Posted on 08/13/2006 11:49:02 AM PDT by neverdem
In the 30-plus years that Richard Atkinson has been studying obesity, he has always maintained that overeating doesn’t really explain it all. His epiphany came early in his career, when he was a medical fellow at U.C.L.A. engaged in a study of people who weighed more than 300 pounds and had come in for obesity surgery. “The general thought at the time was that fat people ate too much,” Atkinson, now at Virginia Commonwealth University, told me recently. “And we documented that fat people do eat too much — our subjects ate an average of 6,700 calories a day. But what was so impressive to me was the fact that not all fat people eat too much.”
One of Atkinson’s most memorable patients was Janet S., a bright, funny 25-year-old who weighed 348 pounds when she finally made her way to U.C.L.A. in 1975. In exchange for agreeing to be hospitalized for three months so scientists could study them, Janet and the other obese research subjects (30 in all) each received a free intestinal bypass. During the three months of presurgical study, the dietitian on the research team calculated how many calories it should take for a 5-foot-6-inch woman like Janet to maintain a weight of 348. They fed her exactly that many calories — no more, no less. She dutifully ate what she was told, and she gained 12 pounds in two weeks — almost a pound a day.
“I don’t think I’d ever gained that much weight that quickly,” recalled Janet, who asked me not to use her full name because she didn’t want people to know how fat she had once been. The doctors accused her of sneaking snacks into the hospital. “But I told them, ‘I’m gaining weight because you’re feeding me a tremendous amount...’”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This article was fascinating. It's a shame that the NYTimes doesn't make the effort to do research this thoroughly when writing political news stories.
They opened the catalogue of a laboratory-supply company to see which one of the 50 human adenoviruses they should order.
"I'd like to say we chose the virus out of some wisdom, out of some belief that it was similar in important ways to SMAM-1," Dhurandhar said. But really, he admitted, it was dumb luck that the adenovirus they started with, Ad-36, turned out to be so fattening.
By this time, several pathogens had already been shown to cause obesity in laboratory animals. With Ad-36, Dhurandhar and Atkinson began by squirting the virus up the nostrils of a series of lab animals -- chickens, rats, marmosets -- and in every species the infected animals got fat.
"The marmosets were most dramatic," Atkinson recalled. By seven months after infection, he said, 100 percent of them became obese. Subsequently, Atkinson's group and another in England conducted similar research using other strains of human adenovirus. The British group found that one strain, Ad-5, caused obesity in mice; the Wisconsin group found the same thing with Ad-37 and chickens. Two other strains, Ad-2 and Ad-31, failed to cause obesity.
Although you're both coming at this from different angles, you're both dicounting the fact that the Clinton administration lowered the BMI to instantly make 30/40 million more people "obese".
Pretty much the same for me. I'm 6'2", 240 lbs. I recently followed the Weight Watchers points system and lost 30 lbs. What is interesting is that after I hit my goal weight and bumped up to my maintenance level of intake (1800-2000 calories), I started putting weigth back on - rapidly. What I have found over time is I can eat like a horse and stay at 240, but I have to stay below 1200 calories a day to stay even a pound below 240. My body at age 45 wants me to weigh 240 lbs.
You sound exactly like me size-wise. I'm 237....and I am going to 225 dammit!! I'd LOVE to be 210....but, I'd also like to sit backstage at the Victoria's Secret Fashion show....unfortunately, I don't think either will happen in this lifetime!!!
The damage is done. Eat less & exercise more.
Potentially, this research could be beneficial for cancer patients.
Best of luck on both initiatives!
Just wondering? Where did you hear that Dubya was overweight? He's very light and of average height so I doubt he'd have a high BMI.
Oh. Never mind. This is REALLY old. My apologies.
Man, you really cracked me up with that.
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