Odd Diet Update

Graph Paper Diaries so seldom updates that it moves to the bottom of the sidebar quickly, so I usually highlight every new post. This one is about obesity research, and some of the odd things that actually might prove to be partial solutions. I stress partial solutions, as there is increasing evidence that different things work for different people, and things that affect digestion - as opposed to motivation or even calories in, calories out - keep rising to the top.  We are exposed to novel chemicals (lithium may affect some.  those who take it as a medicine often have weight gain), and they do not have predictable effects on us. We eat differently than our ancestors in a hundred ways, and the overall impression I have of the obesity increases is of a system that is hitting the margins of its effectiveness, breaking down in different places for different folks. Or more likely, no longer working efficiently in one main way in an individual plus 3-4 other ways of smaller effect. 

How food is prepared and gut biomes seem to be showing up in the research in odd ways. If you are eating mostly healthy and encouraging a good set of bacteria, but have one or two foods that most people can tolerate but have a bad effect on your particular digestion (alcohol, sugar, a particular grain), they tear it all down again.  Treading water. Unless we have real discomfort or really want to be rid of the weight, we aren't going to do a hundred controlled experiments on ourselves. However, we are usually willing to take a flyer on something that works for a good percentage of people.  It's just discouraging that there ain't nothing out there that seems to work on 50% of us.

I will note again that there is a slow climb in obesity throughout the 20th C, consonant with more food availability.  Then in 1980, the graph goes more sharply upward, and in unpredictable ways.  Also, anorexia increases at the same time, at least possibly a paradoxical effect that we see with other chemical exposures such as medicines. Does benadryl make you jittery or sleepy? For most people it's sleepy, but it could be either. Or neither or both. 

So the same rules apply as on any controversial science, of not jumping to either conclusion too quickly.  I'm increasing resistant starches myself, which works for some people.