# Stoid, Are You Still Confident that You Know a Lot about Diet and Obesity? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 12, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100 "2013-02-12T18:34:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/241 "2013-07-11T12:10:53Z")
Point taken. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/242 "2013-07-11T12:17:54Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Second issue is directly related to the first. Yes, both issues are interrelated. Nevertheless, as I said, they can be conceptually separated. > [@](#): > > Your fat metabolism affects your brain and appetite. They are intimately connected and cannot be separated. Yes they can, and it’s easy to demonstrate. If they were inseparable, then diet foods, especially diet soda, would be very effective in helping people lose weight. They aren’t, as far as I know. > [@](#): > > So yes, eating the donuts or bread or potatoes or sugar drives you to eat more…because of your fat metabolism. Then why doesn’t it work to consume a lot of diet Coke? Or, if you believe the carbohydrates are the problem, why doesn’t it work to eat a lot of bacon? (By “work,” I mean allows most people to achieve long-term significant fat loss without expending a lot of mental energy) ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/243 "2013-07-11T12:19:06Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > They wouldn’t be able to agree on a restaurant. Haha, nice one. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/244 "2013-07-11T13:21:05Z")
Stout **Stoid’s** unique thyroid can tolerate no bread; we thus beseech **brazil** and her to euthanize this thread. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/245 "2013-07-11T14:06:59Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Stout **Stoid’s** unique thyroid > can tolerate no bread; > we thus beseech **brazil** and her > to euthanize this thread. You do know you CAN unsubscribe from thread, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/246 "2013-07-11T14:51:33Z")
But what if the moment I leave, they solve the obesity problem once and for all and I miss it? ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/247 "2013-07-11T21:27:40Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > (By “work,” I mean allows most people to achieve _ **long-term** _ significant fat loss without expending a lot of mental energy) I will not be engaging the discussion/debate on any basis that involves you defining “Successful weight loss” with long term maintenance of the lower weight, as endlessly gone over earlier in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/248 "2013-07-11T21:41:32Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I will not be engaging the discussion/debate on any basis that involves you defining “Successful weight loss” with long term maintenance of the lower weight, as endlessly gone over earlier in the thread. Obviously not, because that would involve using reasonable definitions that normal people would agree to, and (not coincidentally) you being utterly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/249 "2013-07-11T22:00:36Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I will not be engaging the discussion/debate on any basis that involves you defining “Successful weight loss” with long term maintenance of the lower weight, as endlessly gone over earlier in the thread. Suit yourself, but the semantics of the situation make no difference to my underlying argument. The fact is that diet soda has no calories and essentially no nutritional value at all. And yet it tastes pretty good. So if food impacted weight loss in the way you describe, i.e. food having an effect on fat metabolism which in turn affects the brain, diet soda ought to be pretty effective in promoting weight loss. Which it is not, as far as I know. By the way, you will note that I said “fat loss” not “weight loss.” The reason for this is that a lot of diets result in weight loss through water loss. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/250 "2013-07-11T22:04:36Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Obviously not, because that would involve using reasonable definitions that normal people would agree to, Yes, I agree. My sense is that **Stoid** wants to redefine terms so that her years of yo-yo dieting (which most people would see as “failure”) can be considered a success. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/251 "2013-07-11T22:10:11Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Suit yourself And likewise. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/252 "2013-07-11T22:28:13Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I will not be engaging the discussion/debate on any basis that involves you defining “Successful weight loss” with long term maintenance of the lower weight, as endlessly gone over earlier in the thread. So by “you” in your post, you actually meant … everyone? