Entries Tagged 'Science' ↓

Workout Pill

This hit the news last week. Scientists have discovered a so-called workout pill.
The pill has only been tested on mice but it burns calories, reduces fat, AND when the mice do workout they’re beasts. I mean like they rule the treadmill because of one little pill. It’s called AICAR. (That’s a working title I think.)
Scientists [...]

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Faster than a Speeding Fructose

THE LATEST FAT NEWS: New research seems to show that if you want to get fat quickly make sure to load up on foods with fructose.
The study by UT Southwestern Medical Center says fructose, which is a type of sugar, converts from fork to flab faster than goose poo through a tin horn. (So the study didn’t exactly use [...]

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Atkins Wins New Losing Study

In the on-going low carb versus low fat diet war the latest round goes to Atkins or Meditteranean style eating. That’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article on this big diet news. But here, look at this Googliciousness if you want further evidence of this diet news.
Still if you tell someone you’re low [...]

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Monday is D-Day…Unless You’re Bin Laden

Ugh. Food/sun/pool/fireworks coma here. How ’bout you?
A few days ago, I decided to go on South Beach Supercharged. Except I refuse to do the Phase I/like Atkins induction. Of course, I blew the holiday weekend. I have to start over. Which got me thinking…what day of the week do you like to start your diet? [...]

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How Do Girls Develop Body Image?

A study released yesterday attempts to answer that important question, dividing adolescent girls into groups like “Jocks,” “Burnouts,” and “Alternatives,” and discovering that their peer groups are the most important deciding factor. From the press release:
The central theme of the study is that peer groups of teenage girls best determine their attitude towards their [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “How Do Girls Develop Body Image?”, url: “http://www.bfdblog.com/2008/07/02/how-do-girls-develop-body-image/” });

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Pass The Sweet Or Salty Flavor Crystals

Or “tastants,” as they are being called in the world of science. We all know that the senses of smell and taste are linked; what I didn’t know was that the olfactory nerve is in part what governs our feeling of satiety. (Also, according to this article, people who lose their senses of smell [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Pass The Sweet Or Salty Flavor Crystals”, url: “http://www.bfdblog.com/2008/06/19/pass-the-sweet-or-salty-flavor-crystals/” });

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Understanding Weight Loss

Phat Science has had some interesting posts this week, and I particularly wanted to talk about yesterday’s post, where La Wade looked at some of the science surrounding so-called “permanent” weight loss, and the factors that contribute to it. These factors seem to include certain dietary and exercise habits, online support, time in front of [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Understanding Weight Loss”, url: “http://www.bfdblog.com/2008/04/24/understanding-weight-loss/” });

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A Fate Worse Than Fat

And now for the bad news. I’m posting a link to this article not to bring down the room, but to get the message out there yet again: demonizing fat and fat people is a BAD IDEA that can seriously skew our ideas about self-worth. Just ask the women who participated in the studies [...]

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Fat And Diabetic (No Relation)

Our guest post today comes from the delightful Sara, who writes in with a question for all our readers:
I am fat. I have diabetes. The two are in no way related to one another. Interesting how that works, huh? I have type 1 diabetes, so my pancreas is going to be [...]

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The FitDay Experiment

Apart from times when I’ve been tracking Weight Watchers points, I haven’t really been in the habit of tracking my eating. And I found myself becoming curious about exactly what I was eating—how many calories, how many grams of protein, vitamins, etc. So I signed up for a free account on FitDay, a site [...]

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La Blog

My friend La Wade, the BFD commenter and obesity researcher you all love to debate with, has started her own blog about fat and science called Phat Science. The first few posts are chock full of interesting topics for discussion, including artificial sweeteners, yo-yo dieting, and how to decide whether or not to believe [...]

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Diet Motivation!

We all know there are people who bitch at their fat spouses for gaining weight, and gym owners who berate and shame fat people. And don’t forget random people on the street who yell things and throw garbage at the overweight and obese. In case that just isn’t motivating enough for you, we now [...]

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The Magic Formula

Today, Kristen brought this article to my attention, and it’s good news for those of us who believe in trying to be healthy at every size.
Taking exercise, not drinking too much alcohol, eating enough fruit and vegetables and not smoking can add up to 14 years to your life, a study says…The findings [...]

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I Think, Therefore I Exercise

A fascinating story on NPR about exercise and the placebo effect. Researchers studied hotel maids with some pretty incredible results. Apparently, believing that you’re exercising when you’re doing everyday activities can make a real difference. Check it out:
[H]otel maids spend the majority of their days lugging heavy equipment around endless hallways. Basically, almost [...]

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Go Get Yourself A Monkey Kidney

Melinda sends along this nicely depressing news: fat people are screwed when it comes to organ transplants.
Segev’s group found the wait to get a transplant increased along with the patient’s body mass index, a height-weight formula. Non-obese patients waited on average 39 months, the overweight waited 40 months, the obese waited 42 months, and the [...]

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Weight Loss… Cosmetics?

If there’s one universal problem plaguing women today, it’s that we all feel terribly guilty about one thing. That thing, of course, is our lip gloss. Can I get an amen?
In a list of hypothetical resolutions posted at Sephora, one is (big surprise) “I Will Lose Weight.” The tie-in product to this resolution [...]

