
Why do people put on differing amounts of weight? - soupangel
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35193414
======
jankor
The full study is much more interesting: "We devised a machine-learning
algorithm that integrates blood parameters, dietary habits, anthropometrics,
physical activity, and gut microbiota measured in this cohort and showed that
it accurately predicts personalized postprandial glycemic response to real-
life meals."

[http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(15)01481-6.pdf](http://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674\(15\)01481-6.pdf)

~~~
mbubb
Thank you for the link - the study is very interesting to read. I have been
bumbling around for a while trying to see what fits for me and there have been
counter-intuitive things that seem to work. This study makes me think of that.
Part of diet is finding what works to keep things in balance, cravings and
spikes might indicate the diet is not working.

As an example - initially starting dieting, I stayed away from fruit as a
vehicle of carbs. Over the past two weeks I have allowed myself bananas,
apples, melon and berries as breakfast and afternoon snack. This appears to
not 'spike' me as I would have thought but gives me stability.

Night snacking is a killer for me and I have been able to get by with a cup of
tea around 2200 with a single biscuit.

Its just been 2 weeks but these two little cheats actually seem to give the
diet some stability - for now anyway.

This study is really useful for me.

~~~
ozy123
What are you using to monitor spikes? Trying to locate something that would
give continuous readings rather than manual testing after every meal.

~~~
rdancer
Would continuous glucose monitoring devices used by diabetics be suitable?

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ars
This is pretty astonishing research, not so much for the results, as for the
methodology.

Doing research on what people eat is VERY hard, it's very hard to get accurate
data.

Pairing people and having them eat identically is brilliant. I hope it's also
scalable for longer term studies.

By pairing people they are likely to give much more accurate reports about
what they actually eat, and it allows direct comparisons.

~~~
mseebach
It is very interesting. I wonder, however, if it's enough to isolate all
relevant variables (this is peanut gallery speculation, I am not a scientist
of any stripe)? The narrator explains that she is "an accident & emergency
doctor [...]. Rushing around on my feet all day with strange working
patterns". Never mind that the stress and adrenaline of such work must affect
her body in some ways, she probably also moves quite a bit more than the
average person. We're not told anything about her counterpart than her name,
and that she's the same age and gender.

~~~
windexh8er
I've commented a bunch of time on gut microbiome before and I'll say it again
here who may have not caught it. If this article is interesting check out "The
Good Gut" by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, PhD. I've been experimenting with an
ad hoc restorative process through ideas in the book and reading/research
around a myriad of pro/prebiotics + diet change.

For me the whole subject adds a lot of weight to the idea of "skinny fat" vs
"fat". I'm glad we're in an age of companies like WellnessFX where I can
objectively see the positive changes made by changes to a lifestyle... But,
again, I can't stress enough how much great information and studies that have
been broken down is in the book. No affiliation, but it's very powerful
knowledge.

$0.02.

edit: "we're not in" to "we're in", whoops

~~~
OldSchoolJohnny
I am in agreement about the microbiome and it's importance but I found the
good gut to be a terrible book full of wild speculation and little facts to
back them up. Many sections started with a few thin facts then the authors
made jumps that didn't exactly connect to those facts in order to speculate as
if that was a fact. I hope there is a better book out there on this topic or
one coming soon.

~~~
windexh8er
Interesting. Do you have any specific examples you can remember? I read the
book from the perspective that it wasn't verbatim research results, but
example based results from their research. I found the connections between the
test and result generally existed, although I would say the book got a bit
muddy on reuse of a few key topic areas. It's definitely a dry book - it took
me a while to get through as it didn't always hold my interest.

That being said I agree that I hope there's more to come.

------
tomhoward
The report makes no mention of any inclusion of genetics or epigenetics
(environmentally-influenced gene expression) in this study.

It would be a shame if that were excluded as a factor worth investigating, as
research I've seen elsewhere indicates that it is [1].

The notion that the gut microbiome is a major factor in metabolism and health
is now widely known and accepted, but it just raises the next question: what
is the cause of variance in the health of the microbiome?

A good diet and supplementation with good microbes (probiotics, ferments, etc)
is part of it, but the body itself also needs to do its part to create an
environment that is fertile and hospitable for beneficial microbes, and
inhospitable for harmful ones.

This requires a well-functioning immune system, correct enzyme activity,
oxygenation, pH, optimal function of all the organs, to name just some of the
factors in the vastly complex system that is the mammalian body.

Genetics and epigenetics play a key role in this system, and you'd hope to see
this being included as a part of a study like this.

[1] [https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-
epigen...](https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/09/15/how-epigenetics-
our-gut-microbiome-and-the-environment-interact-to-change-our-lives/)

------
gadders
This happens in pigs and other livestock. Animals are specifically bred for
their Feed Conversion Efficiency
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio)).
I don't see why something similar couldn't happen in people as well.

~~~
mattlutze
Well, something similar shouldn't happen in people because eugenics is
considered to not be a particularly good idea.

~~~
diskcat
it's actually a pretty good idea.

who wouldn't want to be born with excellent immune system, strong and tall,
smart and attractive?

