FDA Approves Implantable Vagus Nerve Disruptor For Weight Loss 168
The L.A. Times reports that for the first time since 2007, the FDA has approved a weight loss device (as opposed to a weight-loss drug), an implantable device called the Maestro Rechargeable System. Using electrical leads implanted just above the stomach and a regulator carried under the skin near the ribcage, the device suppresses signals carried by the vagus nerve. ... The device adopts a variant of a "neuromodulation" technique long used in the treatment of epilepsy: by applying intermittent bursts of electrical current to the vagus nerve, it disrupts the signals that prompt the stomach to relax, expand and prepare for an influx of food. ... The FDA approved the use of the device in adult patients with a body mass index, or BMI, between 35 and 45, who have at least one other obesity-related condition, such as type 2 diabetes.
Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:5, Interesting)
The vagus nerve does a lot of really cool things which don't get a lot of appreciation.
Cats purr to self-stimulate it. That's what they're doing when they make that noise. And you can do it also. It orders the mind, creating calm and clarity. When you're affronted with terror or high emotion, "pipe breathe" and within half a minute, you're in the zone, able to think and react with calm precision to high-stress situations. And that's just *one* thing.
So yeah, let's allow big pharma to cyberman our core nervous apparatus for something as incredibly stupid as a weight loss gimmick.
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big pharma
You mean we should only allow "small pharma" to produce weight loss devices? Why, because "big pharma" is too big to do it?
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:4, Interesting)
Either way, there SHOULD be federal support for this, but only in the sense of loans from the federal reserve at the same rates and terms given to banks. This kind of development is of clear targeted benefit to our society in a far more obvious way than lining the pockets of wealthy bankers.
Let's say I'm someone who is capable of producing a drug or thinks I am. I should be able to use the local biology lab (akin to a library, either private non-profit or city sponsored) to develop it and perform the research I need. I should of course have to pay for access and when I submit a request for new equipment, whether or not to acquire that equipment should be a question posed to the existing membership along with how much it will increase dues and how long it's expected to increase them. Of course, I should always have the option of donating equipment myself. All members must be human persons (including partnerships) or non-profits (with no management salaries in top 10% income brackets). The requirement is that if developed further you must use "in system" facilities for manufacture and distribution and the lab will own the ip and all profits after costs will go to the inventor or non-profit that developed the drug but other members would be able to utilize the IP royalty free. Everyone is assigned a development log for every project and everything they do, every piece of equipment they use goes in and results are logged there. Including anything they do on their own without using lab equipment.
Trials and testing and advertising for the same. The same kind of thing. Centralize the costs but require those using the system to pay the costs. Streamline the process to parallel FDA approval and go through FDA approval using template requests and submissions. Members pay dues while using the process. The previous log is required and access is only to individuals and non-profits. Members vote on whether to proceed on studies and any study that hasn't met the minimum requirements for their study (animal trials on X subjects for Y time for instance) can't have it put to a vote unless they submit for an exemption and provide justification.
Manufacture, Advertising, sales, and distribution. This would need to be a national non-profit. Drugs would be sold with a fixed markup over a fair estimate of costs (30% is typical markup in a retailer). When patents expire drugs would continue to be made available at cost only without the markup as long as they are viable. If a capacity increase is needed or better equipment of some type, it goes to a vote of members with patents in the system. Want to pull a drug? It goes to a vote among the members of the system.
In the end, it costs what it costs and those costs are spread out among everyone developing drugs and those people get all the profits. Since all costs come from federal loans it's very easy to determine them. Divide up the total loan payment among the total number of mg/ml of drug produced and let the more expensive vs less expensive to produce drugs live with the average. It's better than all the min/maxing and duplicate charging games that result from any other way.
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Which is why Pharma companies are all bankrupt? No part of what I proposed involved taxpayer money or prevented working in teams. What I proposed are loans from
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The vagus nerve is an important physiologically but it's not endowed with magical properties. Just saying.
