http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081214/sc_nm/us_obesity_genes_2Study finds six new gene mutations linked to obesity

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Researchers have identified six new gene mutations linked to obesity and said on Sunday they point to ways the brain and nervous system control eating and metabolism.

"Today's findings are a major step forward in understanding how the human body regulates weight," Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Acting director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said in a statement.

"This study essentially doubles in one fell swoop the number of known and replicated genetic factors contributing to obesity as a public health problem," added Dr. Kari Stefansson, Chief Executive Officer of deCODE Genetics of Iceland and one of the researchers.

They found variations in six genes -- TMEM18, KCTD15, GNPDA2, SH2B1, MTCH2 and NEGR1 -- were strongly associated with a height-to-weight ratio known as body mass index or BMI.

"Today's findings are a major step forward in understanding how the human body regulates weight," said Guttmacher, whose institute, one of the National Institutes of Health, helped fund and conduct the study.

"One of the most notable aspects of these discoveries is that most of these new risk factors are near genes that regulate processes in the brain," added Stefansson, whose company hopes to sell genetic tests based on such discoveries.

"This suggests that as we work to develop better means of combating obesity, including using these discoveries as the first step in developing new drugs, we need to focus on the regulation of appetite at least as much as on the metabolic factors of how the body uses and stores energy," Stefansson said.This whole notion that obesity is all about genes and that fat people are victims is absurd. It's just a way for those people to develop and sell their overpriced genetic tests (at taxpayer expense, no doubt) so they can flag you and prescribe their overpriced drugs which you will need to take for the rest of your life (also at taxpayer expense, no doubt), just so you can continue shoveling down Big Macs and Krispy Kreme doughnuts (with a Diet Coke, of course) and not suffer a heart attack.

It's as though there is some collectively forced delusion among these people, that refuses to recognize that obesity has been an epidemic only in the 20 or so years, even though we have had those genes for millennia.

At the same time we continue to pump paranoia into mothers, who now refuse to let their kids go out and exercise because they're afraid there's an evil "sex offender" at every corner (even though it's now much safer for their kids than it was decades ago), causing the kids to stay inside, watch TV and play video games, and get fat.

We continue to line supermarket shelves with junk food, not taxing them, pricing them lower than healthy food, and spending tons in advertising to get people to buy them.

And when people get fat, we call them helpless victims, and look for ways to spend money to accommodate their obesity, and even to perpetuate it.

And then people wonder why we're such a fat nation and getting fatter.

The absurdity of it all, it just boggles the rational mind.

Don't forget to add:

- Growing hormones saturing a good part of the meat you eat.
- Plastic/polution/insecticide that act like hormone in human brain
- adding sugar in almost every stage of food's preparation. (used as cheap conservation agent)
- To much auto, and bad cities planning (will you walk to the supermarket, when it take like 1 hour to go to, and that we will have trouble to return with your 13 in dozens items in special?).
- nobody make money from healthy peoples, but make a real killing from the sick (and even better when they only thinking that they are sick, but in fact they aren't).

Eridalafar

We are fat because we eat in our cars and minivans.

We eat all day long.

Until we can't walk or drive.

Then we have the government, prodded by Liberals like you, to buy us scooters to drive us around WalMarts. And spend more money and agencies to protect us from ourselves.




There was once a Nissan Auto executive who said that the reason why their seatbelt buckles failed in America was because they had french fries stuck in them. The company got pressured, he got fired. But you know what, he was right.

Like Jimmy the Greek.

Just because you don't like the truth, don't mean it is not the truth.

This is interesting:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zULJExxrW54/SUX1mI56_9I/AAAAAAAAAUw/GwcWI6QIi1A/s320/Data+7.jpg

Link (http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2008/12/15/evidence-suggests-activity-has-very-limited-role-in-weight-control/)

Evidence suggests activity has very limited role in weight control
Posted on 15 December 2008

There’s a common thought out there that overweight individuals are eating too much, or not exercising enough (or both). However, when it comes to matters that pertain to body weight, things are not necessarily as simple as they seem. For instance, my experiences in practice have led me to believe there are individuals wandering this planet who despite eating relatively modest quantities of food, nonetheless still carry more fat than they perhaps ought to. One explanation here is that these individuals have a metabolism that is simply not firing on all cylinders. Some of these individuals may have biochemical evidence of this in the form of tests which indicate low thyroid function. Others may have ‘normal’ thyroid function tests, but that is certainly no guarantee that their metabolism is functioning optimally. Others still may have a ’sluggish’ metabolism for reasons that have nothing to do with the functioning of their thyroid gland.