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Ignore The Numbers

This New York Times article by Gina Kolata talks about the impossibility of counting calories burned while exercising.
Despite the displays on machines at gyms, with their precise-looking calorie counts, and despite the official-looking published charts of exercise and calories, it can be all but impossible to accurately estimate of the number of calories you burn… [...]

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Our Bodies, Our Ideal Selves

Sorry for the missing posts this week! I’ve been working around the clock at both of my jobs, and the lack of sleep has given me a horrible cold. I’ve spent the last few days doped up on cold medicine, sleepy and confused. Fortunately, we’ve got BFDiva Becky to pick up some of my [...]

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Rachel Interviews Gina Kolata

The fancy new redisigned The F-Word has an interview up today with Gina Kolata, author of Rethinking Thin.
In Rethinking Thin, you contend that the diet industry often only succeeds in fattening the pocketbooks of a multi-billion dieting industry, while hopeful dieters lose only money. Why then do so many Americans continue to buy in [...]

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Your Weight Is Just Right

Feeling like you don’t fit into the social norms for weight (meaning that you feel too fat or too skinny) can cause stress and depression, according to a new study discussed here. If I’m reading this correctly, it’s not based on whether you are, in fact, too fat or too thin, but whether you perceive [...]

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Obesity Map

This obesity map of the United States is currently under discussion at The Usual Suspects. The interesting thing is that, according to the map’s data, obesity in America has sharply increased since 2004. As Beth points out: “What in the hell is going on? That’s not just fast food and television; those things have [...]

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The Case For Living In Sin

Oops. I got married before I read this article, reinforcing the old adage that people who get married gain weight. (At least men gain more than women, for a change.)
Women in their teens and early 20s who continued to date but didn’t cohabitate gained an average of 15 pounds over five years; their male counterparts [...]

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Maybe South Beach Is Onto Something…

I’ve noticed that the BFD readers I know who have lost a lot of weight without surgery (such as Pasta Queen) and kept it off have done it on the South Beach diet. Passed along by Kari, this New York Times article reviews the new book Good Calories, Bad Calories, theorizing that carbs, not [...]

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Shades Of Gray: Science & The Fatosphere

If you read Junkfood Science, you might be interested in the conversation going on in the comments starting here. I’ve been waiting for Sandy to come back and respond, but so far, she hasn’t. The National Post also recently wrote:
There are those who have found their life’s calling in catering to delusional overweight people, [...]

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Childhood Rape Linked To Obesity

There’s no way really to put a positive spin or a clever title on this bit of research, which shows a link between childhood rape and obesity in women.
Researchers surveyed about 2,500 men and women aged 21 and found 7.5 % had had intercourse against their will before the age of 16. While the [...]

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The Mysterious Ways Of Lipodissolve

It’s a new procedure that’s gaining popularity in the midwest, whereupon some kind of “anti-fat” chemical is injected into your fat, making it… magically disappear. Since I will pass out due to my injection-phobia if I think about this too much, I will merely quote some highlights from this article.
Doctors said anti-fat shots [...]

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I Had Fried Pickles Once And They Were Awesome

Mississippi has been ranked the fattest state in the nation. It’s interesting to see how this news gets reported when the journalist is trying to be “colorful.” For instance, tThe Meadow Free Press says:
Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an [...]

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The Size Of Your Ass Is Less Important Than The Size Of Your Hippocampus

Some tight science courtesy of our resident scientress, La Wade. It’s a New York Times article that talks about something called neurogenesis, which is, as the name suggests, a process by which we can actually generate new neurons. The human subjects of one study did aerobic exercise for four hours per week: [...]

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On Rare Occasions, Ham Isn’t Funny

“Mama” Cass Elliot didn’t die from choking on a sandwich. I never stopped to think about this story (so I guess I assumed it was true) and now I feel suckered. She was fat, so of course gluttony is what killed her, and her death deserves nothing better than to be turned into [...]

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Man Admits Impotence On T-Shirt

Some dickhead named Michael Karolchyk is all up in arms about the possibility of a law protecting fat people from discrimination in Massachusetts.
His willingness to shock people has won extensive press for his business, which is called the Anti-Gym. It is, in fact, a gym. What makes it special is its founder’s zeal for weight [...]

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Will Purell Help?

You may have already heard, but it turns out that obesity is “socially contagious.” That is to say, if we get ourselves a fat friend, we’re likely to gain weight ourselves.
“We were stunned to find that friends who are hundreds of miles away have just as much impact on a person’s weight [...]

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In Your Head, In Your Heeeead

We all know that when people lose weight, they have an incredibly high likelihood of gaining it back. But what about that small percentage who are able to lose weight and keep it off? One theory is that the difference is a mental one. Researchers studied activity in different parts of the brain, [...]

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Willpower Is Power

An article in today’s New York Times asks if the concept of willpower, which originated from Christian teachings about temptation and deadly sin, is obsolete–despite the fact that most diets (such as Weight Watchers) are based on the idea of using “willpower” to control what you eat. In fact, current research suggests that weight [...]

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