Obesity: Do Overweight People Gain Weight More Easily?

New research points to different stomach microbes in the guts of people who are lean, and these microbes may be in part responsible for the size of your gut.

According to a study that appeared in NATURE, the weekly British science journal, certain gut bacteria may in fact encourage obesity.

“IT IS AS IF ONE GROUP GETS MORE CALORIES FROM THE SAME BOWL OF CHEERIOS,” says Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Washington University researcher.

• Dr. Gordon led a team that found more of a certain type of bacteria, (Bacteroidetes) in the gut of lean people than of those who are very overweight.

• Overweight people, on the other hand, had more microbes called Firmicutes.

THESE RESEARCHERS THINK IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE MICROBES FOUND IN OBESE PEOPLE ARE BETTER AT HARVESTING CALORIES FROM FOOD THAN THOSE BACTERIA TYPICALLY FOUND IN LEAN PEOPLE.

BUT IT GETS WORSE:

When testing this theory out on mice, researchers found that obese mice not only had fewer Bacteroidetes than their skinny counterparts, but they were also rich in genes that broke down hard-to-digest foods more efficiently.

Also, when researchers transplanted the microbes from obese mice into lean mice, they got “twice as fat” and took in more calories from the same amount of food than did mice who had a normal bacteria ratio.

Fortunately you can regain the proper ratio of bacteria in the gut by dieting so that the bacteria or Firmicutes that make the gut more efficient at extracting calories, decrease.

New Approaches For Obesity Treatment

Within a decade or so, the different causes of this condition will likely have new treatments, according to Dr. N. Dhurandhar, a professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

Other researchers, like Dr. Robert Dent, are examining genetic factors.

Dr. Dent, the head of a weight management clinic, is matching different types of overweight with 600 different types of genes at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He is studying 1000 very overweight, and comparing them with 1000 patients who are underweight, and is finding great variation.

For instance, about half of the thin people eat as much or more than the overweight patients do, according to Dr. Dent, and there is even the odd person who will not lose weight on 500 calories a day. This research is ongoing.

Other research with animals and human beings also suggests that BODY-MASS INDEX (BMI) MAY BE INHERITED.

There is some evidence that men and women with a genetic predisposition toward greater fatty tissue are reproducing at a higher rate. The higher the parents’ body-mass index, the greater the number of offspring. If men and women with a larger BMI are more likely to reproduce, it will result in more children with genes that predispose them to be overweight.

Obese People Don't See Themselves That Way

"I think a lot of people, when they think about obesity, think of someone that is 400 pounds or so," according to the study's lead author, Dr. K. P. Truesdale.

However, if a woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 175 pounds, she would be classified as obese.

Discrimination and Getting Help

It is not news that there is a widespread cultural prejudice against being overweight. Bluntly put, fat people are more likely to be discriminated against by the general public than drinkers, smokers or drug addicts, because it is a more noticeable condition.

Unfortunately, professionals and health professionals are not exempt. This discrimination may be subtle, or not. The problem is so ingrained in the medical profession that even those doctors who specialize in overweight dislike their clients, according to a 2003 Yale University study that questioned 329 members of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.

These specialists were found to have an anti-fat and pro-thin bias based on an association test given them. The study concluded that “the stigma is so strong that even those most knowledgeable about this condition infer that obese people have blameworthy behavioral characteristics that contribute to their problem,” even extending to core characteristics of intelligence and personal worth.

And eating disorder statistician at the University of British Columbia, C. Laird even suggests that “Obese people hate other obese people.”

Getting Over Obstacles

Stress, poor nutrition or dietary deficiencies, thyroid deficiency, insulin sensitivity, insomnia (sleep deprivation), effects of medications, genetics, hormones, (especially the stress hormone cortisol), addictions, or disease.

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The GOOD NEWS: Losing Weight Changes Bacteria

In a study of a dozen dieting people, the results were dramatic. Before dieting, about 3 per cent of the gut bacteria in the overweight participants were Bacteriodetes.

But after dieting, the now normal-sized people had much higher levels of these microbes – about 15 per cent.

Australians Go LOW FAT And Still Get FATTER

By the year 2000, two decades into the mainstream low-fat campaign, Australians had a serious weight problem. Obesity rates in men had doubled since 1980 and tripled in women, with 67 per cent of men and 52 per cent of women overweight. This ranked Australians just one percentage point behind the world's beefiest nation, the United States.

Paradoxically, throughout these 20 years of unprecedented weight gain, dietary fat intake remained relatively modest: 1995 figures attributed only 18 to 19 per cent of the average Australian's calories to fat – not enough for most dieticians to explain the increasingly porky population.

This contradiction of overweight, diabetes, and high cholesterol rates in the absence of major fat intake caused many researchers to rethink whether fats were really the main problem.

Because of this contradiction, trans fats have been singled out as a health hazard, and companies are slowly eliminating them.

Classic Oreo cookies were at the top of the list for containing trans fats, but the Oreo company now has trans-fat free snacks on the market.

Best to keep it simple and stick to the healthy fats in avocados, nuts, fish and olive oil for health!

Forget the DIET SODA, drink water:

They also leave people hungrier than food does, for the calories consumed.

By 2001, soda, juice, milk, beer and other beverages accounted for 21 per cent of the calories consumed in the US, which was a 16 per cent increase over 20 years, according to Barry Popkin, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

• ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS: Although everyone eats artificial sweeteners to lose weight, the research shows that they increase insulin, increase the appetite and therefore cause people to GAIN weight. See: Sweet Deception

LINKS

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Why Obese People Gain Weigh More Easily? New Research and Treatment