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The vagus nerve is an important physiologically but it's not endowed with magical properties. Just saying.
No, but once again so called medicine is tending towards quackery by mucking about in systems in which they have no clue yet. Stimulation of the Vagus nerve is known to have both positive and negative effects on depression, epilepsy, heart rate, blood pressure, orgasms and a host of other fun stuff that can be awful or grand depending on how it works for the receiver. It's the same shotgun style approach they've been using with SSRI's all these years, the result of which has been a placebo effects, severe a
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:5, Interesting)
, teenagers jumping off cliffs
That is an unfortunate side effect of improving someone's condition with severe depression. I've been there, when you're so depressed you don't want to get out of bed or do anything, barely having motivation to eat. Suddenly with an SSRI, and some other alternatives in principle as it isn't just the drug, you have energy and motivation to do things. Some people use that energy and motivation to fix some of the issues and improve their environment to remove things reenforcing their depression, to get their life back in shape. Others who were previous suicidal but too depressed to actually give a damn or motivate themselves to do anything also now have motivation to do what they think they want.
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Actually, that theory doesn't seem to explain observations. I have seen research that the suicidal ideation itself can be stimulated by SSRIs, not just the motivation to act on existing suicidal ideation.
Re: Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:3)
As someone else who has been depressed, when the SSRI start working (& it can take 6 weeks IFF they work) you have energy and the ability to act that you didn't before.
I wasn't suicidal during my depression and that did not change. It didn't change any of the times I had to switch medications (you have to taper off and go through depression before you start the next).
I put my energies into things I wanted to do but couldn't with the depression. If I had been suicidal, maybe I would've tried.
Instead I
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Yes, for people who actually need them, SSRIs can provide the motivation to do things as part of lifting the depression. But the research showed that for some people (fortunately not you), especially adolescents, they can actually cause suicidal ideation that was not there before.
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It's not surprising, in fact it was the initial theory exactly because it seems reasonable. It just doesn't pan out when examined closer. It has been researched since it was an important distinction to make.
Suicidal ideation is a lot more than considering suicide. It can be gauged by a therapist. Were the parsimonious theory correct, it would imply that those patients could be screened out to avoid the problem. Alas, it doesn't work that way.
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Suicidal ideation can also be a sort nihilism. That is, even if you have no intention of committing suicide, you either think you might be better off if you died from some external influence or you don't feel strongly motivated to prevent such a death (in that case, surely improved motivation would help).
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It may lead to people thinking of suicide, also. If you're very depressed, you may well be resigned to how things are going. SSRI treatment can help you get less depressed, and this is good. Then, you hit something and feel like you're going back to the old depression. It's really easy to get determined not to go back into the old blackness, and decide to avoid it by any means possible. There's really only one way to assure that you're not going to get horribly depressed again.
This is based on exper
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I'm always reminded of the old days when we would smack the TV to get the picture to stop rolling.
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They have been using SSRIs to turn knobs in the brain, but they don't even know which way to turn them, let alone how far...
Not to mention the idiotic FDA regulations which reference Body Mass Index, which is the most ridiculous way to measure fat % I've ever seen.
Just for one example, body builders often have a rather extreme BMI. But treatments for fat people are not even remotely appropriate for them.
So why is this ancient, discredited, obviously-ludicrous-on-its-face measure being used in medicine at all?
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:5, Funny)
Cats purr to self-stimulate it. That's what they're doing when they make that noise.
So when I see some fat folks purring, I will know that they are using this device . . . ?
It will be on the side effects list: "Makes you purr."
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And here I thought obese women couldn't be more sexy.
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I've also been hearing about success in treating tinnitus by stimulation of the Vegas nerve.
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Couldn'ty that cause a gambling problem in susceptible individuals?
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When you're affronted with terror or high emotion, "pipe breathe" and within half a minute, you're in the zone, able to think and react with calm precision to high-stress situations.
This sounds interesting.
