Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice • Hacker News Board

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#121

Post by BonBon321 » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 7:10 AM UTC

beswift wrote: post #105

Roshini wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It is pretty much impossible to overload your body's ability to absorb carbohydrates without a) exploding your stomach or b) you have some other health problem. By the time the food you eat gets to the bacteria, there are no sugar, fat or protein left. We absorb it all. We store extra of the first two and excrete the third (in a modified form) through urine. Refined/processed food should be eaten in minimal quant…

>By the time the food you eat gets to the bacteria, there are no sugar, fat or protein left You realize those bacteria are living off the fat, sugar and protein you consume right? They are essential to our ability to utilize the chemicals we get from these macro nutrients. >Refined/processed food should be eaten in minimal quantities because it spikes blood sugar and causes insulin fatigue, which in the long run caus…

Stop calling them "our patients" and saying you are done with medical school. You submitted a post 227 days ago saying you worked in your dad's doctors office doing various IT tasks. Don't claim authority of passing four+ years of incredibly difficult schooling followed by several more years of intense residency. You don't deserve it so don't claim it.

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#122

Post by robbbaxley » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 7:46 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #9

Ok, this is an interesting observation: "After 9 weeks on the WTP diet, this Enterobacter population in the volunteer's gut reduced to 1.8%, and became undetectable by the end of the 23-week trial" So the thesis is that this bacteria lives in obese people's gut, and it makes them more obese. But once they diet to a point where they are not obese, the bacteria dies off? I wonder if they are going to try a diet + anti-…

I have just finished reading the entire report including the supplement. It seems that the reason this bacteria was killed off is that the diet changed the pH balance in the gut. The report mentions "Bitter Melon" as killing the bacteria (Supplementary Figure 1. Bitter melon markedly modulated the human gut microbiota in in vitro experiment) Supplementary document, page 33. I couldn't find an exact reason for the subject taking the pre-biotics but I would suspect that it is to help re-colonize the gut with 'good' bacteria.

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#123

Post by checker » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

Udo wrote: post #117

Mz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there can be contention about the growth mechanism. Again, my main "proof" is I got better after being sentenced to death. Trying to talk about that gets me dismissed in the ugliest way possible. On HN, I was recently repeatedly accused of being mentally ill and hounded by someone claiming I was being irrational and overly emotional. I remain baffled that no one seemed to recognize his behavior as irrational…

Again: none of those things are actually happening in this thread. I'm not disrespecting you, I'm not accusing you of anything, but I also don't think I'm being irrational. I do believe you didn't really read my entire posts though, but that is more a failure on my part than on yours. Also, it's actually morning here in Europe. In the spirit of a new day: don't ever shut up, but do lighten up.

Cheers guys, loved reading your debate. Thank you both for contributing!

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#124

Post by leephillips » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:34 PM UTC

fotbr wrote: post #98

leephillips wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's your body and you are free to do as you please." When obese people fly they rarely buy two seats. They can pretend that their state of health doesn't affect the people around them, but they are deceiving themselves.

I'm still technically obese, but better than I was. I'm big, but I'm not exceptionally wide. If I was an inch taller, I'd merely be "overweight". If I were 4 inches taller, I'd be pretty close to "normal" weight. I fit in a standard airline seat without hanging over the armrest into the next seat, so why should I pay for it? So yeah, my state of health isn't particularly good right now, but it actually isn't affectin…

Allow me to disagree; the capacity to generalize is at the core of much progress in human thought.

Of course there will always be those who insist on missing the forest for a tree or two -- the forest in this case being my attempt to keep in mind a wholly unoriginal thought: we are not isolated, and the state of our bodies and minds redounds not only to ourselves.

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#125

Post by leephillips » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:44 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #109

Udo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let's do away with the hostility. I don't know what I have done to provoke it but it's certainly not worth discussing anything in this manner. It's important not to engage in willful misunderstanding, or conflate separate points I made into some kind of chimera to distort what I said. > You blame everything on "behavior" then claim to have a food addiction. This is certainly a gross mischaracterization, and I…

I don't recall "doing this before" with you in specific. I recall talking to you. I recall it was amicable, which is part of why I replied at all. But this type thing does happen to me a lot on the internet generally, which is incredibly frustrating for me personally. It also happens a lot on HN specifically: I get dismissed by people who are convinced they know science, thus their vague generalizations and personal…

"Last year, I lost so much weight, so rapidly that total strangers began stopping me in public places and asking me how I did it."

