I haven't been keeping up with the oddly-named Slime Mold Time Mold site, but I remembered that he found the usual explanations for widespread obesity inadequate. He has a format of originally 8, now 10 "Mysteries" about obesity - things that we might have some reasonable expectation would explain it to us, but on closer inspection don't fit the data. Or also, weird things about its prevalence that don't have ready explanations, like the association between elevation and obesity (which is sorta true).I remembered that he found dieting was effective in only a modest number of people, and seed oils showed early promise but fails to match up with 3 of the to Mysteries. That doesn't write it off entirely, as he says.
We should be clear that this doesn’t leave the seed oil hypothesis totally dead in the water. A theory doesn’t have to fit all 10 mysteries to be correct. For example, the obesity epidemic could have multiple causes — maybe seed oils caused much of the baseline increase and something else is responsible for the variation internationally and between professions. It’s still possible that this is massively multicausal.
In the end, however
If we wrote A Chemical Hunger today, Part I would include 10 mysteries, not 8. And one problem with the seed oil hypothesis is that while it provides a pretty good fit to 7 of the 8 original mysteries, it doesn’t match the two new ones.
I had forgotten what he does like as an hypothesis. In his recent extended discussion Still Not Sold on Seed Oils he makes the case again for lithium exposure being a strong cause. It fits (or at least is not contradicted by) lots of the Mysteries, including new ones. The international differences match up remarkably well with extracting oil in arid climates. A lot of lithium is brought to the surface by the brackish water used in getting the stuff out of the ground, and nobody pays much attention to what happens to it afterwards, except that we know there is now lots of it in the soils and waters of these countries.It also fits the elevation hypothesis, as watersheds are likely to be more important than mere height. But intriguingly, lithium also fits the very odd mix of professions that have different obesity rates despite being otherwise similar in classification. Exposure to lithium grease looks like a match.
Anyone who has contact with psychiatric patients knows that lithium as a medicine causes weight gain, often quite a lot. There is now evidence that even trace amounts can get you the effect - reduced moodiness and thus violence - and the side effect of weight gain. It matches the puzzling timeline of "but why should obesity, rising modestly since 1900 as people have more access to uh, food, suddenly rocket upward around 1980. So keep your eye on that one.
Update: The seed oil advocates are all over the comments.
What % of the population would you estimate are using lithium?
ReplyDeleteAll oil-extracting countries are using it in the brines. The Middle East has the highest obesity rates in the world. Lithium grease was invented around 1940 and went into heavy use around 1980. As a medicine, it is no longer the first line treatment for mania. That would be depakote. So less than 1% of people even in places that have medicines would be taking it at huge levels. But I would not hazard a guess beyond that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe an ignorant question, but oil-extracting countries using it for what?..can't imagine a high % of the people in those countries are mechanics or handymen. What do they use it for?
ReplyDeleteThe brines they use to force the oil out have enormous lithium concentrations. Apparently. So the stuff just ends up loose on the soil to be blown about or washed into the water. You might get more clues from the link, and his earlier discussions. Now that I think of it, I should link directly to those earlier discussion rather than assume people are going to click the very links that I did in the first link. I have done this, and if you go back you can get a direct bead on what he means.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is intentionally adding lithium to the brine use for hydraulic fracturing, it is just that the water that comes back up -- a combination of the water naturally present in the deep shale formation and the water pushed down to release the petroleum -- contains a lot of mineral compounds dissolved from the shale formation. Even un-fractured wells produce water as well as oil/gas, and it is high in lithium.
ReplyDeleteI've been using lithium grease on screw-drives for a long-time -- the aerosol stuff that one can't help but inhale a bit of in use. It's magical stuff, very effective. But the last big tub of lithium grease that I purchased was when I rebuilt a 1960's kitchen-aid stand mixer. Like most industrial stand-mixers there is not really any effective seal between the gear-mechanism and the rotating beater, whisk, or hook, so one uses "food grade" grease and a lithium one was the most recommended.
So I'm thinking that yeah, it could be people inhaling sprayed grease, or roughnecks eating with traces of grease on their hands, or more lithium in the water we use in cooking and drinks -- but it also could just be that it's an unregulated (because it's designated as 'food safe') contaminant in nearly all processed foods -- including aunt-Martha's birthday cake.
Since the lithium doses from water, food, air pollution, etc seem to be substantially lower than therapeutic doses, I'm guessing that psychoactive effects will be noticeable only in the more sensitive side of the spectrum--though I note there is a contradiction between "even trace amounts can get you the effect - reduced moodiness and thus violence" and the canonical "have to get the dose neither too high nor too low." I'll assume the latter is out of date.
ReplyDeleteIf lithium acts to reduce mania, what psychoactive effects is that likely to produce in someone without a tendency to mania? In small doses, possibly not much, but in the sensitive, say. Reduced affect? Guessing again, if it had some deleterious effect, it might not matter except in combination with something else--and there are too many "something else"s to list.
This is your wheelhouse--I only see a bit from outside.
Lithia mineral water from natural springs was a thing back in the late 1800s. Lithia Springs, GA was one famous location but even tiny states like New Hampshire had their lithia springs. One was in business for some forty years. Then refined analytical testing revealed that these springs contained no more lithium that average surface waters (i.e., trace amounts). Except for those springs that were purposely "salted" with Li without telling the public. Most were driven out of business after the 1906 Food & Drug Act but 7UP advertised itself as a lithia beverage drink in the 1920s.
ReplyDeletejames, your thoughts headed down a similar path to mine. I'm wondering about the marked decline in childbirth globally. Certainly urbanization accounts for some of the change as well as China's one-child policy but a general deadening of the pheromone 'high' from sexual activity might account for something.
ReplyDelete