Do you have any links on this?
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It's not exactly a new idea. Focusing on your breathing and controlling it distracts you from whatever is stressing you out and calms you. Pipe breathing is just a slightly different way of taking deep breaths to calm and relax yourself.
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:4, Insightful)
Obesity is a major health problem in much of the western world. It's nice to just blame fat people for lack of willpower or moral fibre when you are controlling it, but that doesn't help anyone. Anything that can seriously help people control their weight isn't a gimmick, it's a fix for one of the most common and serious health issues we face.
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:4, Informative)
Anything that can seriously help people control their weight isn't a gimmick, it's a fix
This is closer to a gimmick. And a dangerous one at that.
From TFA:
In a 12-month clinical trial considered by the FDA, 38.3% of subjects who received the active Maestro device lost at least a quarter of their excess weight, and 52.5% of subjects lost at least 20% of their excess weight. On average, weight loss in those subjects with an active device was about 8.5% greater than that seen in subjects who received a Maestro electrical pulse generator that was not activated.
...
While the cost of the device has not yet been set, Lea said that getting the device implanted and activated will likely cost "somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000"--an amount that is more than gastric banding but less some of the most complex gastric bypass surgery.
Over a year, on average, it increases the weight loss by "about 8.5%" compared to an implant which was turned off.
And, it works for about half the people.
I.e. For the people who have been losing weight through other means, 92.2% of the weight loss is attributable to FACTORS OTHER THAN THE IMPLANT.
"About 8.5%" increase is about 7.8% of the new total.
All that at the yet unknown cost of MAYBE $20-30k, invasive surgery and most importantly - randomly fucking about with one's nervous system.
They are patching-in this implant to jam that same network which we KNOW to be a major neurological pathway and of huge importance "in the bidirectional communication of the gut-brain axis and...useful therapeutic adjuncts in stress-related disorders such as anxiety and depression". [pnas.org]
That thing severing of which causes mice to give up and surrender in stressful situations?
They are flooding that with jamming signals during the hours when one is awake.
What could possibly go wrong, right?
And to achieve what? A sense of satiety.
Because as we all know, we eat ONLY when we are hungry and we intake food by volume, regardless of the calories.
100 grams of Nutella and 100 grams of cucumbers is the same to us.
We just need to get our stomach to think it is stuffed with SOMETHING - and then we will stop gaining weight.
At least according to the logic behind this "50-50 chance for 8.5% increase in the effectiveness of dieting" gimmick which works by jamming one's nervous system.
That $30000 spent would be better invested into healthier food and exercise.
Heck... it's TWO annual federal minimum wages in the USA.
One could literally spend a year on that money doing nothing but working on their health.
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:4, Insightful)
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The implant does not cause the lack of appetite - it simulates the feeling of being full and prevents one from feeling "hungry", where hungry is synonymous with "empty stomach".
It does not stop one from snacking NOR "treating" anxiety with food NOR absorbing calories through the stomach OR the intestines.
Without intentionally changing my diet, with the exception of ditching soda for iced tea, I lost 85 pounds in 10 months.
How much soda? Those are HUGE source of sugar. [sugarstacks.com]
On top of that, CO2 in sodas increases the pressure and turbo-charges the reaction of absorption of those calories.
Once I stopped taking those pills, I slowly put the weight back on
Did you start drinking soda again and what ma
Re:Worst idea ever. (Well, one of them). (Score:5, Interesting)
The implants have been used to control certain forms of epilepsy for some time. The side effects are known, which is how the possible use for weight control was discovered.
This isn't some random shit that someone started doing, so take your idiotic fear-mongering elsewhere.
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My thoughts on avoiding playing with that nerve... ever had a vagus reaction [wikipedia.org] when drawing blood?
I'd rather stay conscious, thank you.
