From: yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz)
Subject: Re: Adiposity 101
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 02:43:54 GMT

geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:

| yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz) writes:

| >geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
| >
| >| Even if the obese don't eat more, they are eating too much for them.
| >
| >And I suppose diabetics are just taking in too many carbohydrates?  I
| >mean, if you don't take in any, you won't need to take insulin anymore,
| >right?
| >
| >Why, Gordon, do you continue to insist that the solution to obesity
| >lies NOT in fixing the metabolic processing of what's eaten, but
| >rather with merely reducing the amount eaten (whether by life-long
| >willpower or some future pharmacological intervention that affects
| >appetite)?
| 
| Because I don't know how to fix the metabolic processing (other
| than by exercising more) of what's eaten,

OK.  Let us narrow the focus for a moment to currently-available
standard techniques.  I can see your point clearly.  I would disagree
with your choice of words tho -- I wouldn't say the obese are overeating,
I'd say that in order to maintain normal weight they have to undereat.
"Normal" eating results, for them, in obesity, so eating must become
abnormal to compensate for abnormal metabolic processing.  I submit that
that choice of words is less likely to be construed as suggesting that
someone has a "character flaw".

| I don't know how to fix the metabolic processing (other
| than by exercising more) of what's eaten, and neither do you.

I won't presume I can pursuade you, but I DO know a few things about
changing the metabolic processing.  And the "metabolic processing"
stuff that Chuck talks a lot about in Adiposity 101 is, for me, the
most interesting part.  Repartitioning agents, beta3-agonists, lipase
inhibitors, and so on are all related to the metabolic processing side,
not the eating side, of the equation.

| And I never insisted that dieting was *the* solution
| to obesity.

If you say so then perhaps not, but I've certainly come away with that
impression repeatedly -- even when possible future medical interventions
are part of the discussion.

| I don't 
| know whether you have a weight problem or not, but believe me, those
| of us who do would be very pleased to have a better solution than
| [dieting].

Well, yes; this is as good a time as any to mention it!

I've dropped about 45 lbs since the Summer Solstice.  The ongoing
discussions of weight-loss here on sci.med have given my brain much to
chew on, so to speak.  I opted for the Dr. Atkins diet (lo on carbohydrate,
hi on heresy).  It works incredibly well for me.  (We'll see about long-
term after more time goes by, of course.)

I picked up the new Dr. Atkins book (in hardcover, no less).  I must say
that it is without a doubt the most gluttonously self-congratulatory
medical book I have ever seen in my life!  And with some of the mailing
lists I'm on, this is a Very strong statement.  I find it difficult to
imagine any physician reading the book all the way thru, let alone
supporting the man's conclusions publicly!  This, not just because of the
conclusions themselves, but because of the style in which he presents
them.  And some people think that surgeons have big egos!

Funny thing is, most everything that Atkins says would happen did, and
most everything other people warned me about didn't -- right down to the
before and after lab test results.

So Gordon, how do you feel about the various metabolic processing areas
of research discussed in Adiposity 101?

Best Wishes

== Bob Yazz ==
-- 


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