Similarly, being overweight is not necessarily a sign of slothfulness. For one thing, there what some may think a surprising dearth of scientific evidence which supports the concept that exercise is effective for the purposes of weight loss. In fact, there is good evidence which suggests that exercise is quite ineffective in this regard [1,2]. One explanation for this is that the calorie burn during all but the most intense and prolonged exercise is quite small. Another explanation is that people who exercise more tend to eat more too. Because of these factors, it’s just not that easy pushing oneself into calorie deficit with exercise in the long term.

If exercise is not particularly effective in terms of inducing weight loss, then how important is activity in terms of maintaining a healthy weight? In theory, it shouldn’t matter too much. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recently published on-line a paper which assessed the relationship between energy expended during exercise and weight in two groups of women: native Nigerians and African Americans [3]. The obesity rate in the Nigerian women was 7 per cent, compared to 50 per cent in the African Americans. This sort of discrepancy is often put down, at least in part, to the supposedly higher energy expended in activity and exercise in the developing world compared to developed parts of the globe. Yet, this did not seem to hold true for the women in this study: the energy expended during activity in the two groups was about the same. Physical activity levels were not significantly different either.

This is an interesting observation, but not necessarily a meaningful as assessing the relationship between activity-related energy expenditure and body weight in a single population. Using a more homogenous group as your subjects generally yields more meaningful and relevant observations than those obtained by looking across two quite different groups. Thankfully, the researchers responsible for this study assessed the relationship between between activity-related energy expenditure and weight over a 3-year period. In neither group did the researchers find any relationship between activity-related energy expenditure and change in weight. In other words, levels of activity did not appear to have any influence on weight gain over the course of the study.

According to the authors their data suggest that “…levels of energy expended during activity do not have a large influence on age-related trends in adiposity.”

This of course does not mean that activity is not a good idea. The authors themselves point to research which has found that activity is associated with improve physical fitness and cardiovascular health, as well as reduced mortality. However, the pointedly end their study by stating “…the role of small variations in AEE [activity energy expenditure] as part of daily activities in a public health strategy to prevent obesity remains very much in doubt. In defining public health policy , it will be crucial to discriminate between the known health benefits of physical activity and the presumed effect on weight change.” In other words, let’s not be telling people that activity is crucial for maintaining a health weight if we don’t have any good evidence which shows this to be true.

References:

1. Votruba SB. The role of exercise in the treatment of obesity. Nutrition

2. Shaw K, et al. Exercise for overweight or obesity. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 4.

3. Luke A, et al. Energy expenditure does not predict weight change in either Nigerian or African American women. Am J Clin Nutr [Epub 3rd December 2008]

Evidence suggests activity has very limited role in weight controlThat's absurd. It is physiologically impossible to expend more calories than you intake and get fat; it would defy the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics. Every athlete on this planet knows that, whether amateur or professional.

There is a reason I eat 3,500 calories a day, and do not get fat. There is also a reason Michael Phelps eats 8,000-10,000 calories a day, and does not get fat. It is called exercise.

I have never seen an obese athlete. However, I have seen countless obese couch potatoes whose notion of exercise is waddling into the SUV to hit the Krispy Kreme drive-through.

The reason your "studies" (if any) refute this obvious point is that they are often based on surveys, and fat people lie their asses off as to how much crap they eat and how little they move their asses around, because they are so embarrassed at how pathetic they are.

And the reason Nigerians aren't as fat as black Americans is obvious. Nigerians are very poor, and therefore they eat a lot less, and do more exercise. Americans sit on their lazy asses all day and shovel Krispy Kreme and In-N-Out Burgers down their throat.

Your article is part of the problem: trying to victimize fat people, telling them they have a "condition" that can be "cured" by such-and-such miracle drug, while they continue eating crap and not exercising. That's a lie.