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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   14188 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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You misunderstand me. I'm arguing that successfully following CICO as diet advice is counter-productive. The Biggest Loser study showed that contestants who purposely decreased their CI (through having their food intake managed by the producers of the show) and massively increased their CO through exercise permanently reduced their metabolic rates, even after they regained the weight after the show was over. These people, who absolutely did follow CICO as advice ended up making things worse for themselves.

A person can choose to eat less. But eating less increases hunger (duh) and reduces metabolic rate. Homeostasis trumps willpower.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat. This is the consensus among obesity researchers and it lines up with what we actually see. What caused the broken lipostat is still up for debate, I think it's vegetable oil but it could be something else.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat. This is the consensus among obesity researchers and it lines up with what we actually see.

First google hit: *Some obese people have high body weight because they have broken lipostats, but these are a rare minority. *

I'm not sure what the page you're referencing is referring to (can you link it?), because I'm referring to the consensus among obesity researchers for explaining the obesity epidemic:

But there’s a third model, not mentioned by Ludwig or Taubes, which is the one that predominates in my field. It acknowledges the fact that body weight is regulated, but the regulation happens in the brain, in response to signals from the body that indicate its energy status. Chief among these signals is the hormone leptin, but many others play a role (insulin, ghrelin, glucagon, CCK, GLP-1, glucose, amino acids, etc.)

There: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15284410/

I am hesistant to think of it as "consensus" with so few google results.

But obesity isn't caused by a lack of willpower (the whole world didn't get lazy in the 1970s for no reason). It's caused by a broken lipostat.

The 1970s also didn't see a novel virus or chemical triggering adverse reaction leading to "broken lipostat".

I wonder how much is there overlap between people claiming Russian citizens should raise and change government and people critiquing CIco. At least you can get fit just by yourself.

I mean, the paper says that obesity isn't caused by a 'broken' lipostat but one that is set too high, which is what I meant by 'broken'. I assume they use 'broken' to refer to things like Prader-Willi Syndrome.

The lipostatic model not only explains why some people become obese whereas others do not, but also allows us to understand why energy-controlled diets do not work

That is precisely what I'm arguing. CICO (as in calorie controlled diet) doesn't work.

The 1970s also didn't see a novel virus or chemical triggering adverse reaction leading to "broken lipostat".

No, but it did see a stratospheric rise in the consumption of vegetable oil, which is what I think caused the obesity epidemic. Seed oils are definitely novel, as is a diet with 5-10x the amount of linoleic acid that humans need.

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