Tag Archives: Physiology

Health

Don’t Waste Your Time With These Terrible Diet Tips

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Photo: Viacheslav Nikolaenko (Shutterstock)

It’s the new year and everybody’s on a diet—I mean, a wellness journey. Whether you want to lose weight or not is none of my business, but I do beg you to please, please let all the following silly weight loss “hacks” die. Many of them verge on disordered eating behaviors, while others are just ways to make yourself miserable for no reason.

(By the way, if you feel like your relationship with food is out of control, the National Eating Disorders Association has a screening tool, helpline, and more resources here.)

Smaller plates don’t make us eat less

This one is a classic: Serving yourself on a smaller plate is supposed to make a small amount of food look bigger. Therefore, you’ll eat less food overall, and eventually lose weight.

But our brains and bodies are too smart to actually be tricked by that. The idea that smaller plates promote smaller portions came from a lab that was later found to be engaging in sketchy research practices. Other labs ran their own plate size experiments and found that people usually don’t eat less when given smaller plates. What’s more, we get better at estimating portion sizes when we’re hungry. The small plate hack wasn’t fooling us after all.

Drinking a glass of water isn’t going to satisfy your hunger

There’s a common healthy eating tip that says if you’re hungry, you should have a big glass of water, because sometimes our bodies can’t tell hunger and thirst cues apart.

But there’s no evidence that this is true, or that drinking a glass of water will help. One of the oft-cited papers on hunger, thirst, eating, and drinking found that we actually get a little hungrier after drinking—so even if it were true that our bodies mix up the signals, the proposed solution isn’t likely to help.

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with drinking a glass of water if you think you might like one, whether you’re hungry or not. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that hunger pangs are your body telling you that you’re thirsty. Your body knows the difference between food and water, okay? That’s why you haven’t starved or dehydrated to death yet.

It’s not necessarily a good idea to eat like a bodybuilder

There’s a stereotype about bodybuilders eating nothing but chicken breast, brown rice, and broccoli out of little plastic containers. They eat with discipline and end up shredded, so this must be a healthy meal choice, right?

While it can be a fine meal if you enjoy it, this combination is not the best or only way to meal prep—especially if you aren’t a fan of the individual components. Chicken breast and rice are both notoriously unforgiving when it comes to meal prep, anyway. They tend to dry out, especially if you prepare them without marinades or sauces.

So ditch your idea of what healthy food looks like, and make a plan that involves foods you actually enjoy. Upgrade to chicken thighs, learn to use a good marinade, throw that dry rice in a waffle maker, or just make an entirely different recipe. It’s okay for food to taste good.

Oh, and while we’re discussing bodybuilder habits: no, eating many small meals does not “boost” your metabolism.

It’s a diet, not a lifestyle change

This last one isn’t so much a hack as an oft-repeated platitude: “It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.” If you’re trying to lose weight, please do not make this a lifelong process. Dieting is the act of deliberately undernourishing yourself. If you want or need to do it for a short time, then own that choice, and do it in the healthiest manner you’re able. But once you’ve lost some weight, get back to fully nourishing your body again.

After all, it would not be healthy or smart to lose weight forever. Since the way we lose weight is by eating fewer calories than we burn, the exact meals and habits that help us lose weight are not going to be the ones that help us maintain our ideal weight once we get there. At the very least, you’ll have to increase your portions.

So if you feel like your current diet or habits need to change, make sure to separate out what should change in general (example: cook at home more often) and what should change temporarily (example: smaller portions). Healthy eating and undereating are not at all the same thing.

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Health

A new weight-loss drug could be an obesity game-changer for Louisiana. But what will it cost? | Health care/Hospitals

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When thousands of health care providers and scientists gathered earlier this month at a diabetes conference in New Orleans, one particular session stood out. Researchers described a new drug that could help someone lose more than 20% of their body weight, amounting to an average loss of 52 pounds over a year and a half.

“This is a new era for obesity treatment,” said Dr. Ania Jastreboff, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results were met with applause and fervent questioning from attendees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

The evidence for the drug, tirzepatide, and another, semaglutide, is promising. And research shows treating obesity lowers the risk of other costly health concerns, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. But in a state where 38% of people are obese, ranking fourth in the nation, a big question looms: Who will pay for it?

