> Wrong. Calorie surplus is neither necessary for nor a guarantee of fat gain.
I was excluding exercise from my (admittedly) very simplistic rule of thumb of weight gain. You seem to have a general understanding of nutrition, so I would say to you that it is absolutely disingenuous to those who don't have that understanding to say that calorie surplus != fat gain. It's a general rule, and it applies to the majority of people.
> Why is that disconcerting?
It's disconcerting in the same way that liposuction is disconcerting. You could make very similar arguments about liposuction as you did about gut engineering: if it improves health, then it's a good thing. But at the end of the day, it doesn't address the issue of being able to control what you do with your body in the interest of your health. Getting too fat? Just reset your gut bacteria, regardless of what other unknown hormone changes it will have. It's ridiculous.
> It's disconcerting in the same way that liposuction is disconcerting. You could make very similar arguments about liposuction as you did about gut engineering: if it improves health, then it's a good thing.
Liposuction is generally cosmetic; I'm not aware of it ever being indicated for health reasons. (Though, given that, while most body fat changes do not involve changes in the number of fat cells, just growing or shrinking existing cells, extreme adult weight gain does result in gaining additional fat cells which don't go away with weight loss, its at least plausible that there might be some situations where it would be the best approximation to achieving the state the body would have had without the intervening extreme weight gain.)
> But at the end of the day, it doesn't address the issue of being able to control what you do with your body in the interest of your health.
If overweight people have more efficient gut microbiomes, the problem they have compared to normal-weight people isn't a self-control problem, its a gut biome problem. Insisting that it must be addressed as a self-control problem (dubious whatever the source of the problem is, if that's not the most efficient intervention) seems downright perverse.
> Insisting that it must be addressed as a self-control problem (dubious whatever the source of the problem is, if that's not the most efficient intervention) seems downright perverse.
Perverse is taking a high-functioning part of your body (the efficiency of your gut bacteria) and destroying completely it because you don't want to stop eating more than your body needs. Especially since we know how much our gut bacteria affects our body in general.
> Perverse is taking a high-functioning part of your body (the efficiency of your gut bacteria) and destroying completely it because you don't want to stop eating more than your body needs.
Viewing something operating out of normal parameters that provide desired outcomes is, as I stated upthread, a harmful microoptimization.
High-function is hitting the ideal for your needs, not just getting bigger numbers on some measure that ignores its role in the system. With many body systems, excessive function is bad, and when we understand how it is bad and how to treat it, we do.
We don't complain that is bad to treat a "high-functioning" immune system and that people with disorders resulting from overactive immune systems should instead learn the self-control to avoid triggers rather than seeking treatment.
I'm really surprised at how hard you are pushing this gut bacteria idea. As I said elsewhere, we've barely scratched the surface of how our bodies are affected by changes in our gut bacteria, and you seem immediately on board with changing it completely in order to help lose weight. As I, and others, have said, there is a simpler solution, one that applies positively to all aspects of health and happiness in life: self-control. But you seem bent on the idea that 2/3rds of adults considered overweight or obese have "abnormal gut bacteria" and the best solution for them is to completely rewrite it, consequences be damned. No point continuing this argument.
> I'm really surprised at how hard you are pushing this gut bacteria idea.
I'm really surprised at how hard you are twisting what I've said.
> As I said elsewhere, we've barely scratched the surface of how our bodies are affected by changes in our gut bacteria, and you seem immediately on board with changing it completely in order to help lose weight.
Questioning your basis for finding the idea that interventions involving gut bacteria might be applied, and then challenging the validity of statements you offered in response is different from being "completely on board" with particular interventions. I think its an interesting line of research that opens up both a potential better understanding of the source of the current epidemic and, to some extent independently of whether it does that, might also open a very productive avenue for interventions in an area where the tools we have clearly aren't working very well.
> As I, and others, have said, there is a simpler solution, one that applies positively to all aspects of health and happiness in life: self-control.
Self-control is not a solution -- its a state. A solution is a course of action that can result in a desired state.
> But you seem bent on the idea that 2/3rds of adults considered overweight or obese have "abnormal gut bacteria"
Er, no, I've never said all overweight adults have abnormal gut bacteria. (I wouldn't be surprised if there was a significant correlation, to be sure.)
> and the best solution for them is to completely rewrite it, consequences be damned.
I don't recall ever arguing that the best solution for all (or even any) is to do that; I have said if the evidence shows that the most effective intervention for overall health some subset of that population involves intervention directed at the gut microbiome, it makes no sense to insist that it must be solely addressed as a self-control problem.
You seem to be wedded to the idea of a one-size fits all solution to the extent that not only is it what you offer, but that you can't even see anyone disagreeing with you as offering anything but the same type of solution.
I was excluding exercise from my (admittedly) very simplistic rule of thumb of weight gain. You seem to have a general understanding of nutrition, so I would say to you that it is absolutely disingenuous to those who don't have that understanding to say that calorie surplus != fat gain. It's a general rule, and it applies to the majority of people.
> Why is that disconcerting?
It's disconcerting in the same way that liposuction is disconcerting. You could make very similar arguments about liposuction as you did about gut engineering: if it improves health, then it's a good thing. But at the end of the day, it doesn't address the issue of being able to control what you do with your body in the interest of your health. Getting too fat? Just reset your gut bacteria, regardless of what other unknown hormone changes it will have. It's ridiculous.