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Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

nature.com

261–270 of 343 posts

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always did feel like it was easier to gain weight than lose it, especially fat weight and not muscle weight for me. It is the exact, polar opposite for me. I cannot gain even if I eat junk all day.

drink milkshakes

I drink a protein shake 2 times at least, and eat lunch (chicken & rice & broccoli casserole, so forth) 2-3 times a day. I do not eat small portions either.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#262

Since I had to look it up: "Adipose tissue" means "fat tissue".

You should definitely watch the Doctor Who episode Partners in Crime.

This was how I learned this word... It's insane that was almost 20 years ago.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always did feel like it was easier to gain weight than lose it, especially fat weight and not muscle weight for me. It is the exact, polar opposite for me. I cannot gain even if I eat junk all day.

I had a friend who was trying to bulk up make that claim (he was 6', 140 lbs), and then when I finally convinced him to write down everything he ate in a day, it was like 1800 calories.

I should do that, too, TBH.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#264

I'm surprised the paper doesn't mention "settling point theory" which was suggested decades ago. This seems to be evidence in favor of the theory.

There is not good evidence in favor of that theory.

there is quite a lot of evidence supporting the existence of homeostatic mechanisms involved in weight regulation

eg https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105816

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#265
post #2

As someone who's struggled with weight loss, and have known others to struggle with it well, I think we colloquially called this "slow metabolism". It always did feel like it was easier to gain weight than lose it, especially fat weight and not muscle weight for me. I was recently sent a video about fat adaptation (basically teaching your body to be better at burning fat) by a very fit friend, but I wonder how much o…

I have had a slow metabolism since I was a teenager. I don't think I've ever experienced a day in my life where I haven't thought about my weight, body composition, or felt guilty about eating food. And I'm not even that big. I've just never had the physique I wanted, and I always attributed it to having a slow metabolism. I'm turning 40 in May, so since the start of February, I've finally pulled up my bootstraps and…

How's your light environment/sunlight exposure? What's your waking body temperature (under arm for 10 minutes)? Have you had a thyroid panel done? (TSH, Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3)

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#266
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people blame failure to lose fat on a "slow metabolism" but this is usually incorrect. Have you had an actual resting metabolic rate (RMR) test to quantity your baseline total daily energy expenditure? Fat adaptation is a real thing. Endurance athletes focused on longer events will target some of their training around that energy system. This is more complex than can really be explained in an online comment…

I think you missed the point that he said "slow metabolism" is just a colloquial term for something else.

them and the rest of society

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#267
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought a CGM would help me lose weight but it turned out my body is a hero at managing sugar spikes. A pint of ice cream? Back to baseline in under an hour. Big meal, no big spike, etc. So it turns out you can still gain weight even if you don’t spike your blood sugar. At least for me.

If you don't spike your blood sugar and you eat fewer calories that you need, I don't know how you wouldn't lose weight. For me, a small piece of pie after dinner impacted my BS for 6-12 hours, according to the sensor. That was shocking.

I was high calorie, low spike.

I had just assumed before the cgm that my blood sugar regulation would be terrible with how easily I put in fat. But it was extremely well run.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#268
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though that also comes with male-pattern skeletal growth. So unless your body still has elevated/male-level T levels, you're carrying around a disproportionately heavy skeleton which negates the advantage. The male-pattern skeletal growth isn't necessarily a disadvantage. E.g., narrower hips and stronger bones is likely an advantage in running. > If the net effect were actually an advantage, you'd expect the womens…

> The male-pattern skeletal growth isn't necessarily a disadvantage. E.g., narrower hips and stronger bones is likely an advantage in running. It might or might not help, but if it were a net benefit then you'd expect trans women runners to perform more strongly than they actually do. > My understanding is the opposite. In fact, if it wasn't the case, there is basically no reason to have separate mens and womens fiel…

My last sentence wasn't particularly coherent; sorry. I have sort of two ideas here that were merged poorly: (1) setting aside trans entirely, cismen enjoy significant sport advantages over ciswomen in most sports, and this (fairness) is basically why we have women's sports instead of combined fields. (2) I believe transwomen have outsized performance in women's sports (contra your claim of no outperformance).

> There are some womens' divisions which allow trans women (typically with stipulations requiring some duration of HRT), and they are not dominant there.

I think there are maybe two things I'd poke at here. (1) Sports where transwomen enjoy greater advantage are more likely to have already excluded transwomen from womens' fields. And (2) the number of transwomen is tiny to begin with and AFAIK they have lower rates of participation in sports than ciswomen.

I think you can basically make a case for including or excluding transwomen in women's sports depending on whether you think inclusion or fairness is most important.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#269
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fat cells only turn over about 20% per year. You basically need to maintain a reduced weight for 5 years before the fat cells "forget" the higher weight. If you come off it before that 5 years are up, yeah, you are probably expected to bounce back somewhat. You might not need to be on GLP-1 forever, but you might need to be on it longer than people currently think.

Do you happen to have a reference for that or a specific link to learn more? That sounds oddly specific.

Not offhand, but it was an article talking about how they use background radiation to estimate cellular lifetimes.

Re: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

#270
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens because we act like calories are calories when it's clearly not true. Calorie counts in nutrition data are generated by something like burning the food in a bomb calorimeter. Which is most definitely not what our bodies do. We have all kinds of different biochemical ways of metabolizing different types of foods. So someone eating 1000 calories of day could be eating very healthy or they could be ingesting…

Why is it that people claim the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to humans?

No one is claiming that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to humans.
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