“These drugs — semaglutide and tirzepatide — have given the kind of weight loss that we previously only got with bariatric surgery. The weight loss is incredible,” said Candida Rebello, a research scientist at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge who was not involved with this research. “The problem is … most people cannot afford these drugs.”

While doctors are starting to treat obesity as a disease, coverage for expensive weight loss drugs has yet to catch up. Tirzepatide, manufactured by Eli Lilly, will likely cost in the range of $1,000 to $1,500 monthly, and insurance companies won’t cover most of that, if any, said Rebello.

‘The insurance companies haven’t quite caught up’

Weight loss drugs are typically classified as a higher tier drug on insurance plans, said Rebello, putting them in the company of lifestyle drugs like Viagra. Some private insurance companies may cover up to 50% of the cost, but $750 is still out of reach for people who need it most. People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be overweight, Rebello pointed out.

Louisiana’s Medicaid plan does not allow reimbursement for weight loss drugs, though it does cover tirzepatide for diabetes, which it is currently approved to treat.

Blue Cross Blue Shield, which provides health insurance for the majority of Louisiana group plans, said coverage for tirzepatide would be dependent on a member’s plan. But a representative also said many of the company’s health plans do not include coverage for weight loss medications or bariatric surgery. A wellness program that offers coaching and education about weight is available at no cost, the company said.

But such programs are typically not successful. Diet and exercise studies show about a 5% reduction in weight loss, rarely tipping the scales back into a target body weight for patients with obesity. Many people try and fail to lose weight, and evidence shows that it’s not just a lack of willpower that keeps them from succeeding. The pathways in the body that regulate weight loss are altered in some people in a way that makes it very difficult to lose and maintain weight.

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“The insurance companies haven’t quite caught up to where the science is,” said Dr. Taniya de Silva, chief and program director of the endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism fellowship program at LSU Health Sciences Center.

Before it happens

Drugs have historically targeted the downstream effects of obesity: diabetes and the kidney, nerve and eye damage that comes with it. But what if instead, drugs prevented a diabetes diagnosis, or even reversed it?

“Obesity is a big driver of the pathology we see in Type 2 diabetes itself, and if we can use our new agents to achieve significant weight loss, we could even potentially have remission of diabetes,” said de Silva.

Doing that would also lengthen a patient’s life span and reduce the risk of heart disease, which is the No. 1 cause of death in the country. Louisiana has the fifth-highest death rate from cardiovascular disease in the U.S., and it strikes many Louisiana residents in the prime of their lives.

Patients who took semaglutide, which was approved to treat diabetes in 2021 under the brand name Wegovy, decreased their Cardiometabolic Disease Staging score, a measure of diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk, by half, according to another study released at the conference. The trial participants also lost nearly 17% of their body weight.

The drugs work by making people feel full faster, mimicking hormones in the gut called GLP-1 and GIP. They are also thought to work in the brain, targeting receptors related to appetite, and in the pancreas, by increasing insulin secretion in relation to the amount of glucose in the body. 

Right now, tirzepatide is only approved for Type 2 diabetes, sold under the brand name Mounjaro. Researchers hope to get it approved for weight loss after clinical trials showed significant results at higher doses. There were some side effects, such as nausea and diarrhea, and the drug needs to be injected once weekly even after the weight loss plateaus, researchers said at the conference. Patients can still “out-eat” the drug if they don’t make lifestyle changes, said de Silva. So it may not work for everyone. 

But it is a significant tool in a state that desperately needs it — if only people can get it.

“Using these drugs in an effective way to improve outcomes for our patients, in the end, would be huge savings,” said de Silva. “But someone has to pay for it upfront.”

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Health

Melatonin Supplements Are Poisoning Children

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Photo: Patrick Sison (AP)

New research suggests that kids are increasingly getting poisoned by supplements containing melatonin, an over-the-counter sleep aid. Reported pediatric poison control calls involving melatonin have skyrocketed over the past decade, as have reported hospitalizations and other serious outcomes, the study found. More needs to be done to keep young children safe from these products, the researchers say.

Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body that helps regulate our sleep/wake cycle. It’s also commonly used as a treatment for insomnia and other sleep disorders, both in adults and children. But while it does seem to help people struggling with these problems sleep better, we don’t know enough about the possible complications it may have for children in particular.

This study was conducted primarily by pediatric researchers in Michigan, and it was published last week in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They analyzed data from the Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System, looking for reports of melatonin ingestion in people under the age of 19.

From 2012 to 2021, more than 260,000 total reports were made to call centers about melatonin. During that time frame, annual calls rose by 530%, with over 52,000 calls made in 2021. That year, melatonin-related calls accounted for nearly 5% of all pediatric ingestion reports.

Nearly all of the incidents in the reports were accidental (around 94%), and most children (83%) didn’t experience noticeable symptoms after taking melatonin. But those who did get sick experienced gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, or neurological symptoms. About 28,000 kids received further medical attention, with 4,000 needing to be hospitalized. Around 300 kids ended up in intensive care as a result, while five had to be put on a ventilator, and two children under age 2 ultimately died. Reports of serious injury and hospitalizations also went up during the study period.

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While melatonin may be generally safe to take, no medicine comes without potential side-effects. And melatonin is sold as a supplement, a category that is less regulated than drugs. Studies have shown that labels frequently misstate how much melatonin is in a product and that this mislabeling is even worse in chewable products, which children may be more likely to take (perhaps mistaking it for candy). Sometimes, the authors note, the melatonin in these products can break down into serotonin, in levels high enough to possibly cause acute serotonin toxicity in children.

Other research has found that melatonin use in general has increased in the U.S. over the years. But these findings also suggest that it’s become even more popular during the covid-19 pandemic, perhaps as a result of the effects the pandemic has had on people’s sleep in general. That rise in popularity, coupled with lax regulations and little guidance on its safe use, especially for children, is putting kids more at risk for potential adverse effects, the authors say.

“This report highlights the need for more research into the causes of increased melatonin ingestions among children and for public health initiatives to raise awareness,” they wrote. “Child-resistant packaging for this supplement should be considered, and health care providers should warn parents about potential toxic consequences of melatonin exposure.”

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Science

Literal bird brains can accept climate change faster than Republicans

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This Great White Pelican is statistically more likely to acknowledge eco-collapse than Ted Cruz.
Photo: Leon Neal (Getty Images)

The Earth is on fire, although until very recently, pretty much every notable rightwing asshat was (natural) gaslighting their constituents into thinking otherwise. While there has been a noticeable paradigm shift in the way the majority of them address climate change, the fact that they moved from “flat-out denial” to “begrudging, nihilistic ‘what can ya do?’ acceptance” does little to calm our utter contempt for those who so knowingly marched humanity towards the brink of calamity.

That repulsion is only deepened upon learning that literal bird brains apparently noticed what’s been going on around them, and have been adjusting accordingly for generations… well, those that haven’t died off in wholesale mass extinctions, of course.

Earlier this week, Sara Ryding, an avian researcher at Australia’s Deakin University, published new research detailing multiple bird species’ recent “shape-shifting” physical changes to compensate for our roasting planet in the journal, Trends in Ecology and Evolution. In particular, their findings examined body parts like beaks, ears, and legs, which often aid in keeping the animals cooler.

“Appendages have an important, but often undervalued, role in animal thermoregulation as sites of heat exchange,” states Ryding and her paper’s co-authors, adding, “Animals are shifting their morphologies to have proportionately larger appendages in response to climate change and its associated temperature increases.”

Basing their work on what’s known as Allen’s rule—the observable trend that animals in warmer regions of the planet often have more sizable appendages to help with heat exchange—the team highlighted species including multiple Australian parrots, who have displayed between 4%–10% larger bills since 1871 that “positively correlated with the summer temperature each year.” Other species such as the North American dark-eyed junco are used as evidence pointing towards “a link between increased bill size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments.”

It’s not just birds that are shape-shifting, either. Ryding’s paper also details certain mammals, such as small rodents, whose tail and leg sizes are also getting larger to adapt to wild heat swings, as well as some bat species’ whose wingspans are increasing to deal with their own environmental alterations.

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Yet further proof that actual pea-brained creatures have more common sense and awareness than Ted Cruz on his best days.

[via BoingBoing]

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