The Curious Case of Nanan and Huain

Another interesting finding of “Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China” is that there was a huge variation in caloric consumption in different regions of China without a corresponding difference in body weights. This is the most notable in two neighboring areas – Nanan and Huian – two places on the Southeast coast of China with …

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Chinese Office Workers Eat More Than Americans

In The ROS Theory Of Obesity I stated without providing evidence that Chinese people in the 1980s were lean while eating a high starch diet. In the comments thread, it was suggested that perhaps the Chinese were thin due to lack of available calories. There simply wasn’t enough food to go around. When I wrote …

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ROS is Satiation

Satiation is a feeling that is actually triggered in the brain by specific neurons in the hypothalamus. These neurons respond to a number of factors, including circulating levels of blood glucose, free fatty acids (ie energy availability) and hormones such as leptin. In this paper, the authors show that ROS is necessary for satiation. The …

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The Body Fat of Obese Adults is Highly Unsaturated

This paper measured the level of Stearoyl-CoA desaturase in morbidly obese adults compared to adults with a normal BMI. The obese adults produce 2-3 times as much of the enzyme as do lean adults, resulting in fat that is significantly more unsaturated. In addition, the obese adults also had much higher levels of polyunsaturated fats. …

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Butter Causes a High Level of Available Energy 8 Hours After a Meal

When fat cells respond to insulin they take several actions in switching from fat burning mode to glucose burning and fat storing mode. These actions include: Turning off lipolysis – the process of releasing fats into the bloodstream as Free Fatty Acids which other cells can use energy Absorbing Glucose and beginning de no lipogenesis …

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Long Chain Saturated Fat Causes Fat Loss in Mice

If you’ve been reading along you know that by this point we’ve shown that long chain saturated fat consumption causes ROS production in the mitochondria which causes short term physiological insulin resistance. The ROS theory of obesity suggests that physiological insulin resistance should prevent fat storage in peripheral fat cells (adipocytes). I’ve been dancing around …

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The Amount of Polyunsaturated fat in the Modern American Diet Fattens up Mice Without Additional Calories

In this series we’ve discussed the fact that saturated fat oxidation leads to ROS production in the mitochondria which makes peripheral fat cells “physiologically insulin resistant” which prevents them from switching from fat burning to fat storage. We’ve shown that saturated fat reversibly induces insulin resistance in people in the short term and that a …

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Unsaturated Fat Prevents Physiological Insulin Resistance In Humans

This paper studied the effect of a ketogenic diet composed largely of saturated fat compared to one composed largely of unsaturated fat. Ketogenic diets are high in fat and low in carbohydrate and protein. Ketogenic diets are known to stimulate physiological insulin resistance that goes away after a few days of eating a carbohydrate rich …

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Saturated Fat Causes Physiological Insulin Resistance in Humans

In previous posts I have laid out the argument that metabolism of long chain saturated fat creates mitochondrial ROS which causes short term insulin resistance while the saturated fat is oxidized. Insulin tells the bodies cells to switch from fat metabolism to glucose metabolism and causes fat cells to absorb glucose, convert it to fat …

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Physiological Insulin Resistance

Let’s think about what happens in response to a starchy meal. Blood sugar rises and insulin is released. Insulin attaches to the insulin receptors on the cell membranes of muscle cells, fat cells, etc. The cells respond by moving a glucose transporter, GLUT4, into the cell membrane so that they can start importing glucose. Insulin …

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