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/253 "2013-07-11T22:28:16Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Obviously not, because that would involve using reasonable definitions that normal people would agree to, and (not coincidentally) you being utterly wrong. “Um, in your dating profile you said you’re a millionaire?” “Yes, that’s true. I am.” “So… why do you look like a homeless person?” “Funny story, actually. The day I earned my first million, I went out and blew it all on cocaine and scratch-off lottery tickets.” “And now…” “I live in a refrigerator box in the alley.” “Oh my _God_.” “Right behind this building, in fact. It’s not always easy being in the 1%.” ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/254 "2013-07-11T22:50:46Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > So by “you” in your post, you actually meant … everyone? Read the thread if it interests you, it’s all here and I’m not interested in reliving the magic. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/255 "2013-07-12T00:56:38Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Yes, I agree. My sense is that **Stoid** wants to redefine terms so that her years of yo-yo dieting (which most people would see as “failure”) can be considered a success. And pointing that out is basically why you started this thread, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/256 "2013-07-12T08:22:02Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And likewise. I’m not sure what your point is here . . . I’m not the one insisting that everyone use an unreasonable and self-serving definition of “successful weight loss.” I simply defined a phrase for the sake of my own point. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/257 "2013-07-12T08:23:39Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > And pointing that out is basically why you started this thread, isn’t it? Not exactly . . . I started the thread to beat up on **Stoid** a bit over her unjustified arrogance. And also because I was genuinely curious about how her diet worked out and whether her thinking had changed again. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/258 "2013-08-30T19:02:42Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Any research on liposuction will confirm this. > > For one thing, liposuction only removes surface fat, not deep fat deposits. ([cite, Mayo Clinic](http://www.mayoclinic.org/cosmetic-surgery/liposuction.html)) > > Highest amount of fat and other body liquids removed is in the neighborhood of 12 pounds ([cite](http://www.lipo.com/liposuction-information/how-much-fat-can-be-removed-by-liposuction/)). This is not all fat, and the source does not say how much is actual fat cells. No site that I could find would make even this specific a claim. Suppose it is 50% or 6 pounds. That isn’t much of a change for a 200-pound person. > > Your question about breast reduction is laughable. How much tissue do you think is removed? How much of that is fat? One pound? Probably less. > Roddy Here’s a [blog post](http://www.obesitypanacea.com/2009/05/liposuction-does-not-make-you-healthy.html) I was just reading on this subject. The blog post refers to a journal article: > [@](#): > > But wait, isn’t losing fat through diet and exercise good for health? > > Yes, when we expend more energy (exercise) or reduce the amount of food we ingest (diet), or both, our body draws on our extra stores of energy in our adipose tissue – this process gradually reduces the size of the individual fat cells. That is, fat loss occurs due to a reduction in size of fat cells, not a reduction in the number of fat cells. Not surprisingly, your pants start fitting better. Also, this process makes fat cells more efficient at sucking up excess calories the next time we again eat more than we expend – think Thanksgiving weekend. > > This is completely different from the scenario of liposuction, where a whole bunch of fat cells are removed from the body – that is, you reduce the number of fat cells, but the remaining ones don’t get any smaller or healthier – in fact, the opposite may be true (less place to store excess calories than before surgery, so enlargement of those fat cells left behind). > > As an example of the lack of health benefit from liposuction, I decided to discuss a paper which was published back in 2004 in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. This paper was actually the first paper I discussed with my lab during journal club when I initially arrived at Queen’s to do my Master’s back in 2004. > > In this study, Klein and colleagues investigated the health effects of liposuction of subcutaneous (under the skin) fat in the abdominal region in 15 obese women. > > The liposuction procedure removed between 30- 45 % of the subcutaneous fat in the abdominal region, which was equivalent to approximately 10 kg of fat tissue (see above picture from the study). \*\* This represented a 20% reduction in total fat mass – a very substantive change!\*\* > > However, with regards to the women’s health – the results were rather disappointing, although not surprising given the above discussion. Specifically, 12 weeks after the surgery the women did not show improvements in any of the metabolic markers assessed (insulin sensitivity – a precursor to diabetes, blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin, or lipid levels) as well as any of the other novel markers of disease risk (CRP, adiponectin, IL-6, TNF-α). > > Thus, as this paper concludes, while liposuction may be of benefit for cosmetic causes, it should not be considered a clinical treatment for obesity. In other words, surgically removing fat tissue will not bring about the health benefits of weight loss as induced via a negative energy balance (more physical activity and less calorie consumption). Bolding added. This would seem to undermine your claim about fat cells. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/259 "2013-08-31T17:13:54Z")