~~~
anonyfox
You need the ugly to actually realize beauty. If everyone is beautiful, the
word "beautiful" wouldn't make any sense.

You could argue that this would be a solution to many discrimination issues
today if _everyone_ is beautiful, strong, tall, ... . Mhh. Interesting
thought.

~~~
restalis
As you realized, beauty is relative (to ugliness). I can't quite grasp how you
missed this relative aspect by going further with your assumption of "everyone
is beautiful". People will always find distinctions and there always will be a
scale of beauty (or whatever else).

------
tomp
> For Leila, the results were very different. Whereas pasta was "bad" for me,
> it was fine for her. Yoghurt was good for me, but bad for her, and our
> responses to bread and butter were also complete opposites.

(Note: "bad" and "good" above refers to "high-GI" and "low-GI", respectively.)

Another interesting anecdotal observation from my acquaintances: our
relationships with food differ significantly. While some people simply _like_
to eat (like myself - I find great pleasure in food and seemingly can't ever
get enough), others simply don't find such enjoyment in eating - food tastes
good for them, but not particularly amazing, and they don't seem to perceive
the same amount of Freudian pleasure from the feeling of fullness.
Interestingly, this seems to correlate highly (and again, anecdotally) with
our life-long struggles with weight - the first group has to be conscious not
to eat too much (and put on too much weight), while the second group consists
of mainly skinny individuals, some of whom struggle putting on weight.

So the "goodness" and "badness" of food might have completely different base
levels across population!

~~~
ksec
I guess the saying, everybody is different applies here.

I still remember the days when I could eat 3 - 4 pound of beef, along side
with mesh potato, or 12 inch Pizza, or whole bucket ( 10pcs ) KFC, per meal!
And these meals would come with Coke as well. in Tea time i will eat Ice
Cream, eat lots of yogurt etc.

I dont do lots of sports, may be once a week maximum. Otherwise I just sit
down playing World of Warcraft or watching TV.

All while I don't gain 1 pound of weight! I had a VERY hard time gaining
weight when I was in the age of 16 - 22. I even tried those weight gainer and
protein. And does't work

Now that i am a lot older, trying to lose some weight, I find out a lot of
these theories simply don't make sense when i was younger. If you are what you
eat, then I was definitely eating 4000+ calories per day and not getting Fat.

I think, everybody has a different body type that reacts differently.

~~~
CaptainAmerica
> then I was definitely eating 4000+ calories per day and not getting Fat.

Not true at all, you weren't even counting your calories you're just throwing
out a number. And if you were counting you were counting wrong. That's a huge
part of people who say they can't gain or lose weight. They claim to eat these
vast amount (or extremely low amount) of calories when they really have no
idea. People trying to lose weight will look at a burger and say "that's about
400 calories" and someone trying to gain weight will look at the same burger
and say "that's about 1500 calories", when in reality its somewhere around
900. Do that for 3-4 meals a day and boom, you've got your "I eat 4000+
calories and can't gain weight".

~~~
xeromal
It definitely can be the case. Absorption of calories depends on the person so
the same people who eat 2k calories could get roughly 2k calories OR LESS
depending on the gut bacteria and other variables.

I do agree with you on people's reported caloric intake. Most people
inaccurately record their eating habits. I use an app to get an idea of what
my day was like.

~~~
logfromblammo
Nutritional panel information is not an _in vivo_ measurement.

If you put 100g of broccoli in a bomb calorimeter and burn it in pure oxygen,
you heat it up by 34 kilocalories.

If you put it in a human digestive tract instead , the human can absorb
anywhere from 0 to 34 kilocalories of food energy from it. We already have
ample evidence that the food energy absorbed may be affected by the microbiome
in the intestines, the preparation method used, the time of day, the time of
year, and other foods that may have been eaten at around the same time.

But the calorimetry does establish a hard upper limit on absorbable food
energy.

This is why non-ruminant herbivores with shorter digestive tracts--like the
arctic hare--will engage in coprophagy. They will eat their "first-through"
turds, because there is still some food energy in them. Ruminants do
essentially the same thing with multiple stomachs and regurgitation.

If you aren't weighing your food and burning your poop in a calorimeter, you
are inaccurately reporting your caloric intake. Even then, you can't really
know for sure how much of that energy was absorbed for use by human cells, and
how much was used to sustain your microbiome.

~~~
npsimons
Burning your poop isn't necessary, but yes, weighing your food is a good idea.
Want to know how much you're really absorbing from food? Calculate your real
TDEE:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_how_you_calculate_your_tdee/)

No matter what conditions you may have (or _think_ you have) the above method
will tell you _exactly_ how much your total daily energy expenditure is,
including what passes through you that you don't absorb, so you can know how
much you need to eat to lose, maintain or gain.

------
pfalke
Could a similar approach work to find the impact of foods on other health
factors (sleep quality, digestion, ...) in a personal experiment?

I picture logging my coffee consumption (or even all foods + sports etc) and
sleep over a few weeks, then using machine learning to find a possible
relationship.

I'd appreciate any links to OSS projects/commercial apps that work on this.