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The summary is talking about people who are dying from their inability to control their appetite. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Altough real solution would be to treat sugar and fat as the dangerous, unhealthy, borderline poisonous substances they are. And at some point, we'll have to. Obesity epidemic - and all related metabological problems - are getting way ou
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Actually, recent research suggests that the fat-free craze ios a contributor to the rising obesity rate. Fats stimulate satiety.
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No need of big, medium or small pharma. Just cut the carbs, nothing more.
For a medical reason I am now more than 6 months on "barely any carbs diet", which is extreme [no wheat, rise or barley, no sugar, very little fruit and no alcohol] and I would not recommend it for "just" weight loss but it showed me in practice what is going on here. From 94 to 76 kg [while working out like crazy to use some of the fat before it is gone] in weeks. Flat, and I do mean flat tummy. Energy level -- unbelievable! I have t
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Barbaric? The morlocks will find fat man flesh quite tasty me thinks.
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For me, sadly, it is the opposite. Once I started cooking and baking, I got good at it. Then I realized "you mean I can have butter chicken and chocolate cake whenever I want?"
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Yes because that works so well! At least it does in La-La land, apparently.
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There is a simple solution to obesity: feel like you're starving all the time.
FTFY. I'm sure you're totally man over nature, showing the third most powerful driver of all life who's boss. (after sleep and thirst, and usually before sex)
Most overweight people who are otherwise mostly healthy can reduce their caloric intake significantly without feeling like they're "starving all the time." Have a salad for lunch instead of that pizza or burrito. Stop eating crap between meals. Drink some water before you start eating. Stop wolfing down your meals, and stop when you start feeling full.
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"As it turns out, I have personal experience in this area. Also, I have scientific training and expertise in the field of metabolism. Do yourself a favor and learn a bit more instead of reinforcing ignorance and prejudice."
This is the internet, are you dreaming?
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Most overweight people who are otherwise mostly healthy can reduce their caloric intake significantly without feeling like they're "starving all the time."
But they CANNOT simply reduce their caloric intake enough to BOTH lose weight AND not feeling like they are starving all the time.
Of course they can. You don't have to cut your intake to starvation levels in order to lose weight. In order to maintain an obese weight, an average otherwise healthy individual must consume at least 500 calories per day above their normal weight maintenance consumption level. Cutting 500 calories per day from an obese maintenance diet does not result in a person feeling like they're starving all the time, and it doesn't result in the body going into muscle consumption mode. It's a large order of french fri
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You must think I'm a very unusual person then, having lost over 40 pounds in 6 months, just by cutting out high-calorie foods and between-meal snacks. No muscle loss, no feeling starved. And I've maintained the loss for 8 more months without feeling deprived.
I know a few people who have obtained similar results, so I don't think I'm unique at all.
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You may be an exception, in which case I congratulate you. On the other hand, it's barely over a year since you started your diet, and the rate of success over a five-year period is dismally low.
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Thanks. From what I have read, the majority of weight-maintenance failures occur because the individuals didn't find a diet that was satisfying in the long term. Breaking habits is very difficult. I guess I'm fortunate in that I seem to have settled into a healthy eating pattern that I find satisfying. It's been quite a while since I had to make a conscious effort to choose the right foods (as in thinking, "Well, I'd really rather have this, but I guess I'd better have that instead." As for the long run, t
Panic attacks pandemic (Score:3, Interesting)
The science on this is not bullet-proof yet, but there are studies that link unexplained panic attacks and associated syndromes to vagus nerve problems. There are multiple theories, including one that proposes that physical symptoms of panic are experienced, and this triggers the psychological ones.
I don't know if this thing will help fat people, but I'd bet a dollar on the fact that it will definitely boost sales of paxil and valium.
Re:Panic attacks pandemic (Score:4, Interesting)
That's funny. These implants are already used to control certain forms of epilepsy and the problems that you're so certain will happen haven't happened.
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People who suffer from epilepsy is a population that is unlikely to experience growth in panic attacks since it's already a common symptom for them. That's a totally different situation.
