China researchers link obesity to bacteria

China researchers link obesity to bacteria


Chinese Study Finds Intestinal Bacteria Controls Obesity

What would it feel like one day to be vindicated?

I often ponder this, though I find myself doubting it will ever happen in America, where too many of us are just fodder for the profit-mills.

It's interesting the research being done in OTHER COUNTRIES. This one barely hit American news. Hmm wonder why? It made the New York Daily news and UK, but haven't seen it in any other mainstream place. That tells you something does it not?

What is coming through our food? Think about that one. I know in my body there are serious serious mal-absorption problems--I'm low on Vit D, and various Vit Bs with recurring episodes of anemia, and no I never have had weight loss surgery. Some have gotten into the gut flora studies, but it could go even deeper then that. I have my theories, that since human beings have done away with truly fermented foods, and real bacterias digesting things, that people's weights are indeed going up. In other words our foods aren't even being broken down like they once were.

Researchers in Shanghai found that mice bred to be resistant to obesity even when fed high-fat foods became excessively overweight when injected with a kind of human bacteria and subjected to a rich diet.

The bacterium—known as enterobacter—had been linked with obesity after being found in high quantities in the gut of a morbidly obese human volunteer, said the report, written by researchers at Shanghai's Jiaotong University.

The mice were injected with the bacterium for up to 10 weeks as part of the experiment.

The experiments show that the bacterium "may causatively contribute to the development of obesity" in humans, according to the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISMEJ).

A human patient lost over 30 kilograms in nine weeks after being placed on a diet of "whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics", which reduced the bacterium's presence in the patient's gut to "undetectable" levels, the paper said.

One of the report's authors, Zhao Liping, lost 20 kilograms in two years after adopting a diet of fermented probiotic foods such as bitter melon to adjust the balance of bacteria in his gut, the American magazine Science said in an article this year on his previous research.

Zhao's work on the role of bacteria in obesity is inspired by traditional Chinese beliefs that the gut is the "foundation for human health", Science reported.

The scientists wrote in their latest paper that they "hope to identify more such obesity-inducing bacteria from various human populations" in future research.

Obesity worldwide has more than doubled since 1980, according to the World Health Organisation, with more than 500 million adults worldwide suffering from the condition according to 2008 statistics.

I definitely think they are on to something here.

My Address to the Mean People

I had one post here the other day,

"You're costing the government money, you are a lazy sack of...."

Well you get the gist. I often ponder what years worth of this stuff, did to my heart, mind and soul. Sure one can face the world with daily bravery, but such remarks grow old fast.  Add to that the burdens of fat hating relatives as well.  I ponder the reality of some supposedly thin person that goes on the internet, and finds this website and feels they must waste their time telling some 500lb [or where ever it is now, I know it didn't go up] woman, off, for daring to exist. What kind of inner world does such a person have? One can look in to such a heart and see the black barbed wire and green clouds of stink, with just a second's glance.

I have to edit their nasty grams all the time including the endless ones from Mr. Fake Fat guy, I'm really a fat person obsessed thin lawyer in real life. He has several websites, and some of the size'o'sphere definitely has run into this guy before. A few times I let them go and respond, but then when people like this have their minds made up, not much you can do about it. I mean the backing of the industrial complexes rest behind them. These aren't people questioning what they see on TV. Most of them are almost stereotypes of themselves as they seek to squish you into their stereotypes.

Everyone is into telling the fat people what their reality is and invalidating what we have to say. What an unending crock so many of us have to deal with. You think someone like myself with a website like this hasn't heard it all before? You really think your exhortations to go "diet" and "exercise" are some new revelation brought off the mountain for the fat woman?  Ironic since given this week, I ended up with a leg infection probably from walking around too much--PT program and exercises. But supposedly in magic-lose weight kingdom, exercise is supposed to magically turn me into a thin person as well as eating all the "right" and "proper" food. I will continue with the exercises but give me a break. I bet anything some of these skinnies are scarfing down the seasonal cookies while issuing judgments from on high.

One told me she is a size 00, and used to be a size 16, does that mean she is invisible now or just when she turns sideways?

Why is there even a size called ZERO, or ZERO ZERO, what is something of NOTHING?

Nothing.

That says something to me.

Getting Through December

Can we fast forward to March?

I like Thanksgiving, turkey is a healthy tasty food as well as green bean casserole made dairy free, but can we fast forward through December especially?