------
flashm
Michael Moseley and the BBC are doing some great work challenging the status
quo recently, especially with diet.

If you're able to access iPlayer where you are, the programme he did on
fasting is well worth a watch if you have an hour spare.

~~~
dylan62
I have a lot of time for Michael Moseley, but recently his "Trust me, I'm a
Doctor" TV show has been falling into the same traps as the medical
establishment, making concrete claims based on the flimsiest of evidence.

In a recent show one of the presenters (admittedly not Moseley) claims "The
good news is that we have shown that Olive oil really is good for us", which
was a ridiculous claim based on the evidence presented.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yes, it seems the more mainstream the program the more they feel they need to
simplify it.

------
DonaldFisk
On an individual level the study shows why some people are more prone to
weight gain than others. But there's been an epidemic of obesity over the past
few decades, and there's no reason to believe people's gut flora changed over
that period. Even if it did, there must have been an underlying cause.

What has undoubtedly changed are people's lifestyles:

(1) Less smoking. (This is a good thing, but it has resulted in weight gain.)

(2) More driving and less walking/bicycling.

(3) Children playing games on computers instead of outside.

(4) More sitting at desks, and less moving about, at work.

(5) More eating out.

and probably a few other factors.

~~~
therealdrag0
Yep. Lifestyle change without dietary change.

I'm M27 6' 150lbs and mostly sedentary; calorie recommendations for me are
2300+.

Last time I counted my calories I was eating closer to 1600. My weight is
maintained and I experience no lack of energy compared to peers.

I think people over estimate the amount of food they "need" and over estimate
how many calories are burned for x-amount of activity.

------
musha68k
There is a new book out called "Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most
Underrated Organ" by Giulia Enders:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/97817716...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781771641494)

I can't recommend it enough as it is both entertaining and packed with
comprehensive information on a taboo topic (hint: you are "the borg";)

Interview with Giulia Enders on "Gut":

[http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s](http://youtu.be/weskzCKki-s)

------
MrJagil
I have a very high metabolism. Some envy me, others find me too skinny. What
troubles me though, is that I don't have weight as a heuristic in regards to
my health. I sometimes worry, as everything else is quite ambiguous. Energy
levels depend on sunlight, sleep and so on. How often I fall sick is equally
dependant too many variables for it to be a reliable indicator.

I would love for something like this to be reliable/easy/cheap so I have
something I can turn to when I feel uneasy about my health.

------
Shivetya
Interesting results. While I understand the microbes do affect how we process
foods does our diet affect how they work? As in, if long term she eats grapes
then perhaps either the microbes in her changed or the microbes themselves
adopted a new behavior.

So the idea is, put a group of people on a strict diet long enough to affect
which microbes they have and the exposure of the microbes to the diet. Then
take three different directions from there and monitor how it all works out.

~~~
restalis
I'm not that versed in the subject, but my (dilettante) guess is that our own
behavior may affect the fauna of our digestive microbes by consuming spicy
food, alcohol, having nicotine in blood, or through other unhealthy habits.

~~~
nsxwolf
Spicy food is unhealthy?

~~~
restalis
There is a lot to be said about spicy. In a few words, "spicy" is not really a
taste like sweat, bitter, salty, and acid are. Spicy is actually the sensation
of the inflamed taste buds. (But there are condiments that are inducing only
this inflamed sensation without actually causing it.) This chemically-induced
inflammatory effect is deadly for many bacteria. This sanitizing effect was
one of the main reasons why the hot and wet south Asia developed so many
spiced dishes in their traditional cuisine. (In Europe they used alcohol for
the same effect.) So although spicy will not harm you (directly, in the long
term), it will kill some of your symbiotic pals!

------
adajos
Very interesting.

Startup idea: stool sample testing and custom diet design via a mobile app.

I call "not it" for the stool testing part. I'll work on the mobile app
instead.

~~~
mywittyname
They could create a probe that attaches via a lightning adapter for the stool
sampling part.

You sound like a great candidate to be the team lead on that project.

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jv22222
Does anyone know where/what that continuous glucose monitor that gets
implanted is?

~~~
speedkills
Dexcom makes one. It isn't a permanent implant though, as mentioned in the
article it is good for a week.

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xyzzy4
Well the biggest reason people put on weight is because they don't understand
how calories work from a lack of education, which is why poor people and
immigrants generally become the most overweight. People who don't speak
English well won't run into scientific articles that talk about calories, so
they aren't even thinking about the subject.

~~~
anu7df
Most people don't understand calories as it relates to their food intake.
However lack of education has very little to do with it. Just look at all the
comments in this thread. The things that can be said to be true are:
Thermodynamics is correct.. People consuming same amount of food may end up
absorbing different calories from it. They also may burn calories at slightly
different rates.

This is all very helpful but not a plan to control weight.

Poor people (anecdotal) have less time to cook healthy meals and hence end up
eating calorie dense fast food. PS: edit . typo. Grammer. Phone..

~~~
leshow
I would assume education would cover differences in individual metabolism, so
you'd know if you were gaining weight to consume less food.