Nerve disruptor? (Score:1)
It sound like a Klingon weapon.
You gotta be kidding me... (Score:5, Interesting)
I lost 100lb resetting my leptin cycle, I stopped eating all day and simply wasn't hungry anymore. No will power, no pills, nothing... the anxiety for food just went away.
Here is a nice article with 29 scientific references that explains exactly the importance of Leptin Cycle [authoritynutrition.com]
And here is a nice video from Stephan Guyenet, Ph.D. explaining it too [youtube.com]
Affecting a whole big nerve instead of changing eating habits is a really really bad idea
Re:You gotta be kidding me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too cheap, cant package in a neat marketable device, get lost!
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Also don't forget that average effects is not the same as specific effects. We know that metabolism variation among individuals is pretty huge.
That's partially true, the SPEED in which you can become insulin resistance varies (that's why you see people who can eat foods filled with anti-nutrients and don't easily become leptin resistant), but the mechanisms that causes it and the way of getting rid of such resistance is the same in all humans - unless u got a rare genetic desease or a damaged hypothalamus.
Re:You gotta be kidding me... (Score:5, Informative)
That's bullshit. Obese people have pretty much the same metabolism as skinny people. It's not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat.
No, it really is quite dependent on biology. There are numerous studies on twins that clearly show that it's governed by far more than just calories in == calories out. http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~p... [ucl.ac.uk] , http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05... [nytimes.com]
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Those are old studies and their conclusions are not plausible. In fact, the numbers don't even make much sense: an excess caloric intake of 84000 calories can at most give you 23 pounds of fat gain, yet some people gained 29 pounds in the study. Obviously, either their metabolic baseline was wrong, or people have been snacking on the side.
In any case, what I objected to was the claim that there are significant differences in metabolism between people; there aren't
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Sorry, you are incorrect. Go look at the research again. For example, the research where they performed fecal transplants on mice and were able to reliably manipulate their weight in spite of feeding them a consistent formulated diet with no opportunity for 'snacking'.
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I don't see what you think is "incorrect". That paper doesn't show any differences in "metabolism", and it's easy to get differences in weight gain in identical mice eating identical diets simply by timing.
Most likely, the differences between the obese and lean mice are due to the speed with which carbohydrates were consumed, broken down and absorbed: slow absorption keeps animals leaner. But that only matters if you consume a bad diet to begin with (as the mice in the study seem to have done). Furthermore,
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Incorrect means that the research doesn't bear out what you're saying. Other research shows a different basal metabolism between different people.
Many people would seemingly prefer death by slow torture over admitting that fat people might have some issue beyond their control, but that's what the research suggests.
Same diet, same strain of mice, same living conditions. Some had 'fat' microflora, some had 'thin' microflora. The researchers could move the mice from one group to the other at will by transplant
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If you take a group of smokers, some of them get lung cancer and others have healthy lungs until they die in their 90's from something else. In fact 80-90% of lung cancer deaths are due to smoking. Does that mean that getting ill from smoking is "beyond their control"? Of
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Unlike smoking, eating is a basic natural drive. More powerful than sex, less than breathing. Your suggestion that some people should walk the fine line between starvation and satiety, feeling hungry most of the time in order to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities is absurd.
Didn't you claim above that there wasn't significant variation in BMR between people? Now you at least acknowledge that that isn't the case but claim it doesn't make a difference.
I'm sorry if you need to look down on others to a
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I claimed precisely the opposite, namely that going hungry is not going to work because, indeed, hunger is an irresistible drive. The misconception that you lose weight by going hungry is probably the single most common reason why people are overweight.
If you want to lose weight, what you have to do is change what you eat
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What makes you think that there's a hard relationship between energy and weight gain? That "fat gain" and "weight gain" are necessarily the same thing?
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Well, the only other thing you can gain is muscle, and gaining a pound of muscle takes a lot more calories than gaining a pound of fat (even though the caloric content of muscle is, of course, less than that of fat).
