THE OBESIGENIC LIFESTYLE

By Alice R. Laule, M.D.

Obesigenic is a word that got my attention recently. I doubt that it is in the dictionary, yet. (I understand “google” made it into the latest dictionary, as a verb.) Nonetheless, we do live in an obesigenic world, and can more easily choose fat over fit in this culture. Obesity is now being called an “epidemic”, and this newsletter will be devoted to that topic.

          A ton of information is available on how to eat properly for health, and what is necessary for weight loss. All this is well and good, but in a recent Nielsen market research study, 69% of Americans interviewed admitted that they knew better, but continued to drink soft drinks with meals, and eat more junk food than they knew was good for them because it was just more convenient to eat improperly. I don’t find this surprising at all. When I was owner/general contractor our  round clinic building, my time was really full. My discipline about eating is fairly good, but I found myself stopping for fast food, getting a soda pop once or twice for an energy buzz, and eating on the run, often in the car. Eating properly was too time consuming.

          It clearly is a matter of priorities. In our culture, one cannot make a light, and easy decision to simply start eating better. It takes a rather formal commitment, and a prolonged focus, and deep desire to eat better. We not only have to turn away from foods like sugar and starches, to which we can actually become physically addicted, we also have to turn our backs on the modern convenience culture.

I think it is more powerful when people change their lifestyles, not with weight loss in mind, but with health in mind. People who hate the way they look seldom can lose the weight. Anything we focus on and resist with all our attention tends to stay in our lives. Resist the fat, and it stays. Move toward health, and one has laid out a course that can be followed for years with relatively few deviations.

          During some stresses last fall, I put on about 5 pounds that I don’t want. Forgetting my own advice, I have been resisting that five pounds. The more determined I am to lose it, the more it stays, or even grows. But just this last few weeks, I decided to move toward something, instead. I have an image in mind of a lean, slinky tango dancer that I want to become. I know how it looks in the mirror, I know how it feels to move around in that body. So every time I am tempted to do comfort eating, or engage in my sugar addiction, I ask that slinky body if it wants that cookie or not. I like the way the lean, slinky me makes food choices.

          What other factors are creating this obesity “epidemic?” One is clearly our choice of soda pop. The calories in soda pop are enormous, and they are calories empty of actual nutritional value. I put the five pounds on during a weekend workshop at the O’Brien Center. I was almost too busy to eat, but did drink several glasses of some awful commercial lemonade stuff in big plastic bottles. I checked calorie content later, and discovered I had taken in 1,500 calories that day in NOTHING but this awful lemonade. Plus I was stressed, so the stress hormones were discussion of all the hormones involved in weight control. Serotonin and norepineprhine play a role. The very far end of the small intestine, near the colon, secretes a peptide called YY, which stimulates appetite and slows the emptying of the stomach. Another one  called glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) has several effects that add up to appetite suppression.  I will address only one more area in detail, that is the so-called endocannibinoid system.       

          Have you ever wondered if there was a receptor system created in the brain that was just waiting for humans to go inhale the smoke from some weed growing in their backyard? The receptor system is certainly there, but only recently did we discover the internally manufactured cannibinoids. There are two basic types, CB1 and CB2, but for our purposes we will discuss the CB1 cannibinoids and their receptors, located in the brain, gut, some fat tissue, and skeletal muscle. They can actually increase insulin sensitivity and the burning of fat, at the same time they increase the deposition of fat. Most of all, they give us the munchies. The social pleasure of eating, the taste of the food, and the appetite are all increased. The biggest news in weight loss medicine is rimonabant, scheduled to be released this fall, which blocks CB1 receptors, and thus decreases the munchies. It is available now through compounding pharmacies. Visceral adipose tissue deposited by eating starches and sweets is associated with increased CB1 receptors in the brain. In the “food-as-information” paradigm, we actually instruct our body by what we eat to change receptor levels in the hypothalamus. Fish oil actually causes change in the  hypothalamus that makes us feel full.

          Next time you eat, think of this — what instructions are you giving your body?

Meanwhile, stay thin — and healthy.

Alice R. Laule, M.D.

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