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Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

nature.com

321–330 of 343 posts

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

#321

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It is. But it's hard to maintain. I was in ketosis for a month via diet (verified with urine strips twice a day) and it was a struggle to figure out what to eat. Camembert, bacon-wrapped chicken and eggs gets boring after a while. Our civilization runs on carbohydrates, for better or worse.

Do you not like meat?

I do, up to a point.

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

#322

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> 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.

It's hard for me to gain weight. But in my 30s, for a few months I was eating 3000 calories plus. My breakfast smoothie was about 800 calories - 2-3 scoops protein, a banana, almond butter. I gained about 5 pounds after 3 months. It was just too hard to eat that much while also eating healthy.

I agree. To gain, I have to take an SSRI antidepressant to make me hungry, and then eat >4 packs of ramen (fake soup) among other things. Quite unhealthy.

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

#323
post #230

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Testicular atrophy and HPT axis suppression is a thoroughly documented side effect of TRT and steroids. Even beginner bodybuilders know that taking steroids will crush their natural testosterone production. They can kind of bring it back by taking short courses and using certain medications after the cycle, but most discover that some permanent damage is being done with each cycle. There are two problems with framing…

> Even beginner bodybuilders know that taking steroids will crush their natural testosterone production. Maybe beginner bodybuilders understand this. But I'd argue the average new steroid user is more likely the be un/mis-informed. The average person gets all their information from Instagram/Tiktok/Youtube/Reddit. But my observation is a lot of people are jumping on gear for purely aesthetic reasons. They are orderin…

I go to a budget gym that is used by a lot of high schoolers and college kids in the evenings. The needle boxes in the bathrooms are full. It's insane.

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

#324

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You get to know yourself well after about 5 days of zero food..... :))

Even much shorter fasts help you to understand how unimportant and fleeting a lot of feelings of hunger are. You get hunger pangs and feel like you need to eat, but in a hour it has passed and you go another 8+ hours just fine. When I eat some crappy food, I know it is going to make me feel very hungry in a few hours, but when it happens, I know it isn’t a real need and it helps stop the cycle of bad eating/overeatin…

I'm not religious at all, but I still sometimes practice Ramadan for this reason. On top of the communal experiences of charity and shared meals that are more present during the month, the reminder that my body is greedy for food and does not really need so much is such a good annual reminder to have.

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

#325
post #170

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If you treat humans as biological machines, signaling system (hormones, endocrine system) is very important. When signaling system is messed up, your CI/CO model with self-control doesn't work at all. Signals need to be fixed.

So? That doesn't disprove the premise of CI/CO. CI/CO is the notion that humans exist in the physical world and thus obey the laws of thermodynamics.

CI + self-control or will --> CO (that's the hypothesis sold by many)

CI + hormones --> CO (that's an alternative hypothesis)

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

#326
post #319

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I think I started getting addicted to the caffeine

Interesting. I do go days without it and don't have headaches, as I would expect from caffeine withdrawal, so I guess I don't eat enough. What happens when you stop for a day or two?

I just really craved it!

In the end I just accepted I wanted to have caffeine and started drinking coffee instead.

That’s made it easier to have a few squares here and there and enjoy them properly. Which is good because chocolate good enough to eat at 100% is not cheap! Eating a whole bar a day was an expensive habbit.

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

#327

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This is self-defeating and untrue. Many people, myself included, have kept weight off for decades. But you don’t get there by thinking of your new lifestyle as “dieting”. You need to learn to love eating healthy foods in a healthy amount, and getting exercise. Eventually you can get to a place where the old foods and habits are simply unappealing.

> Many people, myself included, have kept weight off for decades. To be clear, more than 80% of people eventually regain weight lost during a diet. While your statement might be factually correct: "many people" can be 20% of the millions of people who diet each year, but it overlooks the main point: Keeping off weight after a diet requires near superhuman control. Most people cannot do it. Thank god I was born with g…

> Keeping off weight after a diet requires near superhuman control.

No. This is wrong.

Keeping weight off requires retraining your habits and relationship with food so that it becomes natural and even enjoyable to stay healthy. It also may require addressing some emotional and psychological issues that are keeping you stuck.

The path to that point may be challenging (not always!), but it is simply false that you must exert “superhuman control” forever to keep your progress. In fact, the opposite is true: if you view yourself in an adversarial posture with your diet, and are relying on willpower to “win”, then you are likely to fail because nobody can deprive themselves forever.

Circling back to that 80/20 statistic: I think it’s evidence that most people are not approaching this problem in the right way. And part of the problem, in my opinion, is defeatist beliefs like the ones I am criticizing here.

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

#328

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I kinda went down a rabbit hole a while back with certain treatments that can kill adipocytes, as there's actually some significant research backing both heat-generating and cold-generating treatments. They do kill fat cells, and they are flushed out of the body. But people who undergo such treatments do not lose fat. At best, these devices can reshape your fat, pulling it out of one area and distributing it more eve…

Interesting! Why can't we just remove the triglycerids from the blood before they trigger adipogenesis? Basically we need a form of dialysis.

Removing triglycerides from blood would technically work, however lipids in blood, including triglycerides typically travel attached to task-specific proteins. So, you'd have to remove the entire protein-lipid complex, and that might have additional ramifications complicating the process.

Bear in mind, dialysis does work, however it certainly does not work as well as we hope it should. Dialysis, in all of its different forms, takes a huge toll on the body, and dialysis itself significantly increases mortality; it is also an invasive intervention.

All that being said, we certainly should be doing more research on this.

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

#329

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I am pretty sure the only way to reduce the number of cells is liposuction

I've been wondering about that. Like all cosmetic surgery liposuction is looked down upon. But maybe it can also be a useful and healthy weight loss strategy?

Liposuction is actually a very risky procedure, at least in relation to its benefits. For example, fat embolisms in liposuction occur in 8-9% of patients that undergo the procedure. There are other risks that are non-trivial as well.

If I had to advise a patient on whether they should consider liposuction vs gastric bypass vs GLP1R agonists, I would tell them to not consider liposuction in that equation at all.

As with most cosmetic surgery, risks like these are downplayed by practitioners (willfully and otherwise) as well as by people in these social media circles.

This doesn't mean liposuction shouldn't ever be used, however. It can have good uses in reconstructive surgery, for example, where fat is sucked up to be used in reconstructing a different area. In this case, the potential reduction in morbidity and restoration of function to the patient, or increasing their autonomy, might make the risks associated with lipo worth it.

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

#330

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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…

You aren't cursed with a slow metabolism, you have just been having too many calories. If you are truly never hungry but still not losing weight, then why not reduce your calories by 200-300 a day?

I’ve thought the same, but then my food intake would truly be just plain chicken breast, fish, protein shakes, and green veggies. Which is basically what it is now, but I’d have to cut out the Greek yogurt, berries, and handful of nuts, and maybe the eggs. Remember, I weigh everything.

I can find the calories to cut, it just makes it difficult to sustain for longer than 2 weeks due to the mental load. Plus, I would bet my lifts in the gym would suffer after a while too.

Frankly, it’s probably easier to just go for an extra 20 minutes run.

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