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give up.
There are people out there who will NEVER be convinced; because they'd rather sit on their high-horse and morally judge people for being fat. The simplistic worldview that fat people simply overeat, and that there's nothing else going on, is too compelling, even if it is wrong.
No... THAT is bullshit. (Score:2)
That's bullshit. Obese people have pretty much the same metabolism as skinny people. It's not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat.
People are NOT one size fits all.
And there are HUGE variations in BMR from person to person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
Causes of individual differences in BMR
The basal metabolic rate varies between individuals. One study of 150 adults representative of the population in Scotland reported basal metabolic rates from as low as 1027 kcal per day (4301 kJ/day) to as high as 2499 kcal/day (10455 kJ/day); with a mean BMR of 1500 kcal/day (6279 kJ/day). Statistically, the researchers calculated that 62.3% of this variation was explained by differences in fat free mass. Other factors explaining the variation included fat mass (6.7%), age (1.7%), and experimental error including within-subject difference (2%). The rest of the variation (26.7%) was unexplained. This remaining difference was not explained by sex nor by differing tissue size of highly energetic organs such as the brain.[10]
Thus there are differences in BMR even when comparing two subjects with the same lean body mass. The top 5% of people are metabolizing energy 28-32% faster than individuals with the lowest 5% BMR.[11] For instance, one study reported an extreme case where two individuals with the same lean body mass of 43 kg had BMRs of 1075 kcal/day (4.5 MJ/day) and 1790 kcal/day (7.5 MJ/day). This difference of 715 kcal/day (67%) is equivalent to one of the individuals completing a 10 kilometer run every day.[11]
On top of that, activity factor [wikipedia.org] would have no effect if it were "not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat."
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Yes, there are huge variations in BMR, and there are huge variations in caloric needs depending on activity. And that tells you that your simplistic view that obesity is due to a "difference in metabolism" can't be true, because otherwise people with low BMR would all be f
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And that tells you that your simplistic view that obesity is due to a "difference in metabolism" can't be true
I'll leave simplistic views to you, thank you very much.
You're the one spouting single cause, "you people are eating too much - that's why you're fat" nonsense.
and if people who exercise stopped exercising for a few weeks, they'd balloon.
That's exactly what happens to many high-school/college sports stars once they hit regular employment and stop their regular exercise.
Not in a few weeks though, as it takes longer to lose ALL that muscle and replace it with fat, and cause it takes A LOT of fat for it to become noticeable as they are already "big".
Obesity occurs when you keep eating even though your caloric needs are met; the difference is stored as fat. Most commonly that happens because processed foods are so efficient at delivering calories that you have ingested excess calories before your body tells you to stop eating, and because simple carbs are absorbed too quickly to be utilized. And the way to fix that is to eat foods that deliver calories slower.
Back to single bullet theory are we?
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That's a useless prescription because your appetite will simply adjust upwards by the same factor. If low BMR were the cause of obesity, there would be no explanation why obesity has skyrocketed over the last 50 years. And if your theory was right, high BMR should correlate with low BMI, when actually the opposite is true.
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By the way, your reasoning wouldn't explain the staggering rise in obesity since the 1960's. The distribution of genetic determinants of BMRs can't have been all that different back then than it is today.
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Who said that BMR is genetic alone?
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Well, see whether you can come up with any consistent explanation of rising obesity rates caused by population changes in BMR since the 1960's, whether genetic or environmental. If you can come up with an explanation that fits the data, it would be quite interesting.
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That's bullshit. Obese people have pretty much the same metabolism as skinny people. It's not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat.
Well, they have the same metabolic system but theirs is out of whack. In most cases they're Leptin resistant which causes them to be hungry when they shouldn't be. Fixing your hormonal balances is possible but it's lot more difficult than "put down the chocolate cake and have some salad once in a while".
