The SCD1 Theory Of Obesity

The title of “High resting metabolic rate among Amazonian forager-horticulturalists experiencing high pathogen burden” makes it unambiguous as to the authors feelings about why the Tsimane have high metabolic rates. They include this graph to show just how unique the Tsimane are. I recently wrote about the plunge in American Metabolic rates in women between …

Female Amazonian forager-horticulturalists have the same metabolic rate as Korean college students. They both eat mostly starch. Their body fat is Saturated. Read More »

Recently I posted an article recommending combining sterculia oil with berberine and/or fish oil as a way to escape torpor. I chose this combination because they mimic the effects of leptin, the hormone produced by our fat cells whose job is to keep us lean but to which most of us are resistant. As discussed …

n=1 on Escaping Torpor: Turning off PPAR gamma and turning on Fat Burning Read More »

Overview Very Long Chain Fatty Acids (VLCFA) I’ve become very interested in very long chain fats – those weird ones that you ignored on your OmegaQuant test. Things like behenic acid, a 22 carbon length saturated fat. In Good PPAR, Bad PPAR, I pointed out that there is a positive feedback loop where too much …

Very Long Chain Saturated and Monounsaturated Fats Read More »

I’ve been promoting the OmagaQuant complete test as a way to calculate your Desaturase Indix (DI or DI18) to know your SCD1 levels. This is calculated by dividing your oleic acid (18:1) by your stearic acid (18:0). There are a lot of questions about what people’s numbers SHOULD look like. Ideally your DI should be …

Membrane Phospholipid Composition of Different Populations Read More »

Overview Introduction I introduced PPAR alpha in Dietary Monounsaturated Fat as an altogether good actor, doing things like increasing the rate of fat burning.  The PPAR genes are indeed master metabolic regulators.  In this post I’m going to introduce PPAR alpha’s troubled sibling, PPAR gamma.   The PPARs are transcription factors, which is to say that …

Good PPAR, Bad PPAR Read More »

Introduction The most common explanation given for the recent wave of obesity is that “We don’t work as hard as we used to and we overeat.”  This is what evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould calls a “just-so story”, an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other …

Fat Newborns; Sloth and Gluttony Part 1 Read More »

Introduction This is a followup to my post Native Americans Removed Acorn Oil and Replaced It With Bear Fat. It also carries on the theme of adaptive thermogensis, which I introduced in This is Your Body Temperature on Vegetable Oil and continued in The Body Fat Saturation Of Starch Eaters; Linoleic Acid Dysregulates SCD1. In …

Bear Hunting Season; Native Americans Hunted Bear When The PUFA Content Was Lowest Read More »

I’ve argued in The SCD1 Theory of Obesity Part One and Part Two, as well as in This Is Your Body Temperature On Vegetable Oil that if your body fat is highly saturated, you will respond to an increase in body fat by increasing your metabolic rate through a process known as adaptive thermogenesis. In …

The Body Fat Saturation Of Starch Eaters; Linoleic Acid Dysregulates SCD1 Read More »