Any wild speculation that obesity may be a deficiency disease?

[hedgehog]

After reading Good Calories, Bad Calories, I'm convinced that most if not all obese people do not overeat and get plenty of exercise. I think the problem is that we're eating the wrong things and throwing our metabolisms out of whack. (Yes Virginia, it really is a glandular problem!) My speculation at this point is that either we're getting too many carbohydrates and/or a deficiency in some vitamins and/or minerals and/or trace elements make it hard for our bodies to process the carbs we do consume.

We know we're short of Vitamin D. Other studies have shown that modern foods coming out of farms using chemical fertilizers and pesticides just don't have the same nutritional value of foods raised before WWII. Those studies only measure the nutrients we know we need. The role of elements like Omega 6 fatty acids is only now being discovered.

I'll agree, it's not a healthy life style to sit around eating gallon after gallon of ice cream and bag after bag of chips. But I don't do that. I follow the rules and I've still gained weight.

[AllieB]

1. 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' was a great book.

I think obesity may be caused by malabsorption of essential nutrients also, in addition to impaired carbohydrate metabolism.

[Connonym]

2. My friend's doctor believes that wheat is a huge factor and that wheat also contributes to

hypercholesterolemia. Says it doesn't need to be eliminated complete but needs to be drastically reduced from the typical American diet. I'm going to start back with the Weight Watchers old exchange diet, I've had so much luck with that in the past and it reduces wheat to just 2 servings a day.

[AllieB]

3. Most people shouldn't be eating wheat period.

There are many theories that point to the fact that most people weren't designed for digesting grains. You may find this website interesting:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/obesity-in-ancient-egypt/

Excerpt:

Ten or twelve years ago we wrote in Protein Power about the data contained in the vast amount of ancient Egyptian mummies. We pointed out that several thousand years ago when the future mummies roamed the earth their diet was a nutritionist’s nirvana. At least a nirvana for all the so-called nutritional experts of today who are recommending a diet filled with whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and little meat, especially red meat. Follow such a diet, we’re told, and we will enjoy abundant health.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way for the Egyptians. They followed such a diet simply because that’s all there was. There was no sugar - it wouldn’t be produced for another thousand or more years. The only sweet was honey, which was consumed in limited amounts. The primary staple was a coarse bread made of stone-ground, whole wheat. Animals were used as beasts of burden and were valued much more for the work they could do than for the meat they could provide. The banks of the Nile provided fertile soil for growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables, all of which were a part the low-fat, high-carbohydrate Egyptian diet.

Another snippet:

Were the nutritionists of today right about their ideas of the ideal diet, the ancient Egyptians should have had abundant health. But they didn’t. In fact, they suffered pretty miserable health. Many had heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity - all the same disorders that we experience today in the ‘civilized’ Western world.

Check out Dr. Eades' Book "The Protein Power Life Plan". It's a really interesting take on how we evolved to eat.