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You have to put down the chocolate cake for good, as well as the cereal, sugar, rice, bread, pasta, hamburger bun, french fries, soda, candy bar, etc. I mean, you have to cut them out completely, no ifs or buts. And you have to have salad (no heavy sauces) and other (non-starchy) vegetables as the bulk of what you eat every day.
Resisting hunger is next to impossible (w
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It's not quite "punishing your pancreas", it's that you become insulin resistant. Your pancreas could be putting out MORE insulin and you could still have type 2 diabetes. If the pancreas was "getting worn out", then the mechanism of treating type 2 diabetes with excercise [diabetesjournals.org] would not work.
(You can also have a pancreas that does not work well, but that is not the mechanism being discussed.)
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Congratulations for you. Willpower can work.
Apparantly for over a third of the US it does not though: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
You're also discounting the fact that it's supplementary. A lot of medicine prescribed to diabetics actually increases the patients weight gain.
These things tend to be expensive and used as a last resort where education, support, diet and exercise are not enough alone. If the research supports the devices effectiveness (and it must or it would not be approved) then
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Can you say more about how you did this "reset"? A quick google just brings up lots of bullshit.
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There's a reason for that...
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The results was I not only lost 100lb (that was a seconday effect) but I feel much MUCH better, I can play with
vagus nerve (Score:1)
Isn't that the G-spot?
Wait, why am I asking about this on Slashdot?
Hey guys (Score:2)
I just registered "HackMyFoodDevice.com" to exchange ideas on how to fool that damn thing.
People with the rubber bands around their stomach manged to defeat their overload and I am pretty sure we can as well.
Come, visit and don't forget to walk by the buffet over there.....
I need that (Score:4, Funny)
I have a Vegas Nerve. Lost a lot of money on blackjack and hookers.
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I have a Vegas Nerve. Lost a lot of money on blackjack and hookers.
If you enjoyed playing blackjack, and had a good time with the hookers, your money wasn't lost, it was well spent.
8.5% more effective than placebo...wow (Score:1)
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Just World Fallacy vs. Vanity Industrial Complex (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I don't know who to root for. I completely distrust the medical/cosmetic industry when it comes to selling solutions, especially for cosmetic issues (and this may be mostly health now, but don't kid yourself where it will be funded). On the other hand, the trolls who say it's all will power and fat is purely moral don't have much science behind them, and appear more motivated by "just world fallacy" reasoning (if a person is ill, and it isn't me, they more likely somehow deserve it). Both cost us money, over-prescription, and people who try to "believe-away" real health problems with high society costs.
As for the people who smugly think it's justice for affluent societies like USA, look at how obesity rates rise in nations which go from very poor to moderately poor. Africans, Asians, Latinos, and Europeans are not immune to unintended consequences. News Flash: As the threats of starvation subside, threats of overconsumption increase.
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Well, I don't know who to root for.
Don't worry - the tendency to see both sides of an issue is a genuine medical affliction brought on by an over-active brain. Soon they'll have an implant to help such people reduce every issue affecting the world to a simplistic false dichotomy, taking away the uncomfortable urge to try and deal with complexity.
Meanwhile, you just need to rely on willpower to suppress your skepticism when reading stories like this.
Anyone else remimded of Steven Gould's Reflex? (Score:2)
In the sequel to Jumper [amazon.com], the bad guys control people with an implanted device that incapacitates them by stimulating their vagus nerves to make them throw up.
Enough that it could kill them, since it doesn't have to stop, ever.
No, thank you.
Gastric Electric Stimulators used for weight gain (Score:2)
What is ironic is that Gastric Electric Stimulators [ucsfhealth.org] are used to ease the symptoms of gastroparesis [wikipedia.org], reducing nausea and allowing those patients to gain weight.
WTF? (Score:2)
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Meh it's all very well to start talking about willpower but I mean look at how vaping has exploded lately in lieu of cigarettes. If these devices help reduce obesity, they're saving lives, and that's a good thing.