How did strangers know that you'd lost weight?

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#126

Post by DanBC » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 4:44 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #101

Udo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hel…

Thanks for the very informative comment. I also recognize that a lot of people's understanding of food is scarcely more rigorous than cargo cult rituals, but a few points seem a bit unclear to me. ...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).... How do you square this with the claim from the original article…

> Why, then, do some people become obese when they eat as their instincts tell them, and others do not? For example, I eat whenever I'm hungry, stop when I'm full (or even overfilled), snack frequently while working (mostly nuts, dried fruits, and sometimes Fritos), and yet remain thin, while others eat carefully and remain obese. What's the difference?

I really really want to see good quality food diaries for people who claim to eat little but not lose weight. I'd also want to see how much exercise they do. (And not even actual exercise, just how much they move around during the day.)

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#127

Post by Mz » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 5:21 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #125

Mz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall "doing this before" with you in specific. I recall talking to you. I recall it was amicable, which is part of why I replied at all. But this type thing does happen to me a lot on the internet generally, which is incredibly frustrating for me personally. It also happens a lot on HN specifically: I get dismissed by people who are convinced they know science, thus their vague generalizations and personal…

"Last year, I lost so much weight, so rapidly that total strangers began stopping me in public places and asking me how I did it." How did strangers know that you'd lost weight?

I have lived without a car for several years, so I walked everywhere. Sometimes people would stop me in the grocery store or other place and say "I see you walking all the time. God, you've really lost weight!! What are you doing?" I also worked for an extremely large company. There were probably about 2000 people in the building where I worked. So people I did not know at all would stop me in the hallways at work and ask how on earth I was dropping so much weight, so fast.

I am tall with naturally curly hair and apparently striking features. It isn't terribly uncommon for people to notice me whom I never noticed. That sort of experience goes back at least to high school, where people recognize me and I have no clue who they are. (Edit: This is probably compounded by my crappy eyesight. I sometimes don't recognize people whom I do know until I am practically on top of them.)

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#128

Post by gbeeson » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

sixdimensional wrote: post #12

gte910h wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supplementary information link at the bottom has a link to the diet and how it was prepared: Dietary intervention and sampling. This volunteer was given a diet composed of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicine and prebiotics (WTP diet) for intervention. He was given 4 cans of gruel per day as staple food contract prepared in the form of cooked porridge (370 g wet weight per can) then canned by a food manufac…

Is it just me or isn't that basically what they feed you in the Matrix? "Tank: Here you go, buddy; 'Breakfast of Champions.' Mouse: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs. Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of snot. Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat? Switch: No, but technically, neither did you. Mouse: That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because…

Excellent quote and that sums it up nicely for me. Gack from a can. Yumbo.

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#129

Post by maxharris » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 7:26 PM UTC

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #69

jonnathanson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential, but: is the whole obsession with fiber a bit misguided? If polysaccharides are largely responsible for feeding gut bacteria (good and bad), and your link recommends cutting them out, then by definition, we should be cutting out dietary fibers (most of which are polysaccharides). Fiber is mostly undigestible in our stomachs and upper GI tracts, but is readily fermented by (and feeds) intestinal bacteria. O…

The fiber helps your bowels work correctly. We were not created to evacuate bricks. You don't need a PhD in organic chemistry and biology to understand that, just experience with babies.

"We were not created to evacuate bricks."

"Created?" This is definitely the wrong concept to refer to here. The correct sentence is (correct because it takes mountains of scientific evidence into account):

"We were not evolved to evacuate bricks."

Re: Pathogen from gut of obese human causes obesity in germfree mice

#130

Post by gte910h » Thu, Dec 20, 2012, 9:21 PM UTC

not_that_noob wrote: post #7

DenisM wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, only 1344 cals per day.

One can argue it was the calorie restriction and not the bacteria. However, the interesting part was that the pathogen then caused the mice to gain weight.

I found it mystifying they did much to talk about the man's weight loss diet at all, as that wasn't the science part, the mice feeding was.

But hey, perhaps they can get a study going on it to determine the causal relationship between the endotoxin, human obesity, and intestinal flora.