I have not followed this thread closely but what in that blog post (or the linked article) undermines the claim about how many fat cells can be removed with liposuction? Removing a larger volume of fat mass, as the authors of the linked study did than is apparently standard, informs little on what percent of total fat cells (adipocytes) are removed. To make any kind of comment about that you need to know the size of fat cells in each body region and whether the response to fat gain and loss (being either increase in size - hypertrophy, or increase in number - hyperplasia) is the same or divergent in different regions. Pertinent to that issue is [this article](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/96/2/229.long). (UBSQ = upper body subcutaneous.) > [@](#): > > weight gains in normal-weight, healthy adults result in abdominal adipocyte hypertrophy and lower-body adipocyte hyperplasia … To understand the biology of regional adipose tissue responses to weight loss, we measured changes in fat-depot mass and subcutaneous adipocyte size in volunteers who lost weight through underfeeding after an experimentally induced weight gain. We showed that visceral and UBSQ fat masses had returned to preoverfeeding amounts despite an incomplete loss of gained fat, whereas lower-body fat had not returned to the preoverfeeding amount. Of equally great interest, the lower-body fat cell number did not decrease with weight loss. … > > … Our finding that decreases in UBSQ and lower-body subcutaneous fat mass during weight loss were attributed to decreases in fat cell size, but not fat cell number, was consistent with the observations that weight loss in obese adults is attributed to a reduced fat cell size without changes in the fat cell number (22–24). After weight loss, obese people have smaller adipocytes than do people with a similar percentage of body fat and stable weight. However, it is unknown whether those obese adults had more adipocytes before they became obese; some investigators have suggested that obese individuals must have developed their entire compliment of adipocytes before reaching adulthood (25). Nonetheless, evidence has suggested that postobese adults have a larger number of fat cells (23), which could be a long-term consequence of adult weight gain on adipose tissue cellularity. > > One possible consequence of having a greater number of smaller adipocytes is a relative leptin insufficiency (23, 26, 27). Plasma leptin concentrations are related to body fat content and adipocyte size, and data suggested that smaller adipocytes after weight loss secrete less leptin for a given fat mass. This effect might create a dysregulation of appetite (28) and, thereby, promote excess food intake relative to energy needs. If true, our results suggest that modest weight gains and losses in normal-weight adults may have long-term consequence on adipose tissue cellularity, a relative reduction in leptin, increased appetite, and, hence, tendencies toward weight regain. … Nothing conclusive but cw **Roderick** ’s hypothesis. Meanwhile the significance of your cite is high: _where fat is_, or alternatively perhaps, how it is lost, matters. Just pulling out a significant amount of subcutaneous fat (including at least _some number_ of cells) does not make any significant health impact. Losing less fat but through improved nutrition habits and exercise, thereby losing more from visceral fat stores, has a major impact on health outcomes. Metrics that take into account the distribution of fat are better predictors of health outcomes than BMI or percent body fat alone. One newer one is called [ABSI](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039504) (A Body Shape Index) which is waist circumference adjusted for height and weight. [quote] ABSI had little correlation with height, weight, or BMI. Death rates increased approximately exponentially with above average baseline ABSI … The association of death rate with ABSI held even when adjusted for other known risk factors including smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, and serum cholesterol. ABSI correlation with mortality hazard held across the range of age, sex, and BMI, and for both white and black ethnicities (but not for Mexican ethnicity), and was not weakened by excluding deaths from the first 3 yr of follow-up. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/260 "2013-09-01T12:48:44Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Not exactly . . . I started the thread to beat up on **Stoid** a bit over her unjustified arrogance. Hahahahahahaha… Unjustified arrogance. That’s real rich, coming from _you._ What a shithead. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100.md?page=14)