Obesity changes the brain, with ‘no sign of reversibility,’ expert says | Hacker News Reader

Obesity changes the brain, with ‘no sign of reversibility,’ expert says

cnn.com

11 pointssmn12346 comments

The CNN article seems not to justify the claim of "change". The experiment appears to demonstrate that obese people's brains do this, while non-obese people's brains do that, but the inference that the obese brains started out just like non-obese brains is unsupported.

So tired of these 'expert says'. Peer reviewed double blind studies is what we need

This peer-reviewed single-blinded study wasn't enough for you, huh?

Obesity may damage the brain’s ability to recognize the sensation of fullness and be satisfied after eating fats and sugars, a new study found.

I think metabolic changes and hyper-palatable foods better-explain obesity compared to faulty satiety/fullness signals. Slow metabolisms due to age or genes combined with hyper-palatable foods, such as carbs and fats combined, are a recipe for obesity.

We've always had metabolic changes, and palatable is relative (Korean comfort food is my nightmare.) I think the answer (at least subjectively) is that discomfort from hunger is also relative. People who have never allowed themselves to be hungry for a moment experience far more discomfort at the same level of hunger than someone accustomed to being hungry. That causes a cycle of panic, and of fixing that panic with food.

I jumped on intermittent fasting very early on because it worked, but after doing it off and on for a few years (on: getting smaller, off: getting fatter), I simply started finding it easier to control portions or to wait a little longer for my next meal. I blame it entirely on learning to live with hunger on fast days.

Metabolism is remarkably stable (relative to popular belief) after your teenage years and until you approach 60. The myth of fast-slowing metabolism in your 30s can be damaging. It reduces people’s sense that they can reverse their weight gain, because “it’s my metabolism lol.”

That being said, if you were legitimately muscular in your 20s and lost most of your muscle as you got older/married/had kids, that can reduce your caloric needs and make it seem like your baseline metabolism is changing more than it is.

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