This is a hard time of year for me, as the housebound door slams shut, and the days where I can make it out get fewer and fewer to match the more limited light. I am not sure if my wanting to go to sleep by 8:00pm is a sign of worsening seasonal affective disorder but many people go into a would be hibernation this time of year.

Watching these folks go at it every year, gets tiring. How do they have so much money to blow on useless foreign made goods? Perhaps these are these are the folks still with working credit cards, I do not know but the greed fest gets a bit out there. It seems bills are so high now even if you have a good job, you should be saving up some money.

While one wants to reach out to others during the holidays and do what they can, for me December has always been the toughest month of the year. I have to mentally and spiritually prepare for it in prayer. Yes it gets that hard, watching the world go "party", while you are stuck indoors due to unforgiving lungs. This is not easy. This included a family get together where your protestations to have it moved to a more travel friendly month were ignored and realizing your status as the one everyone forgot.

The winter months grind to a complete halt. If I could put myself in a hibernation state, I would do it, and come out sometime the first week of March. Summer I'm housebound but somehow it feels different, because in the summer, there are some cooler days that break things up and there is always the evening..

I know being poor is wearing me out. One can handle being poor and dealing with the day to day stuff, but when you look up and see how the grind has cost you relationships and not having the money to go visit relatives, and just one more reason you get left off the invite lists, it just makes you more depressed. Normal people get to go on vacations, normal people get to go to visit relative's weddings. Ah the sin of envy, I know it's not a good thing.

Winter never has been easy for some of us.

What's In Everyone's Refrigerators?

A Look Inside People's Refrigerators

It interesting to look at what do normal people EAT? And seeing inside refrigerators is one way to do it. I showed the inside of my refrigerator a few times to my home medical professionals. Wonder what they thought of that, but I wanted to show that the cupboards and rest were not full of snacks and the refrigerator full of mountains of cake or fried foods.

What's in my refrigerator now? Let's go look I probably can do an inventory off the top of my head, its a tight week, but let's see some Falafel mix, Almond Milk, 2 left over stuffed peppers made with turkey and rice, 2 apples, some green onions, ketchup, a broccoli head, celery, a few lemons, a bag of black organic grapes, a jar of Veganaise, some sliced turkey lunchmeat, a few Roma tomatoes, Earth Balance-fake butter, Japanese seaweed sprinkles with mustard and pumpkin, I threw my Zatar seasoning box in the fridge, though it probably doesn't need refrigerated, ground turkey--it was a large pack and I only used some of yesterdays for the stuffed peppers, a couple cabbage sections, some carrots, 3-4 Asian Oriental sauces--soy sauce, stir fry sauce--mushroom flavored, and right now that is about it. There was some leftover Daiya cheese in there yesterday but I dropped it on the floor, and had to throw it away.

I've talked about being food insecure before and well we just came off a week low on money for groceries and the stuffed green peppers I made because they had a deal on green peppers and I am supposed to go grocery shopping tommorow. I ate all my Sea Snax. They supposedly are opening a food-co-op in my town and I want to join it and have contacted the people concerned already but hoping it will be affordable and not only for the wealthy.

This frig makes my stomach hurt all that take out...Yes I have noticed a correlation between digestive troubles and eating out and have three SAFE restaurants I frequent on rare occasion but I really only can afford to eat out once or twice a month.  Don't eat out that much, you will be in big trouble!

This looks like a healthy person's fridge, though I probably buy more produce then that, though add more meat when I have a lot of money for food and forget the eggs. 

This article reminded me of when they took pictures of everything people ate in foreign countries for a week...Hey notice these rather very thin Italians seem to eat a lot of carbohydrates and bread?

Here's an American photo. Notice these people are pretty close to average weight, but they have very high calorie food in this picture and quite a bit of it.. I question the whole premise of thin people all sitting around sipping green tea and eating only an apple a day or whatever the diet industry expects me to believe.

Physical Therapy

I've been doing physical therapy for balance and other reasons. When super-obese, one does have to dedicate hours a day to just staying alive, take pills, take a walk, cook food that won't make you worse off, rest and get water off, blah blah blah. They did say I improved, which is good to know. Oddly the physical therapists said I was one of the most motivated patients they've had. Trust me, one knows at these horrible weights the pain even that can lead one to "give up". I have to work out and use those stretchy bands , I do several arm exercises a day related to those.  After I write this and couple articles, I'll be going to do my exercises.

