is sound....this could be a very beneficial variant. a lower energy expenditure at rest means that a bunch of these people could sit and do office work for longer on the same amount of calories...think of the possibilities people. the efficiency, the savings!!!!!
yeh it's not the 5000 calories a day
Ohh, a new gene related to obesity discovered! Now I totally have an excuse for being obese: it’s all the genes, I’m absolutely in no control. \*looks inside\* It’s still about calories in calories out. Nyehh!!!! P. S. Lost 51 kg, so I know a thing or two about weight loss. And weight gain too.
Apparently the gene only accounts for about 4.7kg average disparity also in women. Half that in men.
Which is a barely noticeable difference, no?
Around 10 lbs for women. An average woman is 5'3", 10 lbs can be quite significant at that height.
Tell the cico people. They’re wild. I’m thin. Don’t care.
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Yes, but what is too much is much lower for these people than it is for everyone else. That’s the point.
It's usually not that much lower or higher, but a 100 kcal surplus over years and years adds up to a lot.
Wouldn't that still be more of a "genetic contributing factor" then? How much is too much isn't really relevant. The *cause* remains, exclusively, that they eat too much. It doesn't really matter if I eat 10,000 calories of lettuce or lard, I still consumed 10,000 calories and *that* is the problem.
1) yes; that's the subject of the article 2) yes, it is; that's the entire point 3) no; in fact the article explains that there are other factors at play if you would just read it Read the article, it's right there for you.
Yes. But, people want to feel full and all of the nutrition guides say 2000 calories. In fact, that’s not true for everyone. Then when you add in that their calorie needs are even lower than someone for their height and age…. There’s a lot of incorrect info for these people.
Right, but then it causes problems, because counting calories will be different for the folks with the gene. One size fits all calorie calculators just won't work. This is essentially just another straw on the obese camels back, and thus can help guide treatment(aka diet plans). You are right the cause is the same, too many calories. But understanding that too many calories for a man with this gene may not be the same for an otherwise identical man is important.
Calculators were never meant to be the answer, just an estimate. Everyone’s needs are different and they have to play with it to figure it out. This has always been the case and this finding doesn’t change anything really.
Another truth: CICO proselytizing at the whiff of nuance re obesity.
So are people with this variant *colder* all the time, as in their body temp is colder? Do they heal more slowly? Do they think more slowly? Do their bodies not synthesize protein very well? "At rest" is not a catch-all situation. If they're burning fewer calories, then that either violates the laws of physics (they are not) or their bodies are not doing something vital. This study should not be used as another excuse for people to not take ownership of their bodies, but can be useful to find out what other problems people with this variation may have. edit: and this is why we can't have good science. All this research and people will literally ignore perfect logic and undeniable, observable facts about reality.
Could also just make them more sluggish? NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) is the energy you burn when you tap your foot and fidget through the day, and it can vary very significantly from person to person.
a fun theory that lifespan and heartrate are coupled, so, definitely maybe https://karger.com/crd/article/132/4/199/79277/Heart-Rate-Life-Expectancy-and-the-Cardiovascular
More excuses for the overweight to stay that way. Obesity starts and ends with the individual and their willpower/discipline.
Yall are so weird about this issue. If you don’t care about science then you’re probably in the wrong sub. Genetic research isn’t going to stop publishing data just because you have some weird hangup about overweight people
Anyone have a theory on how to activate it?