Monday, September 30, 2019

A New Theory of Obesity

“Ultraprocessed” foods seem to trigger neural signals that make us want more and more calories, unlike other foods in the Western diet.

Among those views is the idea that particular nutrients such as fats, carbs or sugars are to blame for our alarming obesity pandemic. (Globally the prevalence of obesity nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016, according to the World Health Organization. The rise accompanies related health threats that include heart disease and diabetes.) But Hall, who works at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, where he runs the Integrative Physiology section, has run experiments that point fingers at a different culprit. His studies suggest that a dramatic shift in how we make the food we eat—pulling ingredients apart and then reconstituting them into things like frosted snack cakes and ready-to-eat meals from the supermarket freezer—bears the brunt of the blame. This “ultraprocessed” food, he and a growing number of other scientists think, disrupts gut-brain signals that normally tell us that we have had enough, and this failed signaling leads to overeating.

 In Brief:-
  • Many nutrition scientists blame overeating fats or carbohydrates for the world's obesity pandemic.
  • But new research points to “ultraprocessed” foods such as chicken nuggets and instant soup mixes that dominate modern diets.
  • These foods seem to distort signals between the gut and brain that normally tell us we are full, so instead people overeat. 
                           Source:- Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Kevin D. Hall et al. in Cell Metabolism, Vol. 30, No. 1, pages 67–77 and e1–e3; July 2, 2019.

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