They say strengthening will improve the balance. The Meniere's really has done a number on my balance, having the room tilt on a daily basis stinks though I get a warning from the ears ringing. The doctors saw trouble with my eye movements even years ago,  nystagmus was written all over my medical charts.  Oddly inhaled steroids for COPD and asthma cut down the severity of the attacks, but they still happen and there has been permanent impacts on my balance.

Anyhow, the physical therapists have been nice and the treatment includes daily walks-inside if housebound and out with not, and specific leg and arm exercises. Getting the walker expanded my mobility quite a bit where I am walking more and not having to worry about balance. My pressure sores did heal, but yes sometimes I even stand up to type at the computer, because I have to watch them so closely.  Some years ago, physical therapy backed me away from needing oxygen, and able to get out the front door easier.  When I exercise I do not lose weight or lose so slowly it doesn't matter, well really I don't know where my weight is at now, except knowing I have NOT gained.

If you are superfat and having mobility or other health related problems, some physical therapy and learning daily work-outs and exercises can be quite beneficial.

Hmm something to think about....

Scientists Discover Immune Cells Could Protect Against Obesity

Scientists Discover Immune Cells Could Protect Against Obesity

Well wouldn't this make sense if something went awry in the body to begin with, that started the process of piling on the weight and pounds or affected these immune cells to start? How do you lose weight if you do not have the protection of these cells effectively? What would be interesting to know is why these immune cells are depleted to begin with? I found this study via another article but it had so much blathering about how great weight loss surgery was [what happens when the patients regain the weight?] and idiocy about fat people eating bear claws, I bypassed it and went straight to the source.

New research has found that a type of anti-tumour immune cell protects against obesity and the metabolic syndrome that leads to diabetes. Results showing that immune cells known to be protective against malignancy called invariant natural killer T-cells (iNKT), that are lost when humans become obese, but can be restored through weight loss, have been published online this week in the journal Immunity. Marie Curie Fellow, Lydia Lynch at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland made the discovery and as first author in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, and St Vincent’s University Hospital have shown that therapies that activate iNKT cells could help manage obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease. 

  iNKT cells had been thought to be rare in humans until work by Dr Lydia Lynch at Trinity College Dublin, Consultant Endocrinologist at St Vincent’s University Hospital Professor Donal O’Shea, and Trinity’s Professor of Comparative Immunology, Cliona O’Farrelly, found they were plentiful in human omental fat. 

  “We then found a large population of iNKT cells in fat tissue from mice,” said Dr Lynch whose Marie Curie Fellowship gave her the opportunity to work with Mark Exley and Steve Balk both assistant professors of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and leaders in the field of natural killer T-cell (NKT) investigations. “Now we have identified a role for these cells in the regulation of body weight and the metabolic state, likely by regulating inflammation in adipose tissue.” 

The team also discovered that a lipid called alpha-galactosylceramide (aGC) can lead to a dramatic improvement in metabolism, weight loss, and fatty liver disease, and can reverse diabetes by bolstering cells that have been depleted.

A Reader Responds to My Blog

I've had some good correspondence with this reader and glad they are taking a look at my perspective. I liked how they summed up what I had to say on this blog, so wanted to share it and asked their permission to do so:

"When I ran across your blog, your perspective really stood out because you were not caustic or angry and you were level headed. Some things I have learned from your blog so far, that I intend to incorporate into a new post about practical ideas for weight:

1) People are overweight for many reasons, there is no one way cause, so getting the right help for weight gain is crucial, and help might come from a variety of sources: doctor, specialist, nutritionist, psychologist

2) All doctors are not created equal and most have no background in food, nutrition or metabolism. It is not taught in medical school. Keep going until you find a doctor with experience and will think outside the box on your diagnosis.

3) There is a distinction between a 300 pound person and a 500 pound person and the difference amounts to a real disability.

4) Overweight children should be tested for underlying causes of weight gain, especially at the onset of puberty.

5) Not everyone that is obese is overeating: calories may not be processed in the norm. I actually did read this before from a physician in Austin that does the surgeries on people over 600 pounds. He said that at a certain weight what you eat does not matter, you will still gain it. I thought he was just had a vested interest in surgery.

6) Getting to the bottom of why you are obese, as well as clear distinction between obesity and being overweight is the first step. And very hard to do, as determining obesity is more than BMI or weight by the number.

7) We should all encourage meaningful obesity research."