Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

Obviously eating less will cause weight loss. The problem is actually being able to eat less and to keep doing that for life. Maybe that is not a problem for you ... so far, but it is a real problem for many people.

This article could shed more light on the obesity problem and solutions to it. For example, it could very well be that our intestinal flora influences our own decision making. There is at least one known case of a micro-organism that does: the toxoplasma gondii.

It is also apparent that people become addict to sugar and that definitely would influence decision making.

On top of that, our behavior is in great extent influenced, if not determined, by the chemistry of our bodies. It may very well be that chemical imbalances caused by a combination of diet, intestinal flora and hormones, causes obesity.

In short, saying that it is simply a problem of calories in and calories out is a gross over-simplification of the problem. Science is way beyond that point.

> Refined/processed food should be eaten in minimal quantities because it spikes blood sugar and causes insulin fatigue, which in the long run causes Type II diabetes.

What precisely does refined/processed food mean, from a chemistry standpoint? Is there a particular common process that transforms my homegrown lettuce into "refined lettuce"?

Also, a lot of spices have antibiotic properties, and some oils. Food and its impact on health is more chemically complex than most people seem to realize.

You are correct to doubt the meaning of these words as they are being flung around for the sole reason of providing credibility. Your mistake is coming with scientific thoughts into a discussion that is utterly non-scientific and purely based on making money with buzzword-laden books by turning anything related to food into a weird cult-like experience.

But at least your questions are in an area where I can maybe help out. Carbohydrates are just what the name says: carbon molecules with hydrogen and oxygen attached to them. Complexity of carbohydrates is a spectrum, with formaldehyde being at one end and ultra-complex molecules such as huge amino-saccharides or polymers on the other. Saccharides are sugars, who all belong to the carbohydrate family. As far as nutrition is concerned, most sugars are based on the glucose molecule, that's a unit with 6 carbon atoms typically wound into a ring with six or five edges. Chaining those rings together makes polysaccharides.

Overly long saccharide chains only fit into our sweetness taste detectors at one point, that's one ping each from a huge number of saccharide rings. Smaller sugars (like dextrose) cause a lot more signal by fitting better into the detectors, that's why they tend to taste sweeter. Polysaccharide disassembly starts with enzymes in the saliva of the mouth, that's why some things get sweeter when you chew on them for a while. For people who don't gobble down their food to quickly, that means only small sugar molecules even arrive in the small intestine, where they are further split into monosaccharides which can finally be resorbed through the intestinal wall. The small intestine is ill-equipped to handle longer chains, though, that's why they pass into the large intestine. In itself that's not a problem, but if there is a _regular and large_ amount of this stuff in the large intestine, it will attract microbes that live off it.

So if a lot of sugars regularly make it into the large intestine, chances are there will be a population of bacteria (or worse: funghi) taking advantage of that. It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake). Of course sometimes these colonies cause other problems like inflammatory reactions that eventually necessitate flushing them out. But saying those bacteria cause obesity is just the new "I'm not fat, I'm big boned", a mechanism designed to deflect the responsibility for obesity away from a person's behavior.

The digestive system is designed to survive and thrive on a variety of food, but there is also a lot that can go wrong. It's not "evil complex polysaccharides" wreaking havoc and producing energy out of thin air to make people fat, it's (as always) people eating too much who are bringing this upon themselves.

One good thing food cults such as the different "nutrition plans" and "strategies" can do, however, is making people reflect on their habits and generally lower their energy consumption. To make it extra clear: I don't think vegetarianism is one of these cults, but it too causes people to eat more carefully.

I think that depends in part on who your ancestors are -- I.e. do you have genes from a carnivorous culture?

My exhusband is part Viking, basically. They ate a lot of meat, in part because they lived so far north that you couldn't grow enough plantbased foods. My ex ate a very high meat diet. Our sons eat less meat than he did, but they are 1/4 Norwegian whereas he is 1/2. Still, they tolerate more meat in their diet than I do. I am convinced there is a genetic component here.

(Yes I know: Anecdotal and all that.)