
Study finds dopamine, biological clock link to snacking, overeating and obesity - LinuxBender
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200103111717.htm
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ericabiz
There's a documentary (free on Amazon Prime) called "Fasting" that touches on
this same hypothesis. Basically, our bodies are wired to eat late morning to
early evening. Calories consumed outside of those hours are much more likely
to turn into fat.

Optimum eating window is somewhere around 11AM or noon for most people to 6PM
at the latest. When people reduce their eating window, without counting
calories or doing anything else, they often lose weight. This is gaining
popularity as "intermittent fasting."

I definitely recommend the movie if you want to learn more--it kept me engaged
the entire time. I've also done 2 cycles of ProLon (mentioned in the movie and
has significant scientific backing) to boost my own immune system, so I'm a
believer in fasting as a health benefit.

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moretai
What exactly is ProLon? Is it just moving your feeding window to 11am-6pm?

I searched on Google but the first few links offer no insight except the
impression I might have to pay money to learn more.

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rladd
Its the commercialization of this:

A Periodic Diet that Mimics Fasting Promotes Multi-System Regeneration,
Enhanced Cognitive Performance, and Healthspan

[https://www.cell.com/cell-
metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)...](https://www.cell.com/cell-
metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131\(15\)00224-7)

You can do it yourself without any kind of kit, if you count calories. I've
done it 7 times so far. Due for another one soon.

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Someone1234
Just to clarify the title a little "biological clock" in this circumstance
isn't about lifespan, it is about your body's natural desire to eat
(specifically _when_ to eat).

They found, in mice, that high-calorie diets at meals resulted in eating more
often between meals. From the article:

> Güler's team found that mice fed a diet comparable to a wild diet in
> calories and fats maintained normal eating and exercise schedules and proper
> weight. But mice fed high-calorie diets laden with fats and sugars began
> "snacking" at all hours and became obese.

I'd wonder though if they're re-measuring the gut bacteria phenomenon that has
previously been observed. Essentially your gut bacteria can encourage you to
eat certain foods, if you eat too much of one kind of food you over-bread that
specific bacteria (and suppress others) resulting in a "waterfall" over desire
for the food that bacteria need.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/4441009a](https://www.nature.com/articles/4441009a)

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03698...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0369811407002210)

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gwn7
It is great to see this kind of studies being done, as they are against the
best interests of big food companies who usually don't care about the public
health.

This phenomenon is already known in many circles but is still being rejected
regularly by some people as not being backed by sufficient scientific data.
Well here is some data. Hope to see more of it.

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jkhdigital
To be fair, starvation was a much more pressing problem than obesity for most
of human history, so cheap and efficient delivery of calories is a pretty
monumental achievement of industrialized agriculture.

To paraphrase Harvey Dent, the big food companies have stuck around long
enough to see themselves become the villains.

~~~
gwn7
> To be fair, starvation was a much more pressing problem than obesity for
> most of human history, so cheap and efficient delivery of calories is a
> pretty monumental achievement of industrialized agriculture.

I have to agree that this really is a monumental achievement.

Calorie-dense food is no longer scarce but in abundance. We are not hearing
much about starvations at least in the "developed world".

But on the flip side many people now have some kind of metabolic disease.
Nearly everybody in my family is suffering from at least one metabolic disease
mainly caused by a compromised sugar metabolism which in turn is caused by
processed foods. And this is really causing a great suffering.

So the solution to the original problem begot a new kind of problem. Is the
new problem better than the original one? Debatable.

Now we can support a much larger population much more easily (which is just
what we need). But a population that is a lot less healthy than the previous
generations. Quality is in decline.

Anyway it's still "progress", and yeah, a monumental one. If only they knew
where to stop. They never do...

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luxuryballs
Funny, the same thing happens to my cats if I leave dry food out for them
versus feeding them wet food at morning and night.

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jacobush
What happens, in which case do they eat more?

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luxuryballs
They get fat from eating the always available dry food. Wet food is way better
for them, high moisture and protein, dry food is typically the equivalent of
the junk food.

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jacobush
I'm glad I asked. With my dog, it's the opposite. He binges wet food. Dry food
I leave a bowl full at all times. He eats when he's hungry, no binging.

Thought - cats typically need higher quality food than dogs, dogs are much
more opportunistic. (And more similar to us in that respect, I guess.)

~~~
luxuryballs
That makes sense to me, my dog will eat until full, sometimes if she manages
to find some scraps she won’t finish her dry food (we give her 3/4 cup day and
night).

Curious about the dog binging on wet food, how much are you making available?

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jacobush
Rarely, it's a novelty and he loves it. But he gets an upset stomach, so I've
gone back to (best quality I could find, no grain etc) dry food.

I think for him, wet dog food and "found" human food are equally delicious. He
likes the dry food too whenever I switch flavor, but tires of it over the
weeks the bag lasts.

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ilaksh
As someone who has recently starting dealing with a somewhat significant
weight problem, I would like to disagree with the premise a little bit.

I have put on quite a lot of weight recently as a result of two simple things:
one, I am older. This probably is not a big part of it.

Two, I just stopped exercising for a few months. Meaning, I have not even been
doing my daily walks.

I don't often eat snacks or really large meals. Sometimes only one meal in a
day. But since I often don't move around _at all_ except for minimal tasks,
and have spent a lot of time sitting at the computer, I have been putting on
weight rapidly.

So yeah, my New Years resolution is to go back to walking every day.

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dooglius
In mice

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sp332
There's a twitter account for that
[https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/121489166821166694...](https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/1214891668211666944)

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dooglius
Yeah, that's what I was riffing off

