But let's stick to fat for this post. An interesting read is at The
Science of Obesity and Weight Control:
http://www.loop.com/~bkrentzman/
Specifically
http://www.loop.com/~bkrentzman/editorials/morefaq2.html#anchor316392
> Why are we Fat?
>
> It is not our fault that we are overweight. 90% of our obesity comes at
> the direction of our genes (the latest researchers are saying).
>
> We were taught by our parents and the culture we live in that we were
> "bad" or "weak" or flawed because we "refused to push away from the
> table like most real people can do". Well all this is bunk. I once quit
> eating for 6 months and lost 155 pounds. I have done six other Protein
> Sparing Modified Fasts involving months of not eating and have lost
> about 100 pounds each time.
>
> I am sure all of you could give your own examples of our cultures
> bigotry against the overweight. It is a myth that overweight people
> are "weak willed". I have regained most of my weight each time. I am now
> controlling my set-point thermostat using the phentermine/fenfluramine
> combination which affects our brain's neurotransmitters. For more
> information please check my web site. I have put my own information plus
> 100 links to other internet obesity information (some of these being
> search engines with 125 obesity articles at the end on one of my links).
>
> Remember, IT'S NOT OUR FAULT WE ARE FAT, yet it is unhealthy and we
> need to use any method we need to in order to lose weight. With the
> phen/fen program there is NO DIET. My patients are able to relax and eat
> only what they want. They just want less. I had a lady come in
> yesterday at her 120 day visit and she weighed in at 55 pounds less
> than when she started, and she is not dieting.
>
> Using "Will-Power" to stay on a diet is like trying to hold your
> breath THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Hold your breath for one minute and you
> WANT to take a breath. Continue to hold your breath out to two minutes
> and you will become DESPERATE to take a breath. Where did these
> emotional drives come from to make you crave a breath. This is the way
> our body is built to make us do something we are genetically designed to
> do. A similar set up is present in the 30 to 40 genes governing our weight.
>
> Eventually you tire of the effort and relax and your set-point
> thermostat takes over again and you eat more. I strongly believe in
> medicines to reset the set-point thermostat so we can relax and live a
> normal live and not have to diet.
Of course, fen-phen ain't so great, as Slate recently told us:
http://www.slate.com/medicalexaminer/97-08-28/medicalexaminer.asp
> We've learned much in the last few years about the role that hunger
> plays in obesity. Drug companies have capitalized on that knowledge to
> create powerful new appetite suppressants. But these "cures" come with
> serious risks. Researchers linked the popular diet-drug combination
> "fen-phen" to a rare heart disease a year ago. But doctors continued to
> prescribe it to millions, arguing that the health risks associated with
> obesity justified fen-phen's wide use. Now reports of new heart
> abnormalities in women on fen-phen raise fresh questions about using
> pills for obesity before all the facts are in.
> ...
> The big breakthrough in understanding obesity came in 1994, when
> experiments on lab mice revealed that the hormone leptin controls the
> setpoint by controlling satiety. When your weight falls, leptin
> decreases, hunger increases, and you eat more--until you return to your
> weight setpoint. This year, researchers in Cambridge, England, found an
> inbred family whose members all lacked the gene for producing
> leptin. Without leptin to signal satiety, the children in this family
> eat ravenously. The 2-year-old weighs 64 pounds and the 8-year-old, 189
> pounds.
> ...
> Fen-phen consumption began to fall only this month, when the
> New England Journal of Medicine essentially withdrew its
> earlier cost-benefit argument with the emergency release of
> startling new fen-phen findings. Researchers in Minnesota and
> Nebraska documented 24 cases of unusual heart-valve
> abnormalities in women taking fen-phen. The average age of the
> patients was 43, and five required valve-replacement surgery.
> This week, the FDA reported 58 new cases of abnormal heart
> valves in patients on fen-phen, and the Journal of the American
> Medical Association reported animal evidence linking both
> dexfenfluramine and fenfluramine to toxic brain effects.
>
> There are three reasons why nobody should have bought the
> obesity-is-deadlier argument. 1) Obesity's risks come from high
> blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease, each
> of which can be controlled with safe medicines. 2) The mildly
> overweight don't run these health risks, yet drug companies are
> using results from 300 pounders to sell drugs to 140 pounders who
> want to look good at the beach. 3) Even in the seriously obese, we
> don't know that these drugs really will save more than they kill,
> because no studies have been done. (Meanwhile, the drug lobby is
> blocking the FDA from monitoring for bad outcomes after it
> approves drugs.)
Well, I'm numbed into a sense of apathy. I don't know which way is up
anymore.
> Fen-phen isn't our first go-round with a miracle cure for
> obesity, and it isn't likely to be our last. In the late '80s, doctors
> inflated a balloon device in obese patients' stomachs. Because
> patients couldn't eat nearly as much, they lost weight and kept it
> off. But some of the balloons deflated and got stuck in the
> intestines. Only after several people died was the device pulled
> off the market. The dieters' craving for something to quiet their
> hunger is almost as great as their craving for food.
We now return you to your consumption-obsessed society, already in
progress...
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why
you're just sitting there, staring at carpeting?