Re:Fatties, just eat less (Score:4, Insightful)
Most obesity is due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise. Changing nutrition and exercising costs nothing and has numerous health benefits. Giving people an inferior, costly, and risky substitute for a simple and effective solution is not a good thing.
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Most obesity is due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise. Changing nutrition and exercising costs nothing and has numerous health benefits. Giving people an inferior, costly, and risky substitute for a simple and effective solution is not a good thing.
Exercising makes you fit, but unless you're an athlete it doesn't burn enough calories to make up for excessive calorie intake. I can usually burn 5-700 calories in an hour, but a Big Mac and 0.5 liter coke will undo that very easily and that's not counting the fries. You can subititute the burger with about 100 grams of potato chips or about three 0.5 liter beers. And if it's not excesses in sugar and fat you can easily overeat on quite ordinary food by simply eating too much.
You can easily overeat by 1000
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Moderate exercise, like walking, some time after a meal has a good effect on blood glucose peaks. There's more to exercise than just burning the calories.
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The point of exercise isn't to burn excess calories, it is to improve health and change your metabolism.
Yes, you can. You can also easily not overeat by 1000 calories a day. In fact, you're already doing just that because if you kept overeating by 1000 calories per day, you'd explode.
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If it were that easy everyone would be doing it. When you start to look at the real reasons for obesity it turns out to be not nearly that simple.
Surgery has proven to be effective, fairly safe and keeps the weight off. The person also needs to make an effort to change their lifestyle, and the surgery is a powerful aid. If this sort of thing is less invasive and more controllable then that's a good thing. Better to deal with it early than wait until someone develops an obesity related illness because the on
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Changing nutrition and exercising costs nothing
2000 calories per day from processed cereal, from fresh fruit and vegetables and from meat costs the same?
Ready to eat burger and soda, 5 minute microwave meal and an hour-long preparation of a meal (plus cleaning up afterward) take up the same time and cost the same to prepare?
A hour of exercise each day is something which is affordable to both those making $100 an hour and those making $3 and hour, doing 3 jobs?
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According to the CDC, only 15% of obese adults are low income, so obesity is primarily a problem of the middle class and high income earners. And are you only willing to consider addressing obesity if it works for the few percent of marginal workers we have in our economy?
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Potatoes, apples, beans, and tofu actually are cheaper,
For one person maybe. Buying in bulk to afford to feed a FAMILY, no. The beans are cheaper, but enough fruits and vegetables to make a well balanced diet is not. And good luck getting kids to eat beans all day.
Even if your arguments made any sense, they would amount to saying that because low income workers can only spend 5 minutes on food preparation and afford only foods that make them fat, we should then spend thousands of dollars per year in medical treatments to alleviate the problems resulting from their obesity. Your premises are wrong, but even if they were right, your conclusion would still be ludicrous.
If a device that fixes the problem is cheaper than the problems, it is worth it.
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I see: small amounts of vegetables and fruits are cheap, but they get expensive in bulk? Are you insane or something?
In different words: American kids are getting so fat because parents are lazy and stuff them full of fast food (which is, incidentally, cheap only because its components are so highly su
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Or "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick, for that matter.
Those ARE interesting graphs. (Score:2)
Particularly cause they are supposed to be from the same source - but they don't match.
On the first graph Canada never goes above 55% (not even in projections) - on the second one it hits 60% overweight in 2008.
Austria is around 44% in 2006 on the first graph, never going over 48%, even in projections, but it hits 48% in 2006 on the second graph.
Italy - 39% or 46% in 2008?
Australia - 54% or 62% in 2007?
Is it England or United Kingdom?
Also, that's not the only place they messed up.
Correction: September 23, 2010
An earlier version of the second graph in this post ("Percent of Adults Who Are Overweight/Obese") had reversed the labels for the rates of obesity and overweight populations. The graph has been corrected.
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Those are all stage 1 with the backdoor points being the most critical to achieving sustained high intensity orgasm. For some women, on the