Obesity ~ Causes and why the stigma?
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There is a stigma attached to obesity which causes psychiatric disorder. Not that I support obesity but I am against the stigma attached to it. Ignorance of certain section of people in the so called well-read and well-fed society is highly disappointing. It is not just kids who face bullying, teenagers and adults too experience discrimination and judgements of such people. It is often thought that obesity is due to excessive eating and it is an attribute of a lazy person. What many of us fail to see is the other aspect of obesity and its causes.
In today’s article, I will try to list few things I came to know during my previous role as a researcher and as an avid reader of random scientific data. Why this article? Because knowledge is a true power. Next time you see an ignorant making fun of someone’s weight, educate the person.
Of course, eating in moderation and active lifestyle is important for good health but sometimes there are factors far beyond the control of an individual.
- Ghrelin and Leptin
Ghrelin, secreted by stomach increases the appetite and so aptly known as hunger hormone. It is the one that causes hunger pangs, that stomach rumblings reminding you to eat. Leptin has the exact opposite effect. It signals brain to suppress appetite. The Ghrelin-Leptin tuning is finely balanced, just like many other processes in human body.
Normally, when a person eats too much, fat cells are formed to store excess energy and these fat cells in turn secrete Leptin to signal brain to make the person stop eating by suppressing appetite. This is important to prevent further damage which can happen due to excess fat. Damage is not just restricted to the physical appearance of the person but the internal machinery. However, too much of Leptin can cause resistance towards it. So the brain can no longer get the signal to stop eating. Also, in some people the hormone Ghrelin is produced in excess or uncontrolled, due to which they can not curb their appetite and are always hungry. So, eating too much may not just be binge eating but an underlying hormonal issue, on which the person has no control over.
- Hypothyroidism
People with hypoactive thyroid have low metabolism. Metabolism means ability to convert what you eat and drink into energy. Low metabolism means slow conversion and thus accumulation of excess as fat and less breakdown.
- Genetic disorders
Several genetic disorders like Cushing’s syndrome can cause excess of stress hormone called cortisol. Excess of cortisol signals body for fat storage and kidney for salt and water retention in body. This causes overall weight gain.
- Stress
In today’s world the causes of stress are numerous from hectic lifestyle, fierce competition to insecurities, fear and emotional stress. Stress is an outcome of erratic lifestyle and weaker inner strength to combat it. This leads to overproduction of cortisol and if there is little or no physical activity, the elevated level of cortisol leads to weight gain.
5. Famine theory
There is supposedly an evolution based explanation for obesity. According to this theory, people whose ancestor had a history of poverty or faced frequent famine developed genes for slow metabolism. The explanation for this is that as the food was scare, the body developed a mechanism to slowly metabolise the consumed food to save energy and prevent frequent hunger pangs. The exact opposite happens in case of people with rich ancestral background or those who never had to go through food scarcity period. Since they always had plenty of food and consumed heavily, over a period of time their body developed a mechanism to easily burn calories by increasing metabolism to prevent fat formation. Now, this means that different people today carry different metabolism genes based on their ancestral genes. In general, people with rich past ancestral background are thin even if they eat a lot as they have high metabolism genes which quickly burn fat. In case the environment of people with slow metabolism genes changes like now they have plenty of food to consume, then owing to their background (as per this theory), they can’t burn it and tend to put on weight. People evolved in certain way based on there environmental conditions usually pertaining to food. In simple words, body tends to store fat when it in in some kind of stressful situation, it sense that some bad days are coming and there can be food shortage so begin storage. In ancient world the stress was only about food shortage. So over a period of time, human body evolved this way, associating stress with food storage.
- Virus based Obesity
Yes, certain viruses like Adenovirus 36 (Adv36) are linked to obesity. In series of studies conducted by an Indian doctor, Doctor Nikhil Dhuhrandhar, it was implied that viruses have ability to make you fat by adipose tissue(fat cells) formation. He came across this while having a conversation with his veterinary friend who described how poultry industry is been affected by virus making chicken fat. This was bit weird as typically virus infection leads to weight loss not gain. Later, he begin studying association between virus and obesity, which was never thought before.
He did series of experiment with chicken and infected them with virus to see the effect. Surprisingly, the infected chicken showed increase in body mass but there was no increase in cholesterol and triglycerides, which usually is high in obese people. He did further experiments to check if the virus is contagious by keeping uninfected chicken with infected ones. To his shock this obesity causing virus turned out to be contagious, giving an evidence that obesity can be contagious.
To establish this link in human, he tested the blood samples of his patients for antibodies against virus (SMAM-1). SMAM-1 is adenovirus of chicken. It was thought that this virus is specific to chicken and doesn’t infect humans. As this infection doesn’t cause a life threatening ill effects wherein a person rush to hospital and doctors screen the blood for deadly pathogens, it was never studied much. The virus simply causes obesity, and we usually associate obesity with sedentary lifestyle and binge eating. The blood samples of patients tested positive for SMAM-1 virus antibodies and those tested positive had high body mass index and low cholesterol and triglycerides. Dr Dhurandhar continued his studies with Adv 36, which is human adenovirus, just as chicken is for SMAM-1. This time Chicken, Mice, Marmosets was infected with Adv 36 and it all showed similar results as that of SMAM-1. Finally, he did studies on twins as twins usually have same genetic makeup. He found that among the twins, the twin with high body fat tested positive for adenovirus.
This concluded that the virus can cause obesity by increasing fat cells synthesis.
Medicines*
*Kindly note: Certain medicines are important. Please do not stop taking your pills without your doctor’s advise. It can be life threatening.
There are certain medicines that interfere with complex metabolic pathways leading to obesity. The problem with allopathy is that it treats one illness and causes many other as side effect. Clinical trial are mostly performed for this, however it is not possible to foresee because every individual is genetically different and thus may react differently to a drug. Also, science has yet not discovered and understood all metabolic pathways. I remember once my friend told me that she had an issue of frequent urination and she visited a doctor. The doctor prescribed some medicine and the condition was taken care of. But, she started gaining weight due to the side effect of the medicine. If you know about the process of how body expel water as urine, you might be aware that it is a complex process involving many hormones and salt concentration in intracellular and extracellular fluid. If the salt concentration is high, one feels thirsty so that there is water in the body to expel excess salt through frequent urination. To treat an illness, the first step is to understand the cause. In such a complex process, there can be something out of place. However, blindly suggesting patient to pop a tablet and stop frequent urination is not the solution. Due to the effect of medicine, the water was now retained in the body leading to weight gain. I don’t blame doctor too. They are taught to treat this way and it is usually symptom based treatment. Pain? take this, fever? pop this. Also, the birth control pills mess around with hormones and causes weight gain.
These are the culprits known to us, there might be many more unknown factors causing obesity. So, before making fun of other persons weight or appearance, show that you are educated and know little bit about obesity. Obesity is not just about over-eating. It is important to show empathy. After all, kindness is the best balm that comforts the weary soul. Health is about fine mind and body, not just physical appearance. Remember, only a sick soul hurt someone else’s soul. What is the point of harassing someone over something one has no control over?
~Ren
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